Laird Cronk Interview: A Philosophy of Leadership and Collective Power

Laird Cronk, a former president of the BC Federation of Labour, begins this interview with a memory from his junior high school days when his father, an electrician and business representative for the IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) woke him to go to a protest against the Vander Zalm Social Credit government’s anti-union legislation.

Laird eventually became an electrician and IBEW representative himself, starting as an assistant business manager for Local 230 in 1992. Soon after that, Laird was elected secretary-treasurer of the Vancouver Island Building Trades, and as such, represented that organization on the BC Building Trades Council. During this period, he led the seven month labour dispute at the Port Alberni Pulp mill, which was fought to maintain the Building Trades’ nonaffiliation clause. Laird describes this as a “wild time,” and he considers it to be the “largest labour dispute in B.C.’s history.” Over 100 protesters were arrested during this dispute.

In 1997, Laird ran to become the president of the BC Building Trades but was not successful. After working as an organizer for his IBEW local, Laird became a union contractor, running his own business for a couple of years. After that, he accepted a position with the B.C. Ministry of Labour Employment Standards branch, working on the Skills Development and Fair Wage Policy for several years. Following that he became the IBEW national representative in B.C., a position he held for 18.5 years until he was elected as president of the BC Federation of Labour.

During his four years at the BC Federation of Labour, Laird took the Be More Than a Bystander course which provides practical tools and strategies to address issues of harassment and discrimination against women in the trades. This had a profound effect on Laird, and he became a champion of the program.

In the interview, Laird shares his views on many topics including: how to be an effective leader, how to unite the labour movement by focussing on things the different unions have in common, building trust and solidarity among affiliates, achieving changes important to the labour movement through strategic planning and relationship-building, and his overall philosophy of harnessing the power of the group. As he says in the interview, “You need to plug people into the greater movement—the power of the group—because you’re powerless without them.”