On the Line: Stories of BC Workers

In 2006, forty Latin American tunnel workers building Vancouver's Canada Line discovered they were paid far less than Canadian and, later, European workers doing identical work underground. With help from Local 1611 of the Labourers' Union and researcher Joe Barrett, they unionized, survived a failed strike vote and a decertification attempt, and ultimately won a landmark BC Human Rights Tribunal ruling for wage discrimination. The five-year fight ended with a settlement that changed workers'...

A rare hand-painted fan donated to the Museum of Vancouver holds the signatures of roughly 35 Canadian volunteers who fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) — most from British Columbia, and 13 of whom never came home. In this special episode of On the Line: BC's Labour History Podcast, retired labour lawyer and historian David Yorke traces the stories behind the names on the fan, from BC loggers and miners who joined the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion ("Mac-Paps") of the Internati...

On February 18, 1965, a massive avalanche struck the remote Granduc copper mine camp, north of Stewart, BC. Twenty-six of the 150 workers on site were killed, mostly members of Labourers' International Union Local 168. The slide destroyed bunkhouses, the cookhouse, and other facilities with devastating force, even rebounding off the valley floor. The camp was fog-bound and isolated; an SOS was picked up by a ship in the Aleutian Islands, bringing in American Air Force helicopters. Survivors d...

For almost five decades Syd Thompson (1914-1992) was a formidable force in BC’s labour movement. President of the large Vancouver local of the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) and the Vancouver and District Labour Council, Thompson didn’t often mince words or offer subtle opinions. When he spoke, people listened — they had no choice. This podcast episode pulls from two recorded interviews with Syd Thompson in which he traces his experiences in the Great Depression, including periods...

The hard-working women in the Okanagan Valley's bountiful fruit packing plants from the 1920s to the 1970s became known as the “Apple Box Belles”. While much has been written about Okanagan fruit-growing, the early union history has barely been mentioned. In this episode we hear from Alma Faulds and Lydia Bastian, two fruit packers who were active in their unions, the United Packinghouse Workers and the Fruit and Vegetable Workers. They discuss the hard seasonal work, long hours, occupational...