Twelve full-length video interviews with key BC labor activists are now available online through the new BC Labour Heritage Centre Oral History Collection, hosted by the Simon Fraser University Library Digitized Collections.
The collection is intended to serve as a resource for labour history and general BC history, and as an exploration of the intersection of issues like labour, work, politics, gender, race relations, economics, environment and more.
The BC Labour Heritage Centre began recording interviews in April 2016. You can now listen as Muriel Overgaard, the first female president of CUPE BC, describes how she first joined the Canadian Union of Public Employees while playing poker with the union organizer. Or check out Bill Zander’s description of the 1972 “injunction kerfuffle” between building trades unions and the provincial government in New Westminster.
Other labor activist interviewees include Jackie Ainsworth, Kate Braid, Ray Haynes, Jeffrey William Keighley, Art Kube, Clive Lytle, John Shields, Cathy Walker and Sharon Yandle.
The project remains ongoing, and the collection will continue to be updated.
For more information:
