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

understood three Hindu sawmill workers have
applied to join.” 3
It wasn’t that South Asians were hesitant to join
unions. On the contrary, unions continued to be
unwilling or unable to find ways to organize them.
In 1921, New York University Economics lecturer
and special agent of the US Bureau of Labor
Statistics Rajani Das toured British Columbia and
observed that South Asian workers were sympathetic
to the labour movement’s goals.
“Those who work for American or Canadian
employers… find difficulty in getting into trade
unions owing to racial prejudice. Hindustanees
have great sympathy for the labor movement and
highly appreciate its aims and ideals. Moreover,
they are willing to cooperate with labor organizations
whenever possible.” 4
One Big Union
A major shift in attitudes within the labour
movement was driven by increased ideological
awareness and global events like World War I and
the Russian Revolution of 1917. In 1918 in the
wake of the war, working class anger at eroding
wages, unemployment and wartime profiteering
resulted in high union membership and a determination
amongst labour to forge a radical new
path.
In March 1919 the BC Federation of Labor
abandoned its long demand for Asian exclusion.
The One Big Union (OBU), created in 1919 by the
Federation, embraced direct action and the use of
general strikes to end political repression and win
breakthrough measures such as the 8-hour day.
Delegates to the 1919 BC Federation of Labour
Convention declared “this body recognizes no
aliens but the capitalist”. 5
“The organized White workers in the past
have been recreant in their duty with respect to
organizing the Asiatic workers; they have allowed
the virus of race prejudice to poison their mind…
it is a class problem, and not a race problem
that confronts the White millworker of BC. The
Asiatic workers are just as keen in trying to get
good wages and working conditions as the White
workers, in fact in some cases, more so.” 6
The OBU’s platform echoed many principles
which propelled the IWW to prominence a decade
earlier. Chief among those was its anti-racist
views which appealed to South Asian radicals.
The preamble to the OBU’s constitution stated,
“the OBU therefore seeks to organize the worker
not according to industry; according to class and
class needs; and calls upon all workers irrespective
of nationality, sex or craft to organize into a
workers’ organization so that they may be enabled
3 “Organization of Mill Workers is Completed”, The British Columbia Federationist, August 24, 1917, 1.
4 Rajani Kanta Das, Hindustani Workers on the Pacific Coast, 34.
5 Rod Mickleburgh, On the Line, 65.
6 A Millworker, “Should Asiatics Be Allowed in White Unions”, The British Columbia Federationist, September 17, 1920, 7.
38 | UNION ZINDABAD! South Asian Canadian Labour History in British Columbia