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Day: May 11, 2010

The Sudbury Experience: Report on an Oral History Project from a Labour Perspective – by Jim Tester (Part 2 of 2)

Jim Tester (1913-1995) was the former mine mill president of Local 598 from 1969-1974 which represented the Falconbridge workers in Greater Sudbury. He is one of the key historical figures in Sudbury’s labour history and wrote a column for Northern Life from 1974 to 1993 in which he shared his considerable knowledge of union struggles and socialist causes.

This is an address by Jim Tester to the Labour Panel of the Canadian Oral History Association, University of Ottawa, June 8-10, 1982.

Essentially, their struggles were for measures of industrial democracy. They believed they should have some control over their working conditions, and their lives in the company-dominated villages and towns. At the turn of the last century they did not gracefully accept the 12-hour day and the bad working conditions. Their ranks were rampant with thoughts of revolt and revenge.

Next year, Sudbury will be celebrating its 100th Anniversary. Many books have been written about Canada’s foremost mining and smelting city. None have told the story of its working people, their aspirations and their struggles, which have built the Sudbury communities into what they are today. If official historians have their way, none will be written. The truth is too staggering in its ramifications. It must therefore, be suppressed or subverted.

When I retired six years ago, after nearly 25 years service with Falconbridge Nickel Mines, I decided to dedicate myself to uncovering labour’s story in Sudbury.

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The Sudbury Experience: Report on an Oral History Project from a Labour Perspective – by Jim Tester (Part 1 of 2)

Jim Tester (1913-1995) was the former mine mill president of Local 598 from 1969-1974 which represented the Falconbridge workers in Greater Sudbury. He is a prominent person in Sudbury’s labour history and wrote a column for Northern Life from 1974 to 1993 in which he shared his considerable knowledge of union struggles and socialist causes.

This is an address by Jim Tester to the Labour Panel of the Canadian Oral History Association, University of Ottawa, June 8-10, 1982.

I was some what surprised to learn there is some questioning in academic circles about he relevance of labour movement oral history. There seems to be a pervading fear that the interviewer will lead the interviewed in such a way as to give one-sided responses that reflect the interviewer’s prejudices.

That is a real danger, but what historian can be successfully accused of being unbiased? I recall Churchill being asked how Britain would be able to justify before history the terror bombing of open German cities during World War 11. He replied simply that there was no problem with that because, quote: “We will write the history.”

There is some feeling in the academic community that its members are the most competent oral historians because they are able to exercise the greatest objectivity. That is learned nonsense. Any good craftsman has to intimately know his materials and how to use his tools. Otherwise, despite the best intentions, his work will be a failure. The creative process requires knowledge, skill and preparation in order to resolve the problems en route to the finished product.

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Jim Tester-Northern Life Sudbury Labour History Profile

This profile was originally published in a Northern Life magazine supplement “Greater Sudbury 1883-2008 – The Story of our Times” on the 125th anniversary of the establishment of Sudbury.

Jim Tester was born in Victoria, B.C., in 1913. He worked in the gold fields of Kirkland Lake, the auto plants of Oshawa, and the nickel mines of Sudbury.

The son of a Scottish immigrant Tester came of age during the Great Depression. He found work in the mines of  Kirkland Lake, and developed pro-union sentiments. He was soon black-listed by the mining bosses and had to find work elsewhere.

He eventually moved to Oshawa where he was hired on with General Motors in the tool and die shop. He became a member of Local 222 of the United Autoworkers.

After the Second World War, Tester and his wife, Doris, moved to Sudbury where he found work as a machinist with Falconbridge.

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Hacks, Flacks and Superstacks: Inco and the Sudbury Media in the 1970s – by Mick Lowe (Part 3 of 3)

This article (original title – Hacks, Flacks and Superstacks) was first published in the August 1976 issue of Content magazine. Mick Lowe is a well-known retired Sudbury journalist with a keen insight on labour issues. From 1975 to 1988 he worked as a freelance journalist, becoming a frequent contributor to the Globe and Mail.

In 1977 he became a staff reporter for CBC Radio News where he helped to open the network’s Northeastern Ontario News Bureau. From 1995 – 2002 Mick Lowe was a regular columnist for Northern Life.

I make a point of watching both local TV newscasts tonight. CKSO has Steelworker president Mickey Maguire on first. Shot in his office with available light, Maguire appears angry and concerned for the safety of his members at Frood. Convincing. Hoskins follows, reading the same statement I heard earlier at CHNO, relying heavily on Harvey Judges to back him up.
With his heavy beard, bad studio lighting, and rehearsed delivery, Mr. Inco presents a haggard image, remindful of the Nixon-Agnew talking heads staring hypnotically into the cameras during the 1972 U.S. presidential campaign.

On CKNC, Hoskins appears again in the studio, though with better lighting, reading the same statement. The Steelworkers have declined an opportunity to reply, but the reporter has located sources willing to give “the other side” of the story.

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Hacks, Flacks and Superstacks: Inco and the Sudbury Media in the 1970s – by Mick Lowe (Part 2 of 3)

This article (original title – Hacks, Flacks and Superstacks) was first published in the August 1976 issue of Content magazine. Mick Lowe is a well-known retired Sudbury journalist with a keen insight on labour issues. From 1975 to 1988 he worked as a freelance journalist, becoming a frequent contributor to the Globe and Mail.

In 1977 he became a staff reporter for CBC Radio News where he helped to open the network’s Northeastern Ontario News Bureau. From 1995 – 2002 Mick Lowe was a regular columnist for Northern Life.

Dropped into the safety office at the Steel Hall this afternoon. Tempers thee were high and rising over the death of James Cullen. I talked with John Higgison and Tom Gunn, the co-chairmen of the Local 6500 inquest committee. Both men really feel the rising fatality rate because theirs is the grim responsibility of investigating the accident scene, interviewing eyewitnesses, and doing what they can for the widows. (Cullen had a wife and four children.)

They show me colour Polaroid snaps of the accident. About all I can make out is the tram, a squat mining vehicle with the wheel-base of a five-ton truck, nearly buried under muck. Higgison tells me that Cullen was not crushed by the ore. He died of asphyxiation when the muck covered the back of his neck, forcing his chin against his chest and cutting off his wind. He died at the wheel of the scoop, pinned into the driver’s seat.

Higgison is shaken because a witness that he interviewed told him that Cullen was still alive after the cave-in. The witness came running when he heard the roof come down and he called out to Cullen in the darkness and the dust. Cullen revved the scoop’s engine three times to show that he was still alive. It took 10 minutes for the rescue party to clear a way into the tram. Cullen was dead when they got to him.

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Hacks, Flacks and Superstacks: Inco and the Sudbury Media in the 1970s – by Mick Lowe (Part 1 of 3)

This article (original title – Hacks, Flacks and Superstacks) was first published in the August 1976 issue of Content magazine. Mick Lowe is a well-known retired Sudbury journalist with a keen insight on labour issues. From 1975 to 1988 he worked as a freelance journalist, becoming a frequent contributor to the Globe and Mail.

In 1977 he became a staff reporter for CBC Radio News where he helped to open the network’s Northeastern Ontario News Bureau. From 1995 – 2002 Mick Lowe was a regular columnist for Northern Life.

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus; and we petty men walk under his huge legs, and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves. Men at some time are masters of their fates; the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
-Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 11

Sudbury, Ontario – Early on Good Friday morning, April 16, 1976, James D. Cullen was killed while working the graveyard shift at Sudbury’s Frood Mine. In itself, there was nothing unusual about Cullen’s death. He was, after all, the fifth worker to die on the job at Inco since the first of the year. But the cave-in that killed James Cullen triggered a chain of events that few could have foreseen.

The Good Friday accident, an angry union, and an alarming injury rate (3,000 reported accidents in the first half of the year) combined to touch a raw nerve somewhere in the upper regions of management at Inco, a company that is acutely sensitive to its public image, especially in Sudbury. The result was a bitter, behind-the-scenes battle for the hearts and minds of the people in this city.

 

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