| District One, was cautious in their
_ approach to the top position and

declined to nominate for the

' Position. Each of the other five

districts,

however, rose to

| Nominate Pritchett. The chairman

cast the unanimous vote to unify
the Convention and set the new
organization on its way.

The Coming of the IWA marked
the beginning of a new era for
B.C.’s labor movement. The days

When the top leadership of the -

trade unions would join with .the
€mployers in expelling militant

trade unionists were over. The
_IWA joined the Mine Mill and
| Smelter Workers, the Electrical
_ Workers, the Fishermen and a
' humber of other militant unions

_ that challenged the power struc-

tures of the day.
But it didn’t happen spon-

_ taneously, Pritchett maintains.
“We could never have done it
_ Without the communists. We never

_ Would have organized the in-
dustry,’?

From the group of 15 com-

- Munists that Pritchett joined at

the.
_ Organizers was the policy and

_ Fraser Mills, a tightly organized
' and disciplined group of 175 and
| ne by the mid 1940’s led the
i A

-“Vern Carlisle, Jack Higgins,

Tom Bradley, Bergren, Dalskog,
| Parker, Johnson, there are too
' Many to name,” Harold recounted.

But even more important than
names of leaders and

direction’ that emanated from the

_ Communists for many years with
_ Pritchett as the main spokesmen of
_ those views. ‘

From the Workers Unity League,

into the Carpenters and Joiners,
_ and from there into the CIO with
_ the IWA — each move was a
| Strategic one to advance the

political aim of a strong and

' militant union in B.C.’s basic in-
' dustry.

“What applied in wood, applied

- in auto andsteel and all of the basic
' industries,” he continued,
_ cluding even the newspaper guild

“c in-

whose president was a communist.

' Andonthe executive committee of
_ the CIO, where I served for five
| years,
| presidents and John L. Lewis there
| was about 14 communists.”

out of 53 international

Pritchett was forced out of his
position as international president

_ of the IWA in 1940 after being -
_ denied re-election at the interna-

tional convention in Seattle by the
American State Department which
refused him entry into the country
to assume his office. In spite of a
broad campaign that drew the
Support of labor leaders, civil
libertarians, church leaders and
congressmen, the U.S. action ef-
fectively unseated the Canadian
militant from the presidency.

It would take the U.S. authorities
another eight years before they
Could boast of similar success in
Canada, but in those years the
trade union movement in British
Columbia came into its own.

“We were well organized — but
Small until 1940,’ Harold’s
memory went to work again. ‘‘In
1940 the union had only about 1,500
members, a small portion of the
work force in the industry.”’

It was when I came back from
the States and we bought a sound
ruck that went right into the mills,
and the CIO campaign took hold,
that things began to roll.”” And how
they did. By 1943 the B.C. District
of the IWA counted 15,000 mem-
bers,
ee Pritchett’s leadership the

Hs took their case to the people.
wee newspaper, The Lumber-
ane €r, appeared weekly and the

‘on produced a regular radio
whecast “Green Gold.” And
dies they were not speaking out

Ough the media, Pritchett and
mil) weagues could be found at a

_,, bate, speaking to the workers.
Orient out long ago,’’ he added
Te theeke “that when the trade
tink Movement pursues a positive

and takes it to the people, the

people will be mobilized every
time. And you can’t move without
the people.

“The trade union movement was
very popular in its day, and the
radio hotliners and the rest had no
effect on public opinion.”’

With the IWA and thé Mine Mill
and Smelter Workers, led’ by
Harvey Murphy, leading the way,
the trade union movement

-acquired an unprecedented unity.

In 1944 the movement closed ranks
and formed the B.C. Federation of
Labor: The Federation was formed
not to “housekeep”’ the house of
labor, but primarily to lobby ‘the
provincial government for
legislative change and to conduct
broad public campaigns that would
popularize labor’s point of view.
That spirit was reflected in its first
officers. Of the three table officers
elected in September of 1944, two
were communists Harvey
Murphy, vice-president; and
Pritchett, secretary-treasurer.

Pritchett’s IWA didn’t only talk
about trade unity. ‘‘We helped to
organize the Fishermen’s Union —
a paid up card in the IWA was a
paid. up card in Fish and vice
versa. A lot of loggers would fish as
well.

“We had a good agreement with
the carpenters. We would do all the
repair work in the camp or
sawmill, but if the boss wanted to
build something new, he had to hire
a carpenter. It was a _ good
agreement, but the IWA officers
(after 1948) wouldn’t carry it on.”

Through the first half of the
1940’s the union continued to grow
in numbers and popularity. The
IWA stayed in the public eye even
though there was not a major
strike from 1940 to 1946. The reason
was the union’s no strike pledge
during World War II. The no strike
policy ‘was a contentious one at
first, but soon it won the wide
support of the rank and file.

“Our war policy was acceptable
to the working class. We pounded
on it, politically, and the workers
agreed. The main enemy was
Hitler,’’ Harold pounded on it
again.

“J spoke to thousands of people
in Victory drives. They gave me a
15-man army, a band, a gun anda
sound truck. The band would play
and gather a crowd, the army
would fire the gun, and I would get

upandsay ‘Do you know how much ~

that gun costs? We'll need a lot of
them to defeat Hitler.’ The people
would buy Victory bonds right off
the truck.”

The leadership of the CCF called
the communists down for the no
strike pledge. But their apolitical
stance only strengthened the

In Pritchett’s day the IWA had a hiring hall. Shown here is dispatcher

August 19, 1944: Pritchett stands in the middle of a group of neighbours and friends that assembled to meet
the sherriff and stop the eviction of a Vancouver woman, Mrs. Bowman.

allegiance of the membership to
Pritchett and the IWA leadership.

“They openly accused us of
selling out,’ Harold noted as he
moved the story along, ‘“‘but the
workers wouldn’t go for that. They
were convinced that we had to win
the war against fascism and then
we would deal with the bosses. And
as a result, we dealt with the
bosses in 1946. And we got what we
wanted.”’

In 1946 the IWA turned its at-
tention to the bosses and shut down
the woodworking industry. It was
the largest strike ever, and the
greatest.

“It was a tremendous strike,”
Harold smiled, as he talked. ‘“‘We

had the public with us. It was a real.

broad campaign.”

A special campaign was Set up to
meet with the veterans who had
returned from the war and wanted
lumber to build houses. ‘““‘We went
down to the mill and got their
lumber and put a big sign on it that

read ‘This is not hot lumber — it is

for the veterans.’’”’ -

Pritchett advocated a policy of~

signing contracts with the smaller
operators, independently of the
forest giants. Before the strike was
over the union signed 89 contracts
with smaller operators and in the

Don Barber in front of the hall on Hastings Street in Vancouver.

an ae

bn k Be ong tenet ow

course of it isolated the big com-
panies and won public support for
the union.

“We were only half organized at
the beginning,”’ he continued. ‘““We
signed the rest of the industry up
right on the picket line. The men
would come into the office by the
hundreds. We would organize them
and send them out on to the picket
line.” ;

The 1946 contract was a
milestone for labor. It was the first
industry-wide contract and made
woodworkers the best. paid
workers in B.C. ‘We got union
recognition, compulsory check-off,
a big wage increase, overtime pay,
holiday pay, which was unheard of
til then, recognition of the safety
committee and other committees,

andthe right to go to arbitration on

unsolved issues.”’

In 1947 labor was riding high and
went to arbitration for another
long-sought goal — the 40-hour
week. The judge ruled that the 40-
hour week should come
“sradually’’ — starting with a half
day’s work on Saturdays. Pritchett
organized the shingle mills to take
all of Saturday, and in the face of
their determination the industry
fell in and the 40-hour week
became a reality.

Harold Pritchett was at the peak
of his career in the labor
movement. Leader of the largest
union, and of the B.C. Federation
of Labor, it seemed that both he
and the labor movement had a
bright future. But one year later
everything had changed.

‘After the 1946 strike when we
shut down the industry com-

pletely,” Pritchett said, “it was

clear that the bosses never thought

it could happen. The bosses de-

cided right then and there that this
union could not be stopped in a
head-on fight. The only way to stop
it was to come in the back door.”’

Of course the forest barons and
the government had been after
Pritchett and his fellow com-
munists from the beginning. But it
was not until the post-war period
and the ideological holocaust of the
cold war that they could array
powerful enough forces to dislodge
the communists from the positions
they had earned.

In 1948 Harold lost election to the
B.C. Federation of Labor executive
by one vote. The right-wing victory
had been secured by suspending
the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers
a week earlier.

A white block found a foothold in
the IWA’s New Westminster local.
Harold remembers them well, “‘the
phony liberals.’ Stewart Alsbury,

George Mitchell — as phony as
they were, they had ample
financing and assistance from the
International and the CCL. A rival
newspaper appeared and charges
of mismanagement of funds, which
although never substantiated,
were widely spread.

“Then Red Fadling (In-.
ternational president) fired our
organizers, Freylinger and
Bergren, and hired their own.”

The professional troublemakers
knew their business and soon
dissension reigned in the industry.

“We had just got a good set-
tlement,”’ Harold explained, ‘‘and
the agreement was that as soon as
the contract was signed we would
move to file charges against the
disrupters. We would put them on
trial and throw them out.

“But then the fear grew that
Fadling and the CCL hatchet men
were going to do a job on us. They
were going tolift the charter, expel
the officers and take over. They
had tried it on the Boilermakers,
they had tried it on the Fishermen;
and we made the mistake. We
split.”

What followed is the subject of
another history. The Woodworkers
Industrial Union of Canada put up
a good fight, but it lost. Within six
months practically all of the
membership had rejoined the IWA.
Pritchett and a group of com-
munist leaders were expelled from
the union.

The wounds were deep and the
scars took years to heal. The
militant IWA was transformed into
another creature — exactly that
which Pritchett had fought so long
and hard against. Its leadership
found the path of least resistance,
and woodworkers fell from their
premier position on the pay scale
to the 17th position they hold today.

Today the winds of change are
blowing again. The black list and
the anti-communist clause have
gone. And communists, although -
not yet of the stature of Harold
Pritchett, are active once again in
the mills and camps.

Today’s communists face
problems that Harold has seen
before. The myths are different,
the forms of collaboration are
slicker — but the content of the
struggle is the same as their
political strategy is the same — to ©
win the basic sections of workers in
B.C. for militant and class con-
scious policies.

As for Harold; he has a different
problem. A cop is trying to keep

_him off the gate at Fraser Mills.

After 50 years, though, it will take
bigger guns than his to cut Harold
Pritchett from his roots.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 29, 1977—Page 13