Author revisits the battles won by B.C.’s trades unions
Former labour president counters society’s ‘induced amnesia’
Most Canadians know more about the sex life of America’s current president than we do about the labour organizations that fought so hard over centuries to win us a five-day week, minimum wage and employment standards legislation, not to mention publicly funded health care and education. Jim Sinclair, former president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, sets out to dispel some of this induced amnesia in his new book We Build B.C.: History of the B.C. Building Trades.
The Carpenters’ Society, formed in 1799 in Halifax, was one of the first unions organized in this country. In 1889, carpenters led B.C.’s first construction strike in Vancouver.
Since then, workers in the building trades have been important players in the creation of the province’s infrastructure and in the complex socio/political dynamics that pitted organized workers against employers in battles to determine how much of the wealth workers created with their tools and skills would remain in their own pockets.
When the B.C. and Yukon Territory Building Trades Council was formed in 1967, it united more than 20 unions and labour councils representing over 50,000 workers. According to the council’s website, the current numbers are 17 unions and 35,000 members. Clearly, the anti-union campaign led by big business and think-tanks like the Fraser Institute over the past decades has had an effect.
But the history of the building trades in B.C. is not just an account of a fighting retreat as management-friendly governments changed labour law to make union organizing more difficult and safety regulation enforcement less effective. It is also a story of strikes fought and won, wages improved and (some) workplace dangers reduced. Sinclair gives a useful and comprehensive account of many of those victories.
One interesting story Sinclair tells is about a group of Latin American temporary foreign workers employed and exploited in the construction of the RAV line tunnel under False Creek. Eventually, after years of struggle and support from the council, the workers won a human rights complaint and were granted $2.4 million in compensation.
Much of the history recounted in this book has been lost to common memory. Sinclair has done us all a favour in bringing it back to light.
Tom Sandborn lives and writes in Vancouver. He is a retired member of the Amalgamated Transit Union and has supported the union movement since 1965. He welcomes your feedback and story tips at tos65@telus.net