Gary Johnson Interview: Standing up for Municipal Workers

The learning curve was steep for Gary Johnson. As a young man he learned the ropes for leadership in the trade union movement starting at age 18. Before he was 20 years old he was president of Local 454 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) for the Municipality of Delta.

Gary was raised in the BC Lower Mainland by a single mother who had three boys. He learned about working life by experiencing his mother working two jobs to support the family and seeing her often going hungry to ensure her boys were fed. From a paper route to gas station work, Gary, along with his brothers, contributed to the family income to survive.

Working for the Municipality of Delta was Gary’s first union job. After organizing his fellow employees to get the local union to spring for some money for the Local 454 ball team, Gary was soon elected as vice president of the Local. After the president of the Local left for another job, Gary became the president of Local 454. Gary was also elected to the BC Federation of Labour.

Not long after being elected, Gary was leading a strike in 1972. He later led an 8-week strike in 1979 and a 13-week strike in 1984. Gary was also very involved in Operation Solidarity during that time. This leadership led to Gary being hired onto the National Staff of CUPE where he became responsible for servicing the CUPE membership in school districts from Surrey all the way to Pemberton. He was integral in the complicated and cumbersome task of establishing coordinated bargaining for all the CUPE Locals for all the school districts for the whole province. After that Gary became responsible for the pension plan and established himself as a well-respected pension coordinator for the CUPE National Union in BC.

Gary has applied the knowledge he gleaned from his involvement in the trade union movement during his retirement to become a leader in the Vancouver horse racing community.