Articles

This is your chance to own a unique piece of BC labour history! Whether you display it in your kitchen,...

The BCTF History Project interviewed past presidents and other leaders of the BC Teachers' Federation, with most of the interviews...

A rare artifact documenting British Columbians who fought in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) has surfaced at the Museum of...

Frances Foxcroft (1888-1968) is known in the BC labour movement as the woman who courageously stood in the way of...

Ginger Goodwin was a wanted man when he left the town of Trail in British Columbia’s Kootenays region in the...

The Vancouver Trades and Labor Council (VTLC) discussed the idea of a spacious, centralized building for working people at a...

In the late hours of February 10, 1939, a crowd of around 9,000 Vancouverites gathered at the train station on...

Charismatic union activist, socialist and organizer Albert “Ginger” Goodwin was fatally shot on July 27, 1918, by special constable Dan...

This timeline condenses the events described by Colin Gabelmann and Ron Johnson in their discussion The Backstory: Labour and Politics...

For over 100 years, fruit from the orchards of BC's Okanagan Valley has fed families across Canada and the hard-working...

Patrick Burns opened his first slaughterhouse in Calgary in 1890. In 1907 Burns & Co built “a large and modern...

Ken Johnstone made a point of attending the annual Ironworkers Bridge Memorial on each anniversary of its deadly collapse. He...

The fight against apartheid in South Africa was long, arduous and often violent, costing many lives. Starting in 1976, until...

BC labour led a four-year boycott of non-union American grapes between 1966 and 1970. The United Farm Workers’ (UFW) strike...

400 miners, 100 police, two navy ships and a machine gun Anyox was a small, isolated company-owned coastal community in...

Before British Columbia had modern labour laws, government and the courts frequently used their powers to keep unions under their...

As early as 1989 the Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU) had successfully negotiated medical benefits for same-sex partners into collective agreements....

On February 18, 1918, two hundred oil refinery workers at Ioco, BC — 30 kilometres east of Vancouver — walked...

How a childhood union button collection played a part in an epic Supreme Court of Canada decision. David Yorke began...

The Postman is a 16-foot tall carved granite bas relief by Vancouver sculptor Paul Huba and installed in 1956. An...

The early 1900s was a time of rapid industrialization in Canada and around the world. Clothing production became mechanized, and...

The first edition of The Labor Statesman hit the streets in Vancouver, BC on April 25, 1924. It would publish...

Miners’ Union Hospitals were a radical response to the critical need for inclusive health care in B.C.’s mining communities more...

Frances Foxcroft probably saved the life of Vancouver Trades and Labor Council Secretary Victor Midgely on the afternoon of August...

On August 26, 1936 the Sheet Metal Workers International Union Local 280, won grand prize in the “Parade of Progress”...

A hand-painted union flag fashioned from a bed sheet became a symbol of solidarity and determination during the 1983 Tranquille...

Charles S. Sager called out racism in an open letter to Prince George city council in 1921. "We are forced...

A strike at the Prince George Canadian Tire store by the Retail Clerks’ Union Local 1518 lasted from December 1983...

The weather forecast for Thursday, July 7, 1983 in Prince George, BC was for heavy thunderstorms in the evening. No...

With a population of 2,479 in 1931, the city of Prince George, BC had hundreds of unemployed. That year, a...

In 1947, youth in Chemainus and Ladysmith, BC led the first ever children’s strike. It was a protest against the...

While the history of South Asians at Golden, BC is reasonably well known, little or nothing has been written about...

Despite police predictions that it would be a “dismal failure”, 6,000 men, women and children descended on the Powell Street...

The intense class struggle of the first two decades of the twentieth century in BC included a small but strong...

The summer of 1910 was a hot one for labour across North America. In the first couple of weeks of...

On Thanksgiving, October 14, 1975, fretting over sky-high inflation and soaring wage increases, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announced Canada’s first...

Parades – particularly Labour Day parades – were big attractions in the early years of British Columbia. While a venue...

During World War II, at the age of 16, Alice West joined tens of thousands of other BC women who...

The 1980s kicked off in British Columbia with an inspiring example of workers using new tactics to cope with an...

On August 30, 2021 the provincial government of BC under the New Democratic Party (BC NDP) announced that dietary and...

Under close police surveillance, the 1936 Vancouver May Day parade announcer mocked passing effigies of local white nationalist Tom MacInnes...

Tom Berger (1933-2021) is remembered as a legal groundbreaker and social justice advocate for Canada’s Indigenous people. Less well-known is...

Labour’s May Day (sometimes called International Workers’ Day) on May 1 has been held around the world for over 120...

The Industrial Workers of the World, otherwise known as the IWW or the Wobblies, were the most radical labour organization...

A fiery Irish-Catholic who lost both parents before he turned 12, Jack Kavanagh came to Vancouver in 1908 after serving...

Much of the colonial history of BC has centered the perspectives of white male settlers who came in search of...

In September 1938, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) brought their theatrical musical hit “Pins and Needles” to Vancouver...

Hilda Harvey Kavanagh died in second wave of 1919 Spanish Flu British Columbia experienced three waves of the “Spanish Flu”...

It Was No Holiday! BC’s only union barber reflects on the COVID shutdown of 2020 In March 2020 all personal...

With the end of the Great Depression, labour’s long hostility towards Asian workers slowly began to change. The International Woodworkers...

On September 2, 1965, 75-year old Abe Mortimer (1889-1969) bellowed “Pl-a-a-y B-a-a-w-w-l” before an audience of more than 2,500 at...

Born October 29, 1926, in New Westminster, BC, Donald (“Don”) Peter Garcia served multiple terms as the President for the...

Gordon J Kelly was known as a calm, kind and fair-headed longshore leader. When the Spanish Flu pandemic killed him...

This article is based upon a conversation between Pam Moodie, a volunteer at the BC Labour Heritage Centre, and Aime...

William Fitzclarence “Fitz” St. John's long, remarkable life began in Barbados, stretched from the age of sail to man walking...

Clarence Clemens moved to British Columbia from Edmonton sometime in 1937. He soon found work on the docks as a...

The Coast Seamen’s Union was established in 1885 in San Francisco; the first Canadian branch was founded in Victoria BC...

In November 1944 and again in 1945 — as the Second World War neared its end — two art exhibitions...

Throughout his 50 years in Prince Rupert, BC George Casey (1876-1962) was a steadfast representative of the working class and...

Labour Day parades in Vancouver, BC which began in 1890, featured numerous such examples of floats constructed by unionized workers....

When the Winnipeg General Strike began on May 15, 1919 unions across Canada soon followed Winnipeg’s lead. In British Columbia,...

In April 1935 thousands of single unemployed men organized by the Relief Camp Workers’ Union went on strike to demand...

Explore some of the women in BC’s labour history who created milestones for the movement.

Emmitt Holmes (1924-2005) came to British Columbia in the 1940s from Saskatchewan and was the only black member of the...

On February 1, 1975 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), at CKLG-AM Radio (known as “LG73”) in...

The 1912 recession was difficult for all BC workers, but it was especially hard on women. Suffragist and tailor Helena...

The On-to-Ottawa Trek in 1935 is a fabled part of Canada’s labour history. Thousands of unemployed men, frustrated with the...

At 12 o’clock sharp on August 2, 1918, Vancouver transit operators stopped their streetcars in mid-route, drove them to the...

The International Longshore Association disappeared from the waterfront in BC following their 1923 strike. The union was broken by employers...

With high unemployment and a recession in full swing, the Asiatic Exclusion League (AEL) was formed by the Vancouver Trades...

The thousands of Chinese immigrants who endured so much helping to unite Canada by rail left little record of their...

Late in the night on April 13, 1903, labour organizer and longshore worker Frank Rogers was walking home from dinner...

In the summer of 1954, racist signs on the women’s washrooms at the Namu fish cannery divided the facilities between...

Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood was a vibrant and diverse community in the 1930s, a mix of Black and Chinese families, businesses...

Joe Naylor (1872-1946) was an often-overlooked but profoundly influential figure in British Columbia's labour history, remembered as a radical union...