#bush workers

“REDS CONDUCT TWO MARTYRS TO GRAVE,” Montreal Star. April 29, 1930. Page 6. ---- Huge Demonstration Precedes Burial of Strike Agitators ---- STREETS ARE LINED --- Communist Army Out in Full Force at Port Arthur ---- PORT ARTHUR, Ont., April 29. (CP) - Determined to uphold to the last the theory that the two lumber strike agitators, Voutilaine and Resvall [sic: should be Rosvall and Voutilainen] had died martyrs to the cause. A Communist army yesterday paraded through the streets as the two bodies were borne to the cemetery.

Out in the thousands to view the eclipse of the Sun, Port Arthur residents watched the great procession move slowly through the darkened streets. Nearly 2,000 men, women and children marched, a display of Communist sentiment beyond any ever be fore seen in the two cities of Port Arthur and Fort William.

BOTH DISAPPEARED Last Fall two lumber worker organizers, sent out to organize the men in the camps for a strike, disappeared at Onion Lake. Provincial police investigated and reported they had probably met death by falling through the ice while attempting to cross the Iake against advice. The explanation was not accepted by the Reds and letters were written to the Department of Justice at both Toronto and Ottawa asking further inquiries.

This spring the bodies were found. The talk of foul play was renewed and sensational charges made public, given circulation in red-ink circulars spread about the two cities and in a Finnish paper published at Sudbury. Three surgeons instead of one as usual, attended the post-mortem examination preceding the inquest to assure those interested on the point of foul play. One was a nominee of the Communists. The Coroner's Jury found accidental death by drowning on the basis of the medical men's report. 

Yesterday the Reds paraded in strength through the streets, taking Rosvall to the cemetery, where interment was made without religious ceremony of any kind, in keeping with the cult. The army was assembled from Port Arthur, Fort William and West Fort. 

"STRIKEBREAKERS JOIN PULP CAMP WALKOUT MEN REJECT TERMS," Toronto Star. November 21, 1933. Page 1. ---- Turn Down Compromise Offer Made by Abitibi Co. - "No Quarter," Slogan ---- FOOD PLENTIFUL ---- Truck Turned Back by Pickets - Contractor Ejected From Meeting ----- Special to The Star Cochrane, Nov. 21. - "Give no quarter" is the slogan of the 700 bush workers here following their refusal to consider an alternative pay schedule submitted them by the Abitibi Paper Co. late yesterday through the provincial, police as mediators. The Abitibi Co. offered $28 to $30 a month instead of $35 as demanded and from three to five cents a log over eight feet depending on the width, instead - of a minimum of five cents a log regardless of width. Their demands are identical to the ones accepted by Spruce Falls Co. over a week ago.

"LUMBERMEN ORGANIZE TO OUST COMMUNISTS," Toronto Star. March 7, 1934. Page 4. ---- Blame "Foreign Roughnecks" for Labor Troubles of Last Winter ---- "BUSHMEN'S UNION" ---- Hundreds Join New Association at Head of Lakes ---- Special to The Star Fort William, March 7 - Asserting the timber industry in Thunder Bay district for years has been harassed and penalized "by intolerant, boorish and fanatical agitators of foreign semi-political organizations" to the detriment of business and labor, the new Canadian Bushmen's Union is launching a campaign against Communist activities in this area.

The new union, registered under the Trade Unions Act and affiliated with the All-Canadian Congress of Labor, was organized as a result of the winter strike in district pulpwood camps in which bush operations were paralyzed and 4.000 men left jobless for weeks. Hundreds of workers have joined the new union.

The Canadian union just has issued a statement declaring paid agitators were responsible for strife in the camps and urging workers to align themselves with established labor organizations against Communist operations.

"The Industrial Lumber Workers' Union and the Industrial Workers of the World, with such membership as they could secure, have combined forces for the purpose of calling strikes and, through force and threat, have compelled organized workers to obey their commands," says the union statement. "They have failed miserably to either represent the timber workers or to benefit them, and now they are striving for a general industrial upheaval.

Strikes Last Resort "The unorganized workers in the timber industry have determined that these Bolsheviki side-shows shall cease. They have organized on Canadian trade union lines under Canadian laws. To fight these professional trouble-makers on their own ground is the first step. As representatives of foreign organizations they are not entitled to a hearing. If they don't like this country no one will prevent them from taking the first train for Moscow of Chicago, and that's where they should be sent.

"This new organization is not interested in industrial strife and upheaval. It wants peace in industry. intelligent discussion and good will manifested regarding workers' problems, and a fair deal. A strike should always be the last, not the first, resort. This is the Canadian labor policy and a complete reversal of the policies followed by the two organizations mentioned, whose real objectives are the creation of strikes and strife. Incidentally it provides an easy living for the agitators, many of whom have done no other work for long time.

"Of interest to taxpayers and relief departments will be the information that these agitators have induced large numbers of men not to accept employment when it is available. These racketeers have no place in Canada."

Declaring that these Communist Unions are pledged to stir up strife, riots, sabotage, bloodshed and civil war, the new bushmen's organization announces its determination to fight their propaganda.

"The people at the lakehead remember what happened in the strike of last November," says the statement. "The Communist union took possession of the highways of the country and refused to allow citizens the use of them except b permits over the signature of the so-called strike committee. Had the Communists gained possession of the union's transportation and communication industries the disastrous effect on a nation-wide scale can readily be imagined.

No Apologies "We make no apologies for our stand. Our members will walk in the middle of the road when they meet a Communist. For this country still belongs to Canadians, and Canadian bushmen will not step into the ditch for any foreign-minded individual.

"Dishonest workmanship is the first principle with this Communist organization. They advocate staying at work and striking on the job. They issue circulars to workmen to slow up the work and hinder employers from filling their contracts. The following is taken from a circular posted in camps in the Nipigon district:

"If you are expected to haul six loads per day, haul only four loads. If you are working piece we just enough to pay your board. But do not do enough for the boss to be able to fill his contract. The hauling season is a limited period during which all wood must be got out of the bush. Delay on the job. The foreman cannot be at every turn of the road where a load might upset. The sap pealing season is short. All this kind of pulp must be cut within. a few weeks. Organize to protect your job to slow down production, to make the boss support us while on strike".

[AL: "Hostility to both the Communist Party of Canada and the Industrial Workers of the World following the 1933 strikes provided many of these disillusioned workers with an alternative, however. Affiliated with the All Canadian Congress of Labour, the Canadian Bushmen’s Union (CBU) was dominated by anti-Communist and “White,” or non-socialist, Finnish lumber workers. The union and its members acted as informants for the RCMP and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) on the activities of local Communists. The union disappeared sometime during 1934, but it created difficulties during its brief existence. Formed under the leadership of George Salverson, a Port Arthur alderman and prominent member of the newly formed Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the union’s executive also included a local timber subcontractor, L. Maki, and the local Finnish consul, a man named Koivukoski. The executive’s composition, and the role of Salverson in mediating an end to recent strikes, led the CPC and IWW to attack the CBU as a company union. In response, Salverson, using local newspaper coverage of a spurious plot by the Soviet Union to undermine Canadian timber production, attacked the LWIUC for its use of professional agitators who were more loyal to the CPC and Russia than to the region. Even though his accompanying claims that there was little dissatisfaction over working conditions were utterly false, his appeal to regional patriotism did strike a chord."

Walter and Willow, Untitled 229

Walter and Willow, Untitled 230