HISTORY OF THE 1.W.A.

Newfoundland and northern Ontario strikes

Article by Clay Perry

PART IX

Late 1950s and early 1960s mark turbulent times for woodworkers in eastern Canada

hroughout the 1950’s, the democratic socialist C.C.F., which became the New Democratic Party in 1961, consolidated its position in the Canadian Labour Move- ment. Communism was los- ing ground in North Amer- ica and Europe. In the U.S., and to a considerable extent in Canada, “McCarthyism” led an hys- terical movement against communists and “fel- low travelers,” which included anyone unwilling to cede ultimate authority to the capitalist sys- tem.” Internally, the Canadian communist movement was suffering from defections over their very hard leftist line, anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union and, in 1957, the brutal crushing of the Hungarian revolt.

At the same time, the Canadian C.C.F (Coop- erative Commonwealth Federation) was moving away from its Agrarian roots, becoming more and more a Labour Party. That development was fully realized in 1961, with the formation of the New Democratic Party. An important aspect of that evolution was the increasingly influen- tial role played by the party’s National Secre- tary, David Lewis, whose opposition to Commu- nism, or to any cooperation with Communists, was fortified by his childhood memories of per-

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° Spirits were high during Newfoundland strike in 1959. Here, outside the picket shack, women

supporters of the International Woodworkers of America, joined the line following the arrests of

men by strike breaking police.

secution by communists in Poland.

By the early fifties, due to ruthless enforce- ment of its “errant member” policy and to a con- stitutional provision that forbade membership to “Communists and Fascists,” the I.W.A. was thoroughly “cleansed” of communist influence. So it began to benefit from its position in the mid-stream of Canadian labour. “Direct Char- ters,” organized by the Canadian Congress of Labour, usually of small forest industry opera- tions, were transferred to the I.W.A. in Ontario and the Prairies.

More central to this chapter, the Congress urged the I.W.A. to organize Newfoundland log- gers. H. Landon Ladd, who was to become the central figure in one of our union’s most coura- geous and colourful struggles, reports that in 1953, apparently at the urging of the Congress’s Maritime Director, Don McDonald, the I.W.A. had conducted a “survey of the pulp and paper industry, the logging camps, of every nook and cranny of this island.”

Ladd was born and raised in Vancouver, worked in sawmills and mines, and earned his stripes as a dedicated anti-Communist unionist in the old Mine, Mill and Smelter Worker’s Union, and as an organizer for the C.C.Lin Ontario. He was an energetic, gifted organizer and an eloquent, powerful speaker. ”

12/LUMBERWORKER/JUNE, 1998

’ e Strike breaking cops gang up on and arrest I.W.A. member in violent Newfoundland strike.

At that time, conditions in Newfoundland’s logging camps at that time were miserable. Pay was $10.00 per day, thirty per cent less than in

' Northern Ontario. The work week was a gruel-

ing sixty hours. Canned beans dominated the menu. A Royal Commission established in 1959 found camp and sanitary conditions little improved over those described in a report thirty years earlier:

“Dark and squalid hovels which would not be used for hen-houses except by the most primitive farmer. Dirt is eve’ Me s Rats are common. Dilapidation is the rule. There is nothing to do in the evenings but sit around on the bunks talking. The light is from a limited number of flat wicked kerosene lamps. Men have been passed down to a dead level of a flat rate and have grown resigned. If a man kicks there are just now only too many to take his job.” ”

Flying home from Europe in 1956, Ladd stopped in Gander, Newfoundland and phoned John Joseph (Joe) Thompson, leader of the Newfoundland Lumberman’s Association, gen- erously described as “little more than a compli- ant company union.” Thompson invited Ladd to speak to the Association’s convention that October. He was willing to turn over his organi- zation to either the “Lumber & Saw,” the Indus- trial Branch of the United Broth- erhood of Carpen- ters and Joiners, or to the I.W.A., but he wanted assurance of a lifetime salary and a pension. Ladd refused, saying that the I.W.A. was not about to “buy a union.” But at the convention, the I.W.A. was cho- sen over the Car- penters by a vote of 26 to 16 How- ever, Thompson declared that because the vote ° H. Landon Ladd was on such an “important question” it required a two-thirds majority. The meeting was recessed, and, “after some hasty arm-twisting,” reconvened for a sec- ond vote. This time the result was a twenty-one to twenty-one tie. Thompson then proceeded to use his double vote as chairman to break the tie and to defeat the motion to join the I.W.A. = his earlier ruling on “important questions” and two-thirds majority, getting lost somewhere in the confusion.”®

Ladd recalled the events in his 1983 address:

“Well, I just moved up and said ‘I want to thank you for your interpretation of democracy, and incidentally, if there is anyone here who

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