by Doug Smith COLD WARRIOR: C.S. Jackson and the United Electrical Workers COLD WARRIOR: C.S. Jackson and the United Electrical Workers Doug Smith Canadian Committee on Labour History St. John's Copyright © 1997 Canadian Committee on Labour History All rights reserved Canadian Committee on Labour History History Department Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John's, NFA1C5S7 ISBN 0-9695835-7-5 Manuscript was prepared for the printer by the staff of the Canadian Committee on Labour History Cover designed by Doowah Design in Winnipeg, Manitoba Printed and bound in Canada Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Smith, Doug, 1954- Cold warrior Includes index. ISBN 0-9695835-7-5 1. Jackson, C.S. 2. United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of Canada — History. 3. Labor movement — Canada — History — 20th century. 4. Labor leaders — Canada — Biography. I. Canadian Committee on Labour History. II. Title. HD8073.J3S65 1997 331.88'1213'092 C96-950198-6 Contents Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 1 Growing Up in the Lakehead, 1906-1929 6 2 The Montreal Years, 1929-1934 27 3 Toronto, 1934-1937 36 4 Finding the UE, 1937-1939 47 5 Founding the CCL, 1937-1941 64 6 Internment, 1941 74 7 Cold Warrior 96 8 Establishing the UE in Canada, 1942-1945 118 9 Union Politics, 1942-1945 139 10 1946 151 11 Expulsion, 1947-1949 176 12 Survival, 1950-1955 204 13 Ungentle Patriot 226 14 1955-1980 237 15 Jackpot, 1980 to 1993 250 Index 256 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Betty Dyck for her faith and support in recruiting me to this project; Wayne Roberts, Gerry Friesen, and Cy Gonick for encour• aging me to undertake it; Ed Reed, Jim Naylor, Jamie Swift, and Reg Whitaker for their encouragement to continue in it; and Greg Kealey and Andy Parnaby for their critical commentary and editorial support. Skip and Brenda Hambling provided a place to hang my hat when researching in Ottawa. The manuscript has also benefitted from the comments of a number of anonymous readers both at Between the Lines and the Canadian Committee on Labour History. Finally, it must be noted that in many ways Jim Turk has served as a virtual co-author. Without his initial work and commitment this project could not have been realized. I am grateful for his support, encouragement, and labours. In its final stages this project also received the support of the Canadian Auto Workers, for which I am grateful. Readers of this book may feel I have not spent enough time in front of my word processor, however, I owe a great deal to Sandra Hardy and Erica Smith, who indulge the time that I have spent in front of the infernal screen. Doug Smith Bertha Jack son in the 1920s (Courtesy Betty Dyck) C.H. Jackson ¥ (on the riijlit) on a winter holiday in I Iol Springs, Ark ansas in the 1920s. (Courtesy Hetty I)\vL) Kathleen Grant McLeod, in the middle, circa 1927. (Courtesy Betty Dyck) Clarence Jackson at Loon Lake. (Courtesy Betty Dycfc) • Boli and Betty Jackson in 1949. A C.S. Jackson and Mary Switzer (Courtesy Betty Dycfc) in 1978. (Courtesy Bettv Dyok) C.S. Jackson as UE President. (Courtesy Betty Dyck) Introduction I first met C.S. Jackson in the summer of 1990. His daughter, Betty Dyck, had read excerpts of my biography of Winnipeg Communist politician Joe Zuken. She wanted to know if I was interested in writing a book about her father. She was more than a bit surprised to discover that I knew who C.S. Jackson was; I was even more surprised to discover that he was alive and living in Winnipeg. Jackson, a Canadian founder of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers Union, was a key figure in the history of the Canadian left and the Canadian labour movement. The UE was one of the few Communist unions which survived the stiff blasts of the Cold War and won readmission to the House of Labour. A few days after she called me, I drove over to Betty's suburban house to meet my potential employer. C.S. sat in wait in a corner of the living room. After I introduced myself, he said, "So, you're a writer, eh? I'm a doer." He went on to explain that I was merely the latest in a long line of writers he had engaged and dismissed since his retirement as UE president in 1980. This one was a complete phony, that one just took his money and never accomplished anything, while this other one — the most heinous of all — he wanted to put a social-democratic spin on his life. Jackson was able to hire and fire biographers in rapid succession because after spending four decades as one of the country's lowest-paid union leaders, he won a lottery and became one of its few Marxist millionaires. I said I could see he was a hard marker. And he was. Nor was he shy about his own historical importance. To demonstrate my bona fides I mentioned that I was doing some work for the Canadian Union of Public Employees; he told me that Grace Hartman, the union's former president, had once worked for the UE as a secretary. When I revealed that I was a former member of the Wire Service Guild, he let me know that the Guild had started out in the UE office, until it had been taken over by a bunch of right-wingers. At times it appeared that the room we were sitting in was the only part of Canada which had not been taken over by right-wingers, and he was not completely certain about that. 2 Cold Warrior: C.S.Jackson and the UE Over the next two-and-a-half years I read miles of poorly microfilmed UE records and poured over hours of transcripts conducted with C.S. by Jim Turk. I interviewed Jackson and many of his co-workers, reviewed academic papers and newspapers dealing with the UE's history and the Canadian Cold War in general, and worked my way through many, but certainly not all, of the countless briefs the UE produced during the 43 years that Jackson led the union. At one point Jackson fired me. Betty intervened and I was kept on the case. I regret to say that after turning out two separate drafts, I did not do much to improve C.S.'s opinion of writers. At one of our last meetings he pulled out a sheet on which he listed every time his name appeared in the manuscript and every time the Communist Party was mentioned; they were both considerable figures. He thought this proved that I was nothing but an anti-Communist bent on proving that he was a Communist. He also wanted to know why the book quoted his arch enemy, Canadian Congress of Labor President Aaron Mosher. After all, he was nothing but a son-of-a- bitch. Jackson then made sure that his long-time associate Eric Adams refused my attempts to initiate an interview with him. Some of the problems with the manuscript arose from the fact that C.S. was no angel. He appears to have been emotionally estranged from his parents while his marriages were often disasters which pale only in com• parison to the job he did as a father. By his own admission he lost one job for bending the rules and another one for making overtures to his super• visor's wife. To his credit, he was willing to speak of all these issues, and he never suggested that they be eliminated from his biography. However, in reviewing his personal life he always felt that other people were to blame, while he was excused by his need to explore new possibilities and, later, by his commitment to the class struggle. The Canadian state's regular attempts to persecute the Communist Party further muddied Jackson's story. At a time when labour boards were not above decertifiying unions for having Communist leadership, Jackson often found himself lying to protect the UE. His testimony before the panel of inquiry held when he was interned during World War II is almost completely false when it is not simply belligerent. (Not that such a kangaroo court deserved much better.) He was forced to write the Communist Party out of his history and the history of the UE. The fact that he had stormy relations with the leaders of the Canadian Communist Party ("Bill Kashtan, a phoney if there ever was one") rendered the story even more complex. It would appear that he spent much of his career as a union leader trying to increase the Communist Party's influence in the broader labour movement, while limiting it within the UE. 3 Introduction The fact that the UE leadership operated in a collective fashion makes a biographer's task even harder. Executive decisions were joint decisions, often reached only after lengthy battles between Jackson and the two open Communists on the UE executive, George Harris and Ross Russell. After 30 years it was difficult to tell whose fingerprints were on these decisions. Finally, Jackson, as leader, became submerged in the history of the UE, which is much the same as what happened to Jackson the human being. As his daughter told me on our first meeting, it was impossible to separate her father's life from that of the union. Jackson had a tremendous taste for battle. As I researched his life I was struck — and exhausted — by the way he continually sought out conflicts.