Happy
TrailsVille
Those of you who have been stopping by here for awhile now may be asking....
Why this post again?
Because, as Bigger E. reminded me by text from Montreal this morning, it's a tradition - that's why!
As for the photo...It's Grandpops out riding on the Goose Trail with littler e. yesterday afternoon...
My old man was a Union man.
And the folks in the Union fought like bastards...and they fought constantly, usually for the tiniest of things in each successive contract...things like an extra quarter percent on a COLA clause, or one little add-on like an extra free filling per year on the dental plan.
And when I was a kid, especially during that time when I was a barely no-longer-a-teenager-aged kid, I thought the folks from the Union were just a little bit off their nut....all that energy going into what, exactly?
After all, it was the 80's, and Dave Barrett and the Socialist Hordes were long gone, and the Wild Kelowna boys were rolling along, and Unions were bad, and Expo was coming, and Trudeau was going, and John Turner was hiccupping, and Mulroney was lurking, somewhere off in the distance....
....And if you were a half-bright, apolitical science-geek kind of kid like me, breezing your way through college and thinking about graduate school, you laughed when you saw the boy wonder from Burnaby, Michael J. Fox, shirk his Family Ties and ape the young Republicans while making fun of his willfully neutered Leftie of a Dad on the TV screen...
....And if you were that kid, you thought that you were living in a golden age that was tied, not to the social democratic reforms of the past, but to the coming of Free Trade and the promises of the Reaganites from the South...
...And from that perspective you sure as heck didn't always get the irony of Bruce Springsteen singing about the plight of the working class in 'Born in the USA'.
But now that I have spent a good chunk of time in USA where I started a family of my own before coming home, I do get it.
I understand that my Dad spent his entire adult life hauling logs up and down the West Coast, working his guts out to help keep the robber baron families rich because he had to make a living to support his own family....
....And I get the fact that, because of the Unions, my family's standard of living gradually improved, bit by bit, over the years so that by the time I had grown up to be that callow young man described above my parents had saved enough to help me go to University....
....And I get the fact that I was the first one in my family who got to go to University....Ever.....And it wasn't because I was so damned smart....
....And I get the fact that, while my parents' limited financial help and support was important, it would never have been enough to get me into the same good schools if I had arrived on the scene a single generation earlier or, perhaps, later....
....And I get the fact that those Wild Kelowna Boys, and all the other neo-cons that have come since, have been doing their damndest to destroy the dream of a University education for all, and instead have instituted an elitist education for some and one-trick-pony Technical training for everybody else.....
....And I get the fact that, if it wasn't for folks like my Dad and the other lefties of his time, my current world, one in which I make a living with my eyes and my mind wide open, would not be what it is today.....
....And most of all, I now get the fact that my Dad was, and is, my hero.
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5 comments:
I'm with you, Ross! My Dad got "called up" in early 1943 to go overseas in WWII. He left a young wife and 4 daughters aged not yet 4,3,2, and less than one year old. My understanding was that the Canadian government administered IQ test to all those summoned to serve their country in order to decide where they should serve: Air Force, Navy or Army.
Both my Dad and his younger brother, based on their test results, were slated to be in the Air Force, but when they discovered that there was a possibility of paying for a widow and 4 young kids for decades, they put my father in the Signal Core and he his time in England, south east of London.
When he came home, like many fathers of the kids I started school with, he found immediate employment at the local cedar mill in the Fraser Valley. He found that those poor guys with bones spurs and other ailments, all had the best jobs in the mill, whereas it was a "green chain" job for starters.
That's when he got himself involved with the IWA and eventually became President for several years, often highly involved as a member of the committee negotiating with industry. He became so knowledgeable regarding labour law that the Minister of Labour under WAC asked him to work for him.
He did not accept that job offer as he was a committed union man.
The 50's were interesting times to enter my teenage years.
negotiating committee with i
Happy Fathers Day....Yea, sure miss him.
My latest post...Well, actually very little is mine in this post...But a damn scary story.
Written by Dean Obeidallah and posted on CNN
https://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.com/2022/06/fascist-theocracy-thy-name-is-texas.html
Glad Bigger E. reminded you. I remeber when you first wrote it. the standard of living got better as the baby boomer's parents were paid decent salaries, pensions, etc.
Its interesting to now see Apple, Amazon unionizing and the billionaires are spending millions to try to stop it.
Working people are hanging on, but by a thread and their credit cards.
Good one Ross. I think many people today don’t know or forget about all that and all that the unions have done for us average folks.
I’ve been in two unions and they were both good in their own way. One was the IWA when I had a summer job at Eburne sawmills that was in behind the Fraser Arms down South Van way. A great summer, good money, and at 16 I was really impressed with how the union brought one along and drove home the need for safety, safety, SAFETY.
The other was the fisherman’s union which at the time was UFAWU. Sort of a different purpose it seemed to me, to connect the boats and crews up and down the coast and give them some cohesiveness when talking with government or industry as well as a benefit plan and other information as necessary. It was always nice to go down to the fisherman’s union hall. It made me feel like I was a part of something bigger. I was on a 2 man, 40’ foot prawn trapping, salmon trolling boat. Way out there it was easy to forget about , well, everything.
I imagine your dad has some great stories of his time in the woods and hauling logs out of some crazy places. I bet he was hauling the real big stuff back then . I love those kinds of stories. It makes us happy and grateful to have medical benefits, coffee breaks, holidays, safe work practices and an HR department.
I kinda straddled the two eras and sometimes, at my various jobs, get heck for just “doing it” instead of following the prescribed safe work procedure.
If you’re ever able to pass on an anecdote or two a iut your dad’s work I’m all ears, or eyes.
"....And I get the fact that, while my parents' limited financial help and support was important, it would never have been enough to get me into the same good schools if I had arrived on the scene a single generation earlier or, perhaps, later...."
You hit the nail on the head with the statement I have quoted above. In my first year at UBC, a scholarship and a bursary covered my tuition, and bus fares to and from campus. On top of that my earnings from a summer job made it possible for me to buy a cup of coffee and a cinnamon bun a few times a week.
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