Driving into Courtenay in the late 1990s, I would see a sign on the highway saying "Ginger Goodwin Way."
Goodwin, I knew, had been a labour leader in the early 20th century and a strong socialist.
During the First World War, he had preached pacifism. He antagonized many with his labour organizing and opposition to the war. He had been shot and killed by the police, supposedly as a war evader. He seemed a strange person to be commemorated by a sign.
The labour movement, though, considered him a hero. The real reason for his death, they said, was that he was such an effective labour organizer. To many, he was - and is - a martyr to progressive causes.
Goodwin was obviously far more controversial than the sign would indicate. But feelings seemed to have mellowed, and he was finally getting his due. Appearances, though, were deceiving. In 2001 the provincial government changed from a pro-labour to a pro-business party. A few months later, the sign was gone.
Who was this man who still aroused such controversy? Albert (Ginger) Goodwin was born in England in 1887. His father was a coal miner in Yorkshire, and young Albert joined him in the pits when he was 15. It was a hard and dangerous life. Accidents were frequent, and there was always the possibility of cave-ins. Life was little better out of the pits. Housing and sanitation were bad and there were frequent outbreaks of typhoid. No wonder Goodwin left England when he was 19 and sailed to Canada.
When Goodwin arrived in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, he would have found conditions little improved from back home. The rapidly expanding population had outstripped the housing supply, resulting in poor water and sanitation. The men worked long days, often 10 or more hours. The United Mine Workers of America were attempting to organize the workers, but the employer refused to recognize them.
It would only negotiate with the Provincial Workmen's Association, which was little better than a company union. The result was, as one writer put it, "one of the longest and most bitter strikes in Canadian history." It ended in a complete defeat for the union, and a blacklisting of those who had participated in the strike. Goodwin and others were forced to move west to look for work.
In coming to B.C., Goodwin was encountering some of the most dangerous mines in the world. The mine owners were particularly lax about gas and coal dust. The result was several major explosions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, killing hundreds of miners. No wonder the miners began expressing interest in the United Mine Workers of America. But they had to deal with owners like James Dunsmuir, a vehement opponent of unions.
Goodwin came to work in the mines of Cumberland. As in Nova Scotia, tensions were building between the coal miners and their employers. The workers complained of poor pay and unsafe working conditions. The owners would seldom listen, secure in the knowledge the provincial governments was mostly on their side.
The few regulations about mine safety were frequently ignored. In response, the miners invited the UMWA to the Comox Valley in 1911. Then a worker was fired - the union said for reporting gas in mines. The workers walked off on Sept. 16, 1912. The strike did not end until almost two years later, on Aug. 20, 1914.
Vancouver Island's Great Coal Strike, as it came to be known, was long and bitter. The companies hired strike-breakers, and soon, the mines were producing again.
The companies, with the exception of the Jingle Pot mine in Nanaimo, refused to recognize the union. Jingle Pot mine signed a contract with the UMWA in August 1913, and the men there returned to work. The workers at the other mines grew increasingly desperate and frustrated. Riots broke out that month in Ladysmith, Extension and Nanaimo. In response, the provincial government brought in the militia. Many men were arrested. The strike ground on for another year before the union was forced to call a halt. It was financially ruined.
The miners were defeated. The companies refused to recognize the union and imposed a settlement the miners had to accept. The strikers were blacklisted, and had to look for work elsewhere.
Goodwin had to leave Cumberland to find work. After two short mining jobs in the Interior, he got a job as a smelterman in Trail. The Socialist Party of Canada picked him as its local candidate in the 1916 provincial election. He had become a very good public speaker and ran a vigorous campaign. He didn't win, but made a respectable showing. In the wake of the election, he slowly rose through the union ranks, and by early 1917, he was elected by the B.C. Federation of Labour as its vice-president for the Kootenay District.
Under Goodwin as president, the union started moving towards a strike. The main issue was hours of work. The union wanted eight-hour days for all members of the smelter workforce. The company insisted it had an agreement allowing longer hours. On Nov. 15, 1917, the smeltermen walked off the job. By December, however, they were back, after mediators determined there was an agreement in place for the duration of the war, and urged the men to return and lobby for legislated eight-hour days.
Goodwin, meanwhile, was having trouble with the government. Years of working in mines had made him a chronically sick man. When conscription began in 1917, Goodwin was medically examined and determined to be temporarily unfit, but subject to re-examination later. Eleven days into the strike, he received a telegram ordering him back for re-examination, where he was declared fit for fighting. The union denounced this as highly suspicious.
Determined not to fight, Goodwin fled to the wilds west of Cumberland. Conscription was massively unpopular in Canada, and Goodwin had company in the bush.
Several other men were also holed up west of Comox Lake. They were helped by local people, who smuggled supplies to them. The local constable turned a blind eye, but not the Dominion Police, a special force whose job it was to catch evaders. A small posse arrived in Cumberland, headed by Inspector William Devitt with Const. Dan Campbell, a crack shot and superb outdoorsman who had been fired from the B.C. Police for extortion.
On the morning of July 27, 1918, Devitt, Campbell, and Const. George Roe headed down Comox Lake, guided by trappers. They went to Alone Mountain at the end of the lake. The trappers left the party, and the policemen headed into the bush. Devitt and Roe took one trail, and Campbell another. At 4: 30 p.m., a shot rang out from Campbell's trail. Devitt and Roe hurried over and found Goodwin's lifeless body.
Campbell claimed he had shot in self-defence, when Goodwin raised a rifle toward him. Devitt ordered Campbell back to Cumberland, to surrender to the provincial police.
A preliminary inquiry was held in Victoria to see if Campbell should stand trial for manslaughter, and the magistrates committed him for trial.
But by law, the final recommendation had to come from a grand jury. Its proceedings were secret, and no record was kept. On Oct. 1, 1918, they began hearing witnesses. The next day, they issued their recommendation: Campbell would not go to trial.
Was Goodwin's death a conspiracy? The shooting did not appear to be an ambush, but neither did it seem like self-defence.
And what of Goodwin's legacy? His career was very short, less than two years. His death has made him a martyr. Is it justified? Working conditions of a century ago were terrible.
Business owners had little incentive to do anything about it, and governments backed them up. Goodwin's writings on the class struggle, while they seem extreme today, describe the situation very well. He was more moderate than some, arguing for education, organization and agitation as weapons in the class struggle.
He was also willing to work with government and owners to improve workers' conditions, a position that some on the left denounced. But he also stood up to owners and managers.
There was certainly no justification for him to have been hunted like an animal and killed.
