Ray Haynes Interview: Reflections on a 70-Year Career

Interview: Ray Haynes (RH)

Interviewer: Ken Bauder (KB), Bailey Garden (BG)

Date: July 11, 2016

Location: Burnaby, B.C.

Transcription: Bailey Garden

 

KB [00:00:04] Yes, sir, and welcome. Great to have you here again, Ray.

 

RH [00:00:08] Nice to be here.

 

KB [00:00:09] Stories are where our lives are, and you tell a great story.

 

RH [00:00:13] I get carried away, though.

 

KB [00:00:15] It’s impossible to get carried away on oral history. So, I’ll give you a couple of names and build me the flavour of the day with George Johnston at the Fed (BC Federation of Labour). What was that like?

 

RH [00:00:28] Terrific.

 

KB [00:00:29] Good, good.

 

RH [00:00:30] George was terrific and interesting because keep in mind, I came from the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) part of the labour movement.

 

KB [00:00:37] Not the AFL (American Federation of Labour).

 

RH [00:00:38] Not the AFL, and when we merged, we found them all quite conservative. I’m exaggerating it.

 

KB [00:00:48] Yes.

 

RH [00:00:48] But they were a little more conservative than our guys from the CIO side. They were good guys, and then in a very short time, George was top-notch, and he worked very hard at the Fed. He worked for the Meatcutters, and yet, had lots of time when we needed him in any big fights and stuff like that. Terrific. Terrific.

 

KB [00:01:24] When when you worked at the — or when you were at the Fed, the Executive, there’s a number of names I’ll throw out to you and if you have comment about. John Squire.

 

RH [00:01:35] Well, John Squire was my buddy. John Squire, I guess I hired him when I was with Retail Wholesale, and he came on, and when I left Retail Wholesale to go to the Congress, he replaced me.

 

KB [00:01:52] Oh, okay.

 

RH [00:01:53] As the head guy, and of course, I also knew — I also knew Carolyn Askew.

 

KB [00:02:03] Yes.

 

RH [00:02:03] The lawyer. And they met up in the labour movement and married; and I still get together with her once in a while or send her emails back and forth. Their son, I suddenly forget his name, but anyway, her son. So, yeah. John was terrific. John wasn’t on the executive with me, but he played a big role. It was kind of interesting because the BC Fed office was at 517 East Broadway, and downstairs was the ITU, and that was –.

 

KB [00:02:46] Transportation.

 

RH [00:02:47] Typographical.

 

KB [00:02:49] Oh, okay.

 

RH [00:02:51] International Typographical Union, and that was Len Guy. Around the corner was my union, Retail Wholesale. So, John Squire, even though he wasn’t on the executive played a big role, and of course, Len did as well. Quite often, if there was a problem, the three of us got together.

 

KB [00:03:09] Yes.

 

RH [00:03:09] And then we’d end up in an executive meeting later on or something. No, John played a big role in the labour movement. Brought in the pension plan, I think, for Retail Wholesale.

 

KB [00:03:23] Al Staley.

 

RH [00:03:25] Al was a terrific guy. Again, like George Johnson, AF of L, and yet we got along great, and he was a hell of a good president. These guys were putting in a lot of time freelance, because they had their jobs. He was representative for the Carpenters Union. Top guy for the Carpenters Union on Vancouver Island.

 

KB [00:03:52] Oh, okay.

 

RH [00:03:54] So, they both put in extra time, as we all worked crazy. I mean, it was unreal.

 

KB [00:04:00] Yes.

 

RH [00:04:01] My family took a beating.

 

KB [00:04:03] Yeah, it does. Jack McKenzie.

 

RH [00:04:08] Well, that’s an interesting story, and I don’t know whether we should get into the whole thing, but the IWA (International Woodworkers of America), it was sort of an agreement it was entitled to three representatives on our 16-board council. Jack Moore and a couple others were the three representatives year after year. It probably changed a tiny bit, but we got very unhappy with Jack Moore. We should talk about whether we want to go into detail.

 

KB [00:04:48] Sure. No, we’re into detail.

 

RH [00:04:50] But should it really end up in the history?

 

BG [00:04:53] It’s your choice on how much you feel comfortable saying, and like as long as — yeah, as long as you feel comfortable, and if it’s something you don’t, you can just skip it.

 

KB [00:05:04] If it’s —

 

RH [00:05:05] Let’s say we were just — he didn’t work out, as far as we were concerned.

 

BG [00:05:08] There you go.

 

RH [00:05:10] He was the President of the IWA. Terrific skills and everything, but there was problems. We went — coming to the convention, coming up towards the convention, we told them we would not accept Jack Moore at our event. We did that kind of stuff.

 

KB [00:05:32] Sure.

 

RH [00:05:33] In those days, we did that kind of stuff, and of course they went crazy; but we said, no, we’re not. We’re not going to support him. We will not put him on our slate.

 

KB [00:05:43] Oh, this was for running for a position at the Fed.

 

RH [00:05:47] Right.

 

KB [00:05:47] And there was — okay.

 

RH [00:05:50] He was — why we picked Jack Moore was that he was an officer. We said, I don’t think we were saying he couldn’t come on, but if he came on — that’s right, he wasn’t going to be an officer. So, we wanted Jack McKenzie, because I guess we had Jack Moore — I’m thinking we must have had Jack Moore, Jack Mackenzie and someone else, the three. We said, ‘The officer will not be Jack Moore anymore.’.

 

BG [00:06:20] Right.

 

RH [00:06:21] So, we insisted that be Jack McKenzie, and eventually they backed down, and we put Jack McKenzie. He was unbelievable. Great guy. Wonderful guy. I’m very sad about Jack, because I lost touch with him, and he died, and I never saw him again.

 

KB [00:06:39] Yes. Yes.

 

RH [00:06:41] But no, he made a great contribution. Terrific contribution. When he spoke, he could speak for the IWA, and we knew exactly where we sat with the IWA.

 

KB [00:06:53] Dunphy.

 

RH [00:06:55] Don Dunphy, from the Steelworkers, he did a good job. Quite pleased.

 

BG [00:07:03] What about Len Guy? Can you talk a little bit about him?

 

RH [00:07:05] Well, Len Guy was super. A little bit, didn’t have too much of a social conscience, but a trade unionist? 100%. Slowly but surely, we convinced him, and he played a major role on all kinds of non-union issues and social issues; but he didn’t quite have the background that others had, but good. He was our choice to replace me when I left.

 

KB [00:07:41] Don Crabbe.

 

RH [00:07:42] Don Crabbe.

 

KB [00:07:48] Well dressed. Well appointed guy.

 

RH [00:07:51] Yeah.

 

KB [00:07:51] Quiet.

 

RH [00:07:53] Wasn’t one of our superstars.

 

KB [00:07:58] Ron Johnson.

 

RH [00:07:59] Ron was terrific. Now, that was a staff person.

 

BG [00:08:01] Yeah.

 

KB [00:08:02] Oh, okay.

 

RH [00:08:03] A staff person. I can’t quite remember his role, but topnotch staff. My success both at Retail Wholesale and the Fed was that I had a wonderful staff.

 

KB [00:08:20] Yes.

 

RH [00:08:21] You met Clive this morning. I could not have survived without the staff that I had in both those places. At the Fed, and again later at the Nurses, and I can tell you about that as well. They had no problem telling me to go to hell, or tell me, ‘Ray Haynes, you’re crazy. We can’t do that.’ And make me rethink the direction we might have gone in.

 

KB [00:08:50] Right.

 

RH [00:08:55] I remember particularly the nurses, the two nurses that we hired that work with me in long-term care. They would just say, ‘Ray, you’re crazy. We can’t do that.’ If you haven’t got all the skills, you better have good people around you, and you better be ready to listen to them. I think that was my strong suit.

 

KB [00:09:20] Yes.

 

RH [00:09:22] I realized that I had to listen to them, and not always agree with them, but quite often change course if they thought — if they could convince me I was on the wrong course.

 

KB [00:09:34] And Clive Lytle.

 

RH [00:09:35] Terrific, yeah.

 

KB [00:09:37] He contributed significantly to your term at the Fed?

 

RH [00:09:45] In a major way, a major way. No, there was those guys like Colin and Clive particularly, and then of course, John from around the corner at the other office, and Len downstairs. They’d get — we’d get together quite often. In fact, we used to go over to Main Street, Broadway and Main and play pool at lunch. Of course, when you’re doing all this, you’re talking all the time.

 

KB [00:10:10] Yes.

 

RH [00:10:11] You know, and what about that stupid thing there and blah, blah, blah. That was the Fed, in a way. I’m willing to admit that there was a council of 16. There were six officers, and it wouldn’t be unusual once in a while to have five out of six officers and just enough of the council members to push through a policy. In other words, we would start off with five there, and then we had an understanding that once the officers made a decision, unless it was something you could not live with, you had to abide by the decision of the officers. The rest of the council, when we met with them to push forth the policy, they would no idea that sometimes there would be one or two maybe that weren’t in favour. So, then maybe there would — well, there was always two or three. Once in a while from the IWA, Paddy Neale, who you mentioned here.

 

KB [00:11:16] Yes.

 

RH [00:11:17] We never agreed on stuff with him, or very rarely. Once we had the majority and voted 9 to 7 on occasion, the 7 out of 16, that was the policy, and nobody dared to go against that policy. When they did, they got crucified.

 

KB [00:11:40] When the IWA threatened to leave the Fed, what was going on? How did that transpire?

 

RH [00:11:46] Well, what was happening? Worse and worse. They were yakking in the press, internal problems continually in the press. We warned them a number of times and they just ignored us completely. Finally, we had a pol — oh, it ended up in a convention with the policy that there should be no — yeah, we put it through when this continued to happen, we put through a special resolution and it passed at the convention, and I can’t recall whether there was much controversy. Probably not. You know, it’s it’s a hard one to be against, that we shouldn’t be taking our internal problems and putting it out.

 

KB [00:12:29] Making it public.

 

RH [00:12:30] But I think as sometimes they do it with resolutions, they don’t really think about it and afterwards, they don’t think they have to pay attention to it. That was the one thing about the Fed in those days. When we passed policy, people had to live by it, or we gave them a bad time. So, they kept it up and we finally threatened, and finally, we kicked them out.

 

KB [00:12:55] Four locals?

 

RH [00:12:57] Four or five. Yeah, I can’t remember exactly, but four locals. That was just a gimmick that Paddy Neale used to kind of scare us, that he was giving up the Labour Council. He didn’t want the Labour Council kicked out, because he was still the — I guess he was the Secretary, he might have been the President. Was he a secretary or president?

 

BG [00:13:25] I think he was secretary.

 

RH [00:13:25] Secretary. So that was a bit of a gimmick. we clashed continually with Labour Council, but mostly Patty Neale. He was pretty hopeless.

 

KB [00:13:43] Was it ever resolved, or did he have to leave before?

 

RH [00:13:47] It was resolved finally, because he ran against me at the Fed. He was telling me and pushing me face in mine, ‘I’m going to beat you.’ And he had gone to jail, actually, for the Lenkurt fuss.

 

KB [00:13:59] Electric, yes.

 

RH [00:14:01] He said, ‘I’ll be in jail, and they’ll vote for me.’ You know, in other words that will help him.

 

KB [00:14:08] Yeah. Popularity.

 

RH [00:14:09] I beat him bad.

 

KB [00:14:10] Yeah.

 

BG [00:14:12] I was think — when I saw that, it just triggered that we had elections every year, which now they do every two years, or they have conventions every two years. I don’t know which it is. In any case, they ran against me six out of seven years. The last year, they didn’t run against me, but they ran every time. One election was very close. I forget which one it was, but I think it was about 30 votes or 16 votes.

 

KB [00:14:51] Yes, yeah. Yeah. Swing it with 16.

 

RH [00:14:53] Out of 400, 500 votes. Or 300, 400. I know we got off track a little bit, but no, that was a gimmick on his part. The Canadian Labour Congress came out and I can’t remember exactly how it worked out, but we worked out a deal, and they stopped talking publicly and everybody went back to normal.

 

KB [00:15:22] Did they come back into the Fed?

 

RH [00:15:24] Yeah, it was just a short period.

 

KB [00:15:27] Injunctions during your time.

 

RH [00:15:32] Well, that was one of the main things that motivated me, because I was with Retail Wholesale and strike after strike, injunctions would kill us. One in particular, it’s kind of interesting. I was going to get my ashes thrown on the street. It’s on Raymur Avenue, it was Grinnell Sprinkler System.

 

KB [00:15:57] Yes.

 

RH [00:15:59] My guys got carried away one night and they broke into the place, and they did a little bit of messing up.

 

KB [00:16:05] Mischief.

 

RH [00:16:06] Mischief, mischief and totally on their own. Nothing to do with it. We obviously would never tell them to do anything like that. They got an injunction, which was a complete binding. A complete prohibiting of picketing. Not just telling — what usually happens.

 

KB [00:16:31] Information.

 

RH [00:16:31] One or two, we’re down to one or two pickets and don’t block the driveways, and all that kind of stuff. This was a complete picketing, and we never could get it removed. It busted the strike. So, I should step back and say that when I was then the fourth Vice-President of the Fed, prior to 1966, when I took over, I was — that was my real drive, was injunctions. The guy in the secretary’s job was Pat O’Neill, not Paddy Neale. Pat O’Neill, an Irish guy, and I told you about the story of his wrong name and all that kind of stuff, didn’t I? Okay.

 

KB [00:17:17] Yes.

 

RH [00:17:19] But a terrific guy with the press, and a terrific guy publicly. He just grabbed a hold of that injunction thing, plastered his office with all the injunctions, and that hit the front page, at least in the newspaper, the picture of these injunctions on his office. That was a big campaign against injunctions, and ultimately we won, but they moved it to the Labour Board.

 

KB [00:17:48] Right.

 

RH [00:17:50] Then I think the first thing that started to happen was less and less ex-parte injunctions. I mean, they would get an injunction and you wouldn’t be there. They could say anything they want to the judge and he’d give them an injunction. So, the first thing that happened is that it was less ex parte injunctions. So, once you got called in, it was a little bit better deal.

 

BG [00:18:16] Because you could defend yourself.

 

RH [00:18:17] But still an injunction. Interesting story again, but I don’t think it’s for this. When we were supporting the grape workers, we were picketing a store on Davie Street. I don’t know whether it was Super Valu, or Save On or one of those, was handling “hot” grapes. We had declared grapes “hot”. They got an injunction, and then I left Federation, and the lawyers in Victory Square called me and said, ‘Ray, they renewed it this year.’ At the end of the year, they renewed it, and my wife was quite concerned about this. I said, ‘It doesn’t mean nothing, don’t worry about it.’ I think they renewed it for two years, and then one year they phoned up, the lawyers phoned me and said, ‘Your wife will be happy, they haven’t renewed it this year.’ But that’s how stupid the whole thing was. Injunctions were, it was a mockery of the courts, really.

 

KB [00:19:16] Yes.

 

RH [00:19:17] Absolutely, and especially an ex-parte injunction. They used them all the time. Northland Navigation was the biggest one of all, pretty near, I guess. Well, the oil workers was big.

 

KB [00:19:32] Imperial oil.

 

RH [00:19:34] But the the injunction there, they just came down with hundreds of injunctions, and they handed everybody that was — we got a huge crowd. 24 hours, they were there all night and couple of days. Then we had to go appear in court, I think on the Monday, one week. Two or three days afterwards we were supposed to appear in court. Bob Smeal, Al Staley, I think, and myself and Alex McDonald.

 

KB [00:20:08] Yes.

 

RH [00:20:09] He was representing the Fed at that time.

 

KB [00:20:18] Was this for Imperial Oil or Northland?

 

RH [00:20:21] No, that was the Northland Navigation. We were supporting the Canadian Merchant Service Guild (CMSG) against the SIU (Seamens’ International Union) and the employer.

 

KB [00:20:29] Yes, and Diefenbaker and — what was that guy in Ottawa? Bank? Harold Banks?

 

RH [00:20:37] Hal Banks.

 

KB [00:20:37] Hal Banks, yeah.

 

RH [00:20:39] So they — I’m rambling a bit, but they — we met in a hotel on Robson Street. I remember that and started to get ready for the Monday deal. Alex MacDonald said, ‘Now, we can be able to tell them that the pickets are gone. They’re all gone.’ He said. ‘No, the pickets aren’t gone.’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ And we said, ‘The picket? We’re not removing the pickets.’ We said, ‘They’ve got an injunction against it.’ I said, ‘The pickets are staying.’. He said, ‘You expect me?’ I remember that, Alex going, ‘You expect me to go to court in front of that judge, and you’re still violating the injunction?’ We said, ‘Well, you figure it out, Alex.’

 

KB [00:21:23] Your problem, not ours. That’s why we hired you.

 

RH [00:21:25] And I think it got solved.

 

KB [00:21:29] Before court.

 

RH [00:21:30] Before court opened or something. I forget exactly what happened.

 

KB [00:21:35] (unclear) Yeah.

 

RH [00:21:37] Imperial Oil one sounds kind of complicated, but it isn’t. All the oil companies worked together with moving the oil around. So, the oil workers ended up in a strike, and we tried to boycott Imperial Oil, but it didn’t matter. Couldn’t do anything with it. Couldn’t win that way. So, then we decided to declare Imperial Oil “hot”, and they realized that meant all oil, because it’s all interwoven.

 

KB [00:22:12] Yes.

 

RH [00:22:12] I don’t quite understand exactly, but so we ended up — I think the top government people came in and everything, and we got a settlement.

 

KB [00:22:30] I think they — just to back up a tad. There was a Canadian Seamans’ Union (CSU), Canadian Maritime — Canadian Merchant Seamans’ Guild, CMSG. That was the licencing group. That was the union, but the Canadian Seaman’s Union is the one Banks was brought up to break the SIU.

 

RH [00:22:49] No, because — yeah, the CSU was a Canadian union and they busted.

 

KB [00:22:55] Yeah, the SIU did. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Do you see injunctions today as an issue still?

 

RH [00:23:03] Not — I don’t think so. I’m not, you know, I’m not privy to all that stuff, but it would be something by — it’s certainly not by the courts. It’s all done by Labour Board now. It’s a labour matter.

 

KB [00:23:22] Now, do you remember when the Labour Relations Board (LRB) was put together? When it was first established?

 

RH [00:23:32] No.

 

KB [00:23:35] Did it predate you?

 

RH [00:23:37] Oh, I’m sure.

 

BG [00:23:37] Yeah.

 

RH [00:23:39] In fact, their office, it was a conciliation department.

 

KB [00:23:43] Oh, okay.

 

RH [00:23:44] That’s right, and it was at 300 block West Pender. I remember that.

 

KB [00:23:50] Okay.

 

RH [00:23:58] Yeah. It was a very — yeah, it just provided conciliation officers. I don’t think it did much more than that. Mediation and so on.

 

KB [00:24:13] Good.

 

RH [00:24:13] You know, that’s a bit tough to remember.

 

KB [00:24:16] Yeah, no, no, for sure. Compulsory arbitration, Bill 33. Some liked it.

 

RH [00:24:24] Well, Bill 33 was the big fight, and we took a position pretty quick that we would boycott the Mediation Commission. In fact, the guy at the head of it was an absolute dud, and everybody admitted it eventually, including the employers. They were going after him and everything, but initially, it was a big fight. A couple unions, they were — there was a few unions that were timid about defying it, but we held them together. Finally, the Teamsters said they are going, and they weren’t in the Fed. At that time, they were not on the BC Fed. They went, and they got screwed royally, and so then they spoke out against the Mediation Commission.

 

KB [00:25:20] Yes.

 

RH [00:25:21] In fact, if the Mediation Commission had played that right, they should have given them a good deal. We would have been in trouble.

 

KB [00:25:28] Yeah.

 

RH [00:25:28] They didn’t. They screwed them, just like we did they’d be.

 

BG [00:25:34] Proved you right.

 

RH [00:25:35] So yeah, in a way, the way in which the Teamsters were treated, and their protesting afterwards was probably the finish of the Mediation Commission.

 

KB [00:25:51] Oh, is that right? Oh, okay. Wow.

 

RH [00:25:55] Or at least the binding, all of the binding. The binding stuff.

 

KB [00:26:03] Your time at the Fed was collaborative and collegial, and your goal was to bring everybody together. Is that a fair statement? As best you can, considering the personalities.

 

RH [00:26:22] Our main goal, my main goal was more trade union than — I mean, I got it in all — we got into all kinds of social issues, but my main…

 

KB [00:26:39] Passion.

 

RH [00:26:39] Passion was to get unions to work better together. I mentioned strikes. A lot of strikes in those days, and we had to work through the Labour Council, and they were hopeless. I mean, they’d tell us to come back next week and they’d see if they can help us. So, you know, I convinced Pat O’Neill that the Fed had to play a role, and we’ve got to get unions working together. So even right now, there can’t be a strike unless the unions get together. BC Fed gets a meeting, get them together. I think that policy is still there, and that was our policy. So that part we did, and we did a lot of other stuff. I was just — you asked about women here.

 

BG [00:27:34] Mm hmm.

 

RH [00:27:35] That was one thing that we weren’t very good about. There were 16 people. There wasn’t one woman on there at that time.

 

BG [00:27:41] Yeah.

 

RH [00:27:42]  I had trouble thinking of whether we played much pool at that time. Now, we had a few good women. Two of them were lawyers, or probably three. Carolyn Askew, who I mentioned.

 

KB [00:28:04] Yes.

 

RH [00:28:05] Very progressive person, and not only pushed for unions and strikes and lockouts and all that kind of stuff, but would get herself involved in the union direction, even. Marguerite Jackson from — I’m going to name two now, Marguerite and Catherine Wedge, both from Victory Square. That was the union — that was the office that we used more than anybody, and I took it with me wherever it went. I went to the Nurses’ Union and convinced them to dump their legal counsel and use Victory Square. Catherine Wedge is now a judge in New Westminster or somewhere. Marguerite Jackson still there. Opal Skillings, from the Office Workers was a very good woman at that time, but as I say, wasn’t on the executive. I think about it now, it sounds so crazy, really, that they weren’t represented very much. Another terrific person was Josephine Hallock.

 

KB [00:29:19] Yes.

 

RH [00:29:20] Josephine was in charge of Union Label, and that was a big thing in those days, and her husband. It was a team, Earl Hallock and Josephine Hallock, and they did a wonderful job on Union Label. They were just about as tough on Union Label as we were on the crossing, not crossing picket lines.

 

KB [00:29:46] Gail Borst.

 

RH [00:29:46] Who?

 

KB [00:29:48] Gail Borst. She was an American who came up, or did some study here for the Fed, and Nancy Welsh.

 

RH [00:29:59] The names kind of ring the bell a bit, but I can’t really remember them.

 

BG [00:30:02] Those are ones Clive had mentioned.

 

KB [00:30:04] Yeah.

 

BG [00:30:07] So, I’m curious a little bit more about some of the tactics that the Fed used to use. So, like declaring things “hot”, like we’ve been talking about.

 

RH [00:30:16] Yeah. Well, I can’t remember if I gave you this story, but stop me if I did. You didn’t cross picket lines, and the Teamsters who weren’t in tried to a couple of times and ended up terribly. I mean, we beat them badly; but a good example, it was kind of nearly crazy, was that there was an outfit on 12th Avenue before you get to Boundary Road. There was quite a few. There were Simmons, and Cranes, and Malkins, and quite a few outfits.

 

KB [00:30:49] Kelly Douglas.

 

RH [00:30:50] Goodridge Tire.

 

KB [00:30:50] Kelly Douglas was down there?

 

RH [00:30:52] No, no. Kelly Douglas was out on Kingsway, near Sears.

 

KB [00:30:56] What was the one at Rupert?

 

RH [00:30:58] Malkins.

 

KB [00:30:59] Malkins.

 

RH [00:31:00] (unclear) Malkins.

 

KB [00:31:00] Oh, okay.

 

RH [00:31:01] There was another one with the Steelworkers had, and the Steelworkers tried to organize the office. Most of them didn’t bother, but you know, we said, ‘You should be organized front door to back door.’ So, they tried to organize the office and they failed. Along came the OTEU, Office and Technical Employees Union, and I’m sure Opal would be involved. Opal Skillings. They organized and they couldn’t get an agreement. Eventually, they went on strike, and the Steelworkers, because they were still angry that they hadn’t been able to organize them, couldn’t get their guys — I guess they’d done such a bad job in bad mouthing the OTEU that the guys, the people inside, would not support the picket line. So, we pushed them, and met with them and we couldn’t budge them. Couldn’t get them to support the strike. So, we said that we want a gate for the people to go through, then. Special gate that we will agree to, and then we will declare everything “hot”. It was nearly outrageous, because here it was produced by the Steelworkers, and we declared it “hot” and nobody would handle it. That’s where Bill Apps’ son, I remember the phone call somebody made, or I made maybe, or Bill made to his son at the C.N. (Canadian National Railway). He says, ‘I don’t understand this.’ He says, ‘Isn’t this from the Steelworkers?’ We said, ‘Never mind. It’s hot.’ I mean, that’s — I mentioned that one just to show that when we said it was “hot”, nobody questioned that. It was Fed policy.

 

KB [00:32:54] Yes.

 

BG [00:32:55] It was respected.

 

RH [00:32:55] The same as grapes. We never — the only place in North America that didn’t handle, unions didn’t handle the grapes. Every other campaign in North America was ‘Don’t Buy Grapes’, but ours was. We had that upper step, because we had Safeway and Malkins. So, they wouldn’t be handling them. We had trouble with the Teamsters at Kelly Douglas, but we ignored it, and as far as we were concerned, not only don’t buy grapes. Don’t handle grapes. Now, your question again?

 

BG [00:33:35] Oh, I was just going to say, like do you think that people — like is the Fed still using those sort of tactics today? Do they still declare things “hot” every once in a while?

 

RH [00:33:44] Yeah, they did declare a “hot” at… Was it IKEA or something?

 

BG [00:33:50] Right, yeah. IKEA, because they locked out their workers. Yeah.

 

RH [00:33:52] But now, I’ll tell you something about that strike. I go to IKEA once in a while. In fact, we just went there, Viv and I, looking for a picture frame.

 

KB [00:34:02] Yes.

 

RH [00:34:03] Day before yesterday, or yesterday. I didn’t know that place was on strike. I mean, I live in the Sunshine Coast. Maybe I lived here, I would have known, but I did not know. So, it was a long time. I think this is all part of the problem, maybe. Maybe the Fed doesn’t work on it as hard as we did. Maybe we were a bit obsessed. That was our top priority. I don’t know if that is their top priority now. I would hope so. I would expect so, but because of the no coverage in the papers, no labour reporters and all that stuff, it is probably much harder for them to get the word out.

 

BG [00:34:54] Yeah, communicate.

 

RH [00:34:55] Because you can get it out through the unions, but the press is where you get coverage.

 

BG [00:35:01] Another tactic that you kind of talked about — oh, go ahead.

 

RH [00:35:04] Other one. Oh, yeah. Another one was BCAA (British Columbia Automobile Association). They were on strike. I went to pay my money and found out they were on strike. So, I just wrote them a letter that said, ‘You will not be paid, and I will not be a member until they settle the strike.’ Then my story is —

 

KB [00:35:25] Yeah.

 

RH [00:35:26] A week later, they settled.

 

KB [00:35:27] Yeah. Yeah.

 

BG [00:35:28] You made the difference.

 

KB [00:35:30] Whatever it was. They needed it, yeah, spot on.

 

BG [00:35:34] Yeah.

 

RH [00:35:35] So, your question then is that I think it’s much tougher. Look at the number of places where the employer locks out. That was, I believe, I don’t know the stats, but my guess would be the stats are that it would be much rarer than it is the last few years. They knew that there was a lot more jobs then. So often, if the strike was going to go on for a while, the guys went. We got them jobs; they went and jobs. Now they’ve got to figure out how, especially if they haven’t got a very big strike fund, how are they going to survive?

 

KB [00:36:15] Yeah.

 

RH [00:36:16] So, there are a lot of different factors. I have to be careful what I say. I just wish there was far more militant signs that I’m not, that I don’t quite see, but maybe they’re there. As I say, I’m now sitting on the BC Fed seniors’ group, FORUM (Federation of Retired Union Members). BC FORUM, and I’m learning more about what they do. I know they’re active on the trade agreement. They’re active on the 15 minimum wage. They’re active on revising the Canada pension, and that kind of stuff. I am in no way in shape to say how they’re dealing with the strikes. I hear that there’s going to be a strike, and they’d be called to the Fed office before they can go out and so on.

 

KB [00:37:19] So, the legislation that came down during the NDP (New Democratic Party) government’s time.

 

RH [00:37:27] I had left.

 

KB [00:37:28] Yeah.

 

RH [00:37:29] I had left, and I know the labour guys were happy about it. I think some of it was fine, but I think they tied it into stopping a number of unions from going on strike. I think Colin Gabelmann and a couple others voted against it, and that tells me something. I mean, I never was close to Dave Barrett. I think he did some good things and great things, but his resistance to admitting that we work with labour, and we love labour, and his concern and worry that he doesn’t want to be tarred as working for the “labour bosses”. His type of language when he talks about this was very close to that, you know.

 

KB [00:38:33] Yes.

 

RH [00:38:34] I will never forget, and this was in the press, that after we beat him, and the labour movement’s delegates were enough to swing the vote to Berger. The next morning in the hotel, he came up to Tom and I, and I’ll never — you know, he tries to deny it, but he said to us, ‘We should contrive way for you, Tom, to have a bit of a fight with labour.’

 

KB [00:39:07] Tom?

 

RH [00:39:08] Berger.

 

BG [00:39:09] Berger should have…

 

RH [00:39:09] There was 3 of us.

 

BG [00:39:11] There should be some sort of way for Berger to fight with labour.

 

RH [00:39:14] Yeah, so that you don’t look like you’re just on for the labour movement.

 

BG [00:39:19] Right.

 

RH [00:39:19] And Tom and I pretty near said, ‘F off.’ Both of us. Tom was no different.

 

BG [00:39:27] Yeah.

 

RH [00:39:28] Yes.

 

BG [00:39:30] That was another question that we were interested in, just looking kind of through the photos of the NDP and everything like that. There was lots of articles talking about should the NDP be associated with trade unions or should they not? Can you talk a little bit more about that?

 

RH [00:39:47] Well, I’m a guy — I’m the guy who probably signed up more affiliations to the BC Fed than probably anybody. I’m not sure, but I signed up, let’s just say I signed up lots. I was thinking the other day, because I live now very close to Port Mellon, and I got to know some of those guys now. It reminded me that I once went up there one night to talk in the middle of the winter and went all the way up to Port Mellon. I didn’t think anything about it, that was my job.

 

KB [00:40:19] Yes. Yes.

 

RH [00:40:21] One of the guys said to me, ‘Gee, its wonderful, you guys send a full-time guy, and the head guy. You send the head guy up here to talk about affiliations.’ So, we worked hard for affiliations. If I have any if I have any reservations, it’s not that we didn’t work at it, and it isn’t good. My reservation a little bit is some people in the labour movement give me the impression now that that’s the way we solve our problems. I think they rely a little bit too much on, ‘We’ve got to work hard, and give them money, and get elected and they’ll change.’ The labour movement can’t win all its battles by electing a government, because it ain’t going to happen. We have to be still a strong, militant labour movement. So, if I have any regrets, it’s the affiliations make people a little bit less progressive and militant in the union and relying a little bit too much on electing a government, which they’re all talking about it right now. They’re going to do it the next election, and of course, look what happened to the last election. So, what if we’re not going to get anywhere until the next election, and that one, we don’t make it either? Worries me.

 

KB [00:41:47] Yeah. So, there was a —

 

RH [00:41:51] So, I guess I would say I’m still not convinced that it’s the wrong way to go. I think it is the right way to go. You have to have a social movement and a direction and a party; but the party is just watered down a bit now. It’s not the Tommy Douglas party that I remember.

 

KB [00:42:15] There was a photo of the founding convention of the New Party, now the NDP.

 

RH [00:42:21] And you found me in the photo?

 

BG [00:42:22] Yeah.

 

BG [00:42:24] I think. Well, I think so. I think that when I passed it over to Rod, he said, ‘Ray’s right there.’ Tommy Douglas was up right up at the front, I spotted.

 

RH [00:42:31] Yeah, but where was I?

 

BG [00:42:32] I’m not sure. Backrow?

 

RH [00:42:35] I get my kids and everybody.

 

KB [00:42:38] Searching.

 

BG [00:42:41] Where’s Waldo?

 

RH [00:42:41] They’re all looking around here, you see. I said, ‘No, no. I’m up at the back further.’.

 

BG [00:42:45] Yeah.

 

RH [00:42:46] So, they start looking about halfway up, and I said, ‘No.’

 

BG [00:42:49] Back further.

 

RH [00:42:50] About second or third row. Yeah, I was at that convention, and supported Tommy Douglas. Grappled with the idea of a name and everything. If I had to do it over again, I would have insisted the name stay CCF (Co-operative Commonwealth Federation).

 

BG [00:43:07] Yeah.

 

KB [00:43:09] Yeah.

 

RH [00:43:09] I wasn’t in favour of that at that time. I thought we should have a new name. The best we could do was New Party. Can you believe that? When I tell people that that was the name of our party for a couple of years or so?

 

KB [00:43:22] Yeah.

 

RH [00:43:22] How long, I don’t know.

 

KB [00:43:23] I’d never heard of that before.

 

RH [00:43:25] Yeah, no. People didn’t know that. They say, ‘What are you talking about?’ I say, ‘The name of the party was New Party.’

 

BG [00:43:30] The new New Party.

 

RH [00:43:34] They said, ‘No, no, what was it?’ I said, ‘I’m telling you; it was. The name was the New Party. ‘

 

KB [00:43:39] Really out there. Yeah.

 

RH [00:43:44] Yeah. Hazen Argue, who ran against Douglas, within a matter of months, I think, went to the Liberals.

 

KB [00:43:53] Oh, okay. What was his name again?

 

RH [00:43:55] Hazen Argue.

 

KB [00:43:56] Okay.

 

BG [00:43:58] Interesting. What was it like in those kinds of early days of the party?

 

RH [00:44:08] This is not quite answering your question, but one of the things that the labour movement, we noticed when we went to a convention, we often sided with Quebec. I mean, I shouldn’t say we sided. We were voting the same way as Quebec quite often. So, B.C. and Quebec on labour, as you probably can appreciate, are more militant sometimes than Ontario.

 

KB [00:44:38] And the prairie provinces.

 

RH [00:44:41] Yeah, but I don’t remember that as much as I remember Ontario. You know, because they’re a big, big part of it.

 

KB [00:44:48] Huge, huge part.

 

RH [00:44:49]  Sorry.

 

BG [00:44:52] No, I think that’s a great answer.

 

KB [00:44:55] When you went over N.U. (BC Nurses’ Union, BCNU), you were a labour relations officer, or communications, or what was your title?

 

RH [00:45:03] I did a — I was doing freelance work. I learnt to do freelance work. I found out how good it was. I was the lowest charging guy that there was, I think I was 50 bucks an hour when everybody was charging $100. $150, $200.

 

KB [00:45:18] Yes.

 

RH [00:45:20] I worked with a guy from, a lawyer, but a U.S. guy that I helped get up here. He got in touch with me, wanted to know whether he could come up and do some labour work. Just died recently. Leibeg (?).

 

KB [00:45:39] Okay.

 

RH [00:45:39] Wonderful guy. Walked with Martin Luther King.

 

KB [00:45:43] Wow.

 

RH [00:45:45] In the States, and so we started West Coast Labour Bureau. What had happened is, I had worked with with Tom Berger on the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, and I was a consultant at 50 bucks an hour and it was a wonderful job and everything. I worked hard, but I mean, you made good money and you worked when you come back home and all this kind of stuff. So, I didn’t know quite what to do. I decided that the resort was not working out, and can’t even make it financially, even to just survive unless I get something to do in the wintertime. I still wanted to work in the labour movement, I guess that’s what it is. So, we opened up West Coast Labour Bureau. That was when the pipeline decision was finished. I worked with Berger there for two years, I think. So, we did some cases, and so I got a case with the Nurses’ Union. Long way to get around to the Nurses, sorry. So, I met — Jesus, this annoys me. Wonderful lady who should have got more recognition than she did.

 

BG [00:47:07] Sharon Yandle?

 

RH [00:47:09] No, the head of the Nurses’ Union, she’s gone back east now. She’s retired and gone back east. Wow. I know her good. Anyway, I did a case for them, and they were very happy with me, what I did, and then she wanted to hire me. So, she said, ‘I want to set up a long-term care department.’ There were long-term care places organized under the master agreement, but only a few, and there are still hundreds out there that weren’t organized. So anyway, I got hired and then I had the authority, along with other senior Labour Relations Officers, to hire. We had a hiring committee, and we hired two nurses to work with me in long-term care. One of them was Deborah Service-Brewster. She is now a negotiator for the Canadian — or for the Newspaper Guild in Victoria, has done wonderful. Terrific gal, and the other one just claimed right — when she left the Nurses’ Union, just climbed right up the ladder and was a top mediator and went to China and everything. Debbie Cameron. I still keep in touch with these two gals. We hired those two and we started organizing. We worked like dogs. Six or seven days a week, 10 hours a day. We organized about a thousand nurses, and if you think about that, that’s a lot of facilities. It was 100 facilities, because it only averages about ten in them. Average, ten.

 

KB [00:49:02] Yes.

 

RH [00:49:04] There’s not very many nurses in long-term care, it’s LPNs (Licensed Practical Nurses) and everything else. So, we had two or three strikes. Without those two, again, I must say the same as I talk about my other staff, that those two gals were unbelievable. We did a wonderful job. It was remarkable, really. In private outfits as well as…

 

KB [00:49:37] Public.

 

RH [00:49:37] As Kinsmen, Kiwanis, all of those kinds of places. Salvation Army. I had a strike at Salvation Army.

 

KB [00:49:47] Oh, no kidding.

 

RH [00:49:48] Not in Vancouver, in Victoria. Was it? Victoria.

 

BG [00:49:53] Yeah.

 

KB [00:49:55] How was it working with the women on site? A lot of them were immigrants, so they were worried about their employment, were they?

 

RH [00:50:03] No, they were — they had a lot of guts.

 

KB [00:50:05] Yeah, yeah.

 

RH [00:50:06] I think they were ready for organizing, and then we hit the right time. The Filipino nurses were in the majority in many places, and they were fabulous. When they had a strike, you got beautiful Filipino food.

 

KB [00:50:26] Yes. Yes.

 

RH [00:50:27] They brought it down to the picket line. Boy, oh boy. Yeah, and they they had a great party for me when I left the Nurses. They were very terrific union people. I mean, they had great faith in you, and so if you told them that we need to strike, there was no argument about it. It was no problem. They were good. We had many strike votes, and we had two or three strikes. Terrible having a strike in long-term care, because you provide essential service. The Salvation Army one, what finally beat them was that we wouldn’t let the garbage guys go in. They had to bring the garbage out to the streets. They complained to their management, their top people. I may be overexaggerating that, or maybe that’s the story that we just got going, but it sounded like they caved in because the guys wouldn’t do the garbage anymore.

 

BG [00:51:33] It’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.

 

RH [00:51:36] Major — what was his name now? Major somebody had to bring the garbage can out to the picket line.

 

KB [00:51:42] Mhmm.

 

RH [00:51:46] No, that was a wonderful ten years, working there.

 

BG [00:51:50] We did an interview with Sharon Yandle, actually, and so she was mentioning working with you and she was mentioning how at the —

 

RH [00:51:57] I should have said that, right, because every time we went to organize, if the HEU (Hospital Employees’ Union) was there they helped us.

 

BG [00:52:03] Yeah.

 

RH [00:52:03] If they weren’t there, then they came in and we organized, talked about it.

 

BG [00:52:09] Mm hmm, and she was mentioning at that time, there was a lot of still door knocking or kind of meetings in back alleys, or in homes or things like that.

 

RH [00:52:19] I had believed in that right from Retail Wholesale.

 

BG [00:52:22] Right.

 

RH [00:52:23] I must’ve had many times I’ve got to the door and the people would look up and down the street, and said, ‘Come on in.’ But they looked up and down the street to see nobody was watching them let somebody in from the union. The Teamsters were organized, calling a meeting and organizing and they were always, particularly Simmons — they organized Simmons, but they didn’t have enough, couldn’t quite get 51% and they kept calling meetings. So, after they sort of floundered, we went in, knocked on doors and organized and ended up in a strike and got a settlement. I think quite a few unions did not use that tactic, but same as when the place that I was the organizer, Hudson’s Bay Wholesale, me and another guy organized that place. We made a list and we said, ‘Don’t approach this guy, don’t approach this guy.’ And we never did. One guy was so mad at me afterwards. He said, ‘Why wasn’t I? Nobody came to me.’.

 

KB [00:53:29] Yeah.

 

RH [00:53:29] And I said, ‘Well, you should ask yourself why we didn’t come to you.’

 

KB [00:53:32] Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, you’re a stooge.

 

RH [00:53:35] He said, ‘I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t have.’ I said, ‘Well, you probably wouldn’t have, but we couldn’t take a chance. You know, you’ve done some stupid stuff.’

 

KB [00:53:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

RH [00:53:45] So, we were very secretive there, and one guy we signed up. Good friend, coffee roaster guy. Frank, Frank (unclear). The minute he signed up, within hours, he’s down talking to the gals. ‘I just signed into the union. Are you guys signed up yet?’.

 

KB [00:54:02] Yeah, yeah.

 

RH [00:54:03] We grabbed him in a corner, and we told him we’d beat the hell out of him if he didn’t shut up. I said, ‘We’re doing this all off the record. Quiet.’

 

KB [00:54:10] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

RH [00:54:12] ‘I never did nothing. I just talked to the girl.’ Don’t talk to nobody. You signed up. We told you to shut up. The employer got, all of a sudden, the loudspeaker went in and said, ‘Ray Haynes, come to the foreman’s office.’ I go to the foreman’s office. There’s the manager with the foreman. ‘Ray, what have you done?’

 

KB [00:54:32] Yeah.

 

RH [00:54:32] He got the letter in the mail.

 

KB [00:54:34] Yeah.

 

RH [00:54:34] He found out in the letter in the mail. Now, that happened in many of our cases, but that’s not the way a lot of unions organized; but it works, because people are scared.

 

KB [00:54:46] Yes. Well, if you lose your job because the employer lays you off for whatever reason, or fire you, which they can’t really do, but they can find a way to let you go.

 

RH [00:54:57] They can do it if you haven’t got a majority yet.

 

KB [00:55:00] Yeah. So, it’s a risky proposal.

 

RH [00:55:06] I’ve lost a case in front of the board where they fired, they laid off people. They knew who it was, too. They figured it out.

 

KB [00:55:14] Yes.

 

RH [00:55:14] And then we lost the case.

 

KB [00:55:18] Yes.

 

RH [00:55:18] Because we couldn’t prove it was unanimous.

 

KB [00:55:22] Did you do any work with the Trade Union Research Bureau?

 

RH [00:55:26] Oh, yeah.

 

KB [00:55:28] Yeah. With Emil Bjarnason.

 

KB [00:55:31] Emil Bjarnason, yeah. Some good stuff.

 

KB [00:55:34] Sean Griffin’s uncle or father was the start. He’s the guy that put that together originally.

 

RH [00:55:40] Oh.

 

KB [00:55:41] That’s what Sean was saying in one of the meetings I was in. Yeah. I didn’t know that. I thought it was Emil, but it was actually his.

 

RH [00:55:47] Yeah, I would have thought it was Emil, because that’s it. That was Trade Union Research Bureau, and I worked, we worked good with them. Then I did free — when I was doing my freelance working, I did some work for the Brotherhood of.

 

KB [00:56:05] BLE?

 

RH [00:56:06] No, it’s a railway group.

 

KB [00:56:08] Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.

 

RH [00:56:09] Yeah, I think.

 

KB [00:56:10] BLE. Yeah.

 

RH [00:56:13] Oh, God, that’s a good story, but it’s not for you. It’s not for this.

 

KB [00:56:17] How come?

 

RH [00:56:18] Well, this is crazy. We had a lunch with him, and I forget his name now. Right-wing kind of guy. Not a 100% good union guy, but he was doing the right thing. We were negotiating, and we ended up at lunch with Emil and him, and I can’t remember his name. Somewhere, we’re having lunch, and we started talking and it came out that he — I guess he had something to do with the police, RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) at one time, they were watching Emil’s house. That came out at lunchtime.

 

KB [00:57:04] Yeah, for sure.

 

RH [00:57:06] Yeah.

 

BG [00:57:06] Not uncommon at the time, I’m sure.

 

KB [00:57:10] A lot of red-baiting.

 

RH [00:57:12] It was all very friendly at lunch, but when you think about it.

 

BG [00:57:15] Yeah, wow.

 

RH [00:57:17] He was keeping an eye on Emil’s house.

 

KB [00:57:24] And Dave Morgan. Did you know him? That was Emil’s —

 

RH [00:57:28] From Trade Union Research Bureau?

 

KB [00:57:30] No, he was at —

 

RH [00:57:33] I know the more recent guys. I still see them quite a bit, and one of them came up and was going to write a book or something.

 

KB [00:57:42] Oh, yeah.

 

RH [00:57:44] About all this crap.

 

KB [00:57:45] Yeah. David Fairey.

 

RH [00:57:46] Oh, yeah. I knew David Farey as well, yeah. A great guy.

 

KB [00:57:50] Yes. Very good.

 

RH [00:57:52] Great guys.

 

KB [00:57:54] You know, there is great history around and about. We just have to collect it. Yeah.

 

BG [00:58:01] So yeah. I was going to say, your involvement with FORUM. How long have you been doing that?

 

RH [00:58:07] Just about… less than a year.

 

BG [00:58:12] Just a year now, eh?

 

RH [00:58:13] Well, what happened is an MP, Lyle Christiansen, longtime NDP.

 

KB [00:58:23] Yes.

 

RH [00:58:23] He was the FORUM rep, and he would also come to our seniors COSCO meeting. Council of Senior Citizens, not Costco the store. He died and he was replaced — and I knew him well — and he was replaced by another guy on the coast. Cause you’re actually, you’re a representative at that Labour Council. That was Lyle Christiansen and Bruce Elphinstone, and Bruce just died. Then they pushed me.

 

KB [00:59:05]  I don’t know, there’s a bit of a trend there, Ray. I’m not sure you want the job.

 

RH [00:59:12] I never thought about it that way. I really didn’t. I kind said I wanted to get out of some of this stuff, but they pushed me back.

 

BG [00:59:23] Prodded you back into it.

 

RH [00:59:24] So, I’ll give it a shot.

 

BG [00:59:25] Yeah.

 

RH [00:59:26] A year maybe, or so.

 

BG [00:59:27] Yes.

 

RH [00:59:28] It’s interesting. I kind of enjoy it. My meetings tomorrow.

 

BG [00:59:34] Oh, there you go.

 

KB [00:59:37] Oh, okay.

 

BG [00:59:37] Keeps you involved.

 

RH [00:59:37] Oh, sorry, we are meeting here. I attend the Labour Council meetings, and we’re having a big fight now over the closure of a couple of long-term care places. They’re going to replace them with private outfits. So, I’ve got that on the agenda to talk to the Labour Council. I think they’ll be ready for it because their unions are affected. Loss of jobs and everything else.

 

BG [01:00:06] It’s good. It keeps you active.

 

KB [01:00:08] Yes.

 

BG [01:00:14] I think I’ve reached the end of.

 

RH [01:00:15] Pretty near.

 

KB [01:00:16] A couple of notes he’s got on his sheet.

 

BG [01:00:18] Sure.

 

RH [01:00:27] Another name that should be mentioned was Bob Smeal.

 

KB [01:00:32] Right.

 

RH [01:00:33] I still visit his wife once in a while every time I go up to Campbell River, she’s 92. Bob Smeal was the president of the Federation prior to Al Staley.

 

BG [01:00:47] Okay.

 

RH [01:00:49] And Bob was also the BC Representative on the Canadian Labour Congress. He would’ve eventually, in my opinion, been the President of the Canadian Labour Congress. He died at a convention with an aneurysm, fairly young. Wonderful guy. He was a bit of my mentor. He was the guy that pushed me into the Fed.

 

BG [01:01:14] Yeah. When you first came on.

 

RH [01:01:18] He probably — him and Joe Morris, actually.

 

KB [01:01:22] So the — not the CLC, but the Succamore connection.

 

RH [01:01:32] Yeah, I got along good with Jess. Jess Succamore, yeah.

 

KB [01:01:34] Did you? Yeah. So how did that whole entity get created?

 

RH [01:01:40] Well, we fought the Canadian unions because they were — you know, we had Pulp and Sulphite.

 

KB [01:01:45] Yes.

 

RH [01:01:46] The Pulp Union, and they were raiding — they were being raided by Jess. Jess Succamore and other unions. So, we supported one of — yeah, we should go back to that Paddy Neale thing a tiny bit. Let me see. The problem, I think, let me see — how do I get at this. Ask me that question again.

 

KB [01:02:30] Succamore. How did that entity or that organization get its legs.

 

RH [01:02:34] Okay. I got criticized bad, you’ve got it down here. Our officers got criticized bad because we refused to do much with Pat O’Neill when he got caught bugging the Canadian union. We made a real hard decision, and it was tough. There was a lot of feeling we should publicly throw him to the wolves, but we’ve made a decision based on, we didn’t want that union to be taken over. That would affect the fight. The leadership of the Pulp and Sulphite, which was Pat, would be hauled through the mud and the Canadian union would win the battle. So, we softened our blow. We still criticized him, but we softened our blow, and strictly on the basis of protecting that union to stay in the Canadian Labour Congress and the Fed. So, it was partly legitimate criticism, in a sense.

 

KB [01:03:43] So, just for me to get this clear in my mind, Succamore was actually raiding an international union, trying to get them to break away from their international.

 

RH [01:03:55] Yeah. They were ahead of the time because, you know, they were pushing for Canadian unions when we were —

 

KB [01:04:01] Autonomy.

 

RH [01:04:02] We were still not quite.

 

KB [01:04:04] AF of L, CIO.

 

RH [01:04:05] I mean, it goes back a long way. When I started in the labour movement in 1948, Harold Pritchett.

 

KB [01:04:14] Yeah.

 

RH [01:04:14] And another couple of guys, Del (unclear) or something, anyway. They were having trouble because of the States and the border and everything, so.

 

KB [01:04:28] Communist.

 

RH [01:04:29] So, they might have had ulterior motives as well, but they were on the right track. They tried to form a Canadian union.

 

KB [01:04:36] Yes.

 

RH [01:04:36] And I remember, I just started working at a sawmill, I told you how I got my education there. I go to the white block, which I didn’t know it was the white block at that time. I go to, it was the first aid attendant, and I said, ‘This sounds good. What’s this all about? This Canadian union?’ He says, ‘Oh, no, bunch of communists.’ I said, ‘Oh.’ At that point, Communists were not very good. So, I was up again. I was involved in a sense, in 1948, before I even knew what the hell this was all about with.

 

KB [01:05:11] Yes.

 

RH [01:05:13] Breakaway to form a Canadian union.

 

BG [01:05:15] Yeah.

 

RH [01:05:16] Then we were in the international, but we had until just recently, we had — and they pulled out now — but recently, we had — they never bothered us, we had out complete control, 100%. But you know, obviously, we should have been a bit ahead of it.

 

KB [01:05:44] You’re talking about Retail Wholesale, you came out of?

 

RH [01:05:47] The labour movement was slow.

 

KB [01:05:50]  Autonomy, sending money.

 

RH [01:05:53] I remember, I think it was the Labourers International, they were having trouble with their pension plan in the United States. It was the US pension plan, and our union plan. They came up and started threatening them something awful, and I remember they called in the Fed. They called in the Fed. We went over there and we told them to get the hell out of town.

 

KB [01:06:14] Yeah.

 

RH [01:06:15] And quit screwing around with the pension plan, and if you don’t, we’ll get the — we’ll blackball you and get these people to go Canadian, or do something. I don’t know whether we said to go Canadian, because I don’t think we were quite ready for that. But you know, you quit interfering with the Canadians. That was the story.

 

KB [01:06:36] Well, they at times suggested trusteeship to some of the locals up here, right?

 

RH [01:06:44] And they did, on occasion. There was a union that did get put under trusteeship.

 

KB [01:06:47] Yeah, and there were big guys that came up to take over the office, too.

 

RH [01:06:53] Well, they did it with — I’m trying to think of the union. They did it with one union, we raised hell about it.

 

KB [01:07:00] Yeah, I remember the story of the guys coming up.

 

RH [01:07:04] Oh yeah, yeah.

 

KB [01:07:06] They were making it pointed that, don’t bother us, and these guys were fairly chunky characters. I don’t know the union either, but I know the story.

 

RH [01:07:18] I guess my union didn’t bother us, and that’s why I never really — I never really had a big thing on my calendar for going Canadian, but…

 

KB [01:07:32] Yes.

 

RH [01:07:35] I met those guys, and I got along good with them. Jess Succamore was one, got invited to one of their do’s a couple of times.

 

KB [01:07:55] Now when there’s Pat O’Neill and Paddy Neale.

 

RH [01:08:00] Pat O’Neill and Paddy Neale.

 

KB [01:08:04] Neale, okay. It’s pronounced Neale, and he was the Labour Council guy.

 

RH [01:08:10] He was the Secretary Treasurer, which was the full-time job.

 

KB [01:08:13] At the Fed?

 

RH [01:08:15] No, no.

 

KB [01:08:16] Labour Council.

 

RH [01:08:17] Vancouver Labour Council.

 

KB [01:08:18] And Pat O’Neill was the IWA, the guy with two names.

 

RH [01:08:23] Pat O’Neill was Pulp Sulphite.

 

KB [01:08:26] Pulp and Sulphite. He was the two-name guy.

 

BG [01:08:29] Yeah.

 

RH [01:08:34] How did Clive handle Pat O’Neill?

 

KB [01:08:39] He said that, from what I recall, he was an out there kind of guy. Volatile, but he could organize in an empty room, he could pull people together, and he moved from the shop floor to where he was in a short period of time. What he did mention was he thought that the RCMP knew his background information.

 

RH [01:09:04] They helped him bug that place.

 

KB [01:09:06] Yeah.

 

RH [01:09:06]  I’m sure of that.

 

KB [01:09:08] Yeah, well.

 

RH [01:09:10] I mean, that was…

 

KB [01:09:11] His downfall.

 

RH [01:09:12] That’s why the people that wanted us to condemn Pat had a right to be unhappy.

 

BG [01:09:18] Right.

 

KB [01:09:18] Yeah.

 

RH [01:09:20] I mean, why he would do it is so stupid. It’s unbelievable.

 

KB [01:09:24] He maybe didn’t have any choice. Who knows, with the circumstances? Yeah.

 

RH [01:09:29] Oh, I never thought about that. Well, see, we were shocked when he decided he was leaving. We never — leaving the Fed. He just dropped it on us. Said he’s going to go back and Pulp Sulphite needs him, and they want him back, so you guys got to get somebody. Ray looks like the guy. That’s where I told you, I spent a week trying to find somebody else to do the job.

 

KB [01:09:51] Did he go back to Pulp Sulphite?

 

RH [01:09:52] Yeah.

 

KB [01:09:53] For how long?

 

RH [01:09:57] Until he died.

 

KB [01:09:58] Oh, okay.

 

RH [01:10:00] Through that mess.

 

KB [01:10:02] Yeah.

 

RH [01:10:03] Inquiry. There was an inquiry.

 

KB [01:10:05] Oh, okay.

 

RH [01:10:06] That’s where the name came out, at the inquiry.

 

KB [01:10:10] Okay.

 

RH [01:10:11] The company, the employer knew. The employer had found out somehow. RCMP probably tipped them off.

 

KB [01:10:18] Yeah, absolutely.

 

RH [01:10:20] Who knows? So, on the witness stand, they said, ‘What is your real name?’ And he said, ‘Pat O’Neill.’ ‘No, no, what’s your real name?’ He tried to stick to it, he was still Pat O’Neill. He said, ‘No, it’s Tom Casey.’ And yet, he got a wonderful recommendation from that judge. The judge fell in love with him.

 

KB [01:10:41] Oh, is that right?

 

RH [01:10:42] But he’s that kind of a guy. He had pizzazz.

 

KB [01:10:46] Yes.

 

RH [01:10:46] And tremendous guy.

 

KB [01:10:51] What do you think it was that motivated you to become part of organized labour and to stay in it all these years? It usually — social justice comes to mind straight away, with some of the things that are going on around the world. What was it for you? Was it?

 

RH [01:11:13] It was just dollars and cents to start with, because I was working at a place working hard as hell and getting $80 a month, and here’s a guy on a green chain or sizer chain pulling off lumber — but sizer chain’s quite easier than the green chain — and getting a dollar an hour. So, right off the bat I thought, you know, this union got to be something good about it. I guess I just talked to the right guys. I mean, every one of them in that sawmill that I talked to were all activists, including Tommy Clarke. Funny I haven’t mentioned that name. Tom Clarke was the head steward or something like that in the IWA, I believe at Canadian White Pine, but I’m just not 100% positive. We became quite good friends, and there was two or three down there. I moved up, as I told you, in the union. I raised hell about this, and raised hell about that. Got it passed at a local meeting that if a guy wants an adjournment during a grievance meeting with the employer, you have the right, even though I was stopped. Got them to think about whether there should be swing shifts when everybody wants one, and so on. All of that made me think about unions and everything. I think Tommy Douglas had a big influence, too, I’m sure, you know, and I started meeting all those people pushing for the NDP, because I didn’t have any background at all. My dad was a cop, and I know he was CCF, and I know he was against wars and that’s all I know. He died when I was 15. I don’t know if I mentioned that.

 

BG [01:13:32] Yeah.

 

KB [01:13:33] That’s how it starts, yeah. Yeah. Fantastic.

 

RH [01:13:41] I try not to be too negative now, because the world is such a hell of a mess. Just all of it, and is it hopeless or not? I don’t know.

 

KB [01:13:53] Well, I think one of the things now, the only time you ever really owned your rights under a collective agreement is when you stood up for them. A lot of people have never had that opportunity now, and the picket line is an awesome place to have that kind of exercise because it says, here you are standing up for your rights with your brothers and sisters. Look who’s going to cross the picket line. Right? These people are, they have a big say in your life. So, how do you change that? By everyone coming together and and putting forward a common goal, right?

 

RH [01:14:37] Yeah, because it’s a great feeling.

 

KB [01:14:40] It is.

 

RH [01:14:45] I remember the Simmons dispute. I wasn’t very good on the women issue, but I can tell you that women won that strike. The guys weren’t that good. In fact, there was a meeting and it was loaded with guys. The old guys, wherever the employer had called a secret meeting, and we bust into it. They were trying to tell them that they’ll look after them and all this, but you guys gotta come back to work. So, back to work they go, and of course, we blew it; but the women were solid. They were there all the time. Women won the strike, and the UFAWU (United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union) helped. They brought down fish once a week to the picket line, and yeah, women on the picket lines would be tremendous. I especially noticed that with the Nurses, because they’re 99% women, but in our other strikes, it’s the other way around, maybe. Simmons was about a 50/50, if I remember correctly. Those women were terrific.

 

KB [01:15:56] Did you ever run up against the Rand formula?

 

RH [01:16:01] Oh yeah, I know what it is. If I remember correctly, it was just that everyone had to —

 

KB [01:16:09] Had to pay.

 

RH [01:16:10] Dues. Doesn’t have to join the union.

 

KB [01:16:12] Doesn’t have to join the union. Yeah.

 

RH [01:16:15] And of course, the employer doesn’t even want that.

 

KB [01:16:17] Oh, that’s right.

 

RH [01:16:21] Yeah, we would always insist on the union shop in our contract, and I don’t think there was ever a time when we didn’t get it. Maybe. Maybe there was one time, and I think we got it the next contract. But there again in bargaining, you did have difficulties the minute you got off in talking about wages. They weren’t sure they wanted to do it. If you could solve the wage problem.

 

KB [01:16:51] The rest of it was…

 

RH [01:16:52] Yeah. They wanted a pension plan, but they didn’t know whether they’re ready to strike for a pension plan. They wanted a union shop, but they weren’t sure they were ready to strike for union shop. They wanted no contracting out, for sure, and lately they’ve given that up and they’re paying a terrible F-ing price, I’ll tell you.

 

KB [01:17:10] Yeah.

 

RH [01:17:11] That’s what I’m up against now in these two places that closed down. They haven’t got a contracting out in the HEU and they’ve got a chance of 200 people being selected, whoever the employer wants to hire in the new place, unless we can stop it and it’s going to be hard to stop.

 

KB [01:17:34] That’s cold.

 

RH [01:17:34] So it’s hard to get them to get excited about non-monetary issues. I think of John Thorne at this meeting, because he said I was very unorthodox in my bargaining. I remember I learnt this from Len Guy. He said, ‘In the ITU, we don’t ask for money. We just put a blank column with a dollar sign in our proposal.’ So, I started doing that. Every time I negotiated the Nurses, I just put in the blank spot. I remember the City of Vancouver, story is, they had dealt — I guess, the guy before me or something must have been quite gentlemanly and nice and all that kind of stuff, but I saw thought were sausage. I couldn’t handle some of them, their attitude about the way they had towards us. City of Vancouver.

 

KB [01:18:29] Yes.

 

RH [01:18:30] So, they said, ‘We want to know what’s going in. What’s the number you’re asking for?’ I said, ‘We’ll tell you when we’re satisfied that we’re getting along good and we can solve some of these other problems. We have very important other problems.’ ‘How do we know when we’ve given you the right number?’ I said, ‘I’ll yell bingo.’ Jeez, they were so mad. They nearly got up and left the meeting. There was another one with the City of Vancouver with that one, same kind of deal. Oh, you know, they were crazy, but most employers… They got used to it.

 

KB [01:19:18] Yeah, yeah. Well, it provided some stability for them as well, so they didn’t have to really manage much.

 

RH [01:19:25] Yeah.

 

KB [01:19:28] I’m good on the questions. Have any more comments for us, Ray? I see you’ve got some notes on there.

 

BG [01:19:35] Anything we haven’t touched on?

 

KB [01:19:37] Oh, another name that came up when we were talking to Clive is John Bowmann. Did you know him? CAW guy?

 

RH [01:19:44] No.

 

KB [01:19:45] Okay.

 

RH [01:20:03] Did I mention that in the fight in injunctions? No, it wasn’t an injunction. I don’t know what category you put it under. Did I mention the one where we found that, we were on strike at Taylor Pearson and Carson, and we found out that they were operating out of a boxcar? Down at — I told you about that.

 

KB [01:20:25] Yes.

 

RH [01:20:26] So that meant you could picket the employer’s place of business, whereever it was.

 

KB [01:20:30] Yes.

 

RH [01:20:55] Another person was the guy that Clive replaced, my assistant. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned his name. John McNevin.

 

KB [01:21:05] Yes, we talked about him. He’s passed away now, right?

 

RH [01:21:08] No, he’s still around.

 

KB [01:21:09] Is he still around?

 

BG [01:21:10] Yeah, he’s actually on our list.

 

RH [01:21:10] He’s moved from Sunshine Coast to Nanaimo, and now he’s moved to Maple Ridge.

 

BG [01:21:23] Oh, okay.

 

RH [01:21:25] John McNevin.

 

KB [01:21:26] And I think that’s a list you gave me and I gave to these guys here. Yeah.

 

BG [01:21:32] And so, sorry, he had Clive’s role before Clive took over?

 

RH [01:21:35] Yeah, he was my assistant.

 

BG [01:21:37] Right. Yeah. Assistant secretary treasurer.

 

RH [01:21:39] It was kind of interesting, too, because he was also engaged to my first wife.

 

BG [01:21:43] Oh, really?

 

RH [01:21:46] But we got along good.

 

BG [01:21:47] Small world.

 

KB [01:21:49] Yeah.

 

RH [01:22:13] Did you have some question about — I’ve got a note here, did Mine Mill Union going into the U.S. Steelworkers? Are you asking anything about that? Anything about Mine Mill?

 

KB [01:22:27] CAIMAW, CAIMAW was…

 

RH [01:22:28] I wonder why I wrote that down. Anyway, they did. When they came back into the Congress, they came in backed by Steel.

 

KB [01:22:35] Oh, okay. Affiliated.

 

RH [01:22:38] Yeah, and the other thing. Did Clive mention Roy Gautier or John Shipley?

 

BG [01:22:46] Briefly?

 

KB [01:22:47] Roy.

 

RH [01:22:48] Robson?

 

KB [01:22:48] Roy for sure.

 

RH [01:22:50] Roy for sure.

 

KB [01:22:50] Yeah, and Kinnaird, Jack and —

 

BG [01:22:55] What were those other names you’re mentioning? There’s…

 

KB [01:22:57] Robson.

 

RH [01:22:58] Robson. I don’t — I wouldn’t have him high on my list. Roy Gauthier, I would have him right up there.

 

BG [01:23:04] Yeah.

 

RH [01:23:09] These guys contributed a lot. I mean, they — Roy didn’t fight us that much, but the Communists were always giving us a bad time; but on the trade union issues, we pretty well worked out our differences. We always worked together.

 

KB [01:23:29] Yes.

 

RH [01:23:30] I mean, every single time, we worked together real good. There was an issue once, if you want a good story, from Poland or Czechoslovakia. It’s not a good story because I don’t know the details. Poland or Czechoslovakia or one of those countries was just getting taken over by the Communists, and we were right in the middle of our convention, and it was a resolution condemning the Communist Party in Russia for its actions in, I believe it was Poland.

 

KB [01:24:05] Was that Lech Walesa? He was the shipyard worker that became the President.

 

RH [01:24:11] I don’t remember. I just remember that I stepped, when I spoke, you know, I took a position. I would come off the stage — it was kind of dramatic a bit — and I walk out and take a position at the mic. So, I mean, it’s me, not —

 

KB [01:24:26]  The officer.

 

RH [01:24:29] That’s right, and I just tore the hell out of the Communist Party, and Tim Buck, and all the bastards. Then George Johnson, I suppose, said, ‘Is there any further speakers?’ And there wasn’t one. The Communists never get up. Now afterwards, afterwards —

 

BG [01:24:51] No response.

 

RH [01:24:53] After, we heard was that they got hell from Tim Buck, or one of the guys, that how dare you not get up there and respond?

 

KB [01:25:02] Yes.

 

RH [01:25:02] Now, the Congress told us that. How do they know? I think they bugged them. I think they bugged their hotel room.

 

KB [01:25:12] Yeah. Yeah.

 

RH [01:25:13] I don’t know why, because I don’t know how they would know.

 

KB [01:25:15] Yes.

 

BG [01:25:17] Good point.

 

KB [01:25:19] All sorts of things went on in those days.

 

RH [01:25:21] It was quite a life.

 

KB [01:25:22] Oh, yeah. How old are you now, Ray?

 

RH [01:25:26] 88.

 

KB [01:25:27] 88. Congratulations on another birthday. Awesome.

 

RH [01:25:32] Yeah, that’s all the notes here. So, we did good.

 

BG [01:25:34] Great.

 

KB [01:25:35] Yes.