Collection search - Cotterill, Murray - Interview

Record information – Brief

1

Cotterill, Murray - Interview

Item number (ISN):

464451

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1984-08

Item number (ISN):

464451

Type of material:

Sound recordings

Found in:

Archives / Film, Video and Sound

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Record information – Details

Fonds/collection:

ROBERTS, Wayne

Accession:

1984-0395

Media:

Sound

Part:

4 of 4

Production date:

1984-08

Production company:

Wayne Roberts (Interviewer)

Production credit:

interviewer, Wayne Roberts

Description:

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Oral history interview of Murray Cotterill, retired labour leader by Wayne Roberts, professor of labour history. This interview takes place in St. Catharines, Ontario. Cotterill was born in 1913. He speaks about such subjects as: youth then and now; the role of the clergy in the past; the social gospel; his father, whom he barely knew because he was away at war and then died; being raised by his grandfather, a rags-to-riches Scot Presbyterian; his grandfather's hatred for "coupon clippers" and "usurers"; the importance of religious nonconformity in his evolution; the problem of the radical movement dominated by middle-class idealogues; his years at the University of Toronto Schools on an IODE scholarship; his quitting school after Grade 12, being unemployed for one year and then resuming his studies, taking commercial art at Central Tech; meeting immigrants for the first time and learning about their problems; the suddenness of his switch from the University of Toronto Schools; religious teachings; hearing Woodsworth speak; his view of Woodsworth being like an Old Testament prophet; the need for a young people's group in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF); various components of the CCF youth group (CCYM); disputes over free speech; active radicalism in the CCYM; the CCYM's objection to European and British styles of socialism imposed by older members of the CCF; religious cleavage in Toronto politics in the era when churches and lodges held society together; U.S. labour tradition and its influence in Canada; his comments on the significance of Canadian regions and the failure of British socialists to understand this; Charlie Millard's insistence on French contracts in Quebec so employers couldn't understand them; Cotterill's denial that the CCYM was nationalist and agreement that it did oppose European doctrinaires; efforts by the Communist Party and the CCF youth group to "bore from within" each others' organizations; comments about Eileen Tallman, future organizer of Eaton's union drive; the difference between the CCYM and the YCL; ethnic backgrounds of members; his view that the Communist Party was more effective than the CCF due to its cell structure and CCF disdain for boring from within; war-time changes in policy by the Communist Party, such as the issue of Ukrainian Canada Packers workers and Joe Salzberg; CCFers spontaneously joining the CIO; his experience writing for Saturday Night in 1937; more about free speech fights by the CCYM, indicative of Cotterill's flair for publicity; Cotterill's use of a comic strip to organize Canada Packers workers who did not know how to read English; being hired to do publicity for the CIO, as an "expense account item" for two years since the CIO had no budget; then becoming a CIO office boy; opposition by the U.S. part of the CIO to a Communist Party group organizing steelworkers who organized party cells first; Millard hiring CCFers in unions, but only because they were good organizers; an anecdote of how he manipulated news for publicity at the CCYM convention in Winnipeg; the Saskatchewan CCF, its hostility to Ontario and its support for the Soviet Union; his conflicts with David Lewis over the Political Action Committees during the 1950s; reminiscence of work with immigrant labourers when he was a high school student; his first experience of a work stoppage; prospecting in Northern Ontario during the Depression; two anecdotes on the effort necessary to find work in the Depression; recollections of Bible study classes and how they became fraternal societies; recollection of French Catholic co-ops in Ontario and support for the CCF; his work as a movie critic for the United Church Observer; meeting his wife at the Jimmie Simpson Campaign office; promoting the CCF News during a dairy strike; how he teased the Canadian Forum for its pompousness; comments on the Toronto Star; Mitch Hepburn's strategy during the Oshawa strike; William Lyon Mackenzie King; plant councils often developing into unions; how American business public relations changed capitalism to free enterprise and how unionists changed the "closed shop" to "union security"; the growth of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) union after the National Steel Car strike in Hamilton because people supported the union that pressured the government to take over the company; how unionists knew that employers would clamp down after the war; a USWA lobby campaign to convince individual MPs to support the fairness of their 1946 strike demands; William Lyon Mackenzie King's awareness that the Stelco strike had this support; the Stelco strike in Hamilton and of the RCMP presence which almost triggered a general strike; the Stelco strike and the possibility of a general strike if the picket line was broken; the Charlie Millard-Pat Conroy strategy of picking vulnerable industries like steel to break wartime wage controls; the Cold War and Cotterill's reservations about simplistic anti-Communism; USWA confrontations with the Mine-Mill union in Trail, B.C.; RCMP surveillance; Harvey Murphy using another man to test his drinks; the Communist Party strategy in unions; the Winnipeg strikes in 1955 at Dominion Bridge and Vulcan Iron Works; differences between the Winnipeg strikes of 1919 and the 1950s; the settlement of the strikes and related anti-Semitism among corporate leaders; the Burt-Millard 1939 split in the Autoworkers, and Millard's transition to the CIO; postwar hostility to the Communist Party; the CCYM in the 1930s; the CCF in Quebec; support by old railwaymen for the tramps in the Depression; the weakness of the CCF in Quebec; western flair for radicalism and the difficulty faced by the CCF in adjusting to that regional reality; the rise of union activities in the late 1930s; the central role of Millard in setting up the Canadian Congress of Labour rather than a Canadian CIO; Millard's favouring Canadian staff for each union; how Canadians defeated the Steelworkers' efforts to abolish the post of a separate Canadian director; the Steelworkers' defiance of the government decree against the 1946 steel strike; organizing Alcan in Kingston; the Ontario Labour Court and the uproar it created; how the Stelco union was certified; why big plants get located on outskirts of towns due to objections of small business; how the CIO defied municipal by-laws prohibiting leaflets; how unions can lead to efficiency; community orientation of the Alcan union in Kingston; how community advertising won support from Falconbridge white-collar workers; his conflict with David Lewis over Political Action Committees in the 1950s; Cotterill's preference for a structure similar to that of the U.S. and Lewis' preference for subordination to the CCF; Cotterill's belief that unions should fight for themselves; incident at a Vancouver meeting where Cotterill said the CCF was the only political party "unions can afford to buy"; Lewis' angry response and Lewis' belief that only socialists could be good unionists; recollections of Pat Conroy and Charlie Millard, who both preached at each other; Conroy's preference for direct chartering of CCL locals and Millard's preference for international unions; Conroy's suspicion of socialists due to the history of splits in western miners' unions; Conroy's resignation from the CCL over the right of the CCL to charter locals; background conflicts that precipitated the resignation; the apparent takeover of the CCL by the Steelworkers; recollections of Millard, chief organizer of labour in Canada but still an unknown; and Millard 's tactics, including calculating the odds in collective bargaining; recollections of David Lewis and his attachment to British Fabian socialism. ~Cottterill continues by making a comparison of conditions during the 1930s Depression with the present day (1980s); unemployment insurance and medicare; recollections of hanging around in restaurants; the increasing specialization of unions in the 1950s and their hiring professional staff; wages and prices; his opposition of the formation of the Canadian Labour Congress out of concern that this would promote laziness in the labour movement; his view that militant movments of the 1960s had no unique quality; his criticism of the use of the term "business unionism"; comments on PC 1003 as Mackenzie King's device to make wartime strikes illegal; his prediction that strikebreaking will be the next major union issue; a story about how he became a Steelworker staff representative; a brief summary of all the offices he held; a conflict with David Lewis over Political Action Committes during the 1950s; and Cotterill's sense of Canadian uniqueness and Canadian regionalism. <6h 38mn>Cotterill also comments on: fringe benefits in the 1950s; his opposition to the formation of the Canadian Labour Congress out of concern that it would promote laziness in the union movement; <6h 38mn>

Language:

English

Notes:

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1. Audio quality poor overall. It fluctuates and the sound of the interviewer fades out.

Detailed holdings information:

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Vault ISN:

458949

Format:

VIDEO

Location number:

C04245

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

SOF

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL
1984-0381

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

705127

Format:

VIDEO

Location number:

C04246
C04247
C04248

Number of items:

3

Kind of sound:

SOF

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

1177537

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

464451-C04245.WAV
464451-C04246.WAV
464451-C04247.WAV
464451-C04248.WAV

Number of items:

4

Kind of sound:

BWF

Duration:

429:27

Made from:

C04245
C04246
C04247
C04248

Status:

MASTER
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

Open

Restrictions on consultation:

~No Restrictions / Pas de restrictions

Reproduction access:

With written permission of Copyright Owner / Avec la permission écrite du détenteur des droits d'auteur

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