Notes

1. On the related American experience, see Palmer, “Rethinking the Historiography of United States Communism,” 149–61, particularly his critique on the historical treatment of home-grown radicals. Sixteen years later, in a more abbreviated article, he dials back his criticisms somewhat and comments that “local and particularistic studies and attention to rank-and-file activism adds vital flesh and blood to our understanding of Communism in contextualized settings.” Palmer, “How Can We Write Better Histories of Communism?” 218.

2. See, in particular, I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” chaps. 5 and 6.

3. Les had previously been elected president of the Pemberton Heights Ratepayers’ Association in 1970 for a two-year term. Thirty years after his arrival in Vancouver, he reminisced about his upbringing: “If you grew up in the party, you get socialism for breakfast, lunch and dinner. . . . It bred in you a kind of guilt, so that being politically active is a duty.” Quoted in Ward, “Reds,” Vancouver Sun, December 14, 1985, A12.

4. One notable exception is Steven Threndyle’s “The Great Pro Triathlon Revolution,” which offers a clear-sighted assessment of McDonald’s politics and philosophical outlook. See also Ken McAlpine, “Triathlon’s Trumpeter,” Competitor Magazine, December 1990, and Susan Grant’s illuminating and informative (but somewhat error-sprinkled) “The Paradigm Shifter.” In “American Expansion, Russian Threat and Active Democracy,” Andrey Adelfinsky paints an unflattering portrait of McDonald as a personally ambitious individual who deployed his own version of what he called “direct democracy” to undermine the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne.

5. Brad Culp, “Triathlon at the Olympic Games: A History Lesson,” World Triathlon Championship Series, accessed June 5, 2024, https://hamburg.triathlon.org/en/news/article/triathlon_bei_den_olympischen_spielen_eine_geschichtsstunde, although the page has since been taken down.

6. Russell, Our Union: UAW/CAW Local 27 from 1950 to 1990.

7. Freeman, 1005: Political Life in a Local Union. Other examples include the essays in Copp, ed., Industrial Unionism in Kitchener, 1937–47; Copp, The IUE in Canada; and Bernard, The Long Distance Feeling. South of the border, notable publications focusing on locals in the industrial union field include Friedlander, The Emergence of a UAW Local, 1936–1939; and Schatz, The Electrical Workers.

8. Isitt, Militant Minority.

9. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, Left Out, 30; original italic removed.

10. Perlman, A History of Trade Unionism in the United States, 303.

11. Eric Hobsbawm, quoted in Corey Robin, “Eric Hobsbawm, The Communist Who Explained History,” The New Yorker, May 9, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/eric-hobsbawm-the-communist-who-explained-history.

1. See, for example, Palmer, Canada’s 1960s; Troper, The Defining Decade; Campbell, Clement, and Kealey, Debating Dissent; and Milligan, Rebel Youth.

2. While it wasn’t precisely the same, the events of the 1960s within IBEW Local 213 echoed two of the more dominant themes faced by Canadian labour throughout much of the twentieth century, in particular in its industrial unions. As Irving Abella wrote many decades ago, from a social democratic perspective these could succinctly be described as “the internal threat from the Communists and the external threat from the Americans,” Nationalism, Communism, and Canadian Labour, v.

3. In mid-April 1919, in a referendum sponsored by the BC Federation of Labour, electrical workers in Vancouver had voted 170–103 to join the OBU, which was then in the process of formation. I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 69 and 76n93. On the subsequent political and legal cul-de-sac in which the electrical workers found themselves as a result of their vote, including the difficulties posed by the creation of Local 310, see I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” chap. 3. Specifically, a substantial number of telephone workers unexpectedly joined Local 310 when it appeared that the OBU (and perhaps also Local 213) was going to be crushed. BC Tel immediately signed a closed-shop collective agreement with the new and apparently more malleable local, thereby freezing out the activists in Local 213. The new IBEW local in Vancouver, which became largely a telephone workers’ local when its charter was legally upheld in BC Supreme Court in 1921, survived until 1926. In that year the BC Telephone company revealed its true intentions when it refused to negotiate with IBEW Local 310 and restored non-union relations with its employees. The resounding consequence was that Local 310 was relatively short-lived; it was quietly dissolved in 1929, then disappeared from history.

4. See I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 79–80, 82–83.

5. The Council of Canadian Unions was renamed the Confederation of Canadian Unions in 1973. On CAIMAW, the CEWU, and the CCU, see Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 151–61.

1. Kim Moody has described the term in succinctly Marxist terms. Part of a larger critique, some key additional definitions include: “Business unionism as an outlook is fundamentally conservative in that . . . it seeks only to negotiate the price of [capital’s] domination. This it does through the businesslike negotiation of a contractual relationship with a limited sector of capital and for a limited portion of the working class . . . it is difficult if not impossible for the business unionist to comprehend a shift in power relations between social classes in any terms other than the profit margins or market shares of specific employers, votes taken by ‘friends’ and enemies in legislatures, or the dollars and cents of influence peddling.” Moody, An Injury to All, 15.

2. Salaries paid to many union officials in Canada, for example, continued to outpace those of the workers they represented well into the second half of the twentieth century. In 1980, investigative reporter Peter Comparelli found “the highest paid Canadian unionists are representatives of U.S.-based international unions, with the building trades leading the way.” He placed Ken Rose, the IBEW vice-president responsible for Canada, tenth out of forty-eight trade union representatives whose salaries were listed as part of the article. Peter Comparelli, “A Big-Money Brotherhood,” Vancouver Sun, August 20, 1980, F8.

3. Quoted in Murray Morgan, Skid Road, 266. These words belong to former Teamster’s union president Dave Beck but could very easily have been pronounced by any number of IBEW officials.

4. As with many electrical workers in the west, mostly linemen’s locals, Vancouver’s Local 213 supported the losing side in this dispute, the Reid-Murphy faction. In opposition to the position taken by both an important Ohio court judgment in 1912 and by Samuel Gompers, the founding and longest-serving president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), this breakaway group had been much more inclined to a socialist and industrial union-type of outlook for the IBEW. See I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 53–57.

5. Samuel Gompers would have agreed wholeheartedly with the ongoing critiques by organized labour—and excision if necessary—of anti-capitalist working-class organizations. Their ideas threatened the AFL, which risked in different decades being outflanked by the Knights of Labor, the IWW, the CIO, or a different form of trade unionism altogether. In a debate with Morris Hillquit, the moderate leader of the Socialist Party of America, Gompers famously declared: “Really, a fish is caught by the tempting bait: a mouse or a rat is caught in a trap by the tempting bait; the intelligent, comprehensive common-sense workmen prefer to deal with the problems of today, the problem which confronts them today, with which they are bound to contend if they want to advance, rather than to deal with a picture and a dream which has never had, and I am sure never will have, any reality in the affairs of humanity, and which threaten[s], if it could be introduced, the worst system of circumscriptional [sic] effort and activity that has ever been invented by the ken of the human kind.” Testimony of Samuel Gompers, May 22, 1914, U.S. Congress, Senate, Final Report and Testimony Submitted to Congress by the Commission on Industrial Relations, 1527.

6. Amendments to Mine-Mill constitution adopted in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1951 and quoted in Clawson, “Union Security Clauses and the Right to Work,” 148–49.

7. Testimony of George A. Mulkey, International Representative, IBEW, February 27, 1948, U.S. Congress, House, Jurisdictional Disputes in the Motion-Picture Industry, 1667. At the start of his testimony, Mulkey described his duties: “To organize, to adjust differences between locals, assist members in securing employment in different parts of the country, and generally to represent our international” (1627).

8. The concept of unions as criminal conspiracies in restraint of trade in Canada, followed by their early evolution, is explored in Tucker, “‘That Indefinite Area of Toleration.’” In the United States, the 1908 Danbury Hatters’ (Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274) case resulted in the US Supreme Court finding that the union’s secondary boycott of a non-union firm violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. The union was subsequently held liable and fined treble costs for the heavy damages previously put in place by the Sherman Act. The evolution of law through governmental legislation eventually decriminalized union attempts to organize and carry out strategies in the United States that might benefit its membership, though this again was narrowed with the passing of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act and the 1959 Landrum-Griffin Act.

9. In its willingness to “share” the profits of employers, the IBEW was deviating somewhat from the philosophy espoused by Samuel Gompers. Gompers had once memorably declared in 1890: “We do want more, and when it becomes more we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor.” “A News Account of an Address in Louisville,” in The Samuel Gompers Papers, 314.

10. IBEW, “A Century of Compromise: The Most Important IBEW Program You Haven’t Heard About,” IBEW Media Center, May 27, 2020, https://ibew.org/untitled-article-15/.

11. See U.S. Congress, Senate, Congressional Record, 89th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 112, pt. 10 (June 15, 1966), 13268. The journalist’s remark is part of the report of the IBEW Pension Benefit Trust Fund submitted by the fund’s Board of Trustees.

12. On its website, the Canadian Electrical Contractors Association notes that although the association was chartered on November 9, 1955, “the early years were difficult ones for CECA and it wasn’t until 1973 that we actually became a viable and active national body.” “About Us,” The Canadian Electrical Contractors Association, accessed October 15, 2024, https://ceca.org/about-us/. NETCO, Canada’s National Electrical Trade Council, wasn’t founded until 2012. It bills itself as the “authoritative pan-Canadian voice of electrical contractors and IBEW local unions representing apprentices and journeypersons in every province and territory.” National Electrical Trade Council, accessed October 15, 2024, https://netco.org/. In the face of this information and given the subsequent history of Local 213, its loudly trumpeted alleviating effect on collective bargaining wasn’t readily apparent in British Columbia in the three decades following World War II.

13. Ruffini, Harry Van Arsdale Jr, 16.

14. In 1933, Van Arsdale Jr. and another Local 3 member, Max Rosenberg, were convicted in a New York City court “in the shooting of William Sorensen of an opposing union faction,” but on appeal the charges were dropped. On Van Arsdale Jr.’s arrest and initial conviction, see New York Daily News: “Two Wounded as Shots End Union Parley,” February 25, 1933, Brooklyn Section, 7; Tom Cassidy, “Valentine Checks Police Racket Trial Testimony,” January 24, 1933, 12; “Pleads Mistake at Assault Trial,” January 26, 1934, Brooklyn Section, 1; “2 Found Guilty in Labor Gunning,” January 30, 1934, 6; and “2 Union Men Get Sing Sing Terms,” February 9, 1934, 42. For two unsympathetic accounts of his controversy-filled past, see Westbrook Pegler, “Fair Enough,” Santa Ana Register, August 20, 1941, 16; and Lloyd Wendt, “The Men Who Prey on Labor,” Chicago Sunday Tribune, August 24, 1941, 2.

15. Ruffini, Harry Van Arsdale Jr, 64. As Ruffini goes on to explain, IBEW Local 3 “uniquely encompassed the vertical union philosophy of the CIO, representing more than one trade or skill as opposed to a horizontal union, embracing only one.”

16. Journalist Lester Velie used the term “Chinese Wall” in “The Union That Gives More to the Boss,” an article on IBEW Local 3 that originally appeared in the January 1956 issue of Reader’s Digest and was subsequently entered into the Congressional Record on March 13, 1956, by Democratic Congressman Abraham J. Multer. See “Extension of Remarks of Hon. Abraham J. Multer of New York,” Congressional Record, 84th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 102, Appendixes (Parts 14–20), A2304–05 at A2305. Founded to promote cooperative relationships between employers and employees, the Joint Industry Board of the Electrical Industry in New York City currently administers all the plans and benefits that are collectively bargained between IBEW Local 3 and the electrical contractors in its jurisdiction.

17. Van Arsdale Jr. quoted in Lester Velie, “The Union That Gives More to the Boss,” A2305.

18. Justice Hugo Black quoted in U.S. Congress, Amendments to the National Labor Relations Act, Hearings Before the Committee on Education and Labor, 80th Cong., 1st sess., 1919. Harry Van Arsdale Jr. quoted in Lester Velie, “The Union That Gives More to the Boss,” reproduced in “Extension of Remarks of Hon. Abraham J. Multer of New York,” U.S. Congress, Congressional Record, 84th Cong., 2nd sess., vol. 102, Appendixes, March 13, 1956, A2305.

19. From a labour perspective, the Taft-Hartley Act was a draconian piece of legislation as it permitted employers to sue unions for “breach” of collective agreements, excluded foremen and supervisory personnel from a union if they so chose, promoted the use of legal injunctions against workers engaged in wildcat strikes, and, most importantly, in reducing Local 3’s influence in New York City, banned the use of the secondary boycott. Though it didn’t affect Local 3 to any great extent as Communist activists in the New York local had been basically neutralized by the mid-1930s, Taft-Hartley also required that all union representatives, from local union executive boards right up to its International officers, sign affidavits affirming that they were not members of the Communist Party. Failure to do so would lead to the loss of all protection under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of that union as a bona fide representational organization for workers in the United States.

20. Van Haaren, “Lessons from a Champion of Labor,’” 7. Among his many other accomplishments on behalf of Local 3, Van Arsdale Jr. successfully negotiated an employer-paid pension plan, a death benefit plan, insurance and supplemental pay for members during illness or injury, and a medical, dental, and employee assistance program.

21. Ruffini, Harry Van Arsdale, 104.

22. For more on the different concepts of social unionism, see Ross, “Varieties of Social Unionism.”

23. See Levinson, An Extraordinary Time, esp. chaps. 1–3.

24. Historian Walter Galenson even went so far as to write that the UE’s organizational forays in most of the 1930s “had no competition from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which had been unable to make any substantial inroads into the manufacturing end of the electrical industry.” The CIO Challenge to the AFL, 265. IBEW Local 3 might have been the obvious exception to this general observation.

25. See, in particular, Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, Left Out, chaps, 7 and 8.

26. The new 1946 “BA” membership enjoyed equal rights to the “A” membership but received fewer death and pension benefits “for which ‘A’ members pay additional dues.” Stephenson, History and Structure, 24.

27. On IBEW local B numbers and its associated constitutional reduction in representation in the union, see Palladino, Dreams of Dignity, 158, 162.

28. Ernest DeMaio to Julius Emspak, May 9, 1937, quoted in Palladino, Dreams of Dignity, 163.

29. There were several other occasions on which the IBEW collaborated with employers in order to keep the UE out. See, for example, Feurer, Radical Unionism in the Midwest, 60; and Cherny, Issel, and Taylor, American Labor and the Cold War, 124.

30. See Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, Left Out, in particular chaps. 3, 4, and 6.

31. That Communist activists in the UE did so from time to time is recounted in Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, Left Out, 85.

32. Quoted in Palladino, Dreams of Dignity, 172.

33. Palladino, Dreams of Dignity, 172.

34. As the pre-eminent chronicler of the IBEW’s past, Grace Palladino, pointed out, “The differences between (and conflicts that arise between) building trades workers and manufacturing workers are . . . endemic in IBEW history.” Grace Palladino, email message to author, April 1, 2020.

1. Elections British Columbia, Electoral History of British Columbia, 1871–1986, 193.

2. The CCF had also garnered 32% of the popular vote in 1933, dipping to 29% in 1937. Elections British Columbia, Electoral History of British Columbia, 1871–1986, 173 and 183.

3. Notable battles fought by labour during the previous ten years in British Columbia included the following mostly lost confrontations: the 1932–33 Tulameen miners’ strike, the 1935 Corbin Miners’ strike, the 1935 Battle of Ballantyne Pier, the IWA’s 1938 Battle of Blubber Bay, and the Pioneer Mine sit-down strike of 1940 near Bralorne.

4. “Gov’t Will Give Labor Its Chance,” Vancouver Sun, March 12, 1943, 29.

5. For more on the specific (often physical) battles the IWA had to go through in the 1930s to be recognized as the legitimate representative organization of BC woodworkers, see Parnaby “What’s Law Got to Do with It?” 10.

6. “City Labor Leaders Approve Amendments,” Vancouver Daily Province (hereafter Daily Province), March 6, 1943, 29. It should be noted that other left-wing unions were more guarded in their analysis of the amendments passed by the legislature. The Fisherman (the newspaper of the incipient United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union [UFAWU]) objected to the wording of the amendments on the grounds that under the revised ICA Act, “company unions are placed in a preferential position” and that “all organizations other than trade unions should, accordingly, be eliminated from the act.” Quoted in “Fishermen Charge ‘Company Union Preference’ in ICA Act,” Vancouver Sun, March 3, 1943, 21.

7. Phillips, No Power Greater, 129.

8. Riddell, “Unionization in Canada and the United States,” 110, Table 4.1.

9. Phillips, No Power Greater, 169; and Isitt, Militant Minority, 252n17.

10. Interview with Jack Ross, November 15, 1982. See also Ross’s remarks in support of Fred Hume’s candidacy for the office of Mayor of Vancouver, in which he wrote with reference to Hume and Rumble Contracting Ltd., that “for many years the contract was merely a verbal one.” “A Man of His Word,” Vancouver Sun, November 23, 1950, 27.

11. For a description and explanation of the historically important steel strikes of 1943, see MacDowell, “The 1943 Steel Strike Against Wartime Wage Controls.”

12. The Stone and Webster Construction Company, as well as the firm of Brown and Root, were large American dam construction specialists that held international agreements with the IBEW in British Columbia. Henry Ayling, former head of personnel and labour relations for BC Bridge and Dredging, another company with international agreements in the province, recalls the hard feelings that were engendered by his company’s special status: “Now a local union could strike a local contractor, but they couldn’t strike us because we were under an agreement with the International. We were very unpopular among certain members of the electrical contractors because they couldn’t get the same conditions.” Interview with Henry Ayling, April 26, 1983.

13. The federal government’s support for business in the immediate post–World War II period is exemplified in the “double depreciation” allowances, allowing corporations to rebuild their facilities at public expense. See McInnis, Harnessing Labour Confrontation, chap. 2.

14. Isitt, Militant Minority, 7.

15. Harvey’s remarks were in reaction to Justice H. I. (Henry) Bird’s proposals for amendments to the ICA Act, “Proposals Rapped by Labor,” Vancouver Sun, September 28, 1948, 2.

16. Panitch and Swartz, From Consent to Coercion, 14–15.

17. Quoted in Abraham Losovsky, “Lenin and the Trade Union Movement,” TUEL Labor Herald Library pamphlet no. 14, marxists.org, 23 October 2024, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lozovsky/1924/14.htm.

18. For a brief recounting of this episode in the history of “red trade unionism” in BC, see Mickleburgh, On the Line, 112.

19. In Canada, Communist organizers were active in several other disputes and strikes during World War II, including coal miners of the Crowsnest Pass area of UMWA District 18. For further discussion, see Langford and Frazer, “The Cold War and Working-Class Politics,” 50. For treatment of war-time working-class job action in the US, see Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, Left Out, 144–58.

20. See Gray, “Woodworkers and Legitimacy,” chap. 4.

21. See Hak, The Left in British Columbia, chap. 4.

22. McInnis, Harnessing Labour Confrontation, chap. 5. From a non-academic perspective, Dave Werlin, a self-avowed member of the Communist Party of Canada and a former president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (1983–89), analyzed the effects of McCarthyism on the Canadian labour movement in the following way:

It was because of the international unions that were dominant in Canada at that time, it was an easy pipeline to bring it into Canada. Many of the trade union leaders were social democrats. They were spooked. They thought they’d have to cleanse themselves. They don’t want to be part of this attack. So they turned on themselves, turned on the trade union movement from the leadership angle. Mackenzie King was right, he didn’t have to unleash the cops on the trade union movement. They did it to themselves. The social democrats picked it up and ran with it. Werlin, interviewed by Winston Gereluk and Don Bouzek, November 12, 2004, 19.

23. I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 160.

24. Quoted in Manley, “Does the International Labour Movement Need Salvaging?” 177; Morrison’s comment originally appeared in Labor News, May 28, 1928. Manley describes “labourism” as “the peculiar Canadian variant” of what the Comintern termed “reformism” (148). For his description of the labourist ideology, see 153.

25. Leier, Red Flags and Red Tape, 40–41.

26. Gray, “Woodworkers and Legitimacy,” 8.

27. There were approximately 9,000 employees of CM&S (Cominco) in 1951. Murphy, A Time to Remember, 17. For a brief, yet thorough, chronology of Murphy’s life, see Verzuh, “The Reddest Rose: Harvey Murphy Is Little-Known in B.C. Labour History,” BCBookLook, September 27, 2016. See also Verzuh’s “The Raiding of Local 480,” 82. Murphy was arguably adopting a careful position on collective bargaining that also happened elsewhere in Communist-led unions in Canada. For more on collective bargaining elsewhere in Canada, see Smith, Cold Warrior, 111–13.

28. Harold Pritchett, unabashed Communist and president of the IWA in British Columbia, declared to a Vancouver Sun reporter in 1947 that he could not force his political beliefs on rank-and-file woodworkers: “It would be foolish—and impossible—for us to try and force socialism into Canada, until the people want it.” The IWA, he added, “was willing to operate within the framework of capitalism. . . . The forest industry means our livelihood. . . . We need it every bit as much as the operators do.” Quoted in Mickleburgh, On the Line, 128. Mickleburgh is quoting from Don Carlson, “Communism Fears Called Pipe-Dream,” Vancouver Sun, February 6, 1947, 22, in which Pritchett’s remarks originally appeared.

29. For the circumstances surrounding Harvey’s Murphy’s 1948 underpants speech, see Mickleburgh, On the Line, 131.

30. The Trail Daily Times (December 3, 1953, 4) was succinct: “Figures from the bureau of statistics published earlier this year indicated that Trail had the highest per capita income in Canada.”

31. Verzuh, “Divided Loyalties”; Community attempts to do things differently in the West Kootenays, particularly Trail, are described in additional writings by Verzuh, including “Remembering Salt,” and “Mine-Mill’s Peace Arch Concerts.” Labour lawyer John Stanton, who would represent several left-leaning unions throughout his career, characterized Mine-Mill as a “protector of its members” and a “respected force” for community concerns. Stanton, Never Say Die! 29.

32. See Bennett’s remarks on this issue in Keane and Humphreys, Conversations with W. A. C. Bennett, 34, 116.

33. See Tieleman, “The Political Economy of Nationalization” for an in-depth discussion surrounding the nationalization of BC Electric Company.

1. “Moscow on the Fraser” is the title of chapter 2 in Isitt, Militant Minority. It should be pointed out that there were two provincial “BCFL” labour federations at the time, one for the newly organized industrial unions affiliated with the CCL, the other for the older craft-oriented unions (like IBEW Local 213) affiliated with the Trades and Labour Congress (TLC). The same held true at the municipal level, with CCL affiliates in the Vancouver Labour Council; the older TLC affiliates were in the parallel Vancouver Trades and Labour Council (VTLC). Amalgamation occurred shortly after the fusion of the CCL and the TLC in 1956 to create the modern-day Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). This was a Canadian copycat reflection of the AFL-CIO, whose amalgamation had taken place a year earlier, in 1955.

2. Similar countrywide alliances have taken place periodically throughout Canada’s trade union history, the previous one of note having taken place in the aftermath of labour’s national upsurge in 1919.

3. On Evans and the strike, see Bartlett and Ruebsaat, Soviet Princeton.

4. Interview with George Gee, November 6, 1982.

5. See Alex Dorland, “Wiremen’s Welfare Plan Makes History for 213,” I.B.E.W. Local 213 Live Wire (hereafter Live Wire), September 1950, 1.

6. “Certain Electrical Contractors and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 213,” Labour Gazette, January–June 1953, 882–83.

7. Interview with Angus MacDonald, January 6, 1983.

8. From the 1920s through to the end of during World War II, under business managers Teddy Morrison and Jack Ross, Local 213 had been composed of only three units: Utilities, Line Contractors, and Inside Wiremen.

9. For details of the results, see George Gee, “In Defence of My Right to Work,” n.d., George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, file 2–12, Rare Books and Special Collections, UBC Library, Vancouver.

10. Ecroyd, “Red Is for Danger!”

11. George Gee to the Provincial Executive, Labor-Progressive Party, October 1, 1948. George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, file 2-12.

12. Quoted in Green, What’s Happening to Labor, 35.

13. If any union refused to sign the anti-Communist affidavits, they would not appear on the ballot when a rival trade union triggered a representational vote. This was often devastating in workplaces where there were competing interests seeking worker allegiance. It is interesting to note in this regard that a Republican trade union leader, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), a champion of “democratic capitalism,” refused to require his officers to sign the anti-communist affidavits. With no rival unions on the horizon in the post–World War II period to challenge the hegemony of the UMWA, his principled stand on non-compliance with Taft-Hartley had no visibly deleterious effects on the once-massive coal miners’ union. Summers, “Union Schism in Perspective,” 261.

14. “Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (Taft-Hartley Act),” Influence Watch, 15 October 2024, ttps://www.influencewatch.org/legislation/labor-management-relations-act-of-1947-taft-hartley-act/. See in particular the last section, “Effects.”

15. White, A Hard Man to Beat, 158.

16. Citation in text from interview with George Gee, 6 November 1982. On Jackson’s problematic relations with the Communist Party, including his denial of membership, see “The Party Life” in Smith, Cold Warrior, 105–13; on the highly respected Tom McClure, who also denied his Party membership in the 1940s and was an early president of Local 1005 of the United Steelworker in Hamilton, see Freeman, 1005: Political Life in a Local Union, 74 and 256n10.

17. Henry Ayling to Jack Ross, February 1, 1951. See also similar complaint from L. G. Sewell, head of the Building and Construction Exchange, to George Gee, March 26, 1952. Both letters in George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, file 2–12.

18. Letter from Charles E. Sumpton to Jack Ross, January 10, 1953, George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, file 2–12.

19. Interview with Don Wilson, January 26, 1983.

20. John Raymond to Jack Ross, October 12, 1954, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 1-02 (Jack Ross files), Rare Books and Special Collections, UBC Library, Vancouver. In his defence, Wilson claimed that he only had a loose relationship with the party as he could be counted on to support some of its policies. He even volunteered that, on occasion, he gave it money when asked to do so on a personal level. His protestations about Communist Party membership might thus have been disingenuous at best.

21. Interview with George Gee, 6 November 1982. Again, it should be noted that the Vancouver-area telephone workers had been an integral part of Local 213 prior to 1919. There were also numerous IBEW locals of telephone workers elsewhere across North America. The question left hanging is whether the IBEW’s inaction in Vancouver at the time was due to incompetence and lack of interest or to International Office concerns about an even larger number of electrical workers out on Canada’s west coast coming under Communist influence. On Local 213 expending money and effort to bring the telephone workers back into the Vancouver local, see “Telephone Workers to Remain ‘Outside,’” Live Wire, December 1951, 1.

22. See I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” chap. 5, for more detail on Gee’s building of the Communist left in Local 213.

23. John Spargo, Miles Spargo, and Angus McInnes to John Raymond, August 9, 1952. RBSC-ARC-1783, file 1-20, Rare Books and Special Collections, UBC Library, Vancouver. Contrary to the hoped-for intent and result of the letter, the new policies of work rotation among the wiremen appeared to be hugely popular. At a meeting of Local 213, the policy was passed with only two votes dissenting. IBEW Local 213, Minute Books (hereafter simply Minute Books), December 29, 1952, n.p. Local 213’s Minute Books are located in the IBEW Local 213 fonds, RBSC-ARC-1278, Rare Books and Special Collections, UBC Library, Vancouver.

24. Charles E. Sumpton to Jack Ross, January 10, 1953. George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, file 2–12, Rare Books and Special Collections, UBC Library, Vancouver.

25. Interview with Dave Clark, September 29, 1984.

26. Letter from Bert Marcuse to unidentified electrical worker, November 17, 1954. RBSC-ARC-1783, file 1–17 (Bert Marcuse file), Rare Books and Special Collections, UBC Library, Vancouver.

27. In a 1952 recording of the inaugural Paul Robeson Peace Arch concert, Harvey Murphy can be heard in his introductory remarks thanking the electrical workers from IBEW Local 213 for setting up the necessary sound equipment. Indeed, the charges that the IBEW laid against Gee in 1955 for “communist domination” include his participation and co-operation with Murphy in the staging of the famous Robeson concerts at the border. Robeson’s passport had been confiscated by the US government, so he was unable to cross into Canada to perform. For the charges against the business manager, see George Gee, “To All Members of Local 213,” George Gee fonds, file 3–01. For Justice James Wilson’s ruling, see Gee v. Freeman, 1958 CanLII 258 (BC SC), See also Laurel Sefton MacDowell, “Paul Robeson in Canada: A Border Story,” for a discussion of the Peace Arch concerts.

28. Local 213’s newspaper went through several iterations. From 1949 to 1959, it was called Local 213 I.B.E.W. Live Wire (or simply Live Wire). In 1960, it was replaced by the Business Manager’s News Letter, in which form it remained until 1966. Then, starting from 1967, it returned under the name 213 LiveWire. Copies of Live Wire and of 213 LiveWire can be found in the Trade Union Research Bureau (TURB) fonds, RBSC-ARC-1557, box 56, files 2a to 2d, and box 73, file 1, respectively. Note that Local 213’s paper is not to be confused with theC.E.W.U. Live Wire, a paper published from 1967 to 1969 by the breakaway Canadian Electrical Workers’ Union.

29. Alex Dorland, “Inside Stuff—Police the Contract Check Infractions,” Live Wire, January 1950, 6.

30. Interview with Fred Allison, December 19, 1982.

31. Interview with Jack Ross, November 15, 1982.

32. Interview with Don Wilson, January 26, 1983. Wilson was Gee’s assistant business manager and almost certainly a member of the Communist Party during the 1950s.

33. Interview with Jess Succamore, October 9, 2016.

34. In particular, see I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” chaps. 5 and 6. On the mention of Mine-Mill renting an office for about three years in Local 213’s union hall, see “Union ‘Red Purge’ Promises to Spread,” Vancouver Sun, January 17, 1955, 2.

35. Jack Ross to J. Scott Milne, February 1, 1951. RBSC-ARC-1783, file 1-02 (Jack Ross files). Milne would eventually become president of IBEW International in 1954 but died after only one year in office. During his brief stint as the head of the IBEW, he nevertheless ordered that George Gee be expelled and that Local 213 be placed under trusteeship.

36. Some of Larry Jack’s more distasteful memories while employed at BC Electric were related to those occasions when “Mr. Grauer instructed me to find out if Gee was in fact a Communist.” Interview with Larry Jack, February 16, 1983.

37. “Gas Strike Threat Red Move Says BCE,” Vancouver Sun, January 14, 1954, 1. For more on BC Electric and how they publicly red-baited Gee, see I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” chap. 6. It should be made clear that “card-called meetings” were held to vote on collective agreements. This meant that only electrical workers in that particular unit could attend, discuss, and vote on the contractual issues affecting their unit of Local 213. Fully aware of this dynamic within the electrical workers’ union, BC Electric was purposely clouding the issue for their own public relations advantage.

38. See, for example, Gee’s public threat to disregard a mediation report in 1953 and, if necessary, to put BC Electric’s facilities behind picket lines. The business manager was to the point, declaring to the press that “if we can’t get a settlement we must shut down the industry.” “TLC Backs Demand for City B.E.G. Pool,” Daily Province, October 7, 1953, 8. This was noteworthy and provocative language in terms of the relationship between Local 213 and the BC Electric Company, particularly as the last strike at the provincial utility had taken place in 1921, a distant twenty-two years before.

39. Letter from Bert Marcuse to Jack Scott (Vancouver Sun reporter), January 21, 1955, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 1–17 (Bert Marcuse file). Marcuse was working at the time as an independent research director for Local 213, helping to develop a statistical framework for Gee’s use in arguments during negotiations.

40. Proceedings, Twenty-fifth Convention of the IBEW, Chicago, Illinois, August 30–September 4, 1954, 164. See copy of 1954 constitution in George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, file 2–14.

41. Interview with Angus MacDonald, January 9, 1983.

42. For a complete list of the charges drawn up against him, see “To: International Vice President—John H. Raymond,” George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, file 3–01. The other two signatories to the original charges were Al McDiarmid and Harold Stubbins.

43. Quoted in Frank P. L. Somerville “Hearing Ends in Union Row,” Baltimore Sun, July 22, 1961, 16. See also Justice James Wilson’s remarks in Gee v. Freeman, 1958 CanLII 258 (BC SC), at 67 and 71.

44. “Electrical Union Chief Suspended,” Vancouver Sun, January 15, 1955, 1.

45. Don Wilson later on authored a series of hand-drawn caricatural scenes relating events in Local 213 to a wider audience. In a key reference in one of these scenes, he placed Andrew Johnson on the right side of the picture with the distinct outline of a revolver appearing under his jacket. On Wilson’s handicraft, see McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 217.

46. Interview with Bert Marcuse, 17 June 1983.

47.Minute Books, 17 January 1955, 237.

48. Alfred Terry to Don Wilson, 17 January 1955, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 1-23.

49. Account of meeting is an amalgam from the following sources: Minute Books, January 17, 1955, 237–48; interviews with Tom Forkin, December 15, 1982, and Vernon Bigelow, October 18, 1984; “Union ‘Red Purge’ Promises to Spread,” Vancouver Sun, January 17, 1955, 2; “2nd Agent Purged in Electrical Union,” Daily Province, January 17, 1955, 5; letters from Andrew Johnson to Norman Wilson and Vernon Bigelow, February 7, 1955, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 1–21.

50. Interview with Tom Forkin, December 15, 1982. This altercation was reminiscent of one that had occurred more than half a century earlier, after Local 213 members voted 170–103 to join the newly created OBU and the IBEW International Office subsequently suspended Local 213’s charter. On 27 August 1919, Ernest Ingles, the Canadian vice-president of the IBEW, was addressing the “loyal” minority of Local 213 at the Vancouver labour temple when the OBU contingent showed up at the meeting. Within minutes there erupted “a general mix-up.” As the Vancouver Daily World described the scene: “Ingles had only just started his address at labor headquarters when the other faction entered the hall in a body and proceeded to make things lively for the speaker. At first the new arrivals were content to obtain whatever satisfaction they could get in this manner. It was when several jumped up and started for the platform with the evident intention of impressing their views on Ingles in forcible fashion that the situation took on a really serious aspect. The clash was only averted when one of the audience sitting in the front row, rose and urged the meeting to maintain order and to conduct its business in a parliamentary fashion.” “Hot Time at Labor Temple,” Daily World, 28 August 1919, 20; see also I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 79–80.

51. The twenty-two members who were also immediately suspended were W. J. Robson, W. A. Dorland, S. Sheard, J. Thomas, D. B. Greenwell, H. L. Welch, J. Gillett, J. S. Duff, J. W. Worobetz, E. S. Simpson, H. Wainwright, A. J. Sowerby, W. J. Turner, W. J. Gee, Carl Rush, R. S. Skefley, P. C. Nichols, Bruce Clarke, R. V. Bigelow, Norm Wilson, Fred Duff, and Jim Jackson. Minute Books, January 17, 1955, 248.

52. “2nd Agent Purged in Electrical Union,” Daily Province, January 17, 1955, 5.

53.Minute Books, January 17, 1955, 248.

54. See also “Report on Charges and Trials,” n.d., RBSC-ARC-1783, file 1-23.

55. Interview with Terry Simpson, July 17, 1985.

56. Verzuh, “The Raiding of Local 480,” 115.

57. See Kluckner, Vancouver: The Way It Was, 113. Kluckner was commenting on Grauer’s “power tower” on Burrard Street in downtown Vancouver. He was entirely accurate in his description of Grauer’s political outlook. See also “Dal Grauer Assails Communism, Socialism,” Daily Province, January 29, 1947, 6, which describes in detail “an outspoken address” that the scion of the BC business community gave at the sixtieth anniversary of the Vancouver Board of Trade.

58. For Grauer’s objection to Gee and his visit to Washington, DC, see Minutes, Board of Directors’ Meetings, British Columbia Power Corporation, vol. 12, February 25, 1954, 2683; and July 12, 1954, 2719–20. The quotations in the text are from the minutes of the meeting on October 28, 1954, 2742, BC Hydro Library and Archives, Burnaby, BC.

59. Letter from J. Scott Milne to A. E. Grauer, December 21, 1954, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 1-02 (Jack Ross files).

60. Interview with Don Wilson, January 26, 1983.

61. Interview with Terry Simpson, July 17, 1985.

62. Quoted in Isitt, Militant Minority, 75.

63. Interview with Terry Simpson, July 17, 1985.

64. For a broader Canadian contextualization, see Hak, “The Communists and the Unemployed,” 45–61.

65. Quoted in Isitt, Militant Minority, 76. See also Penner, Canadian Communism, 242.

66. “Out here” comment in Scott, A Communist Life, 133. See also Levine, “The Labor-Progressive Party in Crisis, 1956–1957,” 177.

67. On the Italian Communists, see Palmer, “Canadian Communism at the Crossroads,” 154; for the resignations from the National Executive Committee, see Penner, Canadian Communism, 250.

1. The outcome of the vote published on June 15, 1953: Gee received 1,246 votes, while Morrison garnered only 356. “Results,” Live Wire, June 1953, 1.

2. Interview with Malcolm Morrison, January 14, 1983. For a brief description of Morrison’s background, see Dan Illingworth, “B.C. Heads of Labour Congress from Opposite Sides of Fence,” Daily Province, April 27, 1956, 5.

3. “Personal Memoirs of Art O’Keeffe,” January 26, 1958, RBSC-ARC-1783, O’Keeffe papers.

4. Telephone interview with John Carson, February 14, 1983.

5. Interview with Jack Ross, November 15, 1982. See also the concurrent articles in the Vancouver News-Herald, October 5, 1956, 13, and, in particular, in the Daily Province, according to which “a union spokesman said the men had voted 96 percent for a walkout but a decision on the strike deadline would be made at a special meeting ‘shortly.’” Dan Illingworth, “Electrical Union Wins Top Wage,” October 25, 1956, 4.

6. Interview with Jack Ross, November 15, 1982. The Minute Books of the inside wiremen (Unit 6) are more explicit about the Hooker Chemical incident: “Letters by A. M. [Cal] Morrison to stewards regarding their actions at Hooker job read and telegrams from [International Vice-President] Bro. Raymond read explaining that he has no authority for this.” Unit 6, Minute Books, December 23, 1957, 73.

7. “Despite Dispute, Union Plans to Stay on Job,” Daily Province, December 17, 1957, 25.

8. “Electricians Most Embattled Union,” Vancouver Sun, March 13, 1958, 64.

9.Minute Books, January 2, 1958, 249. After having been “promptly demoted to assistant business manager” for his troubles, “two months later” Morrison was completely let go. “Electricians Most Embattled Union,” Vancouver Sun, March 13, 1958, 64.

10. For more detail on the power struggles within Local 213, see Unit 6, Minute Books, December 23, 1957, 73; and also “Showdown Sought by Union,” Daily Province, January 24, 1958, 17.

11. Jack Waplington admitted to writing the charges against Gee while testifying in BC Supreme Court, “Successor to Gee Laid Charges,” Daily Province, February 11, 1958, 15.

12. “Union to ‘Seek Out’ Labor-Progressives,” Vancouver Sun, February 11, 1958, 9.

13. “Gee Tells Court of Threats ‘To Get Him,’” Pacific Tribune, February 14, 1958, 7.

14. “Living Cost Hits Record,” Vancouver Sun, March 4, 1958, 1; and “Food Costs Push up ‘Barometer,’” Daily Province, March 5, 1958, 1.

15. “B.C. Electric Profit Higher,” Vancouver Sun, March 12, 1958, 15.

16. The Pacific Tribune rebutted the well-publicized offer of 19 percent. It editorialized: “The BCE [BC Electric] says it offered yearly wage increases up to 19 percent. The actual offer was 12½ percent for linemen, 7½ percent for groundmen and 5 percent for labourers. The additional offer of 6½ percent, 4½ percent and 3 percent for these categories was for an additional year’s agreement.” “BCE Distorts Strike Issue,” Pacific Tribune, March 14, 1958, 8.

17. The controversial work stoppage at the mammoth electric utility was the first since 1921—in this regard, see I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 226. For a brief explanation of the 1921 strike against the BC Electric Company, see also “Make Fight for Award: Electrical Workers Strike to Enforce Finding of Conciliation Board,” Daily Province, February 22, 1921, 1, 7.

18. “Higher Wages Can Shrink Payrolls,” Vancouver Sun, March 1, 1958, 1.

19. “Electrical Workers’ Statement,” Vancouver Sun, March 12, 1958, 23.

20. “Electrical Workers Nail BCE Pay Claims,” Pacific Tribune, March 7, 1958, 1.

21. Doug Collins, “Here’s Story Behind Strike,” Daily Province, March 8, 1958, 1. Collins’s future poor reputation as a litigious employee, right-wing racist, and embattled Reform Party of Canada nominee in British Columbia in 1988—whose nomination leader Preston Manning rejected—should not detract from his sleuthing thirty years earlier on the labour beat for the Daily Province newspaper. In an editorial three days later, the Daily Province was in full agreement with its labour reporter when it opined that the 40 percent wage demand by the IBEW “is a piece of internal political posturing by a non-elected leadership which has to do something spectacular to hang on to its job when the union comes out of trusteeship later this year.” “Strike and Public Emergency,” March 11, 1958, 4.

22. Ramsay McCullough, “Electricians State Their Case.” Letters to the Editor, Daily Province, March 13, 1958, 4.

23. “Charges Fly, Tension High in Strike of Electricians,” Vancouver Sun, March 10, 1958, 1.

24. “BCE Distorts Strike Issue,” Pacific Tribune, March 14, 1958, 8. One of the IBEW’s historical nicknames, “I Bum Every Winter,” was a clear indicator of the precarious financial realities for some electrical workers. See also Tom McEwen’s critical commentary on the conduct of the strike just after it started from the Communist Party’s point of view. McEwen began one of his weekly columns with the disapproving statement: “How Not to Win a Strike,” Pacific Tribune, February 28, 1958, 5.

25. “Electrical Workers Nail BCE Pay Claims,” Pacific Tribune, March 7, 1958, 1. The Communist Party weekly gave some concrete numbers to back up Waplington’s contentious “peanuts” comment, an obvious jab at Malcolm Morrison’s short stint as Local 213’s business manager. It stated, in regard to the BC Electric negotiations, that: “In the past three years linemen have received only approximately three cents an hour wage increases.” “Electrical,” Pacific Tribune, March 7, 1958, 7.

26. “B.C. Electric, Union Agree to Renew Talks in Strike: Labour Council Arranges Meeting,” Vancouver Sun, March 19, 1958, 1.

27. Telephone interview with John Carson, February 14, 1983. For a newspaper account of the settlement, see “High Court Judge Will Set Wage Scale—Electricians’ Union Agrees to End Strike with BCE,” Daily Province, March 25, 1958, 1; and “Judge Rules Electricians’ Boost ‘Fair’-Workers Lose Fight for Hike Above 19 Per Cent,” Vancouver Sun, April 12, 1958, 23. A system of compulsory arbitration initiated by the provincial government soon after the formation of BC Hydro in 1961 meant that this was the last strike of IBEW maintenance or construction workers employed by either BC Electric or BC Hydro.

28. See the short, but important, discussion on the difference between conservative militancy and political radicalism within the context of the American trade union movement in Luff, “Rethinking Interwar Conservatism, Communism, and State Repression.”

29. The inside wiremen’s strike against the city of Vancouver began on June 6, 1957, and was settled on July 26, 1957, in the electricians’ favour. Casting the deciding vote on city council to sign the collective agreement was a subdued Mayor Fred Hume, a former lineman himself and owner of Hume and Rumble Limited, the largest electrical contracting company in western Canada. The conservative council of the day had made threats to fire the “striking electricians after the strike is settled . . . if forced to meet wage demands.” “Final Offer Made to Electricians,” Vancouver Sun, July 25, 1957, 1, 2. Perhaps the most contentious issue that emerged during the strike was Local 213’s Strike Committee that had a twenty-four-hour emergency crew standing by but reserved the right to define an “emergency.” With echoes from the Committee of 1,000 during the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, and reeking of irony, Vancouver magistrate Alex McDonald declared his outrage that the strikers felt they could take the “safety of citizens” into their own hands. He declared: “It is fantastic—a disgrace, that these men should have the power to decide what is an emergency situation . . . who do these union leaders think they are? What do they know about safety?” “Strike,” Vancouver Sun, July 24, 1957, 2. For a synopsis of the event, see I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 224–25.

30. “‘No Choice,’ Say Contractors; Electricians Cry ‘Treachery,’” Vancouver Sun, June 4, 1958, 3.

31. “Goldenberg Heads B.C. Strike Probe,” Daily Province, August 12, 1958.

32. “Building Unions Do Double Switch,” Vancouver Sun, August 7, 1958, 21.

33. For the story relating to the jurisdictional dispute involving a brief walkout of plumbers and pipefitters working on installing natural gas lines into Vancouver see Bruce Young, “Union Dispute May Delay Natural Gas,” Daily Province, September 14, 1956, 29. On additional accusations of Local 213 raiding by other unions, see “Electricians Facing Expulsion Attempts,” Daily Province, October 4, 1957, 25.

34. See the analysis in “Contractors Lockout Threat to Economy,” Pacific Tribune, June 6, 1958, 1, 12.

35. Doug Collins, “Strike Settled by Electricians; Plumbers Out,” Vancouver Sun, August 16, 1958, 1.

36. Hal Dornan, “Plumbers’ Wages Game of Leapfrog,” Vancouver Sun, August 30, 1958, 25.

37. Jim Dougan, former business manager of Local 170, in a telephone interview, October 2, 2019.

38. Doug Collins, “Electricians to Start Work Today with 11-Cent Increase,” Daily Province, August 21, 1958, 1.

39. See the chart comparing wage rates in the building trades in Hal Dornan, “Plumbers’ Wages Game of Leapfrog,” Vancouver Sun, August 30, 1958, 25.

40. “Crampton Named by Electricians,” Vancouver Sun, August 8, 1958, 25.

41. See the one-page majority opinion written by Commissioners H. Carl Goldenberg and E. A. Jamieson, Industrial Inquiry Commission on the Electrical and Plumbing Industries (1958), GR-1332, BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, Victoria, https://search-bcarchives.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/industrial-inquiry-commission-on-electrical-and-plumbing-industries-1958. See also “B.C. Building Industry in ‘Chaotic’ State,” Vancouver Sun, August 19, 1958, 1.

42. The Vancouver Sun reported on the Plumbers and Pipefitters eventual collective agreement, which contained a leap-frogging 26 cent per hour wage increase, far more than the other trades in British Columbia. Hal Dornan, “Strike End Possible Soon,” Vancouver Sun, 25 August 1. St. Eloi’s audacious use of a Communist bogeyman, combined with his whipsawing tactics, had evidently prevailed in this round of bargaining, as it clearly resulted in a collective agreement in favour of Local 170 of the Plumbers and Pipefitters.

43. Gordon Freeman, IBEW International president, stated: “Granting permission for the election of officers is not to be construed as changing in any way international supervision of the local union’s affairs.” Jack Waplington added that the Vancouver electrical workers would have to prove that “we are capable” before the trusteeship could be lifted in its entirety. “Electricians Most Embattled Union,” Vancouver Sun, March 13, 1958, 16.

44. Doug Collins, “Fight for Power Waged in Electricians’ Local,” Daily Province, June 17, 1958, 15.

45. The Daily Province reported that the IBEW’s International Office had declared, in patronizing fashion yet again, that “if the union shows responsibility in its affairs,” the trusteeship would eventually be lifted in its entirety. “Gas Workers’ Officer Named Electrical Union Secretary,” Daily Province, July 29, 1958, 1.

46. Interview with John Carson, February 14, 1983.

47. For the complete election results, see Live Wire, July 1958, 1.

48. “Gas Workers’ Officer Named Electrical Union Secretary,” Daily Province, July 29, 1958, 1.

49. Interview with John Kapalka, December 24, 1982.

50. Unit 6, Minute Books, May 26, 1958, 121.

51. Letter from Art O’Keeffe to W. Ladyman, “Re: Charges filed by Bro. A. D. MacDonald, Pres. L.U. 213, against Bro. A. O’Keeffe, Business Mgr. L.U. 213,” January 14, 1963, 6, RBSC-ARC-1783, Art O’Keeffe papers file 4-11.

52. Local 213, Unit 6, Minute Books, February 23, 1959, 170. A month later, on March 23, 1959, the inside wiremen also passed the following resolution: “That Wiremen’s Unit endorse position of Brother Cody re his letter to International asking for the lifting of the trusteeship, granting this local autonomy,” 171. But complete autonomy was not restored until June 30, 1961. See Unit 6, Minute Books, June 5, 1961, 103.

53.Minute Books, April 23, 1959, 24.

54.Minute Books, May 28, 1959, 39.

55. Interview with Terry Simpson, July 17, 1985. Bob Towle, an inside wireman and long-time Communist, also attested to Jack Cody’s problems with the bottle. In January 1967, Towle became the inaugural editor of 213 LiveWire. Founded by the inside wiremen’s unit, the monthly newspaper was a revival of the local’s earlier paper, Live Wire, which had lapsed at the end of 1959. Interview with Bob Towle, December 4, 1982. See also 213 LiveWire, February 1968.

56. An affidavit sworn by William Evans (“Electrical Bill”) Stewart in Vancouver on April 4, 1960, attests to the bona fide existence of the petition and the 1,066 signatures he had managed to secure. RBSC-ARC-1783. The fact that Stewart, a well-known Communist electrician, was the driving force behind the democratically oriented petition was apparently enough to cost Goy his position of assistant business manager once again. He would consequently become noticeably shy in terms of extending his co-operation to the left faction in general and to Communist electrical workers in particular.

57. Doug Collins, “Electrical Union Officers Resign,” Vancouver Sun, February 11, 1960, 21. See also “Electricians Ask Freedom from U.S.,” Daily Province, October 7, 1959, 17.

58. “Electrical Worker Officials Claim Discontent in Union,” Daily Province, February 12, 1960, 16. Cody might have been engaging in the same cloak-and-dagger scenario that Gee had half-heartedly attempted; that is, to stop being a formal member of the Communist Party in order not to contravene the IBEW’s constitution and therefore risk being charged and suspended.

59. “Local 213 Election Results,” Minute Books, September 1960, 416. It was an interesting electoral contest that pitted left against right toward the end of the McCarthyist period. For the position of president, Jack Cody lost to Angus MacDonald by 961 votes to 1,359; for vice-president, Tom Forkin lost to Fred Allison 893 to 1,398; for treasurer, Art Goy lost to Ted Knight 732 to 1,553; for business manager it was Ramsay McCullough 431, John Kapalka (on the left-wing slate) 627, and Art O’Keeffe 1,262. The really interesting race, however, was for recording secretary. In that contest, relative newcomer William Stewart lost to J. P. Milner by only a 68-vote margin: 1,100 votes to 1,168.

60. Samuel Gompers was known to resist formal alliances with any political party. Instead, his slogan for working men casting their ballots in elections was the simple and well-known advice: “Reward your friends, punish your enemies.”

61. In a history of IBEW Local 353 in Toronto written for its centenary in 2003, Edward Seymour recounts how “John Raymond . . . called a meeting of the IBEW delegates attending the CLC convention to discuss the resolution. The IBEW delegates voted overwhelmingly to go on record as being opposed to sending any portion of IBEW per capita to the CLC for use in support of any political party and that the union should adopt a position of political neutrality.” Illuminating the Past, Brightening the Future, 110.

62. Robert Rice, “CLC Backs New Political Party; City Delegate Leads Opponents,” Daily Province, April 28, 1960, 2. The IBEW’s position on involvement in politics has not changed very much over the years. According to its mission statement, the IBEW’s National Political Action Committee is officially mandated “to provide leadership through educating, motivating, and mobilizing all IBEW members to participate in the national political process in Canada to improve the quality of life of our members, their families, and all Canadians.” IBEW Votes: Political Action Committee Toolkit, http://www.ibewcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Final-IBEW-PAC-Toolkit.pdf, 6. The toolkit is available at “Political Action: Unions and Politics,” IBEW Canada, accessed November 22, 2025, https://www.ibewcanada.ca/political-action-centre/.

63. Kapalka had grown up in the left-leaning town of Coleman in the Crowsnest Pass during the 1920s and 1930s but was never a Communist.

64.Minute Books, July 14, 1960, 371. See also apparently raucous debate that ensued during “Special Order of Business to Discuss Financial Affairs of Local 213 IBEW,” July 28, 1960, 378–79. These debates on the financial affairs of Local 213 coincidentally took place just prior to the electrical workers casting their ballots; they neatly echoed the political tactics of the “white bloc” that had occurred in the IWA a dozen years before.

65. “Anti-Red Slate Named by Union,” Vancouver Sun, September 13, 1960, 6; “Reds Lose in Union Elections,” Daily Province, September 13, 1960, 30.

66. “Anti-Red Slate Named by Union,” Vancouver Sun, September 13, 1960, 6.

67. Even under Cody’s stewardship, the newsletter was evidently tightly controlled by his opposition. At a meeting of the inside wiremen’s unit in 1959, “Electrical Bill” Stewart pointedly “raised the question of appointment of brothers to editorial board of Livewire, [sic],” Unit 6, Minute Books, March 23, 1959, 171.

68. As the circular further advised, “No dues increase should be contemplated until every means of economy has been explored.” Most of the circular was reproduced in the Minute Books, December 4, 1961, 247–49. Regarding the Electrical Estates, see Live Wire, February 25, 1949, 2.

69. Even though it was a main theme of the circular, very little discussion of the use and potential abuse of the spare-board was recorded on this occasion in Local 213’s Minute Books. Given subsequent events, it appears that the union’s business manager, Art O’Keeffe, was able to fend off any substantive changes to its organization. The question, of course, is whether this evidentiary omission on a crucial question was deliberate. It certainly helped to hide the identity of those who might have argued in favour of modifying access to employment by electrical workers in Local 213.

70.Minute Books, April 4, 1962, 340. The “circular five” were all suspended under Article 27, section 2, of the 1962 IBEW constitution, which read in part, “Creating or attempting to create dissatisfaction among any members or among L.U.’s of the I.B.E.W.”

71.Minute Books, December 4, 1961, 256.

72. Art O’Keeffe, “Veep Questions BM for Statement in October Report,” Live Wire, December 1954, 4.

73. Interview with John Carson, February 14, 1983.

74. Interview with Terry Simpson, July 17, 1985.

75. Letter from Art O’Keeffe to W. Ladyman, “Re: Charges filed by Bro. A. D. MacDonald,” January 14, 1963, 12.

76. See “BC Hydro Rapped on Emergency Job,” Vancouver Sun, October 12, 1962, 1, and “Power Job Attack Called Unjustified,” Vancouver Sun, October 13, 1962, 2, for context surrounding the charges.

77. For a description of the project, see “Coming and Current,” Daily Province, March 28, 1963, 14; and “Transmission Line Near Crucial Stage,” Vancouver Sun, June 26, 1963, 10.

78. Unit 2, Minute Books, April 17, 1963, n.p. A month later, at the next unit meeting, there was a minute of silence recorded in the linemen’s Minute Books for Toby Lee “who passed away due to injuries at work.” Unit 2, Minute Books, May 15, 1963, n.p. For further information about the initial accidents, see “Two Escape in Crash of Helicopter,” Daily Province, April 24, 1963, 2; and “’Copter Crash Bruises Two,” Vancouver Sun, April 24, 1963, 3.

79. Unit 2, Minute Books, March 20, 1963, n.p.

80. It appears that workers employed by Hume and Rumble and Peterson Electric had not always bargained directly with the companies. In the immediate post–World War II era, for example, they were given a percentage of the gains made in negotiations by IBEW members employed by the BC Electric Company, called BC Hydro by 1961. Partway through his eight-year tenure in office, George Gee had tried to alter this cozy arrangement between the three companies but had not been entirely successful in his endeavour. For further detail, see “Board Split on Linemen Pay Scale,” Daily Province, April 5, 1950, 16; and Jack McCaugherty, “On the Labor Front—IWA, Firms Discuss Catch-up on Logging,” Daily Province, August 8, 1951, 5.

81. Unit 2, Minute Books, May 4, 1963, n.p.

82.Minute Books, May 6, 1963, 86.

83. See Unit 2, Minute Books, May 11, May 15, and June 15, 1963, n.p.

84. For the telegram to Keenan, see Minute Books, June 3, 1963, 99.

85. Unit 2, Minute Books, May 4, 1963, n.p.

86. Unit 2, Minute Books, June 20, 1963, 107.

87. The nickname was provided in an interview with Terry Simpson, July 17, 1985.

88. In his letter of defence in 1963 to Bill Ladyman, Art O’Keeffe referred to the internal union hearings wherein Local 213’s president, Angus MacDonald, is said to have “made some disparaging remarks against Brother Cody in his evidence, claiming or implying he was Left Wing, or had Communist leanings.” Letter from Art O’Keeffe to W. Ladyman, “Re: Charges filed by Bro. A. D. MacDonald,” 6.

89. A project initiated by George Gee, the $60,000 Dunsmuir Street union hall had opened on January 15, 1950, with a housewarming party that included a dinner and dance for six hundred guests. The new union hall gave physical expression to the evolving social unionism he was constructing. In the description of the Sun, “The remodelled building has a large auditorium, union offices, several smaller halls, recreation rooms and a coffee bar. It is one of the largest labor buildings in B.C.” “Electrical Workers Open New Home on Dunsmuir,” Vancouver Sun, January 16, 1950, 11. The hall reflected Gee’s desire to give visual expression to the presence of labour unions on the broader social landscape, as well as to foster a sense of community among union members, in part by giving them a place to meet up, whether for social or business purposes.

90. In 1919, Local 213’s president, Dan McDougall, was quite specific when he stated: “I believe Local 213 to be the pioneers of industrial organizations in British Columbia. They have taken in everything in the way of an electrical worker.” “Proceedings of the B.C. Federation of Labor Convention,” BC Federationist, April 4, 1919, 6–7.

91. Tom Forkin, the founder and inaugural editor of Live Wire, would go on in 1970 to be elected president of IBEW Local 258, the recently created BC Hydro and contract linemen’s local in Vancouver. In 1966, George Angus, president of Local 213’s Unit 6 (the inside wiremen), would become the first president of the Canadian Electrical Workers’ Union. Sam Shannon was the chair of Unit 6 and would eventually celebrate a fifty-year membership in Local 213, Jim Kinnaird served as president of the BC Federation of Labour from 1978 to 1983, and in 1973 Tom Constable was elected mayor of Burnaby.

92. It has been claimed that there were at least three undercover police officers working on the Kitimat–Kemano project in the 1950s under the direction of a Captain Thomas. One of these undercover officers, Walter Schmidt, reminisced that “Moscow planned to totally destroy the powerhouse in 1954.” He further asserted: “Later it turned out that at least one dozen Communist agents had infiltrated the work force.” Though it didn’t quite work out the way he thought it would, Schmidt also wrote: “I had the satisfaction of knowing that all of the saboteurs would be arrested.” Walter Schmidt, “Intrigue and Espionage in Kitimat’s Past,” letter to Kitimat Mayor Joanne Monaghan, 10 February 2011, Kitimat Museum and Archives. It should be noted that Schmidt’s recollections appear somewhat exaggerated as there is no record (other than his own) of workers being fired or arrests being made due to political outlook. His affirmations should therefore be read with caution. However, in this prioritized defence project at the height of the Cold War there is every reason to believe that there might, indeed, have been RCMP surveillance of the workforce. See also Walter Schmidt, “Something About Schmidt Was Appealing to Canada,” Vancouver Sun, September 5, 2008, 19.

93. “Highest Priorities Sure for Aluminum Project,” Daily Province, February 15, 1951, 35.

94. As pointed out in 1971, Article 25 of the IBEW constitution “places in the local union the authority to accept or reject traveling cards, as the local union decides,” The Electrical Worker’s Journal (September 1971), 25–26. See also I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” chaps. 5 and 6. On the Kitimat–Kimano project and sidelining Local 213 employees, see Unit 6, Minute Books, August 13, 1951, 161; and “Checkmate for Reds at Alcan,” The Northern Sentinel (Kitimat), April 22, 1954, 2, reprinted from the Financial Post.

95.Minute Books, July 25, 1960, 7.

96. Unit 6, Minute Books, June 22, 1964, 155.

97. Unit 6, Minute Books, January 25, 1965, 180. Moreover, working on permit in another local’s jurisdiction was also proving difficult. At a “Special Meeting” of Local 213 on July 5, 1965, “Bro. Turner reported men could not get work in Interior [of BC] because they were from LU 213.” Minute Books, July 5, 1965, 52.

98.National Post, August 10, 1963, 18 (“retired for health reasons”); Minute Books, July 5, 1965, 51.

99.Minute Books, July 5, 1965, 51.

100.Minute Books, November 1, 1965, 124.

101. See Unit 1, Minute Books, February 21, 1966, 118.

102. “Union Agreement Found Not Binding,” Vancouver Sun, December 10, 1965, 30.

103.Minute Books, April 22, 1965, 3.

104. Letter from Art O’Keeffe to Gordon M. Freeman, “Re: A. O’Keeffe—2 appeals,” December 20, 1966, 3. According to O’Keeffe, the company stool pigeon within BCDT appeared to be a certain Jack Whiting. O’Keeffe wrote of Whiting: “He is the party, in collusion with the Company, who tried to sell out the members.” See “Appeal of A. O’Keeffe to International President I.B.E.W. Gordon M. Freeman re Suspension,” August 5, 1966, 8, RBSC-ARC-1783, O’Keeffe papers.

105. The precise date was May 11, 1965. Letter from Art O’Keeffe to W. Ladyman, “Re: BC District Telegraph Co. Ltd.,” November 15, 1965, 1, RBSC-ARC-1783, O’Keeffe papers.

106. The International Office of the IBEW may have been pressuring Jack Ross to intervene directly, perhaps without realizing that Canada’s labour laws were sometimes very different from those in the United States. In a 1963 decision in the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the IO won a landmark ruling against Local 28 of Baltimore, Maryland. The ruling empowered the IO to revoke Local 28’s charter and hand over the local’s former jurisdiction to the newly founded Local 24. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Soper noted, “In order to break the strike the IP brought in workers from outside the State, and persuaded union men in other trades not to respect the Local’s picket line. The IP was angry with the union because it would not do his bidding and it is obvious that instead of supporting the Local in the dispute he used his weight in support of the employing contractors.” As he went on to point out, “This was the only case in which the IP [International president] had refused his consent to a strike by a Local Union when it desired to strike in order to maintain its position in a legitimate labor dispute.” See John E. Parks, Jr., and Robert M. Foote and Albert Mchugh and Paul Ziegler and Silvio Stamerro, Individually and as Representatives of the Members of Local 28, IBEW, in a Class Action, and Local Union 28, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Appellees and Cross-appellants, v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Appellant and Cross-appellee. Local Union No. 24 (IBEW), Intervenor, 314 F.2d 886 (4th Cir. 1963), http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/314/886/263348/ (unpaginated).

107. Quoted in letter from Art O’Keeffe to W. Ladyman, “Re: BC District Telegraph Co. Ltd.”

108. “BC District Telegraph Co. Ltd. v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 213 et al.,” British Columbia Supreme Court, November 30, 1965, in Canadian Labour Law Cases, vol. 3, 1964–1966, 334–35.

109. “BC District Telegraph Co. Ltd. v. International Brotherhood,” 335. See also “Union Agreement Found Not Binding,” Vancouver Sun, December 10, 1965, 30.

110. Letter from O’Keeffe to J. D. Keenan, “Re: Local 213 I.B.E.W. Appeal to the I.B.E.W. Convention,” March 23, 1966, 2. RBSC-ARC-1783, O’Keeffe papers.

111. Letter from Art O’Keeffe to J. D. Keenan, “Re: Local 213 I.B.E.W. Appeal to the I.B.E.W. Convention.”

112. Art O’Keeffe to W. Ladyman “Re: Charges filed by Bro. A. D. MacDonald,” 10.

113. The resolution read: “That Bro. J. Ross be replaced as Int. Rep for BC & that the I.P. [International President] G.M. Freeman & the Int. Executive Board be petitioned to that effect & that a brief be prepared to substantiate LU 213’s position.” Minute Books, “General Meeting,” November 1, 1965, 126. Jess Succamore recalled that it was either, or perhaps both, Les McDonald and George Angus from the wiremen’s unit that moved and/or seconded this particular resolution, as well as two other resolutions that targeted Ross in the ensuing months. Interview with Jess Succamore, October 9, 2016.

114.Minute Books, September 26, 1960, 12. Historian Edward Seymour reported that in 1964 the IBEW had approximately 40,000 members in Canada. Seymour, Illuminating the Past, Brightening the Future, 111.

115.Minute Books, September 15, 1965, 94; September 30, 1965, 101; and March 31, 1966, 229–31. Les McDonald cites “around 3,000” members in Local 213 in 1965 in his scribbler, “The Union, 1965–66,” n.p., RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–12. The Vancouver Sun cites 3,300 members a year later. “Union President Ejected from Hall,” Vancouver Sun, 13 May 1966, C2.

116. Milligan, Rebel Youth, 38.

117. Phillips Cables’s workers had also been on a seventeen-day strike in 1958. “New Pact Ends Alarm System Strike,” Vancouver Sun, March 11, 1958, 1. The company appeared not to have a history of amicable collective bargaining with its electrical workers. The workers would eventually abandon the IBEW in 1967 and join the newly formed Canadian Electrical Workers Union (CEWU).

118. Interview with Succamore, September 25, 2016.

119. See Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 114–15.

120. Interview with Jess Succamore, September 25, 2016.

121. Letter from Art O’Keeffe to W. Ladyman, “Re: International Representative J. N. Ross charges against John Morrison, Assistant Business Manager, Local 213,” February 8, 1966, RBSC-ARC-1783, Art O’Keeffe papers, file 4-11.

122. “Re: International Representative J. N. Ross charges against John Morrison.” “Collins Radio cowboys” is from Les McDonald’s scribbler “The Union, 1965–66,” n.p., but it is likely he picked up the expression from conversing with Morrison himself. For details of the contract let to Collins Radio by BC Hydro, see “B.C. Hydro Awards $1 Million Contract,” Daily Province, July 2, 1965, 22.

123. “Re: International Representative J. N. Ross charges against John Morrison.” It should be made clear that Ann MacDonald’s testimony was provided in an affidavit rather than in person.

124. John Morrison appealed his dismissal, but the appeal was predictably denied. The announcement that he had lost his assistant’s position was officially recorded in the Minute Books, March 8, 1966, 216. For a general outline of the story in the local press that broke two days later, see “Union Agent to Appeal Suspension,” Vancouver Sun, March 10, 1966, 37. On Art O’Keeffe’s opinion of Morrison’s dismissal by Ross, which he considered “vindictive and retaliatory,” see “Hearing of A. O’Keeffe Appeal Before International Executive Council,” Salt Lake City, Utah, June 10, 1966, 3. RBSC-ARC-1783, O’Keeffe papers.

125. Les McDonald noted the “near unanimous demand for removal” of Jack Ross as International representative. “The Union, 1965–66.” Local 213’s Minute Books, however, appear to be problematic: despite clear evidence of the discussion and vote, the record is silent as to the voting outcome of the resolution. Minute Books, “Special Order of Business” during General Meeting, June 3, 1966, 167–68.

126.Minute Books, June 3, 1966, 168.

127. Les McDonald, “The Union, 1965–66,” n.p.

1. As an adult, Les insisted that his earliest childhood memory was seeing the torches lit at night for the beginning of the Jarrow Crusade, a hunger march that began on October 5, 1936, and ran throughout the month and was strongly supported by MP Ellen Wilkinson. A family photograph seems to indicate that his father, Hugh, was a participant in the early part of the 282-mile-long march to London.

2. Information regarding Les McDonald’s climbing abilities and reputation has been gathered from conversations over the years with his old friends from the Tyneside area, in particular brothers Joe and Alec Collerton, Harry (Chum) Warmington, Derek Hodgson, and Gerard MacGill. Decades later, MacGill still recalled Les as possessing “a singular trait of fearlessness.” Gerard MacGill, email message to author, July 5, 2021.

3. Les and his fiancée, Monique Richer, were undoubtedly influenced by the fact that in Newcastle “Canada was clamouring for immigrants, there were posters everywhere.” Then, while they were on a ferry in the Geirangerfjord in Norway, discussing which country and city they should emigrate to, an American from California overheard them. He interrupted the conversation and suggested Vancouver, Canada. They had never heard of the city before, but the American obviously sold them on the idea. Personal notes from Monique McDonald, in the author’s possession.

4. Gerard MacGill, “The Not Quite Famous Five—a Fairly Reliable Wallsend Memoir,” 14. Draft of a personal memoir dated July 5, 2021, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 6–03.

5. Sarah Springman and Monique McDonald, quoted in Susan Grant, “The Paradigm Shifter,” 32.

6. “Il était exigeant pour ses amis, tyrannique avec ses collaborateurs, impitoyable envers ses ennemis. On passait parfois sans transition de l’une à l’autre catégorie. Son charme s’exerçait surtout sur les étrangers, les nouveaux venus, qu’il étonnait et éblouissait. Pour ses proches, ce charme était émoussé ou même irritant.” Monique McDonald, personal notes, in author’s possession; author’s translation.

7. The term “wobble” attests to the historical importance of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), popularly known as “the Wobblies,” an industrial union representing workers in all trades that rose to prominence early in the twentieth century. In the Pacific Northwest, the term “wobble” was heard on both sides of the border. It was commonly used by members of Seattle-based IBEW Local 46 to describe a mid-contract walkout that aimed to force an immediate resolution to a dispute—a tactic in line with the IWW’s emphasis on direct action at the workplace. See Nicole Grant, “Seattle’s Electrical Workers Minority Caucus: A History.”

8. Gerard MacGill, email message to author, August 16, 2021.

9. Les McDonald, “Mourn Not His Passing—Celebrate His Life,” eulogy for Bill Stewart’s funeral, February 2, 2008. RBSC-ARC-1783.

10. See White, A Hard Man to Beat.

11. Interview with Monique McDonald, September 18, 2016.

12. Les did not realize it at the time, but the year prior to his arrival in Canada a small independent electrical workers’ union (the ACEWA—the All Canadian Electrical Workers’ Association), based in the North Vancouver shipyard and led by Bert Adair, had been the union of choice for the shipyard electricians for decades. In A Hard Man to Beat, Bill White maintains they were double-crossed by the Communist-led Marine Workers and Boilermakers Union in 1954–55, which led to the independent union collapsing and having to join Local 213 of the IBEW. Ironically, and almost simultaneously, the Communist leadership of Local 213 was then ousted by their International Office. Neither side won anything. When his own workers, encouraged by Communist shop stewards, crossed the independent electricians’ picket line, Bill White resigned in disgust as president of the Boilermakers in late December 1954. He also quit the Communist Party. White, A Hard Man to Beat, 206–7.

13. Quoted in Ross Johnson, “No Compromise—No Political Trading: the Marxian Socialist Tradition in British Columbia,” 193.

14. Interview with Monique McDonald, September 18, 2016.

15. Henri “Coucou” Barrio was a famous mountain climber both before and after World War II in and around the Aspe Valley in the Pyrénées, particularly the alpine refuge at l’Abérouat. He was also a teacher, a lifelong Communist, and a noted participant in the Resistance during the war.

16. On the ETU, see Rolph, All Those in Favour? From a Communist historical perspective, see also Graham Stevenson, “The ETU and the Communist Party,” Graham Stevenson, accessed October 17, 2024, https://grahamstevenson.me.uk/2014/10/29/the-etu-and-the-communist-party/.

17. Luff, “Labor Anticommunism in the United States of America,” 113. Even though lifelong Communist intellectuals, such as the highly regarded historian, Eric Hobsbawm, were systematically monitored by MI5—in Hobsbawm’s case then forced to teach at lower-level Birkbeck College in order to make a living—Luff emphatically illustrates her argument on the absence in the country of a co-ordinated, damaging, and publicly virulent anti-communism: “There was no British analogue to the House Un-American Activities Committee, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s lists of alleged communist spies, the Hollywood blacklist, or the atomic espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. In Britain, ‘there is no complacency, no panic, no hysteria’ over communism” (133). More to the point, perhaps, is that despite despicable backroom governmental targeting, Eric Hobsbawm nevertheless became “Britain’s most respected historian of any kind.” Martin Kettle and Dorothy Wedderburn, “Historian in the Marxist Tradition with a Global Reach,” The Guardian, October 1, 2012, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/01/eric-hobsbawm.

18. For their loyal political allegiance to the politics of the Labour Party, see Frank Jacobs, “Carbon Copy Maps: Digging Coal, Digging Labour,” Daily Scientific News, May 19, 2015, https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/carbon-copy-maps-digging-coal-digging-labour. In particular, Jacobs writes that even as Labour Party electoral successes appear to be slowly receding into history, the common denominator between most of its remaining working-class strongholds and the past is “King Coal, even decades after his dethronement.”

19.“Le Parti des Fusillés” (The Party of the Executed) was the PCF’s nickname immediately following World War II. I still remember witnessing such family rows. After multiple glasses of red wine, Les’s increasingly angry tone with his conservative “bourgeois” in-laws always began with the following pointed question: “So what did you actually do during the German Occupation?” The discussion would degenerate from there. Monique stayed calm, trying (unsuccessfully) to bridge the gap between what was often described as a “clash of cultures.” On at least one occasion, my relatives teasingly reminded me, after Les had stormed out, that this kind of behaviour was to be expected because, after all, the English were hereditary enemies (“la perfide albion”) and were responsible for having had Joan of Arc burned at the stake.

20. Canadian born-and-bred “Electrical Bill” was also sometimes called “Burnaby Bill” Stewart. “Boilermaker Bill,” however, had emigrated from Scotland and lived in Vancouver; his full name was William Angus Stewart.

21. See White, A Hard Man to Beat, 86–87.

22. See I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 276–78.

23. Interview with Terry Simpson, July 17, 1985.

24. Les McDonald, “To Lecia Stewart, On the Celebration of Your Father’s 75th Birthday,” 2–5. RBSC-ARC-1783, Box 4–06. The Minute Books recording the general meetings strongly hint at a corroboration of this story—“Bro. W. Stewart raised the question of the International Trusteeship of Local 213 I.B.E.W.” Minute Books, February 23, 1959, 171.

25. Interview with Ernie Fulton, November 24, 1984.

26. Interview with Dora Stewart, October 19, 2016. As a young boy, I witnessed this car-denting incident, an in-your-face type of lesson on anti-materialism.

27. Gord Foster and Bill Harper, “Local 213 Militancy Survives International Purges,” Western Voice, May 8–June 10, 1975, 8–9. Ernie Fulton later put the number at fifteen, Interview with Ernie Fulton, November 24, 1984.

28. These are one Fred Wilson’s descriptions of required Communist Party commitments. The approximate amount for the monthly Communist Party dues required in the 1950s and 1960s are an extrapolation from the amount cited in 1985. Doug Ward, “Reds,” Vancouver Sun, December 14, 1985, A1, A12.

29. John McCuish was subsequently blacklisted from the IBEW beginning in December 1955. See accusatory affidavit from McCuish in this regard in I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 276–79. The affidavit contains fascinating details about the very real probability of RCMP co-ordination in the suspension of Communist-inclined electrical workers from Local 213 in 1955.

30. McCuish, quoted in Neufeld and Parnaby, The IWA in Canada, 120.

31. Interview with Dora Stewart, July 15, 2019.

32. Doug Ward, “Reds,” Vancouver Sun, December 14, 1985, A12.

33. Interview with Colin Snell, August 11, 2014.

34. Art O’Keeffe reminisced that the local lost a significant number of its contract linemen in the late 1950s and early 1960s to a lucrative job market in southern California. He also pointed out that working on permit outside one’s own local when times were tough was one of the big advantages of belonging to an “international” union. Interview with Art O’Keeffe, December 4, 1982.

35. In this regard, see “100 Laid Off at Drydock,” Vancouver Sun, November 2, 1959, 1; “Warship Finished; 175 Men Lose Jobs,” Vancouver Sun, November 6, 1959, 15. See also “Jobless Crisis Grows—Action Demanded Now,” Pacific Tribune, February 26, 1960, 1.

36. “1960–1968,” IBEW, accessed October 17, 2024, https://ibew46.com/history/1960-1969/.

37. For these comments and a general description of the wobble in Castlegar and the role that shop stewards played in the larger union movement, see “Construction Workers Fight Boss, Roadmen,” Pacific Tribune, September 16, 1960, 6. The article pointed to a June 1958 meeting in Calgary at which “building trades roadmen and representatives of prime contractors of B.C. and Alberta” discussed their “mutual interests” and agreed that these “would be best served by stripping the shop stewards movement of its authority.” The notion of organized shop stewards who would have expansive authority on job sites, originally a British idea, had also been promoted in Ontario by UE and other Communist-influenced unions. It was opposed by more conservative trade unionists not only because of its political colouring but also because it often acted as a rank-and-file counterweight to top-down union bureaucrats. See Smith, Cold Warrior, 71–73.

38. Telephone interview with Al Fisher, December 13, 2017.

39. Telephone interview with Al Fisher, December 13, 2017.

40. See “Labour Candidates in Civic Elections Deserve Your Support,” The Labor Statesman, November 1962, 7.

41. On his election as a delegate to the 1964 BC Federation of Labour Convention, see the entry, “History as a delegate for Local 213,” in Les McDonald, “The Union, 1965–66,” n.p.

42. Unit 6, Minute Books, May 25, 1964, 150.

43. Unit 6, Minute Books, May 25, 1964, 151. For O’Keeffe’s previous efforts in trying to negotiate on his own a 35-hour work week with the construction contractors in 1958, see “‘No Choice,’ Say Contractors; Electricians Cry ‘Treachery,’” Vancouver Sun, June 4, 1958, 3.

44. See “Building Pace Nears Record,” Vancouver Sun, August 6, 1964, 23.

45. Unit 6, Minute Books, July 31, 1964, 159.

46. Bryce Williams, “Electricians Win 37½-Hour Week,” Vancouver Sun, August 1, 1964, 1. See also synopsis of the collective agreement in “37½ hr. Week for Electricians, B.C. Labor Scores Big Gains,” Pacific Tribune, August 7, 1964, 11. The main points contained the wage increments over the term of the contract and the implementation of the 37.5-hour week in the third year of the contract, beginning in 1967. The electricians were already the highest-paid BC building trades workers and had been since 1958.

47.Minute Books, September 8, 1964, 371.

48. “Inside Electrical Workers Collective Agreement, May 1, 2023, to April 30, 2026,” https://assets.clra-bc.com/2021/08/2023-2026-Inside-Electrical-Workers-Collective-Agreement-Signed.pdf.

49. Les McDonald notebook, Communist Party Educational Camp, Sylvan Lake, Alberta, July 13–18, 1964, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–08.

50. Telephone interview with Dennis Rankin, December 29, 2020. (No relation to Vancouver lawyer and civic activist Harry Rankin.)

51. “50 Electricians Fail to Report,” Vancouver Sun, August 3, 1965, 3.

52. According to Benjamin Isitt, “Between 1946 and 1955, the BC Supreme Court received 69 applications for injunctions relating to labour disputes and granted all but two; from 1956 to 1965, this trend intensified, with the courts granting 224 of 226 applications for ex parte injunctions, where the union was denied notice or hearing.” Militant Minority, 139.

53. See roster of “Squamish Job” wiremen in 1965, RBSC-ARC-1783, Les McDonald papers.

54. It is not certain that Herb Crabtree was a member of the Communist Party, although Terry Simpson definitely thought that he was a member in 1965.

55. “35 Fired with Okay of Union,” Vancouver Sun, March 13, 1965, 5. For part of the story on the seven union members subsequently suspended from Local 213 on the Prince George job site, see “Introductory Editorial,” C.E.W.U. Live Wire, January 1967, 1, RBSC-ARC-1783, Barry Sharbo papers, file 4-16. See also “Electricians Carry Grievance to Court,” Prince George Citizen, September 24, 1965, 3; “100 Pulp Mill Workers Idle in Snap Strike,” Prince George Citizen, March 15, 1965, 1; and “Electricians Strike Goes to Arbitration,” Prince George Citizen, March 16, 1965, 1.

56. Notes from Les McDonald for his eulogy at Herb Crabtree’s funeral, 1–2, n.d., RBSC-ARC-1783.

57. See Les McDonald’s brief account of the police dog attacking Ernie Fulton in British Columbia Federation of Labour, Annual Convention: Summary of Proceedings, 1965, 196.

58. “50 Electricians Fail to Report,” Vancouver Sun, August 3, 1965, 3.

59.Minute Books, August 2, 1965, 68–70.

60. “50 Electricians Fail to Report,” Vancouver Sun, August 3, 1965, 3.

61.Minute Books, August 2, 1965, 69.

62. “IBEW Wins at Squamish,” Pacific Tribune, August 13, 1965, 8. That McDonald ghost wrote (or co-wrote) both the August 6 and August 13 articles is suggested by the two photos of the strike that appeared August 6 in the Pacific Tribune. Both are attributed to him in the weekly paper and are to be found in one of his personal photo albums.

63.Minute Books, August 2, 1965, 69.

64. The precise telegram to Attorney General Bonner is also written by hand in one of Les McDonald’s union scribblers (the “Green Scribbler”). RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–12.

65.Vancouver Sun, March 13, 1965, 5.

66. “IBEW Wins at Squamish,” Pacific Tribune, August 13, 1965, 8.

67.Minute Books, August 2, 1965, 70.

68. See the following articles in the Pacific Tribune: “Sportlight,” April 1, 1960, 7; “Sportlight,” May 6, 1960, 7; “Cold War Winds Hit Sports Scene,” February 12, 1960, 7; “Canada and the Rome Olympics,” June 30, 1960, 7; “‘Indian Days’—a Real Pageant,” June 18, 1963, 11–12; “Garibaldi Must Remain in Hands of BC People,” July 19, 1963, 5; “No Nuclear Arms Parade Draws Large City Turnout,” April 24, 1964, 3.

69. See Fisher, “Strike Activity and Wildcat Strikes in British Columbia.” Of note is that fully half of all strike activity in Nova Scotia during this forty-year time period were wildcat strikes, beating British Columbia’s notorious proclivity for worker militancy.

70. For a description of the short-lived Progressive Workers’ Movement (1964–70), see “The Progressive Workers’ Movement,” Next Year Country: A Saskatchewan Socialist News Blog, http://nextyearcountrynews.blogspot.ca/2010/12/progressive-workers-movement.html. For a period piece in the popular press (with accompanying headshots of Jack Scott, “Electrical Bill” Stewart, and Jerry Lebourdais), see Tom Hazlitt, “Militant New Reds Rise from Conflict,” Daily Province, November 14, 1964, 5.

71. Jack Scott, A Communist Life, 5, 182, 183.

72. “Solidarity Wins for Labor—Every Time,” Pacific Tribune, December 24, 1965, 12.

73. Jamieson, Times of Trouble, 421–22. For the Communist perspective, see also Jerry Shack, “Union Solidarity Scores Victory for Oilworkers,” Pacific Tribune, November 26, 1965, 1.

74. Shack, “Union Solidarity Scores Victory for Oilworkers.”

75. See Jerry Lebourdais’s obituary, “Jeremie (Jerry) Louis Quesnel Lebourdais,” Community Enhancement and Economic Development Society, October 27, 2024, http://www.horselakefarmcoop.ca/ceeds/jerry-lebourdais.html.

76. Substantiated in interview with Jess Succamore, June 11, 2017; and also in Scott, A Communist Life, 180.

77. A telegram from the International Office on the possibility of a general strike in support of the oil workers was read at a Special Meeting of Local 213—it noted clearly that “stating strike action is illegal . . . and only [International] Pres. G. M. Freeman can authorize strike,” Minute Books, November 22, 1965; 140, 144. See also John Olding, “Truce Formula Proposed to Avert General Strike,” Vancouver Sun, November 23, 1965, 2. Evidently choosing to ignore the directives of a meddlesome International officer, the $2,000 donation was made in any case at the meeting; the reported 609 members in attendance voted unanimously to donate the money. Minute Books, November 22, 1965, 140, 144. See also Business Manager’s News Letter, December 1965, 4, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 2-14.

78.Minute Books, November 22, 1965, 143. Bill Ladyman immediately inserted himself into the debate. In a lengthy telegram to Art O’Keeffe, somehow obtained and published by the Vancouver Sun, the International vice-president declared: “While this office has no objection to your local giving every possible legal assistance to the OCAW during current difficulties, the general strike action . . . is illegal under provincial law and in violation of IBEW constitution. B.C. Federation has no authority or autonomy over IBEW local unions and only international president (Gordon) Freeman can sanction strike action. Therefore all IBEW locals are hereby directed to perform normal duties and honor all existing collective agreements regardless of federation directive.” “Truce Formula Proposed to Avert General Strike,” Vancouver Sun, November 23, 1965, 2.

79. Les McDonald was reporting in this instance as an invited speaker to the line contracting unit. See Unit 2, Minute Books, December 7, 1965, 117.

80. “Solidarity Wins for Labor—Every Time,” Pacific Tribune, December 24, 1965, 12.

81. This was Ernie Fulton’s estimate of Communist Party numbers in the wiremen’s unit of Local 213. Interview with Ernie Fulton, November 24, 1984.

82.Minute Books, September 3, 1965, 96–100.

83.Minute Books, September 3, 1965, 96–97.

84. In addition, two weeks later, in a second discussion on declarations of note from the BCFL convention, the Pacific Tribune reported that “electrical workers delegate, Les McDonald, reported his union in full support of the BCFL-OCAW 48-hour strike, and that his union has already told their company if the latter has a ‘hot line’ with the provincial government, they had better use it.” “VLC Gives Its Full Support to Oil Strike,” Pacific Tribune, November 19, 1965, 3.

85. Robert Strachan, leader of the British Columbia CCF had called for the nationalization of the BC Telephone Company in 1959, but the NDP, Canada’s socialist (then eventually social democratic) party, had distanced itself from this position by 1965. On Strachan’s position in 1959 see “Bennett Statement Causes Wonder,” Vancouver Sun, November 3, 1959, 40.

86. Plecas, Bill Bennett: A Mandarin’s View, 106.

87.United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437 (1965); Tom McEwen, “A Milestone in B.C.’s Labor History,” Pacific Tribune, November 12, 1965, 3.

88. British Columbia Federation of Labour, Annual Convention: Summary of Proceedings, 1965, 110.

89. British Columbia Federation of Labour, Annual Convention: Summary of Proceedings, 1965, 106.

90. The resolutions approved by Local 213 for the 1965 BCFL convention do not include one arguing in favour of the “right to strike” while a collective agreement was in force. See the resolutions that were approved in the Minute Books, October 14, 1965, 109–11.

91. British Columbia Federation of Labour, Annual Convention: Summary of Proceedings, 1965, 110.

92. Jim MacFarlan, written commentary on Les McDonald, November 20, 2018, 7, in the author’s possession.

93. See Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, Left Out, 177.

94. On the deliberate misuse of this latter term by the Communist Party, see Campbell, “The Cult of Spontaneity.” For a short description of the IWW and its attitude toward politics and the role of the state vis-à-vis that of the Communist Party, see Klas Balato, “The IWW, the State, and International Affiliations,” libcom.org, January 8, 2014, https://libcom.org/library/iww-state-international-affiliations.

95. See Isitt, “Tug-of-War.”

96.Business Manager’s News Letter, December 1965, 3.

97. “Special Meeting” Minute Books, September 29, 1965, 95.

98. Dave Barrett, “Kinnaird’s Spirit, Dedication Will Live in Hearts and Memories,” The Democrat, March 1983, 4. In the election of delegates to the 1965 BC Federation of Labour Convention, Les McDonald was elected as a delegate, while Kinnaird was an alternate. Fred Allison, originally elected, couldn’t go, so first alternate Jim Kinnaird did. Meeting of the executive board, Unit 6, Minute Books, October 3, 1965, 254.

99. Les McDonald and Jim Kinnaird, “Labour-Management Conference of Economic and Technological Changes in the Sixties, 19–20 May 1965, Bayshore Inn,” RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–09.

100. Within a year, Kinnaird would be followed on the inside wiremen’s executive board by Cliff Rundgren, at the time a member of the electrical workers’ Communist Party-led caucus. The election of Rundgren to the inside wiremen’s executive board exemplified how the Party was making inroads into the wiremen’s leadership structure.

101. See notes from February 3, 1966, in Les McDonald, “The Union, 1965–66,” n.p.

102. Interview with Ernie Fulton, November 24, 1984.

103. Unit 6, Minute Books, July 27, 1964, 157.

104. See notation on Les McDonald’s election as a delegate from Local 213 to the VDLC, Unit 6, Minute Books, September 27, 1965, 249.

105.Minute Books, Special Meeting, November 22, 1965, 152. McDonald lost by a vote of 208 to 174. British Columbia Federation of Labour, Annual Convention: Summary of Proceedings, 1965, 164.

106. The votes were as follows: Les McDonald 101, Tom Constable 78, Angus MacDonald 67. But Constable ended up not being able to go, so third place finisher Angus MacDonald went in his place at the last moment. Minute Books, “General Meeting,” February 7, 1966, 196.

107. Interview with Terry Simpson, July 17, 1985.

108. Actually nominated for office on the unity slate for the upcoming June elections in Local 213 were an interesting and politically heterogeneous group. See Minute Books, May 9, 1966, 253–58. The altered slate included John Kapalka, Les McDonald, George Brown, Brian Bethel, Jess Succamore, Donna Pooghkay, Art Goy, Ernie Fulton, Bob Towle, and Cliff Rundgren. The first six of these candidates would subsequently have their nominations refused by the International Office following the events at Lenkurt.

109. Interview with Ernie Fulton. Jess Succamore agreed: “Ernie Fulton is right about Stewart and McDonald putting O’Keeffe through the grind over the years. I agree with him completely.” Interview with Jess Succamore, October 30, 2016.

110. Telephone interview with Jim MacFarlan, November 1, 2018.

111. Interview with Jim MacFarlan, November 20, 2018.

112.Minute Books, February 7, 1966, 199. See also resolution no. 151 submitted by IBEW Local 213 in “Resolutions, Submitted to the Sixth Constitutional Convention, Canadian Labour Congress,” Winnipeg, Manitoba, April 25–29, 1966, 39–40, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3-11. There were, in total, 398 resolutions.

113.Minute Books, February 7, 1966, 198–99. These were much more carefully worded resolutions compared to the previous CLC convention in 1964. A resolution submitted in Montréal by the North Burnaby local of the OCAW (Local 9–601, led by Jerry Lebourdais) had been blunt: “Be it resolved that the Canadian Labour Congress press for complete Canadian autonomy for Canadian members within international unions.” It was rejected by the attending delegates by a margin of 3–1. Labour Gazette, June 30, 1964, 467.

114. “Proceedings of the Fortieth Annual Convention of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada (1924),” 102, quoted in Robin, Radical Politics and Canadian Labour, 259–60. On the larger issue of Canadian autonomy during the 1923 TLC Convention in Vancouver, see Manley, “Does the International Labour Movement Need Salvaging?” 160–61.

115. On Percy Bengough’s nationalist sympathies, see Marcuse, “Labour’s Cold War,” 201.

116. Quoted in the Labour Gazette, January 1964, 24.

117. What undoubtedly didn’t help Local 213’s cause was that the only international unions in the early 1960s that offered real autonomy to their Canadian locals had elements of Communist leadership: UE (United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America), the West Coast Longshoremen (ILWU), and Mine-Mill (IUMMSW).

118. Jim MacFarlan, written commentary on Les McDonald, 7, in the author’s possession.

119.Minute Books, February 7, 1966, 198–204. See also Les McDonald’s notes at the back of his personal copy of “Resolutions, Submitted to the Sixth Constitutional Convention, Canadian Labour Congress,” RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–11.

120. Gray, “Woodworkers and Legitimacy,” 249.

121. List of Committees, Sixth Constitutional Convention of the Canadian Labour Congress, Winnipeg, April 25–29, 1966, 8.

122. Quoted in Isitt, Militant Minority, 64. There were several resolutions to readmit the ousted left-led unions. New Westminster Local 1928 of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners had championed the cause, arguing that “the recent victory of the Oil Workers in B.C. . . . demonstrated the results that labour unity can bring about” in support of their resolution. “Resolutions,” no. 140, 37. Similar requests also came from Vancouver Local 452 of the same union; Vancouver Local 15 of the Office and Technical Employees Union (OTEU); Local 1 of the Vancouver Marine Workers’ and Boilermakers’ Union; and the BC Federation of Labour. Even the London and District Labour Council called for a “conference to which we would invite representation from all organized labour unions presently outside our jurisdiction.” There was support from other union representatives as well. See resolutions nos. 139, 140, 141, 143, 152, 153, and 158, “Resolutions,” 36–41. Two years later, in 1968, the CLC voted to delete the general philosophical and policy statements barring Communists, or Communist-led unions, from belonging to the national labour body. For the context and an explanation of this important change in policy, see Avakumovic, The Communist Party in Canada, 250–51.

123. Les McDonald, note in his personal copy of “Resolutions,” 35.

124. These were resolutions numbered 19, 136, 142, 245, and 314. They are those listed in the body of the essay, except for the one on automation and a shorter work week. It is not clear whether the latter resolution, or a similar one—there were several—passed. See also Les McDonald’s notes on the fate of Local 213’s resolutions at the back of his personal Resolutions package.

125. Speech of Claude Jodoin, Sixth Constitutional Convention of the Canadian Labour Congress, 5.

126. Sixth Constitutional Convention, 102–3. This important and comprehensive resolution had a general preamble and four subsections condemning the use of provincial Supreme Court ex parte injunctions. Militant in both tone and content, it had replaced a weaker resolution on the same topic introduced on the first day of the convention, but which was withdrawn after much criticism. See Sixth Constitutional Convention, 14. See also “Labor to Battle Court Injunctions,” Vancouver Sun, April 30, 1966, 21.

1. The address was later renumbered to 7018 Lougheed Highway. Information about the specialization in microwave equipment was supplied by former Lenkurt employee, Brian Bethel, in an interview on February 19, 2017. For more on Department of National Defence contracts, see also Collective Agreement Between Lenkurt Electric Company and IBEW Local Union 213, February 20, 1964–March 4, 1966, Part 7, Article 9, subsection 9, Department of Labour, Labour Relations Branch, BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, Victoria.

2. Fox, Toxic Work, 31–32.

3. Number of unionized Lenkurt workers cited in “Application for a Conciliation Officer,” December 21, 1965, 3, Department of Labour, Labour Relations Branch, BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, Victoria.

4. If the total membership of Local 213 in 1966 was approximately 3,300 members, then 400 Lenkurt workers make up 12.12% of the total. See “Union President Ejected from Hall,” Vancouver Sun, May 13, 1966, 2, for approximate numbers of union members in Local 213.

5. See Stephenson, History and Structure, 24.

6. Wage rate of women Lenkurt workers cited in Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 91. See also “Schedule A, Job Classifications,” Collective Agreement Between Lenkurt Electric Company and IBEW Local Union 213, 10. At the time, some women workers represented by the more effective UE at a General Electric plant in Peterborough, Ontario, “could make as much as $2 per hour.” Sangster, “‘We No Longer Respect the Law,’” 51.

7. On how UE survived the Cold War in Canada basically intact, see Turk, “Surviving the Cold War.”

8. Scott, A Communist Life, 180. As an example of his efforts in Vancouver, see pamphlet from George Gee, National Representative U.E., “To: Employees, Federal Pacific Electric,” August 8, 1967, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 4–16.

9. Joyce Cameron, Virginia Reimer, and Cathy Walker, “Lenkurt Strike 1966,” undergraduate paper, British Columbia Institute of Technology, 1971, 2, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–02.

10. Scott, A Communist Life, 178.

11. Interview with Brian Bethel, February 19, 2017.

12. Interview with Jess Succamore, September 25, 2016.

13. Interview with Brian Bethel, February 19, 2017.

14. Interview with Jess Succamore, September 25, 2016.

15. The Trotskyist League for Socialist Action functioned in several guises and iterations between 1934 and 1977—the result of constant splintering within the Trotskyist movement. Brown and his wife, Helen, for example, had reportedly formed a “micro-faction” within the Socialist Labour League while in Scotland, then tried briefly to do the same upon their arrival and their joining of the LSA in Canada in 1963. Yet, shortly after settling in the Vancouver area, the newly arrived couple appeared to give up on Trotskyism completely, abandoning their previous vanguardist activism. Ernie Tate, a leading member of the LSA in Vancouver at the time, intriguingly reports that although Brown was “active in the union,” he “never ever seemed to be able to discuss with us what he was doing there [in IBEW Local 213], keeping it all secret from us.” Tate, Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s and 60s, 234–35.

16. Reg and Ruth Bullock, Bill and Lillian Whitney, Ernie Tate, and probably poets Milton Acorn and Al Purdy (the latter being a sympathizer) might have been the only Trotskyists Les McDonald knew by name. McDonald appeared to work closely with Charlie Caron, the Party’s trade union director of the Provincial Executive, who undoubtedly kept him informed as to the doings of the other lefts.

17. The metal shop workers were, however, offered an increase in wages. Interview with Jess Succamore, September 25, 2016.

18. See Minute Books, March 8, 1966, 216–17.

19. Interview with Brian Bethel, February 19, 2017. Jess Succamore agreed that “Brown and Constable were very close.” Interview with Jess Succamore, September 25, 2016.

20. Bob Clair, “Strike Action Legal? You Decide,” The Barker, May 1966, 3. Clair probably got much of his information on the goings-on at Lenkurt from Donna Pooghkay, wife of Walter Pooghkay, who was a leading IWA shop-floor activist in Local 1–217.

21.Collective Agreement Between Lenkurt Electric Company and IBEW Local Union 213, Part 2, Article 5, 2–3.

22.Collective Agreement Between Lenkurt Electric Company and IBEW Local Union 213, Part 7, Article 8, 9.

23. Clair, “Strike Action Legal?” 3.

24. Clair, “Strike Action Legal?” 3.

25. Interview with Jess Succamore, September 25, 2016.

26. J. P. Milner, “To All Members of Local 213, IBEW. From: Executive Board Local 213, I.B.E.W.,” July 20, 1966, 2, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 5–08.

27. Unit 5, Minute Books, March 10, 1966, 182, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 5–08.

28. Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 2.

29. “Lenkurt Electric—1966 Negotiations,” Proposal No. 8, 2, Department of Labour, Labour Relations Branch, BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, Victoria. There appears to be a discrepancy of 1% as the Minute Books report a company offer of 16% over three years after the ban on overtime. See Unit 5, Minute Books, April 21, 1966, 191.

30.Collective Agreement Between Lenkurt Electric Company and IBEW Local Union 213, Part 7, Article 4, subsection (c), 8. Lenkurt had also asked Jack Laffling to continue to process its application for a cease-and-desist order against Local 213 to stop harassing employees over what it called “their voluntary, individual decision to work overtime at company request.” “Secret Conciliation Plan Rejected by Firm,” Daily Province, May 4, 1966, 8. On the overtime issue, see Unit 5, Minute Books, April 18, 1966, 188.

31. Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 92–93.

32. Jess Succamore, identified in the Sun as a Lenkurt Employees’ Committee “spokesman,” is mentioned in the article. “257 Employees Fired by Lenkurt,” Vancouver Sun, April 29, 1966, 2.

33. See clauses 6 and 7(2) of the An Act Relating to Trade-unions, SBC 1959, c. 90, cited in Carrothers, “The British Columbia Trades Union Act, 1959,” 297.

34. See clause 47(a) of the Labour Relations Act, SBC 1954, c. 17.

35. “257 Employees Fired by Lenkurt,” Vancouver Sun, April 29, 1966, 2.

36. Interview with Jess Succamore, September 25, 2016. See also Cameron, Reimer, and Walker, “Lenkurt Strike 1966,” 4–5. Jack Scott stressed that Brown “strongly advised against going on strike.” Scott, A Communist Life, 178.

37. Scott, A Communist Life, 178. Scott probably got this important impression of “workers who were determined” directly from Lenkurt Shop Steward George Brown himself, with whom he became subsequently acquainted.

38. Interview with Jess Succamore, September 25, 2016. The identity of the person who yelled “Let’s go down to the union hall” is unknown.

39. Interview with Jess Succamore, January 31, 2017.

40. In the press release, Jess Succamore is quoted in the Sun: “We left our job by individual choice, and not on the union’s advice. It was a walkout to protest intimidation—the management said that if employees didn’t work overtime they were going to get fired.” “257 Employees Fired by Lenkurt,” Vancouver Sun, April 29, 1966, 2. Succamore’s declaration directly contradicted Lenkurt’s personnel manager, William Clement, who had been quoted two days earlier as saying that working overtime at the plant was “on a strictly voluntary basis.” “100 Workers Walk Out,” Vancouver Sun, April 27, 1966, 2.

41. Interview with Brian Bethel, February 19, 2017.

42. Constable even went so far as to say to the press two days later that “the union had advised the employees not to leave their jobs.” “257 Employees Fired by Lenkurt,” Vancouver Sun, April 29, 1966, 2.

43. In July, however, Donna Pooghkay was nominated to represent the Lenkurt employees at a Conciliation Board hearing chaired by Brian Dysart. See “Board of Conciliation Report in the Matter of a Dispute Between Lenkurt Electric and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 213,” July 12, 1966, Department of Labour, Labour Relations Branch, BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, Victoria.

44. If there were 400 members of Local 213’s Unit 5 at Lenkurt and 265 participated in the wobble, then that leaves 135 workers at the plant. For approximate numbers, see “Mounties, Pickets Scuffle at Lenkurt Plant Protest,” Vancouver Sun, May 11, 1966, 2.

45. For more claims and counter-claims on the numbers, see “Labor Forms United Front over Dispute with Lenkurt,” Daily Province, May 12, 1966, 2. The important point is that apparently a significant number of unionized workers did not participate in the wobble.

46. Cameron, Reimer, and Walker, “Lenkurt Strike 1966,” 5.

47. Cameron, Reimer, and Walker, “Lenkurt Strike 1966,” 6.

48. See the advertisements in Vancouver Sun, April 30, 1966, 37, and in the Daily Province, April 30, 1966, 34. See also “Firm ‘Hires’ in Strike,” Daily Province, April 30, 1966, 9.

49. Interview with Brian Bethel, September 19, 2017.

50. Interview with John Kapalka, December 24, 1982.

51. Interview with Jess Succamore, October 30, 2016.

52. “City Unions Back Fired Electricians,” Vancouver Sun, May 4, 1966, 13. Two days later it was reported that Lenkurt had received an increase to 1,800 job applications, including sixty-five from discharged employees. “Labor Group Asks Minister to Intervene at Lenkurt,” Daily Province, May 6, 1966, 13.

53. “Tell Labor’s Side of It in Ads, Urges Council,” Daily Province, May 4, 1966, 2.

54. This accurately reflected what Donald Muldoon has described as the internal security focus of successive federal governments in Canada, which produced in the RCMP an “almost pathological obsession with the left which resulted in state repression becoming a hallmark of communist history.” Muldoon, “Capitalism Unchallenged,” 25.

55. George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, Surveillance files, 1940–2013, Reference file A-2011-00496/DS, Stack 14, RCMP 6981, Code 90, 001443. Capitalization and spelling of surnames as in the original. The RCMP surveillance files series contains Gee’s personal subject file, along with related files. At one point, the surveillance records switch over for a few pages to reporting on Les McDonald and Communist Party meetings in Vancouver.

56. On the left’s willingness to work with Art O’Keeffe, and vice versa, see Les McDonald, “The Union, 1965–66,” n.p.

57. Interview with Angus MacDonald, January 9, 1983.

58. George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, Surveillance files, 1940–2013, RCMP 6981, Code 90, 001443.

59. “Tell Labor’s Side of It in Ads, Urges Council,” Daily Province, May 4, 1966, 2.

60. Testimony of Marion Bachewich, Local 213 Trial Board Minutes (review panel), Lenkurt Dispute, Minute Books, November 15, 1966, 12–13.

61. Quoted in Cameron, Reimer, and Walker, “Lenkurt Strike 1966,” 4. Diane Larsen’s intervention in reaction to Art O’Keeffe’s verbal gaffe is also recounted in interview with Jess Succamore March 26, 2017.

62. Jess Succamore, “Notes for Ian McDonald—Lenkurt Strike,” June 11, 2017, 1. In the author’s possession.

63. For a comprehensive commentary on the historiography of Canadian publications on the subject, see the introduction in Sangster, Through Feminist Eyes.

64. “Harassed Company Seeks Union Curb,” Vancouver Sun, May 3, 1966, 45.

65. “Labor Forms United Front over Dispute with Lenkurt,” Daily Province, May 12, 1966, 2.

66. “Labor to Put Case,” Vancouver Sun, May 4, 1966, 13.

67.Minute Books, May 5, 1966, 252.

68. Quoted in “Labor Group Asks Minister to Intervene at Lenkurt,” Daily Province, May 6, 1966, 13.

69. Telegram, “Art O’Keeffe to Hon. L. R. Peterson, Minister of Labour,” May 6, 1966, Department of Labour, Labour Relations Branch, BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, Victoria.

70. Report from May 5, 1966. George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, Surveillance files, 1940–2013, RCMP 6981, Code 90, 001443.

71. “Hearing of A. O’Keeffe Appeal Before International Executive Council,” 2.

72. “Labor Forms United Front over Dispute with Lenkurt,” Daily Province, May 12, 1966, 2.

73. “Joint Statement made the 9th day of May 1966, by: Lenkurt Electric Co. of Canada, Ltd. and Local 213 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,” signed by C. Hunter and Angus MacDonald. Cameron, Reimer, and Walker, “Lenkurt Strike 1966,” Appendix.

74. “Settlement ‘Out,’” Vancouver Sun, May 10, 1966, 31.

75. “Settlement ‘Out,’” Vancouver Sun, May 10, 1966, 31.

76. The BCFL also publicly announced that it would not endorse Angus MacDonald’s agreement with Lenkurt. Art O’Keeffe, for his part, told the press: “600 members of the local unanimously rejected the agreement signed by local president Angus MacDonald” “Settlement ‘Out,’” Vancouver Sun, May 10, 1966, 31.

77.Minute Books, May 9, 1966, 260.

78.Minute Books, May 9, 1966, 260. See also “Mounties, Pickets Scuffle at Lenkurt Plant Protest,” Vancouver Sun, May 11, 1966, 1. Having this meeting at the IWA hall would also help deflect attention from the IBEW and stall potential lawsuits from Lenkurt against the local union.

79. “Labor Forms United Front over Dispute with Lenkurt,” Daily Province, May 12, 1966, 2.

80. “Pickets Scuffle,” Vancouver Sun, May 11, 1966, 2. In the same article, the Sun claimed that a “total of 168 union members stayed on the job.”

81. “R v Neale, Clarke, O’Keeffe, and Power,” November 22, 1966, Dominion Law Reports, 2nd ser., vol. 60, 619–29. The others specifically named were E. T. Staley, president of the BCFL; E. P. O’Neil, secretary-treasurer of the BCFL; and E. Sims, president of the VDLC.

82. “Peace Talks on Way to Stem Plant Violence?” Daily Province, May 12, 1966, 1.

83. While the historical reference to the famous slave revolt is clear, the uninitiated may not fully appreciate the allusion to a very Leninist concept: “Lenin, understanding that revolutionary consciousness did not develop ‘spontaneously’ but had to be constantly fought for, set out to build a vanguard party capable of fighting for the Marxist program and transforming the revolutionary potential of spontaneous militancy into revolutionary consciousness.” “The Leninist Concept of the Revolutionary Vanguard Party,” accessed October 21, 2024, https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/partyPR46.html.

84. Although he was not a close friend, Brian Bethel remembered Les McDonald as “a rah-rah kind of guy, rallying the troops. He was very proactive, telling people what had taken place. According to him: ‘The company was this, the company was that.’ I remember him maligning the company quite a bit. But that was just par for the course . . . I would say that Les McDonald always had some kind of agenda.” Interview with Brian Bethel, February 19, 2017.

85. McDonald celebrated his thirty-third birthday at the start of the Lenkurt strike, 30 April 1966. On Stewart’s absence, McDonald later wrote: “We would never have got into the Lenkurt Electric mess if Bill had been in Vancouver.” Les McDonald, “To Lecia Stewart, On the Celebration of Your Father’s 75th Birthday,” 10. Dora Stewart would add: “Les was actually quite angry when the Party transferred Bill back to Toronto.” Interview with Dora Stewart, July 15, 2019.

86. Interview with Ernie Fulton, November 24, 1984.

87. Interview with Brian Bethel, February 20, 2017. Although the article does not identify Bethel by name, his part in risking his life during the picket line action is corroborated in “Story of Violence Heard by Inquiry,” Daily Province, May 13, 1966, 2.

88. “Nine Arrested in Strike Clash,” Vancouver Sun, May 12, 1966, 1. The nine arrested were Tom Clarke, Tom Turbett, Walter Pooghkay (all three IWA), John Wood, George Sharpe (both IBEW 213), Jeff Power (Boilermakers), Harold Borris (Carpenters’ Union 452), Jack Longworth (ILWU), Edna Sheard (wife of Communist electrician Sid Sheard). “Union President Ejected from Hall,” Vancouver Sun, May 13, 1966, 2. A labour newspaper humorously noted that Edna Sheard had been arrested for “allegedly pinching a police officer,” The Fisherman, May 13, 1966, 1. Although his name does not appear in the list published in the Sun, Ernie Fulton recalls the Boilermaker Bill Stewart was arrested, too. Interview with Ernie Fulton, November 24, 1984.

89. “Bonner Intervenes In Lenkurt Clash,” Vancouver Sun, May 12, 1966, 1.

90. “Story of Violence Heard by Inquiry,” Daily Province, May 13, 1966, 2.

91. Doug Evans, business manager of IWA local 1–217 (located in Vancouver), confirmed this observation in an interview with the press, accusing the RCMP of “infiltration.” “Lenkurt,” Vancouver Sun, May 14, 1966, 2. See also “RCMP Disguised at Lenkurt Row,” Vancouver Sun, June 21, 1966, 7. The Pacific Tribune, as could be expected, was more direct in its condemnation, citing an unidentified VDLC spokesman to the effect that it was “a planned attempt to create incidents of violence for which labor could be blamed.” “Labor Hits RCMP Violence at Lenkurt,” Pacific Tribune, May 20, 1966, 1. There also appeared to have been several private Pinkerton agents present: see “Labor Bosses Gain Electrical Truce,” Vancouver Sun, May 16, 1966, 3.

92. There had been talks regarding an organizational renewal of ties between the telephone workers and the IBEW in Vancouver, but when Bill Ladyman phoned Bert Johns from Toronto and “was insulting not only to my person, but to my intelligence,” conversations such as Ladyman’s telephone call quickly put an end to it. Letter from B. J. Johns to Appeals Committee, International Convention, IBEW, “Re: Bro. A. O’Keeffe” September 10, 1970, 2. See also “Appeal of A. O’Keeffe to International President I.B.E.W. Gordon M. Freeman re Suspension,” August 5, 1966, 8. Both in RBSC-ARC-1783, Art O’Keeffe papers, file 4–12.

93. “Appeal of A. O’Keeffe to International President I.B.E.W. Gordon M. Freeman re Suspension,” August 5, 1966, 9.

94. Jack Clarke, “Lenkurt Unionists in Revolt,” Daily Province, May 13, 1966, 1.

95. Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 4, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 5–08.

96. “Labor Bosses Gain Electrical Truce,” Vancouver Sun, May 16, 1966, 3.

97. Interview with Jess Succamore, October 29, 2016.

98. Though he strenuously denied uttering the aggressive sentence, it was probably Les McDonald. He used that turn of phrase more than once in his life.

99. Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 4. Angus MacDonald received “three broken and two cracked ribs” during the assault. “Report by Executive Board to membership of Local Union 213 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,” June 1, 1966, 2. RBSC-ARC-1783, Barry Sharbo papers, file 4-16.

100. Succamore also described how Walter Pooghkay helped create the space for the other waiting members of the left faction in the hallway; he pushed Succamore from behind into the executive board room. Interview with Jess Succamore, October 29, 2016.

101. “Union President Ejected from Hall,” Vancouver Sun, May 13, 1966, 2.

102. Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 5.

103. “Angry Electrical Workers Oust President from Hall,” Vancouver Sun, May 13, 1966, 1.

104. Jack Clarke, “Union Waves Olive Branch, Big Stick,” Daily Province, May 13, 1966, 1.

105. “Executive Board Meeting,” Minute Books, May 5, 1966, 252.

106. Bill Ladyman’s full law-and-order comments with Daily Province reporter Jack Clarke can be found in “Story of Violence Heard by Inquiry,” Daily Province, May 13, 1966, 2.

107. “Story of Violence Heard by Inquiry,” Daily Province, May 13, 1966, 2.

108. There were at least three of these resolutions: November 1, 1965; January 3, 1966; and March 8, 1966.

109. The embattled membership of Local 213 would also accuse of Bill Ladyman of having deceived top officials of the BCFL. See handbill, “Local 213 I.B.E.W. Members, Vote Out Executive Dictatorship! Vote in a Democratic Union!” July 1966. RBSC-ARC-1783, Box 5–08.

110. Ian Macalpine, “Peterson Raps Strike ‘Rowdies,’” Vancouver Sun, May 14, 1966, 29.

111. “Nine Arrested in Strike Clash,” Vancouver Sun, May 12, 1966, 1.

112. Ian Macalpine, “Peterson Raps Strike ‘Rowdies,’” Vancouver Sun, May 14, 1966, 29.

113. “Union President Ejected from Hall,” Vancouver Sun, May 13, 1966, 2.

114. “Special Ex. Board Meeting,” Minute Books, May 16, 1966, 277.

115. Interview with Gordon Larkin, January 3, 2019.

116. Ian Macalpine, “Peterson Raps Strike ‘Rowdies,’” Vancouver Sun, May 14, 1966, 29; and also “Labor Bosses Gain Electrical Truce,” Vancouver Sun, May 16, 1966, 3.

117. The approximate number of potential picketers that day was reported by the RCMP, as was the presence of five PWM activists. Identified at the Lenkurt Electric plant were Jerry Lebourdais, Joe Hendsbee, John Wood, Jim Neish, and Gordon Larkin. George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, Surveillance files, 1940–2013, May 25, 1966, 6, 001443–001444.

118. Sympathizers of the PWM considered the decision to call off picketing at Lenkurt May 13, “the turning point of the strike.” When a supporter of the fired Lenkurt workers attempted to reach the plant early Friday morning to participate in the picketing “she was caught in a major traffic jam caused by cars being turned away. She estimated over 1,000 picketers would have been in force on Friday if the demonstration had not been called off.” Cameron, Reimer, and Walker, “Lenkurt Strike 1966,” 9–10. One can only speculate at what might have happened if the picketing had been reinforced and amped up, not ended. See corroboration in Scott, A Communist Life, 173.

119. George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, Surveillance files, 1940–2013, 001444. In the interview with Doug Collins, the new business manager of Local 213, Angus MacDonald would go on to admit that “there has been for some time a split in the union local.”

120. George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, Surveillance files, 1940–2013, 001444.

121. See “Angry Electrical Workers Oust President from Hall,” Vancouver Sun, May 13, 1966, 1.

122. An estimated “80 people were involved in a 24-hour a day siege of the Union Hall and offices and this was kept up about one week.” Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 5. See also brief story in “Lenkurt,” Vancouver Sun, May 14, 1966, 2.

123. The unfortunate nickname was apparently given to him by George Angus. Telephone conversation with Jess Succamore, February 16, 2021.

124. Interview with Tom Forkin, 15 December 1982. Forkin had some experience in these matters as he had helped organize the 1935 occupations in Vancouver of both the downtown Hudson’s Bay Company store and the Carnegie Library by a large group of unemployed demonstrators from government relief camps.

125. For general background to this event and for estimated numbers at meeting, see Jack Clarke, “Strike Chaos Brings Plea from Federation,” Daily Province, May 16, 1966, 23.

126.Minute Books, May 14, 1966, 310.

127. Interview with John Kapalka, December 24, 1982.

128. This and other remarks made during this meeting are from the Minute Books, May 14, 1966, 310–13.

129.Minute Books, May 15, 1966, 313. The chaos that erupted at this meeting is strangely reminiscent of the fracas that occurred in January 1955, after International Office representatives Alfred Terry and Andrew Johnson showed up at a meeting of the union, at the time that George Gee and other known or suspected Communists were suspended and Local 213 was placed in trusteeship. See the detailed account of this episode in chapter 4.

130. John Kapalka’s personal sensitivity and orientation toward safety on the job was well known. He had been involved in a horrific job incident in 1949 where he almost lost his life. For Kapalka’s account of the incident, see I. McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 175–76 (note 51).

131. “Labor Bosses Gain Electrical Truce,” Vancouver Sun, May 16, 1966, 3.

132. It was at about this time that a tragic event took place: the suicide of Jack McSorley, one of the original seven signatories of the charges against George Gee. With four other representatives from Local 213, McSorley had been a delegate to the 1954 Chicago convention of the IBEW and met personally with J. Scott Milne, at the time IBEW International president. It was at this convention that the decision was made to charge and suspend Gee. Jess Succamore recounts what happened during the Lenkurt strike: “I had a verbal go at Jack McSorley when we were outside the union hall on Dunsmuir Street. I explained to him how I saw the situation, and he replied that the International would do this, the Courts would do that, so we had to get the Lenkurt girls back to work. I disagreed with him in a quite outspoken way and tried to show him the errors of his way. His response was a little surprising: ‘I’ve been used.’ He left immediately, went home, and, as I found out later, shot himself that evening.” Interview with Jess Succamore, October 9, 2016. See also “Cards of Thanks” noting McSorley’s passing in the Daily Province, May 30, 1966, 22.

133. Bill Bachop, “IWA Local Hits Federation ‘Fear,’” Vancouver Sun, May 18, 1966, 20. On Syd Thompson’s Communist sympathies, see Doug Collins, “Man Seeking Top IWA Job Once in LPP—but Not Now,” Vancouver Sun, November 24, 1958, 21 and Hak, The Left in British Columbia, 109.

134. Quoted in Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 98.

135. “Labor Bosses Gain Electrical Truce,” Vancouver Sun, May 16, 1966, 3.

136. Quoted in Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 98.

137. Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 5.

138. Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 5.

139. Jack Clarke, “Lenkurt Peace Bid Ends in Stalemate,” Daily Province, May 18, 1966, 2.

140. “Court Tells O’Keeffe to Vacate,” Daily Province, May 27, 1966, 35.

141.Minute Books, May 24, 1966, 267.

142. Quoted in Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 99.

143. Unit 5, Minute Books, May 28, 1966, 197–98.

144. “The Lenkurt Sellout: The Story of a Betrayal,” leaflet issued by a group of blacklisted Lenkurt workers, 1, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–14.

145. Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 5, 4, and 6.

146. Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 6. See also “Agreement Between Lenkurt Electric Co. of Canada Ltd. and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union No. 213, March 5, 1966, to March 4, 1969, 16,” GR-1536, box 1–4, Department of Labour, Labour Relations Branch, BC Archives Royal BC Museum, Victoria. It is noteworthy that Angus MacDonald had appointed a “new” assistant business manager (ABM) to help carve out this collective agreement—none other than his old ally, Malcolm Morrison. Morrison’s name appeared as “ABM” on the new collective agreement with Lenkurt Electric. Two months after Local 213’s elections on July 30, he would disappear again from the political scene, this time for good.

147. “Lenkurt Strikers Go Back on Company’s Own Terms,” Vancouver Sun, May 30, 1966, 1.

148. Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 6. When it came out in September 1966, the official collective agreement revealed twenty different pay categories and a detailed periodization of wage increases over a three-year time period, so it is difficult to ascertain precisely what this means. “Agreement Between Lenkurt Electric Co. of Canada Ltd. and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,” 16.

149. See “Special Lenkurt Meeting,” Unit 5, Minute Books, August 23, 1966, 207, which contains a much simpler and straightforward explanation of the new collective agreement.

150. “Special Lenkurt Meeting,” Unit 5, Minute Books, August 23, 1966, 207.

151. “Lenkurt Dictates Work Terms,” Vancouver Sun, May 30, 1966, 27.

152. “Lenkurt Strikers Go Back on Company’s Own Terms,” Vancouver Sun, May 30, 1966, 1.

1. Number supplied in an anonymous letter to Doug Collins, CBC, June 14, 1966, RBSC-ARC-1490, CAIMAW files, Rare Books and Special Collections, UBC Library, Vancouver.

2. As Lenkurt had not budged from its original proposals, these consequences are inferred from management declarations in “Pickets Scuffle,” Vancouver Sun, May 11, 1966, 2; and more succinctly in “Lenkurt Dictates Work Terms,” Vancouver Sun, May 30, 1966, 27.

3. Interview with Brian Bethel, 19 February 2017.

4. For the minutes of the Trial Board meetings, see the Minute Books, June 22, 1966–July 19, 1966.

5. Electrical Worker, “Electrical Workers Carry on Fight for Democracy,” Pacific Tribune, July 22, 1966, 8.

6. See Bulletin No. 1, published by Members of IBEW Local 213 Who Want Union Democracy, July 7, 1966. RBSC-ARC-1783, file 4–16.

7. Quoted in Milner, “To All Members of Local 213,” 1, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 5–08. Most of the accused in the internal union trials were also on trial at the same time in BC Supreme Court. As the Vancouver Sun reported, “legal counsel for the men involved in the contempt of court hearings had advised Ladyman that proceeding with hearings on the union charges would tend to jeopardize their defence in court.” “I’m Not Finished, Union Man Vows,” Vancouver Sun, July 14, 1966, 11.

8. Electrical Worker, “Electrical Workers Carry on Fight for Democracy,” Pacific Tribune, July 22, 1966, 8.

9. Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 107.

10.Minute Books, June 22, 1966–July 19, 1966, 292.

11. George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, Surveillance files, 1940–2013, 001444.

12. Registered letter from J. P. Milner, IBEW Local 213 recording secretary, to Les McDonald, July 14, 1966, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–16. McDonald’s second fifteen-year sentence was for violating Article 27, Section 2, Subsection 15 of the IBEW constitution.

13. See Les McDonald’s brief set of notes for his Lenkurt Trial Board defence, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–16.

14. O’Keeffe faced two fifteen-year sentences and two five-year sentences. “Deposed Union Boss Says He’ll Appeal 15-Year Sentence,” Daily Province, July 14, 1966, 3. His sentences in relation to his suspensions took four-and-a-half years to be lifted in their entirety after his appeal at the 1970 Seattle convention of the IBEW. “Suspension Lifted: O’Keeffe Seeks Compensation,” Vancouver Sun, October 10, 1970, 41.

15. On the lifting of the sentences, see “Unionist Reinstated but Not Vindicated,” Vancouver Sun, October 15, 1970, 27.

16. “Suspension Lifted: O’Keeffe Seeks Compensation,” Vancouver Sun, October 10, 1970, 41.

17. “Suspension Lifted: O’Keeffe Seeks Compensation,” Vancouver Sun, October 10, 1970, 41. In the same article, the Sun noted that O’Keeffe “spent $5,000 in personal expenses fighting the suspension, lost around $25,000 in wages, and cost the BC Federation of Labour, which backed his fight, between $75,000 and $100,000.”

18. “Unionist Reinstated but Not Vindicated,” Vancouver Sun, October 15, 1970, 27.

19. Interview with Jess Succamore, October 9, 2016.

20. “Deposed Union Boss Says He’ll Appeal 15-Year Sentence,” Daily Province, July 14, 1966, 3.

21. The moniker “Terrible Troika” was originally used by Les McDonald to describe Bill Ladyman, Angus MacDonald, and Jack Ross. Electrical Worker, “Electrical Workers Carry on Fight for Democracy,” Pacific Tribune, July 22, 1966, 8.

22. In a referendum on August 5, 1961, Local 28 members voted 991–2 in support of the local union’s executive board “in their defiance of the IP’s [International president’s] order.” John E. Parks, Jr., and Robert M. Foote and Albert Mchugh and Paul Ziegler and Silvio Stamerro, Individually and as Representatives of the Members of Local 28, IBEW, in a Class Action, and Local Union 28, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Appellees and Cross-appellants, v. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Appellant and Cross-appellee.Local Union No. 24 (IBEW), Intervenor, 314 F.2d 886 (4th Cir. 1963), http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/314/886/263348/, at para. 53.

23. “Union Man Urges Labor to Heed Law,” Vancouver Sun, June 29, 1966, 10.

24. “Labor Hits RCMP Violence at Lenkurt,” Pacific Tribune, May 20, 1966, 1.

25. “30 Cited for Contempt, 6 of Them Labor Chiefs,” Daily Province, May 20, 1966, 5.

26. Ian Street, “Ban All Overtime, Warns Premier,” The Province, September 29, 1966, 1. Nothing came of this highly ironic pronouncement by the premier. There was talk and chatter in the local press for a day or two, then the subject proceeded to disappear from the political discourse of the day.

27. In addition, the sentences of three women—Marion Bachewich, Joan Weddell, and Donna Pooghkay—were suspended and fines of $100 made conditional. The remaining fifteen received fines, in varying amounts. William Wells and William “Boilermaker Bill” Stewart were fined $500; Tom Constable and George Sharpe $400; John Longworth and John Wood $200; and Brian Johnstone, Jess Succamore, David Cramer, Brian Bethel, George Brown, Don Latter, Ted Poole, Frederick Keay, and Walter Pooghkay were fined $100. “In the Matter of an Application by the Attorney General for the Province of British Columbia for Writs of Committal,” file 1758/66, series GR-2012: Vancouver Supreme Court judgements, BC Archives, Royal BC Museum, Victoria.

28. Interview with Ernie Fulton, November 24, 1984.

29. See, in particular, “Four Jailed in Lenkurt Case,” Vancouver Sun, September 30, 1966, 1. A subsequent appeal of the decision was dismissed. See “R v Neale, Clarke, O’Keeffe, and Power,” November 22, 1966, Dominion Law Reports, 2nd ser., vol. 60, 619–29.

30. Jack Clarke, “Labor Leaders Staged Prison Strike,” Daily Province, December 23, 1966, 10.

31. Quoted in Joyce Cameron Virginia Reimer, and Cathy Walker, “Lenkurt Strike 1966,” 12, undergraduate paper, British Columbia Institute of Technology, 1971, 2, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–02. Jeff Power, a member of the Communist Party at the time, also made public arguments concerning the Lenkurt strike. In November 1966, he published the appeal of his sentence in a pamphlet about the abuse of ex parte injunctions by employers in labour disputes. See Jeff Power, “Injunctions Have No Place in Labor Disputes: The Statement of Jeffrey James Power to the Appeal Court of British Columbia,” Marine Workers’ and Boilermakers’ Industrial Union, Local #1, Vancouver, November 3, 1966, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 4–12.

32. On the enthusiasm and momentum created at this meeting, see also Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 105.

33. Doug Collins, “Electrical Union Official Fired,” Vancouver Sun, October 6, 1959, 21; and “Electricians Ask Freedom from U.S.,” Daily Province, October 7, 1959, 17. Jess Succamore repeated more than once the importance of McDonald’s speech at the Pender Auditorium in terms of understanding subsequent events leading to the creation of independent Canadian unions in the late 1960s and 1970s, most recently during interview with Jess Succamore, August 25, 2017.

34. For a detailed recounting of the split between the IWA and the WIUC, see Lembcke and Tattam, One Union in Wood, chap. 5.

35. “800 Harmac Workers Bolt Union,” Vancouver Sun, May 13, 1966, 6.

36. For the historical context surrounding the success of the PPWC, see Gordon Hak, Capital and Labour, 115–18. The Pacific Tribune appeared sympathetic in its columns to the sudden and dynamic appearance of the PPWC on the labour scene. For the Party newspaper’s critical stance toward outsiders having been parachuted into the issue, see “The Lenkurt Affair,” Pacific Tribune, May 20, 1966, 2.

37. In 1963, Bill Kashtan from the party’s Central Committee had written that “a dramatic struggle is unfolding on the issue of the Canadian trade union movement, the right of unions in Canada to their autonomy and, yes, to their independence, if that is the will of the Canadian membership.” William Kashtan, “Labor Front,” Pacific Tribune, May 31, 1963, 2.

38. Hak, Capital and Labour, 117.

39. Interview with Ernie Fulton, November 24, 1984.

40. See Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 106.

41. After many shifts and turns in trade union policy over the decades during the twentieth century, the Communist Party in the 1960s was back to Lenin and its original position, first enunciated in the early 1920s, of a push “for a united front of the left wing.” In relation to being able to affect trade union leadership, the tactic also became known more cynically as “boring from within.” For events in the 1920s, see Robin, Radical Politics and Canadian Labour, 259–60.

42. Quoted from RCMP records in Isitt, Militant Minority, 158. In its declaration on staying within working-class organizations like international unions, the Communist Party was also implicitly passing judgment on its earlier efforts between 1928 and 1935 to form separate Canadian unions under the umbrella of the Workers’ Unity League (WUL). The WUL, and its 40,000-strong membership, was formed then disbanded because the Communist Party of Canada obediently followed Soviet directives from abroad. That these zigzags in policy provoked serious disagreements with Communist trade unionists in Canada is perhaps best exemplified by the highly respected Cape Breton coal miner’s leader, J. B. McLachlan, who resigned from the Party rather than follow directives on the dissolution of the WUL in 1935. For more about McLachlan, see David Frank’s informative entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

43. Interview with Jim MacFarlan, November 1, 2018.

44. Telephone Interview with Jess Succamore, February 16, 2021.

45. Interview with Jess Succamore, September 25, 2016.

46. Canadian Autonomy Council and Pooghkay both quoted in Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 107.

47. George Brown, “U.E., an American Union,” C.E.W.U. Live Wire, August 1967, 3, RBSC-ARC-1783, Barry Sharbo papers, file 4-16.

48. See the description of Jack Scott’s ejection from the Communist Party and his founding of the Progressive Workers’ Movement (PWM) in 1964 in A Communist Life, chap. 14. As mentioned previously, there were other factional disputes on the left at the time. See Isitt, Militant Minority, 79–83.

49. Quoted in Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 111.

50. From having considered George Brown as a candidate on his projected “unity slate” prior to the Lenkurt Electric strike, Les McDonald would later on in life castigate both Trotskyists and Maoists as being disorganized splitters. As he used to say, probably in reference to the Lenkurt experience, “they couldn’t organize a cock-up in a hen house.”

51. Interview with Jess Succamore, June 11, 2017. Practically the same thing happened in 1919 when Vancouver electrical workers voiced their sympathy for the OBU. See interview with Local 213 electrician Fred Hoppe, August 21, 1964, https://www.labourheritagecentre.ca/collection/fred-hoppe-interview-electrician-and-socialist/.

52. Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 113–14.

53. This was not an isolated view, nor a new one. Harold Pritchett, a lifelong Communist, had commented on precisely this issue during the 1930s when he was helping to successfully organize the IWA in British Columbia’s forest industry. See The B.C. Lumber Worker, June 27, 1938, cited in Gray, “Woodworkers and Legitimacy,” 30.

54. “An Open Letter to the Members of 213,” C.E.W.U. Live Wire, April 1967, 2.

55. Jess Succamore was emphatic on the importance of McDonald’s speech in galvanizing the breakaway group. Notes from interview with Jess Succamore, June 11, 2017.

56. Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 115.

57.Trade Union Program, an undated pamphlet published by the Progressive Workers’ Movement, 4, in the author’s possession. See also Isitt, Militant Minority, 120, 159.

58. Scott, A Communist Life, 179.

59. Voting results at Phillips Cables reported in the “Breakaway Union Wins Agent Vote,” Vancouver Sun, May 27, 1967, 15.

60. For the CEWU winning over the allegiance of workers in Sentinel, Alberta, see “Union Scores Victory,” Vancouver Sun, February 20, 1969, 26. For Jack Ross’s references to Trotskyites, see “Rival Electrical Union Denies Party Affiliation,” Edmonton Journal, March 23, 1968, 8.

61. Ray Webber (son-in-law of Jess Succamore), email message to author, September 3, 2017.

62.Minute Books, May 24, 1966, 279.

63. Angus MacDonald, “To All Members of Local Union 213 I.B.E.W.,” June 29, 1966, 1, RBSC-ARC-1783, Barry Sharbo papers, file 4-16.

64. “O’Keeffe Backers Top Polls,” Daily Province, August 25, 1966, 8. See also election results in composition of new executive board at their first general meeting. Minute Books, October 3, 1966, 411.

65. McCormack, Reformers, Rebels and Revolutionaries.

66. Quoted in Dave Barrett, “Kinnaird’s Spirit, Dedication Will Live in Hearts and Memories,” The Democrat, March 1983, 7.

67. “Trial Board Minutes,” Minute Books, June 6, 1966, 297; and Local 213 “Trial Board Minutes (review panel), Lenkurt Dispute,” November 15, 1966–January 4, 1967, 15.

68. Jess Succamore, “An Open Letter to the Members of 213,” C.E.W.U. Live Wire, April 1967, 1.

69. Quoted in Atherton, “CAIMAW: Portrait of a Canadian Union,” 116–17.

70. Interview with Ernie Fulton, November 24, 1984.

71. Jess Succamore, “An Open Letter to the Members of 213,” C.E.W.U. Live Wire, April 1967, 3.

72. Jess Succamore, “Red Herring by the Red Jellyfish in 213,” C.E.W.U. Live Wire, January 1967, 3.

73. James Kinnaird, “To Members Local 213 I.B.E.W. Employed in Manufacturing,” C.E.W.U. Live Wire, February 1967, 1–2.

74. Succamore, “An Open Letter to the Members of 213,” 3.

75. In contradiction to Jess Succamore’s memory of events, Jack Scott recalled that “we had a discussion with Brown and Succamore and decided that we should take them [Wood and Unger] off.” Scott, A Communist Life, 180. The point here, regardless of who remembered precisely what, is that Wood and Unger’s presence on the new CEWU executive board briefly became a political football.

76. See “Introductory Editorial,” C.E.W.U. Live Wire, January 1967, 3.

77. “IBEW Officials’ Trade Union Integrity Questioned,” Western Canadian Lumber Worker, August 1967, 5, RBSC-ARC-1783, Barry Sharbo papers, file 4-15.

78. “IBEW Officials’ Trade Union Integrity Questioned,” 5.

79. Uncorrected proof of C.E.W.U. Live Wire, September 1967, 2, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 5–05.

80. On Scheer’s appointment, see Business Manager’s News Letter, September 1967, 2, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 2-14.

81. Seymour, Illuminating the Past, 113, 116.

82. A significant nationalist movement for Canadian autonomy also broke out in violent fashion during a wildcat strike in Local 1005 of the Hamilton steelworkers in August 1966. It had long-term effects afterwards on the life of the industrial union local in Ontario. See Freeman, 1005: Political Life in a Local Union, chap. 4.

83. See “Kinnaird for I.V.P.,” 213 LiveWire, April 1970, 1.

84. See multiple articles and a major Local 213 resolution on this question in the April 1970 issue of 213 LiveWire. Jack Scott (A Communist Life, 180) claims that much of the pressure from within Local 213 to fight for Canadian autonomy within the IBEW came from John Wood and Dave Unger, two wiremen who were members of the PWM. (Thus far, I have been unable to verify this claim as the collection of Local 213’s Minute Books in Rare Books and Special Collections at the UBC Library, Vancouver, ends in early 1967.) On Ladyman—who had been a lineman—Edward Seymour writes that in 1967 at the AFL-CIO convention in Fort Worth, Texas, he spoke to critics of international unions in Canada as originating from what he termed “subversive left-wing elements.” Seymour, Illuminating the Past, 114.

85. Seymour, Illuminating the Past, 164.

86. Palladino, Dreams of Dignity, 245. Palladino is describing Rose’s opinion of the Canadian sovereignty position issuing out of Local 213.

87. Quoted in Laxer, Canada’s Unions, 147. Kinnaird presented his “Canadian autonomy” submission in 1973 to the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO just prior to its October meeting in Bal Harbour, Florida.

88. The machine-type politics of the IBEW had previously attracted the discerning and jocular attention of the C.E.W.U. Live Wire. In a prescient warning about futile attempts to bring genuine democracy to the IBEW, an editorial column had declared: “We can no more attach the label of Democracy on the I.B.E.W. that we can give to prostitution its former innocence. Not one worker believes the I.B.E.W. is representative of Electrical Workers in Canada.” “Our Cause Is Just,” C.E.W.U. Live Wire, August 1967, 1.

89. Cliff Rundgren beat Terry Simpson for the post of business manager by 68 votes. “Cody’s Comments,” 213 LiveWire, July 1973, 1, 4.

90. Local 213 kept on trying to split electrical contractors away from the CLRA and to sign collective agreements apart from the new employers’ organization. Cliff Rundgren and Jim Kinnaird appeared to be partially successful in 1972 with twelve independent electrical contractors, then Rundgren appeared to be close to success again in 1974 with the forty-eight non-aligned contractors mentioned in the text. See Dick Shuler, “Electricians Get Independent Pact,” Vancouver Sun, May 3, 1972, 4; and “Electricians Sign Independent Pact,” Daily Province, June 12, 1974, 33.

91. “$2.90 Hourly Pay Hike Rejected by Plumbers,” Daily Province, April 29, 1974, 1.

92. “Strike Hits Construction Industry,” Vancouver Sun, May 1, 1974, 1, 6.

93. “Electrical Union OK’s Pact,” Vancouver Sun, July 8, 1974, 1–2.

94. On the lockouts, see the following articles, all in the Vancouver Sun: George Dobie, “B.C. Contractors Order Lockout,” April 26, 1972, 1; Keith Bradbury, “Electricians Serve Notice of Strike,” April 13, 1972, 3; and “Construction Lockout Stays,” May 20, 1970, 1.

95. For more background on this issue, but from the contractor’s perspective, see George Dobie, “Electricians Stick Out in Hiring Hall Dispute,” Vancouver Sun, July 3, 1972, 25.

96. For the dynamic at the beginning of the “10-pact” strike, instigated by an antagonistic CLRA and IBEW Local 213, see “Strike Hits Construction Industry,” Vancouver Sun, May 1, 1974, 1, 6. For conclusion of the strike, see “Electrical Union OK’s Pact,” Vancouver Sun, July 8, 1974, 1–2.

97. Seymour, Illuminating the Past, 142.

98. Seymour, Illuminating the Past, 142.

99. Seymour, Illuminating the Past, 152.

100. Paul Yorke, email message to author, September 3, 2017.

101. On the self-interest of labour bureaucrats, see Leier, Red Flags and Red Tape, 183. Alfie Huston saw the issue through a more specific, manipulative lens: “The major reason Rundgren kept getting re-elected was his support from the cable vision workers, gas workers, warehouse workers, etc., not the electricians. He made the popular members from each of those groups assistant agents . . . and used them to effectively ram unpopular decisions down the wiremen’s throats.” Alfie Huston, email message to author, April 18, 2021.

102. Alfie Huston, email message to author, April 10, 2021. This was fundamentally the same system subsequently adopted province-wide by all Ontario locals of the IBEW. That it might have been forced upon an unco-operative Warren Chapman and a wayward Toronto Local 353 at the beginning of this process was undoubtedly a lesson not lost on Cliff Rundgren.

103. Interview with John Neilson, May 16, 2021.

104. Alfie Huston, email message to author, May 4, 2021.

105. Interview with John Neilson, May 16, 2021.

106. Interview with Jagdish (Jack) Saran, May 13, 2021.

107. Audet, “La construction d’un syndicat québécois.”

108. Desmond Morton offers a useful overview of the split in Working People: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Labour Movement, 290–93; for a more detailed history, see Audet, Les artisans de la lumière, in particular chap. 7. On the political climate surrounding the workers’ withdrawal from the IBEW, see Laxer, Canada’s Unions, chaps. 15 and 16.

109. See Brian Johnson, “Electrical Union Cutting U.S. Link Meets Resistance,” Montreal Gazette, October 28, 1972, 4.

110. On the previously Communist Gagnon, and some of his contributions to IBEW Local 568 in Montréal, see his own (very uneven) account of events in Les P.M.E. (Les petites et moyennes entreprises) à l’agonie. On IBEW’s reluctant approval of Local 568’s finances following Georges Petta’s investigation (as Bill Ladyman did not mention the issue), see the latter’s brief comment on having to suspend the Montréal local in The Electrical Worker’s Journal, September 1971, 7. On details of the pension fund dispute, including the financial clean sheet, see Audet, Les artisans de la lumière, 69–70.

111. See the story recounting Henri Gagnon’s initially harsh criticisms of FIPOE at the Cliche Commission investigation in Irwin Block, “QFL ‘workers’ underground’ denounces trusteeship move,” Montreal Gazette, December 3, 1974, 1–2. As FIPOE eventually reformed itself, Gagnon would change his mind and temper his criticism of the Québécois electrical workers’ union. See Monique Audet’s brief but important mention of Gagnon’s influence as president of IBEW Local 568 from 1968–71 in Les artisans de la lumière, 45, 68. On Henri Gagnon’s “pérégrination” as a Québécois communist during his lifetime, see the informative perspective on Gagnon’s political life in Comeau and Dionne, “Henri Gagnon, organisateur révolutionnaire: 1936–1956,” Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, October 11, 2024, http://classiques.uqac.ca/contemporains/comeau_robert/henri_gagnon/henri_gagnon_texte.html. See also the few brief references in Penner, Canadian Communism, 228–29, 242, 250; and in Avakumovic, The Communist Party in Canada, 256–57.

112. Quoted in Martin Patriquin, “No One Can Deny It Now: Quebec Is Facing a Corruption Crisis,” Maclean’s, November 24, 2015, https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/quebecs-now-undeniable-corruption-crisis/.

113. See “Henri Gagnon: un homme de convictions,” Action socialiste de libération nationale (ASLN), November 10, 2024, https://www.pcq.qc.ca/Dossiers/Autres/Archives/Dossier.php?No=917.

114. On the background and circumstances and the controlling regulatory environment that emerged out of the government-imposed trusteeship of FIPOE and three other construction unions in Québec, see Sexton, “Controlling Corruption in the Construction Industry,” 524–35. It is noteworthy that house construction and renovations remain largely non-union in Québec, as it is in the rest of Canada.

115. At the same time, the leadership of the CLC was beginning to witness a major push to support more autonomy for Canadian locals of international unions, including IBEW locals. See discussions of this issue at the 1974 CLC convention in Vancouver led off by Lorne Robson and Colin Snell of the BC carpenters union in George Dobie, “Autonomy Call Cheered by Union Delegates,” Vancouver Sun, May 15, 1974, 7. See also “Moderates Win Vote on Go-slow Union Autonomy Policy,” Vancouver Sun, May 16, 1974, 52; and Allan Fotheringham’s biting commentary on much of the tone and direction of the convention in his Vancouver Sun column, May 17, 1974, 37. Four months prior to the convention, Homer Stevens, Communist leader of the UFAWU (which was now back in the national house of labour), announced that he would run for the position of president of the CLC. This created shockwaves everywhere as he had not consulted with either his own union or the Communist Party. He would shortly be forced to backtrack on his decision as he was chastised by the UFAWU executive and presumably also the Party. George Dobie, “What’s Going on ‘Way Out on That Left Wing?” Vancouver Sun, January 26, 1974, 25.

116. See Ken Rose’s remarks on this issue in Seymour, Illuminating the Past, 137.

117. Most observers feel the increasing weight of the Canada-only public sector unions in the CLC largely explained the latter’s growing nationalist perspective throughout the 1970s. Moreover, it should be made clear that there are today five building trade construction councils in Québec: the Fédération des travailleurs du Québec (FTQ–Construction), the Conseil provincial des ouvriers en construction (International), the Syndicat québécois de la construction (SQC), the Centrale des syndicats démocratique (CSD), and the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN). Further clouding the picture is that teachers in Québec have their own labour “central,” the Centrale de l’enseignement du Québec (CEQ). While seemingly a dog’s breakfast in terms of being split into disparate groups, the advantage is that close to 100 percent of Québec’s construction workers are unionized and negotiate together by law with a centralized employers’ group. Construction workers elsewhere in Canada might do well to take note.

118. Other reasons Ken Rose gave for setting up the CFL were that “work jurisdictions would be recognized and protected.” He had previously hoped that “voting structure at Conventions would be amended to reflect fair representation for all; and that the C.L.C. would insist that federations and councils that were affiliated to the [Canadian Labour] Congress abide by the Constitution of the Congress.” Quoted in Seymour, Illuminating the Past, 137. But he didn’t get the changes he wanted from the CLC. Reading between the lines, it is clear that the breakaway union in Québec remained a primary concern.

119. For a brief recounting of some of the background to the dispute between the CLC and the CFL in 1982, see Rose, “The Building Trades–Canadian Labour Congress Dispute.” See also Peter Comparelli’s concise summary in “CLC Rupture Revolves Around Who’s in Control,” Vancouver Sun, May 1, 1981, 27. The IBEW’s version of events can be found in Barry, “Part IV: Recession, Recovery, and Renewal,” 12–13, 28.

120. Quoted in Seymour, Illuminating the Past, 139.

121. Having previously met and discussed matters in both French and English with Louis Laberge on the sidelines at the 1974 CLC convention in Vancouver—he came away impressed by the French-Canadian labour leader—Les McDonald would subsequently argue that workers in Québec, being part of a nation within Canada, required complete autonomy if they so desired within the CLC while still belonging to the wider organization. Not having much choice out on the west coast, Les McDonald meanwhile stayed with the IBEW until his retirement as an electrician in 1993, then collected a small pension from the union (about $483 per month) until his passing in 2017.

122. Jim Kinnaird, “BM’s Report: Locals 999–213 Amalgamation Backed,” 213 LiveWire, November 1968, 1.

123. Jim Kinnaird, “Minority Sections Demand Autonomy,” 213 LiveWire, November 1972, 1.

124. See discussion on the pros and cons of eliminating Local 213’s general meetings in “An Interview with Cliff Rundgren,” election pamphlet, n.d., RBSC-ARC-1783, file 5–02.

125. Cliff Rundgren, “We Must Stay United,” 213 LiveWire, September 1974, 1.

126. See Jim Kinnaird’s remarks on unruliness and the irregular nature of employment in the construction industry in Kinnaird, BC Commission of Inquiry, 40.

127. Paul Yorke, email message to author, September 3, 2017.

128. Paul Yorke, email message to author, September 3, 2019. To Paul Yorke’s ongoing chagrin, the TWU voted to rejoin an American-based international union, the United Steelworkers of America, in November 2014.

129. Interview with Terry Simpson, July 17, 1985.

130. On Ed Simpson, see McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism,” 162.

131. Regarding the NHL franchise, see, for example, “City Leaders Plot Mass NHL Protest,” Vancouver Sun, February 19, 1966, 6; Dave Ablett, “Mass Protest Set on NHL Action,” Vancouver Sun, February 21, 1966, 2; and “Drive for NHL Franchise Drawing Share of Big Guns,” Vancouver Sun, February 23, 1966, 15.

132. Author’s notes from conversations with Les McDonald, undated. Hume was to pass away shortly afterwards, on 17 February 1967.

133. Doug Smith, Cold Warrior, 106.

134. Norman Penner, a leading light of the party in Canada during the post–World War II era, delineates the slavish compliance of the Canadian leaders to the needs and dictates of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, and their acquiescence in particular to its foreign policy requirements, in Canadian Communism. However, this did not mean that there weren’t all kinds of tensions, arguments, and growing divisions in the BC wing of the Party to which McDonald would have been exposed in the first half of the 1960s. In this regard, see Scott, A Communist Life, chap. 14.

135. George Gee fonds, RBSC-ARC-1210, Surveillance files, 1940–2013, August 14, 1967, 001603–001604.

136. Swankey, quoted in Isitt, Militant Minority, 81.

137. I am referring, of course, to The God That Failed: A Confession, a collection of essays by Arthur Koestler and other prominent writers and journalists who had grown disenchanted with Communism and had ultimately abandoned it.

138. Les McDonald was accompanied by his good friends, Al Fisher and Rod Holloway. This visit to the GDR foreshadowed his prickly relationship in 1989–90 with Igor Novikov, the Russian president of the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne. For details, see Phelps, “The Creation and Development of an International Sport Federation,” 68–77; and Adelfinsky, “American Expansion, Russian Threat,” 113–17.

139. Prior to leaving the Communist Party, Les wrote three articles on labour, sports, and politics: “Youth and Change in the Labor Movement”; “Stick It . . . [or How We’ll Learn to Play Canadian and Keep Smiling]”; and “Paris: Two Months After May.”

140. Les McDonald, “Towards an Independent Labor Movement,” n.p. In author’s possession.

141. Stevens, quoted in Stevens and Knight, A Life in Fishing, 253.

142. Doug Ward, “Reds,” Vancouver Sun, December 14, 1985, A12.

143. The postcards that Les McDonald sent to the Stewart couple date from 1997 to 2007. See RBSC-ARC-1783, files 4–08, 4–09, and 4–10.

144. Alfred (Alfie) Huston, email message to author, April 11, 2021.

145. Rod Mickleburgh, “Electrical Union’s Rebel Still Fighting ‘Oppression,’” Daily Province, February 10, 1982, 20. Initially suspended for yet another fifteen years in 1975, Les McDonald’s sentence was reduced to ten years on appeal. See letter from James F. Mulloney (secretary, International Executive Council of the IBEW) to Leslie McDonald, December 9, 1976. RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–14. Also charged and suspended for their part in the brief downtown wobble were Terry Simpson, Keith Apps, Charlie Sawkill, Al McLachlin and Alfie Huston. What made matters even more ironic for the remainder of the “left” within Local 213 was that the hearings for the trials were held under the aegis of the newly elected president of the local union, Jim Gee, George Gee’s son.

146. George Dobie, “Seven IBEW Members Suspended 2-to-15 Years,” Vancouver Sun, June 20, 1975, 7. Electrical workers on permit (“travellers”) were supposed to be the first that would be let go in a downsizing of the required crew, while the home local’s workers were the last, the latter in reverse order of job seniority.

147. For details of the accusations, see “Six Trade Unionists Take Suspensions to Court,” Vancouver Sun, February 3, 1977, 38.

148. “Electrician Wins 15-Year Suspension Appeal,” Vancouver Sun, October 11, 1978, 5.

149. Information supplied in interview with Alfred (Alfie) Huston, April 12, 2021.

150. Peter Comparelli, “Nine Fired and Suspended by Electrical Workers’ Union,” Vancouver Sun, October 16, 1979, 9.

151. For the details on the appeals to the IBEW of the suspensions involving Fedewa, Duffy, and Halferty (all denied) see “Appeals of Robert J. Duffy, W. L. Fedewa and Gerald Halferty,” The Electrical Worker’s Journal, November 1980, 9. Note that Fedewa’s suspension is listed in the IBEW Journal as being of six months’ duration. But as his suspension had begun in October 1979, the six-month sentence beginning April 1, 1980, listed in The Electrical Worker’s Journal was simply upholding the original one-year penalty imposed by International vice-president, Ken Rose.

152. Peter Comparelli, “International Ousts Head of Electricians’ Local,” Vancouver Sun, October 2, 1979, 56

153. Unlike dispatcher John Neilson, who felt that Rundgren “had no choice” (interview, May 16, 2021), Alfie Huston believed that the business manager did have room to manoeuvre during his long tenure. Email from Alfie Huston to the author, May 4, 2021. It should also be noted that the IBEW did not seem at all reluctant to give support to former Communist Party members who “had seen the light” and come on board the business union train. Once they had renounced their Communist affiliations, the support of the International Office on the west coast to George Mulkey, Jack Ross, and Cliff Rundgren (were there others?) is both instructive and revealing. If they repented, former Communists evidently could become trusted and reliable regional representatives.

154. Peter Walls, “Union Dispute Goes to Court,” Vancouver Sun, April 6, 1982, 7.

155. Terry Simpson, quoted in Rod Mickleburgh, “Rebel Electrical Worker Wins His Battle with Union,” Vancouver Sun, October 28, 1982, 4.

156. Knight and Stevens, A Life in Fishing, 134.

157. During another Squamish construction job in 1970 with a live-in camp set-up for the workers, Les McDonald had decided to erect a make-shift flagpole at the top of one of the trailers and fly a red flag at the top of it. The company was naturally peeved and contacted the International Office of the IBEW, so Local 213 eventually had to deal with it. Kinnaird sent Ernie Fulton, at the time assistant business manager for the wiremen, to convince McDonald to take down the red flag. Fulton, former apprentice to the provocative red flag rebel himself, succeeded in doing just that, but it was the end of his relationship with Les. It did not help that Fulton later in life crossed another line, becoming a representative for the Line Contractors’ Association in negotiations with IBEW Local 258.

158. Alcoholism and drug use persist to the present day. In response, BC’s IBEW locals and employers have jointly recognized this long-standing and deeply concerning medical problem in their midst, commendably setting up a jointly funded provision in the current collective agreement (§23, Article 9, subsection 911) titled “Construction Industry Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Plan,” or CIRP. The gardening-associated term, “variegated left,” was initially suggested to the author by Toni Facchini, Italian-born electrical worker in Local 213 at the time. His illustrative point is that there was still a healthy growth of an oppositional tree, regardless of the type of leaves produced on its branches.

159. Alfie Huston, email message to author, April 11, 2021.

160. Letter from Les McDonald to Local 213 president, Alfred (Alfie) Huston, May 20, 1986. RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–12.

161. See minority “International Convention 1986 Report” authored by Alfie Huston. See also additional letters of protest to President Huston about Rundgren’s tactics regarding the “Credibility Counts” newsletter from Terry Simpson, John Leslie, Brett Haughian, Ernie Fulton, and Alan Pettigrew, RBSC-ARC-1783, file 6–03. It should be noted that elections were now conducted by mail-in ballot as opposed to the process used during the 1960s (and before) wherein only those members present at union meetings actually voted for the local’s delegate representatives.

162. Huston, “International Convention 1986 Report,” RBSC-ARC-1783, file 6–03.

163. François Painchaud, president of Local 568, explained to a Toronto Star reporter at the IBEW convention that his local had continuously owed funds to the International Office over the past decade—which was used as the reason for IO intervention. But he alleged that the difference in 1985, as opposed to the previous years, was that “friends of the [Ken Rose] administration were about to lose office, and the latest trusteeship stopped us from holding an election.” Toronto Star, September 16, 1986, A16.

164. Les McDonald did help prepare six resolutions, all contentious, to be approved beforehand by Local 213 in case he was elected for the IBEW convention in Toronto. The first one was familiar and now almost part of his persona as it had to do with “taking a strong militant stand for the shorter work week,” while the last one was the resolution on having the Building Trades unions leave the CFL and rejoin the CLC. “Resolutions for the I.B.E.W.’s 1986 Convention,” n.d., RBSC-ARC-1783, file 3–12.

165. For an account of Les McDonald’s preparations for the Yukon expedition, see “High-Altitude Electrician Joins Unique Alpine Climb,” Vancouver Sun, June 7, 1967, 13. See also Max Wyman, “Big Triumph Came Near to Tragedy,” Vancouver Sun, July 6, 1967, 54, on the harrowing return from that expedition.

166. See Donald Morton, “The 1967 Yukon Alpine Centennial Expedition”; and Paul Tukker, “That Time When Hundreds of Climbers Tackled Yukon’s Remote St. Elias Range,” CBC News, December 30, 2017, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-alpine-centennial-expedition-50-years-later-1.4460638. See also Leslie McDonald, “Good Neighbour Peak”; Les McDonald, “The Biggest Mountain . . . Is in Ottawa”; and Alford, “South Summit of Mt. Vancouver (‘Good Neighbour Peak’) 15,720 Feet.”

167. Lost Lake is now within a municipal park at Whistler and no longer Crown land but is still a cross-country ski destination in winter. On the detailed map of the cross-country ski trails, “Les’ Leap” is named after Les McDonald, while “Helen’s Corner” is named after the author’s sister.

168. Information supplied by Loreen Barnett, secretary-general of ITU, April 30, 2017. Regarding Les McDonald’s unyielding position on the important issues of gender equality and of guaranteeing equal prize money for women and men on the World Cup circuit, see double world triathlon champion Emma Carney’s biography, Hard Wired, 70, 120.

169. Quoted in Susan Grant, “The Paradigm Shifter,” 26.

170. Bernard St-Jean, email message to Monique McDonald, January 30, 2018. The original reads:

Je pense souvent . . . à Les qui surgit à tout moment dans ma mémoire. Non seulement au contact du monde du triathlon au sein duquel j’évolue toujours, mais aussi par exemple lorsque je me trouve tout simplement dans la rue et j’aborde quelqu’un que je ne connais pas. Je crois qu’il m’aura marqué de cet enthousiasme communicatif débordant qui était le sien et de cette soif permanente de connaitre, d’avancer et de convaincre. Nous avions le même degré d’exigence mais il avait une capacité de démonstration que je ne possède pas et une ambition de convaincre à toute épreuve. Jamais las—ou il ne le montrait pas—et toujours prêt à défier l’impossible.

1. The exception might be the two carpenters’ local unions in the Vancouver area. It is worthwhile pointing out that Arthur “Slim” Evans, a noted Wobbly, then a famous Communist agitator and labour organizer in BC, was originally a carpenter by trade. See Shiels and Swankey, “Work and Wages”! 31–37. From 1925 through to 1932, Evans worked out of Local 452 in Vancouver. It was while he was living and working in Vancouver, in 1926, that he joined the Communist Party. Evans was to have a telling effect on three future electrical workers, Bill and George Gee, and Tom Forkin. Interviews with Bill Gee, December 14, 1982, and George Gee, November 6, 1982. For more on the Gee brothers, see Shiels and Swankey, “Work and Wages”! 46. Tom Forkin was part of the secondary command structure of the On-to-Ottawa trek in 1935 and then assisted Evans during the initial organizing drive at Cominco in Trail by Mine-Mill in 1938. There seem to be no serious, in-depth accounts of Communist leaders or activists in the other BC building trades, although unquestionably several did exist.

2. Commenting on similar scenarios in other unions in the province, Benjamin Isitt concluded with a view from below: “The enduring, albeit minority, communist presence in BC unions sustained a current of militancy throughout the 1950s, inhibiting conciliation between the classes and the pattern of compromise that developed in other Canadian provinces. Facing internal and external competition from communists, non-communist [trade union] leaders in BC were more inclined to embrace militant actions and a confrontational stance with employers.” Isitt, Militant Minority, 56–57. Nonetheless, the vast majority of the strike and/or lockout episodes recounted in this book were begun by employer-initiated actions against IBEW Local 213. Whether influenced by Communists or not, from this point of view organized labour in British Columbia was forced into militancy and a non-conciliatory stance with employers in order to promote and protect any gains it might have previously made.

3. As we saw in chapter 5, Russell St. Eloi, Vancouver business manager of Local 170 of the Plumbers and Pipefitters union, nominated George Gee to represent Local 213 on the Goldenberg Commission of inquiry into the construction industry. It is highly doubtful that the audacious suggestion of Gee’s nomination originated with any of the previously appointed members of Local 213’s executive board, although it might have originated with the former’s good friend and newly elected business manager of Local 213, Jack Cody. In any case, Gee’s nomination—both an embarrassment to the IBEW and a red flag waved in the face of employers—appears to have been significant enough in that it appears to have helped break the logjam surrounding the record-breaking three-months-long lockout of construction workers.

4. In the Lenkurt case, the officers were Commissioner H. E. Reed and Superintendent L. R. Parent. The RCMP’s counterintelligence unit had four different names in the period after World War II. In 1966 the mole(s) within Local 213 would have reported to someone in the RCMP’s Directorate of Security and Intelligence, subsequently renamed the RCMP Security Service, which was replaced by a forerunner to the current Canadian Security and Intelligence Services (or CSIS) in 1984. For more information on RCMP surveillance, see Hewitt, Spying 101; and Sethna and Hewitt, Just Watch Us.

5. In October 2020, one of Canada’s major newspapers, the National Post, was concerned enough to report on a July ruling in the same year by Justice Patrick Gleeson that found the latest iteration of Canadian governmental internal surveillance and security, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), had “failed to disclose its reliance on information that was likely collected illegally.” Gleeson, a federal judge, ruled that it appeared the recent actions of CSIS was part of a historical and long-standing pattern of behaviour, pointing out in his ruling that “the circumstances raise fundamental questions relating to respect for the rule of law, the oversight of security intelligence activities and the actions of individual decision-makers.” Jim Bronskill, “Ottawa Appeals Ruling on CSIS Breach,” from the National Post, reprinted in the Vancouver Sun, October 21, 2020, NP4.

6. “Dangerous New Ideas” is from Ed Finn, a CLC staffer, then with the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway, Transport, and General Workers. The analysis in this section is reproduced from a larger Maclean’s article by Finn, “Unions, Strikes and the Common Cold,” that was reprinted in the Vancouver Sun, June 18, 1974, 5.

7. This same perspective on the long-term effects visited upon the trade union movement in Canada has been propounded by academics: “This arrangement offered organized labour conditions of limited institutional permanency while confining unionists to a particular model of behaviour premised upon productivity bargaining and material consumption that formed the basis for the post-war compromise in Canada.” McInnis, Harnessing Labour Confrontation, 4.

8. Finn, “Unions, Strikes and the Common Cold,” 5. Note that Ed Finn mixes up his medieval metaphors somewhat in the last sentence of this colourful description. The Holy Office of the Inquisition was a Catholic institution; being “sent to Coventry” was the British penalty of ostracism, supposedly invented by a Protestant, Oliver Cromwell.

9. “Injunctions Won’t Build Bridges or Catch Fish,” The Fisherman, June 26, 1959, 1.

10. For descriptions and analyses of the 1967 Prince Rupert Fishermen’s Co-op strike, see Montero, We Stood Together, chap. 8; and John Stanton, Never Say Die! chap. 11.

11. See Stanton, Never Say Die! 145. The ILWU would be involved in injunction-related court cases just before the Lenkurt court cases took place. In the ILWU’s case, ten of its local union presidents were jailed for contempt for twenty-two days each starting June 17, 1966. See Stanton, Never Say Die! chap. 12.

12. Isitt, “Patterns of Protest,” 97.

13. Isitt, “Patterns of Protest,” 76.

14. “Ousted Union Official Calls for Labor Law Violations,” Vancouver Sun, October 24, 1966, 46.

15. Stanton, Never Say Die! 130. That it was mostly Communist-influenced unions, like the UFAWU and the Vancouver local of the ILWU, that spearheaded the ex parte injunction battles in BC speaks volumes about who was willing to go to jail to make a legal point. The Lenkurt strike, while clearly important, appeared to have begun almost by accident.

16. See Bennett, “Campus Life in Canada’s 1960s.”

17. George Grant, Lament for a Nation, 9.

18. Sangster, “‘We No Longer Respect the Law,’” 48.

19. In the introduction to one of his several books on Canadian labour history, Irving Abella points to a closely associated corollary, that “bloody labour battles” seemed to be “a hallmark of the labour history of British Columbia.” Underlining the importance of the use of the state as “an ally of business, able and willing to use its full powers to crush any labour organizations that proved too threatening to the interests of capital,” meant there was an unusual “prevalence of violence in industrial disputes” right across the country. He then goes on to highlight a comparative study by Stuart Jamieson that comes to an eyebrow-raising conclusion “that labour-management conflicts in Canada are far more likely to lead to violence than those in Europe.” Abella, On Strike: Six Key Labour Struggles in Canada, 1919–1949, xiii and xv.

20. Ruffini, Harry Van Arsdale, chap. 2.

21. Though there was no connection with Succamore (by this time involved with CAIMAW), it is interesting to note that in 1973 three electrical workers employed at Edmonton Power (Dave Walker, George Tilroe, and Peter Bodnarchuk), tried to organize a breakaway union from IBEW Local 1007. According to newspaper reports, they tried to lead the five hundred employees of the electrical utility out of the IBEW and into what was termed the “Edmonton Power Association.” The three ringleaders were subsequently suspended from the IBEW for two, five, and five years, respectively, for their efforts in this unsuccessful attempt. See John Tompkins, “Canadian Unionists Lose IBEW Rights,” Edmonton Journal, May 24, 1973, 26. In Ontario, meanwhile, power workers at Ontario Hydro are represented by the Power Workers’ Union (PWU), a 1993 offshoot of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Their Canadian union representation began in 1944 with the founding of the Employees’ Association of Ontario Hydro.

22. For another instance of a 1966 wildcat strike—in Hamilton—and how “the industrial relations system shapes the political life of the local,” see the persuasive arguments on steelworkers’ Local 1005 presented by Bill Freeman in 1005: Political Life in a Local Union, 112–16.

23. Interview with Jess Succamore, June 11, 2017.

24. Penner, The Canadian Left, 142.

25. Scott, A Communist Life, 84. See also Scott’s in-depth synopsis of Murphy on pp. 249–53.

26. The original reads:

Dans certains cas, notre travail se limitera à atteindre certains postes stratégiques pour ensuite régner par décrets dans certaines branches du mouvement ouvrier. Dans d’autres cas, la discussion des problèmes et la prise de décision se limiteront au bureau et à l’exécutif de l’union pour être ensuite transmis comme un décret dans les groupes industriels. En d’autres mots, ne pas combattre la tendance économiste, c’est glisser vers le bureaucratisme syndicale.

See “Henri Gagnon, organisateur révolutionnaire: 1936–1956” in Comeau and Dionne, Le droit de se taire, 315. For a concise BC-based and IWW focus on similar historical discussions, see Leier, Where the Fraser River Flows, chap. 5. For an earlier (1938) and particularly thought-provoking American exposé on the “poisonous effect of officialdom,” see Russell, “On Boring from Within,” The One Big Union Monthly (February 1938), libcom.org, accessed October 27, 2024, https://libcom.org/library/boring-within-bert-russell. Several of his arguments could be considered applicable to much of the history of labour in British Columbia, and to that of IBEW Local 213 in particular.

27. “Labor: C.I.O. to Sea,” Time, July 19, 1937, 4. https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,882738-4,00.html.

28. Quoted Isaac Deutscher, “Soviet Trade Unions: Their Place in Soviet Labour Policy,” marxists.org, accessed October 27, 2024, https://www.marxists.org/archive/deutscher/1950/soviet-trade-unions/ch02.htm#n22. McDonald had multiple volumes of the works of Karl Marx prominently displayed on his living room shelves, as well as several books relating to Vladimir Lenin.

29. Left unstated, of course, was the very real problem of whether or not the Communist Party’s program for Canada would have functioned as intended to eventually produce a socialist society.

30. The term “liberals in a hurry” was originally used to describe political representatives of the 1920s Progressive Party in Canada. With its collapse at the end of that decade, the term seems to have evolved into a description of social democrats in the NDP.

31. Ruffini, Harry Van Arsdale, 52.

32. Ruffini, Harry Van Arsdale, 162.

33. Ruffini, Harry Van Arsdale, 104.

34. Ruffini, Harry Van Arsdale, 123.

35. Monique McDonald, in conversation with the author, undated.

36. Knight and Stevens, A Life in Fishing, 182–83. Although this is Stevens recounting his own political perspective, it very easily could have been Les McDonald.

37. John Stanton, a BC labour lawyer, has reproduced a fascinating table of union trends in Canada from 1921 to 1986 that shows the definitive trend away from international unions toward Canadian unions. Stanton, “Never Say Die!” Table E-1: Fundamental Trends in Union Membership and Affiliations (1921–1986). These trends toward stand-alone Canadian unions have become even more pronounced in the twenty-first century, especially with the move by Canadian auto workers out of the American-controlled United Auto Workers and into their own Canada-wide organization, first the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers) and, after several additional mergers, the union known as Unifor. A large industrial union, Unifor now encompasses different industries and more than just auto workers.

38. Fearful of the accusations of fomenting “dual unionism,” it was not until 1973 that the Communist Party of Canada came out “unequivocally” in support, if necessary, of a sovereign and completely independent Canadian trade union movement. The Party was evidently reacting to events in Québec, in particular with the emergence of FIPOE among French-Canadian electrical workers, combined with the secession of other local unions of the construction sector away from their international organizations. See Avakumovic, The Communist Party in Canada, 253. Needless to say, it was seven years too late for Les McDonald.

39. It could easily be argued that there had been at least three distinct generations of a “militant minority” up to that point within Local 213: the group that voted to secede from the IBEW and join the OBU in 1919; George Gee’s Communist leadership group in 1955; and then Bill Stewart and Les McDonald’s Communist-led “left faction” up to 1966.

40. Industrial unions have usually been the focus of academics who have analyzed the comprehensive role of the Communist Party within these organizations in a dispassionate, often sympathetic, light. See Gray, “Woodworkers and Legitimacy”; Hak, Capital and Labour in the British Columbia Forest Industry; and Neufeld and Parnaby, The IWA in Canada. For an earlier appraisal of the Communists in the IWA, see Lembcke and Tattam, One Union in Wood. With regard to fishing there is Homer Stevens and Rolf Knight’s semi-autobiographical account of Homer Stevens’s life, A Life in Fishing. On Mine-Mill in Trail, see Verzuh, “Divided Loyalties”; and in the shipbuilding industry, see Howard White, A Hard Man to Beat (though White was definitely not a consistent supporter of the Party throughout his career). See also Langford and Frazer, “The Cold War and Working-Class Politics”; and Bartlett and Ruebsaat, Soviet Princeton.

41. Having barely graduated from high school, if in fact they ever did, this non-academic group of largely union and/or vanguard-educated workers would successfully insert themselves into political office in the civic, provincial, national, or—as in the case with Les McDonald—the international landscape. Having been scapegoated by the IBEW during the 1960s, the potential of these multi-faceted working-class personalities as lead actors for inciting change in their chosen new arenas was obvious. In most cases, however, the bureaucratic machines they encountered swallowed them up.

42. Interview with Jack Ross, November 15, 1982.

43. Les McDonald’s audacity never left him. While trying to get the International Triathlon Union (ITU) into the Olympic movement during the early 1990s, he crashed an IOC meeting in Stockholm. Requiring accreditation that he didn’t have, he had been befriended several years before by Gunnar Ericsson, IOC member from Sweden. Puzzled and skeptical, Ericsson had nevertheless agreed to meet Les outside on the third-floor balcony of the hotel room adjacent to the small convention hall reserved for the assembled IOC delegates. Having previously scouted the perimeter of the hotel, McDonald easily free-climbed the outside of the building and, as agreed beforehand, had Ericsson hand over his prized accreditation on the balcony at the appointed hour. Official history records that the sport of Triathlon managed to get onto the Olympic program in time for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, but other than through an IOC vote, not precisely how. It comes as little surprise that one of McDonald’s favourite mottoes throughout his lifetime was taken from French revolutionary Georges Danton: “De l’audace, et encore de l’audace, et toujours de l’audace!” This was also the response of Tim Buck back in 1934 when he was asked what his personal political motto was. See Manley, “‘Audacity, Audacity, Still More Audacity!’” 17. That Buck, leader of the Communist Party of Canada, could proclaim his audacity was one thing; that a mere rank-and-file Party member was to actually act on such a slogan was probably quite another.

44. The 1962 official agenda of the Communist Party, “The Road to Socialism in Canada,” called for what might be viewed by sympathizers as a generally laudable program, but it was hardly revolutionary. It included “a united, all-inclusive labor-farmer political party . . . to bring about the parliamentary defeat of monopoly capital and its parties, and to unite all democratic, freedom-loving forces among the Canadian people to achieve independence, peace and social progress.” Quoted in Morris, Look on Canada Now, 155.

45. At the 1965 BCFL convention, Les McDonald spoke to a resolution calling for the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam, noting that when it was presented on the floor of a General Meeting of IBEW Local 213 the resolution “required no debate, it was carried unanimously with only one speaker.” He went on to comment, “I can say that it truthfully reflects the feelings of the members of our union.” British Columbia Federation of Labour, Annual Convention: Summary of Proceedings, 1965, 173. This position of the Vancouver electrical workers was, of course, diametrically opposed to the position of the AFL-CIO and its long-time president, George Meany. As the New York Times pointed out some years later, “All through the years of the Vietnamese War, right up to the closing weeks . . . in the Executive Council, there was never more than one vote in 33 cast against Mr. Meany’s resolution for support of the war.” New York Times, October 5, 1977, 27.

46. Interview with Chris Locke, May 23, 2021.

47. See Barrie Shepley’s anecdotes about Les’s outspokenness in Susan Grant, “The Paradigm Shifter,” 22–23.

48. Jim MacFarlan’s untitled written commentary on Les McDonald, November 20, 2018, 6. In the author’s possession.

49. Scott, A Communist Life, 7.

50. Loreen Barnett, secretary-general of the ITU, recounted the following episode that occurred in a meeting in China prior to the Beijing Olympics: “Les McDonald went into his lecturing mode on at least one occasion in China prior to the Beijing Olympic Games. He was with two Chinese triathlon officials delegated to liaising with him on the logistics of the Olympic racecourse, one of whom it turned out was a Communist Party representative. Les started in on them, explaining the negative impact of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and how it was impossible to build a true socialist society if you didn’t allow for disagreement or expressions of dissent. Neither one of them responded; there was no debate. Stony silence followed his harangue.” Telephone interview with Loreen Barnett, January 8, 2021.

51. Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin have described this issue as “the intraclass struggle within the class struggle.” Left Out, 20.

52. For further context and discussion, see Stepan-Norris and Zeitlin, Left Out. See also Turk, “Surviving the Cold War,” 18; and Craig Heron’s commentary on the relatively short existence of the Communist-organized and led Canadian Seamen’s Union in “Communists, Gangsters, and Canadian Sailors.”

53. Letter from Bill Stewart to Les McDonald on the occasion of Stewart’s seventy-fifth birthday, n.d. (but sometime in 1994), RBSC-ARC-1783, file 4–06. Stewart was to end his letter of thanks with a deeply felt comment about the long road to eventually building a socialist Canada: “A PLEASURE to march part of the path with you, Les.”

54. Keen observers and activists in some trade unions—like the Teamsters—have continued to comment on the phenomenon of rank-and-file insurgencies, then supported explorations to channel them organizationally. See La Botz, “Rank and File Strategy Is Vindicated.” See also recent developments in Vermont, where “Vermont AFL-CIO United!” made major inroads into the state labour federation. Led by David Van Deusen (currently president of the Vermont AFL-CIO), the new progressive grouping “has pursued a new agenda, which stresses internal democracy and transparency, social and environmental justice, and ending rubber-stamp endorsement of unreliable Democrats.” Steve Early, “Why Is AFL-CIO So Worried About Its Vermont Affiliate?” Beyond the Chron: The Voice of the Rest, April 20, 2021, https://beyondchron.org/why-is-afl-cio-so-worried-about-its-vermont-affiliate/.

55. An anonymous and thought-provoking review of Kim Moody’s An Injury to All has presciently warned about the need for a new analysis and the creation of new tactics: “The internationalization of capital in the past 20 years requires an equally radical internationalization of any strategy for the renewal of the movement of the working class. There is no ‘socialism in one country’ . . . there is still less any ‘social unionism’ in one country.” redtwister, “A Critique of Kim Moody’s An Injury to All,” libcom.org, December 16, 2005, https://libcom.org/article/critique-kim-moodys-injury-all.

56. See “United States Home Ownership Rate,” Trading Economics, accessed October 23, 2024, https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/home-ownership-rate; and Chris Horymski, “Average US Mortgage Debt Increases to $244,498 in 2023,” Experian, accessed October 23, 2024, https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/how-much-americans-owe-on-their-mortgages-in-every-state/.

57. See Figure B in Heidi Schierholz, “Working People Have Been Thwarted in Their Efforts to Bargain for Better Wages by Attacks on Unions,” Economic Policy Institute, August 27, 2019, https://www.epi.org/publication/labor-day-2019-collective-bargaining/. The figure clearly shows the approximately sixty-year relationship between the decline in union membership in the United States and the rise in income inequality in that country.

58. In 1960 mortgage debt in Q3 in the United States was $220.388 billion; in 2019 in Q3 that figure stood at $15.841trillion (“Mortgage Debt Outstanding, All Holders,” FRED, accessed October 27, 2024, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MDOAH). Even accounting for a 55 percent increase in the population in the same time interval (from 180.7 in 1960 to 328.2 million in 2019) and commensurate increases in wages, the 1,390 percent increase in American mortgage debt in the same time frame provides for a very loud exclamation mark indeed. Side by side with these telling statistics are massive increases in the rates of incarceration, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, employment insecurity, and attendant incidents relating to mental health issues. In addition, according to Bill Fay, that country now has the dubious distinction of scoring the third highest poverty rate among the world’s developed countries. “Poverty in the United States,” Debt.org, accessed October 27, 2024, https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/poverty-united-states/.

59. From Statistics Canada: “Just over 1.3 million new immigrants settled permanently in Canada from 2016 to 2021, the highest number of recent immigrants recorded in a Canadian census.” “Immigrants Make Up the Largest Share of the Population in Over 150 Years and Continue to Shape Who We Are as Canadians,” The Daily, October 26, 2022, Statistics Canada, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026a-eng.pdf?st=p-S80vza. See also Carolyn Whitzman, “Workers Can’t Find Affordable Housing. Their Pension Funds Are Part of the Problem,” Globe and Mail, September 2, 2024, A11.

60. On the different attitudes toward the notion of “class” north and south of the border, see Eidlin, “The Class Idea.” For US rates of union penetration of the workforce, see “Union Members—2024,” news release, Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, January 28, 2025, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf. On home ownership rates in Canada, see “To Buy or to Rent: The Housing Market Continues to Be Reshaped by Several Factors as Canadians Search for an Affordable Place to Call Home,” The Daily, September 21, 2022, Statistics Canada, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/220921/dq220921b-eng.pdf?st=x1uXzL1D. For Canadian unionization rates, see René Morissette, “Unionization in Canada, 1981 to 2022,” November, 23, 2022, Statistics Canada, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2022011/article/00001-eng.htm.

61. Luff, Commonsense Anticommunism. Luff, in this instance, is writing mostly on the American Federation of Labour (AFL), but anti-communism was obviously a noted phenomenon of Canadian trade union history as well. For a divergent view, see Rosemary Feurer’s review of Luff’s book.

62. Gannon, Joseph D. Keenan, Labor’s Ambassador in War and Peace, 176.

63. There are limits to how much structural leverage one can achieve in the labour market. Simply because an electrical worker’s skills and knowledge are difficult to replace, thereby giving them a comparative advantage in negotiating higher wages and better working conditions, does not automatically make them impervious to anti-union forces. Lessons can be learned from events in other sectors of the economy. To the point, even with all their ideological zigzags and compounding errors and weaknesses, when the galvanizing role of Communist militants and associated left faction activists was systematically marginalized, it became easier for employers to defeat unions. Moreover, the lack of willingness to engage with socially redemptive community groups in aiding and abetting wider collective bargaining objectives (such as racial and/or gender equality)—alliances of the sort termed “associative power”—further isolates and weakens collective bargaining efforts. In The Southern Key, Michael Goldfield analyzes some of these same issues, notably the resounding failure of the CIO’s “Operation Dixie,” a post–World War II effort to unionize labour in the southern US. Though repeated very much on a smaller scale, there was arguably some echo of these same tactical errors during the Lenkurt Electric strike.

64. Succinct arguments for the labour movement moving “beyond capitalism and business unionism” are also marshalled in Selby, “Labour in Need of Revolutionary Vision.”

65. Verzuh, “Red Rebels and Red Baiters,” 25.

66. There was no television in the house for the longest time, so screen distractions were not available to the ingrained McDonald habit of incessant reading. Monique McDonald recalled that it was Robert Ducourau, a long-time family friend in France, who paid the subscription for Le Monde.

67. Eugene V. Debs, “The Issue,” marxists.org, accessed October 23, 2024, https://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1908/issue.htm.

68. Monique McDonald, in conversation with the author, undated.