United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union

For example, a longtime president of the UFAWU, Homer Stevens, ran as the Communist Party candidate in the Burnaby-Richmond-Delta riding in the 1970s.

Striking was a key way that UFAWU brought policy changes to its agreements between the government and various canning companies and their working class members.

Along with the NBBC and UFAWU, the Prince Rupert Fishermen's Co-op also decided not to respect picket lines for the first time and continued this right into 1967.

The most affected were salmon seiners, this caused disunity because the gillnetters did not initially want to lose their season to a strike.

[34] The initial problem faced by the UFAWU was deciding when the strike would start officially, they were attempting to make sure the loss was slightly equal so no industry felt it the hardest.

UFAWU President, Homer Stevens quickly mitigated the situation and decided to try to get the entire union together again and take a vote on the matter to restore confidence.

[36] In the end the shoreworkers and tendermen were able to make new master agreements, however after a few weeks they decided to reject these to support their fishermen allies.

[39] At the time in Prince Rupert, many boat owners would hire crew members and give them an improper share but not enough for anyone to start protesting.

[43] From 1953 onward the co-op officially decided to not respect UFAWU strikes as they had before, they would continue to fish and operate across all picket lines.

[46][47] As the strike started five trawlers decided to go out and fish anyway and came back with their catch expecting it to be offloaded and packed for later sale.

UFAWU agreed that it should be offloaded as to not waste the fish, however the union believed that they should wait until after the strike is done to apply proper shares to its crew members.

[48] The strike continued for another two months with strong unity from its membership, however it was tough going when many co-op members were not unionized within the UFAWU.

[citation needed] On May 24 the strike broke as more trawlers began to return to fishing and brought their catches back to the co-op for processing.

The Prince Rupert fall out was enormous and caused two of the UFAWU leaders Homer Stevens and Steve Stavenes to go to jail for acting against court orders to force its members back to work.

The strike however did give the rest of the province time to sign trawling agreements which in turn bettered the fishing industry.

[55] 1954 was a key year for women's and racial rights within the canneries, the NBBC and the UFAWU came together in a meeting and called for new signage on washroom doors.

The first secretary-treasurer, Bill Rigby, and President, George Miller, were members of the Labour Progressive Party (Communist) were not shy about their views, but never imposed them on the union.

During the Cold War, Right Wing leaders of the CCF, along with the federal Liberal Government and the fishing companies attempted to control or smash the new union.

This came to a head in August,1953 when the Trades and Labour Congress suspended the UFAWU for printing an editorial criticizing the leadership for expelling the Vancouver Civic Outside Workers Union (later CUPE 1004).

The suspension was followed by a raid by Hal Banks and his Seafarers' International Union in September with the support of the Congress leadership and the fish companies.

Fishermen were subjected to two attempts by the federal Combines Branch to destroy free collective bargaining in the fishing industry.

The NBBC often focused on fishermen because of the potential of winning fishing claims rather than shore workers which was a fundamental divide that saw many of its shoreworkers members join the UFAWU.

[56] In the 1950s they fought racial signage as well as won Aboriginal women transportation and seniority rights that all other cannery workers could previously access.