Smelter Wars: A Rebellious Red Trade Union Fights for Its Life in Wartime Western Canada

In 1938, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) came to organize the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (Mine Mill) in Trail, British Columbia. Six years later it was recognized as the legal representative of more than 5,000 workers at a smelter owned by the powerful Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada (CM&S). Smelter Wars aims to unfold the historic struggle of the working people who built the city of Trail. The book recounts the various difficulties of the rural community, providing glimpses into the political and social life in the smelter city, as well as the turbulent years marked by economic depression, war, and Cold War intolerance. Ron Verzuh draws upon archival and periodical sources, including the mainstream and labour press, to explore the CIO's complicated legacy in Trail as it battled a wide range of antagonists: a powerful employer (CM&S), a company union, local conservative citizens, and Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) leadership. More than a history of a union, Smelter Wars is a cultural study of a community that has been shaped by decades of corporate welfare. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction: A Smelter City Is Born -- A Red Union Comes to Town -- Battling Blaylock's Company Union -- Women War Workers and Ladies Auxiliary Politics -- Mine-Mill Courts Trail's Immigrant Enclave -- A Clash of Ideologies in the Kootenays -- Steel's Cold Warriors Raid Trail's Red Union -- Resisting Canadian -- McCarthyism in British Columbia -- Conclusion: The Complicated History of Local 480.

OCLC: 1264708673