Battle of Ballantyne Pier - Background

Background

The Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association (VDWWA) was established as a company union following a defeated longshoremen's strike in 1923, replacing the International Longshoremen's Association. Communist organizers with the Workers' Unity League (WUL) managed to seize control of the VDWWA's executive a decade later and transformed it into a militant union, which then began working towards strike action. A strike, or more accurately a lock-out, finally commenced on 27 May 1935. This was several months after an agreement had been reached between the union and the Shipping Federation of British Columbia, but the terms of which were unfavourable to the longshoremen. In late May, union membership voted to take over the despatching of work gangs on the harbour to load and unload ships as required. Despatching was a key issue for longshoremen, and prior to the 1923 strike had been carried out by the union. Longshoremen claimed that the Shipping Federation of British Columbia, an employers' association of waterfront-based companies and the main employer on the docks, unfairly discriminated against workers. Especially targeted were those considered sympathetic to an independent union or simply disliked by the despatcher, making the allocation of work a punitive mechanism and the job itself insecure. When the union unilaterally took over despatching, the Federation claimed it was a violation of their agreement and locked out the longshoremen. Replacement workers, known pejoratively as "scabs" by strikers, were mobilized along with hundreds of police specials recruited to break the strike. However ILWU Local 500 which is the main body of labourers who work on Burard inlet and is the biggest local both in cargo handled and wages paid in the Port of Vancouver, to this day the BCMEA has control of the dispatch and therefore it could be argued that this local is a Combany Local