Indigenous Longshoremen & the I.W.W.

June is Indigenous History Month in Canada, and this year, the country has been rocked by the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children who attended residential school over the decades.
Today we bring you a report from the always excellent podcast On the Line: Stories of BC Workers, which takes note of Indigenous History month with a different aspect of British Columbia's Indigenous history: one that is not tragic, and not very well known. They examine the contribution of Indigenous workers to the port of Vancouver, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, largely through the voices of those who worked the waterfront - and it's a union story, too. In 1906, the independent Lumber Handlers Union was established as local 526 of the Industrial Workers of the World – or I.W.W. -- with most of the 50 or 60 members being Indigenous. This is their story.

This week we’ve also got an interesting story that reminds us that labor history is all around us and can pop up in some pretty unusual places. This one started with an odd photograph that sent me down some interesting – and unexpected – paths, from a long-forgotten strike to a racist TV show.

And on this week’s Labor History in 2:00…
The year was 1944. That was the day Local 212 UAW workers at Briggs returned to work.

Produced by Chris Garlock. To contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com

Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University.

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MORE LINKS
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NAACP Bulletin