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© 2025 On the Line: Stories of BC Workers
Description
Canadian labour history storytelling podcast, produced by volunteers & staff of the BC Labour Heritage Centre on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) territories. Hosted by labour reporter & author Rod Mickleburgh.
33 Episodes
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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...
For most of the 20th century, garment workers—mostly women—sewed, pressed and wove fabric on factory assembly lines throughout the Lower Mainland, before the domestic industry began to decline with globalization. This episode features an interview with Anne Marshall, a garment worker who became an organizer and business agent for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) in Vancouver beginning in the 1940s. We also hear from Esther Peters who worked at Vancouver's West Coast Woo...
This podcast episode tells the story of the "conductorettes" - the women who worked as streetcar conductors in Vancouver during World War II when many men were overseas fighting fascism. The conductorettes were part of a strong union, the Amalgamated Transit Union, which ensured they had the same rights, privileges, and wages as the men. The union played an important role in supporting the women, including helping one get her job back after she was fired for becoming pregnant. Featured are in...
Using interviews from the B.C. Labour Heritage Centre's Oral History Project, the Canadian Anti-Apartheid Activist History Project, and a retired BCGEU (BC General Services Union) activist, this episode tells the impressive story of international solidarity by B.C. union members who worked tirelessly in support of those fighting to end South Africa’s heinous apartheid system. Starting in 1976, until the first free election in 1994, actions by citizens and labour shaped attitudes and responses...
On June 3, 1976 simmering discontent at the Alcan smelter in the northern B.C. community of Kitimat turned into a full-scale revolt. Some members of independent union CASAW (Canadian Association of Smelter and Allied Workers) staged a wildcat strike after being pushed too far by the company. They were soon joined by 1,800 others. Twice the union members rejected their executive’s recommendation to return to work. 150 RCMP officers in riot gear and flanked by dogs and shotguns arrested t...
In Episode 27, we brought you stories from women who worked in the province's once numerous canneries and fish processing plants. For some, this was a stepping stone to working on the fish boats. In Episode 28, we hear from Barbara Stevens, whose parents were both union activists in the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union (UFAWU). Homer Stevens was jailed in 1967 for defying a court injunction during the Prince Rupert trawl fishermen’s strike. Barbara Stevens was an experienced hand in ...
This is the first of a two-part series on the role of women in BC ‘s once thriving fishing industry. This episode hears from women who worked in the fish canneries that once lined the west coast of BC. They bring to life a time when BC fish helped feed the nation and many parts of the world. Included are recordings of an indigenous woman who worked in canneries along the Skeena River from the age of 10. We also meet Josephine Charlie of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation), interviewed...
A 1966 wildcat strike* by 400 mostly women members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) at Lenkurt Electric in Burnaby, BC was a turning point for the province's labour movement. This was a time when courts and police routinely jailed and fined union members during labour disputes, and Canadian members of international unions were demanding more autonomy. The story of the Lenkurt Electric strike is described by Ian McDonald, whose book "The Red Baron of IBEW Local 2...
This episode features two larger than life historical figures: Harvey Murphy, regional director of the International Union of Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Union and Paul Robeson, Black American superstar known around the world for his powerful singing voice and a fearless crusader for peace, universal justice and an end to racial discrimination in the United States. This was the cold war era, and the US government had Robeson pegged as a dangerous radical. Prevented from entering Canad...
We celebrate the life of Tatsuro 'Buck' Suzuki, who spent his life advocating for the West Coast fishing community, first as a young liaison between Japanese Canadians and an industry dominated by Whites, then as a strong trade unionist, and finally, as an early environmental activist, fighting to protect salmon habitat. Included are recordings of Buck Suzuki made by the City of Richmond Archives in the 1970s, a few years before he died. We also spoke with Lorene Oikawa. Her...
In this episode of On the Line, we present a compelling tale of British Columbia's Diana Kilmury, a bold and fearless truck driver who became immersed in the murky male dominated world of the Teamsters Union back in the days when women behind the wheel of big trucks were as scarce as generous employers. She took on both sexist attitudes on the job and a union that was then, in the United States, riddled by corruption, with a top down leadership that was closely connected to organized crime an...
This episode chronicles the exploits of someone who made a huge contribution to the early organizing efforts of the International Woodworkers of America and campaigned relentlessly for justice for South Asians like himself during the 1940s. That man is Darshan Singh Sangha. Yet few British Columbians outside the province's large South Asian community know anything about him. It's a captivating story that stretches from the Punjab where he was born, to Canada and then back to India. The episod...
We look at the valiant efforts during the 1980s by B.C.'s unionized building trades to fight off the anti-union Social Credit government determined to break their hold on major construction projects in the province. It all came to a head in the run-up to Vancouver's World's Fair—Expo 86—and the building of the fair itself. Cheered on by fanatical anti-union contractors, the provincial government wanted to open the door to non-union contractors who bid on and won major projects that pre...
This episode highlights a remarkable but relatively unknown chapter of working-class solidarity. While waves of sympathy strikes to support the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike took place across Canada, the most pronounced of these was in Vancouver, B.C. Even after workers returned to their jobs, 325 women telephone operators stayed out for another two weeks. This was a time of unsurpassed working-class consciousness and resistance, the likes of which Canada had not seen before, nor since. You ...
A five-month long strike in 1918-1919 by Vancouver laundry workers, most of whom were women, is told through the words of one of its leaders. Ellen Goode began working in a steam laundry at 15, toiling over 10 hours a day, sometimes 60 hours a week. She and her fellow workers formed a union in 1918. In September 1918 they went on strike. Supported by the rest of the union movement in Vancouver, they gave as good as they got, going after strikebreakers and doing whatever else was n...
This is the inspiring tale of a group of dedicated individuals who took up the cause of BC’s Fraser Valley Farmworkers who toiled in dreadful, unregulated conditions in the 1970s and ‘80s. It is a saga with death and violence and courageous union organizing. Drawing upon interviews from the University of the Fraser Valley’s South Asian Institute Union Zindabad! Project, led by the BC Labour Heritage Centre, we hear from those who saw the many wrongs taking place in the fertile fields and vowe...
This episode looks at the grim toll taken by exposure to carcinogenic fibres of asbestos. Because it often takes decades for diseases such as mesothelioma - a cancer caused by asbestos exposure - to develop, its legacy is ongoing. We’ve known about these dangers for decades, yet the widespread use of asbestos continued long after its lethal properties were beyond dispute. It routinely found its way into a startling range of construction materials and, ironically, safety prod...
In 2019, former members of the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) along with community historians opened the IWA Archive in Lake Cowichan BC. Located at the Kaatza Station Museum, the IWA Archive is near the home of the first IWA local in the province. The Museum also houses the fabulous Wilmer Gold Photo Collection. The founding convention of the IWA took place in Tacoma Washington in 1937. Its first President was Harold Pritchett from British Columbia, who was also the firs...
The workers at the lead-zinc smelter in Trail, British Columbia have a long history of overcoming formidable obstacles to unionization. Contentious politics, a company union and two World Wars are some of the issues discussed in this episode. We talk to Ron Verzuh whose new book Smelter Wars: A Rebellious Red Trade Union Fights for its Life in Wartime Western Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2022) has just been published. We also listen to archived interviews with two me...
As Black History Month comes to a close, On the Line marks the occasion with a fascinating look back at the history of train sleeping car porters, almost all of whom were Black. It's a story that has only recently started to be told, and combines the history of Black employment in Canada, unionization and the fight for dignity and equality. We examine those long lost days mostly through the voice of Warren Williams, whose Uncle Lee was in the forefront of the drive to organize Sle...
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