BRITISH COLUMBIA - Memorial tribute paid IWA pioneer Hjalmar Bergren This was prepared by George McKnight, based on the eulogy he delivered to the memorial NANAIMO — A capacity crowd filled the First Memorial Society chapel at Cedar, near Nanaimo Jan. 9 to pay final tribute to Hjalmar Bergren who passed away Jan. 5 in the Cowichan Regional Hospital near Duncan. He had. spent the last months of his life in the Cowichan Lodge, an intermediate care home near this Island city. Coming from Saskatchewan in 1923 at 18, Hjalmar had naturally gravitated toward the lumber industry to make a living. He soon saw the need for a woodworkers’ union, particularly since he had been born into a family in north- ern Sweden which had been connected with the woodworkers’ struggles in the late nineteenth century in that part of the world. Hjalmar was the eldest of a family who had emigrated to Canada in 1906 to become homesteaders in Saskatchewan. The hard life that they enduréd in the area about 60 miles east of Prince Albert was typical of what most European immigrants endured in those early days in opening up the prairies as home- steaders. Conditions he found for workers in the lumber industry in the 1920s were prim- itive, to say the least. The wood- workers’ unions which had been HJALMAR fairly strong at BERGREN one point had been almost completely smashed. It was open shop conditions at their worst and organization was almost a life and death matter. In this atmosphere a small handful of loggers met in a rooming house on Hast- ings Street, across from Woodwards in Vancouver in 1928. There were six members present, Glen Lamont, Jack Gillbanks, Jack Brown, Andy Hogarth, Frank Stewart, and Ame Johnson. All of them. had been members of the old Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union of - Canada until it was broken in 1926. Lamont was delegated to get informa- tion and material from the East to begin the job of rebuilding the union. The next meeting was in the fall of 1929. The original group was supple- mented by a few more interested loggers. They were Eric Graf, Hjalmar Bergren, Joe Anderson, Pete Hansen, and broth- ers Martin and Carl Palmgren. They represented 25 members in all. It was from this small beginning that the job was undertaken to build a woodworkers union. The year 1929 was also the beginning of the great depression. The difficulties of building an organization were made all the more onerous when mass unem- ployment was added to the starvation wages which already prevailed in the lumber industry. Hjalmar Bergren became one of the most able organizers in the group and signed up thousands of members over the years which followed. If this meant walking 15 or 20 miles at night through the rain, or rowing a boat down Lake Cowichan or elsewhere in the middle of winter in the dark, or taking out a min- er’s license to circumvent the legal prohi- bition which denied him the right of access to camps on “‘company prop- erty,” he was one of those few men with the understanding and the stamina to endure those hardships and sacrifices. These early organizers had to sign up members and collect dues in order to eat and to cover their expenses. They had to work in secret to escape the firings which awaited if anyone was found to be a union man. All these hardships were gradually overcome and a union was built, one piece at a time by men like Hjalmar Bergren. Those who worked with Hjalmar at the time recall a soft spoken, modest, unassuming man of bigger than average build, a man who never got excited or flustered, who could patiently explain the most complex matters in the most com- mon, everyday terms. He never really argued, his approach was to win the man, not necessarily the argument, and - he did it well. His family background in Sweden had been that of living in the northern part of the country on subsistence farms where it was necessary to work in the woods to make enough to live on. In circumstances similar. to Canada, the timber was owned by foreign (Brit- ish) interests who hired the farmers for low wages. Safety measures were non- existent and workers drowned in the river, were smashed up in the woods, suffered long hours and primitive condi- ‘tions for starvation wages. This background prepared him well for the life he found in B.C. and in fact proscribed the development of a great many illusions in his mind which others had about the need for and the necessity of a union to defend and advance their interests and those of the workers as a whole. Like many of the organizers of those days, he joined the Communist Party of Canada. It was as a member of that party that he gained the world outlook which enabled him to see beyond the tempor- ary difficulties and hardships and to overcome them in favor of the bigger task which lay ahead. At the end of his working life he was injured in a falling accident which culmi- nated in a brain tumor, the removal of this tumor caused memory loss and other debilities in the last few years of his life. His wife, Myrtle, author of an early history of the IWA, Tough Timber, predeceased him in 1978, the victim of a tragic car accident. All woodworkers in the industry today are beneficiaries of the pioneering work of Hjalmar Bergren. Whenever woodworkers cash their pay cheques, apply their seniority, draw their pensions, use their holidays, their health and welfare provisions or any other of the benefits we tend to take for granted they are doing so by drawing on the legacy left to them by those such as Hjalmar Bergren. Without him and others like him the hard slogging necessary to build a _. woodworkers union might never have been carried out. The lessons of his life will not be lost on the young people of this generation who face attacks on their rights, on their living standards, their education, even their right to live in a world at peace without fear of nuclear annihilation. 10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 13, 1985 Slide show available on Nanoose campaign Nina Westaway, Nanoose Conversion Campaign, Nanaimo, writes: The Nanoose Conver sion Campaign i is touring B.C. this year (January to April) to drum up support for the goals) of the campaign. Our object is to end the U.S.-Canada agreement at the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental Test Range base at Nanoose Bay, and end all weapons testing in the area of the base and testing range, and convert the base to peaceful purposes. We have a slide show which depicts some of the activities and weapons testing equipment that go on theft without Canadian control. In addition we have a “package” of information about its nuclear connection. To have our presentation, we would require that the sponsoring group _ book a hall, and do the necessary publicity. A screen would be useful too as we would hav less to carry. The show is about 30 minutes and would fit in with a discussion format after tht presentation. We would like to encourage community groups to have support campaigis) with their own input into the planning for our 20-month campaign to end the agreement! ip April, 1986. In addition, we will have a peace camp this year and-will be conducting petition to hold an inquiry about military uses of the base. We would like to pass a hat i some of the tour expenses of our tour workers. Please note that we would like quick responses so that we can plan our tours in the mos! . efficient and economic way. You can contact me at (112) 753- 2083 or leave a message cal (112) 753-3070. 1 Refusing the cruise: ideas” from a high school student Christine Lowther, North Vancouver, writes: I am a grade 12 student at Argyle in North Vancouver. I really like your paper, especially the issues in July and August of 1983 and Oct. i 9, | 1983. Iam very active in the peace movement, being a volunteer for End the Arms Race anda member of North Van. Citizens for Peace. | Tam writing to ask you a favor. Iam struggling to get through school, while at the same time! often wonder if I will ever get my stuff published. I have always been a writer. The enclosed article, Canada for Peace, was written when I was 16 (I am now 17). Lately I have been hiding from the nuclear issue in my own mind, because of two reasons: Iam scared, and I get very upsel with people who disagree with the idea of Canada as a nuclear free zone. I want to stop hiding by helping to “spread the sanity”, and at the same time get my writing published. The Canadian people have been told that our land is to be used for the testing of cruise missiles. We have been told that only the guidance systems and not the nuclear warheads be tested. We have also been told that we have no choice in the matter. Therefore, why should we refuse the cruise? All weapons are used for one purpose; that purpose is war. People have thus begun t0 speak out. We are now beginning to tell the government that we do not want the cruise. As Canada has always enjoyed the rep utation of a peaceful country, allowing thé missiles to be tested on our soil will con- tradict our claim to this position. The world’s downhill path to war will speed uP with the help of our hand. By refusing the cruise, Canada can discourage the cont nuity of the arms race, and help to influen® worldwide opinion towards peace. Is it not simply insane to spend billions of | dollars every week to add to something 9 | the world already has to many? Millions 0} people, moreoever, have already died ' because of this waste. Money spent on more arms should be spent on the people who are starving. Why refuse the cruise? We do not | want our country to add to a poten” tial doomsday device. The United States is the only country ever tO drop an atom bomb on civilians. It was responsible for the horrors 0 Hiroshima and Nagasaki (each! warhead on a cruise missile is about 7/ times more powerful that one — atom bomb). Now, where do you | stand? Our land will be used for the _ testing apparently because norther! Canada has similar climate an geography to that of Moscow. JS this the only reason? Could it be that they want Canada to become involved? Our government claims that we have an obligation to NATO fot the testing. However, in all the articles — | I have read, the reader is told that the — |_ testing has nothing to do with NATO. _ Other countries in NATO have easily _ _ refused to allow tests on their soil. We — . must not let the U.S. get us tangled up in the arms race! We'can accept things the way they are, but why not try to change them for the better? Although we are originally born tO live, now we must fight for our lives: