The Case of Ginger Goodwin
Twenty-four hour
Vancouver General
Strike was held to coincide with Ginger Goodwin's funeral,
August
2,
1918.
Ginger (Albert) Goodwin was a coal miner from England who immigrated to Canada in the early 20th century. He worked in coal mines in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia and Michel, British Columbia before settling in Cumberland on Vancouver Island in 1910 or early 1911. He worked in the Dunsmuir coal mine in Cumberland and participated in the strike of 1912 to 1914. He was active in the United Mine Workers of America and in 1914 became an organizer for the Socialist Party.
In
1916 he moved to Trail in the interior of BC where he
worked for some months as a smelterman for the Consolidated
Mining and
Smelting Company of Canada Limited. He was the Socialist Party
of
Canada's candidate in Trail in the provincial election of 1916,
coming
in third, and in December of
that year was elected full-time secretary of the Trail Mill and
Smeltermen's Union, a local of the International Union of Mine,
Mill
and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW). The following year he was elected
as
vice-president of the BC Federation of Labour, president of
IUMMSW's
District 6 and president of the
Trail Trades and Labour Council. He was proposed by the union as
deputy
minister of BC's newly founded Department of Labour, but not
selected.
This was a proposal supported by the trades and labour councils
of both
Victoria and Vancouver.
Ginger Goodwin opposed World War I for political reasons on the grounds that workers should not kill each other in economic wars. "War is simply part of the process of Capitalism. Big financial interests are playing the game. They'll reap the victory, no matter how the war ends," he said. Nonetheless, he registered for conscription as the law required and was classified as unfit. However, not two weeks following the start of a strike in Trail for the eight-hour day, which Goodwin led, he was ordered to undergo a medical re-examination and this time was classified as fit to serve.
His appeal against conscription was rejected in April 1918. Ordered to report to army barracks he refused to compromise his conscience and hid out with others resisting conscription in the hills near Cumberland where people from the town ensured they had food and supplies.
Goodwin was shot and killed on July 27, 1918 by Constable Dan Campbell of the Dominion Police, one of three members of a team that was hunting men who were evading the Military Service Act. The anger of the people of Cumberland and workers throughout the province was such that on August 2, 1918 there was a mile-long funeral procession in Cumberland, and BC's first general strike the same day in Vancouver.
Ginger Goodwin's funeral,
Cumberland BC,
August 2, 1918.
On June 24, 2018 in honour of Ginger Goodwin, labour martyr and war resister, on the 100th anniversary of his death, the Cumberland Museum along with the BC Federation of Labour and local unions, artists, musicians and actors, re-enacted the funeral procession as part of the annual Miner's Memorial events held from June 22 to 24. On July 23, 2018, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Goodwin's death, the BC government erected a monument at nearby Union Bay, the coal port that served the Cumberland mines, in honour of Ginger Goodwin for his fight for workers' rights and his opposition to conscription. A section of highway near Cumberland was named "Ginger Goodwin Way" in 1996 in his honour.
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 52 - November 11, 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/MS54529.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca