(The following article is from the June 16-30,  2010 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)

By Kimball Cariou

Seventy-five years after a bloody police attack crushed an attempt to organize the Vancouver docks, the event will be marked this month by the labour movement. On Saturday, June 19, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union-Canada will host a march from the Maritime Labour Centre, a picnic at New Brighton Park, and an evening dinner and dance.

     The events commemorate the "Battle of Ballantyne Pier," a clash between striking longshore workers and heavily armed police. But the bigger picture shows that 1935 was full of labour battles in British Columbia. A total of 140,760 working days were lost to strikes and lockouts, nearly double the figure from 1934. As the "Great Depression" continued, desperate workers increasingly turned to unions and strikes to fight back.

     Early in 1935, the Corbin Miners Association, a local of the militant Mine Workers' Union of Canada, launched a particularly bitter strike at U.S.-owned Corbin Collieries, near the BC-Alberta border. About 300 miners walked out on January 20, to protest the firing of their union secretary. Demands included better transportation down into the mine, and urgent repairs to company housing. In general, the miners at Corbin and elsewhere were fighting a constant struggle against company demands for wage cuts and layoffs.

     The strike came to a head in mid-April, when the company decided to hire scab labour. A special force of over 60 police was rounded up to help the bosses carry out this plan. On the morning of April 17, hundreds of miners and their wives confronted the cops on a narrow mountain ledge leading to the mine.

     The women courageously stepped forward, forming a line in front of the picketers. Suddenly, a bulldozer roared ahead from the police ranks. Supposedly brought in to clear snow along the ledge, the dozer lurched directly at the women. The legs of several women were crushed, and one woman was dragged 300 feet by the bulldozer. Another had to be hospitalized after the machine's blade tore the flesh from her legs. A pregnant woman lost her unborn child after being clubbed across the shoulders and her abdomen.

     The miners fought back, throwing rocks to halt the bulldozer. Over 50 people were injured in the battle, including 14 police. Seventeen strikers were arrested and held for three days, in a two-person jail cell. But the mine did not open.

     The Corbin struggle dragged on for months, on the picket line, in the courts, and in the arena of public opinion, where the brutality of the company, the police and the government were widely exposed. Ultimately the CPR tore up the railway tracks into the town, which was abandoned.

     But the strike was not in vain. The miners were part of a much wider fight which eventually compelled employers and governments to allow wider organizing rights. Just as important, the Corbin miners and other members of the Communist-led Workers Unity League took their radical outlook into the mainstream of the labour movement, laying the basis for the powerful working class struggle which achieved major victories in the following years.

     The longshore dispute erupted on June 4, exactly one day after hundreds of members of the Relief Camp Workers' Union boarded freight cars to take their demands to Prime Minister R.B. Bennett. As the On to Ottawa trekkers wound their way through the mountains, the Shipping Federation was locking out thousands of longshore workers.

     Most waterfront workers in this period were unorganized and faced a corrupt hiring process. Their exhausting work required brute strength to move heavy boxes, sacks, and bundles. Accidents, occupational diseases, manual lifting, and irregular wages guaranteed few workers lived to a comfortable old age.

     As with the Relief Camp Workers and the Mine Workers Union, there were Communist Party members and other left-wingers among the leadership and rank and file of the waterfront strikers. During this period, company-dominated unions "represented" workers at ports along the west coast. The key shift took place in San Francisco in 1934, when radical labour leader Harry Bridges led a successful struggle which completely changed the balance of forces in the industry, including the emergence of the ILWU.

     In Vancouver, after a company union signed an agreement considered unacceptable by its members, the workers elected Ivan Emery, a communist, to head the Vancouver District Waterfront Workers' Association; ironically, the VDWWA was originally an employer-controlled group which had been taken over by radical-minded workers.

     The immediate issue behind the 1935 showdown was the loading of "hot" cargo by unorganized workers in Powell River. Workers at the Vancouver docks refused to unload the cargo, and strikes followed at all B.C. ports. Militant workers were soon fired, and hundreds of scabs were hired.

     The workers were also demanding wage increases, union recognition, and a Fair Dispatch System. Of course, the strikers were also trying to rid the waterfront of scab labour.

     Allied against them were the stevedoring and shipping employers, and other local bosses, politicians and pro-business media, in an anti-union "Citizens' League" that blamed the strike on the "Bolshevik menace."

     On June 18, strikers marched down Heatley Avenue towards Ballantyne pier with the intention of closing down the docks. With them were thousands of supporters, from sailors and lumberworkers, to students and members of the Longshore Women's Auxiliary. Leading the way was Mickey O'Rourke, carrying a Union Jack flag and displaying his Victoria Cross from the First World War.

     Squads of police on foot and on horseback lined the streets along the railway tracks. As the strikers crossed Alexander Street, they were attacked with tear gas and clubs. Scores of men, including a number of police officers, were hurt in the battle, described as an "orgy of sadism" by the BC Workers' News. The police trampled protesters with their horses, clubbed them with sticks and fired tear gas through the windows of the nearby union hall. Homes were raided and more tear gas shot into tenement buildings.

     "Vancouver will no longer tolerate Communist agitators who incite to riot," declared Mayor Gerry McGeer, ordering the arrest of Ivan Emery. In total 24 union members were arrested.

     The strike and the display of labour solidarity continued for months, starting with a massive "unity conference" of 30 unions at the Orange Hall in Vancouver. Unfortunately, the union movement was outgunned by the city's powerful employer-media gang-up and the increased use of scabs. The final blow came from Justice H. Davis, appointed by the federal department of labour, who filed a blatantly pro-employer report into the strike in October 1935. Davis did not mention the police violence at Ballantyne, blamed the unions for "breach of contract," and claimed that the employer lockout had never happened.

     The strike was officially declared over by the union on December 6. The only condition was recognition of the union of each worker's choice, which allowed divisions to proliferate in the waterfront workforce.

     But in the long run, the seeds planted by the struggles of 1935 bore fruit. It took until the late 1950s to unite all B.C. longshore workers in one union, but this was achieved, largely thanks to the efforts of visionary leaders like the late Craig Pritchett. Today, waterfront workers are among the best paid on the west coast, and the ILWU carries on many of the progressive traditions of Harry Bridges, Craig Pritchett and other militant trade unionists. The 75th anniversary of the Battle of Ballantyne Pier will be a fitting occasion to pay tribute to their memory.