Date: 2023-04-26
Name(s): Griffin, Sean, Kellahan, Denise
Description: Denise Kellahan became active in the Union FASWOC (Food and Service Workers of Canada) while she was working at the White Spot restaurant as a single mother with two small children. She helped shepherd the merger of FASWOC (a primarily service sector union) into the mainly industrial union CAIMAW (Canadian Association of Mechanical and Allied Workers). With the membership spread out all through the Province of BC, Denise and other members of the Local had to travel to 22 locations up and down…
Date: 2019-09-06
Name(s): Mickleburgh, Rod, Nobels, Des, Sacuta, Donna
Description: Des Nobels lived and worked in the fishing industry on the north coast of B.C. his entire adult life, from being a crew member to a vessel owner. He became active in the Northern Gillnetters' Association in the 1980s, and later was president of Local 37 of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union (UFAWU). He recounts his experiences on the water, fishing various species, as well as the numerous campaigns the union became involved in over licensing. He discusses the decline of the industry…
Date: 2023-04-13
Name(s): Kilmury, Diana, Mickleburgh, Rod
Description: Diana Kilmury was born in Montreal and moved to Vancouver in 1954 when she was about eight years old. She married and dropped out of school when she was 16. By the time she was 19, she was divorced and needed work to support her children. She started working as a driver for a small trucking company. Within a few years she enrolled in Malaspina College and became the first woman in British Columbia to receive a heavy equipment operator certificate. Upon graduating she was hired by a union…
Date: 2019-04-10
Name(s): Wejr, Patricia, Wood, Diane
Description: Diane Wood spent many years as a union activist starting in Duncan where she organized the School District clerical workers and led her first strike. She then moved to North-east BC where she began her activism in the BCGEU. She was active in Operation Solidarity having personally experienced termination without cause as a result of the government's draconian Bill 3. Wood was elected as Treasurer of the BCGEU in 1987 and continued in the roll until 2005. As well as being a tireless champion for…
Date: 2023-08-04
Name(s): Cornes, Al, Dean, Elsie
Description: Elsie Dean, 99 years old at the time of this interview, grew up in Saskatchewan during the 1920s and '30s. She describes the impact of the Depression on her family's livelihood. Educated to Grade 8 in a one-room school, Elsie took correspondence education for Grades 9 and 10, then took a job with room and board to save enough to finish high school, which she did.
Moving to Vancouver in 1942, she worked for a small lumber mill but was fired for organizing workers into the International…
Date: 2025-05-06
Name(s): Allevato, Carmela, BC Labour Heritage Centre, Wilson, Fred
Description: Fred Wilson recounts his life and work in the labour movement, including his early involvement with the Young Communist League, his time as a labour reporter at the Pacific Tribune, his role in the Operation Solidarity movement, and his work with the CEP and later Unifor.
Fred played an active role in the anti-globalization movement. He tells the story of the New Union Project and his role in it, which created the Unifor, largest private sector union in Canada, from the CEP and the CAW.…
Date: 2017-05-03
Name(s): Kroeker, Gary, Sinclair, Jim, 1954-
Description: Gary Kroeker spent over 35 years as an activist and executive member of Local 115 of the International Union of Operating Engineers as well a term as President of the BC Building Trades Council. He spoke with past-President of the BC Federation of Labour, Jim Sinclair, about the changes and challenges faced by the building trades over the years as well as the positive accomplishments of the unions in that sector.
Date: 2018-10-04
Name(s): Novakowski, Ken, Steeves, Gary
Description: In this compelling oral history former BCGEU Director, Gary Steeves, recalls his formative years, the occupation of Tranquille residential institution in Kamloops and 25 years of his union's remarkable evolution. Told in his charming 'East Coaster' style, Brother Steeves relates experiences in both political and union worlds. As a representative with a mere four months on the job, Gary facilitated the month-long Tranquille Occupation during 1983's province-wide Solidarity protests. Step by step…
Date: 2023-06-13
Name(s): Meggs, Geoff, Novakowski, Ken
Description: Geoff grew up in Toronto and Ottawa and had a comfortable middle class upbringing. He became interested in left wing politics when he attended the University of Toronto, where he worked on the university paper and at the student radio station.
Geoff moved to British Columbia in 1974. In 1978 he became the editor of The Fisherman, a newspaper published by the UFAWU (United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union). He held that job for 12 years. In the interview, Geoff discusses the complex issues…
Date: 2019-05-30
Name(s): Brandak, George, Seager, Allen
Description: George Brandak is a key figure in the archival history of labour in British Columbia. He was the head of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of British Columbia for almost 40 years where he began to acquire material related to early BC unions as well as the CCF and the NDP. He reflects on some of the academics and politicians he met during his career, as well as his outreach to students and the public encouraging their awareness of labour archives.
Date: 2017-05-31
Name(s): Garden, Bailey, Griffin, Sean, Hewison, George
Description: George Hewison grew up in Campbell River where he learned his unionism and politics at "the kitchen table" during the Cold War years. He was an organizer and executive member of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union (UFAWU) for many decades. He traces his involvement in many disputes and policy issues including the 1967 Prince Rupert strike, jailings of union leaders, injunctions, organizing on the East Coast, fishery policy and Combines investigations. Hewison was introduced to Marxism…
Date: 2023-04-04
Name(s): Legg, Phil, MacPherson, George
Description: The interview begins with George' s early life, apprenticeship, and reasons for moving from the east to the west coast, moving on to a more general discussion of the Canadian shipbuilding industry and his experience of labour organizing in that industry. George discusses building B.C. Ferries, icebreakers, cancellation of the Polar 8 ship contracts, and the frequent negative impacts of federal government political decision-making on the shipbuilding industries in B.C. and on the east coast,…
Date: 2019-09-05
Name(s): Edwards, Glen, Mickleburgh, Rod, Sacuta, Donna
Description: At the time of this interview, Glen Edwards was President of Local 505 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in Prince Rupert B.C. He began working on the waterfront in 1982 and became local president in 2000. Half of the local's membership is now indigenous. Edwards reflects on the changes he has seen in his time in the industry, including the negative effects of mechanization and containerization on the camaraderie of waterfront workers. Changes in dispatch procedures from…
Date: 2017-10-18
Name(s): Garden, Bailey, Griffin, Sean, Stevens, Grace
Description: Grace Stevens was born in Saskatchewan to Finnish and Norwegian parents, moving to Webster's Corners in B.C. as a girl where her parents farmed and fished the Fraser River. Growing up in the Depression years, she learned to fight for better pay and better working conditions through solidarity with other workers, principles that she held and stood for throughout her life. She enlisted in WWII and met her future husband, Homer Stevens, soon after she came home. Homer was a fisherman, but also a…
Date: 2017-08-15
Name(s): Brown, Hans, Johnson, Ron, den Hertog, Johanna
Description: Hans Brown worked for the Hospital Employees' Union (HEU) in BC for 13 years, taking the lead on pay equity and classification between 1974 and 1987. He is best known for his connections to BC's New Democratic Party (NDP). He was an accomplished organizer and fundraiser who was campaign manager for the successful election of the first NDP government in 1972. In this interview Brown discusses his introduction to labour when he managed political campaigns in Ontario. He recalls the challenging…
