The Battle of Blubber Bay B.C., Podcast Ep. 12
A fierce 1938 strike made history when mine workers faced extreme retaliation for organizing with the International Woodworkers of America (IWA). Despite 30 years of wretched working conditions there had never been labour issues at the mine, until an obstinate manager imposed a drastic wage cut and the workers decided to organize. What followed was a brutal confrontation like no other, on this episode of our On the Line podcast.
Publication date: December 8, 2021
Podcast length: 19:06
Hosted by: Rod Mickleburgh
Research and writing by: Patricia Wejr and Rod Mickleburgh
Production by: John Mabbott
Blubber Bay, on the north end of Texada island, got its name in its previous life as a whaling station. By the 1930s it was home to an enormous open-pit limestone mine operated by Pacific Lime, which employed 150 men. Unions had no legal recognition at the time, but when a mine manager instituted a wage cut, miners decided to join the IWA. After enduring mass firings, racial discrimination, and systemic intimidation, workers launched a prolonged strike in defiance of the company that controlled their jobs and the town they lived in.
Through music, eyewitness accounts, and historical analysis, this episode traces the harsh realities of pre-WWII labour struggles: forced evictions, police surveillance, beatings, arrests, and more. Chinese workers, marginalized even within the labour movement, played a key role in this strike and in the IWA more broadly. Despite police violence and government indifference, the strikers received widespread public support across the province in a display of working-class solidarity.
Although the strike ultimately failed, it laid the groundwork for future victories. This episode in British Columbia’s labour history reminds us of the courage of early unionists, and the importance of a political climate that values workers.