Asian Labour History in British Columbia

The Asiatic Exclusion League was established by labour, politicians and community leaders reflecting the widely held belief in the white community that Asian labour was a threat that needed to be suppressed. On September 7, 1907 thousands of citizens rioted through Vancouver’s Chinatown and Japantown, smashing windows, looting and beating residents.

On May 23, 1914, a crowded ship from Hong Kong carrying 376 passengers, most being immigrants from Punjab, British India, arrived in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet. The passengers, all British subjects, were challenging the Continuous Passage regulation, which stated that immigrants must “come from the country of their birth, or citizenship, by a continuous journey and on through tickets purchased before leaving the country of their birth, or citizenship.” The regulation had been brought into force in 1908 in an effort to curb Indian immigration to Canada. As a result, the Komagata Maru was denied docking by the authorities. Following a two month stalemate, the ship was escorted out of the harbour by the Canadian military on July 23, 1914 and forced to sail back to Budge-Budge, India where nineteen of the passengers were killed by gunfire upon disembarking and many others imprisoned.

The One Big Union (OBU) was a short-lived organization formed by the BC Federation of Labour. A founding principle was the inclusion of all workers, regardless of race, setting labour on a course of inclusiveness.. “This body recognizes no aliens but the capitalist,” was a founding principle.

During a strike almost 100 years ago, French Canadian, British, Scandinavian, Japanese, Chinese, and South Asian sawmill workers showed unprecedented solidarity in the face of overwhelming odds, winning some, but not all, their demands. Machine guns were mounted at the mill gates by the owner. Armed security guards patrolled the grounds, while police kept pickets under constant surveillance. We tell this story in an episode of our On The Line podcast.

With the end of the 1930s Depression, labour’s long hostility towards Asian workers slowly began to change. The International Woodworkers of America (IWA) led the way by hiring three organizers to break down the barriers of race and unite workers across ethnic divides in the forest industry’s diverse workforce. Though rarely remembered as union pioneers today, Roy Mah, Joe Miyazawa and Darshan Singh Sangha all played key roles during the union’s intense organizing drives of the 1940s.

Listen to the captivating story of Darshan Singh Sangha who made a huge contribution to the early organizing efforts of the IWA in BC’s sawmills.

When barriers to female immigration were ended in the 1960s many women entered the informal labour market, working in occupations that had low barriers to entry, such as housekeeping or farmwork. Later, women entered the workforce in service industries like restaurants, hotels and health care where they could join unions.

The creation of the Canadian Farmworkers Union (CFU) was a watershed moment for Asian labour. It gained momentum from workers already part of unions in the forest industry. As much a social movement as a traditional labour organization, the CFU exposed the exploitation that existed in seasonal farmwork in BC.

A Time to Rise is a 39-minute award-winning film which documents the conditions among Chinese and East Indian immigrant workers in British Columbia that provoked the formation of the union, and the response of growers and labour contractors to the threat of unionization. Made over a period of two years, the film is eloquent testimony to the Canadian Farmworkers’ Union.

Union Zindabad! South Asian Canadian Labour History in British Columbia is a highly recommended source of information.