BC Labour Heritage Centre Oral History Collection

: Interview with Jackie Ainsworth; Jackie Ainsworth was born in Ontario, attending a year at the University of Carlton before joining the Anti-War Movement and moving out west to Vancouver. She is a founding member of the Association of University and College Employees [AUCE] as well as United Bank Workers [UBW] Local 2 of the Service, Office and Retail Workers’ Union of Canada [SORWUC]. , Monday, June 6, 2016 , Interview: Jackie Ainsworth (JA) Interviewer: Janet Nicol (JN) Date: August 23, 2017 Location: Vancouver B.C. Transcription: Jane Player JN [00:00:02] Okay. Jackie Ainsworth, tell us a little bit about your background growing up in Ontario and how this influenced your life. JA [00:00:15] Well, you sent me the questions earlier, so I've been thinking about it a bit. You know, my parents were working people and my dad went on strike a few times when I was growing up, but I never thought of my dad as a trade unionist. My mum was a homemaker 'til we went to school and she went to work in the drugstore in town. You know, I think of ourselves as working class, but certainly not trade unionists or feminists. Not me. Fifties, anyways. I was trying to think of what my first sort of activism was. I remembered I was working at the hospital in the kitchen part time during high school, and so I was like 14. Ontario announced that they were doing away with the minimum wage for students. There'd been a minimum wage and you could, if you hired students, it was a lower wage. I remember hearing on the news that they were doing away with that and I was so excited. I thought, oh good. JA [00:01:38] I remember it was 75 cents to a dollar, and I was really excited about that. Then when I got my next paycheque, it was still 75 cents. I remember calling the Department of Labour and making sure I had it right. I remember talking to my friend Lee, who was also 14, because we were in grade nine, and she worked at the hospital. We decided that probably what had happened is that the hospital administrator didn't realise that there had been an increase in the minimum wage and that we would go talk to her. Lee's mum drove us there and we had an appointment. It seems odd, but it was a small town, small hospital. I guess the administrator had agreed to the appointment. Anyways, we told her that it had been raised and she said she wasn't going to raise ours. I told her that if she didn't do that, that she could be fined $500 a person. She got very, very angry and kind of threw us out of her office, literally just screamed us out of her office. Then, on the next paycheque, we had our increase and a little back wage. I thought, like, where did we get the idea that we could walk in on a hospital administrator and tell her that she had to raise our wages? I don't know. The next time—should I just keep telling these stories? Okay. Because the next time, I was 16 and I found I was waitressing, again, after school and on the weekends, and then we found out from another waitress's mother, who was the bookkeeper at the restaurant, that they had a big banquet section as well as the restaurant, and that when we worked the banquet, nobody liked working the banquets because you didn't get tips. Then we found out that the owner was actually charging a gratuity, a percentage on the banquet costs, but we didn't see any of it. I called the Department of Labour again and they said that that was illegal and that if he was specifically charging a client for gratuities, then it had to be used for gratuities. I went to the boss and told him that we had found out that he was charging. Again, he was really angry, but I didn't get fired. Then we all got gratuities after that when you worked banquet. I don't know. I think it's kind of sometimes just a personality thing, maybe. Also, when I think back on it, my mum was pretty, you know, strong. I do remember during that period, the birth control pill was coming into being. My mum used to have women over for coffee every day from the neighbourhood. I do remember one time there was a whole group of them and I was wondering what the heck was going on in our living room. It turned out my mum had agreed to call the pharmacist, who she knew as a friend in town, while all the other women were sitting there to find out about this thing, the pill. I guess I get a bit of it from her. My dad, as I said, used to go on strike—went on strike, a couple of times, some pretty long, nasty ones. We had that experience; I don't know, but I think I—apparently, I started off quite young. (laughter) JN [00:05:32] [unclear] and what compelled you to come to B.C.? JA [00:05:32] You know, I went to university in Ottawa. Most of my classmates, most of my friends went to U of T [University of Toronto]. I really wanted to get away from a small town, and so Ottawa it was. There, I got involved with the anti-war movement. Ottawa—University of Carleton was a big centre for draft dodgers coming in. We always had guys, you know, crashing in our lounge or in our cafeteria. We would watch with them when the lotteries were on TV, see if their draft numbers came up. It was really active. After a year, I just felt really compelled to leave university because I thought that the most important thing in the world was to stop that war. I wanted to work full time against the war. You know, that's when the whole "question authority" was one of our sort of mantras during the sixties. JA [00:06:42] The whole university scene was—I didn't like it at all. I kind of had enough of school and I wanted to be really involved in stopping the war. Vancouver was one of the main centres in Canada that had a really active antiwar movement. In the summer, I hitchhiked to Vancouver with a girlfriend of mine. JN [00:07:09] You were you working in a restaurant there? JA [00:07:09] Yeah. I started working in restaurants because I had after school and it was good money in terms of tips, but I was only able to get a job in Smitty's Pancake House. Again, we were just so mad about everything. The war was going on so we were angry about that. Then, at work, we weren't making enough money. I wasn't making enough money to make my rent. You know, we were treated so badly at work. I talked to some of the women at Smitty's. We decided that we should go in and talk to our manager about how we needed more money to live on. There were five of us. We went into his office; it was really crowded, it was a very small office. We told him that we needed to make more money. He said, 'Oh, that was easy.' There was two things we could do. We're like, okay. We should take off our wedding rings and we should shorten our uniform skirts. We left there, five of us, and we were just really, really angry and everybody kind of dispersed and went home. I remember I was walking by a pay phone booth at the corner of Broadway and Fir. I was so mad and I got the yellow pages and I looked up the unions and found the hotel and restaurant. I thought, okay, well that must be the one. I called them and said that, you know, explained the situation and they said, 'Well, come on down tomorrow and we'll give you some union cards.' That's what I did. We signed up a majority of the employees at Smitty's, and we applied for union certification. The other woman who signed up the employees, Liz, her and I were both fired and so we launched an unfair labour practise. That was the start of my trade union activity. JN [00:09:38] [unclear] JA [00:09:38] Well, yeah, it was really interesting because that was—and I know this just because we're working on this project—that was in September of '93, or sorry, 1973, September of '73. Then a month later in October, I was going out to UBC [University of British Columbia] with a bunch of friends—I'm going to tell this story anyways. I was going out to UBC with a bunch of friends, and we were quite drunk, and we were going out to watch the movie Burn! with Marlon Brando. I actually took a bottle of Southern Comfort with me into the movie theatre and I was passing it to this woman behind us. There were three of us. I kept passing it to this woman behind us and she passed out. She was really—and so we took her home with us. The next morning, she got up and we, you know, we were all pretty hung over and we were making coffee. She looked at her watch and she's like, 'Oh, my God, oh, my God, Jean's going to be so mad at me. I'm late, I'm supposed to be going to the founding convention of the Working Women's Association.' I was like, 'What's that?' She started explaining that they were going to be forming a women's union and why we needed a women's union. I was like, 'Oh, that's really interesting because I just got fired from my job for union organising.' She was like—. [ JN [00:11:10] [unclear] JA [00:11:13] Yes. She said, 'You need to'—that was D.J. O'Donnell [Doreen-Jean O'Donnell]. She said, 'You've got to talk to my friend Jean Rands.' I was like, 'Oh, okay.' Off she went to the Working Women's Association Founding Convention, and then she called me and gave me Jean's number. Then I met Jean on her lunch hour. I think she was working at Guardian Insurance, and I met her downtown for lunch on the Monday. JN [00:11:42] That was the beginning of a powerful partnership [unclear] Can we finish about the poor women in the Pancake House (laughter) [unclear] Did that not [unclear] there was no follow through—it just kind of collapsed? JA [00:11:51] They signed a union contract and it was for probably—I forget now—but it was for like, I don't know, 10,15 cents more than the minimum wage. The conditions were virtually no different than any. JN [00:12:06] When you and the other woman were fired that was it for the union [unclear] JA [00:12:08] We took it to the labour—well, then I met Jean Rands and she said, 'Oh, you've been fired. You should take it to the Labour Relations Board.' The union didn't help me. They said that I wouldn't get my job back and there was no sense in trying. Jean helped me and introduced me to Tommy McGrath, who was with the seamen's union and who became a lifelong dear friend. He helped me. We went to the Labour Relations Board, and they said that I was not fired for union activity, that I was fired because—I think it had to do with the reduction in my hours. Yes, that's how they fired me, basically, because I was one of the ones—I wasn't a part-time worker. I was working in order to pay my rent. They put me down to 10 hours a week or something that I couldn't possibly afford to stay there. They said that was a business decision and not an anti-union decision. JN [00:13:12] How about the other woman? JA [00:13:12] You know, I think Liz did not go before the Labour Relations Board. I think she just went to work somewhere else. JN [00:13:22] [unclear] so that union wasn't really helping? JA [00:13:26] No, I think. As it turned out, I just remember this one quote from Tommy McGrath. I've used it in speeches before so I think it's okay. You know, when he said, 'Well, what union did you join?' I said, 'Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union.' He said, 'Oh, well, you might have a chance at the Labour Relations Board because they're really corrupt and they're in the pockets of the Labour Relations Board. So, you know, they might make a deal for you.' JN [00:13:56] You learned about unions, but also about bad unions. JA [00:13:58] Yes, exactly. Had a not good experience with HRU. JN [00:14:07] That leads into, can you describe your early working life and activism when you came to B.C. [unclear] in that meeting with Jean and then did that lead to UBC? JA [00:14:18] Well then, I got—I think actually maybe I was already working. I went and got a job at Denny's Restaurant on Broadway there. This time I was going to be way more strategic in terms of signing people up to a union. You know, as soon as I met Jean, I mean, I just glommed onto everything she said. I went—she asked me to come—if it's okay, I'll just back up one meeting. After I met her, she said at that lunch that day, she said, 'Oh, the first meeting of this new Working Women's Association is Wednesday at the library. Why don't you come to that?' I was like, Hmm, hmm, a meeting, I don't know about that,' but I went and I thought, 'Oh, I'll just go and sit in the back and see what they're up to.' I walked into the room and there was like about six or seven or seven or eight women sitting around a table and Jean said, 'Oh, great, you're next on the agenda.' I met all those women that night and I told them the story of Smitty's, and they were just so wonderful and so supportive and interested. I don't know, I just never looked back after I met Jean and those women. When I was working at Denny's, you know, I was really trying to figure out what union we should join 'cuz Working Women's Association kept talking about a union. Then, you know, I just I wasn't sure what to do, and I think I might have got a date or two wrong there, because now that I think of it, SORWUC [Service, Office, and Retail Workers Union of Canada] had just been formed. JN [00:16:12] They were formed in '72, weren't they? JA [00:16:15] Right. They had been formed. Yeah, when I was working at Denny's. No, I'm not sure, we might have had one certification. I'm not sure if we had a contract. Anyways, it was up in the air what to do at Denny's. I was collecting phone numbers, getting to know the women. I hadn't worked there for very long. I came to work and the day shift—I worked the swing shift—and the day shift had walked off the job and was picketing it. I was like, 'What's going on?' They said that they were sick and tired of being mauled by the day manager. You know, it's interesting, Jean and I were talking about this a couple of days ago. We didn't have the word sexual harassment then, so we used words like unwanted advances and being touched. Apparently, the day manager was a really disgusting and abusive guy. They walked off the job and their various boyfriends or husbands had come and helped them picket. They had these sort of ambiguous signs that said something about, you know—it's pretty obvious that there was something not good going on at that shift. Again, we didn't have the words then. Anyways, they said, 'Are you going to cross our picket line or are you going to join us?' JA [00:17:57] It's like, 'Okay, I'm going to join you. Have you thought of joining a union?' 'No, we don't like unions.' I had the phone numbers of all of the swing shift and night shift people. We called them and they all came down, and yeah, that was the really big turning point for Working Women's Association and SORWUC, both of which still existed because, you know, we shut that place down for three months. They kept trying to have that big Denny's grand opening up the new Burrard store. Every time they announced it, we had a mass picket. Working Women's Association members and other women's liberation, other women, and all our trade union friends that we'd been making would come and we'd shut that down. JN [00:18:51] Were unions involved or on the fly picketing or [unclear] JA [00:18:58] Nope. (laughter) I kept trying to get people to join a union. I think some people might have signed SORWUC cards. I don't really remember. Yeah, I do remember, one time we decided—we heard that a new Denny's was being built—part of the construction of the new Coquitlam Mall. We decided we'd picket the construction site. We went out to Coquitlam and we explained to the—with our picket signs, Denny's waitresses on strike—and we explained to the construction workers what was going on. They all respected the picket line so we shut down the construction site. The superintendent, they were really angry. I mean, they were screaming at those construction workers to get to work and they just all stood around. I think they were a little amused, but I think they just weren't going to cross the picket line. Then the union rep came down. It took about an hour for him to get there. He was yelling at them to get back to work—that this was illegal, they weren't in a union, but they wouldn't cross the picket line. Then it took about another hour. Denny's had been to court to get an injunction against us because it was an illegal picket line, no union involved. They had gotten injunctions against us so then they brought injunctions down and they were giving them out to us on the picket line. We were talking about this the other day—we were ripping them up. The construction workers were just kind of like, 'Wow, they are really gutsy'. Anyways, I think we shut it down for three days, but then they went to court and got contempt of court charges against us. A couple of us who they identified and specifically got contempt of court charges against us, we were told by a lawyer, by Harry Rankin, who agreed to see us, that we should get out of town because as soon as we were served, we would go to jail. Myself and another woman left town so we wouldn't get served. Then the strike went on for about three months. Then they offered us all a bunch of money to go away. Some took it and some of us wouldn't. JN [00:21:52] [unclear] Was that your segue to other work? JA [00:21:53] Yeah, that's when I saying I was tired of waitressing and I thought I might try working at UBC. JN [00:22:06] [unclear] solidarity JA [00:22:06] Yeah, it was wonderful. JN [00:22:08] [unclear] solidarity JA [00:22:08] Yes. I mean, an illegal strike, spur of the moment, and we shut down, you know, opening of a new store, and we picketed that, you know, the original store for three months and the construction site. Yeah. It was a real lesson in what our potential was. JN [00:22:30] You saw that potential realized at UBC. JA [00:22:33] Right, so then at UBC—gosh, that took, well the story's there—so I'm not clear what we want to talk about it there. I think for us it was a real concrete example of, you know, how to win. JN [00:22:50] Did you and Jean strategize as what sort of, maybe get jobs and see what [unclear] UBC and see what spontaneous [unclear] JA [00:22:59] Well, you know, the women at UBC had been—they'd had a couple failed union drives, OTEU (Office and Technical Employees' Union]. They had tried with them and failed. They had a first AUCE (Association of University and College Employees) drive and it failed. Laurie Whitehead, who was at UBC and one of the main organisers out there in those drives, she was also a member of Working Women's Association. I mean, she came to work in Women's Association from being at UBC. You know, it sounded really exciting. They were talking about a second drive, another try, and lots of the original organisers had been through two failed drives already and were pretty discouraged. I think Jean and I thought, you know, let's go out to UBC and work, you know, with the women out there and bring some sort of new blood and try one more time. JN [00:24:00] What sort of job did you get? JA [00:24:01] I got a job as an L.A.1, a library assistant 1, in the Woodward Biomedical Library. I stacked books and checked them out, and did some sort of—when folks wanted a specific book helped them find it. That kind of thing. Jean worked in typesetting. She was a typesetter in the Publications Office. JN [00:24:32] Were any other women from Working Women working there [unclear] JA [00:24:37] They weren't working there, but I remember there were a couple. Melody Rudd, for sure. We got an office in the student union building, which we just paid for out of our pockets and from our membership dues, which were a dollar. Yeah. Working Women's Association helped us staff the office and they also did a lot of leafleting with us. They were definitely involved in support work. JN [00:25:09] When you were out there, did you have to pass your probation before you [unclear] or did you start right away? JA [00:25:18] Yeah, I don't—yeah, because the probation. I remember that because it was six months and we applied for union certification after I'd been there about three months. Maybe four. JN [00:25:32] [unclear] JN [00:25:33] Yeah. We started right when the semester started in September and we applied for certification in December, end of December. JN [00:25:45] What made this third drive successful? [unclear] JA [00:25:50] Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I think we just kept getting together a larger, larger group. I don't think they had the extensive support in terms of all the leafleting. Yeah. I think Jean and I brought quite a bit of experience to—you know, we had the connections with Press Gang, and with the women's movement in terms of leafleting and experience, sort of arguing with women about, you know, good unions and bad unions and why our union was different, and being able to write that up and get it in leaflet form and get it out to women. You know, they'd been trying for a long time, so the network was definitely there. There was about 30 activists involved in that drive, which is, you know, a really healthy number. This is one of the things I need to note in that speech that I gave, that I did. It's interesting when I read it all because it doesn't mention men. Of course, you know, it's the library and clerical workers. There were men that were very active in that union, in fact, critical organizers in the library. I noticed all the way through that speech, I say women this and women that. There were obviously—and that was sort of interesting to us trying to sort of talk about that because we wanted to talk about it as a feminist union. Obviously, you know, men were going to be involved—that was different from the Working Women's Association that was women only, which is one of the reasons we tried to have both the Working Women's Association and SORWUC as entities in existence at the same time. We really did want an organisation of women only to support a lot of the trade union work. Unfortunately, we just didn't have the resources and Working Women's Association kind of petered out. It was interesting that whole question of organisations that were that were going to have men in them and how that would work. JN [00:28:11] [unclear] average maybe 20 percent male? JA [00:28:12] Oh gosh, I don't know that number, but wild guess I'd say 20 percent. JN [00:28:17] It was predominantly female labour. JA [00:28:19] Oh, yes, yeah, 80, 85—that's right. About 80 percent women worked at UBC in our bargaining unit. I do remember one time a reporter asked our president, 'What about the men in your union? You keep talking about a feminist union.' She said, 'Well, you know, our union, unlike other unions, is not going to discriminate against the minority. And in fact, we have very democratic processes in place that will ensure that that doesn't happen.' I thought that was a really lovely response and she was a really lovely person—is a really lovely person. JN [00:29:04] What stands out about that first contract, of course, was that it was so precedent setting [unclear] is to organize to get such a good contract. Can you talk about how were you able to do that to get women's language [unclear] Were there any other precedents you were building on? What do you credit to that success? JA [00:29:28] You know, we had done a lot of research in the Working Women's Association and in Vancouver Women's Caucus and in between Vancouver Women's Caucus and Working Women's Association, there was the Working Women's Workshop. All of that time we were talking about sort of what women workers needed. You know, maybe this is a good time—and in the course of this history project we've talked a lot about, we don't want to underestimate how important the Canadian, the independent Canadian trade union movement, was at the time. They were called breakaways. The breakaway union movement was at the time, especially here in Vancouver, they were doing grassroots organising, talking about what was wrong with the existing unions, and winning. You know, we were very good friends with some of the activists from CAIMAW [Canadian Association of Industrial, Mechanical and Allied Workers] and from PPWC [Pulp, Paper, and Woodworkers of Canada, now Public and Private Workers of Canada] in particular. You know, they met with us a lot. They gave us a lot of advice about union contracts and union constitutions and safeguards against entrenched bureaucracy, how to write that up in our constitution and bylaws. You know, not to underestimate how important that movement was; it was quite inspiring to us to think that, okay, independent unions can win. They were obviously really inspiring in terms of our contract. We knew we were going to be fighting for things that had never been fought for before and it was just a matter of being able to write them up in contract language. One of the things we were very adamant about was that it wasn't going—you know, we would have as little legalese as possible. We wanted to have a contract that all workers could read and understand. Yeah, it's just a matter of sitting down and writing it up. , JN [00:31:49] In terms of the economic impact, that really impacted women's lives, the fact that the hourly wage went up, so high. How did you calculate that parameter [unclear] how were you able to argue that at the table and get it? JN [00:32:07] It wasn't just that it was a significant wage increase. One of the things about wages that we talked about a lot and really resonated with women, was that—well, two things, equal pay. There was already, you know, there were workers on campus, men, who—janitors, no experience, you know, entry level—that were making three times what experienced private, personal secretaries to deans at the college were making. People knew that; so, there's the whole issue of equal pay. We also really argued, and it was one of the main tenants of our organising drive, that any wage increase should be across-the-board because men were concentrated in the top job classifications. Any wage increase that was a percentage benefited men more. An across-the- board increase was a real sort of high-profile demand of ours—reducing the wage gap. The other one was that we wanted to reduce the number of—well, at the time merit level, which we wanted to convert to seniority level. We wanted to compact all of those. It was a real drive for more equal wages, not just by gender. That really resonated with women, that issue of equality for all, I think. JN [00:34:00] When you argued it, what was the reaction at the bargaining table? JN [00:34:06] Well, the reaction at the bargaining table was—I mean, I don't think they ever reconciled themselves to having to deal with 13 women. Oh, sorry, it wasn't 13 women. See there, I do it again. There was a couple of men on the bargaining team. There were 13 of us on the bargaining team. I don't think they ever really—I mean, they signed those wage increases because they knew we were going to go on strike. JN [00:34:35] They knew you had a high percentage organised? JN [00:34:41] We had a 90 percent strike vote. We had had a strike committee going for several weeks. All the posters had been printed. They knew all this, you know, and the libraries to be shut down, the data centre that was out there, I mean, they finally got it. By then we were so angry at how we'd been treated and we were really feeling our solidarity and power within the union. I remember when we were really close to signing a final agreement, I remember as Jean and I went out the door (I was staying at her place then) I remember Al, her partner, saying, 'Don't give in because you're tired. Tell them you need to take a break and you'll come back tomorrow. You've got so much leverage now. Don't let them wear you down.' It was because we were really exhausted and we really wanted it to be over. It was good advice, and boy, we just hung in there—and lots of support. JN [00:35:56] [unclear] Lots of support. JA [00:35:57] Yeah. Lots of support. He was great. JN [00:36:01] So that you had the first contract, a big success, and did you stay after, did you enjoy some of that [unclear]. JA [00:36:10] Not really, because one of the things we did right away was we elected a full-time union officer to work in our union office, and I ran for that position and was elected. JN [00:36:26] In SORWUC? JA [00:36:27] Sorry to AUCE. I worked full time after the contract was signed in the AUCE union office. Thinking about it now, it was probably unrealistic, but we were so determined that no one in the office would get too comfy in the union office, that we had a six-month term and then you had to go back to work. Probably could have been a year, but we were just getting settled into it. Anyways, at the end of six months, we really thought that there was just, you know, UBC was solid and SFU [Simon Fraser University] had joined, and Notre Dame University, Capilano College, New Caledonia, and we were just like, 'What's next?' JN [00:37:22] Jackie, were they joining after they saw the contract or were they joining as you were organizing? JA [00:37:24] Some of them joined us as we were organising. Notre Dame University, in fact, they were the first AUCE local certified. They were certified before UBC. Yeah. I think ours was the first contract. SFU, I forget when they organising got started, whether it was during our organising or once we applied for certification, but definitely a lot of parallels for those first three. Capilano, New Caledonia, and the teaching assistants at SFU, they all came after. JN [00:38:00] So, of course they saw the contract [unclear] good union [unclear] JA [00:38:06] Yeah. We thought now, we should try downtown. We were ready to take on sort of a private sector employer. Now that was a strategic discussion for me to get a job in the banks, and then Jean got a job in the banks, and Melody and, you know, several of Working Women. JA [00:38:35] Was Melody a worker at UBC or just part of Working Women? JA [00:38:39] She was at UBC, she was just part of the Working Women's Association, but then she was a library worker at SFU, so she was really involved in the organising there. JN [00:38:51] I didn't realize that she went that far back even before SORWUC? JA [00:38:56] Oh yeah, In fact, that day I met, the first time I met Jean Rands, a lunch hour at Guardian Insurance, she told me, 'Oh, you need to talk to a woman, Melody Rudd, because she's organising into HREU at Pizza Patio'. Melody was involved right at the beginning. Yeah. In fact, I think she was a member of Vancouver Women's Caucus when she was a student at UBC. JN [00:39:23] When you moved downtown, was SORWUC in the Dominion Building at that time? JA [00:39:27] Oh, good question. I don't think so. I think we moved into the Dominion building—yeah, I think we were on Kingsway and then we moved into the Dominion Building downtown. JN [00:39:46] [unclear] downtown [unclear]. Are you okay? JA [00:39:51] Yeah, I'm good. Thanks. JN [00:39:54] And they had an opening at Victory Square? JA [00:39:58] Yeah, I think I might have looked up in the classifieds, and I went to training for a couple of days at the head office, and then they placed me at Victory Square Branch. Yeah. JN [00:40:12] And where did Jean work? [unclear] JA [00:40:13] Jean took some time off after UBC, and then she got a job in what was then the Bank of BC, which I think became Hong Kong, Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corp. JN [00:40:23] [unclear] JA [00:40:24] She was at Bank of B.C. And Melody was at Bank of Montreal. Yeah. I got a job as a ledger keeper at the Victory Square branch, in the personal checking account section. You know, I'd been there for a while and I was just getting used to the job and quite enjoying it. Then someone came up to me and said—I think I'd been there, you know, three or four weeks. Someone came up to me and said that they were really upset. What had happened—I'm not sure what had happened—but something had happened. I mean, I wasn't really involved a lot; I'd only been there three or four weeks. I think they might have been nervous to approach me because I was new, but they did and said that everybody was going to book off sick the next day. I forget what it was that they were so angry about. I said that I thought that there were better ways of protesting whatever it was that they were planning to do and why didn't we all get together and have a beer after work and talk about it. Everybody agreed to do that, so we went to the Railway Club. (laughter) It was just up from Victory Square branch, so it was kind of good. JA [00:41:55] Again, I forget what the specific grievance was, but we talked about whether or not we should all book off work the next day. It was decided we shouldn't do that because the training office was, head office was just, you know, at Hastings at Granville, and they would just get on—fire us and get all new people in, so that was kind of hopeless. We talked about writing—I remember we talked about some kind of petition, or writing a letter about what we were angry about. Then we decided, no, that wasn't a good idea because they would just note our names and throw it in the garbage. Then, of course, I raised that I thought we should join a union. Everybody said, 'Oh, yes, that's probably a good idea, but that's impossible. That's just ridiculous in terms of, you know, how big CIBC is and how big the banking industry is. And that was just a fantasy.' I got home and called up Jean and Melody. We met later that night and we did up a leaflet saying why bank workers should be in a union, and they leafleted my branch the next morning. Just so it wouldn't look super conspicuous, they leafleted several branches on West Hastings there that morning. A couple of women in my branch really got interested in the idea and so they started coming to SORWUC meetings. The head teller and another teller and myself started meeting outside the branch. JN [00:43:45] [unclear] JA [00:43:45] Oh, Jan, that's a really good one. That might have been what they were really upset about that night because unpaid overtime was a really big issue. The other one was the arbitrariness of who the supervisor liked and real favouritism on the job. That came up a lot in our organising drive over the next couple of years. You know, young men, supervisors—what did they call them—management trainees and a lot of young women tellers. There was just a lot of favourtism. That might have been it, too, because—but you're right, unpaid overtime was a big issue. The banks, because they were federal workplaces, came under a law, which I think was originally meant to apply mostly primarily to the trucking industry, where you could average out long workdays over a several week period so as long as it averaged out to eight hours a day. The banks just used this, of course, because at month end, or quarter end, or pay days, we worked long hours and then of course, we'd work eight-hour days the rest of the time it wasn't like we—and they had everyone convinced that they didn't have to pay overtime. JN [00:45:22] [unclear] So a couple women started coming to the SORWUC meetings. JA [00:45:25] Again, we talked about the whole thing about, you know, did SORWUC have the resources to take on the banking industry? Should we should we be joining even some one of the unions, maybe in the new independent Canadian—Confederation of Canadian Unions? Is that what it was, the CCU? Yeah, so there was discussion about that. You know, we were convinced that in order to organise an industry the size of the banking industry, that we needed to have new organising strategies. We needed to be able to respond in a concrete way to people's criticisms of the existing unions that were in the women's industries, the business unionism that was, you know, was our sort of option to join. We also had to respond to the issues that we were facing at work, which just—you know, we talked to so many union reps, whether it was in Office and Technical Employees, or in Hotel and Restaurant, or in Retail Clerks and they just didn't understand our issues. We just felt that it needed to be a whole new kind of union and a whole new kind of union organising. Very similar, and we raised this often, very similar to when the CIO [Congress of Industrial Organizations] did their organising, you know, in the auto industry in particular and took on the existing craft unions. JA [00:47:14] In the end, myself and the two tellers, determined that we know through our employee list at the bank, and we determined who we thought we should approach to join the union. We didn't think we could get a majority. We weren't sure. We also had to be careful that we got in our application before anybody—before management found out. It was kind of tricky to decide whether or not we should approach people that might give us the majority, or if they might just turn around and walk into management. At the time, a Canada Labour Code, you could apply with a 45 percent—I'm sorry, it could've been 35 or 45—but bottom line, you could apply with less than an outright majority and then they would hold a vote, so we thought that's what we would do. We'd apply; we would only go to the people that we were sure about. We knew we could have the percentage that would force the vote and so that's what we did on August 16, 1976. Oh, we were also nervous that there might be a period there where if we put our application in the mail, or we took it to the Labour Board, that there might be a period where management knew about it, but could publicly deny that they knew about it, and fire us in the meantime. What we decided to do was hand-deliver the application that day to the Labour Relations Board, take a copy of it, which we did, and Melody and Jean came into Victory Square branch and made an appointment to see the manager, and told him that, you know, right now someone was handing this same application to the Canada Labour Relations Board. There was a lot of press outside our branch by noon. It's pretty exciting. JN [00:49:38] [unclear] branch under the United Bank Workers [unclear] part of SORWUC. JA [00:49:39] Right, the Union of Bank Workers, UBW, Local 2 of SORWUC. JN [00:49:45] [unclear] organizing drive started in SORWUC. JA [00:49:47] Yeah, that's right, there's been previous organising, a Kitimat branch about 25 years earlier and there had been—but it had failed. It was with OTEU, and it had failed, and not really gone much further. Yeah, this was the next wave. JN [00:50:16] [unclear] JA [00:50:19] Quebec might have—no, I think that came after us, but I'm not sure there were some credit unions maybe. It was sort of the first launch. We held a press conference that afternoon saying this was going to be the first of many, and that we were launching a major organising drive in the Canadian banking industry, and etcetera. It was fun. It was well-covered and especially because I think we were all bank workers that were holding the press conference. I think we took advantage of being sort of media darlings. (laughter) JN [00:50:56] And it was very bold coming [unclear] JA [00:51:00] Yeah, it was on the national news that night. (laughter) I do remember, I'd been really nervous about filling out my job application at CIBC because, you know, there was a lot of union—I mean I couldn't very well put my last three jobs at UBC, Dennis and Smitty. I'd kind of like made up a job resume. My reference was my mum who was working in an office, my grandpa's office in Ontario, and they had called her for a reference. Anyways, she called me later that day when we applied and said, 'What's going on out there?' I was like, 'Why, Mum?' 'Because I've been getting calls from CIBC confirming your dates of employment here.' Yeah, they were on to us pretty quick. JN [00:52:03] How soon did other banks start signing up after that big announcement? JA [00:52:10] Immediately. We used to get a big—every morning we would get a big batch of checks from the data centre that we used to have to go through and check for things stale-dated or post-dated, or [unclear] etcetera. There were notes in there from the data centre people the next morning saying, 'Call us.' It was pretty quick. You know, Jan, now that I think of it, I think the union office might have been already in the Dominion Building because it rang off the hook. We were right away meeting with other branches, I mean, that week. JN [00:52:52] Mostly in bigger cities? JA [00:52:52] Almost exclusively in Vancouver. JN [00:52:58] Vancouver, but then it spread to the Sunshine Coast? JA [00:52:59] Yeah. Then we got some calls from the Sunshine Coast, from Vancouver Island, and from Northern B.C. JN [00:53:05] [unclear] Saskatchewan? JN [00:53:08] Then, yes, the Saskatchewan folks got in touch with us. That might have been—they had a Saskatchewan working woman's group there. I'm not sure which happened first, whether they got in contact with us and used our leaflets, or whether the bank workers got in contact with us and we put them in contact with the working women's group. I'm not sure. Yeah, they were involved. JN [00:53:35] You had when you started to negotiate with the banks you had 18 [unclear]. JA [00:53:39] Is that what it was? You know, honestly, Jan, I was so—I don't remember. There's a lot of blur there. JN [00:53:50] They are all well-documented in Account to Settle. It's all there. JA [00:53:51] It's all down. It's in writing. In fact, that was one of the things we did as sort of catharsis when we knew we had been really defeated the first time around. We took the following year to write it all down, in a book. I think that was a really good thing to do. JN [00:54:16] Did you ever get to the bargaining table with any of the banks? JN [00:54:17] We did. We got to the bargaining table. Of course, it was so interesting when we were writing the book because we realised how strategic the banks were. Bank of Commerce would tell us that they—we wanted to—I forget how many branches we had at the Bank of Commerce, but obviously we wanted to—we had the same contract we were presenting to all of them. We wanted to bargain collectively with the other branches, but they said, 'Absolutely not. The Labour Relations Board decision one bargaining unit at a time.' That was Bank of Commerce's strategy. Of course, it took forever to set up one meeting with one branch. That's how they stalled and stalled and stalled. Bank of Montreal were like, 'Oh, sure, we'll meet with all of you.' But they filed every single possible legal block you could think of. That was clearly their duty. Then the Bank of Nova Scotia—and I mean, it was just sort of interesting how many fronts we were fighting on. We did get to the bargaining table. Nothing ever got signed, of course, because over the course of the two years really there were a lot of unfair labour practises. We were doing those. Initially, the first year, we were arguing the whole issue of the bargaining unit, and trying to raise money, trying to find people that could go, you know, we'd get a phone call to go out to Tahsis on Vancouver Island, or Port Hardy, on Vancouver Island. We were all working full time, so no, we were stretched pretty thin. AUCE helped a lot. AUCE helped financially a lot, but our finances, you know, I do remember using my vacation to go up to the IWA [International Woodworkers of America] meeting in Kamloops. I just tell you this as a kind of a really classic example of what we were up against. I had the opportunity to speak at their union meeting in Kamloops, at the IWA meeting and told them our story and how desperate we were for funds. Here's one of the richest unions in the province. At the time we had a leaflet out and it was called the monthly budget and we were leafleting. It was what we had used—Vancouver real estate board statistics. We'd gone through and we figured out what the budget would have to be to live with one woman with one child in Vancouver. It came to 1,100 dollars. This was the current leaflet we were distributing. I told this to the meeting. I remember the first speaker stood up and said, 'No wife of mine, it's going to make 1,100 dollars.' The rest of the guys in the room, some of them booed and some of them laughed. Mostly they laughed. They voted to send—I forget it was a chunk of change for us at the time, $500, something like that. The executive were furious that they had voted to do that and they just never sent us the money. They never wrote the check. It was tough, it was really tough. JN [00:58:01] [unclear]. JA [00:58:03] Yeah. JN [00:58:10] What about the legal decision, it was a victory even though it was a long process. You went all the way to the Supreme Court? It was decided— JA [00:58:19] Nope, at the Canada Labour Relations Board. It was decided that—so, what the banks argued was, in terms of the bargaining unit and the fact that we had to have a majority, that the CIBC bargaining unit should be all CIBC in place, across the country. What we argued was that if the board ruled that, they were, it was tantamount to saying that we didn't have the right to unionise and that under the Labour Code we did have the right to unionise, organize. We argued that it had to be a branch, or a data centre or, you know, one physical workplace and the board agreed with us. What they said was that with the banks' argument, it would basically deprive us of our right to unionise. They accepted that argument. As it turned out, you know, it was sort of— and we actually knew by the time we got the decision that it was going to be a Pyrrhic victory because the branches were too small and it was too easy for them to pick us off, and it was too difficult to maintain solidarity. Even by the time we got the decision, we were already talking about how we had to either have a major workplace like one of the large data centres or a region, a city, a town. We weren't sure, but we knew, we did know that the branch by branch was not going to enable us to win this time round. JN [01:00:12] It was still an historic decision. JA [01:00:12] It was a historic decision because, you know, previous to that, bank workers didn't think they had the right to unionise. I mean, we were told by management, we didn't have the right to unionise because of how important the banking industry is so that unions and strikes just couldn't be part of the industry. We were told we couldn't unionise; in that way, it was a really important decision. There were a couple other important decisions that came out of our drive. The definition of the bargaining unit in terms of who should be in and who should be out. Again, that was kind of a Pyrrhic victory because we ended up with loans officers being included in a bargaining unit with tellers. Even by the time we got those decisions, we were already thinking, you know, loan officers for sure if they're unionised, but probably their own local in our union. It was interesting how we were, and I think that's how we saw it after our defeat is that, you know, an industry that size is never organised the first time around. We had made some really important—establish some important legal decisions and learnt a lot from what the next drive should look like. Unfortunately, that was 40 years ago. JN [01:01:49] [unclear]. , JA [01:01:50] No, it's a bitter pill. JN [01:01:55] [unclear]. JA [01:01:56] Yes, but, you know, there was such a backlash in the eighties. I think, you know, there's a lot of reasons why there wasn't a second drive. I think unions were spending a lot of time just trying to hang on to their own members when they probably should have been out there just organising. There's a lot of reasons, I think, why a second drive didn't happen. JN [01:02:59] [unclear] JA [01:03:01] All of those women that were involved in, you know, SORWUC and AUCE, are still really active in their communities, and in their unions, and in raising our kids. Our girls, our little boys. JN [01:03:19] [unclear] JA [01:03:20] Dramatically. JN [01:03:26] So when the book came [unclear]. JA [01:03:34] Well, actually, they did finally. They waited until it was defeated and then they waited for a few more—I think I was there for about 15 years and people swear that it was because they finally thought it was time they could get rid of me. They shut the branch down (laughter) and everyone else got a new job except for me. They argued that they just couldn't find a place for me. JA [01:04:20] I applied for a job over in—I saw a job opening with the CIBC over in North Van and applied for that, but of course I didn't get it. I launched a—well two things—I launched a labour practise and also, I was very ill at the time. Not surprising I guess, after the bank drive, and, of course, we continued to try to do things after the bank drive failed. We were still active in credit unions and trust companies. I'd gotten quite ill so I'd taken some short term disability. We also applied under the Human Rights Code for discrimination for sick leave. In the end, like I said, I was ill, I was exhausted, and I'd met someone, and had decided to move to Seattle. I accepted a settlement with CIBC. JN [01:05:29] [unclear]. JA [01:05:29] Right, rather than, you know, go to the Labour Board or to the Human Rights Commission, I accepted a settlement. JN [01:05:39] It is amazing, Jackie, you did stay on [unclear] JA [01:05:51] Yeah. I liked the women I work with. I really liked my job. I liked working in banking, and I had to work, so, yeah, it worked. JN [01:06:09] Were many people fired? Do you remember? JA [01:06:13] People were fired. There was a really high-profile firing on the Sunshine Coast in Gibsons. They fired the main union organiser there and we picketed that branch. We never—you know, I was going to say we didn't apply for certification, but I'd have to check that. We never got her rehired but it was a very—you know, the newspapers picked it up in Gibsons and with lots of trade unionists in Gibsons, we picketed that branch every Saturday for quite a while. Yeah. There were other firings for sure. JN [01:06:50] That you fought [unclear] JA [01:06:51] Fought back, never won them. JN [01:07:01] You went down to Seattle, what did you do there? JA [01:07:03] Yeah, sort of interesting. At CIBC, I ended up getting, you know, some fairly good job performance reviews after everything had settled down. When I moved to Seattle, I applied for a job in a bank and they looked over my resume and just loved it. I mean, I'd worked in the industry for 15 years and worked in a lot of positions and got several promotions. They said, 'Gosh, this is all just looks great. You're certainly qualified for the position. All we have to do is check your references.' I was like, 'Oh, that's so sad.' (laughter) What I did was, I said, 'You know, rather than check with CIBC's personnel office or human resources division,' (as they were called by then), Why don't you call my manager at my branch and talk to him directly? Because, you know, he's the one that really knows my work.' They were like, 'Oh, that would be fantastic.' I literally raced home and I called my manager at my branch and I said, 'Look, I'm living in Seattle. I'm going to be here a long time. I really need a job. I really need a reference from you. They're going to call you.' He said, 'Do you promise to never apply at CIBC again?' I said, 'Of course, no, I just need a job here.' He said, 'I'd be delighted to Jackie.' He gave me a really good reference and I got the job at the bank in Seattle. I was there for 23 years at that branch. Yes, I retired from there. JN [01:09:00] [unclear] JA [01:09:10] It was really difficult. There was a period of time when I was fired from CIBC, before I moved to Seattle, when I needed a job. I went to Vancity. Again, they looked at my resume and said, 'You're hired.' I said, 'Fantastic.' Then they called me. There was a position at the branch at First and Commercial, so I was going to be going there. I had the interview at the head office. They had said, 'Great,' they had called the branch, and it was all set up. Then they called me a day later and said it turned out that position wasn't available and they put couldn't hire me. I went into the branch and I asked to speak to the operations manager and I said, 'You know, I had a position here, and then I didn't have a position here. And is the position still open?' She was really upset and she said, 'I don't want to get involved in this.' I said, 'Get involved in what?' She said, 'I'm just not going to talk to you.' JN [01:10:28] You were blacklisted? JA [01:10:29] Yeah. Vancity had decided not to hire me. JN [01:10:32] [unclear] JA [01:10:33] I couldn't. No, I got a job at Bank of B.C., and they called me and said, 'No,' they withdrew that. Thankfully, there was a position open at CCEC [Community Congress for Economic Change] credit union and I worked there for about—it took about a year transitioning between CIBC and when I moved to Seattle. I worked there. JN [01:10:57] [unclear] JA [01:10:58] In fact, they were in the middle of a union drive when I was hired. Yeah, so I got to be involved in some negotiations there. That was good. JN [01:11:08] I know we already talked [unclear] because you spent so long in the industry at all levels can you comment on the future [unclear] on bank workers, on unions in B.C., Canada, United States, that type of thing. JA [01:11:33] Well, you know, what are we all going to do right now? I mean, I think we're—what's that saying? May we live in interesting times. I think we all have to organise and do whatever we can and resist in whatever ways we can but— JN [01:12:07] [unclear] JA [01:12:09] Well, it should mean shorter workweeks. It should mean more time for leisure and cultural development and time with our families. It should mean all those things. JN [01:12:24] [unclear] JA [01:12:25] Exactly. You know, one of the things that I'm a little bit worried about, and I think it's true in Canada, too, but obviously exaggerated in the United States, is that the coalitions that we're going to have to build. One of the groups that must be worked with is working people and especially marginalised working people. Maybe they voted for Trump and maybe they voted for Harper, but they're winnable. They're really angry. People have been unemployed for so long, or working in marginal jobs and, you know, seeing their kids' futures being burdened by debt. There's a lot of things happening with climate change. There's a lot of things happening, but there's nothing happening about working people and organising working people. JN [01:13:46] [unclear] JA [01:13:47] Yes. So—. JN [01:13:48] [unclear]. JA [01:13:52] That's important and that's working people doing it themselves. Right? I guess I'm just worried that there's sort of a marginalisation of those workers. Then, of course, I was mostly (laughter) one of them (laughter) so I'm a bit concerned with them the most. (laughter) JN [01:14:14] [unclear] I like to believe that. JA [01:14:19] Yeah. It makes it even harder. I don't know what kind of—I'm retired—and so I'm not in the throes of what kind of organising it is going to take, but it's obviously going to be, again, a new kind of organising. A different kind. A new kind of organisation. A different kind. JN [01:14:47] [unclear] example that started [unclear] ideas that were radical and new [unclear] JA [01:14:48] Yeah. You know, I think that's one of the things that this story does say is that when we decided that what we needed was an independent feminist union for library and clerical workers at UBC, and that we should just found our own organisation and do it. We said to the guys from the PPWC, 'How many should we have, how many people should we have at a founding convention?' They were like, 'Well, a founding convention for a union,' they were like 'Hmm, 30, 40.' We were like, 'Oh no.' They said, 'Well, a minimum of ten.' We're like, 'Okay, ten, ten.' It was really hard to get ten people to that meeting to found a union. It was a year and a half later, we signed one of the largest pay increases, as you know, in Canada that year. It happens fast, but that's the other one I would say that was really exciting. You know, that it can start with—I'll quote Margaret Mead here—but it can start with a few people, but it also happened so fast. Women who it was so difficult to get them to, you know, think that they should join a union and get them to sign their union card. Ten months later, they were legally walking off the job. I don't know. It happens fast. JN [01:16:29] We talked about how we don't really have another independent feminist union. [unclear] there was no model. JA [01:16:42] I think that's true. Somebody asked me that recently, and you're right, there was no model. JN [01:16:49] Which [unclear] has to be. I mean [unclear] JA [01:16:52] Yeah, I think it was just a very organic thing. We work in these jobs and what do we need to realise our power, which we did understand. JN [01:17:10] [unclear] traditional union setting up a new set of rules. JA [01:17:14] Well, and again, not to underestimate the role that the breakaway unions played here in Vancouver. JN [01:17:20] On the wave of feminism. JA [01:17:23] And the wave of feminism. I mean, the message of the women's movement was, we're going to do it ourselves—and we can do it ourselves—that we have the skills, the ability and the dedication and the commitment, and we can do it ourselves. I mean, that was the message of the women's movement. Definitely that played, well, a primary role. JN [01:17:50] [unclear] It was in the air. JA [01:17:53] Yeah. Resistance and fightback was in the air. Yeah. JN [01:17:59] Last question. Can you comment on the value of labour history, especially women's labour history. When you think of this project we're doing, the legacy to pass on like the bank book, An Account to Settle. JA [01:18:17] I guess, you know, we don't want to make the same mistakes again. It's really important to learn what worked and what didn't work in terms of our union drives. Again, I think we're concrete examples of a lesson that women today that we can do it ourselves. I think, you know, documenting that and making it personal, which I think we are doing in our in our project, that we're working on, making it clear to women that we were waitresses at Smitty's Pancake House, or we were office workers at Guardian Insurance, that we can do it. JN [01:19:25] Last question, is there any other comment or question you would like to include? JA [01:19:31] I don't think so. Thanks, guys.

: Interview with John Radosevic; John Radosevic was born in Croatia (former Yugoslavia) before moving to Canada as a young boy. As a teenager he worked on an uncle’s ranch in Alberta and in the dangerous job of tie-up man in seine fishing in B.C. In 1971, he began working as an organizer for the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union (UFAWU). He later became a business agent, secretary-treasurer, and president of the union. When he retired after 34 years in the industry, he continued working on the Union Protein Project (formerly known as Protein for People). In this interview he recounts his experiences in many disputes and policy issues during his time in the fishing industry including the Aboriginal Fishing Strategy, the Mifflin Plan, and an investigation by the Combines Investigation Branch., Tuesday, February 5, 2019, Interview: John Radosevic (JR) Interviewer: Sean Griffin (SG) Date: May 2, 2019 Location: Burnaby, B.C. Transcription: Jane Player SG [00:00:05] Okay. We're here at the B.C. Labour Heritage Centre on May the 2nd, 2019 with John Radosevic. So John, can you just give me your birth place, date, details and your parents and siblings and so on? All the basic documentation? JR [00:00:20] The basic documentation. So I was born in Yugoslavia, what is now Croatia. My dad was John Senior. My mum was Esther Ellen Caldwell. They were pretty old for being parents. I mean, he was 46 and she was 40, 42 at the time. I was born, and two years later my sister was born, and then we came to Canada shortly after my sister was born. SG [00:01:22] What were the conditions that you were born in Yugoslavia? Because your father had been an immigrant to Canada already, had he not? JR [00:01:29] Yes. Him and his brother came to Canada in the mid-twenties. They worked on the roads and in the forests. My uncle was part of the migration in the Dirty Thirties—actually had his leg lopped off in a train accident where he fell under the tracks. So he had one leg and limped around and for a while they lived with us. My dad worked in the resource industries. There was forestry and fishing and, you know, mining, I think. I think he worked at Britannia Mines, but, you know, mainly a fisherman after he came back from Yugoslavia. Between the time that he came to Canada and the time that he went back to Yugoslavia there was this thing called the Second World War that intervened. He joined the Canadian Army, and he went overseas, and then he came back to Vancouver. When he came back to Vancouver, he met my mum. He was part of this whole Croatian movement that took place in Vancouver in those days. When he came back, they decided they wanted to go back to to Croatia or Yugoslavia to help rebuild socialism. That country had been torn apart by the Second World War, and so they thought what they wanted to do was go back and help the rebuilding process. So they went back, my mum and dad and, as I say, that's where we were born. SG [00:03:11] Where there were many hundreds of other Croatians? JR [00:03:14] I think many hundreds. I think around 2,000 or 3,000 or something. You know, but they had a big community here. They had community centre, had a newspaper. They were all part of this left wing movement that was taking place around the union movement back in those days. And part of the organising drives. All of the things that you read about and know about with regards to labour history, they were part of that movement. When they dropped their life here and went back to Croatia, of course, they sold the hall and just moved back. I think the whole community, or a good part of the community, moved back. Many didn't go, actually. I mean, there were people that stayed on the boats and worked here while they were back in Yugoslavia, but many more, I think, went to Yugoslavia to be part of this project, before coming back to Canada. SG [00:04:18] So I'm assuming they weren't happy with the direction—. JR [00:04:21] No, you know, my dad was not a fan of Tito and I think that my mum wanted to move back to Canada where her family was all from. You know, the conditions there were not great for growing up. Schooling, health, all of those kinds of things and, just living conditions. She wanted to come back and my dad was not happy with Tito, so they came back. SG [00:04:46] I see. I understand your mum comes from a long line of Canadians— JR [00:04:49] Yeah, it's an interesting thing. I mean, you know how she ended, how her and my dad hooked up, but, you know, she comes from a really old line of Canadians. Actually part of the United Empire Loyalist Movement when the American Revolution took place. They came to Canada from the States and settled in Nova Scotia. In Nova Scotia, they got into the brewery business and so they owned brands like Schooner and Moosehead beers, which are quite famous Canadian beers, and they ended up owning the Bluenose Clipper, which is on the Canadian dime, that kind of thing. There were two brothers, my mum's uncles—was it their uncles—it was her mum's uncles. One brother became a machinery salesman because his wife was a temperance woman and didn't want him working in the brewery business. Then the other stayed in the brewery business and became, you know, wealthy and, and my mum's mum moved out to Alberta and was actually one of the first two teachers in Western Canada. They lived not too far away from Banff. I guess it's Waterton—Waterton National Park. She was born on a ranch called Birdseye Ranch. Her mum had met a Canadian, or an American rancher, who had some falling out with the Mormons and was running and so he came to Canada, met my grandmother and they owned the Birdseye Ranch. They they settled at the Birdseye Ranch. And the Birdseye Ranch is now part of Waterton National Park. My Uncle Doug built the big hotel there and was part of that whole thing. Yeah, it's really quite a Canadian story. But in my— SG [00:07:00] Both your parents' history kind of got you involved. JR [00:07:04] Well, yeah, because my mum was a teacher as well. She was a teacher in Alberta, but then she moved out and befriended Syd and Edna Sheard who were part of the left wing movement, so she became a left winger, and my dad always was. They met, no doubt (although I don't know the backstory on this) at some left wing shindig, some union shindig. And the rest, as they say, is history. SG [00:07:33] So you actually started working on a ranch that you're family— JR [00:07:37] Yeah, I worked on my uncle's ranch. It was like 17 square miles of prairie. Some of it was virgin prairie. All of it, you know, I think it was like 40 cows to an acre. It was all that the land—it was so dry—it was all that the land could support. It was like 17 square miles and so it was a big place. They had about, I don't know, a couple of thousand head of cows. I went back there starting when I was 12 and worked as a cowboy. So learned to ride a horse; actually rode a horse in competition, in one instance. Dawn to dusk, either chasing cows or moving them from one area to another area. It was a very interesting place. I mean, on the Buzzard Butte Ranch, is what it was called, and it was on a—there was a string of hills that were used by the natives. They had—you could still see the tepee circles when you rode up the hill. There was these boulders in a circle, which they used to hold down the edges of their tepees. You know, you found arrowheads and different little things because it was virgin prairie. It had never been ploughed. You know, buffalo skulls and—and yeah, it was a very interesting experience. I learned how to drive a car when I was 12, or truck, when I was 12 and drove tractors and did all that kind of stuff until I was 16 when I went fishing. SG [00:09:17] Well, here they used to talk about cowboy fishermen in the industry, but you were the real thing. JR [00:09:21] I was a real cowboy fisherman. Yeah. SG [00:09:25] How did you get involved in the fishing industry? Where is that? JR [00:09:27] Well, my dad talked to a skipper that he knew. He was a fisherman. He was on the boats. I never fished with my dad but I went on a seine boat called the Jessie Island II. Skippered by a Mike Wyshynski, who was a Ukrainian fisherman, a good guy, also a left winger so that's how my dad was connected to him, no doubt. I just went fishing; became a tie-up man. Tie-up man was— SG [00:09:58] Was this intended just as a summer job or? JR [00:10:00] Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. I was still going to school so, you know, the industry was a great place for students in those days because you could go fishing salmon in the summertime. You know, so you would make as much working on a salmon boat in the summertime as you could make— sometimes, depending on the boat that you were on and how much fish you caught—but you could make as much as anybody could in town in a whole year. You could do that in the summertime, so it was perfect for students that go to UBC, and it's perfect for students like me who are still not out of high school at the time. SG [00:10:35] Oh, you're still in high school? JR [00:10:36] Oh Yeah, I was 16. I went to—I went fishing from when I was 16 to when I was 21—when I was 20, I guess. Then I went travelling to Europe for a year, went back to Croatia. Saw some relatives. Was in various places in Europe and then I came back when the then-president Homer Stevens phoned me in Croatia, happened to be visiting there at the time, and said, 'Will you come to work for the union?' I came to work for the union and I started in— SG [00:11:10] He actually tapped you in Croatia? JR [00:11:12] Oh, yeah. He phoned me in Croatia. I got this message and it was sort of like, 'Homer wants to talk to you.' Homer was this guy that, you know, who's the president when I was fishing here. I was involved in committees and on the executive of the local and that kind of thing. I was never close to Homer, in the sense that I knew him well, but I knew him. SG [00:11:36] Sort of larger than life? JR [00:11:37] Yeah, he was a larger than life character obviously, he's, yeah—larger than life was a good way of describing him. I got this call from this Homer Stevens guy that I knew and he was the president of the union. He said, come and work for the union—so I did. That was, I think that was in February of 2002. SG [00:12:02] 2002. No, that can't be right. JR [00:12:03] 2001 maybe. Yes, I guess it was 2001. So February, 2001. Oh, sorry, 1971. Yes. 1971. SG [00:12:15] Right. JR [00:12:18] Yeah. You're on the ball here, Sean. I went to work for the union in February. It was the herring fishery. It was one of the early years; they just had started it up again. Before that it was a reduction fishery and they had this new fishery called the roe fishery. It was just starting. I think that was maybe the second year that it was happening. After about a, you know, quite a few years of layoff. They weren't doing anything. That's where I ended up, and I stayed there for 34 years, I think. SG [00:12:58] But this was a time that a lot of younger (unclear) were coming in. The industry was really kind of growing. JR [00:13:04] Yeah. It was a young person's— SG [00:13:05] What was it like on a seine boat in those days? JR [00:13:06] It was a young person's industry, right. As I say, because you could work on the boats in the summertime. With the herring fishery in addition to the salmon fishery, you're starting to make some real money. You could actually see it as a career, not just as a stop off between, you know, during the summer when you want to make a few bucks as a student. You could actually make some good money between the herring and the salmon. More on the herring than salmon, as it turned out for a good number of years. When I was just in the salmon part of it, there were so many young people—the sons of skippers, the sons of fishermen, the students. I think the average age must have been in their forties, early thirties, maybe the late thirties. I think probably today the average age is in the late sixties, because there's no money in it anymore. It's just a different industry altogether. Living on the boats, working on the boats, it was a lot of work. You were away from home. You worked long, long hours for that period of time. You got well paid for it if you were on a decent boat. You would sort of migrate; you would go where the fish were. This was like this moving city of—you know, the fleet went different sizes but I think when I was fishing there was like three to 400. It got up to over 600 later on, but three to 400. You'd have all these boats with these young people on it and they would go from here to Bella Bella, or they would go from here to to Prince Rupert, or from here to Port Hardy. Everywhere you went, you would have a ready made party, you know, there would just be these guys that would pull off the boats and occupy the pubs. It was just, you know, the size of some of the towns doubled when the fishing fleet was in the area. We would fish for three, four days a week and then you'd come back and work on your net and, you know, take some time off, go to the restaurants and, you know, maybe have a game of pool if you were in a town that had a pool hall. SG [00:15:19] You were fishing a lot more steadily in those days, you weren't doing one day and four days off or whatever? JR [00:15:24] No, you were fishing four days if the fish were running. More, sometimes, you know. You'd always have to go back and have, you know, fuel up and you'd have to grub up. You'd have to, you know, mend your net and do those kinds of things, but sometimes the turnaround would be a day or two. Usually, you'd think of three or four days of being a fishing week, but it wasn't a, you know, if you look at it, it wasn't an eight hour day. It was like you'd get up at four in the morning and you would be in bed by the time you finished delivering by midnight. It was like 20 hour days, 18 hour days, that kind of thing for four days. You were ready to have a little snooze at the end of that and so you look forward to these days in town. SG [00:16:16] This must have been with all of these younger people coming into the industry, this must have had an impact on the union's organising. They had to organise basically every season. JR [00:16:26] Yeah. Well the union was pretty well established in those days too. There was a, you know, just a method. The older crews would bring the younger guys in. You would get signed up. We'd call it boat clearance. You'd clear your boat before you went fishing, which meant that you listed your crew, you signed your dues voucher because we didn't have check off. You'd sign a voucher for your dues every year. You would sign up every year. Doing that kind of thing. Then, you know, that was part of what I did as an organiser. I was in charge of the signing of crews and, you know, just making sure that all of the union regulations and rules were being followed. SG [00:17:19] Was the beach line safety course running? JR [00:17:22] No, it wasn't. That was a later development. It was good development, but it was a later development. When I first started as a beachman, there was no beach line courses. You got taught by somebody on the boat who knew what they were doing, hopefully. SG [00:17:38] Yeah. JR [00:17:38] And kept you safe. It was a very, very dangerous job, you know. Every year somebody, or more than one person, would be killed by a beach line. I mean, the tension on the lines was such that it would just rip the bark off of trees. When it let go you could see the smoke, you know, coming from the trees as the rope—I won't go into all the details, technical detail of what the job entailed, but it basically entailed anchoring the net, which was like a quarter mile long, to the shore with this beach line and the boat towing it in a circle, and the fish swimming into it, and then you would close the net and purse the bottom. That was called a purse seine. That was my job, and as I say, it was a very dangerous job. I think it was just—it was actually, you know, the industry was an incredible—you know, we had stats like—I think we lost, like 5 percent of our membership in the—I forget the year now, but in the tendermen section, that is the packing boats, in one herring season. A number of boats went down because it was just after the fishery got started and there were, you know, boats weren't—we were taking boats out of moth balls to go and fish in the winter fishery. So the weather was not good. It was a tremendously dangerous industry; so we paid a lot of attention to safety. We started the beach line safety course. We lobbied for changes to laws that govern, you know, activity on boats. There was a price to pay, but I think that the industry is in a safer situation, it is today. The boats are safer for one thing. SG [00:19:32] Yeah, right. So I'm assuming that when you went to work for the union as an organiser, you'd already had a fair taste of what it was like to be in the industry. JR [00:19:41] Yeah. SG [00:19:42] What was it like when you first sort of stepped into that office as water (unclear)? JR [00:19:47] Well, it was interesting. I was 20, 21. I was in charge of the seine fleet as the big boat organiser. We had a big boat organiser, a small boat organiser in charge of the gillnet fleet. We had a shoreworker organiser. We had, you know, a Northern organiser and a Vancouver Island organiser, that kind of thing, and I was the big boat organiser, the seine fleet. There I was, at 21, snot-nosed kid ordering about full-grown men. I was from the fleet and I knew lots and lots of people, and, you know, I had a lot of respect for the fishermen. They had some respect for me, I hope. You know, it was the authority of the union and I spoke with the authority of the union as a young organiser. You know, you basically organised that fleet, those people in that fleet, to be part of whatever the union was doing. There were political campaigns, there were things around price in negotiations, all of that. There were, you know, environmental campaigns. The job would be to, you know, during a certain part of the year, early part of the year, you'd get everybody signed up and, as I say, these boat clearances, you'd sign the dues up and do that kind of thing. Then you would follow the fleet on the union boat. You'd go out when they went out. So the boat was always out. There wasn't always the same crew on the boat. Sometimes it would be one of the other organisers or a couple of the other organisers. You'd go out and you would, you know, talk to people. You would be part of the social scene and, you know, you'd visit them. SG [00:21:29] What was the union boat at that time? JR [00:21:32] They had the Chiquita II and then we had a boat called the George Miller after that. SG [00:21:39] These were boats dedicated to organising only? JR [00:21:41] Oh, yeah. They were owned by the union and so, as I said, when the fleet went out we got on the union boat, we followed the fleet. We talked to them about the same things. We would talk to them on the boats about the campaigns that we had to do, things like stopping a dam on the Fraser, or we have to stop oil pipelines from going into Kitimat, or we had, you know, a labour code issue or—you know, there's always the ever-present fight to get better prices. There are many other things that the union did. After we'd done the organising and got everybody signed up, and once we had campaigned and got our our negotiations settled, and whether it caused a strike or not, we didn't know. I mean, you were into negotiations every year or two because that's how long the contracts lasted. You know, we had we had a number of strikes, but we settled many times without strikes, too. So— SG [00:22:39] But there was the sense, I think a lot of that time, was it not, that because of the nature of markets and everything else, that it was an idea that you were going to have to go on strike to basically get a price agreement? That certainly was the view sort of outside the industry. What did the membership think of that? JR [00:22:56] The membership didn't like strikes. I mean, you only have a certain number of weeks to really hit the fish. Nobody likes a strike, but nobody likes going fishing for and not getting paid either, so they understood and they had to fight for a price. You know, we didn't always go on strike. We got settled many times without a strike, but sometimes there were strikes and those were necessary in order to force the companies to pay attention to our demands. I think we got a better price for the people on the decks on those boats, and by extension, for the people that were owning the boats, as well, because the deckhands would take a certain percentage of the catch. They'd have to pay over and above that for the people that own the boats, whether they were seine boat owners or gillnet owners, or whatever. We had a positive influence on the incomes of fishermen and people appreciated that. SG [00:23:56] That was recognised by the fleet, eh? JR [00:23:57] Oh, for sure, yeah. Otherwise they wouldn't have tied up. SG [00:24:00] Right. JR [00:24:01] You know, they tied up because they knew they had to, but we tried to settle without strikes. I mean, who wants to cost a boat a week's earnings when that week's earnings, if it was at the peak of the season, could be at 20-25 percent of your yearly income. You know, you fish for the summer, but you don't start fishing in the early part of the season and make as much money throughout the season. You have the peaks. The runs come in and they're heavy; then you're really fishing hard and then you're at the beginning or the tail end of the season, you're fishing often for not very much at all. Maybe not even paying for your expenses. SG [00:24:44] Yeah, right. One of the things you mentioned is that this was also the beginning of the roe herring fishery, which was a fundamentally different fishery in a whole lot of ways, because was was there not also a change in licencing that had a profound impact? JR [00:25:00] Oh, well, there was a change in licencing. You know, it started not in the herring fishery. It started with, I think, the abalone fishery, but we could see the effects on the abalone of the licencing of the, what they called area licencing. You know, basically it was the start of multiple licencing because the way the fishery could take place before was that you went where the fish was, and the fleet followed the fish. SG [00:25:27] And it could be anywhere on the coast. JR [00:25:28] It could be anywhere on the coast. When you had area licencing, you could only fish in a certain area. That could be, you know, a gulf fishery. There could be a, you know, central coast fishery or west coast fishery or northern fishery. I can't recall the number of areas there were, but there were multiple areas. If you wanted to fish those areas, you had to have multiple licences. So you started to get into boats that perhaps could make more money by renting their licence or, maybe the skipper didn't want to take his boat out and he'd rent his licence to somebody that wanted to fish two areas, or three areas. You got into this whole thing of renting multiple licences to be able to do what you used to do for no cost, or just with a nominal fee to the Department of Fisheries for a licence to fish the coast of B.C. As soon as it became a commodity, this rental commodity, it drove the prices up, you know, exponentially, to the point where you could pay 100 and plus thousand dollars for one season for one licence. The owners of those licences were making big bucks but they weren't producing anything anymore. The crews that were out there fishing that had to rent these licences had to pay a substantial part of their catch to get the right to fish to use these licences. What happened was, you know, the whole income level of people in the industry shifted, or, the division of wealth in the industry shifted from the working fisherman to the people who owned licences. You know, that was bad for the—that's the reason why the industry is now, you know, an older person's industry because nobody can go fishing anymore and make a living on that. You can't marry somebody and have a family and, you know, get a mortgage and live on the amount of money that you're making on those boats anymore. SG [00:27:37] And that was essentially where it started in the roe herring. JR [00:27:39] No, it started in the abalone fishery. Yeah. I mean, you know, the herring roe fishery experienced it, but it was starting in the industry overall. It's in the salmon industry now. It's just grown, you know, because it was a way for people that wanted to rent licences. It was a commodity, and the people that owned the licences got them for free. When you're an old person, you're not going to go fishing. You know, you have these older characters in the industry that are no longer part of the industry, and, instead of retiring, they just continue to take money out of the industry, out of the pockets of those people that are fishing. So it was a real—and it happened big time in the herring fishery. SG [00:28:23] Did you see it start having an impact at that time on bargaining and on union organisation? JR [00:28:28] Yes, because there was, you know, as I say, there was less in it for people that worked on the boats. The whole relationship between bargaining for a price and getting a price and dividing it between the the crew and the boat changed. SG [00:28:50] Mm hmm. Yeah. That would have had a profound impact. JR [00:28:53] Yeah. The other thing that happened was, is that, before the area licensing, there was so much money in the herring fishery, just for a few years, people lost track of the fact that they actually needed a contract [laughter] to have a union. They were getting the boat owners, the people that, you know, not the crews, but the people that own the boats were getting so much over and above what they normally would get, it was just under the table payments, and so people kind of, couldn't afford not to go fishing, so they couldn't afford to go on strike. We had more difficulty getting the companies to pay enough money to keep the crews happy and so it affected everything. It affected the mentality of the fishermen, too. SG [00:29:46] You went on from waterfront organiser to sort of move up into various other positions in the union (unclear). What were they? JR [00:29:53] Yes. So I was an organiser for about seven years and then I became a business agent, which is basically a supervisor of the organisers, and had other responsibilities, one of the top three officer positions. Then I was the secretary-treasurer for seven years, and then I was the president for 12 years, I think. So about 34 years altogether. I didn't add that up. Does it come to 34? SG [00:30:19] Or something like that. JR [00:30:20] (laughter) Or something like that. Yeah, it was a long time. SG [00:30:22] One of the things I wanted to ask you about, too, as I understand, you also got a call sort of out of nowhere from the Great Lakes fishermen. JR [00:30:29] Well, yeah. SG [00:30:30] To try and encourage you to come and organize them. Can you tell me about that? JR [00:30:33] Yeah, that was an interesting story, actually. You know, we had some Portuguese fishermen that fished on this coast, so we knew them. They knew us. Just out of the blue, I think it was a Wednesday afternoon, I think, I got this call from a Portuguese fisherman that I knew and I couldn't quite place him but, you know, not to make fun of his accent, but I know how to do it well, you know, so it was 'John, John, you know. It is Domingos Malose.' (unclear) 'Oh, Domingos', and I finally placed him, and I said, 'Hey. How are you doing?' Then he said, 'Great, great. I got two hundred fishermen. They wanna join the union.' I said, 'Well, we're a B.C. union. We don't have the ability to service the Great Lakes fishery but, you know, I'm sorry we can't help you.' It was Thursday. I got another call in the afternoon and it was, 'John, John, we got 400 fishermen they wanna join the union.' I said, 'It was 200.' 'No, it was 400.' So I said, 'Well, it's the same thing, you know, Domingos. We don't have any structure for us to give you any service. We can help you find another union, but we can't help you from B.C. to do something in Ontario.' Okay, that's fine. Half an hour later, that phone was hung up and the next day, it's a Friday afternoon, by now. 'John, John, we have 800 fishermen. They want to join a union.' I went to Jack Nicol, who was the president at that time, and I was the business agent then and, I said, 'Well, you know, either we have 800 fishermen, which means that there might be the critical mass that you might need to hire somebody that would be able to go and service them and do something for them. Or, somebody there is telling 800 people that he can get them into the union, in which case that should be cut short. Either way. We should probably go.' I was on the plane that night to Windsor, Ontario. After flying all night, you know, it was a nice sunny morning and I saw everybody getting off the plane, out the window. I usually sit back and wait for everybody else to get off. There's no point in standing up and waiting. I'm looking at them and they're saying something to everybody that gets off the plane. Finally, it's my turn and I get off and what they were saying was, 'Are you the man from the West?' I said, 'Well, I'm from B.C. and they said, 'You're the man from the West. Come with us.' They separate me out from the other passengers, put me in a little room, and pretty soon there's this big RCMP woman who comes in and says, 'You know, you're okay and the Ontario Provincial Police will come here and talk to you in a few minutes.' You know, I waited there for another 15 and I looked out the window. There's all kinds of fishermen out there, some of whom I recognised, waiting for me to come out of the room, talking to the police. I went upstairs into this little Windsor airport, and the police were there and they sat me down and they said, 'What are you doing here?' I said, 'Well, I have a call. They want me to go and talk to them about organising a union.' 'Well, what's this all about' I said, 'because this was a lot of police presence for somebody just wants to go talk to a bunch of fishermen in Ontario.' They said, 'Well, we've had threats against your life.' I said, 'Oh, you know, that's interesting.' They said, and so I said 'Well, who's threatening my life?' 'Oh, it's the Mafia, sir.' As it turned out, that one of the places that we were organising was doing some things, whether it was money laundering or whatever, for the Detroit mob. , SG [00:34:30] Oh, really. JR [00:34:30] Yeah. So, finally, I got out of this little room. All the fishermen were there. They took me for lunch. Then they took me to the motel where they were going to give me a few hours sleep. This was the morning, by the time I got there. I had flown all night, and so I wanted a few hours sleep. I looked out the window and they're doing patrol work, right? So the fishermen are driving around thinking this is security, right? As it turned out, those guys were all ex-Angolan soldiers and they were nobody to mess with. The company sent, you know, the Hells Angels or a biker gang in to try and break up their organisation, and they just got run out of town on a rail. You know, they're just, these guys are tough, tough people and, you know, experienced fighters. They weren't just fishermen doing the patrol work. SG [00:35:25] What year is this taking place? Approximately? JR [00:35:26] I guess this was 19? Man, 1980, give or take. Yeah, something like that. When I was still a business agent. That night we went to the meeting and there were 800 people. They had signs up on the wall, all misspelt, 'Union Hurray!' People were, you know, there were men and women, and so, you know, I had about maybe 20 minutes of things to say. It took about 60 minutes to say it because, you know, there is the comment, and then there's the translation, and everybody cheers like hell, and then there would be another comment, and so on it went. It took a long time. People were jumping up and down so high that their chins were touching their knees when they were jumping. After the meeting, everybody, you know, they all crowded around and they wanted to give me money. Women wanted me to kiss their babies. It was, seriously, it was just fun. It was a lot of fun. It was funny, too. I said, 'No, we don't want any money. What we need to do is set up a structure here.' The next morning we were to meet, we went to Domingos Ballis's (unclear) wife's hair salon—this long kind of narrowish room with all of these beehive kind of dryers. There was about 15 chairs in it, and maybe, something like that—15, 20 chairs and the fishermen all sat in these chairs, with the beehive. (laugher). It was just the funniest looking—it was fun. We get it all settled. 'Here's where you put your money. Here's how you set it up. You've got a bank account. You got to have an executive. You've got to have a secretary-treasurer, and this and that.' So you help get them, set that up. By then, there was a crowd that was gathering outside on the street. I can hear it. There was a guy down there waving a Canadian flag and a Portuguese flag. Another guy, they had two big flags that were as big as this room, and they want me to speak. We go to the little park, but I'm getting late for the plane so, I'm just, I only got a few minutes to speak. You know, there's maybe four, 500 people out for that. I went—we went through the whole thing again and Domingos had his bullhorn and the police came. That was another funny thing. The police came to move us along because it was unauthorised gathering and Domingos was tapped on the shoulder to talk to the police. You know, he didn't stop talking. He just turned around full on to the policeman with the bullhorn and the guy's hair is blasting out behind him. (laughter). I spoke for a few minutes and we all jumped in the cars. Domingos was—I was in the backseat, but the car was, had a sunroof and Domingos Ballis (unclear) is going, you know, 10, 15 miles an hour down the street. Everybody's yelling and clapping, and Domingos is doing his Richard Nixon impression. I'm in the back seat. We just reached the outskirts of the little town, or where we had to go, and they just tromped the gas, and it was like, how many miles an hour! It wasn't the speed limit, and the flags were just (loud noise) behind. The car behind had a big pole sticking out one side and a big pole sticking out the other with the flag and off we went to the airport. At the airport they sang, you know that old, the old Vonceremos, Vonceremos (singing). Everybody in the airport's wondering who the hell I am I, and I'm thinking I don't know anymore. SG [00:39:26] They still have this enthusiasm? JR [00:39:30] Yes, they still have this enthusiasm. Anyway, I got on the plane. There are many stories around that. I mean, there was some others that were just as dramatic. SG [00:39:39] But to make a long story short, they did eventually (unclear)? JR [00:39:42] They did eventually succeed. They joined—they signed up, and they eventually joined the Canadian Auto Workers, as a local. They had some pretty tough battles to get those companies to sign up. I had to go back a few times and, you know, we got a member of the union who once, at one time was an organiser for the union to go back there and be their staff person. They got organised and they still are part of the Canadian Auto Workers, as far as I know—or the UNIFOR as it is now. Yeah. SG [00:40:19] Well, that's good. Nothing like having enthusiastic workers who want to get organised. JR [00:40:24] Oh well, if you had a video just on that, I could, I'd love to regale you with some other stories which are just as colourful. Yeah. SG [00:40:36] That's interesting. So after the UFAWU got back into the CLC in '72, it also opened some doors for a lot of union members to become active in the labour, sort of central labour movement again. Did you yourself get involved as well? JR [00:40:55] Yeah, we became—I didn't play a big role at the BC Fed other than to be a staff person that was looking after the business of the union, you know. Getting delegates looked after and that kind of thing. I was on, you know, I joined the Labour Council. I was one of the union reps at the Labour Council and, you know, was on the executive of the Labour Council, became third vice president, eventually second vice president, and then president of the Labour Council—up until about the time that we started having all of the fights around Mifflin. There was just no more time for Labour Council or anything else like that. I dropped the Labour Council business and I dropped the—I was head of the Action Caucus and I passed that off to Jim Sinclair. Let him do that and I got out of that and had to concentrate on the battle. SG [00:41:56] What was the Action Caucus? JR [00:41:58] Oh, it was the, you know, the left wing of the BC Federation of Labour. We introduced policy, spoke on resolutions, made sure candidates got, you know, we sponsored candidates. SG [00:42:10] So you'd have a caucus of those unions, advocated for policy? JR [00:42:13] Yeah, yeah. We called ourselves the Action Caucus. Yeah. You know, it had some success. SG [00:42:21] Right. JR [00:42:22] We had some good success. You know, we went through all of the—you know, it was it was the the leaders of the the Action Caucus were the people who really, they were a big part of it—you remember the old Vancouver peace parades? You know the— SG [00:42:41] The peace walks? JR [00:42:42] Yeah, the peace walks. Right. You know, the people from the Action Caucus, people like Frank Kennedy and Doug Shields and those kind of people, combined with Bruce Yorke and some others. You know, it wasn't 80,000 all at once. It grew. The Action Caucus had some impact. The left wing of the labour movement had a lot of impact. The left wing of the labour movement was part of the Solidarity battles that took place back in whatever year, the hell that was. SG [00:43:17] In 1983. JR [00:43:17] 1983. You know, it started the thing. I was part of the committee that sent in the occupiers of the Premier's office. I don't know if you remember that, but that was kind of the start up of the Solidarity. SG [00:43:35] I do. I remember there was a cartoon about pizzas. JR [00:43:36] Oh yeah. I didn't go in. I was the outside guy and, you know, but George Hewison and Lorne Robson and Mike Darnell was one of the ones that were inside. SG [00:43:46] George Hewison at that time was secretary-treasurer. JR [00:43:48] He was the secretary-treasurer of the union, yeah. I was still an organiser, I think. No, I guess—was I the business agent by then? SG [00:44:00] You would have been the business agent by then. JR [00:44:00] Huh! My, how time flies! Anyway we said we were going to take this over, so we went in there and everybody crowded in and we screamed at the Premier's head civil servant, 'Get out, get out, get out.' Finally he left, and as soon as he left we barred the doors. We had these contraptions planned out and we just clapped the contraptions over the handles and we were locked in, and they were locked out, but they didn't have food. We had to get food into them, and there was a—we planned it. There was a couple of, you know, good looking young women wearing short skirts that drew away the guards. Soon as the guards walked away just a little ways away, they opened up the doors and threw the pizzas in there. I went, I got the pizzas. The cartoon you're talking about is me, with a stack of pizzas. The pizzas went in the door. Then, of course, they clapped. The guards came running back after they saw what was going on, but it was too late. They had food, and they could stay for another day. All of those things, though, those were all things that we were—it wasn't just me, it was other people involved, but it was the Action Caucus that, the characters around the Action Caucus, that made all of that happen. SG [00:45:26] Oh, I see. And I mean it was an effective occupation, I presume. Got publicity and so on for Operation Solidarity. JR [00:45:35] Oh yeah, but the whole idea wasn't for us to take the credit. The whole idea was for us to get the labour movement to do something, right? You know, we had this Bill 19 and 20, which was going to be so bad for the labour movement at the time. We had to do something and so we started it through these kinds of actions. What we really wanted to do was turn it over to Art Kube and the people at the BC Federation of Labour, and have them lead it because it's, you know, it's not going to go anywhere with a fraction of the labour movement, or a faction of the labour movement leading these things. It's got to be the main body of labour. They did, to their credit and, you know, it built up and it became one of the big movements of the day. You know, hundreds of thousands. No, yeah. SG [00:46:26] It was hundreds of thousands of people. JR [00:46:28] Hundreds of thousands of people. Yeah. SG [00:46:32] Well, and even before that, labour support had been really critical for the union when you were under investigation by the Combines too. You were, presumably I would guess an organiser then or— JR [00:46:46] Yeah, I would have been an organiser then. Well, it was interesting, I was at the office the day that the Combines people came in. They walked in and they had a warrant. They said, 'We're here to look at all the papers.' I was alone in the office, so I said, 'You're not coming in here.' I phoned Harry Rankin and I got a hold of Jack Nichol. When I talked to Harry, he said, 'Let 'em in.' I had to let 'em in. Meanwhile, some of the other people started to come back to the office to see what they—but they took boxes of material out and we got it all back but they did a thorough investigation. Simon Wapniarski was the lead investigator at the time and, so it was, you know, it was a life and death thing, you know, had the government been able. It was brought by a group of fishermen from a hostile organisation who were in collaboration with people from the government and the companies basically. I think, well, the government mainly. SG [00:47:52] You were never named at any point though? JR [00:47:53] Well, there were—and that's another interesting story at it because this all ended up in, in fact, in front of a Combines case in court. They wouldn't tell us, you know, for whatever reasons there are, and I'm sure there are some reasons. You can't—it's not like you meet your accuser. The accuser is silent so you never can really defend yourself properly, from charges under the Combines investigation. We couldn't find out who it was that charged this and a whole bunch of other information that we needed to defend ourselves properly. What happened was, that brought the whole thing to a close, was actually the judge called the lunch break. Everybody left the courtroom and Simon Wapniarski left his books and papers on his desk in front of the judge and we all left. They left the little window open in the door to the courtroom. There were a couple of people (I won't mention who) squeezed through that window, grabbed Simon Wapniarski papers and fled the scene. Yeah, and we knew who it was. Simon came back and he looked at his papers. What the hell? All his paper, all his case was gone. I'm sure he could have rebuilt it, but by then we knew where they were going. We knew who was accusing us and everything else so they dropped the case. We knew exactly who it was; it was the group, that group of people from the Co-op in Prince Rupert. SG [00:49:47] Had they been involved in the earlier Combines investigation? JR [00:49:50] No. JR [00:49:51] This was a new one? JR [00:49:51] Yeah. SG [00:49:52] Essentially it was the same argument that fishermen were not legally employees, or workers, and therefore couldn't bargain collectively for prices or (unclear). JR [00:50:01] And we couldn't do things like tie fishermen up. SG [00:50:04] That was unlawful? JR [00:50:05] That was unlawful. SG [00:50:05] It eventually ended up going to an Appeal Court where that, the right of fishermen— JR [00:50:11] Well, actually, I just went to a case, a case that Joy Thorkelson had brought. They're trying to now certify fishermen for the first time. The law was changed to say that fishermen were dependent contractors or something other than employees under the Act. Anyway, so that now they could. It was no longer illegal for them to be seen as a union or as employees. It's just now that we're starting to get union status for these seine boat guys, you know, they're now workers as opposed to being co-adventurers, is what they used to call them. We were always on a knife edge, you know, faced with legal threat because when we went on strike, what right did we have to go on strike? You know, none of the labour laws applied to us. The only thing that kind of prevented us, you know, prevented the companies using government or the law from breaking our strikes in the past was they knew it wouldn't have done a goddamn hoot of good for them because we wouldn't have done anything differently anyway. Also, the season would have been lost because, you know, the season, as they say, a week or two weeks at the head of the, you know, just at the top of the the peak of the season could mean your season's earnings. It could also mean the company season's earnings, so there was a lot at stake. We did what we did, but it was never under the umbrella of being a labour organisation, even though we were. SG [00:52:00] Obviously it had pretty wide support in the membership as well. JR [00:52:03] Oh yes. No, we couldn't have existed. We couldn't have done what we did without the— SG [00:52:08] Even the little hand through the window would probably be involved (unclear) or something. JR [00:52:14] It was funny. I found those those papers. I never knew where they went. There was one member of the union who kept on coming home and he would see, you know, at one point he came home and there was this big muddy footprint on his kitchen table. Somebody was coming into his apartment. His basement suite but nothing was ever stolen. SG [00:52:37] Oh. JR [00:52:38] As it turned out, it was Homer Stevens, who has now passed away so there's nothing that the law can do to him. He's a little beyond their reach. He was coming in to this guy's apartment to read those papers, but they'd put the papers in the guy's apartment without telling him because they wanted to give him plausible deniability. They didn't want him to know that the papers were in his apartment. It was Homer that was coming to read the documents when this guy was at work. Then he'd come home and the place had been broken into. Nothing's stolen. What the heck? That multiple times. Right? It was just, you know, and I finally found, I found a box when we were moving out and I was giving a tour to a bunch of fishermen after drinking a bunch of beer after a meeting one night. I was saying, 'Here's where that happened, here's where this happened.' We looked in the furnace room down in the bowels of the old Fisherman's Hall and there was this box. What the heck is this? We look in it, and it's the Combines investigations papers. And so, yeah. SG [00:53:51] Oh, really? So where are they now? JR [00:53:52] I have no idea and I don't want to know, because I don't know how, I don't know if there's a statute of limitations on this. Yeah. That's how that Combines Investigation was stopped. SG [00:54:05] Right. JR [00:54:06] Yeah. When we found out who it was. SG [00:54:11] But so what? But there was in fact a court case—. JR [00:54:14] Well, it was dropped. SG [00:54:14] That was about the rights of workers and then it went to trial. JR [00:54:15] Oh, that was during—yes, I'm sorry—that was when, that was a long time later. That was when Harcourt was Premier of the province and there was, we had a friendly government in Victoria. We got the Kelleher report and the report was acted on by the government and we got the right to be called workers, but that wasn't a court case as much as it was— SG [00:54:45] Well, there was a federal court case then. It's what's known as the McKay Decision. JR [00:54:50] Oh, right, you're right. SG [00:54:51] And he was in— JR [00:54:52] Yes, I'd forgotten that. JR [00:54:53] Yes. SG [00:54:54] And he said fishermen are, fishermen are, on my examination, the fishermen are indeed workers. JR [00:54:57] Yes. JR [00:54:58] That was subsequently upheld under appeal, and they wouldn't take it to (unclear) JR [00:55:03] Yes. But I think that wasn't a court case. SG [00:55:05] But it (unclear) by the provincial legislation that was— JR [00:55:07] Yes. If I'm not wrong, and I could be on this one, I'm not 100 percent sure. The McKay thing was the less on our hook, then it was on the East Coast Fishermen's. SG [00:55:17] No, because they already had the right, they had the legislation I think since the seventies. We don't need to dwell on that. The story about the people getting the papers is far more interesting than whatever happened in the court. JR [00:55:31] Yeah, well, we did what we had to do. SG [00:55:34] Yeah. You know, going back to some of the union's own activities and whatnot, with regard to fishermen, there were a lot of strikes in the union's history, like '75 and some of the herring strikes and whatnot that were really critical. The big one, the one that really was, I think, a lot of people think was the most critical, was probably the '89 strike because it came after the trade ruling had come down that said there could be no more exclusive Canadian processing for salmon and herring. The companies saw this as an opportunity to really go after bargaining. JR [00:56:11] Yeah. Well, they did see it as an opportunity and they decided to take us on. We made a tactical error, in that, during that set of negotiations, that nearly cost us the union. What it is (and I won't go into how that came about) but it was an error. We went on strike to stop the companies from using the situation of the Free Trade Agreement, the changes. We went on strike, but we went on strike two weeks too early so I explained why it's important. You know, even though it hurts the fishermen the most to go on strike at the peak of the season. SG [00:57:00] Right. When the run peaks. JR [00:57:02] When the run peaks. It also hurts the companies the most. We've always, depending when you look at the fishing industry, you have thousands of, you have a couple of thousand gillnetters who are basically small businessmen. I mean, we said that's not true. We called them union members and workers, but they owned their own boats. They had their own licences. They fished independently for the companies. They moved around from company to company. You know, many of them could, I mean, if they didn't have—if they weren't tied to the company, they could move where they wanted to. In many respects they were independent operators who could go fishing any time. They could go fishing during a strike; they could do anything. What we had to do is, we had to put them in a position of being able to win a dispute in a short period of time, because if it dragged out, there were a couple of things that would happen. One, it would be unsustainable for them financially if they just lost the whole season, which we almost did in '89. The other thing was, is that if we went on strike when there wasn't a peak run, then some of the smaller non-union plants could actually handle the production. It was only when there was large volumes of fish that they couldn't process those fish without the major companies being involved. We went on strike two weeks before we should have been on strike and we had two weeks or two and a half weeks more even. SG [00:58:43] Why? Why was that decision made to go early? , JR [00:58:46] Well, because there were some people that thought, 'Why go on strike when it's going to hurt us the most? Why not go on strike earlier when the peak of the run is not here, and we'll get this settled before the peak of the run.' There's no incentive on the company's part to settle it before the peak of the run. For decades, we just said, no, our policy is—but anyway, that decision was made because the majority rule and they wanted to do it that way this year. I think that, you know, it was also an interesting—that was an also an interesting exercise from a point of view that when we were on strike for those two weeks, we had all kinds of people that just went fishing. The more people that went fishing, the more people that said, 'I can't just stand here and watch everybody else fishing.' We just had defections from the union. It hurt us tremendously, actually. We got back some of those people, but many we didn't. Some just went fishing saying, you know, without even thinking about it. It was just an emotional reaction to seeing other people out there fishing and them not. They weren't catching that much fish at the time. They were able to deliver it to the non-union places. There were places to get rid of the fish while the peak of the run was not there. By the time the peak of the run hit, we were on our last legs. We, you know, it was a tough fight! You know, I went to the BC Fed. I thought we were going to lose the union and whatever. I went to Jack and Bill, and I said, 'We've, you know, we've got to do something. We've got to defy the law and go in and stop some of these small companies from taking fish!' You know, legally, we couldn't do that, but let's somebody goes (unclear) so civil disobedience. You know, the jam and plug was my concept, right? I said 'Why don't we let everybody go fishing?' The peak of the run is here. We're now going to, you know, the whole fleet's out fishing, half the fleet is out fishing. Let the other guys go, and then we'll have the shoreworkers walk out or stay out. Then if the shoreworkers are out, they've got nowhere to deliver the fish. They have this massive amount of fish that would rot on the boats, which would be not sustainable from a public point of view. You know, fish rotting on the boats in, by the thousands of tonnes. SG [01:01:34] Fish hadn't been delivered yet. JR [01:01:35] It hadn't been delivered, so we said jam and plug. What we would do is we would let the boats go out fishing, catch all the fish they could, which was lots. Boatloads, we're talking about, you know, just massive amounts of fish. Then when they came to back to town with their fish, it would be plug. So, jam and plug. When that happened, even the Vancouver Sun ran a headline and it said, 'Oh, there are all kinds of people.' This, you know, this was just an anathema, that the shore workers would not be on strike at the same time. You know, but it worked. The boats came back. All of a sudden, you know, when we were trying to make this decision, the Vancouver Sun had a headline, advising our members to vote against the strategy of jam and plug. The companies were going nuts. They didn't know whether to shit or go blind, at the time. But we did it and they came back. The boats were loaded and the company had to buckle—and they did. They, you know, they were just refusing to meet. We had nothing to talk about. We were in a struggle for our lives. Then all of a sudden they were [nodding] 'Yes, sir. Yes, sir.' We certainly got the agreement that we needed. We saved the union and we went back fishing and we did what we could with the rest of the season. But it was a pretty tough struggle! SG [01:03:01] Yeah. So what happened with the membership after that? JR [01:03:06] Well, as I say, many members left to go fishing, especially in the small boat fleet and so we lost a lot of our strength as far as membership. SG [01:03:15] (unclear) could get them back in those days? JR [01:03:16] Well, in many cases not. You know. We didn't go on strike again after that, but I remember, I was the secretary-treasurer at the time, so I was the head negotiator for the salmon license. Before that I was—our officers divided it up. Jack was the head of the shoreworkers, Jack Nichol. He was the was the president and he headed up the shoreworkers negotiations. I was the secretary-treasurer and I headed up the fishermen's negotiations and then the business agent headed up the tendermen's negotiations. SG [01:03:51] And it was Bill Procopation? JR [01:03:53] No Bill was before me. SG [01:03:56] Before you. JR [01:03:57] This was a few years later; after the '89 strike Bill retired. That was when Jim Sinclair became the business agent. Jim was the business agent and I was the secretary-treasurer in charge of the fishermen's negotiations. We had a contract to negotiate and they wanted to do something like drop the price down to 25 cents and it was 35 cents. We had a telephone conference, coast- wide phone conference with the fleet. SG [01:04:37] For pink salmon? JR [01:04:37] For pink salmon. Yeah. And I just said to the fleet, 'Okay, fine, if you guys don't tie up, we're at where we're at, and I'm gonna sign this agreement for 25 cents or you guys tie up. They all came in—union, non-union, natives, everybody. Came in and tied up and we got an agreement. I think it was 32 cents, maybe, or 35 cents but there was a cut off. I mean, after about 20 cents you could go fishing. The longer you fished, the more money you'd lose because, at the price, you would barely be covering the cost of fuel and, you know, all of the other expenses that you have on the boat. They just came in and we went on strike. A little bit unorthodox. It's not like the normal situation that most unions would face. SG [01:05:29] But it was often, over the union's history, when they had to take sort of unorthodox. JR [01:05:33] It was always unorthodox. We're in an unorthodox membership. We weren't workers; we weren't covered by the Labour Code. We were unorthodox in the sense that we signed up every member, every year. We were unorthodox in the way that we battled, partly because we had no choice. It was either do or die. You know, things like the Combines investigation and—it was just an unorthodox kind of an organisation. You know, we had shoreworkers that made up about half the membership and the shoreworkers were the wage earners and they were workers. They did have the right to strike and the same with tendermen. They were workers as well, but the fishermen were not. It was a combination of these independent operators in what was it, what did they call us? I said it earlier. I can't remember now. Anyway— SG [01:06:30] Co-adventurers. JR [01:06:30] Co-adventurers. The shore workers and the co-adventurers and the—so it was all in one kind of ball of wax and that was unorthodox. So yeah, from stem to stern, it was, you know, speaking in the boat language, stem to stern. You'll note! (laughter) It was, it was unorthodox. SG [01:06:51] For sure. I wonder if we could take a five minute break here just to get a drink of water and go on now into the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers) merger and that sort of thing and where you went with that. JR [01:07:01] And let's talk a little bit more about what happened after the '92 strike and so on. SG [01:07:09] Okay, so we'll go start with that. JR [01:07:11] After that last go round with strikes, we had to concentrate more on what was going on with regards to licencing and the changes, because the federal government saw an opportunity to really deal with us. They dealt with us partly through the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy. They used the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy to split the commercial industry from First Nations. Now when I say that, that's an interesting point because most of the First Nations groups up and down the coast, who relied on commercial fishing, were firmly against the Aboriginal Fishery Strategy. SG [01:07:54] Maybe explain what the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy was here? I mean, basically it was a way of commercialising what had been food and ceremonial sales. JR [01:08:05] That's right. I mean, especially in the river fisheries. You would have a lot of people who would go fishing in river, you know, ostensibly for food. You'd have people that would be fishing for food on the coast as well, of course. There was always this sort of like a under the table thing that would take place, where you would sell fish that were supposed to be for food and, and you would use it for for commercial purposes instead. I don't think anybody really cared that much about that. It started to grow; so people started to get dealt with. Then there was the Sparrow case where he just went out and fished. The courts came down on his side and it just broke open the whole way of doing things in the industry. People on the river started to really fish; it was just a commercial operation that they were doing, as much as for any other reason. You had the federal government stepping in with closing down fisheries to make sure that there was enough fish that was getting up into those areas and this and that. What they were doing is they were closing down the fisheries for who? Most of the commercial, or half the commercial, about half—that's not true—about 40 percent of the commercial fishery was First Nations, Indian boats. Alert Bay, Bella Coola, all of the places up and down the coast with native fishermen, or any town with on the coast had a contingent, had a fishery there, with native crews. SG [01:09:53] Part of the regular commercial. JR [01:09:54] Which was part of the regular commercial fishery. Prior to that, what we did is we said we had to put more of the fishery into the hands of natives. There was an agreement in the industry that we would do that by putting more boats in the hands of natives. Like there would be licences and boats and we would introduce more natives into the fishery, into the regular commercial fishery. That's the way it was done, but then what happened was that the government started to isolate fish. As a result, all of the native boats that relied on fish were suddenly being hurt by the Aboriginal Fishery Strategy, just as much as the non-native fishery. What that did, really, was split the Indian groups between native in-river and non-in-river. I remember going to a lobby to Ottawa with most of the major First Nations leaders. I was the head of that delegation and—but I was the only non-native. There was just one other guy that was with me. He was—I've forgotten his name now—he worked for the union for about a year back then. Oh man! John—anyway, it doesn't matter. Anyway, we were the only two non-natives, but it was to demonstrate that the native people on the coast didn't want the Aboriginal Fishery Strategy as envisioned by David Anderson. What happened was, is that that fishery really created schisms in the industry between natives and non-natives, but also between natives and natives. Suddenly we weren't able to unite coastal communities and we weren't able to unite natives and non-natives around programs like, you know, environmental programs that would help the industry. I'm getting lost a little bit in the weeds here; but it was an important point because, just at that point, also, David Anderson was trying to renegotiate the agreements that Canada had with the Americans. We had all of the fights to keep the industry united around some kind of a program that made sense to everybody, with the government playing this divisive role with the Aboriginal Fishery Strategy. Then, at the same time, we had the Americans taking our fish. We had plenty to do after we didn't have any more strikes. We still had these major battles to try and make sure that we had an industry. Now, it was no longer a question of whether we have a union. It's a question of whether or not we have an industry. So we were able to—you say, what was life like after the '92? It was busy. We had the big tie up in Prince Rupert, where we surrounded the ferries. We had the governor of Alaska saying he's going to send in— SG [01:13:02] (unclear) JR [01:13:02] Okay. You know, it's fine but—so there was lots to do besides just fight for the price, which was almost impossible after that debacle of '89 and '92 and so on and so forth. The union lost a lot of its ability to actually unite the industry around the battle for a price. SG [01:13:22] You know, the whole Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy was very divisive within the union itself, as well as being divisive in the industry. JR [01:13:29] Yes, I mean, for an organisation which had fought for native rights for decades, it was part of our DNA, to suddenly say 'no', to a group of native people that were, who happened to be on the river, and were—you know, it was very difficult for some people just to stand out and say, 'No, we're not in favour of those native rights.' They were complex issues as well, so it was difficult to really boil it down to just black and white. You know, we had some problems with our own, with—in some sections of our own industry. When you consider that—especially within the shore section—when you consider that there was just a majority of people that were natives, in our industry, in our union. Really, I don't know what the percentage was to be precise, but it was a huge number of people that were from places like Prince Rupert. The workforce there was mainly native people. It was a really difficult thing for us to try and manage. But you know. Yeah. SG [01:14:46] Well, and at one point the union joined the Fisheries Survival Coalition, which had waged a long, costly court battle against the AFS. Then later the union withdrew from that, so I'm presuming that there were various opinions on that over the years. JR [01:15:07] Well, yeah, but I don't want to get into that. SG [01:15:11] Right. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah, I mean, that's what happens with divisive issues here. JR [01:15:16] Well, I mean, it's not so much I mind getting into it, but it's a subject all on its own, you know, and it's too complex to fit into the next 10 minutes of discussion. I don't want to go into that level of detail, and I don't want to be simplistic about it either. Once you get into that it's— SG [01:15:36] It's at this point too that you join various other unions in negotiating a merger with CAW at this time too. What was the thinking that went into that from your own perspective? JR [01:15:51] It was just the finding a home, some support. We were—given all of the things that we had gone through, there was a growing realisation that we (just to be on our own like that) was gonna—it was very difficult to do. We joined the CAW as a self defence mechanism as much as anything else. The CAW at the time was, you know, a very independent Canadian minded organisation. We had a lot of respect for Bob White and for Buzz Hargrove and some of the people that were leading the union at the time. We thought it was a good home for us and it would offer us security. It was basically just for some security for the union, given the fact that we had lost membership; our fishery had gone down, so there was less days fished. It was becoming, you know, clear to us that we weren't going to have the vibrancy that had followed us for all the other decades previous. We needed to find a home. SG [01:16:52] Right. Was the decision of the fishermen in Newfoundland to join CAW? Did they (unclear). JR [01:16:59] That had nothing—no. SG [01:17:00] It wasn't. JR [01:17:01] But it made it a more attractive organisation. It already had a lot of fishermen in it. We knew all of those people, and they were people that that had worked with us on all kinds of fisheries matters previous. SG [01:17:15] Richard Cashin. JR [01:17:16] Richard Cashin and— SG [01:17:18] And held a big rally at the union hall over Canadian fishing industry and whatnot. JR [01:17:24] Yeah, we knew those people well. In fact, it was Homer Stevens, as much as anybody else, that organised the union on the East Coast and it was later, you know, it was later taken over by Richard Cashin and his crew. We knew them well.They were already, they had already joined the CAW and that made the CAW a, you know, an attractive place. It was a fishing organisation in a way. SG [01:17:52] Right. It really was in a sense those two big issues, the Aboriginal Fishery Strategy, the division that brought, and then later the Mifflin Plan. Really, sort of dealt a, body blow to the union? JR [01:18:04] Yes. Well, it dealt a body blow to the industry. This crippled the industry. The fact that with the union's not powerful anymore doesn't mean that the people that are on the boats aren't suffering as a result of the Mifflin Plan. As I said, there's a reason why the average age of the industry has gone up. It's because people that are raising families and having to buy houses and actually make a living, can't make a living anymore; so it really badly damaged the industry. Without an industry, you can't have a union. I don't know, there won't even be a fishery this year. I don't think. You know, if there is a fishery, it would be a day or two here or there. They closed the last Canadian fish cannery two years ago, I think it was. SG [01:18:52] Yeah, 2016. JR [01:18:52] That was the last and I think that's the last organised, the last unionised salmon cannery in the world. They closed that. Not that I think that the government of the day wouldn't have been happy that was the outcome. You know, in fact, I'm sure that that's part of what he was doing. SG [01:19:10] Yeah. I don't think people realise the enormity of that; as you just say, that the last unionised cannery in the world. JR [01:19:17] Yeah, the industry, you know, just basically what is happening is what we said would happen. You know, what we said would happen would be the demise of the fishing industry if we allowed certain things that Anderson and company wanted to do; if we allowed that to happen, we would lose the industry. And we did. SG [01:19:37] At the same time, one of the things that I think is really striking about the, not to use a bad pun, but— JR [01:19:46] When I say we lose the industry, I'm sorry, we've shrunk the industry down to a fraction of what it used to be. SG [01:19:51] As the Mifflin Plan was probably one of the biggest campaigns ever in the industry's history to preserve something. JR [01:19:59] Yeah, it was. SG [01:20:00] How did you see it at the time? JR [01:20:01] It was one of the biggest threats to the health and well-being of the industry that ever had been. And it was. SG [01:20:11] You get news of this in the, you know, in various union circles and whatnot. What goes through your mind as you try to figure out how you're going to contend with this one—when the Mifflin Plan was announced? JR [01:20:26] Well, we contended with it, contended with it the way that we had contended with every other thing, you know, with unorthodox alliances and actions. We did things like organised an alliance between us, the coastal communities, the First Nations up and down the coast, environmentalists. Because we had this division, this schism on this question of the AFS, it was more difficult to get First Nations broadly, fully behind what we were talking about. We had less ability and we ended up not being able to quite hold the same alliances that had stopped the dams on the Fraser River and stopped the oil pipes and so on and so forth. The government was determined to make sure that this happened, so, you know, we saw it as a threat and it was. SG [01:21:23] At the same time we got things like, in Alert Bay where they had a whole day of mourning that involved the whole community, First Nations and non-native, eh? JR [01:21:34] Yeah. SG [01:21:36] As I recall you were one of the speakers on that. JR [01:21:40] Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, when you think about this. I forget what year it was, probably around 1985 or something like that. Give or take a year or two. I think that its telling that the two highest per capita earning towns in Canada were Sointula and Alert Bay. Sointula was an old Finnish community. Alert Bay, which was on the island just, not too far away from Sointula, on Cormorant Island, was primarily a native fishery, native people. After the Mifflin Plan, when you go to those places now, there isn't boats tied up there like they used to be. There's, you know, the towns are poor in comparison to what they were. You can see the dramatic difference, the amount of change that took place as a result of Mifflin and Anderson and the things that they did around the fishery. You know, you ended up with with disaster economically for both First Nations and non-First Nations people. SG [01:23:01] In a sense, that Mifflin Plan was, was something that was just too big despite the huge outcry and the huge effort. JR [01:23:10] Yeah, it was. They were just going to do it. SG [01:23:11] It was just too big. JR [01:23:12] Yeah. They were going to do it. Yeah, yeah, they were going to do it. SG [01:23:15] I think a lot of people left the industry at that time through the buyout I guess? JR [01:23:19] Well, lots of people. Well, yeah, there was a big buyback. People could see the writing on the wall. They got rid of their boats, sold their licences, rented their licences. Sold their boats, kept their licence, rented their licences. Lots of licences don't have boats to go with them anymore, you know. There would be a guy sitting at home in his rocker with his old salmon licence in his pocket or his herring licence, or his black cod licence, or whatever. He's still renting it out, you know, not doing anything. He's not part of the industry. He's not, you know, and that's kind of probably where the most money is made, is by the rental of those licences. SG [01:24:01] I guess as long as there's fish, those quotas will continue to exist. JR [01:24:04] As long as there's fish, those guys will have those pieces of paper at home. You know, they'll age and instead of selling their boat and having a platform for people to go out and make a living, you have, you sell your your licence. I mean, it's interesting; I can't find a decent piece of black cod anymore in any of the stores. None of it—you know, they're all small fish. Apparently it's because there's just one black cod owner now, and he's got all the licences, and he sells all the best product to Japan and other places like that. You can't even get a decent piece of smoked black cod anymore. Now, having said that, what you can get is okay, it's just not the best. SG [01:24:52] Right. Because it is going to Japan. Yeah. Like so many things. JR [01:24:56] Yeah. It's it's really made a real mess of, I think, of the industry. You talk to anybody in it, they just shake their heads. You can have somebody maybe listening to this interview and saying, 'Oh, Radosevic is full of bullshit!' but go to anybody in the industry these days—anybody—and with very few exceptions, it is just not the industry that it once was. SG [01:25:22] I no, I think many people think it's disappeared. They don't, they're not aware of it. It doesn't have the— JR [01:25:28] Well, I was—in 1992, the year—I retired in '94, I think. A momentous day, so I should be able to remember the exact date and time and minute, but I can't. In '92, we went up to Adams River. Adams River, it takes about, optimally, somewhere between 15, 1.5 rather, and 2.5 million fish to spawn. SG [01:25:59] Right. , JR [01:26:01] I think they had something like 24 million return that year. There were no fisheries because they didn't have the ability to manage a fishery. They'd gotten rid of all their science and management people. They didn't know what was going on because they had no trawlers fishing outside anymore to really assess how much fish was coming. They wouldn't let people fish in the Gulf because there was one small run, I think something like 60 fish in the Cultis Lake fishery that might have, we might have caught a fish or two if we'd had a fishery. They let all of that fish go up to the Adams River. We went up there, and I tell you, there was so many fish, that the fish didn't, they were right—we talked to a science guy that had gone down there diving and he said, 'There's fish right from the top, from the surface of the lake, right down to the bottom,' because we were asking, 'How come the fishes noses are up?' You could see them all poked out of the water. That's because they couldn't get in there; it was that solid in terms of fish. Fish were going into the spawning channels where they were digging up the eggs of the fish that had gone in before and had spawned. Ones were coming in later, doing the same thing. Then they were dying, of course, because salmon die after they spawn. They were rotting up the grounds and we had a collapse of the run. In fact, you know, it scientifically, I think it shows that the collapses of salmon happened more often following an over-spawn than when they have an under-spawn. It's counter, counterintuitive in many respects. So yeah. You had 24 million fish, just gone to waste. Well, how can you have an industry when you have that kind of thing. SG [01:27:55] That kind of management. JR [01:27:56] Yeah, you can't. SG [01:27:57] Well, I think one of the the other issues, as you earlier mentioned, that appeared at this time was the renewed battle over the Pacific Salmon Treaty. The highlight of that, of course, was all of the stuff that happened up in Prince Rupert, which you were directly involved in were you not? JR [01:28:11] Yeah. SG [01:28:13] Run me through that? In particular, the ferry incident that caught everybody's attention in '97. JR [01:28:22] Well, that was another interesting story. (laugher) Yeah, it's hard to boil these things down to just a short clip, but I'll try. We'd had the Americans fishing our fish as they came into the Skeena and into those northern spawning areas. We weren't fishing them because of environmental concerns, but the Americans were fishing them. David Anderson, who was the Minister of Fisheries, was kowtowing to the Americans. Wouldn't stop, wouldn't do anything to stop them fishing, while we were closed down. We didn't want to fish. We were saying, 'Close it down, that's fine, but let's not have the Americans catching our fish.' The treaty said that Canada—the whole idea of the treaty is that they would try to manage fisheries so Americans would catch fish that were heading to their areas of spawning and Canadians would catch fish that are herring. They were doing the same thing off of Point Roberts. They were also intercepting all kinds of salmon. We had some demonstrations down there, too. Basically, they were just allowing the Americans to run roughshod over Canada, to our detriment and to the environment's detriment. We weren't scrambling to go fishing on stocks that needed to be preserved but the Americans were. Anyway, we said—well, one of our fishermen said, 'I'm not doing this.' He anchored his boat in front of the American—he took, the demonstration took the form of anchoring in front of the ferry or the cruise ship, rather, that goes from Prince Rupert to Anchorage. It stopped the boat from leaving; so there's 700 passengers on this boat. As soon as he did that, all the other fishermen started coming in and, and tying up in front of the boat. I got a call saying that this was going on so I went to Prince Rupert. It was the fishermen so it was my bailiwick in the union. Jim Sinclair happened to be up there. I said, 'Well, you head back and look after the shoreworker's stuff. I'll look after this problem, up here.' Yeah, so for four days we were in meetings with the police. The police couldn't do anything because they had one little patrol boat and they had hundreds of boats tied up around the around the ferry. SG [01:31:01] They're they're pretty militant by this time. JR [01:31:04] Oh yeah. You know, they were, just yeah, they weren't going anywhere. I think that, you know, we were finally able to say, 'Okay, we can't just stay. We can't keep this ferry.' We had the Governor of Alaska saying, 'We're going to send gunships down there.' Probably if it was post-9-11, he would have. JR [01:31:26] He actually said gunships? JR [01:31:28] Oh, yeah. He wanted to send in the navy to go and rescue this, or to break up this rabble that was surrounding the ferry and taking 700 Americans hostage. (laughter) It was something, but we knew we couldn't stay there. Finally, we said, look, you can't, you know, there was no out, right? The fishermen had done something that was tremendous in a way, but they had no strategy for getting out of it. You can't just stay there and hold them forever. We said we're not going to, you know—why don't we say, 'Look, we're demanding that David Anderson come to Prince Rupert and meet with the fishermen before we let that ferry go.' David Anderson said no but after about day three or four and there was pressure building up and we had North America looking at this thing. You'd go to a meeting and it would be like, literally, like 50 different cameras. You know, they'd be from everywhere across the country and in the U.S., you know, cameras from New York and Miami and Los Angeles. You know, for it was just like a—it's a real serious situation that was developing. Finally, David Anderson flew to Prince Rupert and had the meeting with the fishermen. We said, 'Okay, we will let the ferry go.' That was the kind of thing that we ended up having to do, or the industry ended up having to do. That wasn't just the union. In fact, Kim, who became the president of the union, owned the boat. He was the guy that originally tied up in front of the ferry and went to sleep. SG [01:33:05] Oh, he was ground zero? JR [01:33:06] He was ground zero; he was the first guy. There were a lot of non-union fishermen involved in that. Some of them didn't like the fact that I was there and making it look like a union event. It was partly a union event and so I was there. It was that kind of action that we tried, but it didn't work, at that stage. I mean, the government was just not willing to stand up to the Americans and we have a North American Free Trade Agreement that allows them to do whatever they want to do with Canadian fish. If there was any fisheries and there needed to be anything canned we'd just send it to the Alaskans to get that done now. Yeah, it was just—it was, in a way, it's a very sad story. SG [01:34:00] So it galvanised a lot of attention, but didn't really change the (unclear) fishing industry. JR [01:34:04] It didn't, no. We made them pay politically; we made them uncomfortable for doing what they were doing. There were many actions. Not all of them were quite as militant as that, but there were many actions up and down the coast at that time. The fishery is in the purview of the federal government and they're the ones that say what happens to the fishery. They had in mind that the commercial fishery was not the best use of water, that they downgraded the importance of, or the priority of fish from where it always had been, which is food for First Nations. No— environmental, food for First Nations, commercial, and then sports. Well, they put sports before commercial. Everything that takes place now, takes place on that priority ladder from the point of view of if there's going to be some fish, who gets first crack at it or who doesn't. You know, that was very intentional; they knew what they were doing and they did it. SG [01:35:23] In 2004, you stepped down as president of the union? JR [01:35:26] I did. SG [01:35:28] You know, you were a relatively young guy at that time. What, 55? JR [01:35:30] 54. Yeah. SG [01:35:31] 54. Yeah. What went into that decision? JR [01:35:36] What, 34 years is not enough? SG [01:35:38] No, I know. (laughter) (unclear) Fisherman for life, president for life, you know. No, I'm just wondering what was your thinking at the time you decided? It was a long career. JR [01:35:51] Well, my thinking was, yeah, it was a long career. Well, my thinking was, I had a young family, you know, and 34 years was enough. It was time; and so I did. SG [01:36:06] At the same time, you had also begun a lot of work in this, what was then the Protein for People? JR [01:36:12] Yeah. That's a very interesting little project. SG [01:36:19] How did that come about? That emerged out of your connection with the industry, eh? JR [01:36:22] Oh, absolutely. It actually came from a thought that occurred to me when I was driving home from sitting down with the companies in that, in what was it? What year was that? 19? Anyway, it was a set of negotiations and we were talking about the price of fish. The companies wanted to give us 15 cents a pound for fish and which, as I say, was below the cost of production, so there's no way that was going to happen. We were kind of stuck again. We didn't know what to do. I was driving home and I was pissed off at what was going on. I heard on the radio that the Vancouver Food Bank had something like 7,000 people a week going through their systems. I was thinking, what the hell is wrong with?—and the thing that they needed most was protein products, canned fish, those kind of shelf stable protein products. They can't deal with fresh product because they don't have the freezing and the capacity to handle that kind of thing. The canned, canned pinks, I'm thinking. What's wrong with this picture? We've got all of this fish going to waste and we got all of these people that are hungry for it. You know, so I thought, well, let's do this Protein for People project. I got back to the office and we had some money left over from one of our previous projects. We donated a bunch of salmon to the food bank and got some PR for it, trying to explain to the people in the public about what it's, you know, what fishermen are getting paid for it again. It was an interesting project from the point of view that the food banks eventually, you know, they obviously wanted it. We started it and it was about two years, I guess, before I retired that this started. Once I was leaving, I knew that nobody else at the union wanted to deal with this, so I took the project with me and I talked to a few unions and I said, 'Here's the deal. Either, you know, it's got some good potential, and either we're going to carry on with it or I'll let it go.' They said, 'No no, let's get this this happening.' I think at the time we had about six unions that were interested in coming with me and doing this thing; it's now about 32 unions. Again, it's technical, so I don't want to get into technical explanations, but we ended up starting to subsidise product to food banks rather than just donating. The reason for that is that we could put more product out. We had a new partnership with the Overwaitea Food Group. That's the Save-On-Foods that would deliver it anywhere around the province. We had a way to get it to all of the food banks around the province. We started selling it for about 25 percent of the retail value, which is below normally what a food bank would have to pay in a place like like Prince George or whatever. We would get the product for a buck. We'd subsidise it down to 59 cents instead of the two dollars, and plus that they'd have to pay for it in the store. Well, the fact that we had the delivery process set up the way we did meant that a food bank could order something from Prince George and get it for the same price as a food bank in Vancouver could order it. It's grown now from about the retail value of about maybe at that time about $50,000 to a retail value of over a million now. Then we changed the name so it would be more clear that it was a union owned and operated project. It became the Union Protein Project as opposed to, you know, Protein for People, which was a little bit murky in terms of who owns it and operates it. SG [01:40:35] (unclear) So this is a very much a union. JR [01:40:37] Oh, I think, yeah. We do community events. It's a place for union activists to be involved with the community. They get to meet people from the food bank. We get calls from people at the food bank all the time saying, you know, thank you very much, or occasionally, you know, I'm working in this place. Which union should I talk to? There's lots of things that go into the project other than just, you know, getting salmon into the food banks. We've got our own label on all of the products for peanut butter, salmon and tuna now. The project is growing. We've moved into Alberta. We're about to go into Ontario. It was an interesting little project that's taken place over the last 12 years. SG [01:41:29] One of the things that's always troubled a lot of trade unionists is donation to food banks because it was originally an emergency measure, in the eighties. Now it's become sort of institutionalized, but this one puts a much more effective union face on it than it possibly has in the past. JR [01:41:46] Well, it's very effective, but I always find that a little bit phoney, to be honest with you. You know that, not to help people because they shouldn't have to be in that situation. You know, I think, we have to fight for—and our motto is, it's changed over the years as well, but our current motto is 'Food security through good jobs.' We have to fight for good jobs. What does that mean? Usually, it means union jobs but anyway, we have to do things to change the Labour Code and do all kinds of things that help people. In the meantime, we don't see them starve. In the meantime, we have to connect with those people and, you know. I think that— SG [01:42:26] So, you've been doing that. JR [01:42:27] We've been doing that. I think that people say, 'Oh, well, you know, they shouldn't be here,' because they should, we should be fighting for jobs. Well, just saying that doesn't connect you with the people that need to be involved in the fight for the jobs. You know, we need to be able to—so we're involved at the community level, people on food bank boards. You know, it's an opportunity for—you know, in next week, we're going to an event that we'll be recognised at, that over a thousand people from the Surrey area will come, supporting the food bank in Surrey. People will understand that the union movement is part of that community. Sure, we fight for unions. We try to get people signed up and go to vote for governments that will put in decent Labour Codes and, you know, housing issues and medical issues, all those kinds of things. We do that, but our chief calling card is our ability to put a million dollars worth of salmon into those food banks and advertise the fact, while we're doing it, advertise the fact that it's the trade union movement that's helping do that. We give credit to the Save-On people and the companies that we're involved in for being part of the project, but, you know, we have a mission. SG [01:43:51] Yeah, that's good. Okay. Well, I think the only thing I want to ask you about is that more of an aside question, but there's this record here, which you apparently were the—it was your brief career as an executive producer? How did that come about? This particular record came out in 1982, of George Hewison, and it says that there were going to be more. I don't know, were there ever more records that came under that? JR [01:44:25] Did you see that? Yeah, that's funny. Well, it was—George and I were pretty good friends. I always thought that he had a pretty good music sense. He knew what, how to perform. Bob Wishinski, same thing. I mean, a very talented piano player. I was friends with them both. You know, I'd done things. I was the the president of the Canadians for Democracy in Chile movement after the 1973 coup. Then also, I was the head of the Canadians Against Racism. For all of those kinds of things, we used to do things like have concerts at the Queen E Theatre and or some other consciousness raising events, or fundraising events. I had some background in putting those shows on and, you know, George and I thought, 'Well, let's do something here. Let's just have some fun and produce a record.' So we did. We travelled. As part of this, we rented a Winnebago and four of us were in the Winnebago. We went from here to Toronto and back, singing at various centres across the country, selling that record and having a good time while we were doing it. SG [01:46:03] How did the record do? JR [01:46:05] Well, we had to do a reprint. SG [01:46:07] Oh, well, that's always a good start. JR [01:46:09] Yeah, I think I got like 2,500 the first go round and then another 2,500, so 5,000. SG [01:46:17] The reason I raise this is because often the musical side of what happens in the labour movement is kind of put aside as an afterthought. You know, in many cases it wasn't an afterthought. It was very much part of people's everyday thinking culture. JR [01:46:30] As part of our events that we do now for the Union Protein Project, you know, our events are more like Labour Days, the way I describe them to people. They're like Labour days, but not for Labour people. They are Labour Days for people at the food fank. You know, you have—I don't know if you're aware of it or not, but most people that go to the food bank have an address. It's required to have an address. So they're workers, right? JR [01:46:55] They're not, you know, they have to have a job, they probably two or three jobs trying to pay their rent and have it, you know, at minimum wage. We have these events and they're kind of like the Labour Day. What do I mean by that? It's free hotdogs or hamburgers or whatever the heck else. They're all, that's all done by people wearing union paraphernalia. There's a, you know, a connection with the union movement, with the kids and their parents that go for the free food. We have booths or tables that have things like housing or health or, you know, sometimes it'll be the get-out-the-vote people that will go to those things try and get—because that's the only place that you're going to, you know, you don't even see those people most of the time. I mean, those people don't get out to vote. They don't go to political rallies. Most—lots of them are English-as-a-second language. We have these events. I was just at one a week ago in Surrey, about 400, 500 people showed up. There was face painters and balloon clowns and labour music. You know, so we have music, and pretty good band, play labour music at the event. A three piece band. You know, we, we pay for it. We just—and you know, and as I say, balloon clowns, activities for kids, kids games, that kind of stuff with political action. We had the MP for the—no, the MLA for the area coming out and said a few words, patted some backs and shook some hands and kissed some kids and (laughter) that kind of stuff. It's a fun kind of non-political event that, you know, and we have to—we're a non-profit society so we can't be overtly political but it's political, right? It's a union event and it's, it's definitely got socially— SG [01:48:56] Well, it puts the unions in front of a community that wouldn't traditionally see one. SG [01:48:58] Yeah, exactly. It's the only place you're going to see those people. That's what I say to unions that say, well, you know, you don't want to be doing this stuff with the food banks. You know, where else are you going to talk to people that are working, the working poor? SG [01:49:13] Good point. JR [01:49:14] You know, as you sit in your high and mighty chair.

: Interview with Nick Carr; 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., Monday, April 4, 2016, Interview: Nick Carr (NC) Interviewer: Sean Griffin (SG) Date: April 4, 2016 Location: Vancouver, B.C. Transcription: Jane Player SG [00:00:02] So first of all, Nick, can you give me your full name? NC [00:00:06] My full name is Nicholas John Paul Carr. SG [00:00:11] And the last name is spelled? NC [00:00:13] The last name is spelled in Anglicized C- A-R-R. SG [00:00:19] Okay, so that's a name of originally of Croatian origin, is it? NC [00:00:25] Yes. Yes. SG [00:00:26] That's where you're from? What would it have been in Croatian? NC [00:00:29] It would be C-A-R surname, just one R. SG [00:00:34] Oh, I see. NC [00:00:34] When I got here into school, at Seymour School, they signed me in as C-A-R. The person that took me there because there was none of the family could speak English, it was a friend. He said, 'Oh no, you can't put C-A-R. That's automobile. You got to have two Rs in there.' So, she said, 'Okay, two Rs.' And ever since then,1938,I kept C-A double R. SG [00:01:01] Just because some some teacher decided that you had to have two Rs. NC [00:01:06] That's right. Exactly. SG [00:01:06] Isn't that typical? NC [00:01:07] Yeah. SG [00:01:07] So where are you from in Croatia? What part of Croatia actually? NC [00:01:11] Northern part, actually, on the coast close to the Italian border, on the Adriatic. The name of the town is (unclear) It's quite a well-known town. There's four, or five, six towns within seven, eight, ten miles that are right on the coast, and they cater to tourists—bed and breakfast mainly, now especially, but even before. So yeah, that's where I—I was fairly young. I was like 12, 13 years old when I first came over and came to Canada, but that's where we were. It was quite a—I had no mother or father over there. I lived with one grandmother, the other grandmother, uncle and aunt. Wherever I was, I stayed and ate there—if they would let me. If I did something wrong— and that was 99 times out of 100 every day that I did something wrong—they would kick me out and I would go someplace else. SG [00:02:28] Were you orphaned or had your parents? NC [00:02:30] My father was here. My mother died over there and left me with my grandfather and grandmother. As kids over there, we were urchins. We go any place you can get something and, in my part, I was attached to nobody in particular that had to look after me. If I wasn't there, they would think I was someplace, some other relations, and nobody cared. So I went all over. It was comical because there's one fellow here, they're still living here. Him and I and two other fellows left town and went up into the mountains. The mountains, with views. They were no higher than Burnaby Mountain, but we went there and stayed there four days, you know. We dug potatoes out of the ground, cleaned them up and ate them like that, or went into some places there was any fruit, at all. We'd go and steal the fruit and eat that, and we survived. When we came back to town, to home, the three fellows that were with me, their mother and father beat the shit out of them. They really beat them up because they couldn't find them. For me, nobody knew that I was gone. I was happy as a pig and lark. No, nobody cared. And so I would—I knew almost everybody, and everybody knew me. SG [00:04:02] Isn't that incredible, though? When you came to this country, then to Canada, how did that come about, if you had to know— NC [00:04:10] Well, my sister (oldest sister) she got married and in 1932, 1933, and her husband was already over here fishing. He went back there and married her and brought her over. Four or five years later, the war was imminent, was starting out. My sister got my father into sending for me before the war started. That's how she induced my father to—and what the bad part of it was at that time that my father had to have $3,000 in the bank before he could apply to bring me over so I wouldn't be on relief. It took almost two years for him to accumulate that kind of money. I would have been here two or three years earlier, but I was, I think, second or third last trip from Europe over to Canada before the war started. Before I think (unclear) was the last trip that she came over from the old country after the borders were closed. They wouldn't let anybody out and, or, Canada couldn't take anybody. SG [00:05:37] So, in fact, you got out just before the border closed down. NC [00:05:39] Just before. In fact, what it was, Austria was taken over in February 1938 and I came over in May 1938. We were travelling on the train. You could see every 50, 60 feet there was a soldier on the train with a rifle, her leg standing guard. SG [00:06:00] So your father, in earning his money, was he fishing here this time? NC [00:06:04] Yes, he was. SG [00:06:05] He was working here as a fisherman? NC [00:06:05] Yeah, he came over in 1927, just not even two years after my mother died and left me over there. Well, left the other three girls too, not just me, but I was the youngest. SG [00:06:21] What did your mother die from at an early age? NC [00:06:23] I'm pretty sure, I think it was TB. SG [00:06:28] Oh, really? Which would have been common at the time. NC [00:06:31] That's right. Common at the time. In fact, I always test positive TB. SG [00:06:39] Really? NC [00:06:40] Yup. Always test positive, but, in fact, when I had my—What was it? I had to have—oh, that pacemaker, and they tested me. No. I had pleurisy and they tested me and they found that I tested positive on TB. They got all my daughters and my wife and everybody do go for a test. I told them, I says, 'In the old country where I come from 90 percent of the people would test positive because they were either in contact or part of the family that had TB. That was quite common at that time. SG [00:07:24] Yeah. So that wouldn't be unusual. A lot of your generation tested positive for that now. If your dad was a fisherman here was the town you came from was it sort of a fishing community? NC [00:07:35] Oh, yes. Yes, mainly, either a stonemason or a fisherman. SG [00:07:40] Oh, I see. NC [00:07:41] As long as there was nice weather, they were all fishing. Nine times out of ten that—a lot of people couldn't go fishing in the wintertime because it was bad weather. Those that were young enough and they were smart enough, that could do the stonework. Everything in the old country was made out of stone, hardly any wood at all in building homes. What it was also, my grandfather's brother, which is my father's uncle, he had a business of building homes and people that knew him or related to him and they would be the first ones to hire when needed any kind of worker. It's mainly labour; it's not trades people. It was all mainly labour and that's where my father used to work two or three months in the wintertime they weren't fishing. He started fishing and he did have—and comical part of that is that when he wanted to go to Canada, he had to go as a farm labour, and he had to go and work on the farm. They were, oh half a dozen of them I think, if not more. They were brought from (unclear) from the former Yugoslavia, into Canada and worked outside of Winnipeg on the farms. What they heard up there, they knew that there was good on the West Coast. There was fishing people. They were all fishermen that were there. Would you believe it—the day or two or three months after they got here in early April, then they took off, left the farm and walked all the way to Vancouver. SG [00:09:36] From Winnipeg? NC [00:09:36] From Winnipeg. SG [00:09:37] Holy smoke! NC [00:09:37] Yes. [00:09:38] That's quite some walk. NC [00:09:39] That's some walk; a lot of people don't believe it. How did they walk? They followed the train tracks and through the mountains and everything else on through following the train tracks. I think my father told me that it took them almost four months to get to because they had to stop, sleep and eat and that, whatever they could. SG [00:10:06] They basically came as a group, leaving the farm work, to try to go fishing on the West Coast? What would the fishing technology have been where you came from? What were they fishing? Was it seining or longline? NC [00:10:17] Mainly seining. Mainly seining. I don't know if there was any gillnetting at all at that time. There must have been but they were seine boat fishermen pulled by hand. Some of them, in fact, my father was one of the few that knew how to mend nets, and that's one reason that he got hired a little bit faster than the others, because there's always repairs on the nets when you're working. SG [00:10:49] This would have been a natural sort of source of fishing industry workers and fishermen from places. NC [00:10:54] Oh, yeah. SG [00:10:56] Which is why there's so many Croatians in the fleet. NC [00:10:58] That's right. That's right. A lot of the people like even after the war, but before the war too, a lot of them was brought over by somebody that was either related to them or a parent that was already over here and brought people from over there—and just for for fishing. NC [00:11:17] Right. When you came here, you went to school, to— NC [00:11:22] Yup, I went to school. I must have been a week in Vancouver on Woodland Drive, 820 Woodland Drive—never forget that address. It was because my sister (excuse me) and my father and my brother-in-law and two other relations of mine that my sister took over like as boarders because they had no place to live. She looked after them (and they were fishermen) and looked after their clothes, washing them and everything. And he slept with them. The house, whole house, it had a basement, but no furnace. It was no furnace in the house. The basement was ground; it was not cement. It was just ordinary ground. SG [00:12:11] Dirt floor and whatnot. NC [00:12:12] A dirt floor. Yes. And quite cold in the wintertime. The price of the house was $13 a month. Never forget it. Whole house. And there were six of us living there. SG [00:12:27] Some slept in the basement, this dirt floor basement, I guess? NC [00:12:30] They had an upstairs. They had three bedrooms upstairs—two bedrooms upstairs in the bathroom. Yeah. Everybody slept double up in the same room and the house is still standing. Every once in a while I go by and take a look at the house on Woodland Drive. SG [00:12:48] I'll be darned, eh. NC [00:12:49] Just north of Venables. SG [00:12:51] I presume you had no English at this time? You had to come straight from Croatia to— NC [00:12:54] No nothing at all. SG [00:12:58] How did that work out in the schools? No, I mean, there were no ESL programs at this time? NC [00:13:03] Yes, there was. We had a special class in Seymour school and Japanese, Chinese, Italians, Ukrainians. There was all different languages that were in the same room trying to—what they called a special class—trying to learn English language in Seymour School. I think someplace here in the house, they used to show us a picture and we had to say, 'oh, I see a cup in the cupboard there' and they would say 'Nick sees a cup in the cupboard'. They would write sentences like that so we would learn. After just a little bit—a week—I was a month—yeah—about not even a month in school here when the summer holidays came. At that time my sister and brother-in-law where they lived on Woodland Drive, they bought a house at 641 Slocan Street. The house is still standing there. SG [00:14:15] Another one eh. NC [00:14:16] Yeah. They bought it and we moved there and next year I went to Seymour School from Slocan. I had to walk, oh actually run most of the time in the morning. When it's lunchtime, I used to run like hell because we had less than an hour from Seymour School to Slocan and had lunch and run like hell back in time to go back to school. When the teacher found out that that's what I was doing, he says, 'No, you should have lunch. For five or 10 cents for lunch you can get a bowl of soup and a piece of bread.' I told my sister and my sister she, 'Oh, whose gonna to give you 10 cents every day. No, no, no, no.' So I did run. Then, oh about six months down the road, maybe more, a little bit more, I was smart enough in that I picked up the language (but not very good), but as far as the work, arithmetic and that, I had all that in Europe before I came over here. It was just a question of learning the language and the teacher thought I had enough of a command in English language that they said they'd transfer me to Hastings School here in, on 24-2500 block Pender—Pandora. Started there and all the kids used to laugh at me when I used to try and speak. I knew the arithmetic and that, I beat the shit out of them as far as the knowledge of—we even had geometry in the old country before I came over here. I started trigonometry as well. The teacher, after three or four months at Hastings School, he says I was I was too smart, you know in everything except language and they put me in Grade 6 instead of Grade 5. When I was there in Grade 6, four, three months later, they thought I had enough knowledge except the language, they put me in Grade 7 in Seymour School at Templeton. SG [00:16:47] Right. NC [00:16:48] When I was there for two months, they put me in Grade 8. SG [00:16:52] You were just running up the grades here. SG [00:16:53] That's right. I went to four or five different grades and inside of a year and a half. And that's— (laughter) The comical thing of that was to the Croation language if you learnt the alphabet, you learn the alphabet, you can pronounce, read and write any word because every letter is pronounced and every letter is written. There's no phonetics at all in there. Whenever I used to write anything at all, I used to say it in Croatian language inside and write it. I would write and the teacher in Grade 7 said, 'Nick how the hell can you write a word in English and you can't spell it?' I said, 'What? Why do it like that?' 'But how?' I couldn't explain to him that I used to say it phonetically in my mind and then write it. I would pronounce every letter that was in the word. That's what it was, but to think in my mind, oh, that business of, "I" before "E" except after "C", and it's not even correct, but I could never fathom that. SG [00:18:14] I think everybody as a newcomer has trouble with English spelling. NC [00:18:18] That's right. SG [00:18:19] You have so many strange parts of the language. NC [00:18:21] That's right. SG [00:18:22] At what point did you start working and where? NC [00:18:26] Well, in 1942, Sean, as a youngster (I didn't tell you) but as a youngster in the old country, my. Mother's sister (my mother was gone) but my sister, her husband and family had fishing—they had a couple of skiffs and they had a couple of nets, they gillnet with an even small seine boat. In the summer when they weren't fishing, what it was closed or it was bad weather, I used to go and ask them if they would let me have their skiff to roll [unclear] and I learnt to roll in the old country. I really enjoyed it. Most of the time a roll of boat in the old country was sittin' down, but here to roll a skiff is standing up. So when in 1942 when I was in Grade 7, Grade 8, actually— wait a minute—no, it was even later. That was Grade 9 already. It was in the late summer. One of my second cousins was here—Silvo Carr—needed a skiff man. They were going to Fraser River to fish and he had no skiff man. He asked me, 'Can you roll?' I said, 'Oh, yeah, I can roll.' 'Oh, okay, do you want a come out for a week or two with me?' I said, 'Sure.' I went to my sister and 'Can I go fishing with the [unclear] Silvo?' 'Oh sure. If you want to go. You make a couple of hundred dollars.' I went and we fished for almost three weeks, two and a half weeks in the river. SG [00:20:32] You were seining in the river? NC [00:20:34] Yes, they were seining in the river at that time. I was rolling, but mainly sitting down, rolling back. He said, 'No, no, you got to do it standing up so you see where you're going.' Okay, so I learnt that quite—just the idea of different position. We made almost $450 while I was out there. I said, 'Shit, that's what, I'm going to do, I'm going to be a fisherman.' (laughter) 'Oh Jesus. That short of time, less than three weeks and I got $400. SG [00:21:04] That would have been big money in those days, eh? NC [00:21:06] Jesus Christ, was it ever! Oh, my father was happy as pig in shit. My sister too. They went and thanked him and I didn't even get half a share, you know. It wasn't a full share. I found out later it was less. They could give me anything that they wanted. It was just over two weeks. That's how, when I finished Grade 9 and went to Grade 10 at Tech, for a half a year, and what was I going to do? Oh, l'll look for a place to go fishing. In 1943, I went fishing on Daisy Bee; she passed away in 1952—sunk, lost and all the crew was lost on it. That was the same guy that gave me the job, first time, Silvo Carr. He died on it as well. We went fishing in 1943 and I didn't even make for a full season as much money as I did the year before on the Fraser River for two and a half weeks. Three hundred and fifty dollars for a whole year; that's what we made. Then I went fishing in the winter time, one towing off on the same boat that I was seining salmon, Daisy Bee. We went towing off for Canadian Fishing Company Anglo-British Columbia, they used to call them, and got a job there. They were still was on the boat, towing off a person, towing off a boat. When they make us set, we would tow them out of the net instead of we had [unclear] afterwards. When they were seining herring, somebody had to pull the boat that had a seine in the water to keep it from going into the net and they could pick up the net and the fish. That was the style. It still is the same style but now the only thing is they got drums now, but they never used to have them. SG [00:23:30] There weren't even power blocks on seiners at that point. NC [00:23:33] No. The power blocks came in 1954. We were one of the first ones. BC Packers on the company boat to order it from Jack McEachern was the one that was copied the—what was the guy's name from Seattle? SG [00:24:01] The puretic block you mean? NC [00:24:03] Puretic block. He'd copied it and was making his own. He was making one or two a week in the in the shop out of pieces of fender. The bend to the fender was so the net wouldn't catch on there. He sold quite a few of them. Then he was sued by Puretic and lost a case. He copied—it was a patent on that block. In the meantime, he got enough money and bought a big Cadillac— not Cadillac—Buick car. Jack McEachern, never forget it, because he was also one of the guys that we built the herring hopper for Orphans Fund. SG [00:24:55] Oh, they used for the herring sales? NC [00:24:56] That's right. Yeah. That's when it was 1954, we started getting—and we didn't have it hydraulic driven. We had it rope driven. He made it; it was a rope from the power block to the winch on the boat. We wrapped around the winch and the winch would turn the power block. A lot of the boats, by that time, they started getting hydraulics and it was quite easy just with the hoses put on there. But 1954 was the, I think the big influx of power blocks came in in 1954. There was one or two or three before that, one or two years but until people saw how they worked, how well they worked they started buying them. SG [00:25:48] That would have reduced the number of crew on the boat as well, when those blocks came in eh? NC [00:25:52] Yes, eventually they did, but to start with, they had the same crews. They had seven and it was in the contract with the companies that seven men on the seine boat, regardless. A lot of times the seine boats were so small that they only had four or five bunks so they had people sleeping in the galleys. I remember one guy, one boat that we had a man sleeping in the galley because we didn't we didn't have enough bunks. We only had five bunks. SG [00:26:30] Right. You're fishing then in '42 and '43, I guess? NC [00:26:35] In '43 I went as a full season fishing and I started on herring and then the army called me. SG [00:26:47] Had you encountered the Fishermen's Union at this point? NC [00:26:51] Yes. As soon as I went fishing in 1942, my father at that time, they weren't that enthused about unions and that but he says that was a must, that you joined the union before you go fishing. I went and joined the union in 1942 when I went fishing just for the two and a half weeks in the river. SG [00:27:18] So was this the United Fisherman's Federal Union or the Salmon Purse Seiners Union? NC [00:27:25] Trying to think. Just Salmon Purse Seiners Union, yes. SG [00:27:32] And they hadn't yet merged, I guess, with United Fishermen Federal Union? NC [00:27:36] That's right. That was two or three years later. In 1943, the army grabbed me. By the time I came out of the army at the end of 1946, because I had a job to go to, anybody that had a job to go to in the army at that time you could get discharged right away. If you didn't have a job to go to, then you take your turn getting discharged. I got one of my second cousins, actually was a brother of the guy that I started fishing with Silvo Carr, Slavko Carr. He said, 'Well, I'll give him a job for two or three weeks in the fall. He can come out.' When I got out of the army soon, sooner than most people—and I went fishing for that. SG [00:28:35] You kind of skipped over your army service here. You were in the army then, I guess for two years then? NC [00:28:41] Well, almost. Altogether close to three years. SG [00:28:43] Close to three. Presumably you went overseas and— NC [00:28:47] Yes. Yes, I went overseas. What it was, also, the army grabbed me and they wanted me to join the army. I said, 'No, I don't want to join the army,' but I was forced to. They had what they call N-R-M-A—National Reserve Mobilization Act, passed in 1941 or '42 that they can call anybody of age into the army. That's how I got called in. They asked me, 'You wanna—' I said, 'No, I don't want to join.' 'What do you want to do then?' I says, 'Nothing. I don't want to join the army.' My sister—I wanted to but my sister and my brother-in-law and my father, 'Don't you go. You go in the army, you get killed.' So I wouldn't—I listened to them, I wouldn't join. I went and got my physical. No—before the army grabbed me, I went and tried. I was of the fisherman until I tried to join the navy. I went and joined the navy. Passed my physical and everything else and they said, 'Well, now where were you born?' I says, 'I was born in Yugoslavia.' 'Oh, oh, oh,' the guy said three times. 'Are you a naturalized citizen of Canada?' I says, 'No, why? I don't know, I'm too young to be naturalized.' 'Oh, you can be naturalized [unclear]. Oh, no. Well, you can't join the navy then, if you're not Canadian.' I says, 'What?' 'No. You can't join the navy if you're not Canadian, you're a foreigner.' The army grabbed me then and wanted me to join the army. I said, 'No. I tried to join the navy and they told me I was a foreigner. They didn't want me. How come you want me?' 'Well, you gotta go.' 'Okay. So I gotta go. I got no choice.' When I passed my physical, there was a man there from the air force and he wanted me to join the air force. 'You could be a wireless air gunner.' I said, 'What the hell is a wireless air gunner?' I don't know, [unclear]. The guy that was with us there, same time he says, 'Wireless gunners, those are the ones that have the guns outside the plane and they shoot anybody that's coming at 'em and they're the first ones to get knocked off. That's why they're always short of wireless air gunners.' I said, 'I don't want to join the wireless air gunners! (laughter) No, no bloody way!' Then I went into the army and went back East. They asked me what I wanted. I said, 'Gee, I don't know. I guess I would like those big guns that you fire at planes.' 'Oh, you want to be an ack-ack gunner?' I said, 'Yeah, sure.' That's why we went in Halifax and actually across Halifax to Dartmouth. That's where they had the training place for—a basic training to learn anything about the orders of the army and then advanced training that you can work on the guns. That's what I got, four months there, finished my basic and advanced training and they shipped us to, some of us—no, before they shipped us out. All the ones that were considered little brighter and younger (because it was less than two years that I was still in school) and they asked me if I want to take training, radar training. I said, 'What's radar training?' 'Oh, well, in radar training you have this thing that you look around and you can see planes or anything coming at you.' 'Oh, that would be good.' I went six weeks, radar training. I finished my course, knew how to operate—that's all we were operators of it. We didn't know anything at all; we weren't technicians. We were just radar operators. As soon as we finished that, the course and that, I got corporal stripes, I was a corporal. I said, 'What's a corporal?' Twenty cents a day, more pay than a private, 20 cents a day. I was there and 1943, '44, when the second front opened up, they didn't need any more heavy ack-ack batteries and radar training or anything else. Anybody that was A-1 at that time, they were put into the infantry and that's where I went. They put me in the infantry; took my training in, just outside Vernon, Coldstream Harbour there. They had a nice obstacle course where you learn how to run like hell, like a deer and pack a gun. They trained us there and as soon as we finished training there, they sending us overseas. I wasn't a volunteer, but they needed 25,000 reinforcements, so they took 25,000 reinforcement people that were not volunteers, NRMAs that they called them. We went overseas and then after a couple of months, some training in England, they sent us up to—we were just outside last couple of days in France and into Germany. When the war ended there, they wanted volunteers for, to fight to go back to Canada and fight against Japanese. Japanese war was still on. When they—I volunteered to go there. I said, 'You know, the war ended in Europe. It won't take very long before the war ends in Japan. If I volunteer there, I'm gonna get shipped to Canada fast and I'm going to be in Canada, probably the war will be over by then.' As it was, it wasn't like that but they shipped—they were going to ship us over and they looked at me, looked at my record. They says, 'Oh, you can't join. You can't go back as a volunteer because you're not a volunteer. You're NRMA.' I said, 'Well, all the guys that I was with, they're going.' He said, 'Yeah, but they're all volunteers.' I said, 'Well, I'll volunteer.' 'No, you gotta be a volunteer in the air.' So, I joined the army, [unclear] as a volunteer, signed the papers and that, and I wasn't NRMA anymore. I was shipped back to Canada, and we were, we got a month's leave, I think it was—disembarkation leave what they called, and $120—$100 from the Canadian government and $20 from the Queen that we got for serving over there. So when we got back here they shipped us to Camp Shilo, just outside of Winnipeg. What am I doing all this giving you my life history on and not fishing? SG [00:37:19] Well, because it's related to your life and how you led it. NC [00:37:23] Oh, shit. SG [00:37:24] No, that's fine. NC [00:37:26] I never thought of that. SG [00:37:26] We'll bring it back to the fishing industry. Don't worry. NC [00:37:30] When we went to Camp Shilo, we were taken, I think, for six weeks, American arms training. Then we finished that and we went to Fort Worth, Texas. By the time we got to Fort Worth, the war was over in Japan and we were all shipped back to Camp Shilo. Then that started—whoever had a job to go to, they were discharged right away. That's how— SG [00:38:03] Your gamble that if you signed up for the Japanese war— NC [00:38:07] That's right. SG [00:38:07] You would probably get back here and— NC [00:38:09] Exactly. You know, that's what I thought. I don't know how smart I was then at that time, but that's what I figured. SG [00:38:16] Sounded like it worked out. NC [00:38:17] Yeah, all the effort would be put on Japanese side, the war and that would—so I never thought of what I didn't know afterwards. Like during the war we were in Germany, I believe what it was to, what it came to, that Winston Churchill wanted to get back at Germany of all the devastation the Germans caused with the doodle bugs and everything. During the war in England, he bombed the shit out of Germany and he kept on going and they knew the war was just about over. There was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of planes steady 24 hours a day going to bomb Germany. Just to retaliation of what the Germans did to the to England. Same token—uh, what the heck was this president's name? Retaliate at Japanese of all the atrocities that Japanese caused in the Philippines and that's why he dropped two atomic bombs over Japan. SG [00:39:28] Hmm. Yeah. Right. NC [00:39:28] In retaliation. That fueled the American [unclear]. SG [00:39:32] When you were discharged, you went back into the fishing industry— NC [00:39:35] Right away. Fishing business. Yup. SG [00:39:37] And took it up from there? NC [00:39:39] Yeah. Fished salmon and herring. At that time we were fishing eight, nine, ten months out of the year for salmon. At that time, too, salmon we were fishing four and five days every week. We didn't have two or three days at those years. Then on herring—and as soon as we finished herring I tried and got—I was fortunate enough to get a job working on the nets. And in the meantime— SG [00:40:12] Mending heading nets and so on. NC [00:40:13] Mending nets and that for, oh, four or five years. SG [00:40:17] So you would learn this in the process of— NC [00:40:20] Oh yeah, when we were fishing, we always have something to do on repair in the net. I was lucky enough that the person that I fished with was willing to teach me. I asked my brother-in-law and my father to teach me how to mend the net. They wouldn't teach me. 'See you got lots of time to learn. Don't bother me. And we don't wanna.' I wanted to learn right off the bat and that's how I did. What it was too that they were amazed when I went into work into the net loft in that how much I knew about mending nets and that because the older people were doing the mending nets. We were—all we did was pull and prepare stuff for them, not mending nets. SG [00:41:08] What was your sort of official job in the boat? You were skiff men?. NC [00:41:11] Skiff men mainly. SG [00:41:12] Mainly as skiff men. NC [00:41:14] Mainly skiff men, yup. SG [00:41:15] Those guys would also dry up and so on a set I presume, eh? NC [00:41:20] Oh, yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. We were always part—and what it was too as a youngster, especially with Croatians or former Yugoslavians, whatever it was the young fellow, regardless how much you knew or how much you didn't know, he had to do all the dirty work. Whatever it was, it doesn't matter. SG [00:41:42] Right. Pretty much the same in any job, that way isn't it? NC [00:41:43] Yeah. They could—what it was like they were working on the nets and there was a—you had to fill up needles for them to work with. If the needles were right there, the guy could grab the fine. If he couldn't, if they weren't there, he say, 'Get me a needle.' So you run like hell, whatever it is, 10, 15 steps and get a needle and bring it to him. That was the style. In fact, I remember him telling me as a youngster in the old country, a lot of people smoked a pipe, but they didn't have matches and they always had a bit of a fire going. A person, one of the fishermen, older fishermen, would try and light the pipe and he says, 'Get me a coal,' and he used to grab a coal with his bare hands and bring it to 'em to light the pipe. That's how the system was at that time. Yeah. , SG [00:42:42] Were there boat delegates and whatnot for the union on vessels at that time? NC [00:42:49] In 1942 and 1943? No. There was always somebody from the union that would come on the board and sign up people or they themselves would go into the union. They would tell them, you go in the union hall; it was on Cordova and sign up. After, I believe was late forties—yeah, late forties—they started getting the boat delegates, if I remember correctly. SG [00:43:23] So this is after the UFAWU (United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union) was founded? NC [00:43:25] Yes, in 1945. They the amalgamated with the gillnetters, shore workers and that. They became the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union. SG [00:43:39] And so that meant you had a system then of boat delegates actually on the boat? NC [00:43:42] That's right. Yeah. SG [00:43:44] What was your introduction to the union beyond being just a member where you— NC [00:43:49] There's a couple of the fellows that were namely Martin Car and Joe Miharia; they were already involved. We had a fellow Croatian, actually Yugoslavian Croatian, Mike Canic. That was in 1940—1950—1952. I think we had a strike and they got, yeah, they got Mike Canic as a fisherman, but they talked him into working for the union. He liked that; he was that type of person, like talking and that. He knew an awful lot of Croatians, Yugoslavians that he would go and talk to and make them join the union if they weren't in the union already. That's where Mike got the job and he worked for the union. He worked for seven, eight years. He got me interested in two different—being on different committees. That's how I got interested in, on different committees that I be participating. I wasn't very active in it, but I liked the idea. I had, as a youngster in the old country when they taught us how to be a soldier and give orders. I used to talk to the Croatians and talked to them, well, do this and do that. We should do with the companies and negotiations and all that. They listened; they didn't argue at all. They listened. They wouldn't—you had to talk them into doing things as far as trade union movement is concerned. But you had a hellava—and I tried and I really liked doing it. When Mike Canic used to give me directions, do this and go and talk to this and that and I used to like it. He always commended me that I was doing a good job and that made more for me to do even better. Then I got married and, holy mackerel, I said I was not wasting I was doing a lot of work in the union even if I wasn't doing any work. I used to go down to the union hall and listen to what's going on and that. In the meantime, I think over a period of time it was a bit of a mistake because I could have been working in the net loft for pay, but this—I was doing nothing. A lot of my friends, they told me, the guys my age and that, they told me I was nuts in doing it. I should have been working. Anyhow, I enjoyed doing that back in the fifties and sixties. In 1963, they had Mike Canic sent to Ocean Falls. We had a strike. They sent him to Ocean Falls to look after all the seine fleet. We had, oh hell, we had over 100 seine boats living or working in the north, especially central area. SG [00:47:30] That was a big tie up spot for them. NC [00:47:32] That's right. What it was, Ocean Falls had something for two—the boys would have two or three days a weekend and they would go to the store, and even the poolroom and the swimming pool there in Ocean Falls, and also good groceries rather than moor someplace else. Small company stores that they had stuff that was from the last winter yet. Mike was working there and one guy—who was it? I think it was somebody in Rupert that had to be—oh, Ted Ford was in Rupert. He was being sent out and Mike Canic was being sent from Ocean Falls to Rupert to take his place. Either Carl Liden or Ted Ford—I think it was Carl Liden now. They needed somebody in Ocean Falls to take place of Mike and Homer says to me, 'You're it, you're goin.' I said, 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What am I going?' 'Well, look after seine fleet. You can do it.' During that strike, the first place I went from Ocean Falls, they needed somebody in Bella Bella to hold the strike vote—second strike vote. 'Nick, you got to go to Ocean Falls.' I said, 'What for?' 'To hold a strike vote.' I went and held the first meeting in Bella Bella, as the seine fleet most of them of them were seine boat fishermen in Bella Bella at that time. That's where I had a strike vote. To this day, it was one strike vote that we had there was 100 percent for rejection. SG [00:49:32] I was just looking a day or so ago. This is the letter that they sent to Homer Stevens—you gave me this letter before. NC [00:49:40] That's right. SG [00:49:40] In which they said that they were really pleased with the Ocean Falls vote maintaining as it did or 100% favourable voting record today. NC [00:49:50] And next meeting we had was in Ocean Falls and there was over 100 people at the meeting and we had a 100 percent strike vote. SG [00:50:00] That was your initiation as the strike organizer? NC [00:50:03] That's correct. NC [00:50:04] And from then on, things got better. SG [00:50:08] So obviously, this was something you had a real knack for, eh, that you were you were a good organizer. You know how to talk to guys. NC [00:50:15] I didn't I didn't tell you this, but as a youngster in back in my hometown in Yugoslavia, they had people, what we would call now working class people that had it—not an organization—but working class people would get together and have demonstrations because the big business had control of everything. They were always and there was a guy named Mutchic in Zagreb that tried, that started a new party, Croatian Fraternal Union Party, that wanted to be for the workers. As it turned out, the bastard turned tail and joined the hierarchy. In any case (and I like the idea of being against something that wasn't any good) so as a youngster, I saw that (I was only six, seven, eight years old at that time) and that's where I got started motivated into business of—to help out somebody that needed helping. SG [00:51:31] So you were even at that age an advocate for working people. NC [00:51:34] That's right. Socialistic type. Yeah. SG [00:51:38] That's interesting. And you brought it here and —. NC [00:51:40] Yes. I would even in sports, when we had at Hastings School or even 1Temp, the coach and I would say, or in the gym, coach says, 'No, no, I don't like that. I don't think that's right.' He said, 'That's nothing to do with you. We're going to do it.' So I would talk to the guys, said 'Let's not listen to what he says. It's not right.' The guys would go along with me and we'd be in shit all the time because it would be opposing the administration. SG [00:52:17] You obviously had an attraction for people in terms of organizing. NC [00:52:20] So that's what I—I honestly believe that that had to have come from my father or my grandfather and that. As I remember in the old country, they used to be talking about being, having changes made in pay and everything else. I remember them doing that night kind of—maybe that was an inkling for me to get into it. That's what I did. I enjoy doing it. SG [00:52:48] Well, I remember years ago you made a speech at a local one meeting and you said the two most important things to you and your life were your family and your union. NC [00:52:56] That's right. SG [00:52:57] Did you ever find that somehow there were ever tensions between that, that your work for the union kind of took away from your family? Or were you able to kind of put it all together? NC [00:53:06] Oh, yes. They especially, even the wife now, they were opposed to it. What the reason they were opposed to it is because I was spending so much time for the union. All my friends, all the ones that I grew up with, my age, they were at home, especially during the strike, 1963 strike. I was up in Ocean Falls for almost three weeks and all my friends, they were in town and they were going to beaches with the family, with the kids, and they really enjoyed themselves. My wife couldn't do that. My wife was staying home, looking after the kids in the garden, so she was opposed to it, but I enjoyed it. That's one of the reasons it wasn't sitting well with—finally the kids and everybody got accustomed to me and sort of took it as a matter of fact, that I was part of the union and enjoy doing it. They didn't mind, they didn't object to it as much as they did at first. SG [00:54:11] What was your sense of the sort of the labour movement around you? Because the labour movement in the forties and fifties was quite active. NC [00:54:19] Yes, yes. SG [00:54:19] In fishing industry and mining and so on. Did you have a sense of being part of that larger movement? NC [00:54:25] Yes, yes. Always, always, always. I used to try and participate different demonstrations—any time there was a demonstration. In fact, there was a couple of times I know they asked for volunteers from the union that could support the pickets in Westminster on the waterfront when they were building trades. They were on strike and there was a lot of scabs working there. We used to go and parade back and forth as opposing them and call them scabs at that time and I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed doing it. SG [00:55:09] So that was just part of who you were. NC [00:55:12] That's right. SG [00:55:15] One of the things that's always struck me about the fishermen's union and fishing is that unlike other industries where you had a checkoff and basically people signed up in the union, we always had to go out and sign up members every year in order to get them in the union, get them signed up for that year. Did you find that, at any time, that just became really onerous, that it was an incredibly difficult task to do that? Or were most members at that time pretty much onboard. NC [00:55:41] No, at that time we accepted it as part of life. That's the way it was done. We never thought of doing something better, I think, or easier. We thought that was it. You have to do it. That was done last year. That was the bad part of us at that time. We weren't thinking ahead. We were just whatever it is today, we keep on doing the same thing today. Try and get it better but not thinking at all of making something better and easier. SG [00:56:16] So when circumstances change, sometimes the old ways of doing things didn't work as well? NC [00:56:20] No, that's true. Yes, that's correct. SG [00:56:23] And the other thing about about fishing was they, you know, a lot of fishing organizations around the world have basically just accepted that the price will be posted by the company and that's what they'll get paid. Whereas we here have always taken a very strong position in establishing a minimum price agreement. NC [00:56:41] Yes. SG [00:56:42] What did you find the significance of that? NC [00:56:45] That came late in the forties and even in the fifties. I think I remember when years later, in the mid-fifties, late fifties but before that, there was instances where there was the people that fish that were older than me and that fished in the late thirties and forties. They were—every night you'd go to a packer to unload what you caught on the seine boat. I remember one of my relations, actually, he was my father's cousin, so my second cousin, he told me they were on one side of the packer unloading chum salmon for one cent a piece. On the other side of the packer, there was a boat that was unloading for a cent and a half a piece. Same packers, same company and everything. It was just the way that it was done. A lot of people would grumble and never—but they wouldn't—they needed somebody to lead them. They just by grumbling and complaining and that and not doing anything about it, it didn't take—it didn't go very far. That's how I used to see that. Why should it be that somebody would get more for the same product than I got and that. That's one of the reasons also that I wanted to change, have a participation in changing it. SG [00:58:29] So when did those minimum price agreements—I mean some of them were signed with the Salmon Purse Seiners Union back in the late thirties. NC [00:58:37] No. SG [00:58:38] But it wasn't it wasn't common eh? NC [00:58:39] There was no, that I know of, there was no signed agreements on payment at all. It was all verbal. SG [00:58:46] Ah, I see. NC [00:58:47] It was all verbal. Depending who the skipper was, depending who the boat owner was, and depending what kind of agreement he had, or personal agreement. Because the vessel owner or the skipper would have—I neglected to tell you that there was in the thirties and even some of the forties—but the person that had a job on the seine boat, indeed, that same person would go and work either cleaning the back yard, digging the backyard, or painting the houses of the skipper to keep his job. SG [00:59:32] Really? NC [00:59:32] Yes. It was done. It was done and not only that, but you'd have to bring a present to the skipper, boat owner or to the life or skipper or boat owner at Christmastime, to keep in good books of the of the skipper or vessel owner. Yes it was. SG [00:59:56] Did that change when the union became more established in the industry? NC [01:00:01] It changed somewhat, but it was still done under Q.T. It was not publicized, but it was still done. The skipper would say, 'Well, I need a hand. Can you give me a hand? One or two hours to paint the boat or repair something?' 'Oh, yeah,' and he worked there for two or three weeks. SG [01:00:23] Yeah. But that was how you got your job the next summer. NC [01:00:27] That's right. Exactly right. SG [01:00:29] So, when did—what's your recollection of when the first minimum price agreement came into effect in the industry? NC [01:00:36] As far as I know, the late ones that we came late—it was late fifties, late fifties to early sixties. We had a strike in 1963 and a court case. I think it was '63 that the minimum price was three and a half cents a pound for pinks. The people were complaining on the weights; that's where they started again. If you had 5-6,000 pinks and five or six or ten boats ahead of you, and you gonna weigh each one so the company [unclear] said, 'Well, we'll just measure a couple of scales and give you the average.' Just at that time, people, well, they get a good couple of hours sleep longer if you finish unloading faster. So they agreed to it. That was also fixed in my opinion. It was the weights weren't done properly, they weren't administered and if anybody of the crew would complain, the company would try and get rid of them. That was the style. I mean, I can't blame any company or any manager, but they were that way that whatever was best for the company and that's the way it went. SG [01:02:19] Those minimum price agreements, when they came into effect, or began to come into effect, did they end some of those practizes, did it bring guys together a bit more? NC [01:02:29] You changed quite a bit. Oh, yes. It was less skulduggery going on that even on the off season to work on the boats and the nets. They got into the agreement also that the owner, whether it's the company or a private vessel owner, would have to pay the crew to work on them. We had in the agreement, I believe for two weeks after the season is over, the crew was required to clean up the boat and repair the nets to the working condition that it was when they first started. That was also in the—I think it still is in the agreement, or you can find where it says that I think for two weeks, if I remember correctly, or ten working days that you were forced to look after the boat and and the net to clean it up. SG [01:03:38] Right. Having that agreement also meant that you—it seemed like the union was practically going on strike every year in order to maintain, you know, the rights and conditions. NC [01:03:50] It seemed like it, but it it wasn't so. It was exaggerated itself. We did have to threaten the strike and have strike votes and that, and never took a strike. Never had a strike because the company would agree or we would agree with the companies. SG [01:04:16] You get a last minute settlement before you went out. But there certainly were a lot of strikes that the union had to conduct over the years. NC [01:04:24] Yes, there was but not as many as you thought of—but there was not as many. SG [01:04:31] You didn't feel like it was too many or anything like that? NC [01:04:35] Like a lot of times we'd have called a strike and a fishing season wouldn't even start yet. SG [01:04:40] Right. , NC [01:04:42] We just wouldn't prepare the nets or the boats or anything like that. Then we would agree on it regardless. Most of the time we would agree with lesser than what we demanded and the company would always improve to what they offered at the start. That was done that way, just a matter of fact. A lot of times we were in fishing and, oh gee, fishermen, they're always on strike. It wasn't so; they were just exaggeration like that. People, because we talked an awful lot about a strike and that, there wasn't that many strikes, or if I remember correctly, either over those two or three complete seasons that we lost through the strike in all the years that I fished—and I fished over 50 years. SG [01:05:41] So really, only a few of those years were the whole season. Yeah, that was unusual. You might lose a few a few days. NC [01:05:49] That's right. Exactly. SG [01:05:52] Certainly the sense you get is that it was all hands on deck during the strike. They would have strike salmon sales and all kinds of things to mobilize support for the union and the membership. NC [01:06:01] Yeah, to pay off—yes, we had a few strike sales and that also was a lot of times exaggerated, was misused and abused, and that on handling the sales. It wasn't done exactly like businessmen would and that everything would be wrote down, write down. It was done might say even haphazardly at times, but it was done. We had a strike sale in 1963, in Ocean Falls, and we raised $150. In Ocean Falls [unclear] three or four. I think, if I remember correctly, Tony Mutko was one of them fisherman that went fishing and brought the pinks and chums. Everybody wanted chums because they were bigger fish and heavier fish. We used to give— not chums but pumps—and we used to give [unclear] pumps for free to people in Ocean Falls. SG [01:07:21] Just because they were considered a cheap fish at the time. NC [01:07:23] That's right. Yeah. Not only that, but we couldn't get people to come and buy them. There was only a small settlement in Ocean Falls that there'd be maybe two or 300 people at the time working in Ocean Falls. SG [01:07:40] Is there any particular strike that you participated in that sort of stands out in your mind as one that was particularly distinct? NC [01:07:49] Well, I would say the first one that would be distinctive would be the first one was 1952. I was sent to go on picket duty in Port Kells. At that time, I had a car, and I also drove three other fishermen with me, and they happened to be friends of mine. We went to Port Kells and the first and foremost guy that I thought I met in gillnet section, I think his name was Peter Cordoni. Does that ring a bell? SG [01:08:34] Yeah. NC [01:08:34] Yeah, yeah. He was the first guy that I met in Port Kells. He said, 'You fellows want a cup of coffee?' I said, 'Gee, I would love a cup of coffee.' He says, 'Okay.' He had the stove on his gillnetter going. He grabbed this pot, dipped it in through Fraser River, pulled the water out and made a cup of coffee. First time I had look from the Fraser River we had a cup of coffee. That was the really the thing that stood out for me. As it was, I can't recall now how many, but I guess 10, 15 years ago Peter Cordoni came to one of our conventions and I went over there, shook hands with him and hugged him and told him that I still remember him making a first cup of coffee for me during the strike. SG [01:09:31] This was this an industry wide strike, [unclear] all sections, everybody? NC [01:09:36] Everybody. Everybody was at that time yeah. SG [01:09:39] What was the outcome of it, do you recall? NC [01:09:41] As far as I know, we took a beating. We lost because we lost the season or most of the season. What we did was gain in the future; we gained the following year and the year after that. I used to always argue with the guys and he says, 'What's the point of using—of going on strike for two or three cents and you lose so much in the season?' I said, 'Why are you still [unclear]?' Yes, but one year, two years, five years down the road, that's what you would gain. That's what you gain. You've got to consider that as a gain for taking a beating that one or two or three or four years before and because you build up the strike or build up the conditions and payment per pound on fish. SG [01:10:42] You were able to sort of strengthen the unity around the issues at the time and that carried forward in the future years. NC [01:10:48] That's right. SG [01:10:51] Well, that would, you know, obviously would be. Did that work as an argument for— NC [01:10:54] Oh, yes. A lot of people, if you stop and think, a lot, you could see that they weren't as adamant arguing, after you talk to them like that. You know, you gain two cents this year and it carries on the next year. Yeah, but you lost so much now. No, but say, four years down the road, you'll gain that back what you fought for four years prior. Then you could see that wheels were turning in their mind, that they are realizing what it is. A lot of them still, you get an odd one but I've got one track mind you lost so much now, you never gain it back. Yes, you do gain it back one, five, ten years down the road if you stay in the industry. SG [01:11:45] The union always did face difficulties from the whole because the union was perceived to be what it was. You had, there was a target from other, like the Pacific Gillnetters Association and other groups like that. The Combines Investigation Branch went after the union, the employers. It was always a battle. NC [01:12:05] Oh, yes. What it was, too, I remember trying to organize the trawlers. Their argument was our fish is steak compared to the hamburger you guys catch. I says yes but we always argue, too, if we don't fight and get what we want and you always get a little bit better if you don't fight, yours would go back too. But because you didn't want to join the union, the companies didn't want you to join our union because then they always give you a little bit more price higher than what we get in the contract. They couldn't see it and I couldn't find anybody that would agree with that. That's the thought that was in the back of my mind. SG [01:13:04] So some trawlers were in the union, but by and large they didn't join the union? NC [01:13:08] That's right; they did not join the union. SG [01:13:09] They never did, eh? NC [01:13:10] Because they always, always had a little bit better price. I think they had that over the company's heads. If you don't give me the price, I'll join the union. SG [01:13:22] Oh, I see. So they worked it to their own advantage. NC [01:13:24] That's right. SG [01:13:26] What about the 1967 strike? The one that seemed to be such a, you know, a bitter strike and actually union leaders went to jail at that time. NC [01:13:36] Yeah, actually, it was not so much in the seine fleet. No, it was it was a dry fleet—trawlers. They wanted a certain price and we were involved in it and we took a real beating on it. What it was too, the companies were not prepared to pay so much per pound on bottom fish. The argument up north was that co-op was paying a little bit more than the company seine boats. I think a lot of it was done with individuals in the companies. They didn't want a union to get strong at all by getting the draggers or trawlers into the union. That's what it was; it was opposed to that. The strike that was on there, I couldn't see the government—I think we always thought that it was the companies forcing the government and the courts to agree with them and go against the union. The companies wanted the president and administration of the union to take a vote of what they offered. We made agreement that we wouldn't take a vote on every offer that the company gave us. As we know from the past that we had at that time, the more time to take the vote on the offers of the company, the vote gets weaker and weaker and weaker. That was the reason. Then I think we were called a combine; we were setting the prices and that and they took us to court [unclear] saying delay time. It's one of those things that you take as it comes and you fight like hell to make your ends meet; and 99 times out of 100 you're right, too, but it's after the fact. SG [01:16:21] Yeah, right. Well, I mean, obviously over the years, the Fishermen's Union was always called a communist-led union, a radical union run by communists and whatnot. How did that affect individual members? NC [01:16:37] Individuals—I'm glad to say there was very few individuals that thought that because they were communist then—actually Homer Stevens was. I never liked he did, but Alex Gordon did it in the same way. (unclear names) and Homer. Homer would come out and say, 'I'm a communist and I believe in communism,' all the time. Every once in a while he would repeat that and a lot of the fishermen resented that. The company's liked that because they would talk to the fishermen, 'See you're being led by a communist.' Alex Gordon, although he was as good, if not even better than Homer, but he never publicized the fact and Homer did. He was proud of the fact that he was a communist and he believed in that. The only thing was you remember when Russian tanks went to Budapest and Homer spoke up against them and they kicked them out of the organization. Do you remember that at all? SG [01:17:48] I believe it was over Czechoslovakia, not Hungary. NC [01:17:51] That's right. Czechoslovakia, yeah. Budapest. Yeah. Well, it's one of those things that we can reminisce all we want. Some places we made mistakes. SG [01:18:06] Right. But it certainly, I mean, it never seemed to diminish the members support of the union. NC [01:18:11] No, it did not. A lot of the conversation wize in town and gathering social evenings and that would come into conversation that you're led by a bunch of communists. They couldn't see that it was the right thing to do, even though it came from a communist. Doesn't matter who it comes from as long as you believe it's the right thing to do. SG [01:18:41] Right. Your own political background was as I understand you're a longtime CCF-NDP member. NC [01:18:47] That's right. SG [01:18:48] You didn't find that it was, in terms of your trade unionism, it didn't make a difference? NC [01:18:54] Not at all whatsoever. My theory and my thought in my mind was I always thought we were doing the right thing for working people, regardless what political party they belong to. That was my thought. A lot of people—not a lot, but few my friends, the ones that I grew up with—they believe because you're on the communistic sides and communists and that you're wrong. You go, 'How am I wrong by demanding a certain thing for working man? How could that be wrong?' That was the argument we had, and they had no answer to it. See, that's the bloody thing. A lot of times in my wife would tell me that because you proved them wrong, you're not being liked as much as you should be liked, and they hold it against you. Even though you're right, they still hold it against you by proving them wrong. SG [01:19:56] Right. That's often the case. That's true. The Croatian community was a pretty big factor in the fishing industry, but it also included a lot of vessel owners and so on and skippers. Did you ever find there was a tension between your position as an advocate of working people and them being vessel owners and working with companies closely? NC [01:20:17] Well, an odd time, you could see that they're not very happy to see you. That's the thing and socially in that, we were never that close except relation. If we were relative and he had a whistle and that because you blood relation, you were close but politically or trade-union-minded and that, there was no love lost between. SG [01:20:49] Or you just didn't talk about those things, sort of I guess, when you got together for a family wedding or something. NC [01:20:54] That's right. SG [01:20:55] It's the way everyone deals with it. NC [01:20:57] That's one of the reasons, off the record, I didn't belong to the Croatian church because they always had a dogmatic one way of thinking, that's all. There's no two ways at all. There's always only one. You're a communist. You're a communist. You're a communist. No, I'm a socialist, not a communist. That was the reason. SG [01:21:24] That's the Croatian Catholic Church. Had you been a member of the church in the old country? NC [01:21:32] No. We were all Catholics. There was no there was no other factions. SG [01:21:37] It's like being Italian or something like that. But you weren't an active member of the church here when—for that reason. NC [01:21:45] No. I liked it. A number of times that we went to social evenings from the church and that and the fight would start. We'd have actually a physical fight and arguments. My wife and I both agreed, we don't need it. SG [01:22:05] No. It's no point in participating in that, that's for sure. One of the biggest things that has always sort of been a factor of the Fishermen's Union is the campaigns that it's led. It's led campaigns against the Moran Dam on the Fraser River and all kinds of things. But one of the biggest things is the campaign for fisherman's workers' compensation. What do you remember about those campaigns to get workers compensation for fishermen? NC [01:22:34] Oh, Jesus. We had quite a few battles there. The thing that we agreed on or got somebody, even the companies, I believe and I'm trying to think of the years where it was that we got compensation for herring fishermen. Trying to think what we used to call it; it wasn't compensation. That first trip in the year in January when we used to go on herring— SG [01:23:17] This is reduction herring? NC [01:23:19] Reduction herring. We used to go on herring and because, I think if I remember correctly, the law was you had to go three miles out into the ocean, away from land that you could join and have—not compensation—Sick Mariners. That was the name of it—Sick Mariners. If you got hurt or anything that you would be compensated by compensation under name of Sick Mariners. That's how we got it on for the herring fishermen. As long as you joined first trip you got out of town in the year. SG [01:24:07] Oh, I see. NC [01:24:08] I think, if I remember correctly, that was that was a stipulation. It would have to be the first year and you would had to go out three miles from shore. We naturally, even going to Charlotte, you will go three miles offshore. We used to get—yeah, I think was the called Sick Mariners and then it came into compensation into the salmon seine fleet afterwards. SG [01:24:37] That was certainly a big feature of Fishermen's Union conventions, too, was there, you know, no more widows and orphans without compensation, that kind of thing. Did you also not have lobbies to the legislature and so on, on the issue? NC [01:24:52] Oh, yes, not so much the legislature but to Ottawa. The legislature was in number, I guess maybe five or six of all the years. We had small committees going more often than that, but—or was it when we had Carl Liden, member of the legislature, and we were going all to Victoria or some doggone thing, I can't recall what it was. Carl said, You going the wrong place. You shouldn't be going to Victoria, you should be going to Ottawa.' I said, 'Well, we want Victoria on our side and Victoria is not.' That was when he was CCF. I think he was only for one or two terms. SG [01:25:39] Yeah, he was elected during the Barrett government, wasn't he? . NC [01:25:42] Yeah. I think if I remember correctly, we call him Landslide. Whoa, I think he won by two votes. SG [01:25:53] When Barrett was defeated, I think he got back in didn't he by maybe one vote or something? NC [01:25:59] I think it was. Yeah. Something like that. You know, Sean, I don't mind telling you as the time goes by and that memory fades like hell. SG [01:26:12] Mm hmm. Yeah. No, it's often hard to remember dates and so on. NC [01:26:16] What the problem is, you don't talk about it often enough that it just goes, fades and fades and fades. At one time, we were always talking about things like that. It kept fresh in our memories. Now I'm thinking of the places that I fished in central area, all those different bays and that, and the places where you dig clams and that. Holy mackerel. Holy fate. SG [01:26:42] Yeah. You can't remember the names of many of them now. One of the things I'm sure you do remembers you've been a long time president of local one of the of the UFAWU too. NC [01:26:53] Oh yes. SG [01:26:54] When did you first get elected to office in that local? NC [01:26:59] The first time—actually the second time that Steve Stavenes talked me into running, I believe. SG [01:27:09] Steve Stavenes was president of the union at that time? NC [01:27:11] That's right. I believe it was in 1956. Wait a minute, I think—yeah—1956. Cliff Cook was the president for three or four years before that in the role. Steve Stavenes got me (coughing) to run against him. I told him, I says, 'I'd really just as soon stay on the executive with the local rather than the president of the local then.' He says, 'No, Cliff is not doing a very good job. He's not active enough. He's not participating enough. He's not advocate and hardheaded like you.' (coughing) (Excuse me.) He talked me into running against Cliff and I beat Cliff. I think it was by 32 votes if I remember correctly, I beat him. (coughing) SG [01:28:28] A glass of water Nick? NC [01:28:29] Yes, please. Oh, wait a minute—another got a cup of coffee, Sean, please. SG [01:28:38] I'll just put this on pause for a minute then. NC [01:28:40] All right. SG [01:28:43] You were first elected in 1956. You thought as [unclear]. NC [01:28:46] I think I think it was 1956. Yeah. SG [01:28:49] You held that position for a number of years. NC [01:28:51] Ever since. SG [01:28:54] When did you finally step down as president? NC [01:28:58] Never. SG [01:28:58] Oh, you're still president of Local 1? NC [01:28:59] Nobody else wants it. SG [01:29:01] Oh, I see. Well. NC [01:29:03] Yeah. Years ago, I think when Jack Nichol had—we had a meeting or commemoration or when Jack Nichol retired, I think. Oh, Gordie Larkin got up and said a few words, 'We have sitting here, Nick Carr, President of the Vancouver Fisherman's Local for Life.' SG [01:29:40] (Laughter) Well, I guess in effect, it's true. The locals have also become, in the later years when they joined the CAW and Unifor, the locals all kind of got rolled into the whole thing so they're not in the same position they were then. NC [01:29:56] That's right. All Local 1, yeah. SG [01:29:57] When in the years when the local was, it was kind of the big local and of the union wasn't it? , NC [01:30:03] Oh yeah. We had close to 2,000 members. If I remember correctly, I think was 18-1,900 at one time. When the gillnetters—that's when the gillnetters were in full force joined, we had something like, oh hell, I would say close to a thousand gillnetters in the local. SG [01:30:28] It included the gillnet section, the same section? And drag section and trawlers? [01:30:35] Trawlers, yes. And even networkers, because yeah, a lot of the net workers were part time and they were fishermen part time. Like same thing with me. I always called myself a fisherman, but we were paying dues. Also, we had to ask to get reimbursed by—while, you were working in net loft you were a check off and yet you're fishing. You pay for a full year, even if you only fish salmon, but you go work in the net loft. You still get paying dues—a monthly dues. SG [01:31:17] Oh, I see. NC [01:31:18] If you wanted and I never done. If you wanted, you could get reimbursed by those deductions that you had during the months that you work on the net loft. SG [01:31:30] If you'd paid as a fisherman? NC [01:31:32] Yeah, that's right. SG [01:31:33] But you never accepted that you just let the dues go? NC [01:31:36] That's right. Yeah. In fact, for what it's worth, Gary's the one that knows there. Nobody else does. Since I've been a lifetime member of the union for—now was there five years or six years after—I kept paying full dues. $375. SG [01:31:56] Even though you're a lifetime member? NC [01:31:57] That's right. Yeah, I did that, in fact, Nancy says, 'Why?' I said, 'Well, it doesn't hurt me and I'm helping the union.' After a while when my wife found out about it, then I got shit (laughter). Really, yeah. It wasn't 300, it was 250, if I remember correctly then. SG [01:32:21] Well, you know, obviously you've been a trade unionist, you know, with a solid lineage going back many, many years. It sounds like occasionally in your life people ridiculed you for that eh? NC [01:32:34] Many times. Oh, many, many, many times. Not so many times to face, but behind the scenes. My wife finding out about it, and she complained afterwards, like to me, this guy said so-and-so and you're a so-and-so and that. I says, 'I don't mind at all. They can criticize and do what they want. As long as I'm thinking mine thinking that unless you can prove me wrong, I keep thinking the same way.' SG [01:33:11] You're continued to be an advocate of working people. You've also been a member of delegations to the BC Federation of Labour and the Vancouver District Labour Council and so on as well, eh? NC [01:33:22] Oh yes. In fact, now—I was going to tell you before, you see, we had a little bit of money in the local and we got three signing officers in the local purse and Kim, last year or the year before, when Katnich, Joe—oh, what was his name? SG [01:33:55] John Kavnich? NC [01:33:57] No. President of the tendermen's local. I think his name was Kavnich. Glen. Glen Kavnich. Glen Kavnich's, grandmother was the sister of a woman that was godmother to my—he lived next door in the old country. Anyhow, we were talking about purses. Glen Kavnich said he's going to give the, what they got, a few hundred dollars, into an account to the headquarters. I said, 'Yeah, well, I was thinking the same thing, Kim.' That was two years ago, I think. Kim, seems like as long as he can get money, doesn't matter where or how, he can spend it, but he doesn't want to put the effort into raising money, into organising. That's what I'm against, what Kim is doing. So he said Nick is going to give their account into—remember I was telling you, I think two or three years ago I was thinking and you wanted some part for the fisherman's paper? I said, 'Well, Jesus, if I give this to Kim, Kim's going to find a way using.' When they decided to sell the last part of the Maritime Labour Centre, I was opposed to it. I don't like—it was the stupid bitch in Victoria is doing selling off all the B.C. assets to it just so she doesn't have to raize taxes. They said, 'Look, you're not raising any taxes at all,' but she's getting rid of all—the same thing what we are doing now, what we try to do anything now, we're talking about Fishermen's Hall in Rupert of getting rid of it selling it because we don't. You sell the assets, once you spend the money, what have you got? There's nothing. SG [01:36:19] That's true. NC [01:36:19] I was thinking of handing it to the headquarters the money that we had when—no, we got, we've 10, 15, 20,000 dollars. I changed my mind. I told Bill, Mike Ames, I told Bruce Nolan, I says, 'I don't wanna. If we give it to Kim, he's going to find a way of spending it. And we won't have any.' SG [01:36:36] You want to see it put to organizing in some form. NC [01:36:38] That's right. Now, I go to BC Fed convention. I volunteered to go because they can't get anybody else. I get, we get the Vancouver local paying my due, not the headquarters paying my membership, or the—what they heck they call it. SG [01:36:59] Registration for the— NC [01:37:01] Registration. Yes, that's right. For the convention. I've been doing that now for two or three times now. We haven't had any last year. This year we're going to have one convention BC Fed. Last year, we was after the change that over two years. SG [01:37:19] Right. I want to ask you about one other thing that you were a pioneer in. That's in the establishment of the—well, first of all, the benefit fund, and secondly, the UFAWU-CKNW herring sale. NC [01:37:33] Oh, yeah. SG [01:37:34] First of all, the benefit fund. That was an innovation in the industry too. When did that come about? NC [01:37:39] Yes, in 1947. We thought that we should be able to get, in case a person gets hurt or misses work or dies, that we can pay something to the member's family, or even him that renumeration for loss of earnings in the fishermen while he's not fishing. It was a thought that I was going to say, oh—then, I think we had it for four or five years, maybe even more, '47, maybe close to ten years before people—salmon fishermen only. Well, we were all salmon fishermen to the hearing fishermen, but they wanted to establish a fund in salmon fishing. We did agree so much a case of—yeah, I think it was a case—using as a measurement, case into the benefit fund from the salmon fishermen. It was such a low thing and there were so many fishermen in the salmon fleet that did not fish herring that they used to run it first one or two or three years dry because they would draw anything out that was in there. If they got sick or something, they would draw on it and—what other ways there was—but they were always dry and they said, 'Well, we'll amalgamate the two funds together, the Salmon Benefit Fund and Pilchard and Herring. That was the name. SG [01:39:52] Oh, they were two separate funds. I see. NC [01:39:53] Yeah, and we argued those numbers was. Alf Larson and I can [unclear] think of one who else was. We argued like hell, 'No, no, no, no. We're not amalgamating until they can establish themselves that they can stand up on their own rather than using our funds into it. And that's what.' Then they raized it high enough, I think, in the three or four years, five years time from the Salmon Benefit Fund, Salmon Welfare Fund, as they used to call it, into the Herring Welfare Fund together because they were on—they stood up on their own two feet as far as the expense was concerned. But what it was, Vince Viamingo, I don't know whether you know him or not. His father died in January, early January. There was another man and Vince father was only salmon fisherman. He wasn't herring fisherman. And we had Matt Alexich—what's the Alexich's name, his father? He was a herring fisherman and salmon fisherman. He died in December and because he died in December, he was covered by the Salmon Benefit Fund and the Herring Benefit Fund, which he came to. Salmon fund paid $500 and Herring Benefit Fund paid $1,000. Matt got $1,500 from two funds, whereas Vince Viamingo's father died—the father died in January—he was only covered by one fund, $500. When they found out, Vince Viamingo's mother, God rest her soul, where she was we went to church together. We used to see each other, church, Our Lady of Sorrows. I was coming out, a beautiful day like this, coming out of church and I see her standing on the sidewalk. She came up to me. How come I got $500 for my husband and Matt got $1,500. What is my husband a dog? I said, 'Well, that's the way, the time limit. He died in December and your husband died in January. It was a new year. We couldn't pay him for that. At the end of the year, that was it. He was covered for that year, but he wasn't fishing yet, so he wasn't covered.' SG [01:43:02] Oh, I see. NC [01:43:03] I couldn't explain that to her, but she was quite adamant, not only adamant, but also loud and people walking by seeing this woman giving shit to the man, a young fellow like that. It was Vince Viamingo's mother, and she was opposed to it. I couldn't explain to her that if he had died a month earlier, he would have got the same thing, but because he died in the new year. SG [01:43:30] When would he have had to qualify in the new year to be in both funds—after hearing started? NC [01:43:36] That's right. SG [01:43:37] So like in in the spring? NC [01:43:38] That's right. I couldn't explain to her and then he says, 'Well, why in the hell didn't you make it six months after the year?' I said, 'Well, all right, you same thing. We can make it to six months, six, say June paying. Somebody is going to die in July and he's still going to be the same thing, one month after the deadline. And you can't forsee it all and you have to live with it. You got to take the good with the bad. I couldn't explain to her and I tried and, in fact, I went to see her at home and tried to talk to her rationally, and she couldn't understand it. She understood what I was saying, but she couldn't believe that it would be like that. SG [01:44:29] But the fund eventually did amalgamate? NC [01:44:31] Oh, yes. SG [01:44:33] But that came several years later? NC [01:44:35] Right. But you see, if you were fishing only salmon, you got paid for that year to the end of the year. SG [01:44:44] Right. NC [01:44:45] If you were fishing herring, you get salmon and herring for the end of the year. If you only fish salmon, you only get from one fund, you can't get it from both funds. Whereas salmon and herring fishermen can get it from both funds. That's why we changed that a few years later. It was hard to explain to the woman that because you only fish, salmon, not herring, he can't get fund even in January or February, it has to be fishing for both funds to be covered by both funds. SG [01:45:25] The union was the only sort of group in the industry that even offered a fund. Then later on, I presume extended benefits and dental was added? NC [01:45:36] Oh, yes. Bert Ogden changed, helped change that. In fact, I think it was a bit to the detriment of the fund, because when we got to dental in it, it was quite a bit of money going out. In fact, it was too doggone much going out until we changed the length of time that is being covered. SG [01:46:06] Oh, I see. NC [01:46:07] We lost well over $150,000 one time because human beings, such as it is, you give them a good thing, they'll find a way of abusing it. We had that if you got sick or hurt on the boat, you get covered till you go fishing next year, unless you recuperated then you can go back to work or anything. What it was, there was an awful lot—and I hate like hell to say it—an awful lot of Yugoslavian Croatians that got hurt or got sick one or two weeks before the end of the season. They all went on the benefit fund for 39 weeks. Like I tried to tell you, it was over $150,000, spent—no, what am I talking about—$750,000 spent in one one year. Finally, we caught on. We cut a deadline; 39 weeks after you get hurt or sick that you were covered for 39 weeks only—after that you're off. Because of that, but because we took a—remember people saying 2,400 block Hastings you go over there to a cafe there and they're all talking, 'Well this guy got on a benefit fund, this guy got on, we'll go on the benefit fund.' Like I said, two or three weeks before the fishing season ended, everybody was falling into the hole, got hurt, and that. Then, you know that we had a son of a bitch of a doctor, like you could have walked into his office and said, 'Look, Doctor, I've got two broken arms and two broken legs. Will you sign me a slip?' He signed the slip for them for 25, 30 dollars. He'd go on the benefit fund and there was nothing wrong with them at all. They got the doctors to give 'em a bloody slip, that they got hurt or they're sick, they can't go to work, and they collect. We lost it an awful lot. Homer The whole was still in the union at that time. SG [01:48:35] But still, I would presume that a lot of that by and large, the membership really benefited from this benefit fund despite, you know, the abuse that, you know, and everything that happens. NC [01:48:45] Oh, definitely. Oh, yes. At one time, we had a benefit fund that if a person dies, you get $20,000 death benefit if you fish herring, but if you fish salmon only, you don't get it. SG [01:49:02] Oh, I see. NC [01:49:03] See, so that's another thing that we had to change. What it was that the fund was being with the salmon fishermen into it a larger amount of people were covered at salmon and the benefit fund was going broke. Then we cut the benefit fund, the death benefit fund, to $5,000 instead of $20,000. SG [01:49:30] I see. NC [01:49:31] What it was it for one or two years, I think, it was $5,000 from the salmon and $5,000 from the herring. Then we put them all together and it was only $5,000. SG [01:49:45] You continue to be a trustee of the benefit fund, even to this day? NC [01:49:49] Yes. Oh, hell, Jack, not Jack, Glen McEachern got me, when he was running the benefit, got me to join the trustee there and become a signing officer. SG [01:50:07] When was that? NC [01:50:09] President of the Board of Trustees of the benefits fund. SG [01:50:14] When was that roughly? NC [01:50:15] Oh hell, got to be over 40 years ago. Yeah, it had to be, when Glen was still in existence. Yeah, it had to be in the late eighties, I think. Or early eighties, I'm trying to think. Yeah. SG [01:50:47] I think Glen McEachern was gone by the eighties. NC [01:50:50] Yeah, so must have been the seventies, in the and late seventies then when he got me. It was the same as my president of the Vancouver Fisherman's local. Nobody wants to take it. SG [01:51:05] So you're trustee for life, too? (laughter) NC [01:51:07] That's right. You're trying to get somebody. We had a hell of a time last convention that we had two years ago. We had a hell of a time coercing people to go as board of trustees. 'I can't. I gotta work.' We changed it that we tried to get at the meetings are on Saturday and Sunday so people are busy working we don't have to pay lost time because the money isn't there anymore. Now we're changing it, too, because a lot of people don't want to go come on Saturday or Sunday, they like during the week. Yet still there's a lot of people that still work and during the week and they can't, they they don't want to make it. I try to say it for an exceptional cases that we should pay the lost wages, but then if you do it for one, you going to do it for all. SG [01:52:07] Right. Yeah, that's a problem. One of the things I want to talk to you about, though, is the UFAWU herring sale. That was a real achievement and you were one of those who originated the the sale when it began. NC [01:52:21] Yeah, pretty well, it wasn't me. It was a guy name Howard Nelson. I think he's still alive. He was fishing with Charlie Clark. If I remember correctly, there was Norman Gunderson and Charlie Clark. We were in negotiations. I don't know whether you're aware of how it was established. SG [01:52:54] No. NC [01:52:55] We were in negotiations with the companies. They, if I remember correctly, they wouldn't pay $8 a ton for reduction herring. We were in negotiations in an argument, there was no herring. I think Charlie Clark, Norman Gunderson and one of the Good lads got together and they say, 'Why don't we go and catch a load of herring and bring it to the dock in Westminster and we sell it to the public for 25 cents bucket.' They agreed on it and they did. Then Howard Nelson was—I believe his name was Howard Nelson—we can check on it easy enough. He was told, you got to get us some men because we're not going to get the crew that caught the fish to go and—what we did was put the brailer with the handle and all into the hole and three men or four men going with shovels and fill up that brailer full of herring and bring it on the dock. On the dock, we had three boxes, two, three box boxes upside down of the 200 pound boxes of what they used to have salmon in, upside down and one box on top. We used to put the brailer of fish into it. We used to dip the bucket into it, fill it up and then give it to—people had to bring their own containers at that time (we didn't have herring) and that's how it started. I believe it was 1945 or 1946. That's when he started. Howard Nelson had to, at that time I was already quite active in the local and Howard Nelson says, 'Hey Nick, how about giving me a chance. Can you come and give us a hand to sell herring?' I said, 'I'll be glad to.' I came and I said, 'Well, how long are we gonna go?' 'Until we sell out.' I said, 'Holy shit.' SG [01:55:20] Where was the money going from this sale? NC [01:55:23] This money was going into the—they decided whatever they raized, they're going to give it to the CKNW Orphans Fund. SG [01:55:34] Well, that was right at the beginning eh. NC [01:55:35] That's right. That's what they decided. They said, all right, they all agreed. I'm trying to think now what it was. I'm not sure; $250 rings a bell in my mind. Howard Nelson talked me into going and even gettin' two or three of my friends, Yugoslavian Croatian friends to come and work. You know, a lot of them I talked to, they didn't have the cars to get to Westminster. How do you get to Westminster there? We finally did manage. From then on, it was CKNW supplied the advertising of the herring sale, Orphans Fund herring sale. Then we sold out fairly fast and next from then on, that's where we started. I'm glad to say I think there was maybe two or three that I missed because I was fishing—that I couldn't participate in because it was always done in November, October, November, December, mainly October and November. We were still fishing salmon at that time. SG [01:57:08] Howard Nelson was a union member? NC [01:57:10] Yes. Well, yes, he was a fisherman, I believe, with Charlie Clark, if I'm not mistaken. SG [01:57:15] So why did the idea come up of doing a charity event? What was the— NC [01:57:20] Well, after we were successful the first year and we went, they went—no, I didn't participate in that at all. I didn't know what was going on. I know it from history now. They went to the CKNW to advertise the fact and they would give the money to the Orphans Fund at CKNW. SG [01:57:45] They just chose them because they could do advertising. NC [01:57:48] That's right. Exactly. After, oh hell's bells, after three or four years, if I remember correctly—yeah, it would be after three or four years—those successful herring sales that we had Homer Stevens said they wanted Vancouver Aquarium. It wasn't Newman then. Who was it? They wanted a room built for study centre for all the school kids that would come and look at the fish and even cut the fish up, dissect the fish. They would have the union outside of the Herring Orphans Fund once took upon themselves $20,000 to pay for the room or help pay for the room at the Aquarium for children's study centre. I think the plaque is still on the the door. Homer Stevens got the bright idea that since we got the herring Orphans Fund sale because we participated now fully in the sale itself we got, the union would organize all the workers to sell the herring. They would also get the seine boats to go as volunteers, no pay at all and get that herring sale going. Half of it would go to the CKNW Orphans Fund and half would go to the union and that half of it went to the union and it was like two or three or four or $5,000 a year. It would go to pay for the study centre at the aquarium and that's how it started. Afterwards our share would go to any agency that we would be—after a while when we paid for the aquarium study centre, we gave it all to the Orphans Fund. , SG [02:00:26] Well and then the T Buck Suzuki Foundation was added later. NC [02:00:30] That's right. Then on it came because we were getting 20, 25, 30, $40,000 a year that we decided that instead of giving it all to the Orphans Fund, we'd go to T Buck for for half of it. SG [02:00:55] One of the things that's really been a big part of the union's ability to organize over the years was the boat clearance program where you basically cleared your boat before you went fishing, and that seems to have been kind of broken in the 1989 strike, which was kind of a—sounds like a real watershed point for the union. What can you tell me about that, what happened in the 1989 strike that the boat clearance stopped working? NC [02:01:30] Well, like everything else, at one time we had the policy of the union that when we had herring negotiations, you had to attend a meeting. You had to attend 50 percent of the meetings that were being held. If you did not attend the herring meetings during negotiations, each crew member was on the boat, was fined $10. Homer Stevens, God rest his soul wherever he is, he said, 'Yeah, it was good.' And it was. Some fishermen never attended any meetings and we had as much as 12 meetings. So that's $120. It was too god damn much money to take off a person to go fishing, but whatever reason he had for missing, whether he was working or didn't want to or was out of town or what. So they cut it into half. From then on, unless you had a valid and good enough reason, anybody that did not attend the herring meeting during negotiations was fined on clearance, $10 each. A lot of times, the guys were three or four or five or six meetings and they had no excuse for it at all and they were being fined. That's where we got the people— and that's the education part where we got the people to attend the meetings. We used to have—at one time we hired twice, two or three times—what's that auditorium on— SG [02:03:42] We used to have meetings at the PNE forum. NC [02:03:44] Yes, we did but before that we had—there was—where they have all the shows. The theatre— not the theatre under the stars, but legitimate theatre on the— SG [02:03:58] Queen Elizabeth Playhouse? NC [02:04:00] Queen Elizabeth's Playhouse. We had a meeting there. SG [02:04:02] Or theatre, I guess it would have been. NC [02:04:03] We had a meeting there because we had up to 700, 800 members at a meeting. Then we finally found the Pacific National Exhibition there. They had a good auditorium. What was the name of it? It was not the playhouse. SG [02:04:25] The PNE Forum, wasn't it?. NC [02:04:27] No, it wasn't the Forum. It was the other one next to it, below. We used to have 6-700 people there at the meeting, and that was because of education and the fines they used to turn out real good. We always had, not only good meetings, but good negotiations. We had a lot of people there, mainly from the Lower Mainland, that were the fishermen on herring; there was very few up north or any place else. The companies we lorded it over the companies to get the better. We got them to— SG [02:05:06] And this is Roe herring now, we're not talking about reduction? NC [02:05:09] No reduction. SG [02:05:11] Oh, it was reduction herring. I see. NC [02:05:11] Reduction herring. We got companies to pay or the boat owners to pay for working on nets, repairing nets, building herring brailers, repairing anything at all. For two weeks before we went out if they if they had to work on the boat they got paid for it. SG [02:05:36] So I guess that program began to break down in '67 when the fishery was closed on reduction herring. NC [02:05:43] That's right. SG [02:05:44] And so it was never—you didn't ever get fined on salmon or anything like that eh? NC [02:05:47] No. We never have. The people didn't want it. We weren't forceful, we were stable, and we had enough money coming in that we were well organized and that they didn't bother trying to educate people. We were getting good turnouts to meetings and that was one of the reasons. It's too bad we we did it that way, but that's all behind. SG [02:06:19] In '89 it seemed like for the first time a significant number of seiners, as well as gillnetters for that matter, went out fishing during the strike in defiance of the clearance program, eh? NC [02:06:34] Yeah. It wasn't independent [unclear] and defined a clearance program. It was in defiance of getting money and vessel owners and even the companies. They were getting the upper hand on getting the boys to go out. What are you going to do to me today? Even today, I don't like if I know a man scabbed during the strike. I like nothing to do with 'em at all. Everybody says you should forget. But I can't. I can't forget that while we were fighting like hell that they went out. Some of them made good money, you know, for a week or two, the guys make four or $5,000 fishing while the strike was on. In fact, one Savage Fisher went out and he brought us the slip—$4,200 for one week's fishing. Two days fishing. SG [02:07:41] During the strike? NC [02:07:41] During the strike. He showed us the slip. That's what the checks got, the crew members that went on there. To me, I could never see it. I'd have to be—my family would have to be starving pretty goddamn bad before I could go and break a strike. SG [02:08:01] What do you think about what what's happened to the strength of the union? NC [02:08:07] I think what it is, Sean, the main thing is that we were so strong in the fifties, in the sixties, in the seventies that we build up a pretty goddamn strong union and that anybody that was coming into the union, everything was done for them. They didn't have to fight for it. The ones that were still in there, that fought for them and that, they got not tired but lax, and they didn't care. The incentive wasn't there, the fight wasn't there. As one fellow said, we should resurrect Homers demons and bring them out and get the fishing industry organized again. That's what it was. When you get things that are done for you, you just take it as one or two, three, four, five years. As a matter of fact, it's always been like that. It's all—it's easy. What the use? We don't have to do anything. It's all done for us. That's the main part that we never kept on organizing and keeping because we all got lax, because everything was done. We didn't have to do anything. It was slowly, slowly, slowly eroding. The trade-union-minded people weren't there anymore to argue like hell. That's what it was. I think that's the main thing that—especially with younger people. A number of people say, 'Well, what am I gonna go to the union? What can the union do for me?' You tell them well, 'What do you think these things that you got now, how was it established?' It was trade unionism, but they can't see it. It's done. It's now. I don't care. SG [02:10:06] Well, it's also difficult too, I guess, because you don't have young people coming into the industry much anymore. It's still very much a trade and industry that's dominated by older people. NC [02:10:16] That's right. SG [02:10:18] You began fishing then, not not counting what you did in the old country, but you began fishing here in 1942? NC [02:10:27] Yes, but I was still going to school. SG [02:10:31] When did you finally wrap up? When did you finally say, okay, that's it, I'm done with going out in a boat? NC [02:10:37] Oh, uh. SG [02:10:40] So you were fishing in the Baleno still into the nineties, weren't you? NC [02:10:44] Oh, yes. Well into the nineties. The thing is that my kids, especially the two younger ones, the twins, they talked the older one into, 'Dad, you're getting old. You're over 70. (laughter) Shouldn't you quit?' Look, if it's a problem financially, they offered me $200 each a month to keep us going. That's $600 a month I could have got if we needed it to quit fishing. Finally I said, 'Well, gee.' In fact, one of them started crying. She said, 'Dad, you're too old. We feel sorry for you. You shouldn't be doing that.' They talked me into it. What helped an awful lot, you can see I had an operation. My fingers were curling like this, especially this one here. I had to have an operation—and that's another story—to get them straightened out. My sister in Australia had it. My father here had it and one of his brothers in the old country had it. It's hereditary. My father was still fishing and they were loading the net from the net loft onto the boat and his fingers were caught like that and he was helping the net to go so it's not rubbing against the side of the building, so it wouldn't tear anything. He was helping to go and he got his fingers caught and he couldn't get them undone and the net was going on. Finally, he started hollering like hell, but the way the engines and winches and everything was making noise, nobody heard him. He pulled his finger off. So when it happened to me like that, they were curling and the kids crying like that, I said, 'Okay, that's enough.' That's why. I went to get an operation to straighten them and I wanted to go back fishing and they just about clobbered me at home. What are you talking about fishing, but I had them straightened out. Both hands were operated on. SG [02:13:18] Do you remember the year of your last fishery then? That you were on the boat? Because come to think of that, it seems to me it was in 2004 you were you were still on the boat. NC [02:13:32] What I was going to do is I got to fix my income tax papers now and I'm going to go see when the last the income tax that I had to claim it was but I would say about 14 years ago. SG [02:13:50] So 2002? SG [02:13:51] Something like that. SG [02:13:52] Yeah. Okay. SG [02:13:54] That's where it was. Something like that. SG [02:13:56] That's 60 years on the water then; it's quite a career. SG [02:14:00] I think I counted it, 56 all told, 56 years. The operation that I had done, you'd never guess what the name of the doctor, what the heck do they call them? What's the specialist in skin? SG [02:14:26] A dermatologist? SG [02:14:27] No, no. Oh, shit. Anyhow, he's a specialist in—oh, they really just do the face. SG [02:14:39] Like plastic surgery? SG [02:14:40] Plastic surgery. Plastic surgeon. What his name was? SG [02:14:44] No. SG [02:14:48] When I first went to get the first operation in UBC. When I came in with my wife, he says, 'Well, you're the guy that gave us all the trouble.' I said, 'What did I do?' You know what? We tried to get the name of the doctor that's doing the operation. He sent us the doctor's name, Nick Carr, and we sent, faxed it back to him. 'We know who the patient is, but we'd like to know who the doctor is.' So they sent it back to him—Nick Carr. Again, they send it back, 'We know who the patient is, but tell us the doctor's name.' And it was four times like that, they said. Nick Carr. That's the doctor's name. SG [02:15:46] That was the doctor's name. Isn't that incredible. Well, I think at that point, we're going to wrap it Nick. SG [02:15:50] Well, wait a minute. I got to tell you little funny stories in that. Who the doctor is, Nick Carr, in 1965, I think, or 1964. My daughter was working for the BC Tel at—what's that building where there's a big port and restaurant or restaurants there and be—oh shit—the name of the centre. BC Tel building that was there was only a small building, but the offices were there. One guy came in; my daughter was behind the counter and one guy came in. 'I want to take my name off the phone book.' She said, 'Yes, sir, fine. If I may, would you tell me the reason why you would want your name off?' 'Because some asshole's got the same name as me, and they're calling me 2:00, 3:00 o'clock in the morning to go and pick a duty. And I want it off.' She said, 'What's your name, sir?' 'Nick Carr.' (laughter). My daughter got a smile upon her face. 'It's not a bloody laughing matter. He jumped on her. SG [02:17:22] (laughter) So you got taken off the phone list or your name was. SG [02:17:30] I told him that after the second operation, he said, 'I remember that, too.' Yup. SG [02:17:37] Well, isn't that something? Okay. Thanks again, Nick, for agreeing to do this. That's been a great story.

: Interview with Art Kube; Art Kube was born in Poland where he attended a socialist kindergarten. He joined the Metalworkers Union in 1949 and became a member of the socialist faction of the Metalworkers Union. His mother was a socialist and trade unionist who had to raise her two children alone because Art’s father was a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union. He left in 1954 to “see the world” and wound-up landing in Quebec, Canada where he became a member of the United Steelworkers union (USW). Art soon became involved in organizing workers across a wide variety of industries. He eventually became President of the BC Federation of Labour. , Wednesday, April 5, 2016 , Interview: Art Kube (AK) Interviewer: David Yorke (DY), Ken Novakowski (KN), Bailey Garden (BG) Date: April 5, 2016 Location: Surrey, BC Transcription: Bailey Garden DY [00:00:05] So, Art, all of us are so impressed about the way that you've devoted so much of your life to the trade union movement -- and I guess what I'd like to ask you first is -- if I asked you why you did that, what would you say? How come the trade union movement is so important to you? AK [00:00:30] Well, it really came from the background I came from. I joined the Metalworkers Union in 1949 and became a member of the Metalworkers Union, and also became part of the socialist faction of the Metalworkers. My mother was a member of a trade union and a long-time member of the party. As a matter of fact, you know, she had to bring the two of us up because my father was a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union. So, she sort of brought us along and we were nine, ten years old. So, we belonged to the socialist kindergarten because, you know, (unclear). In the mornings, the school and the afternoon was at kindergarten. From there we went to -- when I was old enough -- became a member of the Young Falcons, was the executive of the youth section of the Metalworkers Union. Then in 1954, I decided to leave Europe -- because I had finished an apprenticeship -- and go see the world. I ended up in Quebec City, and it's really funny because in Quebec City, the first trade union action in Canada occurred because if you recall, that was the year when the Canadian Pacific Steamship changed to a flag of convenience to Bermuda, and they wanted to cut the wages of the seamen. I was working on the ship at that time, and so I decided to get off, and somebody told me, 'Why don't you go to the immigration office here and see if you can get an immigrant status?' So, I went over there, and it was very interesting. They asked me where I was born. I say, 'I was born in Poland.' I was, and he says, 'Well, you're lucky the Polish quota hasn't been filled.' So, within a matter of two and a half hours I became a landed immigrant, where it took some people years. So, it's just sheer luck. I went on - got on the train, because I knew some people who lived in Edmonton. I remember, I had I think about $45 and when I landed in Edmonton three days later, I think I had all of $0.50. What they did -- because I had landed immigrant status - they took us into the immigration hall there and fed us a breakfast. The contractors came and wanted to see if anyone wanted to work, and I had a trade, so I got working. I worked for a week and got myself a place to stay, and then I connected with some people who spoke good English -- because my English was atrocious. I mean, I could order a coffee and a doughnut, that's about the end of it. They gave me some information, and I wanted the information of where the Steelworkers Union office was. Sure enough, it was on Jasper Avenue. So, I went in there and knocked on the door. Went in and there's a secretary there and I said, 'Sprechen sie Deutsch?' she says, 'No.' There was a guy in there by the name of Mike Sikora and he was a Ukrainian, but he spoke some German. So, I started explaining who I was, that I was an immigrant and I was a member of the Metalworkers Union in Europe, and they told me that if I come to Canada one of the unions I might want to contact is the Steelworkers AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labour - Congress of Industrial Organizations), and in that category, we are really good with only two unions. That's the Steelworkers and the Auto Workers, because that was before the merger of the Congresses. So, anyhow, Steelworker rep came in and between Mike Sikora, me and him, we sort of got -- the first thing they said, 'Look, we only have about 50 members.' The Steelworkers only had 50 members, but the IWA (International Woodworkers of America) was organizing then already about 1200. The IWA and the Steelworkers were very close, they worked very closely together. After about, oh, two months -- I was working in the meantime in sweatshop where I don't know, I think it was $0.75 an hour. DY [00:06:42] Doing what, Art? AK [00:06:44] Well, I'm a steelworker. Well, steel fabricator really. DY [00:06:52] What was your trade that you learnt in Austria? AK [00:06:55] Yeah it was a Structural Layout Man. The job where you get the blueprints from the government, from the engineering office, you order the materials, you bring the materials in. You mark the materials, and then it gets punched and cut. Eventually, I sort of put a number on it and then it goes out on the jobsite and gets erected. DY [00:07:25] So, it was like draughting on the steel -- AK [00:07:29] No, the draughting, the draughtsman is really -- after the engineer does the overall print, the draughtsman just does the detailing. After the detailing, these prints come to me because they had to be exact. So, anyhow, after working in that place and so on and so forth, I kept in touch with a steelworker, he invited me. There were some other people around -- CCF-ers (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation) -- and he said to me, 'Look, what I would suggest is I can get -- I know some people -- I can get you a job up north on the dew line', he says, 'That will do a number of things for you. In the first place, you're going to be forced to learn the language.' Because here in Edmonton, I mean, French is not the second language. It's either Ukrainian, German or Polish. He says 'You're going to be forced to learn language. The other thing is you can establish an economic base for yourself because there's nothing else to do and you get about a dollar forty an hour.' Which was big money then. So, I did that, but when I came down from the dew line every four or five months, I stayed with Jimmy Russell. DY [00:09:12] Jimmy Russell. He was a Steelworker business agent? AK [00:09:29] No, he was a rep. So, he says, 'Listen, would you mind helping us?' I said, 'Well, sure, what can I do?' He said, 'Look, I got here about half a dozen of German people. Would you mind going with one of our reps because you can speak German to them and so and so forth?' So, I found it very interesting and sure enough, they succeeded in getting the Dominion Bridge in Edmonton, the Dominion Bridge in Calgary. As a matter of fact, in a period of two years, they organized close to 2000 steelworkers in Alberta. I was really just -- the only time I was sort of active when I got into town from the dew line. So, I got into this social circle. As a matter of fact, I think if you look at my first CCF card about 1956 or so. At the time, when somebody joined the CCF -- especially a young person like me -- they grab you and Merv -- Lloyd Johnson -- Floyd? Floyd was the president. Bill Irvine was around the office at Woodwards House on 100 -- was it 97? KN [00:11:12] No, it was 107th off of Jasper Avenue. Yeah. AK [00:11:16] Yeah, yeah. So, organizing, but then also, we did a number of things from the Cooperative executive and as a matter of fact, I financed it because the Steel-- nobody had any money. I think I had about $4000 in the bank. I was the rich capitalist in there. DY [00:11:46] So, you got into organizing for the Steelworkers really quickly. AK [00:11:53] Yeah. DY [00:11:56] Maybe I'll go back to what I was asking you before and use that as an example. If you go to somebody and there in Alberta in 1954, 1955, and they're working at Dominion Bridge. AK [00:12:12] Yeah. DY [00:12:13] What is it that you say to them that convinces them to join a union? Why should you join a union? AK [00:12:18] Well, I basically said, 'Look, if they came from Europe, especially in the area of the steel fabrication and so and so forth, they've most likely had some connection with the union. Okay. Especially when they were German. So, the only thing you had to convince them of was that the Steelworkers are much stronger in terms of organization, in terms of helping people and so and so forth instead of negotiating rates than Mine-Mill. Okay. That was the selling point. I know that they were accused of red baiting and all that stuff. I didn't red bait, but at the same time, I pointed out certain things. You see, when you're brought it up in a household which is basically a socialist household, when you're in Western Europe and you sort of see the danger that the Communist Party was to trade unions and to social democratic parties. I tell you, for instance, in 1954, just before over two and a half months before I left, I participated in a general strike. One day general strike, because the two occupation forces, namely the Soviet Union and the United States, wanted to outlaw the Socialist Party in Austria. Yeah, and they had a one-day strike, and the Brits and the French. That was the first instance, and I mean, I was getting -- DY [00:14:39] Why do you think what basis or what reason did the Soviets and the Americans have to make a common cause against the Socialist Party? Why were they doing that, do you think? AK [00:14:54] At that particular time, I really couldn't tell you what the real reason. I think they were (unclear) especially with the Americans. It was stupidity because their move in Japan gave a totally different picture. I was brought up in a political situation, like, for instance -- I know, for instance, that in Czechoslovakia, Masaryk didn't jump off the balcony. So, yeah, there was a real difference, and it was really through some real maneuvering that Austria was able to negotiate itself into a peace treaty and get all occupation forces out of Austria. Living in Vienna, when you're going from the kindergarten and the youth organization into the membership and the mother is there. The father is a prisoner of war until 1957. You build up a certain what you might call resistance to -- if you really knew something, you knew yourself that the common term was not -- not a free elected organization of equals. It was basically dictated by the Soviet Union and their foreign policy. So, it's sometimes it's very hard to understand, but I was able. I could hold my own with Harvey Murphy, Bill Longridge and some of these people, but I never went there and said, 'Well, the reason you should join the Steelworkers Union is because these guys are all communists, which is a bunch of nonsense, because I knew some of these. Jimmy Russell, who really I thought the world of, was a Vice-President of Local 240 of Mine-Mill in Kirkland Lake, and also worked for the CCF. I knew that there were a lot of good people in Mine-Mill, right to the bitter end. The thing was happening, there's no question that what was happening in the United States did have some influence in Canada in regards to the behaviour. The Steelworkers Union was an international union, but let me tell you that we were very jealously guarding our Canadian autonomy. When the international president came up to one of our conventions and suggested that their political action maybe was better than ours, he was very politely told to keep his politics south of the border. I almost went (unclear) point. Later on in my life, when I ran against the administration at the CLC (Canadian Labour Congress) and got hammered, the CLC had to fill the position here as Regional Director of Education. Let me tell you that particular choice was very largely not made by Donald MacDonald, it was made by the executive committee of the Congress. They said, 'Look, we need somebody in there who can do a number of things.' Re-establish the political party presence -- because if you know the internal politics of Ontario's CCF. Mine-Mill had a sort of non-partisan political action and what it was doing was electing all kinds of Liberals in seats which we should be holding, like Windsor and so forth. So, it was the question of seeing if we can establish some political action. Like for instance, affiliating the large Inco local which had 18,000 members, and within -- me getting appointed to staff -- in the year we had two federal MPs (Member of Parliament) and we had two provincial MLAS (Member of the Legislative Assembly). So, that was one of the responsibilities I had. DY [00:20:44] So, Art, going back to just starting off working with the Steelworkers in Alberta. Was the organizing work that you were doing -- was it mostly in plants where there wasn't any union or was it mostly in plants where Mine-Mill was there? AK [00:21:10] Well, Mine-Mill didn't have any plants. They had Dominion Bridge, which were two plants. One in Calgary, one in Edmonton. Okay, that was - but what was important to them in Edmonton was the staging area to go into the mines in northern Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories because hiring was done in Edmonton. So, Mine-Mill wanted to organize and Steelworkers wanted to organize. So, you know, Thompson came on a little bit later. I spent a year and a half in Thompson preparing to get all kinds of Steelworkers on the properties, but the only way you could get on a property, for instance, was to get hired by the contractor because the company didn't have anyone on their staff. The only people on their staff was the future mine manager and they had the engineering staff, but they didn't have any workers and such. I mean, one of the great things, you always try to sort of look at the qualities of this union or that union, and there was always this sort of feeling that you don't go through the back door into a collective agreement. However, at Inco in Thompson, Manitoba, that's exactly what happened. Mine-Mill made a deal with the company, and you had to go, had to show they were a member of Mine-Mill. Kennedy -- I'm trying to think of Kennedy's first name, he was Vice-President at Mine-Mill. He was operating the beer parlour where the miners used to congregate and he says, 'Well fellas, who would like to work in Thompson? Well, have you ever belonged to a union?' and so forth, and most of them said, 'Yeah.' 'Well, here, I can get you in.' and that's how Mine-Mill got established in Thompson. I'm not saying that that didn't happen in some situation where the Steelworkers might be involved, because, for instance, if there's a company where Steelworkers had maybe a national agreement like they have, for instance, had with Continental Can, well, they had an agreement which basically said that anytime a new Can plant -- Continental Can builds a new plant, so and so forth -- the Steel -- we'll give the Steelworkers voluntary recognition; but these agreements were top-notch agreements. DY [00:24:42] Well, Art, can I ask you this. There was a fair amount of what you did that I -- from what you're saying, and I guess from what we knew before -- that where, what Steel is doing is, they're in a struggle with Mine-Mill for a whole bunch of different reasons. I'm just trying to get a picture of what it was like in situations where that wasn't the case, where there was a group of workers who didn't have any union at all, and you were trying to organize them into the union. It wouldn't be a question of which union was best or the politics of it, and so on. It's why you should be in a union. So, I was just trying to see if you can recall the kinds of approaches and arguments you would use to tell people, 'Hey, a union is a good thing, you should be there.' AK [00:25:43] Yeah, well, look, unless you never came off the farm, you did hear in one form or another something about the union. So, when you go in there and start talking to somebody, quite often I'd say, 'Look at the number of things the union can do for you. It can do some job protection for you.' That's one thing, and the other thing I'd say, 'I don't know how much money you make, but here we have collective agreements in that industry, and here's the pay rates and here's the collective agreements. I'm not telling you something which isn't true, but here's some proof.' The thing you had to overcome is not so much the anti-, the opposition to the union, but the fear factor. The fear factor was really the thing, and it came in two forms. Quite often, management said, 'Well, folks, you know we're good to you. We give you everything we can, but we can't give you any more because we can't stay in business.' That was the sort of soft thing, and the hard thing was that they always had a few stooges there to set you up and get you fired. I got fired seven times. DY [00:27:14] How many times? AK [00:27:15] Seven times. Yeah, but I got reinstated five times. The other two times, I didn't really care. So, you've got the fear factor to overcome. Now, they did -- Jimmy Russell, to his credit, was a person who really genuinely worked with the other unions. He worked with the labourers, the ironworkers, he socialized with them and everything else, and it was an understanding he had with them. Not -- it wasn't an understanding which was universal in the trade union movement, it's something Jimmy Russell was able to do. What he basically said, 'Look, I'm going to wherever possible, I'm going to make sure that new construction in established steel certificate goes to the Building Trades.' Okay, and even if that's absolutely impossible to do that, he worked out a deal for the dues. The Steelworkers collected from the Building Trades members working in their jurisdiction went to the Building Trade Union. Okay, so in return for it -- because usually after construction was sort of towards the end, the companies start to hire these people and they were either members of the Labourers Union or the Ironworkers, whatever, or Sheet Metal Workers. They were able to get in there through the help of the union and that made it much easier. Yeah, and in Alberta, but then in other cases where a company came in and was non-union, was maybe very much opposed to the union. Then you have to sort of work -- working on some other things and provide some sort of assurances that if you get fired for union activities, there are certain things we can do to get you reinstated. If that fails, they'll try to get you a job with some of the organized plants, and generally speaking, companies used to be quite good about hiring people who are fired by a non-union company. You know, the unions suggested because generally it was found that they didn't like the unfair competition of having to compete against a non-union company. So, these are sort of assuring them that they're not going to get fired, and if they do, there's going to be some sort of assistance and it has worked, but there again, if you find people who don't have any sort of collective vision of things, then it might be very tough to organize, and I think that to a certain extent Alberta was the case. Saskatchewan was very bad. You know, we had very good labour legislation in Saskatchewan, but it was fairly tough to organize, you know, I mean I don't know how many rounds we took at the -- what's in Esterhazy? DY [00:31:36] Potash. AK [00:31:37] Potash. Yeah. I mean, the Steelworkers Union spent a million dollars trying to organize. DY [00:31:46] Well, when you said a collective vision, what do you mean by that? AK [00:31:51] Well, look. If you look at the, what you might call the raison d'être, you can say, 'Look, what sort of chance to you have to deal with your boss on an even basis? But if a few people get together, the boss has to at least listen to you, and under the law, he has to bargain. If the union is certified, under the law he has to bargain collectively.' We didn't tell them that we're going to have you out on strike. Yeah, you had to sort of play that fairly cool until they recognized when they sit on the bargaining table that the boss is an S.O.B. So it's these sort of things which you have to sort of win the mind of the people you're are trying to organize. A lot of personal contacts, spend a lot of time. Sometimes you may call five or six call-backs and I'll tell you it's much tougher, for instance, to raid a place than organize a new place, because Mine-Mill was no slouch. DY [00:33:40] Well, maybe I could ask you about a couple of people on both sides of that. AK [00:33:44] Yeah. DY [00:33:47] Maybe start with the Steelworkers. Did you work with Mahoney? With Bill Mahoney? DY [00:33:56] I did work with Bill Mahoney, but Bill Mahoney was not what you might call the most pleasant fellow. DY [00:34:05] Okay, tell us a bit about Bill Mahoney, because he's a bit of a mystery in this. AK [00:34:08] Well Bill Mahoney, I think was always a liberal. He came out of Sault Ste. Marie, and a very devout Catholic. I think that if anything drove him into the Steelworkers Union, it was more that Catholic action than anything else. His base was Sault Ste. Marie, Algoma Steel, and somehow he that Algoma Steel was going to be the key organization in Steel forever but found out that there were other places coming in like Inco, like Stelco was growing very fast and that he wasn't all he turned out to be. So, when Charlie Mallard left, there were two. DY [00:35:26] Tell us who Charlie Millard was. AK [00:35:30] Well, Charlie Millard, the National Director of Steel. Actually, he was the CIO Director for Canada and by virtue of that, he was also Director of the UAW (United Auto Workers) in Canada. Charlie was a very strong CCF-er. The fight within the trade union movement between -- there were actually three groups, four groups which were engaged in getting the hearts and minds of working people. There was the Steelworkers, and the CIO-CCL (Canadian Congress of Labour). The other group was a Catholic syndicate, mostly strong in Quebec, but also some in Ontario. Then you had this sort of company union thing. The company union was pretty strong in Ontario. DY [00:37:03] Was it? AK [00:37:04] Yeah, as a matter of fact, to this day they are. They still are because, you see, what got the shot in the arm for them was the Dutch Reformed group. DY [00:37:22] Yeah. AK [00:37:23] See, I forgot their name. DY [00:37:24] CLAC (Christian Labour Association of Canada). AK [00:37:25] CLAC. The CLAC-ers. So, that was three, and then there was also a small group of what you might call CP-dominated (Communist Party) organizations. That was Mine-Mill, it was the UE (United Electrical Workers Union), it was fish (United Fish and Allied Workers Union). DY [00:37:55] That's all on the industrial side, and then there's the Trades and Labour Congress as well. , AK [00:38:01] Yeah. Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I forgot about the Trades and Labour Congress. No question a very large group, but in the Trades and Labour Congress, the question was -- there was some pretty good groups in there. There were some not so good groups in the CIO either, you know, a couple. It was -- we would always tell these glorious stories about the needle trades. Well, I tell you, needle trades used to have some shitty contracts too. So, you had these different groups and there was always a desire for everyone to get together, but you can't get together with organizations who sign yellow-dog agreements and destroy every trade union principle there is. It would be not too much of a problem with the TLC, except that there was an understanding that if you merge, there might be sort of a mass exodus. So, what you had to do, you had to give all kinds of assurances that raiding, you can be expelled for raiding. That really came in to protect the TLC membership. DY [00:39:46] The Trades and Labour Congress. AK [00:39:48] Yeah. DY [00:39:49] You were telling us about Charlie Millard. He was -- AK [00:39:52] Yeah, okay. So, anyhow, when Charlie stepped down, he was sent into the Senate. Not the Upper Chamber, but we had the ICFTU (International Confederation of Free Trade Unions) and then we had also the ILO (International Labour Organization), the tripartite thing, and a good number of trade unionists who were on the tail end of their career, they ended up maybe in Geneva or, you know, then -- (phone rings) -- ILO ended up with ICFTU in Brussels. DY [00:40:45] That's the International Confederation of-- AK [00:40:47] Free Trade Unions. DY [00:40:47] Free Trade Unions, yeah. AK [00:40:50] So, Charlie ended up as Director of Organization. You had then the vacancy in the national office and here you had these two aspirants: Mahoney, the wheel in Algoma Steel, and Larry Sefton, the wheel in Stelco, because he led the Stelco strike, which was the thing everyone in the labour movement sang about. So, Charlie said, as his last act, said 'Look.' Mitchell, who was the director of District Six, was ready to retire and was just about six months to go. So, Charlie went to Pittsburgh and said, 'Look, can we work something out for Charlie to retire six months early and you keep him on the staff, because I don't want to have the fight in Canada and I got these two guys who do carry a lot of weight. Let's see, because Larry is not going to step aside for Mahoney just to -- but if we give them assurance that he's going to be supported strongly if he runs for the Directorship of District Six. He won't run for the National Directors job.' Now, that sort of showed me that Bill Mahoney didn't really understand the Steelworkers Union, because the power is not in the national office. It's in the district office. Anyhow, the end result was that Bill Mahoney ended up as the National Director, Larry Sefton ended up as District Director; but if you wanted to get something done, you went to Larry, because Larry had by far the largest district. It ran from the Quebec border, Ontario/Quebec border, right to the West Coast. The thing Mahoney could do to sort of maintain his power is basically be a strong supporter, all at once, a strong supporter of you know who, the NDP (New Democratic Party). Larry always was a strong supporter of the NDP. You know, he had Doc Ames. I don't know if you remember Doc Ames, he was a Steelworker organizer, but he spent most of his time organizing the CCF and the NDP in northern Ontario. So, we held all these seats up there. Larry was very successful in organizing. He had won the Stelco strike, and he also helped the small district in Quebec. Larry put a lot of money from District Six into Quebec. Like Murdochville. DY [00:44:34] Murdochville. I was going to ask you, were you involved in the Murdochville strike? AK [00:44:38] No, I wasn't involved, it was District Three, yeah. So, everything went along fine until, well, what's happening is that the industry changed and Larry got sick. Larry got sick, he got cancer and died, and Lynn was saying -- and there was -- AK [00:45:10] This is Lynn Williams. AK [00:45:12] Lynn Williams, and there again, you see, the Steelworkers Union under Charlie Millard, under Mitchell, who was the director of District Six in Ontario before Larry Stephan. Then Larry Sefton, Jimmy Russell, the whole Steel staff came into the union as a struggle. The only one who didn't, the only two who didn't, got there by virtue of knowing somebody was Stu Cook. I don't know if you -- Stu Cook was for a short time District Director of District Six -- and the other one was Don Montgomery. Don Montgomery's father brought in the workers into the Steelworkers Union in Sault Ste. Marie, because they belonged previously to a union that was called -- don't know (unclear) they were sort of aluminum metal union and then became part of the Steelworkers Union. Yeah, and so basically when it came to doing some progressive work, be it in terms of Canada or be it internationally, the Steelworkers were par excellence. No question. You know, anyone who tells you that they weren't is not telling the truth. They were because they also brought on some like Len Williams. Len Williams, then you most likely remember Wally Ross. Eileen Sufrin, you know, and there were many others. Also, in terms of the MPs, a number of MPs -- federal MPs -- came to these groupings. The Assistant National Director, Eamon Park, he sort of was key person in setting up the New Democratic Party, and when it came to assisting the party, they were there. That -- to a certain extent -- some people say, 'Well, the only reason they did that because it maintained their status as a progressive organization.' and I say, 'Well, the bloody thing is that if a union gets itself into trouble and so on and so forth, who in the community will help them? A progressive church minister or a local anarchist, or... DY [00:48:37] So, Art, you worked on staff for the Steelworkers in the fifties and sixties. AK [00:48:43] I worked on staff at the Steelworkers Union for a period of five weeks. DY [00:48:49] Oh really? AK [00:48:50] Five weeks. I never left, for instance, getting jobs in mines, plants and so on and so forth. I was getting a paycheque. It was just way in the later stages that I got married, so I didn't have expenses, and it gave me a tremendous amount of personal satisfaction. I was very successful because if you're ever beholden to somebody for your job, you limit your ability. (unclear) DY [00:49:41] So, then how is it that you can become on the staff of the CLC? AK [00:49:48] Well, that came because the Steelworkers union needed to do a pacification job in Sudbury. Okay, and I had just been fired in Thompson because somebody squealed on me. When they fired me, the Mine-Mill inside plant said, 'Hey, if you fire me, you might as well fire the Steelworker inside organizer too.' It was actually a guy who used to live, used to work for Rock and Tunnel here. Will come to me in a little while. So, anyhow -- DY [00:50:43] McPhee? AK [00:50:45] No, no, McPhee was the business agent. DY [00:50:52] Anyways. AK [00:50:58] You see, I'm pretty obvious, if I juggle too many balls at the same time. You asked me why. DY [00:51:06] How did you get on the CLC? AK [00:51:08] Okay, that leads me to say the reason I got on the CLC staff is because they needed some pacification work down here. DY [00:51:17] What do you mean by that? AK [00:51:23] Mine-Mill not only had Ancor and Falconbridge, they had a good number of other workers places organized. DY [00:51:30] In Sudbury. AK [00:51:31] In Sudbury. So, there was no question about if the jurisdiction would be awarded to Steel as far as Inco was concerned, but all the other places -- and there were about 30 thousand -- the Teamsters wanted a bite, Retail Wholesale wanted a bite, Retail Clerks wanted a bite, the Meatcutters wanted a bite. The first thing you would have is all these unions, CLC unions, fighting each other, and what's going to happen? I mean, that's not a good introduction to the people in terms of favouring Steel. So, the executive council said, 'Look, we'll ask all the affiliates to stay out of Sudbury and the CLC will organize these places. Once they're organized, once the situation settles down, all the unions who have jurisdiction in these particular areas will be asked to come in and take a vote and see where the people want to go. So, I had to organize. These things were easy to organize, because Mine-Mill really -- DY [00:52:59] It was on its way out. AK [00:53:00] Well, the thing is that you had -- the food industry was a fairly well-paid industry and Mine-Mill just didn't know how to deal with hard-rock miners, you know. DY [00:53:23] So, what was your sort of official job in in Sudbury? AK [00:53:28] My job was a representative of the Canadian Labour Congress. So, I had to organize these places, I had to negotiate collective agreements. I had to do the political end and look after labour councils because indirectly, I looked after nine labour councils in northwestern Ontario. So, that was -- when I heard sometimes of some of the Congress reps bitching about having to work hard. I said, 'How would you like to have my territories?' DY [00:54:11] So, just in terms of time, this is what about 1966, '67? AK [00:54:17] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. DY [00:54:21] Okay, and then what did you do when you finished in Sudbury? AK [00:54:26] Well, the thing is that -- Look, I'm not gonna brag, but I'm a pretty good organizer. DY [00:54:33] I gather, eh? AK [00:54:35] So, that was, I mean, everybody had to laugh. I organized for the Congress a number of places and so and so forth, and the Congress had a position called White-Collar Coordinator and get in charge of it. You know who that job before me? Terry Morely. KN [00:55:10] Oh, really? AK [00:55:12] But anyhow, it's -- DY [00:55:13] He was more white-collar than you are. AK [00:55:16] The thing is that all my friends, like Wally Ross, sometimes he drove me crazy because, 'Kube, they're making you the national White-Collar Coordinator? Jesus, you're going to go to wear your rubber boots and your muckers'. DY [00:55:45] So, what did that involve? Being the White-Collar Coordinator. AK [00:55:49] Organize all 5 million white-collar workers. DY [00:55:56] Okay, this is now the CLC. AK [00:55:57] Yeah. DY [00:55:58] So, the white-collar unions are what, the OPEIU (Office and Professional Employees International Union)? AK [00:56:03] The OPEIU, and they are actually the only union who has -- they claim -- jurisdiction in that area. My position was always that he who holds the cards holds the jurisdiction. You know what that means? DY [00:56:31] Yeah, well that seems to be the law in Canada actually. Yeah, but --. AK [00:56:35] The thing is you had -- talking about things being counterproductive in a way -- the OPEIU members, a large part of their membership are people working in union offices. You might have experienced that in the Teachers Federation too; because you're working for a union, you're supposed to get a model contract plus. So, you know who all the union people who work for unions and who are officers in their unions, you know who they hate more than the boss? The OPEIU rep. DY [00:57:33] So, did you work with organizing where they ended up in OPEIU, or another affiliate? AK [00:57:41] No, look, we did two things. First, the first thing we did, I sort of basically sit down and say, 'What are the options here?' I was never imbued with my great quality of being able to organize for 5 million white-collar workers, but I knew that I could get a lot of help from public sector unions for white-collar organization because they have to negotiate on the basis of comparability with the private sector. Okay, and how could I improve their lot? Somehow, if you could convince the industries to start paying more, that would go a long way towards that. So, I said, 'Well, how could I do it?' Well, I started to publicize. You saw all at once in the subway and street cars in Toronto, 'Len, can we count you in?' ACTE, Association of Commercial and Technical Employees. Then we hold a press conference and make sure that there were some reporters there. Now, they didn't represent the media. There were, well, (unclear) came, some of the union publications came, but there was a press conference and here we had these great plans and how many millions of organizes we're going to do and so forth. We said one of the priorities will be the insurance industry because they're the worst thing and we're going to be setting up an office in London, Ontario. Well, jeez, the Hamilton Spectator and the London Free Press came. We had an office set up Bloor Street in Toronto. Well, we're getting all kinds of calls and so and so forth, and the idea is to sort of go through a thought process and so and so forth. Well, you know what happens? London Life, under the chairmanship of -- was it Colonel Jeffries, the head of London Life? Yeah. They gave a 22% wage increase across the board to all the people. Well, if London Life does it, the others followed suit. Now all of the ones we didn't get any -- before, we used to get letters, not signed. This time we didn't even get unsigned letters. About a year later or so, we get some unsigned letters that say, 'Listen, we thought we would get another a wage increase. Could you guys sort of come around?' And John Edwards really was able to show to the executive council that that increase the industry got was very, very helpful to them, especially in the C.R. job descriptions, which were the low clerk clerical jobs. The other thing we did is we stimulated white-collar organization in office and technical areas where the union had the plant organized, and we were able to organize. Go in there and organize (unclear). The Steelworkers, the Auto Workers and some of the other unions who never did anything moved into that area. So, all together there was a fairly good increase in union organization and that was done because I was able to convince the Executive Council of the Congress to give us a nickel, and that was the organizing fund. DY [01:02:51] Per capita funding. AK [01:02:52] Yeah, a per capita fund. Now, I wasn't too popular with the OPEIU, you know. DY [01:03:04] Because it wasn't really increasing their membership, eh? AK [01:03:09] Well look, I said to them, I said, 'Look, what can I do to help you?' 'Well, could you organize them into it?' I said, 'Look. Do, you think we're going to have some success in there? Because that nickel brought in, I think about $700,000 a year. I'm prepared to recommend to the Congress some assistance to you.' They had -- Montreal, the OPEIU's been very good in Montreal, because they got Laurentian Bank and the Local 500 has about 6000 members. So, we gave them some assistance there, but they weren't just going anywhere. CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) picked up lot of members because the office and technical units in municipalities were sometimes larger than the the maintenance group. Except that Donald MacDonald and I really crossed swords, because he never liked me because I came from the Steelworkers Union. DY [01:04:40] Where was Donald MacDonald from? AK [01:04:41] Huh? DY [01:04:43] Which union did Donald MacDonald come from? AK [01:04:46] I think he was a bookkeeper for a co-op down in Cape Breton, but you know who he defeated for the Secretary-Treasurer job? Bill Mahoney. DY [01:05:04] I'm trying to remember what union Donald MacDonald came from. AK [01:05:07] Well, he claimed he was a coal miner. DY [01:05:12] Oh, so he was a United Mine Workers person. AK [01:05:14] Yeah, except that they weren't in the Congress, so he became a member of the Vancouver Local of the IWA. DY [01:05:26] Well, that's something that people outside the trade union movement sometimes wonder about, is all this business about credentials and being delegates from strange unions that they've never had anything to do with. What do you think about that practice? AK [01:05:45] What I think about that practice? Well, it happens in the best of organizations. DY [01:05:55] Well I can think of one organization that doesn't happen in. AK [01:05:58] Tell me. DY [01:05:59] BCTF (BC Teachers Federation). AK [01:06:00] Yeah? DY [01:06:01] Yeah, you never get to do that. KN [01:06:02] Never. DY [01:06:03] Never. BCTF people, they see the people trading credentials and delegates positions, they just can't believe it. AK [01:06:16] Look. DY [01:06:19] Anyways, it's an interesting cultural thing, all right. AK [01:06:22] Yeah, but coming back to Mahoney and MacDonald, when they -- the CCL didn't have a full-time president, they had a full-time Secretary-Treasurer and the full-time Secretary-Treasurer for a long time the United Mine Worker. DY [01:06:57] Conroy. AK [01:06:58] Pat Conroy and -- (phone rings) that's okay -- Pat Conroy got himself into a real mess because he said people on the executive council of the CLC-CCL had to be Canadians. Jeez, turns out you find out that a good number that's on the executive council of the CCL were either Americans or didn't pick up any membership. Well, we had the case here. Pat... DY [01:07:53] O'Neill. AK [01:07:54] O'Neill, Pat O'Neill. So, Conroy, he said it was a good position. He took the position, 'No, they have to be a Canadian. Canadians, so and so.' The convention didn't didn't support him, and so he left. So, then they were looking around for a Secretary-Treasurer, and the only one they could find was the former leader of the CCF of Nova Scotia who, when he got defeated, this leader then got a job through the Co-operative Union of Canada as the manager of a co-op store in Cape Breton. DY [01:09:01] Suddenly rises to become the President of the CLC. AK [01:09:05] And was opposed to the nickel increase. DY [01:09:11] So, after the nickel increase in organizing in the white-collar, what did you do then? AK [01:09:18] I committed political suicide. DY [01:09:20] Okay. Tell us about that. AK [01:09:22] I ran for the position of Secretary-Treasurer of the CLC. DY [01:09:26] Against who? AK [01:09:29] Against, well, the official candidate was from Alberta, the Chemical and Atomic Workers, Neil Reimer. KN [01:09:39] Neil Reimer, yeah. AK [01:09:40] Yeah, and the other sort of right-wing candidate was Donald MacDonald, and then poor me. I got defeated, so, big deal. DY [01:10:00] So, tell me. This is something that I don't quite understand, is how people on staff end up running for elected political positions, because you were on staff, weren't you? AK [01:10:16] Oh, yeah, I was on staff, but I paid my union dues, and I tell you, look. I never considered my work with the labour movement as a job. Okay, I did work an eight-hour day or a 40-hour work week. I worked pretty much all the jobs that had to be done, and I felt I should have the privilege of having some say in regards to the policy, because I'm the guy who has to support that policy, to try to implement that policy and sometimes pay a heavy price for doing it. To me, it was a small portion because I -- if I wouldn't have paid dues, if I wasn't being a member of that local union and that local union wouldn't have elected me to go, that would be one thing; but if I meet all these qualifications then I should have that right and privilege to be a delegate. I made always sure that I took time off during that period of time. I think to a great extent that was not a bad policy, because in the Steelworkers union, you had to sort of earn your stripes first and then the director will put you on because he's interested to make sure that he has good staff. Now, sometimes the thing that gets a little bit abused, if you have a leadership which is scared of their own job or something like that, they hired their cronies. On the whole, I sort of think that 'til about ten, fifteen years ago, generally speaking the staff -- the people who were picked for staff were good people. DY [01:12:31] Did you go back to the staff after the election? AK [01:12:33] Well, that was new grounds. I drove back to Ottawa and there's a phone call for me to call Joe Morris as soon as I get back. I said, 'Well,' so I said, 'Okay.' So, I told Mary what I was doing and I said, 'By the way, get my pack sack ready.' Because one of the things I always used to tell people -- I got myself into trouble quite often. My position was never, don't ask any questions. Do it, then let things happen. DY [01:13:24] It's easier to get forgiveness than permission. AK [01:13:27] Yeah. So, anyhow, Mary says, 'Oh, jeez, I guess we're going to eat a lot of hamburger.' I said, 'No, it's okay. I've always made more money working in the mines than working with Congress anyway.' So, I went down and went up to the fifth floor and the secretary sees me. 'Oh Art, Art, Joe really wants to see you, he said.' DY [01:13:57] Joe's president of --. AK [01:13:58] The new president. DY [01:13:59] New president of the CLC. AK [01:14:01] Yeah. AK [01:14:01] Yeah, so, I go in there and the secretary opens the door for me. He looks at me and says, 'Hi! Well, jeez, I am glad you're back. We need you.' I said, 'Oh, you need me?' I say, 'Sure you don't have a pink slip for me?' He says, 'No, no. Well,' he says, 'to tell you the truth, you're a little bit of an embarrassment to be here in Ottawa.' He says, 'A couple characters like Montgomery, the Secretary-Treasurer, think you should be fired.' He says, 'The biggest mistake that Charlie Millard ever did was put Don Montgomery on staff.' So, he says, 'Art, look. There's two vacancies for directors, regional directors. One is Newfoundland, the Atlantic provinces, and the other one is B.C..' and he says, 'We're not going to waste you in Newfoundland. I want you to go to B.C..' And he says, 'And there's one specific thing I want you to do. I want you to make sure that the BC Fed (BC Federation of Labour), when they pass a resolution of their convention, doesn't kick the shit out of the Congress and then come down here and tell us, do whatever you do, but don't let Fish back into the Federation.' Because they have a fifth of all their delegates. I said, 'Well, see what I can do.' So, I came out here and I sort of thought that the way to get the Congress presence felt is through education, labour education. KN [01:16:18] What year was that? AK [01:16:22] That's a good question. KN [01:16:24] Roughly. AK [01:16:25] That was, I tell you... DY [01:16:28] It's about '70, isn't it? AK [01:16:30] Yeah, it was in the seventies. Yeah. Yeah, because the thing was that Len Guy was Secretary-Treasurer, George Johnson was president. KN [01:16:40] Mid-Seventies. After Ray. AK [01:16:49] Yeah, and... DY [01:16:55] So, let's see if I can get this right. Joe is going to send you out to BC. You're going to be the BC director of -- , AK [01:17:04] The CLC. DY [01:17:05] The CLC, and he wants two things. He wants to stop this hot-head resolutions coming from BC telling the CLC that it's not doing enough, and he doesn't want the Fish back in. AK [01:17:23] No, no, no, no. The, sort of -- what Joe was angry about is that Ray Haynes and others used to come, George Johnson used to come to the executive council meeting in Ottawa, and when the question of Fish came up -- because these resolutions, in many instances are tabled to be dealt with the Executive Council -- and then they'd come and say, 'Listen, you don't want Fish in there.' Because they have that bloody structure which gives them a massive overrepresentation, and we were just made the laughingstock. So, that was one thing, and I think they were right on that. I mean, we had a situation when I ran the first time for Secretary-Treasurer where I had something like 60% of the membership of the Federation and I got 40% of the vote. I mean, it was so ridiculous that some local unions from Fish paid per capita on the basis of two members, and they got two delegates to the convention. DY [01:19:03] Well, it's a range, isn't there? I mean, in some ways Steel has something of the same structure, doesn't it? AK [01:19:10] No, not anymore. DY [01:19:11] Small locals. AK [01:19:12] Not anymore. No, right now Steel has two, three local unions in the whole of BC. DY [01:19:23] But I mean, in the earlier days. AK [01:19:25] In the earlier days, but the thing is that what they always did, though, they made sure that the locals were functioning. You know? DY [01:19:34] Yeah. AK [01:19:37] And in Fish, these two member locals were functioning too. I don't have to tell you who they were. DY [01:19:43] Yeah, so what happened when you got out to B.C.? AK [01:19:47] Well, I came out to B.C. and no question about it, there were -- my coming was quite the news thing because everybody knows I was really coming out here to really hammer the CP (Communist Party) and I know some of the CP-ers. I mean, I knew Harvey Murphy, but I also knew Dave Warland, and you know, I talked to people. I talked to people, and I was always very open and I said, 'Look, fellas, you don't have to be afraid that I'm going to red-bait you or anything else, but I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to outwork you.' and I say, 'You can't run your little labour education programme internally with --' what's his name, the labour historian. DY [01:21:03] In B.C.? AK [01:21:04] Pardon me? DY [01:21:05] In B.C.? AK [01:21:05] Yeah, the old CP-er. Came from Alberta here. DY [01:21:10] Oh, Ben Swankey? AK [01:21:12] Swankey, Ben Swankey. I'd say, 'But let me tell you, the CLC is going to have an education programme which will overshadow you.' And no question, within one year, I had the participation in weeklong schools, labour council schools and conferences. 5000 people, and the success, largely the success we had in '83 was because we were able to mobilize every bloody Labour Council. We had places like Kamloops, we had four, 5000 people at the demonstrations. So, it was in that particular area and, and also in regards to the Fish, because they would -- what they used against us, the Congress had a Congress chartered local in Prince Rupert, the co-op. Fisherman's Co-op. They were used. The Fishermen's Union always said they were scab herders, because when there was a fish strike, the co-op fishermen used to fish because they didn't negotiate the same way. So, I said, 'I'm going to get in there,' and the first thing I did is I wrote a constitution and the basic constitution said if there's a price strike in fish, any proceeds the co-op fishermen will accrue from it will be paid to the Fishermen's Union, and that was big money. 'You sure you'll get that?' Yeah, I did, and that stopped it now. You know, Nichol was more reasonable, well, more levelheaded than Homer, and they didn't have any problems since. So, again, I mean, Homer Stevens getting up at the Federation convention and praising the CLC. But then, at the end, I did all these things. Yeah, I am not taking credit about the Teachers coming into the Federation, but I do take credit that at least I talked to you people. DY [01:24:17] What year was it that you came into BC, about 1975 or something like that? AK [01:24:24] Yeah, I would have to look at that. DY [01:24:28] Did the Harrison programme start under you? AK [01:24:32] Yeah. Yes, it started under me. As a matter of fact, it was run in Parksville and the guy who ran it was -- came out of the IWA in Prince George and Bill King hired him to start the so-called Labour College by the provincial government, you remember that. My position was always that labour education has to be a living thing, and brick and mortar are not necessarily my cup of tea. I want money for programmes. DY [01:25:29] Do you know why the labour college the Government was trying to sponsor, it never went anywhere, did it? AK [01:25:33] Well, the thing is that the labour college, the way they were thinking of one, they wanted to have a physical facility, something like, you know, the labour history. I've been around and saw the whole labour movement in one city doing nothing else but fundraising. So, they're able to maintain their little palace, you know, and not have any money for anything else. DY [01:26:09] Like Victoria? AK [01:26:10] Pardon me? Yeah, Victoria is one classic example, but I know many others. I tell you, Lethbridge is a classic example. Lethbridge, would you believe it, ran women's mud wrestling, which was a big money-maker for the Lethbridge Labour Council. DY [01:26:36] Anyway, so there was a bricks and mortar part to it. Was there a control part to it as well? About who would actually run it? AK [01:26:46] Well, there was that, and my position always was that labour education is not some sort of academic enterprise. It's a tool for the objectives of the trade union movement, and it has to be done whenever possible in the confines of the community rather than the academic museums, which were never friendly to labour. In most instances, when we'd have a weekend school, our members couldn't find their way around. They said, for instance, that Cap (Capilano) College programme, they had some good people teaching, I'm not talking about -- (phone ringing) DY [01:28:11] That's pretty exciting. BG [01:28:14] Catches your attention. AK [01:28:21] I'm just trying to -- I sort of got distracted a little bit. DY [01:28:27] Yeah, yeah. No, we were off on the Labour College. AK [01:28:31] Oh, yeah, the Labour College thing. Yeah, you know, even though they had some good instructors -- not saying -- it was a little bit of a tool of -- What's his name? DY [01:28:50] I'll let you say it. AK [01:28:50] You know. DY [01:28:51] I'll let you say it. AK [01:28:53] Well, I tell you, he sure changed colours because all at once, I see him, he's being the Provincial Secretary of the NDP. DY [01:29:01] Okay, so you're talking about Ed Lavalle AK [01:29:04] Ed Lavalle, but then just six months earlier, he was in struggle and felt that the first thing we should do is line up all members of the CLC Executive Council against the wall and shoot them. BG [01:29:23] That was his statement? AK [01:29:26] Pardon? BG [01:29:26] Was that his statement? AK [01:29:26] Yeah. BG [01:29:27] Oh, wow. DY [01:29:29] Well, I don't think he actually said that, but Art thinks that's what he thought. AK [01:29:38] Actually, what did happen is that I sort of took my model very largely from the Swedes, their labour education. The Each one teach one proposition. Also from the other European countries, where the workers are not asked to work five days a week heavy labour and then spend two weekends in a weekend school, because the Swedes and the Austrians basically say, look, there's a family to be considered too. Well, I didn't go that far here because we didn't have the money, but I sort of said to the leadership of the local unions I said, 'Look, if you have some people in your local you want to bring along, send them to a couple of weekend schools. They'll give you sort of an evaluation, how are they doing and if -- because after all, a local union invests. A week in Harrison can be as much as $2,000. A week in lost wages and transportation at about $800 a week (unclear), but there's a payoff, a real payoff, because we do -- I haven't followed the programme that much -- but I know that we had it evaluated by UBC (The University of British Columbia) and they figured it's one of the best adult education programmes there is in the country. DY [01:31:50] Well, the Harrison is quite an institution and it's still going strong. AK [01:31:56] Yeah, but I was -- you know, when you do a lot of things you then sort of get bored. DY [01:32:09] Mm hmm. Well, then exciting things happen. So, I was going to just lead in by asking you about one other personality in B.C. that I'd like to know more about, I guess. It's Jim Kinnaird. Did you have much to do with Jim? AK [01:32:31] Sure. DY [01:32:32] Okay well, tell me, tell us about Jim Kinnaird. AK [01:32:34] Jim was the face of the labour movement, and I was the worker. The only thing is that sometimes Jim had a hard time catching up to me. DY [01:32:46] Yeah. AK [01:32:47] Jim. Look, Gentleman Jim. DY [01:32:49] Yeah, go ahead. AK [01:32:55] Was a good consensus person. He'd sort of sit you down, went around the table and everything else, and what came out was Jim's great idea, you know, after he reached a consensus. Jim sort of, to a great extent, he worked with the different groups, because 213 you had a strong historical communist faction in there. As a matter of fact, you had even -- the only local union in Canada I can think of where a Marxist-Leninist in struggle won an appeal at the international convention in regards to his reinstatement. DY [01:33:56] Yeah, that's Terry Simpson. I don't think the affiliation is exactly right there, but anyways, yeah, no, it's -- AK [01:34:05] You mean Terry Simpson was not a Marxist-Leninist? DY [01:34:09] No. AK [01:34:10] What was he? DY [01:34:11] No, he was kind of a left-wing kind of, orangutan kind of a guy. No, he didn't, he -- anyway, let's not get into that. What you're telling me is that the IBEW (international Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) Local 213 that Kinnaird comes from has a long history of -- AK [01:34:33] Jim got -- you know who elected Jim were the contractors. Yeah. DY [01:34:42] Why do you say that? AK [01:34:45] Well, Jim was a consensus builder. He was acting Deputy Minister when he got elected as President of the Fed, and so to me, the thing is that when you're in a labour movement and you get leadership, something has to result. There has to be a positive result on something. Jim was a nice guy. The only thing he used to say was, 'Art. Yes, yes. I'm supporting you, just take it easy. Take it easy.' I said, 'Yes, Jim, I will.' DY [01:35:49] Well, because -- it actually turns out to be Jim Kinnaird dying in office that sets the stage for you becoming the President of the BC Fed. AK [01:36:08] Well, history has been somewhat kind to me now. But, you know, I took an awful beating. DY [01:36:14] Well, tell us. I haven't actually really heard how it is that, you know, of all of the personalities that were floating around the B.C. labour movement when Jim Kinnaird died suddenly, how it ends up being you as a staff person from the CLC who ends up taking the job. So I've never heard that story and it's probably an interesting one. AK [01:36:42] Well, in the first place, I'm not the first one. There are many other directors, not many, but some other regional directors who played a strong political role and even held the Presidency of the Federation. The one you would most likely remember was the father of the Minister of the Environment in the Barrett government. Radford. DY [01:37:13] Jack Radford. AK [01:37:21] Jack Radford's father was a Regional Director of Education and was the same, the President and played the role. But again, then there was a little bit sort of a folk? (unclear) here too, he came out of the Mineworkers on Vancouver Island, played a very positive role there. As they say, I'm an oddball DY [01:38:08] So, what were the dynamics that set in motion when Kinnaird dies all of a sudden? AK [01:38:19] Well, I really looked around the table. Okay, and the guy who really wanted it was Stoney. DY [01:38:33] From the IWA. Yeah. Jerry Stoney, yeah. AK [01:38:36] Munro would love to get him out of the IWA, but Stoney did - (phone rings) - Stoney didn't have the support. He didn't have the support and I'm not so sure that I could really have worked with Stoney that well because he was -- when I asked people to do something, I ask them to do it for the labour movement, and that was my success. I never asked anyone to do things for me, because that in itself is a non-starter, and I think that Stoney was too much interested in Jerry Stoney. So, then the other one was the Meatcutter. DY [01:39:49] George Johnson? AK [01:39:50] No, no. Leif Hansen. DY [01:39:53] Leif Hansen. AK [01:39:53] Yeah, and Leif's commitment. Where I recognized Leif's downfall was when George Johnson retired. George Johnson did some things. You know, he was sometimes pretty crazy, but he at least established the extra day off. When we wanted to drastically remove or reduce the working hours, he was the only guy who actually did something about it. Had a long, bitter strike and won that strike and now we see it being given away. Leif Hansen. Look, where's Leif Hansen now? He took his early pension and he's commuting between England and Vancouver. I know everyone, that's the other thing. At the Winter School, I mean, a lot of people say, 'Wow, they were able to organize this.' I said, 'Look, everyone who ever attended the Winter School, I knew their name, their address, their telephone number, how to contact them at work, how to contact them at home, and what sort of level of commitment can we get from them. That was all in the CLC office. The guy who stopped allowing me to do that was John Fryer. Yeah, but it was there in the time when we really needed it, and that wasn't done previously. The other thing is, you know, if things fall into place, you don't want to -- It's one time of the year when I went a massive depression, and you know when it was? When the Winter School was over, because it put you on such a high, because you knew that things were happening.

: Secondary Interview with Ray Haynes; This is a secondary, follow-up interview with Ray Haynes. Ray provided the BCLHC with a number of materials (photos, newspaper articles, etc.) to digitize and archive, which much of this interview is based upon. In this interview, Ray reflects on his time at the BC Federation of Labour and tells stories about various characters, as well as detailing his activism in retirement. , Tuesday, July 11, 2016 , Interview: Ray Haynes (RH) Interviewer: Ken Bauder (KB), Bailey Garden (BG) Date: July 11, 2016 Location: Burnaby, B.C. Transcription: Bailey Garden KB [00:00:04] Yes, sir, and welcome. Great to have you here again, Ray. RH [00:00:08] Nice to be here. KB [00:00:09] Stories are where our lives are, and you tell a great story. RH [00:00:13] I get carried away, though. KB [00:00:15] It's impossible to get carried away on oral history. So, I'll give you a couple of names and build me the flavour of the day with George Johnston at the Fed (BC Federation of Labour). What was that like? RH [00:00:28] Terrific. KB [00:00:29] Good, good. RH [00:00:30] George was terrific and interesting because keep in mind, I came from the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) part of the labour movement. KB [00:00:37] Not the AFL (American Federation of Labour). RH [00:00:38] Not the AFL, and when we merged, we found them all quite conservative. I'm exaggerating it. KB [00:00:48] Yes. RH [00:00:48] But they were a little more conservative than our guys from the CIO side. They were good guys, and then in a very short time, George was top-notch, and he worked very hard at the Fed. He worked for the Meatcutters, and yet, had lots of time when we needed him in any big fights and stuff like that. Terrific. Terrific. KB [00:01:24] When when you worked at the -- or when you were at the Fed, the Executive, there's a number of names I'll throw out to you and if you have comment about. John Squire. RH [00:01:35] Well, John Squire was my buddy. John Squire, I guess I hired him when I was with Retail Wholesale, and he came on, and when I left Retail Wholesale to go to the Congress, he replaced me. KB [00:01:52] Oh, okay. RH [00:01:53] As the head guy, and of course, I also knew -- I also knew Carolyn Askew. KB [00:02:03] Yes. RH [00:02:03] The lawyer. And they met up in the labour movement and married; and I still get together with her once in a while or send her emails back and forth. Their son, I suddenly forget his name, but anyway, her son. So, yeah. John was terrific. John wasn't on the executive with me, but he played a big role. It was kind of interesting because the BC Fed office was at 517 East Broadway, and downstairs was the ITU, and that was --. KB [00:02:46] Transportation. RH [00:02:47] Typographical. KB [00:02:49] Oh, okay. RH [00:02:51] International Typographical Union, and that was Len Guy. Around the corner was my union, Retail Wholesale. So, John Squire, even though he wasn't on the executive played a big role, and of course, Len did as well. Quite often, if there was a problem, the three of us got together. KB [00:03:09] Yes. RH [00:03:09] And then we'd end up in an executive meeting later on or something. No, John played a big role in the labour movement. Brought in the pension plan, I think, for Retail Wholesale. KB [00:03:23] Al Staley. RH [00:03:25] Al was a terrific guy. Again, like George Johnson, AF of L, and yet we got along great, and he was a hell of a good president. These guys were putting in a lot of time freelance, because they had their jobs. He was representative for the Carpenters Union. Top guy for the Carpenters Union on Vancouver Island. KB [00:03:52] Oh, okay. RH [00:03:54] So, they both put in extra time, as we all worked crazy. I mean, it was unreal. KB [00:04:00] Yes. RH [00:04:01] My family took a beating. KB [00:04:03] Yeah, it does. Jack McKenzie. RH [00:04:08] Well, that's an interesting story, and I don't know whether we should get into the whole thing, but the IWA (International Woodworkers of America), it was sort of an agreement it was entitled to three representatives on our 16-board council. Jack Moore and a couple others were the three representatives year after year. It probably changed a tiny bit, but we got very unhappy with Jack Moore. We should talk about whether we want to go into detail. KB [00:04:48] Sure. No, we're into detail. RH [00:04:50] But should it really end up in the history? BG [00:04:53] It's your choice on how much you feel comfortable saying, and like as long as -- yeah, as long as you feel comfortable, and if it's something you don't, you can just skip it. KB [00:05:04] If it's -- RH [00:05:05] Let's say we were just -- he didn't work out, as far as we were concerned. BG [00:05:08] There you go. RH [00:05:10] He was the President of the IWA. Terrific skills and everything, but there was problems. We went -- coming to the convention, coming up towards the convention, we told them we would not accept Jack Moore at our event. We did that kind of stuff. KB [00:05:32] Sure. RH [00:05:33] In those days, we did that kind of stuff, and of course they went crazy; but we said, no, we're not. We're not going to support him. We will not put him on our slate. KB [00:05:43] Oh, this was for running for a position at the Fed. RH [00:05:47] Right. KB [00:05:47] And there was -- okay. RH [00:05:50] He was -- why we picked Jack Moore was that he was an officer. We said, I don't think we were saying he couldn't come on, but if he came on -- that's right, he wasn't going to be an officer. So, we wanted Jack McKenzie, because I guess we had Jack Moore -- I'm thinking we must have had Jack Moore, Jack Mackenzie and someone else, the three. We said, 'The officer will not be Jack Moore anymore.'. BG [00:06:20] Right. RH [00:06:21] So, we insisted that be Jack McKenzie, and eventually they backed down, and we put Jack McKenzie. He was unbelievable. Great guy. Wonderful guy. I'm very sad about Jack, because I lost touch with him, and he died, and I never saw him again. KB [00:06:39] Yes. Yes. RH [00:06:41] But no, he made a great contribution. Terrific contribution. When he spoke, he could speak for the IWA, and we knew exactly where we sat with the IWA. KB [00:06:53] Dunphy. RH [00:06:55] Don Dunphy, from the Steelworkers, he did a good job. Quite pleased. BG [00:07:03] What about Len Guy? Can you talk a little bit about him? RH [00:07:05] Well, Len Guy was super. A little bit, didn't have too much of a social conscience, but a trade unionist? 100%. Slowly but surely, we convinced him, and he played a major role on all kinds of non-union issues and social issues; but he didn't quite have the background that others had, but good. He was our choice to replace me when I left. KB [00:07:41] Don Crabbe. RH [00:07:42] Don Crabbe. KB [00:07:48] Well dressed. Well appointed guy. RH [00:07:51] Yeah. KB [00:07:51] Quiet. RH [00:07:53] Wasn't one of our superstars. KB [00:07:58] Ron Johnson. RH [00:07:59] Ron was terrific. Now, that was a staff person. BG [00:08:01] Yeah. KB [00:08:02] Oh, okay. RH [00:08:03] A staff person. I can't quite remember his role, but topnotch staff. My success both at Retail Wholesale and the Fed was that I had a wonderful staff. KB [00:08:20] Yes. RH [00:08:21] You met Clive this morning. I could not have survived without the staff that I had in both those places. At the Fed, and again later at the Nurses, and I can tell you about that as well. They had no problem telling me to go to hell, or tell me, 'Ray Haynes, you're crazy. We can't do that.' And make me rethink the direction we might have gone in. KB [00:08:50] Right. RH [00:08:55] I remember particularly the nurses, the two nurses that we hired that work with me in long-term care. They would just say, 'Ray, you're crazy. We can't do that.' If you haven't got all the skills, you better have good people around you, and you better be ready to listen to them. I think that was my strong suit. KB [00:09:20] Yes. RH [00:09:22] I realized that I had to listen to them, and not always agree with them, but quite often change course if they thought -- if they could convince me I was on the wrong course. KB [00:09:34] And Clive Lytle. RH [00:09:35] Terrific, yeah. KB [00:09:37] He contributed significantly to your term at the Fed? RH [00:09:45] In a major way, a major way. No, there was those guys like Colin and Clive particularly, and then of course, John from around the corner at the other office, and Len downstairs. They'd get -- we'd get together quite often. In fact, we used to go over to Main Street, Broadway and Main and play pool at lunch. Of course, when you're doing all this, you're talking all the time. KB [00:10:10] Yes. RH [00:10:11] You know, and what about that stupid thing there and blah, blah, blah. That was the Fed, in a way. I'm willing to admit that there was a council of 16. There were six officers, and it wouldn't be unusual once in a while to have five out of six officers and just enough of the council members to push through a policy. In other words, we would start off with five there, and then we had an understanding that once the officers made a decision, unless it was something you could not live with, you had to abide by the decision of the officers. The rest of the council, when we met with them to push forth the policy, they would no idea that sometimes there would be one or two maybe that weren't in favour. So, then maybe there would -- well, there was always two or three. Once in a while from the IWA, Paddy Neale, who you mentioned here. KB [00:11:16] Yes. RH [00:11:17] We never agreed on stuff with him, or very rarely. Once we had the majority and voted 9 to 7 on occasion, the 7 out of 16, that was the policy, and nobody dared to go against that policy. When they did, they got crucified. KB [00:11:40] When the IWA threatened to leave the Fed, what was going on? How did that transpire? RH [00:11:46] Well, what was happening? Worse and worse. They were yakking in the press, internal problems continually in the press. We warned them a number of times and they just ignored us completely. Finally, we had a pol -- oh, it ended up in a convention with the policy that there should be no -- yeah, we put it through when this continued to happen, we put through a special resolution and it passed at the convention, and I can't recall whether there was much controversy. Probably not. You know, it's it's a hard one to be against, that we shouldn't be taking our internal problems and putting it out. KB [00:12:29] Making it public. RH [00:12:30] But I think as sometimes they do it with resolutions, they don't really think about it and afterwards, they don't think they have to pay attention to it. That was the one thing about the Fed in those days. When we passed policy, people had to live by it, or we gave them a bad time. So, they kept it up and we finally threatened, and finally, we kicked them out. KB [00:12:55] Four locals? RH [00:12:57] Four or five. Yeah, I can't remember exactly, but four locals. That was just a gimmick that Paddy Neale used to kind of scare us, that he was giving up the Labour Council. He didn't want the Labour Council kicked out, because he was still the -- I guess he was the Secretary, he might have been the President. Was he a secretary or president? BG [00:13:25] I think he was secretary. RH [00:13:25] Secretary. So that was a bit of a gimmick. we clashed continually with Labour Council, but mostly Patty Neale. He was pretty hopeless. KB [00:13:43] Was it ever resolved, or did he have to leave before? RH [00:13:47] It was resolved finally, because he ran against me at the Fed. He was telling me and pushing me face in mine, 'I'm going to beat you.' And he had gone to jail, actually, for the Lenkurt fuss. KB [00:13:59] Electric, yes. RH [00:14:01] He said, 'I'll be in jail, and they'll vote for me.' You know, in other words that will help him. KB [00:14:08] Yeah. Popularity. RH [00:14:09] I beat him bad. KB [00:14:10] Yeah. BG [00:14:12] I was think -- when I saw that, it just triggered that we had elections every year, which now they do every two years, or they have conventions every two years. I don't know which it is. In any case, they ran against me six out of seven years. The last year, they didn't run against me, but they ran every time. One election was very close. I forget which one it was, but I think it was about 30 votes or 16 votes. KB [00:14:51] Yes, yeah. Yeah. Swing it with 16. RH [00:14:53] Out of 400, 500 votes. Or 300, 400. I know we got off track a little bit, but no, that was a gimmick on his part. The Canadian Labour Congress came out and I can't remember exactly how it worked out, but we worked out a deal, and they stopped talking publicly and everybody went back to normal. KB [00:15:22] Did they come back into the Fed? RH [00:15:24] Yeah, it was just a short period. KB [00:15:27] Injunctions during your time. RH [00:15:32] Well, that was one of the main things that motivated me, because I was with Retail Wholesale and strike after strike, injunctions would kill us. One in particular, it's kind of interesting. I was going to get my ashes thrown on the street. It's on Raymur Avenue, it was Grinnell Sprinkler System. KB [00:15:57] Yes. RH [00:15:59] My guys got carried away one night and they broke into the place, and they did a little bit of messing up. KB [00:16:05] Mischief. RH [00:16:06] Mischief, mischief and totally on their own. Nothing to do with it. We obviously would never tell them to do anything like that. They got an injunction, which was a complete binding. A complete prohibiting of picketing. Not just telling -- what usually happens. KB [00:16:31] Information. RH [00:16:31] One or two, we're down to one or two pickets and don't block the driveways, and all that kind of stuff. This was a complete picketing, and we never could get it removed. It busted the strike. So, I should step back and say that when I was then the fourth Vice-President of the Fed, prior to 1966, when I took over, I was -- that was my real drive, was injunctions. The guy in the secretary's job was Pat O'Neill, not Paddy Neale. Pat O'Neill, an Irish guy, and I told you about the story of his wrong name and all that kind of stuff, didn't I? Okay. KB [00:17:17] Yes. RH [00:17:19] But a terrific guy with the press, and a terrific guy publicly. He just grabbed a hold of that injunction thing, plastered his office with all the injunctions, and that hit the front page, at least in the newspaper, the picture of these injunctions on his office. That was a big campaign against injunctions, and ultimately we won, but they moved it to the Labour Board. KB [00:17:48] Right. RH [00:17:50] Then I think the first thing that started to happen was less and less ex-parte injunctions. I mean, they would get an injunction and you wouldn't be there. They could say anything they want to the judge and he'd give them an injunction. So, the first thing that happened is that it was less ex parte injunctions. So, once you got called in, it was a little bit better deal. BG [00:18:16] Because you could defend yourself. RH [00:18:17] But still an injunction. Interesting story again, but I don't think it's for this. When we were supporting the grape workers, we were picketing a store on Davie Street. I don't know whether it was Super Valu, or Save On or one of those, was handling "hot" grapes. We had declared grapes "hot". They got an injunction, and then I left Federation, and the lawyers in Victory Square called me and said, 'Ray, they renewed it this year.' At the end of the year, they renewed it, and my wife was quite concerned about this. I said, 'It doesn't mean nothing, don't worry about it.' I think they renewed it for two years, and then one year they phoned up, the lawyers phoned me and said, 'Your wife will be happy, they haven't renewed it this year.' But that's how stupid the whole thing was. Injunctions were, it was a mockery of the courts, really. KB [00:19:16] Yes. RH [00:19:17] Absolutely, and especially an ex-parte injunction. They used them all the time. Northland Navigation was the biggest one of all, pretty near, I guess. Well, the oil workers was big. KB [00:19:32] Imperial oil. RH [00:19:34] But the the injunction there, they just came down with hundreds of injunctions, and they handed everybody that was -- we got a huge crowd. 24 hours, they were there all night and couple of days. Then we had to go appear in court, I think on the Monday, one week. Two or three days afterwards we were supposed to appear in court. Bob Smeal, Al Staley, I think, and myself and Alex McDonald. KB [00:20:08] Yes. RH [00:20:09] He was representing the Fed at that time. KB [00:20:18] Was this for Imperial Oil or Northland? RH [00:20:21] No, that was the Northland Navigation. We were supporting the Canadian Merchant Service Guild (CMSG) against the SIU (Seamens' International Union) and the employer. KB [00:20:29] Yes, and Diefenbaker and -- what was that guy in Ottawa? Bank? Harold Banks? RH [00:20:37] Hal Banks. KB [00:20:37] Hal Banks, yeah. RH [00:20:39] So they -- I'm rambling a bit, but they -- we met in a hotel on Robson Street. I remember that and started to get ready for the Monday deal. Alex MacDonald said, 'Now, we can be able to tell them that the pickets are gone. They're all gone.' He said. 'No, the pickets aren't gone.' He said, 'What do you mean?' And we said, 'The picket? We're not removing the pickets.' We said, 'They've got an injunction against it.' I said, 'The pickets are staying.'. He said, 'You expect me?' I remember that, Alex going, 'You expect me to go to court in front of that judge, and you're still violating the injunction?' We said, 'Well, you figure it out, Alex.' KB [00:21:23] Your problem, not ours. That's why we hired you. RH [00:21:25] And I think it got solved. KB [00:21:29] Before court. RH [00:21:30] Before court opened or something. I forget exactly what happened. KB [00:21:35] (unclear) Yeah. RH [00:21:37] Imperial Oil one sounds kind of complicated, but it isn't. All the oil companies worked together with moving the oil around. So, the oil workers ended up in a strike, and we tried to boycott Imperial Oil, but it didn't matter. Couldn't do anything with it. Couldn't win that way. So, then we decided to declare Imperial Oil "hot", and they realized that meant all oil, because it's all interwoven. KB [00:22:12] Yes. RH [00:22:12] I don't quite understand exactly, but so we ended up -- I think the top government people came in and everything, and we got a settlement. KB [00:22:30] I think they -- just to back up a tad. There was a Canadian Seamans' Union (CSU), Canadian Maritime -- Canadian Merchant Seamans' Guild, CMSG. That was the licencing group. That was the union, but the Canadian Seaman's Union is the one Banks was brought up to break the SIU. RH [00:22:49] No, because -- yeah, the CSU was a Canadian union and they busted. KB [00:22:55] Yeah, the SIU did. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Do you see injunctions today as an issue still? RH [00:23:03] Not -- I don't think so. I'm not, you know, I'm not privy to all that stuff, but it would be something by -- it's certainly not by the courts. It's all done by Labour Board now. It's a labour matter. KB [00:23:22] Now, do you remember when the Labour Relations Board (LRB) was put together? When it was first established? RH [00:23:32] No. KB [00:23:35] Did it predate you? RH [00:23:37] Oh, I'm sure. BG [00:23:37] Yeah. RH [00:23:39] In fact, their office, it was a conciliation department. KB [00:23:43] Oh, okay. RH [00:23:44] That's right, and it was at 300 block West Pender. I remember that. KB [00:23:50] Okay. RH [00:23:58] Yeah. It was a very -- yeah, it just provided conciliation officers. I don't think it did much more than that. Mediation and so on. KB [00:24:13] Good. RH [00:24:13] You know, that's a bit tough to remember. KB [00:24:16] Yeah, no, no, for sure. Compulsory arbitration, Bill 33. Some liked it. RH [00:24:24] Well, Bill 33 was the big fight, and we took a position pretty quick that we would boycott the Mediation Commission. In fact, the guy at the head of it was an absolute dud, and everybody admitted it eventually, including the employers. They were going after him and everything, but initially, it was a big fight. A couple unions, they were -- there was a few unions that were timid about defying it, but we held them together. Finally, the Teamsters said they are going, and they weren't in the Fed. At that time, they were not on the BC Fed. They went, and they got screwed royally, and so then they spoke out against the Mediation Commission. KB [00:25:20] Yes. RH [00:25:21] In fact, if the Mediation Commission had played that right, they should have given them a good deal. We would have been in trouble. KB [00:25:28] Yeah. RH [00:25:28] They didn't. They screwed them, just like we did they'd be. BG [00:25:34] Proved you right. RH [00:25:35] So yeah, in a way, the way in which the Teamsters were treated, and their protesting afterwards was probably the finish of the Mediation Commission. KB [00:25:51] Oh, is that right? Oh, okay. Wow. RH [00:25:55] Or at least the binding, all of the binding. The binding stuff. KB [00:26:03] Your time at the Fed was collaborative and collegial, and your goal was to bring everybody together. Is that a fair statement? As best you can, considering the personalities. RH [00:26:22] Our main goal, my main goal was more trade union than -- I mean, I got it in all -- we got into all kinds of social issues, but my main... KB [00:26:39] Passion. RH [00:26:39] Passion was to get unions to work better together. I mentioned strikes. A lot of strikes in those days, and we had to work through the Labour Council, and they were hopeless. I mean, they'd tell us to come back next week and they'd see if they can help us. So, you know, I convinced Pat O'Neill that the Fed had to play a role, and we've got to get unions working together. So even right now, there can't be a strike unless the unions get together. BC Fed gets a meeting, get them together. I think that policy is still there, and that was our policy. So that part we did, and we did a lot of other stuff. I was just -- you asked about women here. BG [00:27:34] Mm hmm. RH [00:27:35] That was one thing that we weren't very good about. There were 16 people. There wasn't one woman on there at that time. BG [00:27:41] Yeah. RH [00:27:42] I had trouble thinking of whether we played much pool at that time. Now, we had a few good women. Two of them were lawyers, or probably three. Carolyn Askew, who I mentioned. KB [00:28:04] Yes. RH [00:28:05] Very progressive person, and not only pushed for unions and strikes and lockouts and all that kind of stuff, but would get herself involved in the union direction, even. Marguerite Jackson from -- I'm going to name two now, Marguerite and Catherine Wedge, both from Victory Square. That was the union -- that was the office that we used more than anybody, and I took it with me wherever it went. I went to the Nurses' Union and convinced them to dump their legal counsel and use Victory Square. Catherine Wedge is now a judge in New Westminster or somewhere. Marguerite Jackson still there. Opal Skillings, from the Office Workers was a very good woman at that time, but as I say, wasn't on the executive. I think about it now, it sounds so crazy, really, that they weren't represented very much. Another terrific person was Josephine Hallock. KB [00:29:19] Yes. RH [00:29:20] Josephine was in charge of Union Label, and that was a big thing in those days, and her husband. It was a team, Earl Hallock and Josephine Hallock, and they did a wonderful job on Union Label. They were just about as tough on Union Label as we were on the crossing, not crossing picket lines. KB [00:29:46] Gail Borst. RH [00:29:46] Who? KB [00:29:48] Gail Borst. She was an American who came up, or did some study here for the Fed, and Nancy Welsh. RH [00:29:59] The names kind of ring the bell a bit, but I can't really remember them. BG [00:30:02] Those are ones Clive had mentioned. KB [00:30:04] Yeah. , BG [00:30:07] So, I'm curious a little bit more about some of the tactics that the Fed used to use. So, like declaring things "hot", like we've been talking about. RH [00:30:16] Yeah. Well, I can't remember if I gave you this story, but stop me if I did. You didn't cross picket lines, and the Teamsters who weren't in tried to a couple of times and ended up terribly. I mean, we beat them badly; but a good example, it was kind of nearly crazy, was that there was an outfit on 12th Avenue before you get to Boundary Road. There was quite a few. There were Simmons, and Cranes, and Malkins, and quite a few outfits. KB [00:30:49] Kelly Douglas. RH [00:30:50] Goodridge Tire. KB [00:30:50] Kelly Douglas was down there? RH [00:30:52] No, no. Kelly Douglas was out on Kingsway, near Sears. KB [00:30:56] What was the one at Rupert? RH [00:30:58] Malkins. KB [00:30:59] Malkins. RH [00:31:00] (unclear) Malkins. KB [00:31:00] Oh, okay. RH [00:31:01] There was another one with the Steelworkers had, and the Steelworkers tried to organize the office. Most of them didn't bother, but you know, we said, 'You should be organized front door to back door.' So, they tried to organize the office and they failed. Along came the OTEU, Office and Technical Employees Union, and I'm sure Opal would be involved. Opal Skillings. They organized and they couldn't get an agreement. Eventually, they went on strike, and the Steelworkers, because they were still angry that they hadn't been able to organize them, couldn't get their guys -- I guess they'd done such a bad job in bad mouthing the OTEU that the guys, the people inside, would not support the picket line. So, we pushed them, and met with them and we couldn't budge them. Couldn't get them to support the strike. So, we said that we want a gate for the people to go through, then. Special gate that we will agree to, and then we will declare everything "hot". It was nearly outrageous, because here it was produced by the Steelworkers, and we declared it "hot" and nobody would handle it. That's where Bill Apps' son, I remember the phone call somebody made, or I made maybe, or Bill made to his son at the C.N. (Canadian National Railway). He says, 'I don't understand this.' He says, 'Isn't this from the Steelworkers?' We said, 'Never mind. It's hot.' I mean, that's -- I mentioned that one just to show that when we said it was "hot", nobody questioned that. It was Fed policy. KB [00:32:54] Yes. BG [00:32:55] It was respected. RH [00:32:55] The same as grapes. We never -- the only place in North America that didn't handle, unions didn't handle the grapes. Every other campaign in North America was 'Don't Buy Grapes', but ours was. We had that upper step, because we had Safeway and Malkins. So, they wouldn't be handling them. We had trouble with the Teamsters at Kelly Douglas, but we ignored it, and as far as we were concerned, not only don't buy grapes. Don't handle grapes. Now, your question again? BG [00:33:35] Oh, I was just going to say, like do you think that people -- like is the Fed still using those sort of tactics today? Do they still declare things "hot" every once in a while? RH [00:33:44] Yeah, they did declare a "hot" at... Was it IKEA or something? BG [00:33:50] Right, yeah. IKEA, because they locked out their workers. Yeah. RH [00:33:52] But now, I'll tell you something about that strike. I go to IKEA once in a while. In fact, we just went there, Viv and I, looking for a picture frame. KB [00:34:02] Yes. RH [00:34:03] Day before yesterday, or yesterday. I didn't know that place was on strike. I mean, I live in the Sunshine Coast. Maybe I lived here, I would have known, but I did not know. So, it was a long time. I think this is all part of the problem, maybe. Maybe the Fed doesn't work on it as hard as we did. Maybe we were a bit obsessed. That was our top priority. I don't know if that is their top priority now. I would hope so. I would expect so, but because of the no coverage in the papers, no labour reporters and all that stuff, it is probably much harder for them to get the word out. BG [00:34:54] Yeah, communicate. RH [00:34:55] Because you can get it out through the unions, but the press is where you get coverage. BG [00:35:01] Another tactic that you kind of talked about -- oh, go ahead. RH [00:35:04] Other one. Oh, yeah. Another one was BCAA (British Columbia Automobile Association). They were on strike. I went to pay my money and found out they were on strike. So, I just wrote them a letter that said, 'You will not be paid, and I will not be a member until they settle the strike.' Then my story is -- KB [00:35:25] Yeah. RH [00:35:26] A week later, they settled. KB [00:35:27] Yeah. Yeah. BG [00:35:28] You made the difference. KB [00:35:30] Whatever it was. They needed it, yeah, spot on. BG [00:35:34] Yeah. RH [00:35:35] So, your question then is that I think it's much tougher. Look at the number of places where the employer locks out. That was, I believe, I don't know the stats, but my guess would be the stats are that it would be much rarer than it is the last few years. They knew that there was a lot more jobs then. So often, if the strike was going to go on for a while, the guys went. We got them jobs; they went and jobs. Now they've got to figure out how, especially if they haven't got a very big strike fund, how are they going to survive? KB [00:36:15] Yeah. RH [00:36:16] So, there are a lot of different factors. I have to be careful what I say. I just wish there was far more militant signs that I'm not, that I don't quite see, but maybe they're there. As I say, I'm now sitting on the BC Fed seniors' group, FORUM (Federation of Retired Union Members). BC FORUM, and I'm learning more about what they do. I know they're active on the trade agreement. They're active on the 15 minimum wage. They're active on revising the Canada pension, and that kind of stuff. I am in no way in shape to say how they're dealing with the strikes. I hear that there's going to be a strike, and they'd be called to the Fed office before they can go out and so on. KB [00:37:19] So, the legislation that came down during the NDP (New Democratic Party) government's time. RH [00:37:27] I had left. KB [00:37:28] Yeah. RH [00:37:29] I had left, and I know the labour guys were happy about it. I think some of it was fine, but I think they tied it into stopping a number of unions from going on strike. I think Colin Gabelmann and a couple others voted against it, and that tells me something. I mean, I never was close to Dave Barrett. I think he did some good things and great things, but his resistance to admitting that we work with labour, and we love labour, and his concern and worry that he doesn't want to be tarred as working for the "labour bosses". His type of language when he talks about this was very close to that, you know. KB [00:38:33] Yes. RH [00:38:34] I will never forget, and this was in the press, that after we beat him, and the labour movement's delegates were enough to swing the vote to Berger. The next morning in the hotel, he came up to Tom and I, and I'll never -- you know, he tries to deny it, but he said to us, 'We should contrive way for you, Tom, to have a bit of a fight with labour.' KB [00:39:07] Tom? RH [00:39:08] Berger. BG [00:39:09] Berger should have... RH [00:39:09] There was 3 of us. BG [00:39:11] There should be some sort of way for Berger to fight with labour. RH [00:39:14] Yeah, so that you don't look like you're just on for the labour movement. BG [00:39:19] Right. RH [00:39:19] And Tom and I pretty near said, 'F off.' Both of us. Tom was no different. BG [00:39:27] Yeah. RH [00:39:28] Yes. BG [00:39:30] That was another question that we were interested in, just looking kind of through the photos of the NDP and everything like that. There was lots of articles talking about should the NDP be associated with trade unions or should they not? Can you talk a little bit more about that? RH [00:39:47] Well, I'm a guy -- I'm the guy who probably signed up more affiliations to the BC Fed than probably anybody. I'm not sure, but I signed up, let's just say I signed up lots. I was thinking the other day, because I live now very close to Port Mellon, and I got to know some of those guys now. It reminded me that I once went up there one night to talk in the middle of the winter and went all the way up to Port Mellon. I didn't think anything about it, that was my job. KB [00:40:19] Yes. Yes. RH [00:40:21] One of the guys said to me, 'Gee, its wonderful, you guys send a full-time guy, and the head guy. You send the head guy up here to talk about affiliations.' So, we worked hard for affiliations. If I have any if I have any reservations, it's not that we didn't work at it, and it isn't good. My reservation a little bit is some people in the labour movement give me the impression now that that's the way we solve our problems. I think they rely a little bit too much on, 'We've got to work hard, and give them money, and get elected and they'll change.' The labour movement can't win all its battles by electing a government, because it ain't going to happen. We have to be still a strong, militant labour movement. So, if I have any regrets, it's the affiliations make people a little bit less progressive and militant in the union and relying a little bit too much on electing a government, which they're all talking about it right now. They're going to do it the next election, and of course, look what happened to the last election. So, what if we're not going to get anywhere until the next election, and that one, we don't make it either? Worries me. KB [00:41:47] Yeah. So, there was a -- RH [00:41:51] So, I guess I would say I'm still not convinced that it's the wrong way to go. I think it is the right way to go. You have to have a social movement and a direction and a party; but the party is just watered down a bit now. It's not the Tommy Douglas party that I remember. KB [00:42:15] There was a photo of the founding convention of the New Party, now the NDP. RH [00:42:21] And you found me in the photo? BG [00:42:22] Yeah. BG [00:42:24] I think. Well, I think so. I think that when I passed it over to Rod, he said, 'Ray's right there.' Tommy Douglas was up right up at the front, I spotted. RH [00:42:31] Yeah, but where was I? BG [00:42:32] I'm not sure. Backrow? RH [00:42:35] I get my kids and everybody. KB [00:42:38] Searching. BG [00:42:41] Where's Waldo? RH [00:42:41] They're all looking around here, you see. I said, 'No, no. I'm up at the back further.'. BG [00:42:45] Yeah. RH [00:42:46] So, they start looking about halfway up, and I said, 'No.' BG [00:42:49] Back further. RH [00:42:50] About second or third row. Yeah, I was at that convention, and supported Tommy Douglas. Grappled with the idea of a name and everything. If I had to do it over again, I would have insisted the name stay CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation). BG [00:43:07] Yeah. KB [00:43:09] Yeah. RH [00:43:09] I wasn't in favour of that at that time. I thought we should have a new name. The best we could do was New Party. Can you believe that? When I tell people that that was the name of our party for a couple of years or so? KB [00:43:22] Yeah. RH [00:43:22] How long, I don't know. KB [00:43:23] I'd never heard of that before. RH [00:43:25] Yeah, no. People didn't know that. They say, 'What are you talking about?' I say, 'The name of the party was New Party.' BG [00:43:30] The new New Party. RH [00:43:34] They said, 'No, no, what was it?' I said, 'I'm telling you; it was. The name was the New Party. ' KB [00:43:39] Really out there. Yeah. RH [00:43:44] Yeah. Hazen Argue, who ran against Douglas, within a matter of months, I think, went to the Liberals. KB [00:43:53] Oh, okay. What was his name again? RH [00:43:55] Hazen Argue. KB [00:43:56] Okay. BG [00:43:58] Interesting. What was it like in those kinds of early days of the party? RH [00:44:08] This is not quite answering your question, but one of the things that the labour movement, we noticed when we went to a convention, we often sided with Quebec. I mean, I shouldn't say we sided. We were voting the same way as Quebec quite often. So, B.C. and Quebec on labour, as you probably can appreciate, are more militant sometimes than Ontario. KB [00:44:38] And the prairie provinces. RH [00:44:41] Yeah, but I don't remember that as much as I remember Ontario. You know, because they're a big, big part of it. KB [00:44:48] Huge, huge part. RH [00:44:49] Sorry. BG [00:44:52] No, I think that's a great answer. KB [00:44:55] When you went over N.U. (BC Nurses' Union, BCNU), you were a labour relations officer, or communications, or what was your title? RH [00:45:03] I did a -- I was doing freelance work. I learnt to do freelance work. I found out how good it was. I was the lowest charging guy that there was, I think I was 50 bucks an hour when everybody was charging $100. $150, $200. KB [00:45:18] Yes. RH [00:45:20] I worked with a guy from, a lawyer, but a U.S. guy that I helped get up here. He got in touch with me, wanted to know whether he could come up and do some labour work. Just died recently. Leibeg (?). KB [00:45:39] Okay. RH [00:45:39] Wonderful guy. Walked with Martin Luther King. KB [00:45:43] Wow. RH [00:45:45] In the States, and so we started West Coast Labour Bureau. What had happened is, I had worked with with Tom Berger on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, and I was a consultant at 50 bucks an hour and it was a wonderful job and everything. I worked hard, but I mean, you made good money and you worked when you come back home and all this kind of stuff. So, I didn't know quite what to do. I decided that the resort was not working out, and can't even make it financially, even to just survive unless I get something to do in the wintertime. I still wanted to work in the labour movement, I guess that's what it is. So, we opened up West Coast Labour Bureau. That was when the pipeline decision was finished. I worked with Berger there for two years, I think. So, we did some cases, and so I got a case with the Nurses' Union. Long way to get around to the Nurses, sorry. So, I met -- Jesus, this annoys me. Wonderful lady who should have got more recognition than she did. BG [00:47:07] Sharon Yandle? RH [00:47:09] No, the head of the Nurses' Union, she's gone back east now. She's retired and gone back east. Wow. I know her good. Anyway, I did a case for them, and they were very happy with me, what I did, and then she wanted to hire me. So, she said, 'I want to set up a long-term care department.' There were long-term care places organized under the master agreement, but only a few, and there are still hundreds out there that weren't organized. So anyway, I got hired and then I had the authority, along with other senior Labour Relations Officers, to hire. We had a hiring committee, and we hired two nurses to work with me in long-term care. One of them was Deborah Service-Brewster. She is now a negotiator for the Canadian -- or for the Newspaper Guild in Victoria, has done wonderful. Terrific gal, and the other one just claimed right -- when she left the Nurses' Union, just climbed right up the ladder and was a top mediator and went to China and everything. Debbie Cameron. I still keep in touch with these two gals. We hired those two and we started organizing. We worked like dogs. Six or seven days a week, 10 hours a day. We organized about a thousand nurses, and if you think about that, that's a lot of facilities. It was 100 facilities, because it only averages about ten in them. Average, ten. KB [00:49:02] Yes. RH [00:49:04] There's not very many nurses in long-term care, it's LPNs (Licensed Practical Nurses) and everything else. So, we had two or three strikes. Without those two, again, I must say the same as I talk about my other staff, that those two gals were unbelievable. We did a wonderful job. It was remarkable, really. In private outfits as well as... KB [00:49:37] Public. RH [00:49:37] As Kinsmen, Kiwanis, all of those kinds of places. Salvation Army. I had a strike at Salvation Army. KB [00:49:47] Oh, no kidding. RH [00:49:48] Not in Vancouver, in Victoria. Was it? Victoria. BG [00:49:53] Yeah. KB [00:49:55] How was it working with the women on site? A lot of them were immigrants, so they were worried about their employment, were they? RH [00:50:03] No, they were -- they had a lot of guts. KB [00:50:05] Yeah, yeah. RH [00:50:06] I think they were ready for organizing, and then we hit the right time. The Filipino nurses were in the majority in many places, and they were fabulous. When they had a strike, you got beautiful Filipino food. KB [00:50:26] Yes. Yes. RH [00:50:27] They brought it down to the picket line. Boy, oh boy. Yeah, and they they had a great party for me when I left the Nurses. They were very terrific union people. I mean, they had great faith in you, and so if you told them that we need to strike, there was no argument about it. It was no problem. They were good. We had many strike votes, and we had two or three strikes. Terrible having a strike in long-term care, because you provide essential service. The Salvation Army one, what finally beat them was that we wouldn't let the garbage guys go in. They had to bring the garbage out to the streets. They complained to their management, their top people. I may be overexaggerating that, or maybe that's the story that we just got going, but it sounded like they caved in because the guys wouldn't do the garbage anymore. BG [00:51:33] It's the straw that broke the camel's back. RH [00:51:36] Major -- what was his name now? Major somebody had to bring the garbage can out to the picket line. KB [00:51:42] Mhmm. RH [00:51:46] No, that was a wonderful ten years, working there. BG [00:51:50] We did an interview with Sharon Yandle, actually, and so she was mentioning working with you and she was mentioning how at the -- RH [00:51:57] I should have said that, right, because every time we went to organize, if the HEU (Hospital Employees' Union) was there they helped us. BG [00:52:03] Yeah. RH [00:52:03] If they weren't there, then they came in and we organized, talked about it. BG [00:52:09] Mm hmm, and she was mentioning at that time, there was a lot of still door knocking or kind of meetings in back alleys, or in homes or things like that. RH [00:52:19] I had believed in that right from Retail Wholesale. BG [00:52:22] Right. RH [00:52:23] I must've had many times I've got to the door and the people would look up and down the street, and said, 'Come on in.' But they looked up and down the street to see nobody was watching them let somebody in from the union. The Teamsters were organized, calling a meeting and organizing and they were always, particularly Simmons -- they organized Simmons, but they didn't have enough, couldn't quite get 51% and they kept calling meetings. So, after they sort of floundered, we went in, knocked on doors and organized and ended up in a strike and got a settlement. I think quite a few unions did not use that tactic, but same as when the place that I was the organizer, Hudson's Bay Wholesale, me and another guy organized that place. We made a list and we said, 'Don't approach this guy, don't approach this guy.' And we never did. One guy was so mad at me afterwards. He said, 'Why wasn't I? Nobody came to me.'. KB [00:53:29] Yeah. RH [00:53:29] And I said, 'Well, you should ask yourself why we didn't come to you.' KB [00:53:32] Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you're a stooge. RH [00:53:35] He said, 'I wouldn't, I wouldn't have.' I said, 'Well, you probably wouldn't have, but we couldn't take a chance. You know, you've done some stupid stuff.' KB [00:53:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah. RH [00:53:45] So, we were very secretive there, and one guy we signed up. Good friend, coffee roaster guy. Frank, Frank (unclear). The minute he signed up, within hours, he's down talking to the gals. 'I just signed into the union. Are you guys signed up yet?'. KB [00:54:02] Yeah, yeah. RH [00:54:03] We grabbed him in a corner, and we told him we'd beat the hell out of him if he didn't shut up. I said, 'We're doing this all off the record. Quiet.' KB [00:54:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah. RH [00:54:12] 'I never did nothing. I just talked to the girl.' Don't talk to nobody. You signed up. We told you to shut up. The employer got, all of a sudden, the loudspeaker went in and said, 'Ray Haynes, come to the foreman's office.' I go to the foreman's office. There's the manager with the foreman. 'Ray, what have you done?' KB [00:54:32] Yeah. RH [00:54:32] He got the letter in the mail. KB [00:54:34] Yeah. RH [00:54:34] He found out in the letter in the mail. Now, that happened in many of our cases, but that's not the way a lot of unions organized; but it works, because people are scared. KB [00:54:46] Yes. Well, if you lose your job because the employer lays you off for whatever reason, or fire you, which they can't really do, but they can find a way to let you go. RH [00:54:57] They can do it if you haven't got a majority yet. KB [00:55:00] Yeah. So, it's a risky proposal. RH [00:55:06] I've lost a case in front of the board where they fired, they laid off people. They knew who it was, too. They figured it out. KB [00:55:14] Yes. RH [00:55:14] And then we lost the case. KB [00:55:18] Yes. RH [00:55:18] Because we couldn't prove it was unanimous. KB [00:55:22] Did you do any work with the Trade Union Research Bureau? RH [00:55:26] Oh, yeah. KB [00:55:28] Yeah. With Emil Bjarnason. KB [00:55:31] Emil Bjarnason, yeah. Some good stuff. KB [00:55:34] Sean Griffin's uncle or father was the start. He's the guy that put that together originally. RH [00:55:40] Oh. KB [00:55:41] That's what Sean was saying in one of the meetings I was in. Yeah. I didn't know that. I thought it was Emil, but it was actually his. RH [00:55:47] Yeah, I would have thought it was Emil, because that's it. That was Trade Union Research Bureau, and I worked, we worked good with them. Then I did free -- when I was doing my freelance working, I did some work for the Brotherhood of. KB [00:56:05] BLE? RH [00:56:06] No, it's a railway group. KB [00:56:08] Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. RH [00:56:09] Yeah, I think. KB [00:56:10] BLE. Yeah. , RH [00:56:13] Oh, God, that's a good story, but it's not for you. It's not for this. KB [00:56:17] How come? RH [00:56:18] Well, this is crazy. We had a lunch with him, and I forget his name now. Right-wing kind of guy. Not a 100% good union guy, but he was doing the right thing. We were negotiating, and we ended up at lunch with Emil and him, and I can't remember his name. Somewhere, we're having lunch, and we started talking and it came out that he -- I guess he had something to do with the police, RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) at one time, they were watching Emil's house. That came out at lunchtime. KB [00:57:04] Yeah, for sure. RH [00:57:06] Yeah. BG [00:57:06] Not uncommon at the time, I'm sure. KB [00:57:10] A lot of red-baiting. RH [00:57:12] It was all very friendly at lunch, but when you think about it. BG [00:57:15] Yeah, wow. RH [00:57:17] He was keeping an eye on Emil's house. KB [00:57:24] And Dave Morgan. Did you know him? That was Emil's -- RH [00:57:28] From Trade Union Research Bureau? KB [00:57:30] No, he was at -- RH [00:57:33] I know the more recent guys. I still see them quite a bit, and one of them came up and was going to write a book or something. KB [00:57:42] Oh, yeah. RH [00:57:44] About all this crap. KB [00:57:45] Yeah. David Fairey. RH [00:57:46] Oh, yeah. I knew David Farey as well, yeah. A great guy. KB [00:57:50] Yes. Very good. RH [00:57:52] Great guys. KB [00:57:54] You know, there is great history around and about. We just have to collect it. Yeah. BG [00:58:01] So yeah. I was going to say, your involvement with FORUM. How long have you been doing that? RH [00:58:07] Just about... less than a year. BG [00:58:12] Just a year now, eh? RH [00:58:13] Well, what happened is an MP, Lyle Christiansen, longtime NDP. KB [00:58:23] Yes. RH [00:58:23] He was the FORUM rep, and he would also come to our seniors COSCO meeting. Council of Senior Citizens, not Costco the store. He died and he was replaced -- and I knew him well -- and he was replaced by another guy on the coast. Cause you're actually, you're a representative at that Labour Council. That was Lyle Christiansen and Bruce Elphinstone, and Bruce just died. Then they pushed me. KB [00:59:05] I don't know, there's a bit of a trend there, Ray. I'm not sure you want the job. RH [00:59:12] I never thought about it that way. I really didn't. I kind said I wanted to get out of some of this stuff, but they pushed me back. BG [00:59:23] Prodded you back into it. RH [00:59:24] So, I'll give it a shot. BG [00:59:25] Yeah. RH [00:59:26] A year maybe, or so. BG [00:59:27] Yes. RH [00:59:28] It's interesting. I kind of enjoy it. My meetings tomorrow. BG [00:59:34] Oh, there you go. KB [00:59:37] Oh, okay. BG [00:59:37] Keeps you involved. RH [00:59:37] Oh, sorry, we are meeting here. I attend the Labour Council meetings, and we're having a big fight now over the closure of a couple of long-term care places. They're going to replace them with private outfits. So, I've got that on the agenda to talk to the Labour Council. I think they'll be ready for it because their unions are affected. Loss of jobs and everything else. BG [01:00:06] It's good. It keeps you active. KB [01:00:08] Yes. BG [01:00:14] I think I've reached the end of. RH [01:00:15] Pretty near. KB [01:00:16] A couple of notes he's got on his sheet. BG [01:00:18] Sure. RH [01:00:27] Another name that should be mentioned was Bob Smeal. KB [01:00:32] Right. RH [01:00:33] I still visit his wife once in a while every time I go up to Campbell River, she's 92. Bob Smeal was the president of the Federation prior to Al Staley. BG [01:00:47] Okay. RH [01:00:49] And Bob was also the BC Representative on the Canadian Labour Congress. He would've eventually, in my opinion, been the President of the Canadian Labour Congress. He died at a convention with an aneurysm, fairly young. Wonderful guy. He was a bit of my mentor. He was the guy that pushed me into the Fed. BG [01:01:14] Yeah. When you first came on. RH [01:01:18] He probably -- him and Joe Morris, actually. KB [01:01:22] So the -- not the CLC, but the Succamore connection. RH [01:01:32] Yeah, I got along good with Jess. Jess Succamore, yeah. KB [01:01:34] Did you? Yeah. So how did that whole entity get created? RH [01:01:40] Well, we fought the Canadian unions because they were -- you know, we had Pulp and Sulphite. KB [01:01:45] Yes. RH [01:01:46] The Pulp Union, and they were raiding -- they were being raided by Jess. Jess Succamore and other unions. So, we supported one of -- yeah, we should go back to that Paddy Neale thing a tiny bit. Let me see. The problem, I think, let me see -- how do I get at this. Ask me that question again. KB [01:02:30] Succamore. How did that entity or that organization get its legs. RH [01:02:34] Okay. I got criticized bad, you've got it down here. Our officers got criticized bad because we refused to do much with Pat O'Neill when he got caught bugging the Canadian union. We made a real hard decision, and it was tough. There was a lot of feeling we should publicly throw him to the wolves, but we've made a decision based on, we didn't want that union to be taken over. That would affect the fight. The leadership of the Pulp and Sulphite, which was Pat, would be hauled through the mud and the Canadian union would win the battle. So, we softened our blow. We still criticized him, but we softened our blow, and strictly on the basis of protecting that union to stay in the Canadian Labour Congress and the Fed. So, it was partly legitimate criticism, in a sense. KB [01:03:43] So, just for me to get this clear in my mind, Succamore was actually raiding an international union, trying to get them to break away from their international. RH [01:03:55] Yeah. They were ahead of the time because, you know, they were pushing for Canadian unions when we were -- KB [01:04:01] Autonomy. RH [01:04:02] We were still not quite. KB [01:04:04] AF of L, CIO. RH [01:04:05] I mean, it goes back a long way. When I started in the labour movement in 1948, Harold Pritchett. KB [01:04:14] Yeah. RH [01:04:14] And another couple of guys, Del (unclear) or something, anyway. They were having trouble because of the States and the border and everything, so. KB [01:04:28] Communist. RH [01:04:29] So, they might have had ulterior motives as well, but they were on the right track. They tried to form a Canadian union. KB [01:04:36] Yes. RH [01:04:36] And I remember, I just started working at a sawmill, I told you how I got my education there. I go to the white block, which I didn't know it was the white block at that time. I go to, it was the first aid attendant, and I said, 'This sounds good. What's this all about? This Canadian union?' He says, 'Oh, no, bunch of communists.' I said, 'Oh.' At that point, Communists were not very good. So, I was up again. I was involved in a sense, in 1948, before I even knew what the hell this was all about with. KB [01:05:11] Yes. RH [01:05:13] Breakaway to form a Canadian union. BG [01:05:15] Yeah. RH [01:05:16] Then we were in the international, but we had until just recently, we had -- and they pulled out now -- but recently, we had -- they never bothered us, we had out complete control, 100%. But you know, obviously, we should have been a bit ahead of it. KB [01:05:44] You're talking about Retail Wholesale, you came out of? RH [01:05:47] The labour movement was slow. KB [01:05:50] Autonomy, sending money. RH [01:05:53] I remember, I think it was the Labourers International, they were having trouble with their pension plan in the United States. It was the US pension plan, and our union plan. They came up and started threatening them something awful, and I remember they called in the Fed. They called in the Fed. We went over there and we told them to get the hell out of town. KB [01:06:14] Yeah. RH [01:06:15] And quit screwing around with the pension plan, and if you don't, we'll get the -- we'll blackball you and get these people to go Canadian, or do something. I don't know whether we said to go Canadian, because I don't think we were quite ready for that. But you know, you quit interfering with the Canadians. That was the story. KB [01:06:36] Well, they at times suggested trusteeship to some of the locals up here, right? RH [01:06:44] And they did, on occasion. There was a union that did get put under trusteeship. KB [01:06:47] Yeah, and there were big guys that came up to take over the office, too. RH [01:06:53] Well, they did it with -- I'm trying to think of the union. They did it with one union, we raised hell about it. KB [01:07:00] Yeah, I remember the story of the guys coming up. RH [01:07:04] Oh yeah, yeah. KB [01:07:06] They were making it pointed that, don't bother us, and these guys were fairly chunky characters. I don't know the union either, but I know the story. RH [01:07:18] I guess my union didn't bother us, and that's why I never really -- I never really had a big thing on my calendar for going Canadian, but... KB [01:07:32] Yes. RH [01:07:35] I met those guys, and I got along good with them. Jess Succamore was one, got invited to one of their do's a couple of times. KB [01:07:55] Now when there's Pat O'Neill and Paddy Neale. RH [01:08:00] Pat O'Neill and Paddy Neale. KB [01:08:04] Neale, okay. It's pronounced Neale, and he was the Labour Council guy. RH [01:08:10] He was the Secretary Treasurer, which was the full-time job. KB [01:08:13] At the Fed? RH [01:08:15] No, no. KB [01:08:16] Labour Council. RH [01:08:17] Vancouver Labour Council. KB [01:08:18] And Pat O'Neill was the IWA, the guy with two names. RH [01:08:23] Pat O'Neill was Pulp Sulphite. KB [01:08:26] Pulp and Sulphite. He was the two-name guy. BG [01:08:29] Yeah. RH [01:08:34] How did Clive handle Pat O'Neill? KB [01:08:39] He said that, from what I recall, he was an out there kind of guy. Volatile, but he could organize in an empty room, he could pull people together, and he moved from the shop floor to where he was in a short period of time. What he did mention was he thought that the RCMP knew his background information. RH [01:09:04] They helped him bug that place. KB [01:09:06] Yeah. RH [01:09:06] I'm sure of that. KB [01:09:08] Yeah, well. RH [01:09:10] I mean, that was... KB [01:09:11] His downfall. RH [01:09:12] That's why the people that wanted us to condemn Pat had a right to be unhappy. BG [01:09:18] Right. KB [01:09:18] Yeah. RH [01:09:20] I mean, why he would do it is so stupid. It's unbelievable. KB [01:09:24] He maybe didn't have any choice. Who knows, with the circumstances? Yeah. RH [01:09:29] Oh, I never thought about that. Well, see, we were shocked when he decided he was leaving. We never -- leaving the Fed. He just dropped it on us. Said he's going to go back and Pulp Sulphite needs him, and they want him back, so you guys got to get somebody. Ray looks like the guy. That's where I told you, I spent a week trying to find somebody else to do the job. KB [01:09:51] Did he go back to Pulp Sulphite? RH [01:09:52] Yeah. KB [01:09:53] For how long? RH [01:09:57] Until he died. KB [01:09:58] Oh, okay. RH [01:10:00] Through that mess. KB [01:10:02] Yeah. RH [01:10:03] Inquiry. There was an inquiry. KB [01:10:05] Oh, okay. RH [01:10:06] That's where the name came out, at the inquiry. KB [01:10:10] Okay. RH [01:10:11] The company, the employer knew. The employer had found out somehow. RCMP probably tipped them off. KB [01:10:18] Yeah, absolutely. RH [01:10:20] Who knows? So, on the witness stand, they said, 'What is your real name?' And he said, 'Pat O'Neill.' 'No, no, what's your real name?' He tried to stick to it, he was still Pat O'Neill. He said, 'No, it's Tom Casey.' And yet, he got a wonderful recommendation from that judge. The judge fell in love with him. KB [01:10:41] Oh, is that right? RH [01:10:42] But he's that kind of a guy. He had pizzazz. KB [01:10:46] Yes. RH [01:10:46] And tremendous guy. KB [01:10:51] What do you think it was that motivated you to become part of organized labour and to stay in it all these years? It usually -- social justice comes to mind straight away, with some of the things that are going on around the world. What was it for you? Was it? RH [01:11:13] It was just dollars and cents to start with, because I was working at a place working hard as hell and getting $80 a month, and here's a guy on a green chain or sizer chain pulling off lumber -- but sizer chain's quite easier than the green chain -- and getting a dollar an hour. So, right off the bat I thought, you know, this union got to be something good about it. I guess I just talked to the right guys. I mean, every one of them in that sawmill that I talked to were all activists, including Tommy Clarke. Funny I haven't mentioned that name. Tom Clarke was the head steward or something like that in the IWA, I believe at Canadian White Pine, but I'm just not 100% positive. We became quite good friends, and there was two or three down there. I moved up, as I told you, in the union. I raised hell about this, and raised hell about that. Got it passed at a local meeting that if a guy wants an adjournment during a grievance meeting with the employer, you have the right, even though I was stopped. Got them to think about whether there should be swing shifts when everybody wants one, and so on. All of that made me think about unions and everything. I think Tommy Douglas had a big influence, too, I'm sure, you know, and I started meeting all those people pushing for the NDP, because I didn't have any background at all. My dad was a cop, and I know he was CCF, and I know he was against wars and that's all I know. He died when I was 15. I don't know if I mentioned that. BG [01:13:32] Yeah. KB [01:13:33] That's how it starts, yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. RH [01:13:41] I try not to be too negative now, because the world is such a hell of a mess. Just all of it, and is it hopeless or not? I don't know. KB [01:13:53] Well, I think one of the things now, the only time you ever really owned your rights under a collective agreement is when you stood up for them. A lot of people have never had that opportunity now, and the picket line is an awesome place to have that kind of exercise because it says, here you are standing up for your rights with your brothers and sisters. Look who's going to cross the picket line. Right? These people are, they have a big say in your life. So, how do you change that? By everyone coming together and and putting forward a common goal, right? RH [01:14:37] Yeah, because it's a great feeling. KB [01:14:40] It is. RH [01:14:45] I remember the Simmons dispute. I wasn't very good on the women issue, but I can tell you that women won that strike. The guys weren't that good. In fact, there was a meeting and it was loaded with guys. The old guys, wherever the employer had called a secret meeting, and we bust into it. They were trying to tell them that they'll look after them and all this, but you guys gotta come back to work. So, back to work they go, and of course, we blew it; but the women were solid. They were there all the time. Women won the strike, and the UFAWU (United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union) helped. They brought down fish once a week to the picket line, and yeah, women on the picket lines would be tremendous. I especially noticed that with the Nurses, because they're 99% women, but in our other strikes, it's the other way around, maybe. Simmons was about a 50/50, if I remember correctly. Those women were terrific. KB [01:15:56] Did you ever run up against the Rand formula? RH [01:16:01] Oh yeah, I know what it is. If I remember correctly, it was just that everyone had to -- KB [01:16:09] Had to pay. RH [01:16:10] Dues. Doesn't have to join the union. KB [01:16:12] Doesn't have to join the union. Yeah. RH [01:16:15] And of course, the employer doesn't even want that. KB [01:16:17] Oh, that's right. RH [01:16:21] Yeah, we would always insist on the union shop in our contract, and I don't think there was ever a time when we didn't get it. Maybe. Maybe there was one time, and I think we got it the next contract. But there again in bargaining, you did have difficulties the minute you got off in talking about wages. They weren't sure they wanted to do it. If you could solve the wage problem. KB [01:16:51] The rest of it was... RH [01:16:52] Yeah. They wanted a pension plan, but they didn't know whether they're ready to strike for a pension plan. They wanted a union shop, but they weren't sure they were ready to strike for union shop. They wanted no contracting out, for sure, and lately they've given that up and they're paying a terrible F-ing price, I'll tell you. KB [01:17:10] Yeah. RH [01:17:11] That's what I'm up against now in these two places that closed down. They haven't got a contracting out in the HEU and they've got a chance of 200 people being selected, whoever the employer wants to hire in the new place, unless we can stop it and it's going to be hard to stop. KB [01:17:34] That's cold. RH [01:17:34] So it's hard to get them to get excited about non-monetary issues. I think of John Thorne at this meeting, because he said I was very unorthodox in my bargaining. I remember I learnt this from Len Guy. He said, 'In the ITU, we don't ask for money. We just put a blank column with a dollar sign in our proposal.' So, I started doing that. Every time I negotiated the Nurses, I just put in the blank spot. I remember the City of Vancouver, story is, they had dealt -- I guess, the guy before me or something must have been quite gentlemanly and nice and all that kind of stuff, but I saw thought were sausage. I couldn't handle some of them, their attitude about the way they had towards us. City of Vancouver. KB [01:18:29] Yes. RH [01:18:30] So, they said, 'We want to know what's going in. What's the number you're asking for?' I said, 'We'll tell you when we're satisfied that we're getting along good and we can solve some of these other problems. We have very important other problems.' 'How do we know when we've given you the right number?' I said, 'I'll yell bingo.' Jeez, they were so mad. They nearly got up and left the meeting. There was another one with the City of Vancouver with that one, same kind of deal. Oh, you know, they were crazy, but most employers... They got used to it. KB [01:19:18] Yeah, yeah. Well, it provided some stability for them as well, so they didn't have to really manage much. RH [01:19:25] Yeah. KB [01:19:28] I'm good on the questions. Have any more comments for us, Ray? I see you've got some notes on there. BG [01:19:35] Anything we haven't touched on? KB [01:19:37] Oh, another name that came up when we were talking to Clive is John Bowmann. Did you know him? CAW guy? RH [01:19:44] No. KB [01:19:45] Okay. RH [01:20:03] Did I mention that in the fight in injunctions? No, it wasn't an injunction. I don't know what category you put it under. Did I mention the one where we found that, we were on strike at Taylor Pearson and Carson, and we found out that they were operating out of a boxcar? Down at -- I told you about that. KB [01:20:25] Yes. RH [01:20:26] So that meant you could picket the employer's place of business, whereever it was. KB [01:20:30] Yes. RH [01:20:55] Another person was the guy that Clive replaced, my assistant. I don't know if I've ever mentioned his name. John McNevin. KB [01:21:05] Yes, we talked about him. He's passed away now, right? RH [01:21:08] No, he's still around. KB [01:21:09] Is he still around? BG [01:21:10] Yeah, he's actually on our list. RH [01:21:10] He's moved from Sunshine Coast to Nanaimo, and now he's moved to Maple Ridge. BG [01:21:23] Oh, okay. RH [01:21:25] John McNevin. KB [01:21:26] And I think that's a list you gave me and I gave to these guys here. Yeah. BG [01:21:32] And so, sorry, he had Clive's role before Clive took over? RH [01:21:35] Yeah, he was my assistant. BG [01:21:37] Right. Yeah. Assistant secretary treasurer. RH [01:21:39] It was kind of interesting, too, because he was also engaged to my first wife. BG [01:21:43] Oh, really? RH [01:21:46] But we got along good. BG [01:21:47] Small world. KB [01:21:49] Yeah. RH [01:22:13] Did you have some question about -- I've got a note here, did Mine Mill Union going into the U.S. Steelworkers? Are you asking anything about that? Anything about Mine Mill? KB [01:22:27] CAIMAW, CAIMAW was... RH [01:22:28] I wonder why I wrote that down. Anyway, they did. When they came back into the Congress, they came in backed by Steel. KB [01:22:35] Oh, okay. Affiliated. RH [01:22:38] Yeah, and the other thing. Did Clive mention Roy Gautier or John Shipley? BG [01:22:46] Briefly? KB [01:22:47] Roy. RH [01:22:48] Robson? KB [01:22:48] Roy for sure. RH [01:22:50] Roy for sure. KB [01:22:50] Yeah, and Kinnaird, Jack and -- BG [01:22:55] What were those other names you're mentioning? There's... KB [01:22:57] Robson. RH [01:22:58] Robson. I don't -- I wouldn't have him high on my list. Roy Gauthier, I would have him right up there. BG [01:23:04] Yeah. RH [01:23:09] These guys contributed a lot. I mean, they -- Roy didn't fight us that much, but the Communists were always giving us a bad time; but on the trade union issues, we pretty well worked out our differences. We always worked together. KB [01:23:29] Yes. RH [01:23:30] I mean, every single time, we worked together real good. There was an issue once, if you want a good story, from Poland or Czechoslovakia. It's not a good story because I don't know the details. Poland or Czechoslovakia or one of those countries was just getting taken over by the Communists, and we were right in the middle of our convention, and it was a resolution condemning the Communist Party in Russia for its actions in, I believe it was Poland. KB [01:24:05] Was that Lech Walesa? He was the shipyard worker that became the President. RH [01:24:11] I don't remember. I just remember that I stepped, when I spoke, you know, I took a position. I would come off the stage -- it was kind of dramatic a bit -- and I walk out and take a position at the mic. So, I mean, it's me, not -- KB [01:24:26] The officer. RH [01:24:29] That's right, and I just tore the hell out of the Communist Party, and Tim Buck, and all the bastards. Then George Johnson, I suppose, said, 'Is there any further speakers?' And there wasn't one. The Communists never get up. Now afterwards, afterwards -- BG [01:24:51] No response. RH [01:24:53] After, we heard was that they got hell from Tim Buck, or one of the guys, that how dare you not get up there and respond? KB [01:25:02] Yes. RH [01:25:02] Now, the Congress told us that. How do they know? I think they bugged them. I think they bugged their hotel room. KB [01:25:12] Yeah. Yeah. RH [01:25:13] I don't know why, because I don't know how they would know. KB [01:25:15] Yes. BG [01:25:17] Good point. KB [01:25:19] All sorts of things went on in those days. RH [01:25:21] It was quite a life. KB [01:25:22] Oh, yeah. How old are you now, Ray? RH [01:25:26] 88. KB [01:25:27] 88. Congratulations on another birthday. Awesome. RH [01:25:32] Yeah, that's all the notes here. So, we did good. BG [01:25:34] Great. KB [01:25:35] Yes.

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