Pride and Politics:

"Workers of the World, Unite":
Celebrating May Day in the Elk Valley

By Tom Langford

For a number of decades during the twentieth century, May 1st or May Day was a holiday like no other for coal miners and their families in the Elk River valley. May 1st was a day of solidarity and celebration, usually organized by the miners' local unions. The day's events often included a parade, speeches by working class leaders at a rally, performances by the Fernie Band and/or Michel-Natal Band, and special activities for children.

May Day 1931 in Natal's Karl Marx Park

[An old photograph] taken at a picnic ground west of Natal during May Day celebrations in 1931 [shows]... miners and their families from coal mining communities on both sides of the British Columbia-Alberta border. The man addressing the crowd in the photo is Harvey Murphy, well known in the Elk region throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s as a union organizer and prominent Communist Party politician. For the day's events, the picnic ground has been adorned with the name "Karl Marx Park." The picnic photo captures a time and place in Canadian history when socialism had a significant following among workers and the Communist Party of Canada was the leading socialist party in the country.

It was the Great Depression and times were tough in Fernie, Natal, Michel and the neighbouring Alberta mining communities. For many in the May Day crowd, perhaps a majority, the promise of a secure future lay in socialism, not capitalism. Communists like Harvey Murphy and national leader Tim Buck were hugely popular in the area, and their party was seen as the political arm of the coal miners' movement. Indeed, one estimate puts the Communist Party’s Depression-era strength as high as 300 members in the region stretching from Fernie in the west, through the mining communities on both sides of the provincial boundary to Pincher Creek to the east.

Given such broad support for the Communist Party, the appearance of Karl Marx's name on the May Day banner is understandable. Marx is the venerated founder of the communist movement who, in writings produced between the 1840s and his death in 1883, had developed very thorough economic and philosophical critiques of capitalism. For Marx, the road to socialism lay through working class political action, which would culminate in revolution. How many in the crowd had at least a passing familiarity with Marx's writings? Probably more than we might guess, considering the strength of Communist Party membership in the area and the long history of socialist politics among western Canadian coal miners. Still, the vast majority of those in attendance would have laughed at the suggestion that they were Marxists. However, honouring Karl Marx in so public a fashion at the 1931 May Day rally in Natal suggests two important things: the enthusiasm of the May Day organizers for communism, and the absence at that moment of any kind of organized anti-communist backlash among coal miners.

For coal mining families, May Day in 1931 was a holiday celebration imbued with socialist symbols and messages. Among the songs likely sung by the crowd was the socialist anthem "The Internationale" (then the national anthem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). Given the enormous power of mine and railroad owners over the fate of coal miners and their communities, one would imagine that the following verse was sung with particular gusto that day:

In using a May Day celebration to build the socialist cause in the Elk valley, Harvey Murphy and his colleagues were acting in a way which was entirely consistent with the history of the holiday.

How May First Became a Workers' Holiday

In 1889 the founding meeting of the Socialist International (an international group of Socialist political parties) proclaimed May 1st as International Workers' Day. The day was chosen to honour the memory of five working class leaders who had been executed in 1886 following a murderous confrontation between police and workers in Chicago's Haymarket Square in early May of that year. The American justice system charged, tried and executed these men not because of any actions of their own during the confrontation, but rather because they were leaders of a movement which was challenging the existing institutional order. Indeed, four of the executed men were not even present in Haymarket Square during the confrontation in question.

Therefore, from its inception May Day was much different than other recognized holidays. It was proclaimed not by a government or religious authorities, but by an international meeting of socialists, and it was meant not as a day of rest or private worship, but as a day to honour five martyrs to the cause of working class emancipation. International Workers' Day was established as a class-conscious event; it was meant to remind workers of the tough struggles of the past in order to build their solidarity and resolve in the present.

May Day has never become an official statutory holiday in Canada or the United States. However, from the early years of coal mining in the Elk region, May 1st has been a coal miners' holiday. This happened because May 1st was one of the holidays for which the United Mine Workers (UMW) secured recognition in collective agreements with coal companies like The Crow's Nest Pass Coal Company. For instance, the 1909 to 1911 agreements between the UMW's District 18 (the union's Western Canadian district) and the Western Coal Operators Association listed eight official holidays. Two holidays stand out in the list: May First and the union's "District and International Election Day". The early UMW clearly had strong socialist and democratic traditions. These traditions were important components of the workers' movement in the Elk River valley for most of the twentieth century. A sense of those traditions can be gained from revisiting a few of the other May Day celebrations over the years.

May Day Celebrations from 1934 to 1959

It is impossible to construct a comprehensive history of May Day celebrations in the area because many of the written documents of the workers' movement have not survived, and the Fernie Free Press would often ignore the event or offer only token coverage. However, a partial record is available from various sources.

Another important May Day celebration occurred in Michel and Natal in 1934. This was a very important year in those communities, since miners at the Michel mine of the Crow's Nest Pass Coal Company decided to join the Mine Workers Union of Canada after an organizing drive led by Harvey Murphy. This put an end to a run of nine years without union representation. In late 1924 the coal company had locked out the miners in Fernie and won a huge victory: workers returned to their jobs after accepting a substantial pay cut and agreeing to cut their organizational ties to the United Mine Workers. A similar scenario unfolded at the company's Michel mine in January 1925.

May Day in 1934 thus coincided with the rebirth of active, militant unionism in Michel and Natal. Surviving photos of the day's events include workers from neighbouring coal communities being greeted upon their arrival at the Michel train station; and a march through the streets of Natal. It is significant that Fernie workers did not follow Michel workers into the Mine Workers Union in 1934. In the coming years, Michel miners would generally play a more active role than Fernie miners in both the labour and socialist movements in the Elk River valley.

May Day in 1945 was the occasion for a Labor Progressive Party (LPP) election rally in Fernie. (The Canadian government did not allow the use of the name "Communist Party" at the time; hence the name LPP.) The Grand Theatre was "fairly well filled" for the afternoon event which featured the LPP candidate in East Kootenay for the upcoming federal election, none other than Harvey Murphy. Although the rally was in Fernie, "there was quite a large number present from Michel and Natal" and Sam English, a miner from Michel, chaired the meeting. The Free Press reporter also found it noteworthy that "a large number of ladies were in the audience." The rally began with a presentation on the history of May Day by a communist union official from Vancouver. Murphy then "spoke for about two hours and was given a splendid hearing."

1945 was the last time that the Communist Party was a serious electoral force at the federal level. Harvey Murphy ran a high profile campaign, and reported official election expenses of $2,048. In comparison, the winner in the election, Reverend J.H. Matthews of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) reported official election expenses of only $616. Murphy was the leading vote getter in Michel and Natal, polling 37.8 percent of the popular vote in a five-party race. In Fernie, he ran second to Reverend Matthews with 24.3 percent of the popular vote. These are very respectable vote shares, but no doubt were a great disappointment for Murphy and his party given their long years of political activism in the Elk area. However, things were much worse for the Communist Party in other parts of East Kootenay: Murphy's share of the popular vote in Cranbrook was a miserable 1.3 percent. Overall, he finished fourth in the riding with a popular vote of 12.9 percent. However, in 1945 the Communist Party stood at the brink of the abyss known as the Cold War: its electoral support would rapidly dissipate over the next decade. Nevertheless, its activists would continue to play a major role in organizing May Day events.

Coal from the Elk River Valley was very much in demand during the Second World War and in the years immediately after the war's end. There was also considerable organizational unity among coal miners since the miners at Fernie and Michel had rejoined the United Mine Workers, as had all the miners in the Crow's Nest Pass communities in Alberta. During these years the UMW locals on both sides of the provincial boundary worked to coordinate their May Day activities: one community would host the event, and miners and their families would journey to that community for the yearly celebration.

At war's end, the decision to hold May Day in a particular community was made on a yearly basis, usually just a few weeks before the event. In 1946 the joint celebration was held in Michel-Natal. People from other communities had difficulty in travelling to Michel that day, however, since the local unions were unable to arrange for a chartered train or a special bus service. The next year the celebration was held in the Alberta town of Coleman. The Fernie Free Press featured a front-page picture of the parade through the streets of Coleman, led by the Fernie Band, and announced that the 1948 celebration was scheduled for Fernie. Plans changed sometime during that year, however, and Blairmore replaced Fernie as the 1948 host. Michel-Natal again was the site for festivities in 1949. Included in the day's events were exhibition baseball and soccer games between teams from different Crow's Nest Pass communities.

That year the UMW local unions announced that May Day celebrations would follow a five year east to west schedule, being hosted in turn by each of the five major coal mining communities on the Alberta and British Columbia sides of the Crow's Nest Pass. By the time that May Day returned to the Elk River valley, the bituminous coal industry was in crisis due to the change to diesel engines by the CPR, and communism had become a dirty word as Cold War rhetoric and logic pervaded public consciousness. May Day had been transformed from a multi-community festival to a rally with a desperate political agenda.

In 1954, May Day celebrations were held at the Natal Union Hall, chaired by Michel miner and communist activist Sam English. A crowd of over 100 people listened to three main speakers: a Calgary representative of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers; Ben Swankey, the leader of the Labor Progressive Party in Alberta; and Tom Uphill, Independent Labour MLA for the provincial riding of Fernie. Uphill's presence at the event is significant, because he was willing to be associated with the Communist Party even at the height of the Cold War, unlike the vast majority of left-wing politicians in Canada. Indeed, Uphill's repeated re-election as a Labour MLA (representative of the Fernie Labour Party) during the late 1940s and 1950s was one of the few electoral bright spots for the Communist Party during its years of rapid decline. The fact is, however, that the immensely popular Uphill held the riding despite his communist sympathies, not because of them.

The 1954 May Day meeting passed resolutions which recommended policies to alleviate the crisis in the coal industry, called for the protection of "the civil liberties of all Canadians" and demanded an end to the testing of atomic weapons and the recognition of Red China. The first resolution deserves to be quoted because it not only indicates alternative coal industry policies, but also makes a strong moral statement on the responsibility of governments to miners and their families:

If the geographical rotation announced in 1949 had been followed, Fernie should have been the host of May Day in 1954. However, by the mid-1950s only the Michel and Blairmore, Alberta locals of the United Mine Workers were committed to organizing May Day events in the Crow's Nest Pass. Records are available of May Day meetings held at the union hall in Natal in 1956, 1957 and 1959. The meeting in 1957 must have been particularly grim since the members of the Blairmore local had just learned that their workplace, the Greenhill mine of West Canadian Collieries, was being closed.The miners' last shift was on April 30. Reflecting the desperate plight of the mining communities, that meeting in Natal featured talks by a wide cross-section of elected politicians, including the Liberal M.P. for East Kootenay. The miners were attempting to reach out to anyone with power who might help their industry.

The closing of the Greenhill mine in 1957 was followed by the closing of the Elk River Colliery in early 1958, a devastating blow for the economy of Fernie. This spelled the virtual end of the Fernie local of the UMW, although several of its members transferred to the Michel mine and joined the UMW local there. The 1959 May Day rally was sponsored solely by the Michel local of the UMW and attended by a "large crowd." It featured talks by two elected provincial politicians, one of whom was Tom Uphill, and a number of speakers from Trail, most notably Harvey Murphy. As Murphy drove along Highway 3 towards Natal, he no doubt recalled many fond memories of his earlier May Day appearances in the Elk region. Although there was no May Day parade in 1959, a festival atmosphere was created by the Natal-Michel band. "Making its first public appearance since reorganizing several weeks ago," the band "played selections in all parts of the community" as a prelude to the rally.

A Postscript on the May 1st Holiday

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, there were ten holidays named in the contracts between the United Mine Workers and the Crow's Nest Pass Coal Company, including May 1st. All of these holidays were unpaid. One of the bargaining goals of the union in the 1960s was to convert these holidays into paid holidays. In the early 1960s the miners won their first paid holiday: Christmas Day. The contract which took effect on 3 July 1964 represented a major breakthrough for the miners: seven of their ten holidays were classified as paid, with only three remaining unpaid (May 1st, Remembrance Day and Boxing Day).

That contract expired at the end of 1966. One of the union's initial demands during the negotiations for a new contract was for the reclassification of their three remaining unpaid holidays as paid. The Crow's Nest Pass Coal Company counter-proposed two additional paid holidays. One was to be Remembrance Day. The company also "suggested that May 1st be eliminated as an agreement holiday and a paid floating holiday be substituted therefor." Perhaps the company negotiating team hoped to eliminate from the contract a holiday steeped in socialist tradition. More likely, however, their aim was to eliminate a holiday which, because it often fell in the middle of the week, caused inconvenient mine shutdowns.

In either case, the union would have nothing to do with the counter-proposal. May 1st became a paid holiday for the Michel miners in the contract signed after the 1967 strike, and to this day May 1st is a paid holiday for all members of District 18 of the United Mine Workers. This is a very tangible connection between the current union members and their socialist miner brethren of earlier generations

Sources and Acknowledgements

The main newspaper sources used were the microfilm copies of the Fernie Free Press available at the Fernie Public Library and the Coleman Journal available at the Legislative Library in Edmonton. Also useful were the materials about the United Mine Workers of America, District 18 held at the Glenbow Archives in Calgary and Alan Seager's unpublished doctoral dissertation, "A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country: The Alberta Coal Miners, 1905-1945" (York University, 1982).

This article was originally published in "The Forgotten Side of the Border," edited by Wayne Norton and Naomi Miller, published by Plateau Press (1998). It is reproduced with permission by the author and publisher. Copies of the "Forgotten Side of the Border" are available from Plateau Press at the address above, or please email Wayne Norton .

Tom Langford is an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Calgary. Along with Chris Frazer, Tom has been studying the changes in Crowsnest Pass mining communities in the 1945-1970 period, with special attention to working-class culture and politics. He welcomes letters and email on this subject.

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