Battle of Ballantyne Pier
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The Battle of Ballantyne Pier refers to a clash between city, provincial, and federal police and Communist-led protesters on June 18, 1935 in the East End of Vancouver, British Columbia. It lasted for about three hours and was the climax of a strike by longshoremen. It was given added intensity and significance because local political and business leaders claimed that the strike was part of an international communist conspiracy to spark a Bolshevik revolution beginning on Vancouver's waterfront. It came on the heels of another Communist-led strike of relief camp workers that precipitated the On-to-Ottawa Trek.
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[edit] Background
The Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers' Association (VDWWA) was established as a company union following a defeated longshore workers 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 in 1933, transforming it into a militant union and working towards a strike action, which finally occurred on May 27, 1935. The strike began several months after an agreement was reached between the union and the Shipping Federation of British Columbia that was unfavourable to the longshoremen. In late May, the union membership voted to take over the despatching of work gangs on the harbour, which had been a union role prior to the 1923 strike. Despatching was a major grievance of longshoremen because they claimed that the Shipping Federation was unfairly discriminatory and arbitrary in allocating work, and it was used a punitive mechanism against workers. 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 as "scabs" by the strikers, and "police specials" were mobilized to break the strike.
[edit] Anticommunist Context
Meanwhile, relief camp workers, also organized under the WUL, had flooded Vancouver in the relief camp strike that led to the On to Ottawa Trek. They were in Vancouver from April 4 to June 3. Communist leaders were attempting to merge the two strikes and spark a general strike. The Shipping Federation and the police were aware of this plan, and claimed it was an attempt to start a Bolshevik revolution on the Pacific Coast. Thus, when the waterfront strike finally commenced, tensions between the forces of anticommunism and Communist-led strikers were heightened. Still, historians agree that, despite the Communist leadership, both strikes were driven by legitimate grievances: abyssmal conditions in the relief camps, and despatching and other workplace issues on the waterfront. Nevertheless, anticommunist forces had been mobilized in preparation of a revolution attempt, and included the Citizens' League of British Columbia, a vigilante group funded by the Shipping Federation, the RCMP, the British Columbia Provincial Police, and the Vancouver Police. Militia units in based in the Point Grey neighbourhood of Vancouver and in Victoria, British Columbia were also ready to be called to action on short notice. Although the relief camp strikers had already left the city, the June 18 demonstration was met by an armed force geared more towards crushing a full-scale rebellion than for crowd control at a protest march.
[edit] The Battle
On June 18, about 1000 protesters, consisting of striking longshoremen and their supporters, marched down towards Ballantyne Pier where strikebreakers were unloading ships in the harbour. They were led by Victoria Cross recipient, Mickey O'Rourke, who was carrying the Union Jack, and a contingent of Great War veterans to great symbolic effect. At the entrance to the pier, they were met by Chief Constable Colonel W. W. Foster who warned the marchers that they would not be permitted to proceed. When they refused to turn back, they were attacked with clubs by the police guarding the pier. Within minutes, more police joined in from city and federal police squads that were waiting a block away, and provincial police that were hiding behind boxcars. The police chased the dispersing crowd, continued to club people and fired tear gas. Some protesters fought back, throwing rocks and other projectiles at the police, while others that were attacked were simply trying to flee the scene. The ensuing melee continued for three hours and spread throughout the nearby residential district. Several people, both police and protesters, were hospitalized as a result of the riot, and one bystander was shot in the back of his legs by a police shotgun. Some reports indicated that the police had machine guns ready at the scene as well, but others denied this was the case.
[edit] Outcome
The Battle of Ballantyne was the bloody climax of a very volatile year in Vancouver, but was far short of the revolution that the authorities prepared for. It was also a turning point in the waterfront strike, which, although it dragged on until December, lost its optimistic and militant character after June 18. Longshoremen, however, would continue to fight for union rights, and succeeded in forming the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), Local 500, in 1948. It was also the last of WUL militancy that Vancouver would witness, because that same year, the Comintern in Moscow changed its policy, so that Communist Parties around the world would no longer practice dual unionism. The WUL was dissolved, and Communist agitators put their energies into the mainstream labour movement, notably the Congress of Industrial Organizations movement.
[edit] References
Lorne Brown, When Freedom was Lost: The Unemployed, the Agitator, and the State, Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1987.
Michael Kevin Dooley, "'Our Mickey': The Story of Private James O’Rourke, VC.MM (CEF), 1879-1957," Labour/Le Travail, no. 47 (Spring 2001). Available online from: http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/47/08dooley.html
R. C. McCandless, “Vancouver’s ‘Red Menace’ of 1935: The Waterfront Situation,” BC Studies 22 (1974): 56-70.
Andrew Parnaby, “On the Hook: Welfare Capitalism on the Vancouver Waterfront, 1919-1939,” PhD thesis, Memorial University, 2001.
John Stanton, Never Say Die!: The Life and Times of a Pioneer Labour Lawyer, Vancouver, Steel Rail Publishing, 1987.
David Ricardo Williams, Mayor Gerry: The Remarkable Gerald Grattan McGeer. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1986.
