Date: 2023-06-13
Name(s): Gordienko, Mark, Legg, Phil
Description: Mark Gordienko was born and raised in Victoria, B.C., and this is where he began longshoring at age 18. He worked in Victoria at Ogden Point in longshoring for eight years. After getting married, and due to the shortage of work in Victoria, he decided to relocate to Prince Rupert to continue longshoring there.
Mark worked in Prince Rupert for 10 years. At the time, the Prince Rupert local, Local 505 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), was a very small local, which Mark…
Date: 2019-08-07
Name(s): LaPlante, Mary, Wejr, Patricia
Description: Mary LaPlante was introduced to unions when she worked at a fish plant as a summer job. She later worked at the Prince Rupert Hospital where most staff were unionized, but not the administrative staff where she worked. Mary organized them into the Hospital Employees' Union (HEU) and soon became Local Chair. This led her to increased activism and election to the union's provincial executive. In the interview Mary discusses her early years, her challenges as a woman in leadership, and the many…
Date: 2020-03-01
Name(s): Novakowski, Ken, Van Steinburg, Mervyn
Description: As a founding Board Member of BC Labour Heritage Centre, Mervyn Van Steinburg recounts his story of a worklife spent in service to BC's unionized community. In this interview, Brother Van Steinburg recounts his union beginnings as an electrician member and officer of IBEW Local 213. Notably, Merv details his transformative involvement with Unemployment Action Centres. a labour movement sponsored initiative which emerged during the early 1980's backdrop of recession and BC's Solidarity movement…
Date: 2023-04-29
Name(s): Alexander, Michele, Sacuta, Donna, Wejr, Patricia
Description: Michele Alexander was born in St. Boniface, Manitoba. She moved to the United States in the early sixties after her parents divorced and her mother married an American. She returned to Canada in 1992 seeking a better life. At the time, she was a single parent, living on welfare. Her first job was with the City of Vancouver in the Equal Opportunity Employment Program. She worked for the City of Vancouver for 29 years, 23 of which were in bylaw enforcement. It took six years for Michele to obtain…
Date: 2018-02-28
Name(s): Dumler, Mike, Novakowski, Ken, Reynolds, Keith
Description: Mike Dumler's union career in the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) included many elected and staff positions. After coming to Canada from the United States as a Vietnam War veteran, Brother Dumler joined CUPE in Nanaimo. He became President of Local 401, and eventually became the first full-time President of CUPE BC. He participated in the Operation Solidarity movement of 1983, and was charged, along with other labour leaders, with sedition by the provincial government in 1987. His…
Date: 2017-01-18
Name(s): Garden, Bailey, Novakowski, Ken, Overgaard, Muriel
Description: Muriel Overgaard was born in Elbow, Saskatchewan in 1920. She went on to become the first female President of CUPE BC, serving from 1976-1980, and ran as an MLA for the NDP. She played a significant role in establishing CUPE's Women's Committee, the first for any BC union, and in the establishment of the municipal pension plan.
Date: 2016-04-04
Name(s): Carr, Nick, Griffin, Sean
Description: This is an audio-only interview with Nick Carr. Nick was born in Croatia (former Yugoslavia) before moving to Canada as a young boy, where he spent his career as a fisherman. He became President of Local 1 of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, and was a key player in the development of the union's Benefit Fund. Nick Carr passed away in 2021.
Date: 2025-07-07
Name(s): BC Labour Heritage Centre, Mickleburgh, Rod, Smith, Pam
Description: Pam Smith, a professional genealogist from Yorkshire, England, had no idea she was related to a celebrated activist in Canada until author Roger Stonebanks came knocking. She knew that her great-grandfather George had a brother who went abroad, but the story of Uncle Albert "Ginger" Goodwin and his significance in BC was a surprise to the whole family.
Ginger Goodwin was a young miner and union activist whose medical exemption from military service was cancelled when he organized a strike…
Date: 2023-05-29
Name(s): Novakowski, Ken, Pratt, Patrice
Description: Patrice Pratt was born in Ohio in 1948 and grew up in Arizona in a staunchly Catholic family with five children. She attended Catholic schools and moved to San Francisco to attend the University of San Francisco, a Catholic Jesuit university. It was located two blocks from Haight-Ashbury, a neighbourhood made famous by the hippie movement of the time.
Patrice met her husband while at university and she moved to Canada with him in 1969 because he did not want to serve in Vietnam. They first…
Date: 2023-06-26
Name(s): Sacuta, Donna, Wejr, Patricia
Description: In this fascinating and wide-ranging interview with Patricia Wejr, she describes her long career in communications, nursing, reproductive health, and the labour movement. Patricia attended Simon Fraser University for Communications, and while there took a co-op position at Co-Op Radio, where she was involved with creating the long-running (and still extant) Union Made program. This led into Patricia's work forming a company to do labour history work for unions.
She later returned to school…
Date: 2022-04-09
Name(s): Ramsey, Paul, Sacuta, Donna, Wejr, Patricia
Description: Paul Ramsey was born in the United States in 1944. His father was an engineer and a Democrat, who served as a council member for 16 years in the suburb where Paul grew up. Paul aspired to be an academic and in 1971 he moved to British Columbia with his family to pursue doctorate work at the University of British Columbia. In 1975, after he had completed his studies, he accepted a job at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George, having been attracted to the philosophy of community-based…
Date: 2016-11-28
Name(s): Burton, Peter, Novakowski, Ken
Description: Peter Burton was born in Pembroke, Ontario, and worked for the Georgia Straight in Vancouver before going into the resource industry in northern BC. Peter was President of CASAW in 1976, when the Wildcat strike by Alcan smelter workers in Kitimat occurred in response to wage control legislation introduced by the federal government under Pierre Trudeau.
Date: 2023-04-04
Name(s): Cameron, Peter, Legg, Phil
Description: Peter Cameron was chief shop steward at the Phillips Cables plant in Vancouver, the first plant certified with the Canadian Electrical Workers, which merged with CAIMAW (Canadian Association of Industrial Mechanical and Electrical Workers) in 1969. He served on the CAIMAW national executive board and then came on staff as a national representative in the early 1970s. Peter negotiated collective agreements, handled arbitrations, and serviced local unions, especially in the mining industry where…
Date: 2023-07-12
Name(s): Legg, Phil, Pearson, Randy
Description: Randy Pearson was born in northern B.C. to a working-class family. He worked in the lumber mills around Prince George as a young man, before traveling, marrying and getting a unionized job with pension benefits at a B.C. Liquor Store. He liked being a member of BCGEU and quickly became a union activist. Over the years he held various positions within the union and worked on various campaigns, such as the fight to retain their modified work-week provisions.
Randy speaks at length and in…
Date: 2016-04-03
Name(s): Bauder, Ken, Cornes, Al, Haynes, Ray
Description: Ray Haynes was born in Point Grey, Vancouver, BC in 1928. He was introduced to the labour movement through work at a sawmill
