Terry Burgess Interview: Highways, Unions, and Politics in Prince George

Interview: Terry Burgess (TB)

Interviewer: George Davison (GC)

Date: December 3, 2024

Location: Prince George, BC

Transcription: Jane Player

 

GD [00:00:05] Welcome, Terry. My name is George Davison. I am the official interviewer of the oral history project of the B.C. Labour Heritage Centre. We are here on the unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh people. I’m going to start out with—there are four sets of questions. So, biographical: you know, who are you, where you came from? Some working life questions. Some questions on politics at work that you were quite involved in, and then more general labour issues. The first one is just what’s your full name?

 

TB [00:00:39] Terrance—do you want the full name? Terrance Joseph Burgess.

 

GD [00:00:43] Okay, and you’ve been called Terry for years. Where were you born and where were you raised?

 

TB [00:00:49] Right here in Prince George.

 

GD [00:00:51] Okay. Tell us a little about how you grew up. I have pictures of you as a—in the band at the high school as an air cadet standing in front of a plane back in the fifties.

 

TB [00:01:03] Yeah.

 

GD [00:01:03] On a ship going—some kind of field trip, I guess.

 

TB [00:01:08] I was in the service for a while.

 

GD [00:01:12] Tell me about your growing up in Prince George.

 

TB [00:01:14] Growing up here?

 

GD [00:01:17] Yeah.

 

TB [00:01:17] Actually, my best friend just passed.

 

GD [00:01:19] Oh, I’m sorry.

 

TB [00:01:19] He’ll be in the paper. Herb Aspen. We were written up in the paper. We were the first—we blew up our chemistry experiment.

 

GD [00:01:28] Did you?

 

TB [00:01:28] Yeah, we were just—they’ve just wrote it up in the paper recently.

 

GD [00:01:32] At the high school?

 

TB [00:01:34] (laughter) Herb and I. We weren’t supposed to blow it up.

 

GD [00:01:36] No.

 

TB [00:01:37] It wasn’t one that blew up, (laughter) but ours did. (laughter)

 

TB [00:01:42] Anyway—

 

GD [00:01:43] Nobody was hurt?

 

TB [00:01:44] It was interest—my mother died in 1947.

 

GD [00:01:48] Okay.

 

TB [00:01:48] And my dad got polio in September of ’47. So, the people in South Fort George kind of raised us, and my granny. But it was really the people of South Fort George that raised us until we were about 12. Dad recovered from polio and worked as a mechanic. He recovered some. He still had a limp and that. So then—

 

GD [00:02:17] South Fort George was its own little town at that point.

 

TB [00:02:20] Yeah. It was actually the main town.

 

GD [00:02:22] Yes. Initially, right?

 

TB [00:02:23] Way back. Way, way back.

 

GD [00:02:25] It’s where the paddle wheelers came in and—

 

TB [00:02:26] That’s where all the boats came and landed.

 

GD [00:02:28] Yeah.

 

TB [00:02:29] Of course, the city grew up because the railway put the station here.

 

GD [00:02:35] Yeah.

 

TB [00:02:35] And that’s why the Prince George is here. Yeah. Then I—after I finished school, I was in the Air Force for a couple of years. I was—I joined officers’ school.

 

GD [00:02:49] Okay.

 

TB [00:02:50] I flunked—in those days, you flunked out of officers’ school if your vision got worse than 20-60. Not anymore. And my vision got worse than 20-60, and they sent me—they said ‘Do you want to go to ground school?’ I went to ground school, but I was young. I wasn’t going to be a—ground school is non-officer.

 

GD [00:03:17] No, no.

 

TB [00:03:18] You know—

 

GD [00:03:19] Mechanics and servicing guys.

 

TB [00:03:22] You’re just a service man, and I didn’t want to do that, and the pay was terrible. Then I went to work in the mills after and the pay was a $100 a frickin’ month. And some of the, you know, you kinda got paid by the piece, or you got paid for loaded trucks—one truckload a day. I made $100 and that was a 14-hour day.

 

GD [00:03:53] So what mill was that?

 

TB [00:03:55] God, I don’t—

 

GD [00:03:55] Was it in town?

 

TB [00:03:56] I worked at NWI Lumber, Prince George Planers—

 

GD [00:04:02] Okay.

 

TB [00:04:03] I worked for, oh, all sorts of—

 

GD [00:04:05] These weren’t unionised at all, then.

 

TB [00:04:07] In ’58 I went to work for the government.

 

GD [00:04:12] So, before that there are ads in the paper of you selling trucks or looking for truck parts? Was that just the highway—

 

TB [00:04:19] I worked for Westend Motors.

 

GD [00:04:21] Oh, okay.

 

TB [00:04:22] Did—that’s it in the paper, you say?

 

GD [00:04:24] Yes.

 

TB [00:04:25] I’ll be god damned. Yeah. That’s—people don’t even know that garage existed. It was on the corner of Third and Victoria.

 

GD [00:04:35] That’s a bit later, I think.

 

TB [00:04:37] Oh, that’s my dad.

 

GD [00:04:39] Oh, that’s your dad. Okay. So, he was a mechanic as well?

 

TB [00:04:44] Well, I wasn’t a mechanic.

 

GD [00:04:45] Okay.

 

TB [00:04:48] I’m not—I’m an engineering technician. Civil engineering technician. Oh, that’s what—that’s probably what you got there. Some of my dad’s.

 

GD [00:05:01] Those were—

 

TB [00:05:03] Yeah, well—

 

GD [00:05:04] A little earlier, right? Back in ’52, ’53.

 

TB [00:05:09] One of the troops. Yeah, and what happened is when we went—I think it was 1954 when we went—when the British Empire Games was in— yeah, that’s my dad.

 

GD [00:05:25] That says ’72—and was your dad named Terry too?

 

TB [00:05:29] Was that in ’72.

 

GD [00:05:30] Yeah.

 

TB [00:05:30] He died in ’86.

 

GD [00:05:32] Okay.

 

TB [00:05:34] But he was crippled badly. And when the Commonwealth Games were in Vancouver, and the Duke of Edinburgh, now the king—

 

GD [00:05:47] Yes.

 

TB [00:05:48] I won’t swear allegiance to the king, by the way.

 

GD [00:05:50] (laughter) Okay. You don’t have to for this.

 

TB [00:05:52] I would swear allegiance to the queen, but I—.

 

GD [00:05:55] Not Charles.

 

TB [00:05:57] I don’t like Charles.

 

GD [00:05:58] Okay.

 

TB [00:05:58] Anyway, he came to Vancouver and Prince George sent about 20 air cadets to Abbotsford, and of the 20, nine of us were taken out on an honour guard. We outnumbered all the other people from every squadron across Canada, and we were in the honour guard. The picture was in the—I posted a picture on Facebook not too long ago.

 

TB [00:06:31] Okay. So, in 1958, you joined the provincial government?

 

TB [00:06:36] I went to—in ’58, I went to the Ministry of Highways. All the roads that—Highway 16 didn’t exist. [John] Hart Highway was just completed in ’55.

 

GD [00:06:50] Okay.

 

TB [00:06:51] You couldn’t drive to Dawson’s Creek in ’53.

 

GD [00:06:54] Right.

 

TB [00:06:56] You might have—

 

GD [00:06:57] It was a rough drive.

 

TB [00:06:58] In 1950, you couldn’t drive to Dawson Creek.

 

GD [00:06:59] Yeah.

 

TB [00:07:01] My job was: the survey crew went through and surveyed it, and my crew went through and drilled holes every—all down the grade for, maybe eight, ten feet deep to get the soil structure for the—all the way through. We had bush camps. Lived in tent camps and what have you.

 

GD [00:07:24] Over to Jasper?

 

TB [00:07:24] All the way through. Built a tote road. I was given a—I had my own crew almost within a year of joining Highways ‘cuz I had worked in the mills and been around and the young people, they give me all these young people. We packed those rods and built a tote road all the way from Prince George to McBride. A tote road and then subsequently—

 

GD [00:07:55] So those—there were work camps during the Depression that were allegedly building a road between here and McBride. They hadn’t done much, obviously.

 

TB [00:08:06] What’s that?

 

GD [00:08:06] They hadn’t done much. If you’re redoing it in the late fifties.

 

TB [00:08:09] There was no road. There was nothing. There was bush. To get there if you wanted to get to Dome Creek, which is about halfway, you took a train to Dome Creek, and it actually crosses the river there. And so, on the right side of the river at Dome Creek. When in Dome Creek, we stayed in the Dome Creek Hotel. But it’s not [shakes head side to side], but he called it the Dome Creek Hotel. Right. (laughter) But we lived in the camps and that, and that’s—Subsequently, I moved up the ladder in Highways and I ended up in region. Then I was in charge of a bunch of crews. A whole lot. But all along I was heavily involved in the union.

 

GD [00:09:00] Okay. Tell me about the union involvement.

 

TB [00:09:03] It was something different. Back in ’58 B.C., the government employees weren’t a union.

 

GD [00:09:14] No, it was an association.

 

TB [00:09:15] It was an association.

 

GD [00:09:16] Because it couldn’t unionise?

 

TB [00:09:19] Well, because it—they, the people weren’t union people. When I came on in ’58, I had already been through in the mills. We were unionised in both mills.

 

GD [00:09:34] Okay, okay.

 

TB [00:09:35] I knew about unions, and I immediately was a jobs—we had a kind of a steward. You went and you collected your dues, association dues.

 

GD [00:09:48] So, this is the check off? There weren’t check offs.

 

TB [00:09:50] ‘I wanna get $5 this month for the Associat—.’

 

GD [00:09:53] Alright.

 

TB [00:09:54] ‘Well, no you can’t have it this month Terry.’ It was a pain in the butt, but I did it. We survived that, and then 1968 they had a convention here in Prince George. That’s when we fired the administrator at that time and hired John Fryer. When John Fryer came on, he was straight from Scotland. He had a Scottish accent. Well, a lot of the people that came over from Scotland—were from Scotland. Nichol, I think was the guy’s name with the Fishermen’s Union. He had an accent. The Scottish accent. Scotland—

 

GD [00:10:46] Turned out union guys.

 

TB [00:10:48] Turned out a lot of these good union people (laughter) and when Fryer came on, then we started working towards a union in the B.C. government employees’ union.

 

GD [00:10:59] So there’s a plaque out front commemorating that AGM that turned the association into the union.

 

TB [00:11:05] Yeah. That’s right. Diane—well—Wood—

 

GD [00:11:13] Oh, sure. I know the—

 

TB [00:11:15] Diane Wood—the way Diane—I’ll go back a little bit, before.

 

GD [00:11:19] Okay.

 

TB [00:11:22] Diane’s dad and I can’t remember his first name, but it was Wood. He worked in Dawson Creek when we—before we became a union. About—that was 1968—60—so about 1971, we had a con—I call it a meeting. Ed Bodner was here kind of organizing things because the union had a few staff reps. I and Ed organised the meeting. Called people in from all over the place, and Diane’s dad came to the meeting.

 

GD [00:12:03] Okay.

 

TB [00:12:03] Actually, he ran against me to chair this regional thing, but I beat him because I knew—I traveled and knew all the people. But we were good friends. And then, next thing I know Diane comes down, and she’s working as a clerk in the government—in a government office. I can’t remember what office she worked at.

 

GD [00:12:27] Okay.

 

TB [00:12:28] And I talked her into running—we had now formed the union, and in 1972, the NDP got in. By ’73 or ’74, we were now a full union. They were going to negotiate. And Diane, I talked her into running as the component chair of the clerical component here.

 

GD [00:12:57] Okay.

 

TB [00:12:58] She won, and she became a delegate to convention, and about 1980, Nancy Hamilton, who was the treasurer of our—of the provincial body, retired. Diane and I ran on a ticket. I ran as one of the vice-presidents. She ran as the treasurer. We were the Buck and Burgess ticket. (laughter)

 

GD [00:13:26] Okay.

 

TB [00:13:28] Now, the reason I say Buck is that was her married name. He was a weird duck. He owned chip trucks. He owned two or three chip trucks. When Diane became the treasurer, she wasn’t in Prince George, anyway, and she was happy. And then, that was—that’s was how long she was there as treasurer.

 

GD [00:13:56] Wow. A long time.

 

TB [00:14:00] From ’80—in the 80s. Yeah, it was different.

 

GD [00:14:04] Yes. Can you talk about a memorable day at work?

 

TB [00:14:13] Pardon?

 

GD [00:14:14] Can you talk about a memorable day at work? So, let’s go back to working on the highways and then we’ll talk about—

 

TB [00:14:22] Memorable days at work was in these camps.

 

GD [00:14:24] Okay. All right.

 

TB [00:14:27] Because I had good people. They were young people, but I had good people. We worked hard, but there was nothing to do at night.

 

GD [00:14:37] Right.

 

TB [00:14:38] And there was—it wasn’t that I—I controlled the camps, but it wasn’t that I said no drinking. They just pretty well knew you shouldn’t be drinking, because if you get drinking, there’s no police.

 

GD [00:14:55] Yeah.

 

TB [00:14:56] It’d take us a day to get the cop into the camp. So, we had to police ourselves, but we just—it was very memorable the deal with the guys, the cook. The cook was a grader operator. But he kind of cooked. He was an old bachelor and out of the blue, he became the cook. That was a memorable day, if ever. (laughter)

 

GD [00:15:27] So, moving forward to talking about your union involvement. Tell me a bit about that. You were a regional vice-president. What did that entail?

 

TB [00:15:42] This was one of the regions. All of northern B.C., north of Williams Lake. They had regional vice-presidents—five, way back then. Five areas that the province was broke up into, and there was a regional vice-president represented each area. That was—kind of the staff rep and the regional vice worked together. The staff rep covered that same area. This is a long time ago. Subsequently, they got way more staff reps, but back then it was just a staff rep and a regional vice. We were—actually, this, Prince George, a guy named Ray Degagne and I, we took the yard out for the first strike. The government was still the— Social Credit were in, and we were still not quite the union yet because the NDP made us a union. The Social Credit were on their way out. They lost that—but they hadn’t lost the election yet, and we had took the yard out. They couldn’t believe it because we had a strike in 1958. Nobody knows about this strike. It lasted three hours.

 

GD [00:17:04] Okay, tell me about it.

 

TB [00:17:05] The government employees across the province walked off the job, and picket lines appeared in front. This is under the old association.

 

GD [00:17:17] Yeah. What was the issue? What was the strike about?

 

TB [00:17:20] Huh?

 

GD [00:17:20] What was the strike about?

 

TB [00:17:22] Just wages and everything.

 

GD [00:17:23] Okay.

 

TB [00:17:24] But it was just an association.

 

GD [00:17:26] But everybody went out?

 

TB [00:17:27] Well, yeah, because it was everybody. And when (laughter) it didn’t, it didn’t accomplish—the government—we were very wishy washy. I had just came from the IWA. Here I am out on the picket line at eight o’clock in the morning, walking back and forth on Third Avenue with my picket sign. By eleven o’clock we’re back at work. Been ordered back to work. They couldn’t rush back through the doors quick enough to go to work. It was like three, three hours long. (laughter). But anyway, subsequently we took this on. This was serious. We were out for a couple of days. The government indicated that they were talking to us, and the union convinced us—they weren’t very happy. Fryer wasn’t very happy.

 

GD [00:18:23] Wildcat.

 

TB [00:18:25] The union convinced us to go back to work until everything had settled, and then, of course, when the NDP got in, and they made us a union. Then, of course, that was entirely different. When we negotiated, everybody thought, ‘Well, they’re going to negotiate with a labour government. They’ll just roll over.’

 

GD [00:18:50] Yeah. No.

 

TB [00:18:51] They didn’t just roll over. And good for them. I negotiated the ETI agreement. That’s about 5,000 people. That’s the engineering, technical and inspectional. I was on chair of that component, and I had a staff rep. Ed Honcharuk was the staff rep. We negotiated with the guy on the other side. You won’t know this name. It was Clay Perry. Clay Perry was a negotiator with the IWA [International Woodworkers of America], but he was now a government. And the government peons, the upper echelon of the government was sitting back. They didn’t even have a clue what was going on. We were experienced. We had some experienced people on our side.

 

TB [00:19:44] So, like going I—one time during negotiations, we had made a deal up, Ed and I made it. We were trying to get—I don’t even remember what we’re trying to get. In the morning, we put it on the table, and they were procrastinating. I slammed my book down and stormed out the door. Clay Perry was—oh, these guys—it would be kind of—he said, ‘For Christ’s sake Ed,’ (Ed told me this), ‘For Christ’s sake, Ed. That’s as old as Adam and Eve. We don’t do that no more. Get him back in here. We’ll talk about it some more.’ (laughter) Anyway, they were professional negotiators throughout on—the 13 components that—the operational services were the truck drivers and that, and they were trades were operational services.

 

GD [00:20:50] Okay.

 

TB [00:20:50] I was engineering. There was the clerical—

 

GD [00:20:53] Component 7’s the one that I dealt with. That was the colleges.

 

TB [00:20:57] Yeah.

 

GD [00:21:00] It was colleges and somebody else.

 

TB [00:21:02] Yeah. You guys negotiated separately to ours because you had a separate agreement.

 

GD [00:21:07] Yes.

 

TB [00:21:07] You’ll still see my name on side. I negotiated board and lodging and some of that because we knew about it, because we were the ones doing it. The board and lodging applied across the service.

 

GD [00:21:24] Okay. Yeah.

 

TB [00:21:26] Yeah. It was interesting times. The union times were very interesting and the conventions. Oh, I got to tell you a story about convention.

 

GD [00:21:35] Okay.

 

TB [00:21:38] Nobody’s going to tell you this story because nobody will know it. Way back, and ’bout ’85, the ladies, in any union weren’t, they weren’t active. They were very, very quiet. CUPE [Canadian Union of Public Employees] and the BCGEU—our ladies were—there were kind of different little schools and things. We sent them to these schools. So, we go to BC Federation of Labour convention. I don’t remember the issue, but a carpenter, a member of the Carpenters Union, a great big gruff old guy—he was in his sixties—gruff. ‘Rarr rarr’ That stuff that would happen in the old days. He goes on, and he starts saying these sexist remarks and the ladies in BCGEU and CUPE started sissing. ‘Sissssssss, sisssss.’ And he would say another one. It got louder. I didn’t even know what was going on. I never heard it before. And it got louder. The more he talked the louder it got. He finally sat down. (laughter).

 

GD [00:23:05] Good enough. Shut it down.

 

TB [00:23:09] And I know—I went to every Fed convention there was for many years, and it slowly, that kind of stuff slowly died down, and I never heard the sissing like that ever again. I didn’t even know what it was! I had to ask Diane. I said, ‘What was that all about?’ It was just drowning him out because he was saying these sexist remarks.

 

GD [00:23:40] About the same time that was happening, in our federation they had set up an ad hoc women’s committee. There was a salary and benefits committee. There was a pension committee. But it was an ad hoc committee, right? It wasn’t a permanent ongoing committee. So, when the vote was coming up at the AGM, there’s usually a president’s council meeting beforehand. The women’s committee came and stood behind their presidents and made sure that they got a permanent women’s committee.

 

TB [00:24:14] Oh, yeah. (laughter) Good for them. Well, the BCGEU, it really changed quite—it was still—there were mainly men because like the trades component, there was no ladies in trades. Operational Services, we had one truck driver from Prince George. It was—gorgeous, she was, and she was a really good truck driver. Toni was her name. She moved to Penticton, a friend of mine. Anyway, she—we had a truck rodeo in Vanderhoof, and the truck drivers, all of the guys, were there. It was a training exercise. Anyway, they had three trucks. All the trucks had to be the same. They had three trucks. A truck was coming from Prince George, and the truck pulled in. I’m there. I’m one of the judges. This truck pulled in. I look it’s Toni driving it, and she pulls in, [loud driving sound] and the head guy, the driver trainer says, ‘I want you to run through the’—and she goes [driving sounds] and she runs all through all the whole—never touches the cone and does it in jig quick time. Now, the first operator he has to take a truck through. So, he hits a cone, and his buddies start yak, yak, yakking and I’m standing there as a judge. I know what’s going to happen. You’re going to hit a cone, and you’re yakking it up, and you’re giving him static. (laughter) They got worse as the day went on. (laugher) They got worse because they couldn’t go through, (laugher) and Toni she was just killing herself laughing. Anyway, that’s a sideboard.

 

GD [00:26:34] Good story. I’m thinking, I’m wondering how back in your workdays, how the equipment changed over the years, how the methods of work changed over the years, safety regulations, those kinds of things.

 

TB [00:26:53] Big time. Big time. We lived in tents. The government’s attitude—the Social Credit government and the NDP. Well, the same minions who are still running it. The government doesn’t run it. We lived in tents out in the bush. Even in the winter, you’re in a tent. You had to heat the tent and what have you. We were able to do that. For suppertime, mealtimes, you come in and you cook your own meal. You had five or six or eight men, so—and if you assigned a man to do it, a person to do it—but they were all—we couldn’t have females in the camp. It just wouldn’t have worked. You don’t—you didn’t have separate accommodation.

 

GD [00:27:55] Right. Everybody was together.

 

TB [00:27:56] You’re all in the same. You were working eight-to-five, or you’re eight or nine hours a day or ten hours. Then you’re cooking your meals and cleaning and doing batchin’, but you weren’t batchin’ because you cook for all the people because your shift—two, I would assign two guys would—okay you cook and do the meals for this week, and I’ll do it next week and—

 

GD [00:28:33] Rotation.

 

TB [00:28:34] Just like they do in a fire hall. They do that to this day, but they have different kinds of shifts. But that’s changed. Just the attitudes over the years. Back in the old days, the attitude towards the worker was—it just wasn’t there. You know, the worker was just a worker, and the attitude has changed big time, I think. Although we see them [gesturing outside]—

 

GD [00:29:13] The posties out on strike.

 

TB [00:29:14] Yeah. That’s so the world is changing. I think you won’t have—we might not even have a post office in the future. It’ll cost $10 to mail a letter because that’s what it really costs.

 

GD [00:29:34] Yeah.

 

TB [00:29:35] So, anyway.

 

GD [00:29:37] So, getting back to highways, you were responsible for, you know, maintenance, snow removal, all that kind of stuff for a long time. And that was a government job. It was the government maintaining the infrastructure of the province. So, what happened to that? I mean, it all got contracted out.

 

TB [00:30:00] When they privatized in ’88, they privatized—.

 

GD [00:30:04] Eighty-eight, okay.

 

TB [00:30:04] The highways, and I was there. What happened—I bid on one of the contracts. Myself and another guy who built the Coquihalla Highway. He was—if you look—if you read all the books on the Coquihalla Highway, you’ll see all the P. Engs [professional engineer]. P. Engs don’t build nothing.

 

GD [00:30:30] (laugher) Okay.

 

TB [00:30:31] P. Engs—

 

GD [00:30:33] Do the plans?

 

TB [00:30:33] They sit, and they don’t even design good roads. It’s the people building the road that makes the changes on the ground and makes the curve fit. They call it a curve—there’s one if you drive on 16 East there’s a place just around Slim Creek camp where you go down the hill. It’s wrong. It’s wrong and to rebuild it they got to rebuild miles of road because it’s the way it spirals down. Anyway, it just changed but with the highway, with the highways privatized we—I was one of the inspectors. I inspected the contract. When I didn’t—

 

GD [00:31:33] So, there’s still some oversight?

 

TB [00:31:35] Yeah. I was the senior. We called them area managers. I inspected YRB [Yellowhead Road and Bridge]. Now YRB, when they took—they bid on a contract. YRB, their president—and YRB’s got six contracts now. Their president—the president’s now retired. He was Rick Harrison. He was the civil engineer. The vice president was Bill Stanley. He’s passed away. He was an engineering technician like me. Identical job to what I what I had. And then all their people were Highways people, and now it’s just the people they hire. They hire truck drivers. They get good drivers but—

 

GD [00:32:27] It’s run by bureaucrats?

 

TB [00:32:29] What?

 

GD [00:32:29] It’s run by bureaucrats? Pencil pushers?

 

TB [00:32:32] Well, no. Well, they’re all eng—

 

GD [00:32:37] Okay. Civil engineers.

 

TB [00:32:39] They’ve got civil engineering degrees. The owners. The new owners. It’s a—it’s that—it’s different than other contractors because the YRB still is employee-owned.

 

GD [00:32:54] Okay.

 

TB [00:32:55] They still have shares.

 

GD [00:32:56] It’s Yellowhead Road and Bridge is their name—

 

TB [00:32:59] Yellowhead Road and Bridge. Yeah, they still—the way, the way they worked their shares was genius. For one share—way back when they formed their company, and we were going to do this too. One share— you guaranteed $5,000 of the loan that Yellowhead Road and Bridge was getting to buy it, to buy or at lease their equipment. Two shares, you guaranteed 10,000. Three shares (it was the maximum you could buy) guaranteed 15,000. Then you, then the following year, this is what YRB did in 1989 or ’90, they said, ‘We need a little more money.’ The three shares doesn’t look good. So, for each share that you guaranteed, we’ll let you buy five more for $100 each.

 

GD [00:34:07] Wahoo.

 

TB [00:34:09] Okay, so this is a steal. And Cece, a lady named Cece Puga, Cece came up to me. She was the head secretary in region, and she had asked me, ‘Should I go to YRB?’ I said, ‘Go. For God sakes, go. That group will make it. They’ll make it Cece.’ They’re not—the government is Social Credit, they’re not going to let it fail. They can’t let it fail. This was their idea. So, she went. She said, ‘Should I buy?’ I think, God. Buy as many as you can. So, she bought. Sittin’ very, very pretty right now. Well, when you retire you’re bought out, or when you—or when they lose the contract. They lost the contract after five years. So now you— all you had tied up—because this loan was paid off—all you had was—

 

GD [00:35:11] $100.

 

TB [00:35:12] The shares you paid $100 for. So, you had $1,500 tied up. If you bought them all. That’s all that you spent. And they call it the YRB boat show, a party they had at Purden Lake because everybody bought a boat. They all made 70, $60-$70,000, the ones that had bought the max. The ones that didn’t buy and some—they were all friends of mine. They were all union members. Some of them I couldn’t convince them. ‘It ain’t gonna cost you nothing. All you’re doing is guaranteeing the loan. You don’t have to take a penny out of your pocket.’ But anyway.

 

GD [00:35:59] Pretty good return on investment.

 

TB [00:36:01] Yeah.

 

GD [00:36:02] In five years. So, after the privatization period, you were still there for about another five, six years?

 

TB [00:36:17] Oh, I was there for eight more years.

 

GD [00:36:18] So, you were supervising now or inspecting the work that was done?

 

TB [00:36:25] Yeah. But what had happened, though, by then, after privatization, I was out of region, and I was an inspector of a road maintenance contract. That was a whole different area because now you had to appease the public, and the government was the Social Credit, Liberal ND—Social Credit, Liberal—what was?—Conservative, Social Credit, Liberal combination group. Like that group there. I think the BC United and whatever the hell they were. They controlled it, and they—we actually got a dictum because we give out notices to comply to the contract and the government they—the contractors complained to the government. The notices to comply—it was never backed up anyway— and the government said that if—they told our—I had one man over top of me and they said, if you hand out a notice to comply, it means you’re not doing your job. You’re not doing your job. The contractor is not doing his job but because you didn’t make a contract to do it you’re not serving your job. You’re not doing your job. Yeah, it was a whole different field.

 

GD [00:38:09] So, did things change when the NDP came in ’91?

 

TB [00:38:13] When the NDP got in? No. That was Lois Boone. She’s our—Lois was the Minister of Highways then. Okay. I give Lois lots—to this day—I give Lois lots of static.

 

GD [00:38:28] We’re interviewing her this afternoon.

 

TB [00:38:31] I see her all the time. In fact, she’s on my Facebook. (laughter) But I give her a lot of static. It’s—you could never—it would never go back. Nobody ever expected it to go back because to go back would mean they would have—they’d have to get the building set up because the contractor has got all the buildings now. They’re all gone. The equipment’s all gone, and it’d be millions and millions of dollars.

 

GD [00:39:11] Okay. Operation Solidarity.

 

TB [00:39:18] Pardon?

 

GD [00:39:18] We wanted to talk about Operation Solidarity. In 1983, the Bill Bennett government had just got re-elected and passed a slew of legislation—anti-union, anti-labour legislation, anti civil rights legislation, anti-human rights legislation. Everything across the board, right? Operation Solidarity built up to, you know, a general strike or almost a general strike. You know, I know from the college side, the teachers in college were supposed to go out at some point in early November. The GEU was on strike at the time.

 

TB [00:39:57] We had work stoppages. We had actual work stoppages. What would happen—in ’83, I traveled all of northern B.C. up until ’88, when privatization came in. From about ’68 to ’88, I cruised all over northern B.C., from Williams Lake to the Yukon border east and west. So, hydroseed crews, crushing crews, fixing plant crews. All these crews came under me, and I dispatched them through the different areas they went. What would happen is they would pull out—they pulled out areas. They pulled out the—what they called 1011 Fourth Avenue, which is a—they pulled the people out of there. Said you’re going on strike. The union said you got—and I’d be in Rupert.

 

GD [00:41:01] Okay.

 

TB [00:41:02] Well, and I, so — even though I worked out of that office, I refused money. I wouldn’t take pay for those days, but when I was in town, I’d be out there with them. We had that—we had about three or four work stoppages in Prince George at different times. But it was—it wasn’t—there was no general strike.

 

GD [00:41:31] No, it didn’t get that far. Jack Munro. We had Frank Everitt and Sucha Deepak in here yesterday.

 

TB [00:41:42] Frank was in?

 

GD [00:41:43] Yeah. Jack Munro went to Bennett’s place in Kelowna, and, you know, the strike was called off. The GEU went back to the table and hammered out an agreement that basically was the template for everybody else to follow.

 

TB [00:42:00] Yeah. Yeah. Frank— see that I’m wearing this. I was the vice-chair of the regional district [Regional District of Fraser-Fort George].

 

GD [00:42:09] Okay. Yeah, right.

 

TB [00:42:10] I was elected vice-chair for 20 years. Almost 20 years.

 

GD [00:42:13] Yeah. After you retired, you ran for election in ’96 and were there for—

 

TB [00:42:20] Yeah, I ran in—when did I get in?

 

TB [00:42:29] Ninety-nine. I won by one vote. No, I won by three.

 

GD [00:42:35] There’s a picture.

 

TB [00:42:38] Oh, yeah. And Art Kaehn.

 

GD [00:42:39] And Bob. Bob Headrick was my barber when I came to town.

 

TB [00:42:44] Where’s it say—well, Bob Headrick and Maureen Thompson and Art Kaehn, he’s still—he’s is a retired government employee. Now, he was a barber.

 

GD [00:42:57] Yeah. So, Camp Plaza Barbers, that’s where I started going in 1990.

 

TB [00:43:01] I go to that shop.

 

TB [00:43:03] George is just retiring now.

 

TB [00:43:06] Well, no, he’s still cutting hair.

 

GD [00:43:07] Well, yeah, but he’s 75.

 

TB [00:43:10] He lives in—

 

GD [00:43:12] He’s got a new condo.

 

TB [00:43:13] I give him such a bad time at that shop because I always told Headrick that Headrick was right-wing as they come. He was right from right. But I told him he got his hair cutting certificate in a prison because I said, ‘That’s where all you barbers get your goddamn hair cutting certificate (laughter).

 

GD [00:43:40] He was quite the character.

 

GD [00:43:43] George took over from him and has run it ever since. He’s just sold it to Kylie, the young Black woman who’s in there. But he still—he can’t stop.

 

TB [00:43:55] Well, Art Kaehn is still vice-chair. He was chair of the board for a long time. When he was chair, I was vice, but he stepped out. I think Art’s got health problems. Lara Beckett. She’s a Green [Green Party], and she’s the chair of the board now.

 

GD [00:44:15] So, talk about municipal politics or labour and municipal politics. Did they go together very well? It’s a pretty right-wing town.

 

TB [00:44:23] I think that you sure trained me—labour trained me to be a politician. It was simple for me. I didn’t even go to politician school. They have a school, you know?

 

GD [00:44:38] Yeah.

 

TB [00:44:39] Like Lara. She went. Two years. She kept going and going to that school that they have.

 

GD [00:44:46] Is it the Bowen Island School.

 

TB [00:44:47] Well, it was the Robert’s Rules of Order and how to go and get up to the mike. When you get up, when you have another vote, and all that kind of stuff.

 

GD [00:44:58] They used to send all the new appointees to college boards to that.

 

TB [00:45:02] Yeah, all that stuff.

 

GD [00:45:03] It was very right-wing at the time.

 

TB [00:45:09] Now, I’m still on the board but I’m the alternate for the lady that represents the area I used to represent, and that was everything north of Prince George from Summit Valley to the Pine Pass. That’s called Area G. This lady, I talked her into it. She’s a great big, tall lady. She’s taller than me. She’s six feet.

 

GD [00:45:48] So, you’ve got the Huble Homestead is in your territory up there.

 

TB [00:45:52] What’s that?

 

GD [00:45:53] The Huble Homestead?

 

TB [00:45:55] How long was that—

 

GD [00:45:55]  Huble. Huble. The homestead.

 

TB [00:45:58] Yeah, Huble. I’m a life member of Huble. I’m still involved. I was treasurer of Huble for about 20 years.

 

GD [00:46:10] Oh, cool. So it’s a historic homestead that was on the Fraser River, but on the Giscome Portage between the Fraser and Summit Lake.

 

TB [00:46:20] It’s above the canyon. That’s where the rafters—well, when you come down from the north, from McBride and the Fraser River, the Grand Canyon, then before you get to the canyon, you get off at Huble and they would freight your goods across. It ain’t that far, about five miles across, and you’d put them in Summit Lake and then the Summit Lake, you would go—everything—you go to the Yukon. You could go over the Hudson Bay—

 

GD [00:46:54] The Crooked River. Parsnip River.

 

TB [00:46:55] Parsnip River. Down the Peace River, and you’d end up in Hudson Bay. It was a natural. Just a natural—

 

GD [00:47:04] Highway.

 

TB [00:47:05] Yeah. All those bands, like the Lheidli [T’enneh]. I was involved, heavily involved, with them. The McLeod Lake Indian Band. Good friends of mine. All the Chingee boys. In fact, Gilbert and I are on Facebook together. Harley, I don’t know if you know the Chingees, but Harley’s a great— they’re all big. They’re big, tall guys. Harley’s a gruff, gruff guy but he’s a pussycat. Their dad was a really nice guy. Their dad has passed away. He was a good friend of mine. I used to—I stayed to Winterston and Honeymoon Gap, and that was pretty desolate. That was when we were working on the [John] Hart Highway, and the camp was there, so, yeah. I can’t even remember their dad’s name. I went to his funeral, and they’re highly Catholic. Natives are—most Natives are Catholic. You’ll see, if you go to any of their things they stand like this [open arms with palms up]. I think that’s a Catholic thing. Something to do with them and the chur— I don’t—something to do with them and the church. There’ll be—it’s in certain parts of the—anything they do. They stand like this. Old Harry was buried a Catholic. And so what— there was a lady sittin’ in front of me. She owned the Grizzly Inn in Bear Lake, and her brother. I was sitting with my brother-in-law, who’s an elder in the Moberly Indian band. We’re sittin’ there and sittin’ beside him, there’s an elder, another, Bobby Van Summer. He’s passed away. There’s an elder from Fort St James. They came out with the smoke. You know, all around the coffin. And then they came out with—.

 

GD [00:49:28] Cedar branches?

 

TB [00:49:28] The holy water thing. I said, ‘Andy, they lit old Harry on fire, but they put him out. (laughter) Well, this—she heard me. (laughter) She just about died. (laughter) Harry, his name came out like that. Old Harry Chingee was a nice old fellow. Actually, a little side story. Harry, my brother-in-law, is a member of the Moberly Band. The Moberly Band and the McLeod Lake Indian Band feud because they’re on this end of Treaty 8. Treaty 8 is any water that goes to the north. So, they’re both on this end. Now, Moberly claims all that territory. It’s all theirs.

 

GD [00:50:26] Okay. Overlapping claims.

 

TB [00:50:29] And McLeod Lake claims all the territory. Well, I was sittin’ and talkin’ with Harry, and the mayor of Mackenzie had asked me to come. She said, ‘I got to meet with Harry Chingee. Would you come up to McLeod Lake and meet with him with me?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ So, I’m sittin’ there, and we’re talkin’, and I’m talkin’ to old Harry. I said, ‘Harry,’ I said, ‘Do you know the Hunters?’ All of a sudden, ‘Why?’ he said. I thought, ‘Holy shit.’ He sighs. Sat down. I said, ‘Well, Andy Miller’s great grandfather is a Hunter. He said, ‘My wife’s a Hunter.’ That last name was Hunter. What had happened—which happened all— that’s why there’s all this confusion, is a McLeod Lake Indian Band member—this old Hunter of way back—there’s no roads or nothing— walked over to the Peace River and he walked to the Moberly Indian Band and hooked up with—

 

GD [00:51:40] With somebody on that side of the boundries.

 

TB [00:51:45] One of the ladies up there and joined that band and stayed up there. So, Andy Miller, I said, is really half McLeod Lake Indian. (laughter) So, quit your feudin’. He started laughing. He thought it was pretty funny that he didn’t know that Andy was a Hunter.

 

GD [00:52:05] I was wondering when you were talking about highways and in the interior Flying Phil Gaglardi and Ben Ginter were, you know, the highway builders?

 

TB [00:52:18] Ginter, Gaglardi, and God.

 

GD [00:52:19] And God, right. Did that overlap your era?

 

TB [00:52:23] Oh, big time. What happened, at West Twin, if you go out 60, you come to a bridge. It’s on a corner. The concrete bridge is on a corner. That’s West Twin Creek. That’s long before the highway was built. Ben Ginter—Ben Ginter was the goddamnest whiner that you—he would, oh, he could whine, and he would—he would bid a contract, and, of course, Ginter, Gaglardi, and God, he would bid the contract, and he’d leave money on the table. Then, of course, then it was a continuous argument. ‘Oh, I took overages’. Overages, yeah. ‘I have my overages,’ and the overages price would be way higher for moving that, moving that extra material. ‘If I only have to move 500, it’ll be this price. If I have to move 600, it’ll be this price.’ The other 100 will be double what, almost the 500 cost. Well, they were doing West Twin Creek, and they were pushing soil over, and I was on that job as a supervisor. I was a driller; I had my drill crew. They pushed it over, and it came sliding down, and it killed three men. Buried three men in the bottom of this ravine, and so I was called out there. My crew is called out there to drill the stability (but they had recovered all the men in it) and drill all kinds stability. Anyway, I’m down there, workin’, and I look up, and they’re pushing soil up against the bank again. So, I pull my—I leave my drill, all my equipment down the bottom, call my crew out of there, and walk off the job. We weren’t even union yet. And—

 

GD [00:54:26] Not safe though.

 

TB [00:54:31] Ginter and the Highways supervisor closed the job down. Ginter phones Gaglardi. Gaglardi phones the head honcho in Victoria. Head honcho in Victoria phones my head honcho in Prince George, a guy named Les Brody. Les Brody says Terry will not go back down there and drill unless that equipment’s at least a mile back from the—because you can’t outrun a slide. So, back I goes, back around the corner, back all the way. Ginter hated me. (laughter) He hated me because I won. I won that one.

 

GD [00:55:24] Good story. I was thinking when you’re talking about McLeod Lake and the North area and the Bennett Dam, I don’t know if there was any involvement there because Moberly were the ones that were fighting Site C, the new dam at Fort Saint John. That changed the whole climate of the Central Interior.

 

TB [00:55:45] I don’t—well, the chief of Moberly and most of Moberly is directly related to my brother-in-law. Directly. They’re his nephews. All the upper echelon. If you go to Moberly—I actually talked to—they had a thing in Summit Lake here in the last month or so, and they invited all the people in and around to it. It was a signing of a memorandum of understanding for that area. Anyway, if you go up there, Moberly Indians (and I got a book that talks about them) are big, stocky Indians. This end of Moberly Lake. They’re big. The other end of Moberly Lake, they are Cree.

 

GD [00:56:42] Okay.

 

TB [00:56:43] And they’re thinner. And they’re thinner faced. But the Cree—and the two bands of mixed over the years and so you get some big stocky guys on that end. See, I worked up there back in the early ’60s at Moberly Lake, when they were building a road into the Hudson’s Hope dam. I was on that road that came from Chetwynd over the back and into the Hudson’s Hope dam. I worked there for two years, so I lived at Moberly Lake. They had a motel right on the lake. I lived right there. I got to know them pretty well.

 

GD [00:57:30] So, some general questions about the labour movement. Like what benefits would you say unions provide workers?

 

TB [00:57:42] What?

 

GD [00:57:43] What benefits do unions provide workers?

 

TB [00:57:46] Oh. They provide ’em some stability. That’s the main thing. I noticed the difference when I when I came from the IWA. And even back then in the ’50s, the IWA was—there was a lot of strikes. You know, it was because there was lots of work. So, there was but—but you still had safety, and safety was a big thing. Whereas, in highways, you didn’t, you didn’t have— Talk about safety. One of the things we were hung up on two days with Clay Perry. But the minions in the background was—I wanted them to train the fallers on the survey crews. When the survey crew goes through, you come to a big tree. And—’Jimmy go fall that tree.’ Jimmy has never even started a power saw, and he’s going to go fall this big tree. I wanted to make sure that more safety was given them. Clay Perry, whenever he—when he was negotiating, you look across the table he’d be like this. (head tilted down) He was listening, but his eyes’d be closed.

 

GD [00:59:24] Okay.

 

TB [00:59:26] This one day—the WCB had put out a book, the Fallers’ and Buckers’ Handbook. It was a green handbook . It was all about falling and bucking. The next day—we’ve spent this whole day, bashing and bashing. No, they weren’t going to move and then we go somewhere. Then we’d come back, bash a bit. ‘No, we’re not going to move on that.’ So, I’d the night before, I’d taken an x-acto knife, and I’d carefully cut the F off of fallers and the B off of buckers and reversed them. (laughter) I think you can imagine. (laughter) And I—Clay Perry is sitting there sleeping and I fired the book down on ’em, and I said, ‘We want this book instituted.’ He looks at the book. ‘Har, har!’ We got it. Just like that. (laughter) Just like that. It broke through and broke the ice. We got it. (laughter) But yeah, unions, like for government employees if they were back to the old collective begging, they wouldn’t be—when you got—when the pensions. Like, I’m retired now, and we got a cost of living escalator clause, and by the way, not a penny of that is taxpayers’ dollars.

 

GD [01:01:00] No.

 

TB [01:01:01] It came out of my pocket—

 

GD [01:01:03] Yeah, and then investment income makes up some of it.

 

TB [01:01:05] And I also put a 2 percent, and that’s there, and it’s all growing over here.

 

GD [01:01:11] Yeah.

 

TB [01:01:13] Those kind of benefits, in the old days, they would announce a one percent raise for retired government employees. It was a different pot. It was Bennett’s pot. Bennett built the dam. With the cost of living with the pension plan, he built the dam with that money. Then he’d pay it back with no interest. Unions—I don’t know how you describe it. Well, I can’t think of a time because I’ve been involved all the time. Can’t think of a time without unions.

 

GD [01:02:00] What do you think is the most issue facing workers today?

 

TB [01:02:03] The biggest issue?

 

GD [01:02:04] Yeah.

 

TB [01:02:05] I think it’s computers.

 

GD [01:02:09] Right.

 

TB [01:02:10] Like these people here and now everybody. You know, you’re going to either have to— they’re still gonna need some people right now to do it with their hands, but maybe there’ll be somebody, something here in another 20 years driving a snow plow truck.

 

GD [01:02:32] There are already autonomous taxis in places like L.A. No drivers anymore.

 

TB [01:02:39] Artificial, with artificial intelligence and all that stuff, I don’t know. Well, I know I won’t see it, but I got—I got a brother in a—my youngest brother’s in a home with dementia. I miss my huntin’ partner. This is in Prince George, and another brother with a broken hip. I’m the oldest in the family, and I’m the only one still up and around. I’m 88.

 

GD [01:03:07] Wow. So, why is it important that we commemorate workers in the past?

 

TB [01:03:14] Pardon?

 

GD [01:03:14] Why is it important that we commemorate, honour workers in the past?

 

TB [01:03:20] I think so that the young people comin’ on, the people joinin’ that come into the workforce, gotta know how they got to the money. How did you get to this stage? Like, why aren’t we just being paid some lowly salary? How did we get there? And I think—

 

GD [01:03:49] Employers didn’t hand them to you out of the goodness of their hearts.

 

TB [01:03:53] It didn’t just happen. Somebody didn’t just say, oh we’ll just give these guys five or 10 or 15 percent. The NDP being in right now federally, they’re controlling the Liberals a little bit, what he can do, and in the province being in them being in gave the province some social feelings. Look at what’s happening with Alberta.

 

GD [01:04:30] Yeah.

 

TB [01:04:32] Alberta, the NDP were in for a little short time, but Alberta’s already— always been right wing.

 

GD [01:04:39] Pretty right wing.

 

TB [01:04:41] It’s going right back. Right back.

 

GD [01:04:45] Further than it was for a while now.

 

TB [01:04:47] I think that they’re gonna be in worse shape, but not when—because we’re going to have a Conservative government, no doubt.

 

GD [01:04:59] Federally. Likely. Back to [unclear]. Yeah.

 

TB [01:05:02]  That’s going to be a struggle. I’m surprised, if you look at the map, that the only reason the NDP are in B.C. is the Lower Mainland. And they, the rural areas all the whole friggin’ province is all— And John Rustad, John Rustad’s dad is dead. Passed away here last year. Personal friend of mine, my curling partner for years and years. We traveled the province, curling in different bonspiels and that. Laurie was his dad. He always—Laurie was a realtor. Laurie—well, he wasn’t just a realtor. He was a realtor in the end. Yeah. Rustad Mills are not—are distant relatives. That’s Jimmy Rustad. I went to school with him. Jim took over when his dad died, but Laurie is—Laurie was Gillorn Lumber. Gil Rustad and Laurie Rustad were cousins to the guy that owned Rustad Lumber. But they didn’t really log for Rustad Lumber. They logged for other mills. They Rustads, logged sometime, but anyway he went into real estate. Laurie and I were really good friends. John’s brother is a member of our association, and he’s a member, was a member—he might even be a life member of the BCGEU. From the jail. His other brother Lorne also works in the jail.

 

GD [01:06:50] John was a lawyer, wasn’t he?

 

TB [01:06:51] No, no.

 

GD [01:06:53] What was his background?

 

TB [01:06:53]  I think he’s a forester. Yeah, I know he’s something to do with forestry. I don’t know if he has a degree, but I know he has something to do with forestry. I put some—I put a one letter to the editor when Mike Morris —Mike was, I was the—

 

GD [01:07:20] Regional District?

 

TB [01:07:20] His area and my area was the same. Almost the same. Almost identical.

 

GD [01:07:25] OK. Prince George North is Mike, is the MLA there.

 

TB [01:07:28] When Mike came out about—he’s steady about—first off, he posted a thing we should—’Why are we letting Alberta continue the railroad up into Alaska?’ Alberta was there about two years. Came out gonna go—Why are we allowing Alberta to extend—Why don’t, why aren’t we doing that? We got a great—yeah, you guys shut down the BCR [British Columbia Railway]. You’re the ones that closed it down.

 

GD [01:08:06] Sold it to CN [Canadian National Railway].

 

TB [01:08:06] Then he posted to this day actually, letters to the editor. He’s posting about clear cuts. He don’t like clear cuts cause Mike is a trapper. He was a Mountie but he’s got a trap line that starts at Bear Lake, up around Bear Lake. Starts more close to the Summit Lake, goes up that side. But they’ve clear cut his trap line. Well, pretty well. Yeah.

 

GD [01:08:42] So, there aren’t any animals left.

 

TB [01:08:43] Mike is going on and on about clear cutting, and ‘I oppose the’—and ‘We shouldn’t be clear cutting.’ Well, you clear cut it. Rustad was in forest minister, was the secretary of forest minister, number two. Mike was a friggin’ attorney general. He could have stopped it.

 

GD [01:09:09] He let it happen.

 

TB [01:09:11] (laugher) Just vote against it! (laughter)

 

NF [01:09:17] I wanted to ask you quick about someone that you might have known from Component 11 ETI [Engineering, Technical and Inspectional].

 

TB [01:09:23] I’m sorry.

 

NF [01:09:24] Did you ever know Russ Leech?

 

TB [01:09:26] What happened is my other hearing aids gone dead.

 

NF [01:09:30] Oh, sorry. A couple of months back, we interviewed Russ Leech from ETI, Component 11 Highways. Did you ever know him? Russ, he worked close with Adam Ustik.

 

TB [01:09:41] Adam Ustik?

 

NF [01:09:42] Yeah.

 

TB [01:09:43] Yeah.

 

NF [01:09:43] Did you know Russ and Adam. We interviewed Russ.

 

TB [01:09:46] I knew Adam.

 

NF [01:09:47] You knew Adam, yeah?

 

TB [01:09:48] Well, what happened with—I was the chair of the component, and Adam was the—came on in ’83. Eighty-three, I was off the provincial executive, and Adam somewhere in there had became chair of the component, of the ETI component. I was the original chair of the ETI component. Adam wasn’t even working in government then. I think he’s—has he passed away?

 

NF [01:10:21] Yeah, he’s passed.

 

TB [01:10:22] Yeah. I thought he had passed away, but he was younger than me. Yeah, I think he might have—he—no know he never ran against me. I was chair of the component for about five or six years, and then I was the vice, one of the vice chairs of the union for the rest. I was on the union from its inception to ’83.

 

NF [01:10:53] So, you mentioned that, you know, before it was a union, the government workers just weren’t union people. Right? How do you get people who aren’t union people to see themselves as a union?

 

TB [01:11:08] Who are—yeah, you’re talking about the services side now?

 

NF [01:11:11] No. Just talk about, you know, it was BCGEA, right, before it became a union, and you said they weren’t really union people. But then in ’68 at that historic convention, how do you get people to become union people?

 

TB [01:11:25] The convention had people like Ed Bodner, and the convention had psych nurses. Now, the psych nurses were very organised and a few of the trades. That convention those—like (and Ed Bodner was a psych nurse) and those kind of people were able to get the convention to vote that way. Now, I wasn’t even at that convention; our two delegates were steam engineers from the jail. Now, steam engineers were organised. So, were, you know, because they already belonged to a kind of an association. So, yeah, and you had carpenters and it was—it just happened to be organ—the time happened to be right. When it went to the con—it still was a fight because Connor was his name, O’Connor was the general secre— but they didn’t call them that then. He was the guy that they had to let go—but—because he was the guy—the collective begging we called it—would go to government, say, ‘You know, you should give them three percent.’ ‘We’ll give you one percent. Oh, that’s pretty good. That’s great. That’s more than enough.’ (laughter) But the rank and file government employees were hard, hard to convince. When I when I came and I was collecting dues, and then, of course, there’s a few of those people scattered around and collected dues and that, that’s what formed the nucleus of us, those kind of people. When I called the meeting, it was those kind of people that came to the meeting because we knew who they were. We knew that they had some sort of inkling of what the union was going to be all about. When we had the meeting in Prince George we had called ourselves a union, but we didn’t have bargaining or nothing like that. It took the NDP to get in ’72, ’68. It was five years later even though we called ourselves a union. It scared—who the hell was that? Was it Bennett? Original, WAC? I think it was the other Bennett. Bennett was—

 

GD [01:14:12] Mini WAC was ’75. He was elected, right. Barrett called the snap election and—

 

TB [01:14:21] That was the first election that he got in. Okay. So, it was—

 

GD [01:14:25] Barrett was elected in ’72, lost in ’75.

 

TB [01:14:29] Then Bill Bennett Junior, little Bennett Junior got in. Yeah. Okay. So, it was old WAC.

 

GD [01:14:36] Yes.

 

TB [01:14:37] But old WAC was losing some of his strength and wasn’t able to keep the government employees, but it was still just a nucleus of government employees out there. The rank and file couldn’t have cared less. Even though—well—even though they found out later when we finished negotiations, it was like night and day. I would say across the board there was about a 15 percent increase because what the government had, they had—they didn’t just have a salary. Like I was an E—I was an engineering a—I might have been an engineering technician—but I—there was—there could be an EA1 one and then five steps in an EA1. But you didn’t necessarily just go through the steps and become an EA2. You’re supposed to do exams and what have you. Then you become an Engineering A2, 3, 4, 5, and then you become an engineering technician. But you never, ever became an engineering technician unless you bid on a job that had an engineering tech. So, it was slow, and industrious, we cut a bunch of steps out.

 

GD [01:16:07] So thank you very much.

 

TB [01:16:09] Thank you.

 

TB [01:16:09] It’s been a pleasure talking to you.