‘A woodworker’s story’

Harold Pritchett recalls
IWA’s militant history

By Fred Wilson

Top: Harold Pritchett as he looks today. Middle: the B.C. Federation of
Labor in the “militant forties” taking their demands to the provincial
legislature in Victoria. Bottom: The official signing of the first industry
wide contract following the 1946 strike that last 37 days. Shown here
are: (left to right) Harold Pritchett, IWA district president; R. V. Stuart
of R. V. Stuart Research Ltd., later to become Forest Industrial
Relations; Nigel Morgan, international board member of the IWA; and
Bert Melsness, WA district secretary.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 29, 1977—Paye 12

At 3:30 p.m. each week day the
banks of the lower Fraser River
hum with activity. It’s shift
change, and within a few minutes
thousands of woodworkers will
have poured out of the gates of the
big mills that line the river from
Mission to the mouth.

At one of the larger mills, Fraser
Mills, on the north side of the river
near New Westminster, the men
are stopped once a week, as they
are at many of the mills, by an
elderly man handing out the
Pacific Tribune.

The man stands in front of the
mill as if he owned it. And as he
engages the men in discussion
about the union and politics, he
speaks with the same authority.

A good many of the workers
know. the distinguished vendor.
They know that it is Harold Prit-
chett, the first president of their
union and a man whose own history
is synonymous with 20 of the most
turbulent years in B.C. labor
history.

Among the older workers, much
of their respect for Pritchett is
based on his 50-year association
with the wood industry. For some
others, the respect is based just on
the fact that he is there — that
after being attacked, maligned and

expelled from the union that he ‘

gave his life to, he is still there at
the gates of Fraser Mills.
Pritchett never gave up the fight
and at73 he is not about to. There is
a large chunk of history that he
wants to tell. There is some. mis-
information and lies to refute, and
the past glory of a militant union to
be acclaimed as an inspiration —
and lesson — to the IWA of today.
And there is not a more fitting
place for “‘Pritch”’ to carry on the
fight than ‘at the gates of Fraser

Mills. For it was in that very mill

over 50 years ago that his career
began, and with it the main
chapters in the story of union
organization in the woodworking
industry. :

“T joined the Shingle Workers
Union, as a direct affiliate to the
American Federation of Labor, in
1925,’’ he recalled as we sat in the
history-laden den of the small
Pritchett home in Port Coquitlam.

“That was a period when the
leadership of the Shingle Weavers
Union, and the Vancouver and New
Westminster Trades and Labor
Council under the leadership of
Percy Bengough advocated a
policy of boss collaboration.”

Pritchett does not merely recite
history. He interprets it. And as he
weaved together the events that
led to the formation of the Interna-

tional Woodworkers of America,

its meteoric rise to become B.C.’s
largest union, and the bitter
struggle that robbed it of its
militancy, he developed an
argument for militant unionism
that scores heavily on the present
leaders who carry on the traditions
of his old opponents.

“They believed that by putting a
label on the shingles the union
could organize a boycott of non-
union shingles and the carpenters
inthe United States would refuse to
work with them,”’ the story con-
tinued. ‘‘They ignored the fact that
the carpenters were only five per
cent organized. And where they
were organized they were working
on government contracts that they
were not likely to violate. So the
boycott was a myth.”

As it would turn out, Pritchett’s
whole life would be spent dispelling
such myths and fighting phony
union leaders that preferred to
make a deal with the boss rather
than fighting for every concession
the union was strong enough to
take.

In 1930 the atmosphere in the
shingle industry changed radically

when Pritchett outvoted the in-
cumbent Fred Stephenson and
became the president of the
Shingle Workers Union in British
Columbia.

The new militant leadership of
the Shingle Workers pricked the ire
of the employers who had té deal
with Pritchett as a full-time
business agent. They appealed to
the AFL leadership for assistance
in dealing with the “communist
leadership” that had taken over
the union. A short time later the
assistance was granted when AFL
president William Green ordered
the Shingle Workers’ charter lifted
and Pritchett and one other ex-
pelled. -

Harold remembers well the
Shingle Workers’ meeting that
Sunday afternoon in the old labor
temple on Beatty Street in Van-
couver. ‘‘Percy Bengough got up
and read Green’s letter and said,
‘therefore the charter is lifted and
Harold Pritchett and Joe Tippi-
deau are expelled for being
communists.’ Boy did the place go
wild.’’

Pritchett left the meeting a hero,
but not before he blasted William
Green and Percy Bengough for
teaming up with the employers to
behead the union.

Ironically, Tippideau was not a
communist. Far from it, he later
became an employer in the shingle
industry. Bengough turned the
charter over to the financial
secretary and recording secretary
of the old executive. The financial
secretary went on to become the
superintendent of Huntington-Mer-
rit Shingle Mill and ‘the other
became a career officer in the
army. ‘‘That’s where they went,”
Pritchett noted, stopping short of
making the larger point.

Later, Pritchett called back the
point with a remark about Juben-
ville, the former officer of the
Duncan local of the IWA, who
recently crossed over to become a
manager for MacMillan Bloedel.

As the Shingle Workers
organization faded into the grey
and passive misery of the
depression, a new force caught the
attention of the woodworkers and
Pritchett. In 1931 the Lumber and
Sawmill workers, affiliated to the
Workers Unity League, made an
appeal to the men at Fraser Mills
to give up their craft allegiances
and join thenew industrial union. A
meeting was called at the New
Westminster labor temple and
Arnie Johnson, a communist and
officer of the LSWU, called on
them to sign up. They did and

within a month a picket line
surrounded Fraser Mills.

It was during the 1931 strike thal
Arnie Johnson and two othels”
recruited Pritchett, who was the
chairman of the union local,
together with the secretary of the
local, to the Communist Party. |

Pritchett was no different from
thousands of other workers wh0-
saw in the communists the only
fighting force against the
depression. He had already ex
perienced the deception of social
democracy, having previously
joined the Independent Labo!
Party, led by a young Ernest
Winch. The refusal of Winch and
‘his fellow ‘‘socialists’”’ to back the
1931 strike taught the young
militant a lesson he would neve!

forget — and indeed would have —

numerous occasions to be
reminded of it.
The communist leadership of ¢
Workers Unity League fought 00
against the depression and in 1934
claimed leadership of 90 per cent |
all strikes. One of those was col
ducted by the Lumber and Sawmill”
Workers. Although still small, and |
against great odds, the union came
out of the bitter battle with some”
gains.
By 1934 Pritchett had become
vice-president of the LSWU. |
But by 1935 the pace of events
had left the LSWU behind. In a0 _
attempt to forge working class
unity in the face of Hitlerism and |
reaction, the WUL dissolved with
an appeal to its affiliates to rejoi!
the main stream of the trade unio!
movement. The LSWU joined with
the Carpenters and Joiners who
had been given the AFL jurisdic
tion over the woodworking it
dustry.
“We were V-Class members,’
Harold continued, ‘‘we had 10
voice, no vote, no pensions, 10
nothing. But we decided to stick it

> EE ee tea ee ee ee

out in the Carpenters and fight for | |

our autonomous rights.”

‘There wasn’t much progress
made by the time the V-Class |
members of the Carpenters, united
in a “District Council of Wood
workers,” struck the entire if
dustry in 1936. It was a to |
strike, conducted in spite of the
Carpenters. Not a cent of strike
relief was sent to the beleaguere¢ —
B.C. woodworkers. . |

Events moved quickly oncé—
again, as another force in the labor —
movement caught the imaginatio? —
of militants. This time it was the
CIO, and in 1987 a referendum of
B.C. woodworkers went over
whelmingly in favor of joining the
CIO. An organizational convention —
was set for July in Tacoma,
Washington. It was there that IWA
was born. : '

One of the last acts of the

founding convention was to elect

Pritchett the first international

president. The.B.C. delegation, oF

The leadership of District One of the IWA in February 1943. From left

to right: Mark Mosher, 3rd vice president; Ernie Dalskogg, 2nd vic? —
president; Dharshan Singh Sanga, (standing) executive board membe! —
Winnefred Williams, office secretary; Bert Melsness, financial secretary!
Harold Pritchett, district president; Hjaimar Bergren, 1st vice president
Nigel Morgan, (standing) international board member; Jack Lindsay/
Percy Smith, executive board member. r