Bitter Labour

When I left off Monday, the year was 1917 and Vancouver was experiencing an economic boom. It was also starting to experience a little labour unrest. Nothing too drastic, most were easily settled strikes, which weren't affecting the city too much. But on June 13, B.C. Electric - public transit - walked off the job. There had been no wage increase in two years.

Trackmen were paid 29 cents an hour and many of the employees made less than $60 a month. The union wanted five cents an hour increase in the lower categories and five percent in the higher, to bring top wages to $84 a month.

The company said they couldn't afford it, the jitney competition had hit it so hard B.C. Electric was losing money on the transit system. The strike lasted eight days and the people of Vancouver rode jitneys or walked to get around, they were siding with the striking workers. The company finally gave in when the city promised to investigate the jitney situation.

Dr. Adam Shortt carried out the investigation. The basic situation though remained unchanged and carried on. B.C. Electric employees again walked out on July 2, 1918. It was a bitter fight.

The company refused to budge, conciliation under Mr. Justice Macdonald failed and the workers refused to accept an arbitration award in favour of the company. The provincial government waded into the fray, bringing pressure against jitney competition, on the strength of Shortt findings.

The strike was settled on July 11 with the men receiving a pay increase, the city granting a one-cent fare increase and abolishing jitney licenses.

The hostility between the workers and B.C. Electric was long-lasting and the repercussions of the two strikes were still apparent nearly two decades later. In 1934, Mayor Taylor was serving his unprecedented 8th term in office and appealed to the company on behalf of the men. He staved off a threatened wage cut by counter-threatening to again license jitneys.

Thanks to the book Vancouver, From Milltown to Metropolis by Alan Morley for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill

Maturing

The economy continued to pick up in 1916 in Vancouver. H.H. Stevens secured the first shipbuilding contracts for the city; J. Coughlan and Sons were to build six 8800-ton steel vessels on False Creek and Wallace Shipyards six wooden auxiliary schooners, several small steel vessels and an immense floating drydock in North Vancouver.

The auxiliary schooners were a new departure in ship designing, which made a considerable reputation on the deep seas as economical, if temperamental, cargo carriers. They were abandoned in the post-war slump. The Mabel Brown was the first and she was launched on January 20, 1917. The total of the first shipbuilding contracts exceeded $10 million.

For everyone else, 1917 was a year marked by the vote in favour of prohibition, the death of John Hendry, president of Hanbury Mills (which now owned, among other properties, Hastings Mill), and an election scandal.

Macdonald, the first Liberal member from Vancouver in the new Brewster government, was accused of accepting $25,000 for his personal campaign from the Canadian Northern Railroad. Macdonald was dropped from the cabinet and J.W. deB. Farris replace him as attorney- general.

Jitneys appeared that year. Mainly, they were Model T. Fords which, crammed to the limit with passengers at five or ten cents a head, mounted coloured signs that corresponded to one or another street-car route. This gave B.C. Electric some competition as well many people their first experience with riding in an auto mobile. Jitneys proved popular with the people, not so much with the transit company.

It wasn't all happy times though. Vancouverites were concerned with the battles overseas, its war work at home, its patriotic appeals (the Red Cross had collected almost $1 million in Vancouver alone) and the growing manpower shortage. The people were barely aware of the change that had taken place since the days of the great pre-war boom.

Not so long ago, Vancouver was a land-crazy circus, filled with beneficiaries and hangers-on of a boom where everybody was going to get rich overnight.  Vancouver had matured.

Now, it was an active, industrial city and most of the citizens were wage earning. The weekly or monthly pay-cheque no longer represented a "stake" to be accumulated as quickly as possible to be reinvested somewhere else in a venture that would lead to independence. For most of the city's workers, a job was a steady and perhaps life-long occupation with an anticipated income.

Thanks to the book, Vancouver, From Milltown to Metropolis by Alan Morley for the above information.

I hope you find the beauty around you.

Karen Magill