my phone rings and it's the maintenance director at the school district. He said, Colleen, the grounds guys will not go to work. I said, what the heck's going on? He said. They say, you said they're not supposed to touch stuff from South Africa and we have chicken wire that they're supposed to put up around the grass. Right. And it says, made in South Africa. And they say they're not touching it.
Kings and presidents and CEOs like to think that they make history and they certainly have a disproportionate effect, but I would argue that history, real history is actually made by thousands of small actions like this. A handful of grounds workers at a local school district refusing to handle South African chicken wire multiplied around the globe until eventually the entire racist system of apartheid collapses.
Today's episode tells the impressive story of international solidarity by union members in British Columbia, BC, who worked tirelessly in support of those fighting to end apartheid. It comes to us from on the line stories of BC workers, a consistently terrific podcast from our friends in the free and independent country of Canada, and on labor history in two. the year was 1870. That was the day the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution was adopted.
The most important word in the language of the working class is solidarity. Those inspiring words were spoken by labor leader Harry Bridges, who died on this day in labor history. The year was 1990. I'm Chris Garlock, and this is Labor History Today. Welcome to another edition of. On the line, a podcast that dies into the past for rich, relevant stories from BC's, labor history. I'm your host Rod borough.
It's been 35 years since that dramatic February day in 1990 when Nelson Mandela walked out of prison and set South Africa on a course to end apartheid and establish majority rule. The fight against apartheid was long. Arduous and often violent, costing many, many lives, but it could not have been won without the solidarity of anti-apartheid groups around the world.
In this episode of On the Line, we celebrate the anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release with a look back at the contribution of BC unions and local labor activists. To the cause all those years ago, you'll hear interviews by the BC Labor Heritage Center's Oral History Project by Solidarity alumni of the South African Congress of Trade Unions, known as SAC Two, and a recent interview with a retired B-C-G-E-U activists.
It all adds up to an impressive story of international solidarity at its best, where BC Unions and activists did everything in their power to press for an end to South Africa's brutal system of apartheid. The movement started in 1976 during a tour of Canada by a white cricket team from South Africa. When the cricketers arrived in Edmonton, two University of Alberta students, Ken Lockhart and Brenda Wall organized a mass occupation of the cricket pitch.
They were arrested along with 59 other protestors. All were eventually acquitted. Two years later, Ken and Brenda began volunteering with SAC two, which was the union offshoot of the African National Congress. They published a history of SAC two and began building a solidarity network that would include Canadian unions. Ken Lockhart came to Vancouver a number of times. Among the first to welcome him, were unions belonging to the Confederation of Canadian Unions.
In an interview by SDU Solidarity alumni, several years ago, activist, Jeff Keithley recounted his introduction to the Anti-Apartheid cause as an overseas volunteer for Cusso, and later as a trade unionist with the Canadian Association of Industrial, mechanical and Allied Workers. Known as kmar. So basically we got, I got involved, uh, with the South Africa anti-Apartheid movement before I joined the trade union movement.
But because there was so much activity in and around the Vancouver District Labor Council being a very progressive group, uh, that gave us connections between the citizen activists and labor activists. And so it became like a, uh, a seamless. A whole so that, uh, we're all working, uh, on the same thing together. And then through the SAC group, we were organizing a whole series of, um, shop ins.
Um, we would, uh, basically organize 30, 40 people to go to supermarket and with an identified list of South African products, load up their shopping carts with South African products, and then head off. You fill it right up and then you head off to the cash register and somebody at the front of the line would say. What they pick up a candidate. This, this, this product is for the cashier. This product's from South Africa, isn't it? Um, well, yes it is.
Well, it looks like all of this is from South Africa and then somebody would shout, have you checked your shopping carts? A lot of this stuff is from South Africa and there, and people would say, oh my God, this is terrible. And everybody walk out leaving 30, 40 shopping carts filled to the brim. Tremendous. All South African products. It would take hours and hours for the store to have to pay their staff to put it back on the shelf. And you just kept this up.
And eventually some of the stores said, look, this is just too much trouble. And so they would start, uh, backing off on that. After that, they went after South African wines and that prompted more and more unions to join the struggle. But we decided that, uh, we wanted to have South African wines delisted from uh, government liquor stores. And so we started a program.
We, we got a, we had the little circular stickers banned South African wines, and we got talked to printers, and this was through sac and they gave us stickers that had a particularly strong adhesive. And the idea is you'd go into the liquor store and you'd put this sticker over top of the South African label. And it was impossible to remove the sticker without destroying the label, rendering the bottle, a nons, saleable product.
And with that, with to lobbying the, uh, BC uh, NDP government of Dave Barrett, uh, got it barred, I recall that, uh, my wife, Jill White and uh, myself and my two daughters, we were in the commercial drive liquor store. And at that time they had, uh, the de display shelves we're about 40 inches tall.
And so our two daughters, four and six years old at the time, uh, they'd have their pockets stuffed full of these stickers and we'd be sitting there, uh, in the aisle, uh, so away from where the, uh, the cash cashiers could see. And I don't think they really cared 'cause it was just a, a job for them. And we'd be. Perusing the wine label and looking over the meantime, our two daughters are down.
They're short, they're down below, and they're sticking all these stickers on the bottle of the South Africa. And by the time and when they, when they'd gotten every bottle they could get at, we'd sort of wander on and leave the store and we'd go off to some other store and do the same thing. you are listening to Taking a Stand Union Solidarity Against Apartheid in South Africa from the on the line stories of BC Workers Podcast here. On labor history today, we'll be right back after this.
I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History. In Two on this day in labor history, the year was 1870. That was the day the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution was adopted. It was the third of the reconstruction amendments. It prohibited voting restrictions on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Premier historian Eric Foner states that the reconstruction amendments reflected, quote.
A newly empowered national state, and the idea of a national citizenry enjoying equality before the law. These legal changes also arose from the militant demands for equal rights from former slaves themselves. The bulk of southern states refused to ratify, but then capitulated. Interestingly, New York sought and failed to revoke. It's earlier ratification. The amendment split the women's suffrage movement for its failure to codify women's voting rights.
Some radical Republicans also abstained on the basis that it did not also prohibit poll taxes and literacy tests immediately. The 15th amendment came under attack. The Ku Klux Klan terrorized black voters and reconstruction governments for year. One of the most extreme examples was the 1873 Colfax Massacre. After the compromise of 1877, president Rutherford b Hayes refused to enforce civil rights protection. I. The rise of discriminatory Jim Crow laws effectively disenfranchised southern blacks.
For nearly a century, Congress would finally enforce the 15th Amendment fully through the Landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, the act has come under attack most recently, as in the 2013 case shall be versus holder jurisdictions with histories of voter restrictions, no longer have to obtain pre-clearance before implementing changes to voting laws and practices.
Over 150 years after the end of the Civil War, African Americans are still fighting to protect their right to vote labor history, and two, brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show. Unions were essential to the movement. Not only did they have money, they did not shy away from taking action. And then when Ken Trainer did the, uh, tremendous work on the, uh, research of, um. All the South African products and it was then the very best listing that was available.
We were working with the, uh, ILW in Vancouver. That's the international Long Shoreman workers, uh, union, which is, uh, the Long Shore Union on the West coast is always been very left and progressive as opposed to the one on the East Coast and the Canadian Brotherhood and railway and transport workers.
And, um, and Tommy McGrath and Dave Crane and people like that who were, had been on strike in South Africa with Canadian Siemens Union who bought their life experience back to Canadian trade unionists. So it wasn't just some academic talking about the need to do this, these were people who had, they bought the life experience and then they were, they were stalwarts that had enormous respect.
We'd get, uh, we'd talk with the Long Shore Union and there'd be a South app based on the work that Ken Trainor done. We'd know that was a ship coming in and we'd have the, uh, the manifest ahead of time and, uh, you know, that the docks would start at, uh, six 30 in the morning. And, um, so the longshoreman would say, okay, you guys make sure that you're there at six o'clock in the morning. And, uh, you, you could get away with three or four or five people. There were the picket line.
The guys would shut, whoa, there's a picket line. We're not crossing a picket line. And off they'd go and they'd have the day off. And then the, uh, the shipping companies would seize the pension, uh, contributions for the entire month. Then the longshore would go to court and they would get the money back. Uh, but we did, you did it over and over again and they did it because they were interested in, in solidarity because.
Everybody on the coast, because it is a coastal city, um, they had enormous amount of travel experience and personal experience more so than you'd find in an interior city. Colleen Jordan, who spent 15 years as secretary Treasurer of QPBC, was another activist involved in the fight. She was interviewed by Keith Reynolds for the BC Labor Heritage Centers. Oral history project. here's an example. One of my favorites in this, in the um, days and the. The boycotts and the, all of that.
Uh, one of the things that, that we were encouraged to do was go to our city councils on school boards and those people and get them to say they will not handle goods from South Africa. So we took a letter to the Burmese school board. And said, and of course the school board said, well, like what kind of goods from South Africa are we ever gonna be using? Okay, no problem. Right. Pass a motion. School board will not use good, good goods manufactured in South Africa.
So seven 30 in the morning, one day, a couple of months later, my phone rings and it's the maintenance director at the school district. He said, Colleen, the grounds guys will not go to work. I said, what the heck's going on? He said. They say, you said they're not supposed to touch stuff from South Africa and we have chicken wire that they're supposed to put up around the grass. Right. And it says, made in South Africa. And they say they're not touching it. I said, yep, that's right.
And And the school board, Mr. Maintenance supervisor. Has a policy that the school board will not have goods from South Africa. Well, what am I supposed to do? And I said, well, you better go get some chicken wire that's not made in South Africa because we're not touching it. We, and, and the, your employer, the burn school board has said they will not handle goods from South Africa. So, okay. So, you know, amazing. It worked.
In 1986, during negotiations for a new contract, the BC Government employees Union made clear to the government that their members would no longer allow South African wines to be carried in provincial liquor stores. Randy Pearson was first vice chair of the Union's Liquor and Warehouse component. He talked about the boycott with Patricia Weir. I was, uh, involved in the negotiations with, uh, on the, the liquor component, liquor and warehouse component.
Uh, I was not the leader of the component at that time, but there was a, a tremendous amount of issues around privatization. Of course, that included liquor stores as well, so we were. Extremely busy, very active. And uh, and, uh, I gained at this time, of course, was the pressure to, uh, boycott South African products, uh, to let it be known that, uh, we do not support the apartheid regime. So that came up in the fall at some point.
Uh, and we were in negotiations and the president of our union said, look, we need to, uh, to move on this as well. What can we do as government employees? And, uh, I got involved as well. And, uh, uh, we decided we would no longer handle any product from, uh, South Africa. So that included removing products from the shelves. Uh, all the liquor stores throughout the province and warehouse workers would not load any, uh, liquor products for delivery within the province.
So they were simply not touching them in the warehouse. And, um. In most cases, uh, we removed the bottles right off the shelf and, uh, there wasn't a lot of pushback at that time. Um, simply, uh, we were part of the overall movement and, uh, and so yeah, there was a fair bit of coverage around that. And, uh. And, uh, I quite honestly, our members were enthusiastic about, uh, about participating in it. It all went well.
Uh, you know, there's always a few hiccups, of course, but, uh, by and large it w it, it, it was, uh, well supported and, uh, we complied with, uh, with that. BC unions and committed labor activists like Jeff Keithley can be proud of their role in the worldwide campaign to end apartheid in South Africa. Their years of commitment have left a lasting legacy of unions standing up against racism and other social injustices. Once again, Jeff Keithley.
Um, there was no question that South Africa was amongst the most egregious example that you could look at for discrimination and only the willfully naive. Uh. Could ignore that. So when, and, and so that, that helped all sorts of people, myself included, see far lesser examples of discrimination and racism as being in the same ilk and the same path. And I think that helped a lot.
The Solidarity Notes Choir with their rendition of South Africa's national anthem from the On the Line Stories of BC Workers Podcast. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Rick Smith, and this is labor History. In two. The most important word in the language of the working class is solidarity. Those inspiring words were spoken by labor leader Harry Bridges, who died on this day in labor history. The year was 1990. Harry was born into a middle class family in Melbourne, Australia.
At the age of 14. His father put him to work collecting rents in Melbourne slums, an experience that gave young Harry a heart for struggling people. At 16, he joined the Merchant Marine. Landing in the United States just three years later at the San Francisco docks, he joined the International Longshore Association, which was organizing against the company union on May 9th, 1934.
Harry helped lead a strike of the West Coast docks furious shipping company owners and politicians retaliated violently. On what became known as Bloody Thursday, police Beat Shot and wounded Longshoremen up and down the coast. Employers offered bridges a $50,000 bribe to win his support, but he refused. The union's leadership brokered a deal to end the strike, but the dock workers roundly rejected it.
Instead of settling bridges, contacted other unions at Port Cities and convinced them to support a general strike. The general strike lasted four days. And one the longshoreman, an agreement that included shorter hours, increased pay, and safer working conditions. Three years later, bridges split from the International Longshore Association and helped found the International Longshore Workers Union affiliated under the CIO. Harry became the West Coast Director for the CIO.
Throughout his life, Harry advocated for democratic unionism, including open mics at meetings direct. Elections of union leaders by rank and file membership and member referendums. On contract proposal, the US government continually harassed bridges, accusing him of communist sympathies. Despite this harassment, the ILWU became one of the leading voices of the US Labor movement. Labor history in two, brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
That's it for this week's edition of Labor History Today. You can subscribe to LHT on your favorite podcast app, even better. If you like what you hear, and we sure hope you do, please like it in your podcast app. Pass it along, leave a review that really helps folks to find the show. Labor history into is a partnership between the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show. That's a labor themed radio show out of Pennsylvania.
Very special thanks this week to the On the Line stories of BC Workers Podcast, one of my very favorite labor history podcast. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. Labor history today is produced by the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the working poor at Georgetown University. You can keep up with all the latest labor arts news. Subscribe to the Labor Heritage Foundation's free weekly [email protected].
There's a link in the show notes. The Labor History Today team includes Ben Blake, Patrick Dixon, Leon Fink, Sherry Lincoln, Joe McCarton, Evan Pap, Jessica Pakk, and Alan ak. Today's show edited by Captain Swing for labor history today. This has been Chris Garlock. Thanks so much for listening. Keep making history and we'll see you next time.