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OS 9! TO

Forerunner of the Fraser Mills walkout in 1946 (above) was the great strike at that
plant in 1931, which paved the way for the organization of the B.C. lumber industry by
International Woodworkers of America. One of the participants in the 1931 strike,
Harold Pritchett (who later became international president of the [WA) tells the story
of that epic 1931 battle in the article below.

Bert Whyte's

SPOR

T THE Exhibition a ram-
A paging lion was mauling
his trainer. A few hundred
yards away in Empire Stadium
the B.C. Lions were chewing
on Eskimo blubber.

Lions used to finish the
football season not with a
bang, but a whimper. This

year we have sound reason to
hope that they'll make the
playofis.

But it’s been a long wait
since 1954 to hear them roar.

Wouldn’t be at all surprised
the way Totem Hawk ran
away from his field at Hast-
ings on Monday, to see this
speedy son of Dark Hawk-Sil-
ent. Faith win the Ascot Derby
this Saturday.

The couple had flaked out
and their heads were resting
side by side on the table. The
waiter, to be helpful, placed
two glasses of alka seltzer be-
side them.

When the fizz started the
man slowly lifted his head and
said: “Wake up, dear, they’re
playing our song.”

Then there was the doctor
who told his patient, “You
have acute appendicitis.”

“Listen,” she snapped, “I
came here to be examined, not

*| admired.”

Soviet jockeys, tuning up
their mounts for the European
championships in Harewood,
Yorkshire this week are ready
to tackle the steeplechase joc-
key’s nightmare — the Grand
National.

TLIGHT

ses, groom and a veterinary
surgeon are out every day for
practice jumps before putting
lon their first competitive dis-
play of show-jumping in Brit-

ain. -
Cavalry Capi. Valerian
Kuibysheyv said: “The Grand

National has a big reputation
in the Soviet Union. If an in-
vitation came asking us io
compete I would accept with
pleasure.
“Horse-jumping is ‘still a
young sport in the Soviet Un-
ion, but we are improving all
the time as_ its popularity
‘grows. Our team came sev-
enth in the 1956 Clympics and
earlier this year we won the
major events in the French

championships.”
It is the first Russian team
to visit Britain since 1914,

when the Russians won the
|King Edward VII Cup.

The highway diner had a
sign which read: "$500 to the
truck driver who orders some-
thing we can’t furnish.”

A hungry driver sat down
and bellowed to the waitress:
“Bring me an elephant ear

sandwich!”
The waitress ran into the
kitchen and told the chef:

“Better get ready to pay out
500 bucks. A truck jockey out

there wants an elephant ear
sandwich.”

“What!” said the chef. “You
mean to tell me we're out of
elephant ears!”

“No,” said the waitress, “but
we ain't got no more of them
big buns.”

'l was there’ at Fraser Mills in 1931

By HAROLD PRITCHETT
_. In August, 1931, one of the most bitterly fought
strikes in the history of British Columbia started at the

Barnett Lumber Company

on Burrard Inlet and soon

spread to include Fraser Mills and other plants. The three-
month struggle, together with the loggers’ strikes of 1934
and 1936, laid the foundations for the building of the
International Woodworkers of America, now the largest

union in the provinee.
Many old timers still living
in Mallardville, and IWA mem-
bers still working at Fraser
Mills, remember and _ talk
about the great 1931 strike, led
by the Lumber and Sawmill
Workers Union, affiliated to
the Workers Unity League.
In spite of RCMP and pro-
vineial, Vancouver and: New
Westminster police harassing
the strikers, round-the-clock
picket lines were maintained

for three solid months.

At Fraser Mills machine

guns were mounted in front of
the office, and police clubs
were freely used. Some 12
strikers were arrested.

This company then, as now,
was a Subsidiary of a Yankee
monopoly, McCormack Lum-
ber Company with headquar-
ters in Chicago( now it is part
of the Crown Zellerbach em-
pire).

The company had imposed
two dime-an-hour wage cuts in
less than three months and the
base rate was down to 25 cents

an hour* for a nine-hour day.
General manager Henry Makin
flatly refused to meet or nego-
tiate with the union, stating
that another cut was more
likely than the 10-cent hike
demanded by the union, and
that he would never recognize
a ‘foreign-dominated” union.
Makin himself was a Yankee,
speaking for a U.S. corapany.
Hé was #6 learn the hard
way that Canadian workers
could closé down thé largest
sawmill in the British Empire,
and kéép it shut down until
their demands were met.

It wasn’t long before the
strike committee (with 18 na-
tionalities represented) set up
a food store, which was kept
supplied by the farmers and
small businessmén’s donations,
greatly augmented by money
which rolled in from unions in

all parts of Canada.

A single men’s lunchroom
was. started, and was operated
by the newly-formed ladies
auxiliary. A strikers’ barber-
shop and shoemaker shop were
established.

Politicians arrived on the
scene — Premier Tolmie sent
Adam Bell; Ottawa sent its
chief conciliation officer, Fred
Harrison; Mayor Wells Gray of
Néw Westminster .and Reeve
MeDonald appeared. All were
interésted in getting the men
back to work, but much less
interested in discussing the
strikers’ just demands.

Here we learned the value of
having a true working class
spokésman when Councillor
Tom Douglas appeared. This
man (elected three times in
succession in the Municipality
of Coquitlam) stayed close to

the workers, was in continuous
consultation with the _ strike
committee, and defended the
workers’ cause from many a
platform in his broad Scottish
brogue.. (Later Douglas was
shot in a gas station by a single
unemployed worker who, it
was alleged, was “‘temporarily
demented”’).

Support for the: strike grew.
When the 12 arrested strikers

came to trial the court was
jammed with strikers. The men
were acquitted.

was the forerunner of the
IWA, which became the bar-
gaining agency for all B.C.
woodworkers, and in 1946
staged a successful indusiry-
wide strike which set the paf-
tern for wage gains that year
across Canada.

September 4, 1959—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7

The Soviet team of five hor,

Truly, the Fraser Mills strike -

a