Provincial Solidarities: A History of the New Brunswick Federation of Labour by David Frank

Author:David Frank [Frank, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Labor & Industrial Relations, Political Science, Post-Confederation (1867-), History, Canada
ISBN: 9781927356234
Google: 5WoUO7tsknoC
Goodreads: 16293086
Publisher: Athabasca University Press
Published: 2013-01-15T12:56:19+00:00

LOOKING AHEAD The Federation executive elected in 1977 included (seated, from left) Mathilda Blanchard; President Paul LePage, Secretary-Treasurer Alvin Blakely, Phillip Booker; and (standing, from left) Gary Murray, John McEwen, Rodolphe Beaulieu, Tim McCarthy, and Harrison Harvey. Three of these men, Booker, McEwen, and McCarthy, were future presidents of the Federation. Source: Telegraph-Journal Archives.

LePage also came in for criticism in 1978 when the Campbellton-Dalhousie District Labour Council called for the withdrawal of the Federation president from the Industrial Relations Board. Their concern was that membership on this quasi-judicial board that administered the Industrial Relations Act and other laws limited the president’s freedom to criticize anti-union employers. Others argued that service on the board enabled the president to be more fully informed about cases and to better defend workers’ interests. The resolution was defeated, but a long debate took place a year later on a resolution to prohibit all officers from sitting on the Industrial Relations Board. This too was defeated. Following the 1978 convention, LePage was bitterly offended when Blanchard, who was defeated as a candidate for re-election as a vice-president in 1978, charged that the Federation was too much of a “one-man show and the man’s name is Paul LePage.” She had been especially critical of LePage for failing to defend the Cirtex workers more effectively as a member of the Industrial Relations Board.11

By 1980, LePage was ready to step down. With the exception of Whitebone, he was the longest-serving president of the Federation. Although sometimes out of step with more militant members, LePage was always re-elected by acclamation, and none doubted his skill in managing the Federation’s affairs. During his time in office, the affiliated membership had more than doubled, to a historic level of more than 48,000 members at the end of the 1970s. On behalf of the delegates, vice-president Tim McCarthy paid tribute to LePage in these words: “All he ever brought this federation is credibility, and all he has ever done is good for the working people of this province.” LePage’s achievements also included increased cooperation with the other federations of labour in the region and the creation of ARLEC, the Atlantic Region Labour Education Centre, based at St. Francis Xavier University, to provide training for rank and file union activists. As the 1980 convention came to a close, delegates presented LePage with a set of golf clubs, gave him a standing ovation and broke into a singing of “Solidarity Forever.” As usual, LePage did not mince words: “I’ve been called a dictator, and I guess that’s true to a certain extent. But you’ve got to be either a leader or a follower, and you’ve got to be a bit of a dictator to be a leader.” He also recalled his arrival as a stranger to the province more than twenty-five years earlier and said: “Now there’s not too many places I can go in this province where somebody won’t stop me on the street and say ‘Hi, Paul.’ I am one of the most fortunate people in the world.

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