Union Zindabad! — South Asian Canadian Labour History in British Columbia

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New Labour Alliances
he relationship between the Canadian
Farmworkers Union and the labour
movement was strong. The South Asian community
and union members exerted influence
upon the entire BC labour movement by raising
issues of systemic racism.
Darshan Singh Sangha believed the cultural
concepts of taking care of people, providing
food, and other supports were important to
establishing new lives for South Asian Canadians
and translated easily into the collectivism found
in unions.
“In the East Indian community there is a
tradition that whenever you have some
common cause, then you must do
everything to strengthen it. And
you should not try to look for
personal gain from any such
community endeavor. Based upon
it, during the strike days, there were
many families who had difficult times.
And I remember, in spite of everything
1 Perry and Pritchett, 58.
through the [1946] forty-day strike there was
not even one East Indian who would come to
the union for any sort of relief or any sort of
aid. They would help each other, or they would
borrow.” 1
These traditions are reflected in the expansion
of social unionism occurred in the labour movement
in the late 1980s. It was time for labour to
see itself as an agent of social change.
Fighting Racism
The BC Organization to Fight Racism (BCOFR)
emerged directly from the work done by the
Canadian Farmworkers’ Union. Charan
Gill was the President.
Raj Chouhan recalled, “we also
formed BC Organization to
Fight Racism. Because when
we are talking about farmworkers
issues from ’73 onward, you know,
the issue of racism was still there every
day, every moment of the day, and we
Courtesy Raj Chouhan
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