Chapter 7. 7 The Lenkurt Electric Strike

Lenkurt Electric was a wholly owned subsidiary of General Telephone and Electronics Corporation (GTE), based out of Stamford, Connecticut, and was the largest manufacturer of telecommunications equipment in Canada. Its Burnaby factory was situated on a large twenty-acre property at 6960 Lougheed Highway, with an annual payroll of more than $3.5 million. It specialized in producing microwave parts for the various telephone companies across North America, but also produced components of classified communications systems for Canada’s Department of National Defence.1 The company was known for its hard-headed approach to collective bargaining and its dislike for unions in general. Charles “Chuck” Hunter, president of Lenkurt, was once described as a “blunt, tough, bull-of-the-woods industrialist.”2 In its Burnaby plant, the company had about 800 employees on its payroll in 1966, approximately 400 of whom were members of Unit 5, the manufacturing unit belonging to IBEW Local 213.3 Lenkurt Electric was a “union” shop, not a closed shop, which meant the employer could hire whoever it wanted, but new employees had to join Local 213 upon being offered a job; in the Vancouver local’s other units, the closed shop prevailed and employers were obliged to request electrical workers directly from the union itself. In the spring of 1966, Lenkurt workers thus made up just over 12 percent of Local 213’s estimated total membership enrolment of 3,300.4 They did not have Class A membership in the IBEW, only Class BA membership. Not that it was ever raised as a substantive issue of debate, but this meant that while they paid the same percentage per capita dues and had the same voting rights as the linemen and inside wiremen—the “A” members—Lenkurt employees received fewer death and pension benefits.5 Priding itself since its inception in 1901 on being more of an industrial union than a strict craft union, the reality of the post–World War II era success in organizing a number of manufacturing plants was now going to divide Local 213. Moreover, many of the Unit 5 workers on the plant floor at Lenkurt were women, who were paid a fairly low starting rate of pay of $1.51 per hour, recalling the almost parallel situation involving Local 213 and the BC Telephone operators in 1919.6 Like a spirit from strike episodes past, this aspect of its history was now going to reappear and haunt the local union.

The Lenkurt workplace scenario presented a deplorable state of affairs, and also begged the question as to why UE had not seen fit to organize in the Vancouver area. The Communist leadership of Local 213 during World War II, and afterwards, had undoubtedly dissuaded the left-wing electrical manufacturing union from attempting to establish roots out on the west coast and enter into competition with the similarly left-leaning IBEW local.7 As events worked themselves out, C. S. Jackson and George Harris, UE’s Communist-oriented leadership pair in Ontario’s industrial heartland, would later hire the unemployed George Gee as an organizer, first in Edmonton then in Vancouver.8 But there was no Communist Party presence within the ranks of the Lenkurt employees in the spring of 1966. There was thus little possibility of co-ordinating any potential or foreseeable job action with the Communist-led left caucus inside Local 213, now mostly centred around Les McDonald in the wiremen’s unit.

Yet, within the Lenkurt plant, there was a highly skilled and well-paid group of workers employed in the metal shop who picked up the mantle of trade union leadership. This included tool-and-die maker George Brown and metal shop supervisor Jess Succamore. Brown, a Scotsman, was elected chief shop steward at the plant in early 1966. He replaced a moribund union representative who had not been to a union meeting at the plant in nearly two years.9 Brown immediately began to deal with the backlog of grievances that had begun to accumulate before his election. Known by some as “a hell of a good guy,” and also as a tough and principled left-wing trade unionist, he provided a refreshing contrast to what had existed before at Lenkurt.10 But the mostly progressive metal shop workers were geographically separated from the plant floor workers within Lenkurt as both groups toiled away in separate departments. The men in the metal shop did not even have lunch together with the women, so there were no real opportunities for friendship and camaraderie to develop. Slogging through the backlog of accumulated grievances, Brown immediately began to bridge this divide, garnering along the way well-earned respect and admiration through his efforts. However, he simply did not have enough time to make the organic links required to ensure successful job action. Brian Bethel, for example, worked as part of a team of eight in the preliminary test room, which made communication with either Brown or Succamore difficult. As with others with a supportive union outlook at Lenkurt, they relied as best they could on the roving quality control inspectors to keep everyone informed as to what was happening in the different departments.11

Complicating matters was that George Brown had already been “through” the Communist Party after having previously been elected as a shop steward in the late 1950s at the massive Ford Motor plant in Dagenham, near London, England. Brown had apparently left the party over tactical disagreements on the shop floor leading up to a potential strike and had become a Trotskyist while still in Britain.12 Those on the left who knew Brown in Canada recalled that he was discreet about his personal political views, but that he definitely had formerly belonged to the rival groupuscule, abandoning his political activism shortly after his arrival in Vancouver. Brian Bethel’s initial opinion on the newly elected Lenkurt shop steward was that “George Brown did not spout Trotskyism left, right and centre. But he was very vocal. He was very committed to what he thought we should be doing. He didn’t come across at the time as being a Trotskyite.”13 Jess Succamore noted that “Brown and Les McDonald didn’t see eye-to-eye on all things, so they mostly avoided each other during the Lenkurt strike.”14 Part of a shadowy presence throughout this part of the story, the mutual suspicion recounted here reflected the decades-long animosity between the Trotskyist League for Socialist Action (LSA) and the Communist Party of Canada, as to which one should wear the mantle as constituting the “true” revolutionary vanguard of the working class.15 McDonald would inevitably have met members of the LSA at public demonstrations, where they handed out leaflets in support of the “Fair Play for Cuba Committee” or sold their newspaper, the Workers’ Vanguard. They undoubtedly came across as a mostly unavoidable cluster composed of irredeemable anti-Soviet left-wing splitters, seemingly more interested in provoking nuisance arguments on arcane details of “correct” Marxist analysis, or in covertly infiltrating the NDP via the controversial tactic of “entryism” than in co-operating with other leftist groups on the ground. Much as they probably made an irritating impression, as only a resentful minority splinter group from within an original minority movement could do, Les McDonald did not openly carry a grudge against Trotskyists; in fact, given the Trotskyists’ minuscule numbers in British Columbia’s trade union movement, in addition to their self-imposed disputations among themselves, it’s not at all clear if Les McDonald was even personally acquainted with any Trotskyists.16 There certainly is no historical evidence of any past Trotskyist presence in IBEW Local 213. Yet there most definitely was a pre-existing culture of mistrust and antagonism in both camps that was counterproductive in terms of building a positive relationship. Not to make a mountain out of a molehill—indeed, it should be pointed out that McDonald had written George Brown’s name in his notebook for consideration on his projected unity slate—but between the Communist Party’s left faction leader in Local 213 and Lenkurt’s chief shop steward, a key collaborative piece for eventual success appeared to be problematic right from the start.

George Brown, along with his resourceful and insightful workmate, Jess Succamore, became active just as the collective agreement was coming to an end on March 4, 1966. During four months of negotiations, the company’s only offer had been to extend the previous contract for another year with no increase in wages for the production floor workers.17 Another fly in the ointment was that John Morrison, Unit 5’s assistant business manager for Local 213, had just been suspended for slander directed at Jack Ross.18 The continuity in worker representation was now completely broken as a relatively inexperienced Tom Constable was appointed by Art O’Keeffe to take his place. Constable, a future mayor of Burnaby (1973–79), would come to rely on George Brown during the next few months; as one Lenkurt employee put it: “Brown and Constable were very close on the trade union front.”19 These new faces representing Local 213 were confronted with a Lenkurt management group that had precipitated a crisis in production at their plant by demoting seven women supervisors who wanted to be paid seventeen cents per hour more to bring them up to parity with male supervisors doing the same job. The underpaid women supervisors “would not abandon grievances calling for equal pay for equal work.”20 But the company would not budge. It relied on a weak collective agreement that contained a management clause wherein it was specified the company had “the right to hire, reassign, promote, demote . . . employees.”21 A government-appointed conciliation officer eventually sided with Lenkurt, even though another clause in the collective agreement read: “no employee shall suffer any reduction in wages or less favourable conditions of employment as a result of any provision in this agreement.”22 The latest internal leadership crisis within Local 213 certainly didn’t help matters, so the demoted women remained resentfully on the plant floor. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the end result was that production and efficiency at Lenkurt suffered. It soon became apparent that management had under-estimated the amount of time required to produce the company’s specialized equipment without the know-how and efficiency of an experienced group of supervisors. Nor should the possibility of a solidarity-based deliberate slowdown by the mostly female workforce be discounted. As there were financial penalties that would accrue to Lenkurt if their products were not delivered on the contracted dates, forcing overtime was the only way to meet the company’s obligations.23

The consequence was that the working atmosphere in the plant became extremely tense. On one side were the shop stewards and a Lenkurt Steering Committee that urged their fellow workers not to work overtime, thereby continuing to bring financial pressure on the company. On the other side, management began to give preferential treatment to employees who agreed to work overtime, while threatening to fire others who would not work overtime. It was an untenable situation.24

Even more than that, the demanded overtime created a very real human problem. A significant number of the women working at the plant were single mothers who had to get home right after work to make dinner and look after their kids. Working overtime meant their children would have to be looked after by a relative, an understanding neighbour, or worse, be left alone at home. But there were only so many times when the single moms could call on the support of relatives or sympathetic friends. Jess Succamore recalled:

Tom Constable, the Assistant Business Agent of 213, basically said that we had to stop this . . . The women workers were really stressed because of the demands for extra hours of work, and a lot of them were single-parent mothers—it was a big piece of the puzzle and something that’s never really reported. And I saw it myself, women crying; they didn’t want to work the overtime because they had to get home to look after their kids. But if they didn’t work the overtime, they were going to get fired. Now that really hit us hard. Myself and the boys down in the metal shop—there was a bunch of Scots guys like Charles McCafferty—were ready to do anything. Now if they had picked on us, it wouldn’t have mattered as much. But when they started to pick on those women, I really got pissed off and so did a lot of the guys. That was the core of the issue.25

Even with conciliation officer Jack Laffling present to assist in negotiations with Lenkurt during seven separate meetings, rookie assistant business manager Tom Constable was forced to report “that no progress had been made.”26 The company’s offer for a new contract was the old contract. They offered no changes in language, no improvement in benefits, no wage increases.27 Then, in a motion moved and presented from the floor at a Unit 5 meeting on March 17, around 200 of mostly plant production workers from Lenkurt voted in favour of a ban on overtime work.28 Negotiations over a new collective agreement were getting serious.

Talks with Lenkurt’s management personnel began anew after the vote to ban overtime work. The company immediately came around and offered a 15% wage increase over a three-year contract, but the offer was rejected as “insufficient” and the ban on overtime continued.29 Even though the previous collective agreement also contained a provision that stated unambiguously that “the selection of employees requested to work overtime shall be the responsibility of the Company exclusively,” the contract had expired and the affected women clearly saw this as an opportunity to refuse to work the demanded extra hours, though some of them continued to do so under company pressure.30 The very real personal issues they raised on the crucial matter of unattended kids at home eventually tweaked management’s conscience. An initially sympathetic Lenkurt vice-president, Mark Swails, promised in mid-April that employees of the company would not be required to do any more overtime until a new collective agreement had been agreed to and put in place. Unfortunately, he made the promise while President Hunter was away at a conference at Harrison Hot Springs, in the upper reaches of the Fraser Valley. When the hard-nosed Hunter returned to Burnaby the following week, on Monday, April 25, he immediately countermanded his underling’s undertaking and reimposed the overtime requirement.31 A crew of twenty on shift that very Monday was given orders to work overtime “or they were going to get fired.”32 In response, the workers decided to support a plan by Tom Constable to walk off the job later on in the week for a brief “study session” in the factory parking lot.

Laws governing collective bargaining had been modified several times since the introduction of the progressive amendments to the ICA Act in 1943. The 1959 Trade Unions Act had clarified that unions were legal entities that could be sued or be subject to ex parte injunctions.33 The 1954 British Columbia Labour Relations Act had clarified that trade unions that were part of a lapsed agreement could not authorize a strike unless they “had bargained collectively and have failed to conclude a renewal or revision of the agreement.”34 In other words, even though the collective agreement had lapsed, talks had to continue with conciliation officer Jack Laffling until he decided further discussions would be to no avail.35 That had not happened when the majority of workers at Lenkurt decided to wobble the job for about an hour at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 27, 1966.

A dubious George Brown thought the walkout premature and was initially opposed to Constable’s idea of a work stoppage, no matter how brief.36 The circumstances were certainly risky at this particular juncture: the proposed walkout was technically illegal, Art O’Keeffe was away in Winnipeg, the mostly female production floor workforce was unfamiliar with job action, and Tom Constable was young, brash, and inexperienced. What may have tempted Brown was the double success the previous year of the two-week wobble against Burns and Dutton in Squamish, and, closer to home, the oil workers’ sit-down strike on Burrard Inlet sparked by Jerry Lebourdais. Even more important, the Lenkurt wobble was only supposed to be for an hour. In hindsight, George Brown should have resisted temptation, argued for patience, told Constable to cool it, and followed his trade union instincts. He tried but did not win the tactical debate; as assistant business manager, Tom Constable had the last word. And at the end of the day it didn’t seem to matter: “It was really the workers who were determined and walked out.”37

At first, everything went according to plan. Brown and Constable were meeting with Lenkurt management personnel at 9:45 a.m. on April 27 to briefly discuss the overtime ban. They had just sat down in a management office when the sound of a multitude of footsteps could be heard outside the closed office door. The production floor workers were leaving several minutes earlier than planned, and without any of their leaders. Constable and Brown were forced to follow in the footsteps of the mass of several hundred workers some time later, which might have made for good strategy as it genuinely appeared that the walkout was spontaneous. No one from the union could now be accused of having organized, or led, the wobble. As one of the mass of workers who streamed out of the Lenkurt plant and into the parking lot, metal shop supervisor Jess Succamore explained what happened next:

The original plan was to walk out at 10 a.m. . . . My understanding was that we were going to walk out into the parking lot, have a meeting, then go back in and talk to the plant manager. But we get outside, and someone yells: ‘Let’s go down to the union hall.’ So, I think there was only about twenty people left in the plant, and we all got in our cars and went down to the union hall.38

If the workers had remained disciplined and gone back to work as planned after their study session in the parking lot, there might have been fewer problems and the Lenkurt strike might never have taken place, except as a very minor footnote in BC labour history. But they did not. There was no one there to control or block any unplanned and spontaneous impulse to “go down to the union hall.” It was a grievous tactical error that was to have a precipitative knock-on effect with serious unintended consequences. What might sum up the conundrum best was a lesson Jess Succamore learned from his father: “The easiest thing in the world is to walk out, the hardest thing to do is to walk back in with your head up.”39

Having arrived at 111 Dunsmuir Street, the 265 electrical workers signed an attendance roster, issued a press release, and elected a six-member Workers’ Committee, with Brian Bethel as chair.40 The purpose of the committee was to represent the workers who had wobbled the job and to talk with the company about the labour relations impasse.41 As unions were potentially liable if their officers were involved in breaking provincial labour laws, Brown and Constable were not able to be on the committee for logical legal reasons.42 More concerning was the fact that even though it was mostly female workers who were adversely affected by the mandatory overtime, the meeting did not see fit to have a woman lead the committee.43 At least twenty-eight unionized production workers refused to participate in the walkout and stayed at work on the factory floor.44 The company claimed that another 140 had also remained at their posts elsewhere in the building.45 With Local 213’s workforce within the Lenkurt plant divided right from the beginning, it was definitely not a good start to the job action. Inexperienced and overwhelmed by bigger forces at play, Brian Bethel and the rank-and-file committee soon faded from view.

In the short term, however, the 265 plant workers and their rank-and-file committee were immediately confronted with a serious dilemma. The company had seized the opportunity of the illegal work stoppage to fire five employees—one of whom, in a symbolic twist, was a deaf-mute—chosen at random from among the workers who had left the Lenkurt plant and proceeded to the Dunsmuir union hall.46 President Hunter then notified all the employees to be at work for their next shift or be fired in turn. It was also announced that the five employees already dismissed by Lenkurt would not be reinstated, and that two more unidentified militants had been added to the list. Only seven of the original 265 striking workers showed up for work as demanded on Wednesday, April 28. In retaliation, the company sent out 258 telegrams the very next evening to the home addresses of the remaining workers that management had identified as missing from their posts, threatening each of them with the loss of their jobs unless they all returned to work the morning of Friday, April 29. Only one worker showed up at Lenkurt as demanded in the telegrams.47 As threatened, the 257 remaining and defiant employees were all immediately fired. Lenkurt had already applied for a BC Supreme Court ex parte injunction outlawing picketing at its Burnaby plant. When the company duly received the powerful legal document from a compliant BC Supreme Court judge, a Justice Neill Brown, it provocatively advertised in the weekend edition of both the Vancouver Sun and the Daily Province to fill the vacancies left by the dismissals.48

Another ad hoc group composed of Lenkurt shop stewards, led by Tom Constable, arranged to meet with Chuck Hunter and his management team before the end of the week, with the intention of finding out if common ground could be found between the two contending parties. Brian Bethel was shocked, but not surprised, by what Hunter told the trade unionists:

I was at a meeting with Chuck Hunter, Tom Constable, and a bunch of the shop stewards. He told us we had done him a favour. We had created a labour dispute which allowed him to avoid penalties in the contracts. The contracts, as I was led to understand, were paid if products were shipped by a pre-determined delivery date. If Lenkurt didn’t meet that delivery date, there was a penalty. We could realize on the shop floor that things were getting tense trying to meet delivery dates. It was creating problems and tensions among the employees. A walkout was inevitable. To me, Hunter organized that behind the scenes. He precipitated the strike deliberately because the company was falling behind on delivery dates and losing money on its contracts. Tom Constable and the others played right into his hands. They got sucked in.49

As with the other IBEW representatives, Bethel fell for Hunter’s aggressive assertions at the meeting. Without access to company accounts, there was no way of ascertaining the truth of his remarks; Lenkurt may, or may not, have been in arrears in terms of meeting its obligations on delivery dates. It was almost beside the point. With declarations like these, it was obvious that Chuck Hunter had succeeded in sowing seeds of doubt in the minds and thoughts of some of the Lenkurt workers.

Alarm bells immediately went off among some of the more experienced cadres within the electrical workers’ local. John Kapalka, long-time linemen’s representative of Unit 2 and Les McDonald’s chosen candidate to contest the post of president during the upcoming elections in Local 213, telegraphed Art O’Keeffe mid-week in Winnipeg at the CLC convention. He did not receive a response.50 Kapalka was not the only one worried by the sudden turn of events. A very concerned Jess Succamore went to the airport in Vancouver to meet the three delegates from the Vancouver local (and Jack Ross) as they disembarked from their plane Friday, April 29:

I grabbed O’Keeffe at the airport. He was half-cut as were the other [British Columbia trade union] delegates getting off the plane . . . And I told him that this situation at Lenkurt was really serious. He replied at first: “Don’t worry, it’s just a wobble.” I told him: “No, it was really serious, the whole bloody plant is shut down, the workers are all off the job. You’ve got to find out what’s going on.” I was thinking of two things: one, the workers involved; and two, I didn’t want the union to get involved in a big lawsuit.51

On Wednesday, May 4, the Vancouver Sun reported that Lenkurt had received more than 1,300 job applications since advertising in BC’s largest daily newspaper for employees to replace the 257 that had been let go. Seventy-five had already been hired.52 A suddenly very sober Art O’Keeffe announced that he and other union officials had arranged to meet with Lenkurt management personnel in an attempt to resolve the issue and have all the workers reinstated.53 First, however, an emergency meeting of Local 213’s executive board took place at the union hall on Dunsmuir Street. Although it may have been a surprise to some less cynically inclined observers, the RCMP’s directorate of security and intelligence had been monitoring events within the Vancouver electrical workers’ local.54 This was undoubtedly a continuation of their documented reporting on left-wing activists within the local union, which went as far back as to at least 1940. Focusing their attention on the persuasive and energetic Communist from the inside wiremen’s unit in 1966, their operative(s) in Division “E” (that is, British Columbia) reported on what happened at this crucial conclave:

Les McDONALD . . . explained that he had been out to the plant and found nothing being done, the employees were going to work . . . [he] advised O’KEEFFE must contact Pat O’NEAL [secretary-treasurer of the BC Federation of Labour] . . . and have the Federation brought in on this issue. Angus MacDONALD (President, Local 213) argued strongly against Les McDONALD’s suggestions and became angry with McDONALD. However, Les McDONALD was able to persuade O’KEEFFE to convince O’NEAL to attend the committee meeting.55

To the uninitiated, it might appear that Les McDonald was merely more persuasive than Angus MacDonald. But that would be to miss some essential points. There were at least three probable reasons why Art O’Keeffe sided with Les McDonald. First, there was the success of the oil workers wobble in Port Moody in the previous year that had grown to include the threat of a general strike by the BCFL. Premier W. A. C. Bennett had chosen not to play the confrontation card on that occasion, instead backing down and largely giving in to the workers’ demands. It was a lesson not lost on those who wanted to further press the demands of labour. Second, Art O’Keeffe was sentimentally attached to all things and all persons Irish. He would have trusted Pat O’Neal to do the right thing by Local 213 and to himself. Moreover, Les McDonald and Art O’Keeffe had just spent a week together in Winnipeg attending the CLC convention. There was no question that Les McDonald had made a positive impression on the latter with his verve, his public speaking ability in front of a large crowd of attentive trade union delegates, and his own humorous use of the Irish “blarney.” Combined with the resounding resolution from the CLC convention on the necessity “to challenge injunctions wherever and whenever they are granted,” it was probably enough to win over O’Keeffe’s support at this crucial moment. Third, the personal rift between Angus MacDonald and Art O’Keeffe had widened noticeably in the previous months. The suspension of John Morrison, O’Keeffe’s assistant business manager, precipitated by Mrs. Ann MacDonald’s dubious testimony in Local 213’s most recent internal trial—the Jack Ross slander case—certainly hadn’t helped matters. Temporarily fused together in the mid-1950s at the height of the McCarthy period, the political alliance between Art O’Keeffe and Angus MacDonald appeared to be definitely over. The prominent business manager was not going to side this time with his cautious and conservative-minded president on how best to find a solution to the looming crisis at Lenkurt. Instead, O’Keeffe followed the advice of Les McDonald, the leading red in Local 213. O’Keeffe’s decision may have been driven in part by the knowledge that elections were coming up, and it would help him if he was willing to co-operate with the left.56 He may also have been seeking redemption for past trade union sins, in particular his role in having helped to frame George Gee.57 In any case, and hypothetical propositions aside, the die was cast and the main actors in this unfolding drama would have to live with the consequences of their decision.

The RCMP informant(s) continued to describe how, in front of “approximately 300 people at the Hall,” the committee meeting put forward the following short-term action-plan:

O’NEAL pledged the support of the B.C. Federation of Labour to the employees. Les McDONALD further arranged for 10 girls to hand out leaflets at the Lenkurt plant, the Unemployment Insurance Commission office, Eaton’s Dept. store and Woodward’s Dept. store (downtown store). The IBEW was going to release a statement to the Press and McDONALD intended to have some of the girls from the plant attend the Vancouver Labour Council meeting of 3-5-66, in order to seek support from the Vancouver Labour Council [sic].58

Both the BC Federation of Labour and the Vancouver and District Labour Council (VDLC) publicly announced full financial and moral support for the fired employees May 3.59 Subsequent events were to prove it a hollow promise. Meanwhile, on the other side of the bargaining fence, the first ex parte injunction against picketing had expired. In order to keep potentially angry trade unionists at bay, Lenkurt had already secured another very wide-ranging and all-encompassing order on May 2, this time from a Justice W. Kirke Smith.

During the week of May 2–6, there were several meetings with the fired Lenkurt Electric employees at the Dunsmuir union hall. Briefly united in the heated spirit of the moment, both Art O’Keeffe and Angus MacDonald told the Lenkurt strikers that what they had done was “a grave thing” and illegal under BC labour laws. But they had to make the best of a bad situation, and the best tactic at this point was unity. Marion Bachewich repeated this statement and remembered clearly that Angus MacDonald was quite specific when he told them “that we must all stick together and nobody . . . should start dwindling back to work. The union was going to stand behind us and do everything in their power to get us back to work on the conditions that we left.”60 With Jim Kinnaird and Fred Allison also giving their approval to the proposed course of action, it became a typical demonstration of union solidarity. At one of the first gatherings, business manager Art O’Keeffe made an infamous faux pas when he proclaimed that he was unsure of how to express himself in front of all these women workers, but would more confidently “know what to do if only I had two hundred hairy chested linemen” with which to reason.61 The crowd, led by a young and bespectacled Diane Larsen, immediately exploded in condemnation; women who had never before spoken at a union meeting jumped to their feet to call him to task over his awkward attempt at a ribald sense of humour.62 As elsewhere in Canada in the 1960s, the issue of women participating in union affairs and being treated as equals was bubbling to the surface. O’Keeffe’s cringe-worthy intervention, followed by Larsen’s angry rebuke, was undoubtedly considered a minor anecdote at the time, but it could also be considered symbolic of the larger issue of gender and social relations becoming visibly ingrained in class conflict episodes.63

Jockeying for position, the two sides began circling each other with conciliation officer Jack Laffling as their object of control. Citing section seven of the Labour Relations Act, Lenkurt demanded that Laffling process its demand for a “cease-and-desist order” against Local 213. The company accused the union of harassing employees who had agreed voluntarily to work overtime at the company’s request. Section seven required that “no person or union shall engage in activities that could limit production.” Engaging in a little bit of give-and-take, O’Keeffe and Constable initially offered to rescind the overtime ban if the company cancelled its request for the cease and desist order. The Vancouver Sun reported that President Chuck Hunter refused this compromise position.64 More importantly, Hunter was adamant that the fired Lenkurt employees would have to reapply for their former jobs, and that the company reserved the right to “consider employees on an individual and selective basis with no regard to seniority.” Representatives of Local 213 were outraged. An unidentified spokesman retorted that “no self-respecting trade unionist could re-apply for work under these terms.”65 But with the law on their side, it was abundantly clear that it was their way or the highway for the Lenkurt Electric Company.

Well-known Communist Charles Stewart, head of the Amalgamated Transit Union and a veteran labour representative, then briefly stepped into the limelight. The Scottish-born Stewart was outspoken in his denunciation of what was happening across British Columbia. There were pending work stoppages by the IWA in the forest industry, the Civic Outside Workers in Vancouver were actually on strike, mediators were being assigned to adjudicate labour disputes involving carpenters, pulp and paper workers, and in the aluminum industry. And now 257 members of IBEW Local 213 had been fired from Lenkurt. At a meeting of the VDLC, Stewart asserted: “It’s time the public was acquainted with the fact that employers throughout this province are provoking labor and trying to make it appear as though we’re responsible for the unrest. . . . The employers are the ones that are creating the unrest.” He was supported by Nick Podovinikoff, fellow Communist and delegate from Local 452 of the carpenters’ union, who accused W. A. C. Bennett of playing a blame game. “Our union believes Bennett is trying to make us the whipping boy for his failure to estimate the costs of the Peace and Columbia power projects,” Podovinikoff declared.66 These pronouncements from a left-wing labour point of view put what was happening at Lenkurt into a broader perspective. Contrary to what had occurred the previous year surrounding the unexpected oil workers’ victory, the rope in the tug-of-war of BC class relations was now visibly in the process of being pulled over to the employer’s side of the contest.

Despite Justice Kirke Smith’s Supreme Court injunction specifically banning picket lines at the Lenkurt Electric plant, contingents of non-placard carrying workers, who did not want to be identified as “official” strikers, relayed each other in shifts around the company premises. Some of them even carried “mystery picket” signs in a futile attempt to avoid trouble with the law. Yet trouble predictably began at the end of the week when the company had its newly hired replacement workers, or “scabs,” arrive at the plant to begin filling the jobs obtained through the ads placed in the Vancouver Sun. The inevitable scuffles ensued as picketers tried to stop the newly hired employees from entering the plant, resuming production, and taking on the newly posted jobs.

After two weeks of job action, the Lenkurt strikers had still not received any strike pay, which would shortly become a major issue, since the executive board had recommended on May 5 that the terminated employees be granted financial assistance.67 Sensing the potential of even more disorder, the BCFL sent a telegram to BC labour minister, Leslie Peterson, warning him that “the Lenkurt dispute will spread and involve other unions and operations.” The provincial labour organization urged his department “to attempt to resolve this dispute before it becomes more troublesome.”68 Art O’Keeffe also fired off a telegram to BC’s minister of Labour. As was his style, the pugnacious business manager was more direct in his condemnation of Lenkurt’s actions: “The extremely critical situation is rapidly worsening . . . the local labour movement is aroused and prepared to support the fired employees against an unprincipled and unjust employer.”69 There was no reply to either telegram.

In the interim, also on May 5, the RCMP’s Sergeant B. L. Northrop held a meeting with three unidentified executive officers at Lenkurt. They described to him the details surrounding the escalating dispute “which the Company officials believed would result in violence on the part of the union.”70 Of some significance, the brief RCMP report gives the distinct impression that management at Lenkurt were leaning on police authorities to sway them to act on behalf of the company; more to the point, as an ex parte injunction against picketing had already been issued on May 2 by a Justice Smith, Lenkurt wanted it enforced immediately. When yet another ex parte injunction by another judge was issued, they appeared to have been successful as the police would soon do precisely that.

Events were about to spin out of control for Local 213.

Top union officials from Local 213 were finally able to convene with Lenkurt representatives on Monday, May 9. Quite unexpectedly, Art O’Keeffe was not part of Local 213’s delegation attending the meeting. Instead, Jack Ross and Angus MacDonald were the only two representatives of the Vancouver local who went into closed-door discussions with the company. O’Keeffe recalled that Ross told him before the meeting that “the Company did not choose to meet with me . . . that there would be only two attending the meeting.”71 It was clear he was being blindsided once again by Jack Ross; despite holding the key post of business manager, O’Keeffe’s authority was being bypassed in important talks with employers. To be fair, he was probably reluctant to participate in proceedings that might lead to the potential sabotage of a fair and decent contract for the Lenkurt employees. The end result, however, is that a significant split within Local 213’s inner circle of power was again visible for all to see. Angus MacDonald was now publicly in an alliance with Jack Ross. The International representative had convinced MacDonald to make common cause with him in an attempt to deal both with the growing crisis at Lenkurt and a business manager who, in the past several years, had been openly defiant and oppositional. In the process, Jack Ross was using the personal enmity between Angus MacDonald and Art O’Keeffe to his advantage.

Jack Ross and Angus MacDonald emerged from the meeting with Lenkurt officials with an agreement of sorts. Signed by President MacDonald, and not by Jack Ross, who had been firmly rebuked by Justice Gregory in the BCDT case, it specified that all 257 fired employees could reapply for their former jobs and that their participation in the walkout would not be raised as an issue if they were deemed suitable for employment again by the company. They would nonetheless lose all seniority, some of their pension, health and life insurance benefits, and it was also unclear as to how many of the strikers would actually be rehired by a predictably vindictive President Hunter.72 The wording in the very first clause of the agreement made abundantly clear that the workers who were on strike would only “be considered for re-employment upon application.”73 Despite public assurances to the contrary, the company would not issue any guarantees for all the striking workers without discrimination.74 Union activists, or individuals deemed by Lenkurt to be troublemakers, would have no protection. Not surprisingly, union members found the document completely unacceptable. When Angus MacDonald tried to have the “agreement” accepted that evening at a general meeting attended by close to 600 members, he was harassed and booed from beginning to end by an infuriated crowd.75 Even though the obstinate president tried to get the message across that the strike was illegal under BC labour laws and that this was all that was possible under the circumstances, the tentative framework for a return to work was unanimously rejected.76 Instead, in a direct reference to the BCDT case, the angry meeting declared that Art O’Keeffe, as business manager, “is required for signing the contracts of this L.U. 213”; that to help resolve the Lenkurt impasse, the local needed “the support and guidance of the BC Fed. & Van. Labour Council”; and, lastly, “that we restate the principle of complete re-instatement for all fired members without discrimination in any shape or form.”77

The meeting then decided to up the ante and formed a new steering committee composed of representatives from the BC Federation of Labour, the Vancouver and District Labour Council, and Local 213. Elected to this steering committee were Len Guy (BCFL), Charles Stewart (VDLC), Paddy Neale (VDLC), and Les McDonald (Local 213). The unity required to win was being forged from the bottom up. With all the necessary alliances in place at different levels, the scenario that had been successfully employed in the recent oil workers’ strike could, at least on paper, be potentially re-enacted. Complete unity was clearly not possible, however, as this potential province-wide alliance pointedly did not include a single representative from the conservative leadership elements of Local 213. Ignoring this crucial breach in solidarity within the Vancouver local, the newly formed steering committee immediately set about recruiting as many people as they could to form a massive picket line beginning the morning of Wednesday, May 11. They made no secret of their plans to stop scab labour from entering the struck Lenkurt Electric plant. It was plain that the CLC resolution “to challenge injunctions wherever and whenever they are granted” was being taken seriously. Unfortunately, it appeared that provincial legal authorities were also taking it seriously.

At 7 a.m. the morning of May 11 approximately 200 demonstrators and seven carloads of RCMP officers squared off at the Lenkurt plant. When a sheriff attempted to read aloud the latest Supreme Court injunction against picketing, a mass coughing fit overcame the demonstrators, effectively drowning out his words. Picketers shouted down the injunction read by sheriffs, trampled the documents underfoot when handed them, and scuffled with both scabs and police. Trying to hold the line, picketers jumped on cars, roughed up scabs, and manhandled a sheriff. Foul and abusive language, accompanied by threats, filled the air.78 The press identified the leading lights of the Vancouver labour movement who were present at the scene, but did not participate in the physical confrontations; they were a who’s-who of the left-wing side of the local labour movement, including Doug Evans and Tom Clarke of the IWA, Paddy Neale of the VDLC, Craig Pritchett of the ILWU, “Boilermaker Bill” Stewart, Lorne Robson of the carpenters’ union, and, most importantly, Les McDonald, Tom Constable, and Art O’Keeffe from Local 213.79

At 9 a.m. the demonstrators decamped to a different union building, the IWA hall on Commercial Drive, symbolically demonstrating the potentially widening scope of the confrontation. Once at the IWA hall, they announced that their chosen leaders, not Ross and MacDonald, would attempt to negotiate an acceptable agreement with Lenkurt. Paddy Neale, who had been in Winnipeg representing the VDLC just two weeks before, was quoted in the Vancouver Sun saying that only about sixty production employees had reported for work that day, and that the labour movement was prepared to shut down the plant completely until serious talks had taken place: “If necessary we’ll have another picket line out there Thursday—a bigger one.”80 There was no question that a larger picket line was necessary. Even if Neale tried to make light of the number, the fact that sixty plant floor employees were brazen enough to cross a massed and angry picket line was definitely not good news.

Alerted by Lenkurt lawyers and alarmed by the blatant disregard of his colleague’s ex parte injunction against picketing, another Supreme Court judge, Justice John S. Aikins, that very same afternoon issued yet a third injunction, this time banning the BCFL, the VDLC, and members of Local 213 from putting up a picket line. He also specifically named high-ranking officials from these labour organizations who were not even allowed to be in the vicinity of the Lenkurt plant during the next four clear days. These included, among others, Paddy Neale and Art O’Keeffe.81 A visibly agitated Chuck Hunter was also in no mood for talks or compromise. Interviewed by a reporter from the Daily Province, the Lenkurt president lashed out against the recently constituted joint committee: “The company sees no purpose in meeting with the joint committee which set itself outside the law and has demonstrated this today [Wednesday], with violent actions in roughing up employees and damaging cars.”82

Les McDonald had a favourite saying that he picked up from “Electrical Bill” Stewart and used on a semi-regular basis for years after Lenkurt: “Spontaneity went out with Spartacus!”83 He loathed any lack of planning and careful deliberation, and especially the lack of clear purpose on the trade union side before embarking on class confrontations. Without these factors anchored firmly in place, any job action could only lead to defeat, just as Spartacus’s slave revolt had ultimately ended in defeat. But faced with a dilemma of growing proportions, especially the dilemma involving desperate single-parent mothers, what was he supposed to do? The notion of a temporary tactical retreat, as proposed in the “Joint Statement” that had arrogantly been pronounced from on high by Jack Ross and Angus MacDonald, was deemed at this juncture to be a complete and utter sell-out. Also, Les had already thrown in his lot on the side of the fired Lenkurt employees. Supporting women in need was part of his family upbringing and he considered his position on the issue as simply the right thing to do, regardless of the spontaneous and perilous legal nature of circumstances up to this point. In addition, Communists were supposed to help take the lead when class struggle episodes erupted in moments like these. As his closest friends knew, Les McDonald was also a very “them-and-us” type of militant who was not afraid of a good fight.84 The problem is that he was increasingly being drawn into an untenable situation. While hoping to recruit enough volunteers to build an impassable picket line that would stop production completely at Lenkurt, Les McDonald was now being countermanded by a powerful leadership faction from Local 213’s very own executive board that wanted those who were out to now go back in. The circumstances at this crucial point were truly unpalatable; the tentative agreement Ross and MacDonald had brokered on their own with the company stipulated conditions that were identical, or worse, than those under which the 257 fired employees had originally left. Something had to give.

Another real issue was that “Electrical Bill” Stewart was unavailable to dispense his usual insightful tactical advice. To Les McDonald’s long-standing chagrin, the Communist Party had relocated him to Toronto earlier that year, and so the veteran sage, the “guide on the side,” was not available during this increasingly perilous situation; Les McDonald, the still relatively young and inexperienced leader of the left faction, was left to sink or swim on his own.85

Early Thursday morning, May 12, more serious physical confrontations took place. Close to forty uniformed Mounties arrived at the Lenkurt plant to help escort scab labour across picket lines and to enforce the latest ex parte injunction issued by Justice Aikins. Approximately four hundred workers opposed them. Initially driving their vehicles through the crowd blocking the three main entrances to the plant, the Mounties attempted to break the picket lines but succeeded only temporarily; the demonstrators simply closed ranks again behind the police car that was obstructing their way. To counter this tactic, the police then came on foot and physically maintained an opening on the road leading through one of the plant gates. The picket line activists would need a different strategy needed to close the ensuing gap. Ernie Fulton, apprentice to Les McDonald and the future Canadian light heavyweight wrestling champion in 1969, recalled what happened that morning:

Les came to see me and said we’re going to have to break the line the cops have made to herd the scabs in, so he recruited some of the bigger guys like me . . . and Tom Clarke [vice-president of IWA Local 1–217], another big guy. The plan was to distract two of the cops there and walk them back in the opposite direction. Tom and I would walk together and at a pre-arranged signal the people in front of us would all step aside and we would run at the cops and form a spearhead with all the other people behind us, then we would surge across the entrance and block it. It seemed like a good idea. Things ran according to plan. We had the people step aside, we ran at the cops, I tackled one of them around the waist and Tom tackled the guy next to him. What happened after that I don’t really know because the four of us tumbled into a ditch. I turned around and as I went down, I could see all the other people surging across the entrance and pushing the cops aside. I thought “Well, we’ve accomplished what we set out to do, now I can try and keep myself out of jail.” But instead of helping his guy up like I did, Tom Clarke started punching the shit out of him, so the cop I was with turned around and the two of them arrested him. I walked away and joined the picket line.86

At another entrance to the plant, the slender and lightly built Brian Bethel recalled what he did to help out with the picketing: “I just laid down in front of a vehicle. About four or five of my fellow picketers yelled at the driver to stop or he would run over me. And that’s how I stopped a scab from getting in and plugged up access to the plant for a while.”87

When the physical confrontations had come to an end, Tom Clarke and eight other picketers had been arrested by the RCMP.88 One of Lenkurt’s lawyers, Charles Locke, accused the demonstrators of “mass intimidation” and suggested publicly to Justice Aikins that “contempt action should be taken.”89 Art O’Keeffe, moreover, had been identified as being present on company premises by a second Lenkurt solicitor, lawyer David Vickers, who announced to the press that he would be more than happy to testify in court that Local 213’s business manager had been in contempt of Judge Aikins’ injunction. Lenkurt’s personnel manager, William Clements, also told a reporter he saw Tom Constable and Art O’Keeffe “mingle with the picketers, patting some on the back and apparently giving them moral support.”90 Unafraid of the consequences, Art O’Keeffe was stepping up to the plate and endorsing the picket lines, thus providing a vivid contrast to Jack Ross and Angus MacDonald. More critical observers, on the other hand, might have chastised the electrical workers’ leader as naïve, embodying the old adage of being brave but foolish.

Les McDonald, meanwhile, was deeply concerned. There were undercover cops everywhere, who stayed back in the crowd as spotters to identify the ringleaders on the picket line, then acting as agents provocateurs by pretending to jostle the uniformed policemen while passing on their information.91 Equally as disturbing was that Frank Hogan, a key member of Local 213’s executive board, was also present, mixing with the others but not participating in the effort to stop scabs from crossing the picket lines. Part of the conservative leadership group supporting Ross and Angus MacDonald, Les felt Hogan was there to identify rank-and-file members of the local union for future retribution. He was not far wrong. Les also remembered being warned at a crucial moment by Ernie Fulton that company officials were pointing at him from the factory rooftop, and that he had better decamp before he, too, was arrested by the RCMP. With Fulton providing an escort, he quickly hurried away from the swarming police officers. Years later, after hearing several accounts of this harrowing event, it is abundantly clear that Les was highly fortunate in managing to escape arrest.

Following the early-morning picket line confrontations at the Lenkurt plant, Art O’Keeffe was busy mapping out a strategy of his own to force the company back to the bargaining table. As there had been repeated roadblocks put in his way in terms of resurrecting the threat of a province-wide general strike, he had telephoned the BCFL to have a supportive Bert Johns, general secretary of the Federation of Telephone Workers of British Columbia, investigate the possibility of putting pressure on the General Telephone and Electronics Corporation (GTE), the parent company that owned Lenkurt and also had a controlling interest in the BC Telephone Company. The obvious card in play at this point was the threat of a secondary strike at BC Tel by putting it behind picket lines. The tactic worked: Johns was able to report in the late afternoon that, after three hours of discussion, “I obtained assurance that the representatives of Lenkurt would be prepared to resume negotiations.”92 O’Keeffe, for his part, recalled a slightly different outcome, in that Bert Johns “asked me to attend a meeting with the top management official of the BC Tel. to resolve the Lenkurt Electric dispute.”93 Regardless of who exactly would be at this particular meeting, it seemed as though a breakthrough and a potentially new negotiating dynamic was within reach; however, other events later on in the day prevented a fresh set of negotiations.

That very evening violence broke out again, but this time in Local 213’s union hall on Dunsmuir Street. Still-supportive rank-and-file members working within the Lenkurt plant had notified the local’s left faction that Angus MacDonald had been at the plant during the afternoon; with management permission, he had announced at a hastily called gathering of the remaining production floor workers that Art O’Keeffe had been suspended and that he, Angus MacDonald, had been named by the IBEW’s International Office to replace O’Keeffe as business manager and would now be looking after their interests.94 This news quickly filtered out to other union members. That evening, prior to a specially called membership meeting, the executive board gathered in a large room adjacent to the hall’s amphitheatre. About thirty union members, including Jess Succamore and Les McDonald, were waiting outside in the hallway. Angus MacDonald was chairing the proceedings and shocked the unknowing assembled executive board representatives by producing a telegram from the IBEW’s Canadian vice-president, Bill Ladyman ordering the suspension and dismissal of Art O’Keeffe “because of his action in aiding and abetting an illegal work stoppage at Lenkurt Electric.”95 The telegram also read, in part, that Ladyman was taking these draconian measures “under the authority given him by the IBEW’s International Office in Washington, D.C.”96 Further, the telegram asked that Art O’Keeffe turn over his keys to the union hall and any assets or union property that he had in his possession. O’Keeffe refused to comply and left the meeting room. No sooner had the door closed behind him, and before MacDonald could proceed any further, the door to the executive board meeting room flew open again. Pushed from behind by the other waiting electrical workers in the hallway, an angry Jess Succamore crashed into the meeting room. He was immediately accosted by John Hiebert who stood in the way, barring his entry. Physically pushing him aside, the burly and unafraid Succamore created the necessary space for the group of outraged rank-and-file members behind him as they burst through the door.97 Once inside, they began by cursing at Ross and MacDonald, accusing the two of them of having sold out the Lenkurt employees. Fists began to fly. Somebody yelled “Get that bastard!”98 and Angus MacDonald was hit several times, “viciously inflicting injuries that required medical attention over a considerable period of time.”99 An impassioned Jess Succamore, who had become a Lenkurt picket captain, sprang across the room and managed to nail Jack Ross “right on the kisser.”100 Ross left the premises immediately, while Angus MacDonald was forcibly ejected. All entrances to the building and its offices were blocked. Guards were posted to stop Local 213’s president from re-entering the Dunsmuir union hall, which he attempted to do about ninety minutes later.101 As 213s recording secretary J. P. Milner noted in his synopsis of events, “Never in the 65-year history of Local 213, has such violence occurred.”102

The special membership meeting then began in the amphitheatre of the Dunsmuir union hall. There was an angry, determined atmosphere, with a large crowd, “most of them women,” in attendance.103 Given a chance to speak, the assembled electrical workers heard first from a defiant Art O’Keeffe. In a statement that shocked his supporters, the embattled business manager for Local 213 announced that he was the 258th employee to be fired. He repeated what had been read to him from Ladyman’s telegram and explained to the crowd that the International Office of the IBEW had seen fit to remove him because he refused to support the tentative “contract” agreed to by MacDonald and Ross. The legality, or illegality, of the situation did not enter the equation. It was clear O’Keeffe wanted to do what he perceived to be morally right. As he later explained to waiting reporters, “I will not accept Ladyman’s decision. The membership will never accept Ladyman’s decision. The membership of Local 213, in conjunction with the trade union movement, are trying to protect the jobs and livelihood of 257 people. The continuous, unwarranted interference in the affairs of Local 213 could wreck the union.”104

The meeting then presented, debated, and passed five resolutions:

1. 1. That contrary to his refusal so far, that Angus MacDonald be ordered to sign IBEW strike cheques for the affected Lenkurt employees
2. 2. That no confidence be declared in President Angus MacDonald
3. 3. That Angus MacDonald to be barred from all future meetings
4. 4. That Art O’Keeffe be supported in his struggle with the International Office
5. 5. That a further meeting on Saturday be authorized.

The anger directed at Angus MacDonald was understandable. There was a war chest of $35,916 in one of Local 213’s bank accounts, a strike fund that had been accumulated for moments of crisis precisely like these.105 As indicated during an earlier meeting, both the BCFL and VDLC had pledged their “full financial and moral support.” The two labour organizations were probably expecting to go through Local 213 to distribute the sorely needed funds, and they undoubtedly did not expect to have to identify the striking Lenkurt employees on their own. But due to the technically illegal nature of the Lenkurt walkout, Angus MacDonald would not co-operate and steadfastly refused to sign the cheques. He was following Bill Ladyman’s lead, who had told a Daily Province newspaper reporter in a telephone call, that “we have a signed contract.” Any disagreements or difficulties with that contract could be dealt with “through proper procedures under the laws of the province and our constitution.”106 In contrast, others interpreted Angus MacDonald’s unyielding support of Ladyman’s law-and-order attitude as a “callous act” and morally bankrupt. These critics emphasized that this was the main reason for the anger and physical violence being vented against him. An unidentified electrical worker commented: “Many of these girls are breadwinners. They are widows, or divorced, or married to sick or unemployed men. They’ve got no money coming in. No wonder they’re mad at [Angus] MacDonald—he’s starving them and their families.”107

Art O’Keeffe’s firing was a real blow to the Lenkurt strikers. Whereas in his previous leadership position he might have had enough leverage on the local’s executive board to secure access to the strike funds, his dismissal meant he no longer had any influence at all. At the end of the day the Lenkurt strikers were left blowing in the wind without any monetary help to sustain them through this difficult period in their lives.

In hindsight, Art O’Keeffe should have been more cautious. Getting too close to the action in picket line violence was a risky proposition for any business manager surrounded by conservative critics on his very own executive board. Given recent circumstances and events, the Lenkurt strike represented an opportune time for the International Office to get rid of an irritating thorn in their side. O’Keeffe’s dismissal, of course, was about more than just Lenkurt. His own personal militancy and growing affinity for Les McDonald and the Communist-led left faction over the last several years was one reason; his increasingly pointed and public criticism of Jack Ross and the International Office was another. In particular, O’Keeffe’s support of the resolutions in the preceding months to have Ross replaced as International representative was probably the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.108 Combined, these aspects of Local 213’s now divided leadership was the logic that better explain his removal. It was also definitely personal: Jack Ross eliminated Art O’Keeffe before Art O’Keeffe could eliminate Jack Ross. With little care for decorum or image, the IBEW’s International Office thus deposed a third business manager from Local 213 in eleven years and replaced him with his old nemesis, Angus MacDonald. It was a definite and unambiguous statement about who wielded the real power within the Vancouver electrical workers’ union.109

Over and above the imposing and aggressive police presence at the Lenkurt plant, the state then made a public appearance. It was not what the BCFL and Art O’Keeffe had been hoping for. On his return from a vacation in Arizona, the Social Credit labour minister, Leslie Peterson, said he was prepared to give reasonable and sympathetic considerations to any request that either labour or management might make. But the final responsibility for strikes or lockouts rested squarely on the parties involved in the dispute. No mention was made of the original issue of equal pay for equal work, regardless of gender; nor of the plight of single mothers forced to work overtime or face dismissal. Instead, Peterson parroted an identical sentence that Angus MacDonald had used a day earlier:

It seems there are some people in British Columbia who are anxious to carry on a program of civil disobedience. But I do not condone any such action and everyone, including representatives of labor and management, must abide by the laws of the land or suffer the consequences of an illegal act . . . once they precipitate this action they know better than to expect the government to perform miracles and pull the coal out of the fire.110

More alarmingly, Attorney General Robert Bonner was not as detached from events in Burnaby as it might seem. While not providing a personal interview, his department nevertheless announced the appointment of a lawyer, George L. Murray, QC, to assist Justice Aikins to “deal with demonstrators who battled with police outside the Lenkurt Electric plant.”111 The state was now preparing to intervene directly from a legal perspective, but not on the side of the strikers.

Later that evening, Angus MacDonald publicly asked for picketing to cease at the Lenkurt plant. The newly appointed business manager of Local 213 saw as his responsibility “the stabilization of the situation in the current dispute.”112 As Ross had done earlier, he called for the cessation of demonstrations and the withdrawal of the BCFL and the VDLC from the conflict. Undoubtedly mindful of Murray’s appointment, and in shock and disarray following O’Keeffe’s dismissal, the two labour bodies quickly went into reverse and put out the word that there was to be a hiatus in mass picketing and told their members to “remain away from the company premises to avoid further violence.”113 What may have also incited the VDLC and the BCFL to take down the picket lines was the continuing possibility of disruption from a handful of members of the Progressive Workers’ Movement (PWM) who had parachuted themselves uninvited onto the picket line. Jack Moore, vice-president of the BCFL, characterized their intervention as unnerving because events at Lenkurt had started with a “peaceful picket line but Progressive Workers somehow entered into strike causing much strife.”114 Moore’s description of a “peaceful picket line” at the start of the walkout wasn’t entirely accurate—Jack Ross may have deliberately misinformed him to amplify the effect of the picket line appearance of the PWM. Gord Larkin, who was on the Lenkurt picket line with the PWM over several days, certainly disagreed with Moore’s assessment. “Sometimes we handed out leaflets,” he recalled, and “probably we did a little bit of yelling,” but “to say that five people from the PWM caused a lot of strife is—well—bullshit. We were just there like everybody else, doing the same thing . . . we were not in a leadership position.” As he added, “it’s nice to think that we had that power, but I never witnessed it.”115

The following morning, Friday, May 13, only about thirty people showed up to picket at the Lenkurt plant, as did forty RCMP officers to intervene if necessary. The demonstrators soon began to drift away as it became evident that there were very few trade unionists present, and that there would be no large and potentially confrontational picketing, as had been the case on the previous two days. Before leaving, some of them handed out leaflets protesting the suspension of Art O’Keeffe. Published by the PWM it read, in part: “Electrical workers are refusing to be intimidated by bosses, courts, police and Yankee union bureaucrats.”116 True enough, but the five Maoist-inclined militants, led by Jerry Lebourdais, and probably alerted by John Wood and Dave Unger, were effectively being frozen out of the dispute.117 Considered a disruptive and distracting sideshow unrelated to the central dynamic of events at this time, there was really no one outside the Lenkurt plant to read the new organization’s leaflet.118 A more positive contribution from the PWM to the struggle of the electrical workers would eventually come several months later.

Critics seized the opportunity presented by the PWM presence and began to demonize all picket line participants, regardless of political affiliation. This was the lever required to underscore the optic of losing trade union control of an increasingly violent picket line to maverick “outsiders.” Having already been subject to at least one strategically organized attack on uniformed police officers, it was also apparent that the Burnaby plant could very easily become the site of a return to the era of mass arrests and arbitrary beatings. Real and violent class upheaval was taking place and its potential for spiralling out of control was no doubt an unnerving prospect for much of the conventional leadership in the trade union movement. Cognizant of the CLC’s call-to-arms relating to employer reliance on ex parte injunctions in the recent resolution passed in Winnipeg, the BCFL and VDLC nonetheless announced a retreat from what was becoming increasingly an unwinnable scenario based on traditional—and normally unremarkable—picket line tactics. Three days later, overcoming the pain of several broken ribs, Local 213’s Angus MacDonald was interviewed by Doug Collins on the CBC’s citywide The 7 O’Clock Show. Highlighting “Left-wing infiltration” of his local, MacDonald played up the supposed role “for the past 12 to 15 years . . . of the Progressive Workers Movement as well as . . . C. P. of C. supporters. . . . [They] have damaged the image of the union.”119 As far as he was concerned, given the nefarious influence of these two organized groups, he then provocatively asserted that management at Lenkurt Electric had been “completely justified in the actions it had taken, it had acted in a responsible manner.”120 While accurate in his finger-pointing at the role of the Communist Party, he was clearly misrepresenting the disruptive role—if any—played by the young Maoist acolytes within Local 213. Founded only two years previously in 1964 as a result of a breakaway movement from the Communist Party, the minuscule PWM had now conveniently become the bogeyman of the hour and its newsworthy notoriety was being used to tarnish everyone else.

In the meantime, at around midnight Thursday, May 12, activists at the union hall on Dunsmuir Street decided to occupy and guard the building against an incursion by Angus MacDonald and his conservative supporters on the executive board. Their fear was that the newly appointed business manager might padlock the hall and they wouldn’t have a place to meet and conduct the strike.121 One of the leaders of the occupation was Les McDonald. The first item of business was to change the locks and secure the building for themselves. Les then provided sleeping bags to about a dozen electrical workers who didn’t have one, and they were accordingly joined by scores of other supporters.122 Discussing the Lenkurt impasse, trade union history, the potential for workers’ control, politics in general, and singing labour songs and playing chess, these militant and committed union members would eventually spend almost an entire week at the hall. Even though he didn’t stay every night, McDonald would have engaged in tactical discussions with Brown, Succamore, Bethel, Wood, Unger, and Pooghkay, which would have given him a clearer impression of their personal histories and political outlook. In addition, Succamore remembers that there was always “a cadre of the old Party guys” present, and that the relatively young by comparison Cliff Rundgren—“Comrade Dirty Raincoat”—went back and forth to headquarters in the Ford building to give updates and get “the latest Party orders.”123 Veteran Tom Forkin, for his part, recalled that Les played a decisive leadership role from a cultural and political perspective, and that the occupation of the hall was an amazing moment in time—in his words, “it was just crazy.”124

On the morning of Saturday, May 14, over a thousand electrical workers turned up for an emergency membership meeting.125 The meeting recalled the turmoil the union had experienced in 1919 with the One Big Union and the Vancouver General Strike, and in 1955 with the Communist expulsions relating to George Gee. The atmosphere produced by this massive turnout of Vancouver electrical workers was—literally—electric. The local’s executive board marched in and Vice-President Fred Allison took on the role of chairman of the meeting in place of an injured Angus MacDonald. To everyone’s surprise, Art O’Keeffe was on the platform as well and sat in his customary chair of business manager.126 John Kapalka emphasized that the executive board had agreed prior to the general meeting that Art O’Keeffe would be given a chance to speak.127 Kapalka didn’t know it at the time, but, as lead candidate in upcoming union elections for the post of president of Local 213, he had been set up.

Fred Allison opened the proceedings and read a telegram from the IBEW’s International Office that gave Bill Ladyman authority over Local 213. The recording secretary for this eventful meeting, Stan Reed, who had replaced the temporarily unavailable J. P. Milner, then proceeded to read the contents of the telegram from Bill Ladyman suspending Art O’Keeffe from his position as business manager. He explained this draconian measure was due to his contravening of the IBEW constitution requiring all members of the union to respect collective agreements. As a consequence of this second telegram, the chair, Fred Allison, asked Art O’Keeffe to leave the meeting. O’Keeffe, who looked surprised on hearing this request, was defiant and refused to leave. The crowd applauded him for staying on the platform. Rank-and-file electrical worker Norm Read then challenged the chair to allow the deposed business manager a chance to speak and state his case. Allison refused to permit a vote to challenge his position as chair because O’Keeffe’s case was “a constitutional issue.” He explained that the IBEW constitution took precedence and could not be challenged in the context of a local union meeting and that it was “clear on this matter.”128 Allison was supported by three members in succession, including executive board members Frank Hogan and John Hiebert, while a rising chorus of boos and catcalls filled the union hall. Tom Constable and John Kapalka then spoke in favour of the challenge to the chair, the latter adding that Art O’Keeffe should understand that the unfolding events could be detrimental to his case and that he could not take on the International Office. Kapalka ended his heartfelt appeal by telling O’Keeffe and the meeting, “I am with you no matter what happens.”

Back and forth it went, the tone and vehemence of each of the speakers increasing in turn. Lenkurt’s chief shop steward, George Brown, attempted to bypass the issue of the challenge to the chair and demanded “that Art O’Keeffe be kept on as Bus Mngr.” Eventually, the highly respected Tom Forkin was recognized on a point of privilege. He argued that the chair could not hide behind the IBEW’s constitution because Robert’s Rules of Order took precedence in this situation and “the chair was compelled to accept the challenge and must put the matter to a vote.” Moreover, he said, “the authority here is with the membership and not with the Int. Office.”

Allison, born and raised in Belfast, stubbornly refused to agree and against the backdrop of a crescendo of noise impeding his ability to be heard, “ruled that the constitution shall stand.” Two more speakers followed supporting the chair before George Angus spoke. The chair of the inside wiremen’s unit, an unapologetic critic of the International Office, “moved a standing vote, that O’Keeffe be allowed to address the meeting.” His request was accompanied by “more yells & more general disorder.” Then “a gang of men” jumped onto the stage and took control of the PA system. Without asking permission to speak, left faction member Bill Hohlachoff challenged the chair yet again “and wanted to deal with the motion put previously by Bro. George Angus.” Reed, the recording secretary, kept on writing as the events around him unfolded:

The P.A. system cord was disconnected and the cord was thrown across the floor to the corner. There were about ten men guarding the P.A. System and the Chair was unable to speak and the control of the meeting was lost. Bro. O’Keeffe spoke instead of the Chair [while the latter] attempted to restore order. While Bro. O’Keeffe was speaking the Chair adjourned the meeting. All Exec. Board left except Bro. John Kapalka who remained on the platform.129

John Kapalka, the acknowledged safety expert from the line contracting unit, assumed the chair.130 He restarted the meeting and finally allowed Art O’Keeffe to say his piece. With successive rounds of applause and shouts of encouragement ringing in his ears, the deposed business manager explained his predicament yet again and that of the 257 fired Lenkurt employees. While trying to sound optimistic about the possible success of appeals, first to the International Office, then, if necessary, to the delegates at the IBEW’s quadrennial convention—the last step of any appeal—the game was up and everyone knew it. Nevertheless, the new meeting passed a vote of confidence in both Art O’Keeffe and John Morrison, then called for the dismissal of Jack Ross.131 The decision was made to hang on for as long as possible. A still excited, yet more sombre crowd, exited the building and headed home.132

The political pressure exerted by this extraordinary meeting produced a result the very next day, Sunday, May 16. A hastily thrown-together committee composed of Syd Thompson (IWA), Jack Moore (BCFL), Jack Ross and John Hiebert (both IBEW), met with management from Lenkurt. That the composition of the committee wasn’t the same as originally voted on May 9 in repudiation of the MacDonald and Ross “Joint Statement” agreement, was telling of the compromises that had to be made just to get Lenkurt management officials to meet—Len Guy, Paddy Neale, Charles Stewart and Les McDonald had all been replaced. Two newcomers from outside Local 213, Thompson and Moore, were there to satisfy the voices that called for a broadening of the fight against Lenkurt, but so too were Jack Ross and John Hiebert, two of the most conservative voices from within the electrical workers’ union leadership structure. Absolutely no progress was made at the meeting. Syd Thompson, the normally combative and outspoken president of IWA Local 1–217, emerged disillusioned with what had taken place during the discussions: “The company refused point blank to compromise on its offer of May 9 to the strikers. We pointed out that the labour movement would never tolerate these terms but we got nowhere. The company’s out to fight us on the picket lines and in the courts.”133

Paddy Neale, who was excluded from the meeting, thought that arrangements had already been made beforehand behind everyone’s backs: “Ross, Ladyman, and MacDonald were making back door deals with Hunter . . . That is why we weren’t getting anywhere with him.”134 Bill Ladyman then jumped into the fray. In a telephone interview from Toronto, the IBEW International vice-president pulled no punches in his condemnation of the attempt to involve the BCFL in the Lenkurt dispute. There was to be no repetition of the oil workers’ scenario as far as the IBEW was concerned. For the International Office, the mere hint of a general strike in contravention of provincial labour laws was definitely a non-starter. The term itself was too loaded with implications of insurgent intent. Ladyman chastised the BCFL: “The Federation has had a habit in recent years of getting into things. The international has not asked for help . . . We are quite big enough to settle this ourselves.”135 Jack Ross put the final nail in the coffin. Paddy Neale remembered that Ross had ominously let slip at a meeting that Lenkurt’s position “was not such a bad thing” because it gave the company “an opportunity to get rid of troublemakers, and the union would be able to get rid of people it didn’t want.”136

Everyone’s attention now turned to watch how the powers that be would deal with the union rebels. In order not to have to continue meeting in a downtown hotel room, the first step of the executive board, now under the leadership of a new business manager, was to oust those who had been participating in the sit-in at the Dunsmuir Street union hall since May 12.137 Angus MacDonald and Frank Hogan applied for a Supreme Court injunction to have the occupiers evicted by force if necessary. Justice John G. Ruttan duly complied with the request and “ordered Brother O’Keeffe and his extremist group to cease and desist from interfering with the proper function of the Local Union.”138 To the surprise of the executive board, O’Keeffe refused to accept the injunction issued by Justice Ruttan, asking instead that the judge’s order be re-examined at the BC Court of Appeal. He revealed to the press that he had learned of a plot whereby members of the BC Hydro unit, undoubtedly angry members of the “Carrall Street gang,” were planning to storm the union office and take back control from Les McDonald and the sit-in group. He made a phone call: “I had a few sharp words with Mr. Shrum [Hydro co-chairman] and that was all there was to it.”139 Predictably, however, the several judges sitting on this very powerful bench at the next legal level met within the week and were unanimous in their dismissal of O’Keeffe’s appeal.140 Les McDonald and his group of supporters were thus forced to vacate the union hall the morning of May 18.141 Donna Pooghkay, one of the leading women activists on the production floor at Lenkurt, was disappointed with the court’s decision. She commented: “We always thought it was our hall. But the courts ruled it belonged to the International.”142

Once the sit-in group of rank-and-file electrical workers had been evicted, the executive board turned its attention to reaching a settlement with the Lenkurt Electric Company. Negotiations were renewed based on the “Joint Statement” of May 9 signed by Angus MacDonald and brokered by Jack Ross. Not unexpectedly, a new tentative contract was quickly agreed to. The next step was to have it approved by the workers themselves. A meeting of sombre and subdued Lenkurt employees alone was held Saturday morning, May 28, at the boilermakers’ union hall in East Vancouver, popularly known as the Pender Auditorium. Local 213’s hall was unavailable for this meeting as several of the leading members of the Lenkurt Strike Committee were now legally barred from entering the Dunsmuir facility. Present at the meeting and sitting in the crowd were three members of Local 213’s executive board: Fred Allison, John Hiebert, and Stan Reed. After the chair of the Strike Committee, George Brown, had presented a synopsis of events, he also presented two resolutions to be voted on by the assembled workers. The first called for the repudiation of the proposed settlement as a duplicitous and unacceptable behind-closed-doors agreement. The second resolution was a reluctant recommendation to return to work. Those present voted unanimously in favour of both resolutions. Except for the three executive board members, everyone in the auditorium agreed that the proposed collective agreement was a complete and utter sell-out. Knowing full well what the outcome of the second vote would be after the workers had endured several weeks with little or no income, the Strike Committee refused to participate in its own humiliation. The representatives stood up and left.143 Before departing, George Brown turned to the three executive board members present, and, in a dramatic flourish loud enough for everyone to hear, scornfully berated them in biblical terms: “You are the Judas Iscariots of the Labour movement, and some day you shall be cleansed from it.”144

That afternoon a second meeting took place at the Dunsmuir union hall, this time between only sixty-nine of the remaining Lenkurt strikers and the same three executive board members. In a comprehensive six-page document written by recording secretary J. P. Milner, and later distributed to all members of Local 213, the executive board described their efforts to bring peace and stability back to the electrical workers’ local. Sanctimonious at first in their presentation of the proposed collective agreement, they highlighted the fact that “no settlement was reached until order was restored in your Local Union and the proper constitutional officers of the Local entered into negotiations with Lenkurt Electric.” The executive board then told the meeting that the company had begun legal proceedings in BC Supreme Court seeking damages for trespass, violation of the Trade Union Act, and for costs. If successful, the suit would likely run into several hundred thousand dollars “and could wipe out our local completely,” although it was to be hoped that a “return to work will lead to some success in bringing about the withdrawal of this legal action.” Highlighting the potential demise of the entire local union was a real and frightening prospect for the vast majority of electrical workers, but publicly saying so was clearly an intimidation tactic intended to have a wide-ranging and dampening effect. The executive board was proud, on the other hand, to have helped produce “a new contract which will be a leading example for the Electronic Manufacturing Industry in this country.”145 The proposed agreement would nevertheless subject the workers to what the executive board tried to dress up as “a fair and equitable sharing of any overtime,” although the official collective agreement, when it was officially distributed several months later, had a more explicit clause: “If conditions arise necessitating overtime, employees will cooperate.”146 Additionally, each employee would have to undergo the oft-derided and humiliating interview process with management personnel before returning to work. William Clement, Lenkurt’s personnel manager, was unambiguous about the objective of the process when he admitted on May 30 that some employees would be rejected as “troublemakers,” and that between forty and seventy might fall into this category.147 On the other hand, the proposed agreement revealed an immediate increase in wages up to a “basic rate of $1.72 per hour for female employees, a basic rate of $2.17 per hour for male, rising to a rate of $3.25 per hour.”148 These increases counterbalanced the detested overtime requirements and was an unquestionable “win” of sorts for the union as incomes would now increase by 19% over a three-year period.149 This was 4% more than what had been deemed as “insufficient” at the end of April. Even if it meant taking it on the chin in the process, standing up to the boss definitely had its rewards. The downside was that in addition to the detested overtime requirement, no matter how attractive it was made to appear, the even more important principle of equal pay for work of equal value still appeared some way off. While garnering a substantial increase over three years, it was apparent that the mostly female production floor workers (the “General Assembler” and “Production Worker” categories) would still be paid less than their male counterparts during the life of the contract. Indeed, Local 213’s Minute Books revealed that “all conditions remain the same except wages.”150 Yet, having won at least something out of their month-long ordeal, the financially stressed workers would eventually vote seventy percent in favour of the proposed agreement.151

Angus MacDonald tried to get the last word in during an interview with the Vancouver Sun. He remarked to a reporter that “had the strikers not been misled, they could have been back at work a long time ago.”152 It was a deliberately irritating and arguable point, and it is not clear that he was referring to the parking lot study session and the call to “go down to the union hall.” Nor did he mention that during the first few days of the strike that, as president of Local 213, he had been viewed as publicly onside and outwardly supportive of the striking female workforce. In hindsight it was easy for him to criticize the leadership of the losing side following events. The newly appointed business manager of Local 213 ignored the crucial mitigating factor that the defeated workers not only had to fight the traditional alliance between employer and the state but, in this case, partway through the strike, there was added to the mix the duplicity of a powerful conservative leadership faction from within their very own union. Critics might also have pointed out that Angus MacDonald’s unpopular decision-making throughout the latter part of the Lenkurt imbroglio was certainly defensible from a strictly legal perspective—he would have argued, in fact, that his actions constituted the only viable path out of an unwinnable deadlock. Given the provocative circumstances of employer abuse targeting a largely insecure and vulnerable female workforce, MacDonald appeared to be morally on the wrong side of an ethical divide. To paraphrase a famous and inimitable author, in specific cases the law was sometimes an ass and deserved to be ignored. As wayward as they might have been, this was clearly the position of a substantial number of Local 213’s membership. Shepherded by fellow business unionist Jack Ross, MacDonald would have shot back that continuing the tactic of illegal confrontations through massed picket lines was far too risky. By his actions, unpopular as they might have been, he, Angus MacDonald, was able to preserve an IBEW presence at the Lenkurt Electric plant and safeguard both Local 213’s legal and financial stability, key elements ensuring the fundamental cohesion of the Vancouver union that might otherwise have been lost. In so doing, however, his leadership credibility had been irreversibly tainted. It was, apparently, one thing to have been a noteworthy plotter against George Gee and his cohort of Communist Party supporters at the height of the McCarthyist red scare; it was quite another, just over a decade later, to abandon any semblance of a combative response supporting hundreds of women workers in need. Meanwhile, regardless of the merits or not of his analysis, the bitter dispute in Burnaby appeared at long last to be over.