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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
Fishermen’s organizations in British Columbia present an interesting and in many ways unique case study of unionism among a distinct occupational group. The peculiar economic and social factors which have conditioned their growth were examined at some length in a previous article. A brief recapitulation may be in order at this point, as a background to the more factual history that follows.
Unionism among the fishermen of British Columbia has experienced an intense and diversified organizational growth, accompanied by frequent and at times violent industrial disputes. As may be seen from Tables I and II below, there have been at least thirty different fishermen’s organizations formed at one time or another since 1893, and members of these, as well as numerous non-union fishermen, have engaged in more than forty strikes. The fishing industry of British Columbia today is highly organized, and industrial relations are relatively stable and harmonious. The majority of fishermen now belong to one union that has collective bargaining jurisdiction over all major branches of the industry. Most of the non-union fishermen (as well as a considerable number of union members) belong to processing and marketing co-operatives.
Yet it would be difficult to imagine an occupational group less amenable to unionism. Strictly speaking, most fishermen in British Columbia are not employees or “workers” in the usual sense of the term. They are proprietors who own and operate their own capital, that is, their boats and gear. Their occupation is by nature highly migratory, individualistic, and competitive, as it is carried on in many scattered operations along thousands of miles of rugged coastline. Their employment and income are very insecure by reason of the characteristically extreme seasonal and cyclical fluctuations in the supply, demand, and prices of fish.
1 Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, vol. XVI, no. 1, 02, 1950.Google Scholar
2 Fishermen in some branches of the industry, as in purse-seining and halibut fishing, are employed as members of crews by fishing companies and vessel owners. Even in this case, however, they are not “employees” in the full sense of the term, as they are paid on a “lay” or share basis. That is to say, the crew members share the proceeds of the boat’s fish catch with the boat owner and skipper. It is for this reason that many fishing crew members are disqualified from many of the benefits provided by labour legislation.
3 Vancouver World, 07 24, 1893, p. 2.Google Scholar
4 Ibid., June 7, 1893, p. 8.
5 Apparently fishermen at this time were being paid a flat daily wage. From the late eighteen-nineties on they were paid on a piece-rate basis (per fish, per pound, etc.) and from their earnings the canneries and fishing companies deducted rental payments for boat and gear.
6 Ibid., July 15, 1893, p. 2.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., July 24, 1893, p. 2.
9 Ibid., July 17, 1896.
10 Report (Ottawa, 1902), p. 390.Google Scholar
11 Daily Province, Vancouver, 08 27, 1900, p. 8 Google Scholar; B.C. Federationist, 12 27, 1912, p. 5.Google Scholar
12 Labour Gazette, Department of Labour, Ottawa, vol. II, 1901, p. 488.Google Scholar
13 Daily Province, Aug. 4, 1901.
14 Ibid., July 9, 1901, p. 1.
15 Ibid., July 24, 1900, p. 1.
16 Ibid., July 19, 1901, p. 1.
17 Field notes and interviews. See Table II.
18 Vancouver World, 06 20, 1899, p. 3.Google Scholar
19 Daily Province, 06 23, 1904, p. 1.Google Scholar
20 The Fishermen of California, published by the International Fishermen and Allied Workers of America, CIO, San Francisco, California, 01, 1947, p. 76.Google Scholar
21 Daily Province, 07 27, 1907, p. 7.Google Scholar
22 Ibid., Aug. 4, 1913, p. 4.
23 Ibid., p. 1.
24 Ibid., Aug. 5, 1913, p. 1.
25 Ibid., p. 20.
26 B.C. Federationist, 05 22, 1914, p. 2.Google Scholar
27 Ibid.
28 As this area became depleted of halibut, fishing operations moved north of the Queen Charlotte Islands.
29 Labour Gazette, 07, 1909, p. 125.Google Scholar
30 Ibid., May, 1913, p. 1262.
31 British Columbia Department of Labour, Annual Report, 1919 (Victoria, 1920), p. H50.Google Scholar
32 B.C. Federationist, 02 2, 1917, p. 2 Google Scholar; Daily Province, Aug. 14, 1917.
33 Young, C. H. and Reid, H. R. Y., The Japanese Canadians (Toronto, 1938), p. 43.Google Scholar
34 B.C. Federationist, Sept. 29, 1916, Jan. 26, 1919.
35 Young, and Reid, , The Japanese Canadians, pp. 43–4.Google Scholar
36 British Columbia, Department of Labour, Annual Report, 1922 (Victoria, 1923), p. S41.Google Scholar
37 Daily Province, 08 15, 1922, p. 7.Google Scholar
38 British Columbia, Department of Labour, Annual Report, 1924 (Victoria, 1925), p. G40.Google Scholar
39 British Columbia, Department of Labour, Annual Report, 1925 (Victoria, 1926), p. G39.Google Scholar
40 Ibid., p. G40.
41 Labour Gazette, 10, 1927, p. 1046.Google Scholar
42 Ibid., Sept., 1928, p. 959.
43 Carrothers, W. A., The British Columbia Fisheries (Toronto, 1941), pp. 23, 27.Google Scholar
44 Ibid., p. 27.
45 Local co-operative organizations of fishermen underwent a similar process of consolidation.
46 Canada, Department of Labour, Annual Report on Labour Organization in Canada for 1935 (Ottawa, 1936), pp. 136–8Google Scholar; ibid., 1936 (Ottawa, 1937), pp. 136-40.
47 Daily Province, June 3, 16, 18, 1931.
48 Canada, Department of Labour, Annual Report on Labour Organization in Canada for 1932 (Ottawa, 1933).Google Scholar
49 Daily Province, June 10, 1931; Labour Gazette, 07, 1931, p. 761.Google Scholar
50 Daily Province, Sept. 25, 27, and 28, Oct. 5, 1931; Labour Gazette, 10, 1931, p. 1072.Google Scholar
51 A union of fishermen and allied workers with the same name was organized in the Pacific Coast states and Alaska during 1933 under the leadership of the Trade Union Unity League, United States affiliate of the Third International (Fishermen’s Yearbook, p. 77).
52 Daily Province, June 20, 1932.
53 Labour Gazette, 07, 1932, p. 766 Google Scholar; Aug., 1932, p. 855.
54 Ibid., July, 1932, p. 766; Aug., 1932, p. 868.
55 Daily Province, 07 6, 1932, p. 1, 9, 15.Google Scholar
56 The fish caught in this section of British Columbia were marketed extensively in the United States in competition with the American catch ( Labour Gazette, 06, 1933, p. 589 Google Scholar).
57 Ibid., June, 1934, p. 503; Aug., 1935, p. 724; Oct., 1935, p. 866.
58 The Fisherman, Vancouver, 05 7, 1937, p. 5.Google Scholar
59 Labour Gazette, 06, 1935, p. 515 Google Scholar; July, 1935, p. 609; Daily Province, May 17, 18, 21, and 29, June 8, 15, 21, 1935.
60 Labour Gazette, 03, 1935, p. 228 Google Scholar; May, 1925, p. 401.
61 Canada, Department of Labour, Annual Report on Labour Organization in Canada for 1985, p. 203.Google Scholar
62 Labour Gazette, 08, 1936, p. 692 Google Scholar; Daily Province, July 6 to July 24, 1936, inclusive.
63 Daily Province, June 1, 1936; Labour Gazette, 07, 1936, p. 519.Google Scholar
64 The Fisherman, Dec. 6, 1938.
65 Labour Gazette, 01, 1938, p. 138.Google Scholar
66 Ibid., Oct., 1938, p. 1086; Nov., 1938, p. 1218.
67 Ibid., Jan., 1939, p. 33.
68 The Fisherman, May 3, 1937; Sept. 9, 1937.
69 Ibid.
70 Canada, Department of Labour, Annual Report on Labour Organization in Canada for 1986 (Ottawa, 1937), p. 203.Google Scholar
71 Vancouver Sun, Feb. 28, 1938.
72 Ibid., Jan. 28, 1939.
73 Canada, Department of Labour, Annual Report on Labour Organization in Canada for 1938 (Ottawa 1939), p. 232.Google Scholar
74 The Fisherman, 04 23, 1940, p. 1.Google Scholar
75 Labour Gazette, 1937, p. 237 Google Scholar; 1938, p. 231; 1939, p. 227.
76 The Fisherman, May 9, 1939.
77 Ibid., Dec. 23, 1941.
78 Labour Gazette, 08, 1940, p. 788.Google Scholar
79 “Contracts and Organization in the Fishing Industry of B.C.,” Brief submitted by UFAWU to Dominion Department of Labour (Ottawa, 1948), pp. 7–9.Google Scholar
80 It is difficult to estimate the degree of union organization among gillnetters and trollers because of the large and unknown number of “casuals” in these two branches of fishing. The licence figures are padded by “holiday fishermen” (who take a commercial licence for a vacation period) and by part-time fishermen (who may fish one or two nights a week while holding down another job). Every year there are also several hundred new entrants to the trade, as well as several hundred dropping out. These might be termed “experimental” fishermen.
By and large, the longer the experience in fishing, the greater the degree of unionization. According to estimates of the UFAWU, gillnetters with more than three years experience are 80 per cent unionized, those with two to three years 50 per cent, those with one year 10 per cent, and holiday or part-time fishermen practically zero.
81 UFAWU, Brief.
82 Labour Gazette, 10, 1947, pp. 1426–44.Google Scholar
83 UFAWU, Brief; Labour Gazette, 10, 1947, pp. 1426–44.Google Scholar
84 Vancouver Sun, Mar. 17, 1949; The Fisherman, June 21, 1949.
85 Vancouver Sun, Jan. 7, 1950.