Walking tour marks anniversary of biggest political protest in BC history

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – BC is no stranger to labour strife, but Operation Solidarity was the largest political protest in the province’s history.

Today marks 35 years since the provincial government of the day passed a controversial budget that, among other things, allowed public employers to fire workers without cause.

In 1983, the Socred party was voted into power, with Bill Bennett at the helm. The party’s budget, the “Restraint Budget” included 26 bills that where “breathtaking” in their attack on institutions that were taken for granted in BC, like labour unions and the Human Rights Commission, according to retired labour reporter Rod Mickleburgh.

“It was just really an amazing day that day in Victoria, when minster after minster got up in the legislature and announced a new bill has come down the pike. People were just dumbfounded,” he says. “There had been no inkling of any of this.”

Two bills were aimed at unions: Bill-2 wiped out most rights of public sector unions to negotiate anything outside of wages and benefits; Bill-3 gave public sector companies to fire employees without cause.

“No one had ever heard of anything so blunt before…Plus the Human Rights Commission was disbanded, their workers fire right on the spot. The rentalsmen [tenants agreement] had to go and tenants rights were basically abolished–landlords were given the rights to evict tenants without cause.”

He says the reaction was “instantaeous”.

“And it turned into the most concerted protest movement in British Columbia history. It went on from early July to the dark days of November of that year and really there’d been nothing like it in BC before–or since,” he recalls. “People just came together and said, ‘No–we have to fight these bills!’ They were representative of norms we had taken for granted…There were rallies in Victoria right off the bat. Three weeks later there were 25,000 people on the lawn of the Victoria legislature. April 10th, at Empire Stadium, there were more than 40,000 people crammed in for a rally.”

He adds public sector workers would take days off to attend the rallies.

Mickleburgh is leading a walking tour this afternoon to mark the anniversary.

“We’ll be walking around downtown where some of the events took place,” he explains. “But it will be more a chance to talk about what happened. It culminated in what could’ve been the first all out general strike in BC history.”

The walking tour, presented by the BC Labour Heritage Centre, starts at the north plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery at 1:00 p.m.