Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Book explores history of B.C. labour movement

A book was launched this past weekend burning like a comet tail from Saturday's National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job.
mickleburgh-book--bc-labour.jpg

A book was launched this past weekend burning like a comet tail from Saturday's National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job.

On The Line is printed by Harbour Publishing, was commissioned by the BC Labour Heritage Centre Society, and it tells an exhaustive history of the British Columbia labour movement. It was authored by Rod Mickleburgh, a veteran labour reporter for the Vancouver Sun and the Globe And Mail.

He got his start in the news profession at the Prince George Citizen in 1970 and one of the most impactful stories he wrote in the latter years of his career took his attention back to those beginnings. The fatal explosions at the Lakeland and Babine sawmills ended up forming important components of his new book.

"I tried to get the human element into the book," he said.

"I quote the survivors, the families, and so on, and for me, the explosion of both those mills in such a short period of time really brought home a lot of problems (in workplace safety oversight), plus the tragedy itself of those poor workers who perished."

There are already more academic books on the B.C. labour movement or ones that give chronological listings of strikes and policy changes and the like, or focus on specific incidents of workers asserting themselves versus overbearing employers or hostile governments.

This book, Mickleburgh said, stands alone.

"I tried to tell it as a story. It has a lot of anecdotes in it, and that's what I like to do as a reporter - tell stories and keep the pages turning for the reader.

"All the information is there, but I hope it's told in an engaging, lively way.

"One of the things I'm proud of in the book, is that unlike most labour histories that've been written, there is a strong focus on health and safety, workplace issues, the Workers' Compensation Board (now called WorkSafeBC) and how that affects workers, and worker fatality."

The president of the BC Federation of Labour, Irene Lanzinger, wrote the forward for On The Line and in it she called this a "must-read book" for the telling of the unique B.C. labour movement story.

"It helps us to understand where we came from and why B.C. unions developed a national reputation for fight-back and militancy," Lanzinger said.

"Mickleburgh makes it clear: no one ever gave working people the right to organize unions, the right to a safe and healthy workplace, the right to bargain for fair wages and decent working conditions - basic rights we take for granted today. Working people through their unions had to fight and in some cases suffer injury or death to achieve this."

Mickleburgh cited a strike by Vancouver Island coal miners that started in 1912 and lasted until 1914, ending in the workers' defeat.

That, he said was over slave wages and inhumane working conditions but two years of striking didn't slow down the mining companies, and that was normal in B.C. until the middle of the 20th century.

"It really is shameful, and what I didn't appreciate until I started looking back at it - strike after strike after strike, they lost them all," he said.

"They were heroic but losing battles. They would go on strike, the company would hire strike breakers, the strike breakers would be protected by either private militia or governments with actual police and soldiers, so the companies would just not recognize the union and there was nothing to compel them to recognize the union.

"Production would resume, the strikers could put no pressure on the companies, they were out all their money (lost wages), they would be evicted from their company housing, so they had no place to live. It was impossible to win the strike. The governments and the courts were all together to thwart the strikers."

Momentum shifted, and one of the mainstay battles that still goes on in today's labour movement is workplace safety.

When The Citizen's reporter Gord Hoekstra won the coveted Michener Award for journalism it was on the topic of logging truck drivers in the forest industry.

That was only about 11 years ago.

When the buildup of fine, dry wood dust turned two local sawmills into bombs, it was again the labour movement that was in the spotlight because so many victims did not come home those fateful nights, and those who did were mentally and physically traumatized.

"The annual day of mourning is, I think, a significant day across Canada," Mickleburgh said.

On The Line: A History Of The British Columbia Labour Movement is now on bookstore shelves and available in hardcopy and Kindle forms.