Great Lakes gun battles, high-stakes diplomacy
In 1963, a violent labour dispute paralyzed cross-border shipping and drove a wedge between the new Liberal government of Lester B. Pearson and the JFK White House. John Boyko tells the tale in an excerpt from Cold Fire: Kennedy’s Northern Front
The Great Lakes are nature’s highway. They link Canadian and American Midwest farms to central and eastern cities and through them to the world.
Canadian shipping companies exploited post-Second World War prosperity and the sale of surplus navy and merchant marine vessels at garage sale prices to grow in size and wealth. The biggest and most influential became Canada Steamship Lines.
By the late 1940s, the companies grew rich while sailors and dockworkers grew angry. Ships often resembled floating sweatshops and the docks were jungles.
Unions fought the companies to improve pay and work conditions. They also fought each other for fee-paying members and their turf wars were intensified by Communist infiltration that ignored the border and often members’ best interests. Strikes, intimidation, beatings and gangsterism often resulted in ships stranded in ports and unable to be loaded or unloaded or suddenly without crews.
In an attempt to wrest order from the growing chaos, while fighting domestic communists, the government of Louis St-Laurent condoned the Americanization of Canadian maritime unions.
It supported the pressure that the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) exerted on its Canadian counterpart, the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, to merge the Canadian Seaman’s Union with the American-based Seafarers’ International Union (SIU).
In 1949, the SIU appointed Hal Banks to preside over its Canadian branch.
Hal Banks was a thug. He was born in Iowa and grew up in California. He had been arrested for passing bad cheques and came to know the cold, grey walls of San Quentin prison. He was later accused of murder, kidnapping and numerous rapes before becoming a sailor then union enforcer. He was deemed the perfect man to build the SIU in Canada. From his opulent office in Montreal, Banks became a tyrant. He bribed, bought or had beaten up all those who opposed him or the SIU. He established “Do Not Ship” lists that banned certain workers, ships and companies. The shipping companies and the Canadian and American governments were happy that a semblance of order had been established, the ships were moving and the Communists were gone or hiding, and so turned blind eyes when Banks and his gangsters broke laws and bones.
The violence and growing influence of American maritime unions in Canada finally became too much to ignore. In 1962, Tory prime minister John Diefenbaker created a commission of inquiry led by the hot-tempered but determined British Columbia Court of Appeal justice Thomas G. Norris. Beginning in July, the Norris inquiry laid bare the stench of what was being perpetrated in the name of profit, politics and power.
The inquiry was completing its work when Lester Pearson became prime minister in April the following year. He was dragged into the morass of violently competing interests when the Canadian Great Lakes freighter James Norris steamed into the Chicago harbour and a labour spat led to a gun battle. A union standoff stranded the ship. Pearson promised the House of Commons that he would do something about the Norris incident and the larger crisis that was terrorizing workers and hurting business.
At their meeting in Hyannis Port, Mass., in May 1963, Pearson and U.S. President John F. Kennedy left their advisers to enjoy a short stroll. With the ocean pounding the shore, Pearson broached the violence on the lakes. He explained that the problem was being blamed on the actions of American unions in Canada. He wondered what could be done. Kennedy shook his head and, using language that Banks and his men would have appreciated, said, “I don’t know what I can do about those f---ers!”
They agreed that the solution, like the problem, needed to ignore the border. A committee was struck, comprising two Canadians, Labour Congress president Claude Jodoin and minister of labour Allan MacEachen, and two Americans, AFL-CIO president George Meany and labour secretary Willard Wirtz. Dubbed the Committee of Four, they met in Washington a week later but quickly fell apart.
Meany and Jodoin screamed accusations at each other about SIU activities in Canada, which union was legitimate and whose men were scabs. Meany was not about to surrender a scintilla of AFL-CIO or SIU power regardless of what the Canadians wanted. Perhaps U.S. undersecretary of state George Ball was right when he confided in a telephone conversation with national security adviser McGeorge Bundy: “I must say if the prime minister thinks he can control our angry labour unions, he is not as smart as I think he is.”
Thomas Norris finally released his report in July 1963. It placed a preponderance of blame for the Great Lakes mess on Banks and the SIU. Its most important recommendations were that Banks be deported and government-appointed trustees be empowered to merge the maritime unions to better serve workers, shipping companies and Canada.
Following a series of lively debates in the House of Commons, Allan MacEachen an- nounced that the government would create a trusteeship council after the upcoming parliamentary recess.
Angry SIU workers who were loyal to their leader and wanted no part of government telling them how to run their union reacted by planting a bomb on a Canadian ship that new labour strife had stranded in Chicago. The bombing led Pearson to call Kennedy.
The president was in a tough spot. He had spoken at the AFL-CIO convention the year before and wandered off his prepared text to praise organized labour's contributions to the country’s well-being and progress. To great applause, Georges Meany responded, “We are delighted that we have a chief executive in th understands the ideals and the aspirations of our people . . . and merely say to you don’t worry about us. We will co-operate 1,000 per cent.”
Meany mattered. If the crisis on the lakes was to be solved, Kennedy needed his help. Meany was America’s most powerful advocate for organized labour. To many Americans, his opinions reflected those of working people in general. Further, the AFLCIO was a major contributor to Kennedy and his Democratic party, It was hard to tell which president needed the other more.
It was perhaps with this quandary in mind that at Hyannis Port, Kennedy had told Pearson, “Meany will do a lot of things I ask him to do,” but after a long pause added, “and I’ll do a lot he asks me to do." Now, on the phone with Pearson, Kennedy again promised to do what he could with Meany. After hanging up he grumbled to an aide that it would be a shame if this union trouble jeopardized all the hard work he
had done at Hyannis Port to rebuild trust with Canada.
Although Meany did not attend, the Committee of Four met several more times over the next number of weeks but accomplished nothing. Jodoin wanted to co-operate with the AFL-CIO in the hope that it would help reduce the harassment of Canadian ships and workers in American ports. He made an appointment to see Meany and flew to his office in Washington. He spent two infuriating hours reading old magazines in Meany’s waiting room. He finally left in disgust.
MacEachen was good to his word and with Parliament’s resumption he ignored the Committee of Four impasse and introduced legislation to create an all-Canadian trusteeship council to oversee Canadian maritime unions and Canadian subsidiaries of American maritime unions. Meany erupted. He told a hastily called press conference, “I am just as much opposed to government-controlled unions in Canada as I am to government-controlled unions in Honduras, or Peru or any other place on the face of the earth. I am absolutely opposed to it.”
American labour secretary Wirtz rushed to the White House. He believed that the trouble with the Canadian unions was a Canadian matter that Pearson was trying to get his department, the president or Meany to solve.
He blamed what he characterized as Diefenbaker’s “anti-American questions” in the House and the anti-American views of many Canadian newspapers for forcing Pearson to be harder on the issue than he really wanted to be. He told Kennedy that only Meany was acting in good faith.
Wirtz left the Oval Office and called a press conference. He proclaimed his support for Meany and said the Canadians were wrong in wanting government-appointed trustees to reorganize and oversee maritime unions. The Canadian government should not, he insisted, be allowed to exert such influence over American business, ports or organized labour.
Pearson again called Kennedy. While not mentioning his meeting with Wirtz, the president apologized for any embarrassment caused by the Wirtz press conference. He characterized the unreserved praise for the AFL-CIO as “unfortunate.” They read statements to each other that they would make and agreed that Canadian ambassador Charles Ritchie would co-ordinate their timing.
MacEachen’s Trustee Act became law on Oct. 18. It afforded government-appointed Canadian trustees the power to oversee and influence union property, finances, management and rules. In a section quickly dubbed the “Hal Banks provision,” it allowed trustees to suspend or fire a union employee. Banks responded by having SIU members in Canadian and American ports drop their tools. On Oct. 21, 2,000 SIU members shouted slogans on Parliament Hill and then cheered when Banks pulled up in his brand new, gleaming white Cadillac. Someone yelled, “You’re a goddam crook!” Banks shouted back, “I agree.”
Pearson again called Kennedy. With the raucous protest roaring outside his office windows, he told the president of the havoc in Ottawa and the ships stuck in ports. In Montreal’s harbour alone, for instance, armed union men had trapped 28 vessels. Pearson warned that he would quickly es- tablish the trusteeship council to quell the violence, end the illegal strikes and restore calm, all by taking control of the Canadian branch of the SIU. Kennedy would not agree to call Meany but did pledge to remain silent about Pearson’s proposed plan.
Diefenbaker, now Opposition leader, made no such promise. Later that afternoon, with protesters bluing the air outside, he filled the Commons with accusations of his own. He cried that there was too much American power in all Canadian unions, and especially the maritime unions. He slammed the government’s handling of the whole affair, saying Pearson was causing “chaos approaching anarchy.” He then moved a motion of non-confidence. Pearson jumped to his feet. He slammed Diefenbaker and took shots at Meany and Banks. He praised Kennedy for working in good faith to help resolve the dispute. As expected, Diefenbaker’s motion failed.
The next day, however, a number of Canadian newspapers echoed Diefenbaker’s point. The Globe and Mail was particularly harsh on Wirtz and Kennedy for backing the American union that, its editorial claimed, was primarily responsible for current problems.
Entitled “Diplomacy by bully,” it hinted that Kennedy could quickly solve the whole mess but was choosing not to. It noted a number of examples of Americans using the press to push Canada around. Among them was the State Department’s January press release besmirching Diefenbaker and the more recent Wirtz press conference. The column ended with a line that could have been ripped from one of Diefenbaker’s campaign speeches: “Frank- ness between friends is a virtue. But the kind of frankness in which U.S. leaders have lately been indulging is that of neighbourhood bully — ‘You do it my way or else!’ ”
The trustees were appointed on Oct. 23. Among their first acts was to summon Hal Banks to Ottawa. He was told to end the SIU strike action or face prosecution. He caved. Three days later the men returned to work and the ships resumed their journeys. The truce was only temporary. At the AFL-CIO convention held just a few weeks later in New York, Banks delivered a blistering address in which he promised to fight the Canadian government and increase his union’s power by having only SIU members on every ship on the Great Lakes. SIU strikes and threats of violence soon had every ship moving at a glacial pace or stopped completely.
Pearson called Kennedy. The president agreed to have Wirtz investigate the latest flare-up. He again promised to do what he could to influence Meany and American SIU president Paul Hall. Wirtz told Kennedy that Meany and Hall would do nothing unless he personally asked them to do so.
Issuing such a request would certainly help Canada but would leave Kennedy in the unattractive position of being even more beholden to the unions and their leaders than he was already. Further, Kennedy knew that he would soon be asking for maritime union support for a plan he had yet to announce, whereby American wheat would be shipped to the Soviet Union in Soviet as well as American ships. Once again, Kennedy’s admiration for Pearson and their personal friendship did not matter. He would do what was best for America. He did nothing.
With the shipping season almost over, Kennedy and Wirtz agreed to allow the troubles to play themselves out over the winter and then contemplate action in the spring. Pearson was left to carry on with Canadian trade stopped up, American unions still dominating Canadian unions and hurting shipping companies, and without Kennedy’s help to do anything substantive about it.
Just as it appeared that things could not get worse for Pearson, he sat for a TV interview with Pierre Berton. He was asked about a Toronto Star story claiming that in the recent election, Hal Banks and his union had made substantial contributions to the Liberal party. Pearson admitted the story to be true.
The revelation could have sparked a scandal but it was ignored. The interview aired on the morning of Nov. 22. Before anyone had time to react to it, gunshots shattered a beautiful afternoon in Dallas.