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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