The dawn of the 1960s was a time of unrest across North America, with the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, and the second-wave feminist movement fighting to make changes in society.
Here at home in the late summer of 1961, we had a different kind of period of unrest, one of the labour kind, that would radically reshape the worker-workplace relationship, but also the relationships among co-workers.
“It was a period when the eyes of the world were on Sudbury,” reader Adam Spindler recalled. “Everyone was looking to the possible consequences of the strikes, the spread of labour unrest, and how to influence it, direct it, or control it — by fair means or foul.”
Of course, as he added, “It's a bit hard to imagine now how it was then.” And, nearly 65 years later, that is where your stories and memories come into play.
This is especially important as we move farther away from those days and the main characters in the story disappear from our lives.
Now before we move on to our readers’ memories, I would like to add one of my own, since these walks down memory lane sometimes have a way of bringing forward historical anecdotes about my own family and people whom I grew up around.
In my youth, when attending church on Sundays, we sat in front of two people, one of whom was an imposing gentleman (from this young child’s perspective). That man, Tom Taylor (also a neighbour of my grandparents), and his wife (also my great-uncle’s sister), were always happy and smiling when the time arrived to extend the sign of peace.
As it turns out, there were times when happy, smiling Tom Taylor was not so happy and smiling. As related in the previous article, Taylor was the first member of the Mine Mill executive to speak out about the impending covert threat from the Steelworkers.
However, when the Steelworkers arrived on the scene his brother-in-law became a staunch supporter of them. This apparently led to many heated arguments developing between the two at family get-togethers, with everyone else caught in the middle.
Based on recollections from readers, the 1961 union question was the cause of intra-family tension in several households. Dennis Stutt remembers that there were “many a heated discussion around our kitchen table, but being only 10, I was mostly just frightened … bad memories.”
Speaking of someone who was right in the thick of things during those anxious days in the early 1960s, while sifting through memories and recollections, I came across a few from people very much involved with the unions at the time of the Mine Mill Hall and Arena riots occurred.
One such memory came from Tom Todd who was in the Mine Mill Hall on Aug. 26 1961 when it all began, and this is the version of events which he lived through.
“Bob Sproule, the son of Red Sproule who was president of Mine Mill, I believe, during the long strike of ‘58 … came home from work and said there is something going on at the union hall…,” Todd recalled. “We went up and were let in by the back door, and a very short time later a commotion started outside. It kept building with shouting from the men who were Steelworkers and trying to get in. I was in one hell of a fix. I was only 23 and knew next to nothing about either union. But I knew I would have to fight if they got in…
“It wasn't funny, they backed a car up and tore off the door — only thing that saved us as the police were afraid to intervene. We threw all the chairs down to block the door and turned on the big fire hose, one hell of a night I can tell you…
“We piled all the chairs in the hallway by the front door and had the big fire hose going … . They backed a truck up and hooked a chain on the door and tore it off, but the chairs and the fire hose kept them out all through the night…
“At one time, there must have been two or three thousand out there shouting and calling and said they were coming in to get us. It didn't bother me that we may have to fight, 50 (of us) men against all those outside. What bothered me is whoever came through the door you would have no time to see if it was your friend or not, you would just have to nail him with whatever you had.
“We called the police, but they would not come as the crowd was too big, so we were left to ourselves. Finally, about seven in the morning, I said I'm going out, the men said I was stupid and that they would kill me … but as I came out everything went quiet and the men just parted as I walked through and on to my mother’s place just down the street.”
Many of our readers had family who were involved on one side or the other, or like Richard Carrey’s father, caught in the middle. As he wrote, his father “was head of security at the arena. I remember him coming home from there (the night of the Arena Riot on Sept. 10, 1961) with a big mark on his face (which) had happened during the meeting and (also) his jacket ripped.”
On the Mine Mill side, Kimberly Komarechka Kmit’s “grandfather was William Kennedy (referred to in the article). He was one of the ones in the building and didn’t think he’d make it through the night.” And, although she wasn’t born until 1964, she “heard many horror stories about that time growing up.”
Karl Myllymaki related that his grandfather, a Mine Mill steward at Creighton, “had to be bailed out of jail after the riot in ‘61.”
Reader Richard Dubreuil’s father “was an organizer for the Steelworkers and we lived in a four-plex where one Mine Mill (member also lived) … most times him and my dad would cross paths (and) a fight would start … (I’m) glad to say both were evenly matched so lose some and win some.”
Debbie Gingras Pretz remembers the events from the early 1960s, even though she was only five years old at the time, due to what can best be described as a very traumatic experience for any family.
“We were driving home and my Dad who worked for Falconbridge at the time mentioned that we were being followed. After parking in the garage and coming out of the car, a car full of large burly men with beige jackets approached my Dad with threats. Not understanding what was going on it was very upsetting, I thought they were there to harm my Dad. I had that memory as a nightmare for decades.”
A few of our readers, though still young at that time, shared with us their recollections of the night of the Mine Mill Hall Raid in 1961. Young Gary Schuran recalls that he “went with my Dad. All I remember him saying was Mine Mill were communists. We were close to Queens Athletic field and the office was across the street.”
Meanwhile, John Kanerva was among a group of West End teens of approximately 14 years of age, who when they heard about the situation at the hall, proceeded to head over to check it out. “We watched violence behind St. Eugene church on Eyre Street,” he wrote, adding that they were “on our bikes so we could quickly leave!”
Gerry McIntaggart also remembers that “It was a wild time.” And, like other youngsters, he “was not supposed to hang around the hall, but kids will be kids.”
The news media of the day reported on the young bystanders who had made their way down to the Mine Mill hall to hopefully witness something that they could brag to their friends about the next day. A couple of teenage girls at the corner of Elm and Regent streets were overheard by a reporter during the wee hours of the Sunday morning of the Mine Mill Riot. They were telling a passing friend that “there was nothing else to do tonight, so we came down to watch the fight.” However, they ended up leaving disappointed because there was no fight and no renewal of the outbursts that had erupted earlier.
Reader Muriel Jeffs’s recollection of that night most likely are reminiscent of others who were not involved in the melee at the Mine Mill Hall. “I could watch this from my apartment window (and) sure did not go out that night,” she wrote.
Unfortunately, the fighting amongst the adult population of the Sudbury area eventually worked its way into the conversations and discussions of the youth of the day. Doug Smith, who was almost 10 at the time, “remember(s) talking about it in the school yard and thinking the Mine Mill members were Commies!”
Reader Alexander Kowalenko was only in Grade 6 at the time of the raids.
“In 1961, I was living in Dogpatch and starting to become aware of the world around me from frightening geopolitical events of the Cold War, the nascent space race, and, yes, the demise of Local 598,” he recalled. “I remember talking to some people at school about this divisive period. My teacher admonished me for causing a stir.”
In Pete Bellefeuille’s recollections in regard to the Mine Mill-Steelworkers situation, he shows us the juxtaposition of the time before and after the Steelworkers decided to make their move in Sudbury.
“I was born in Sudbury in 1945, and I can remember going to the Mine Mill Union Hall for Christmas parties and gifts, and also for health care,” Bellefeuille said. “We would all gather at Richard Lake (site of the Mine Mill Camp) on weekends. The union was the reason working-class families could finally get a decent wage and a few benefits.
“(But, by 1961) I can recall the Catholic Church in Minnow Lake telling us Mine Mill was communist and anti-Christian, and giving us letters in support of USWA (Steelworkers) to bring to our fathers. I recall my uncle (a Mine Mill supporter) getting beat up by USWA supporters, suffering a broken arm and cuts and bruises.”
Merle Smith wrote in response to a post about what was colloquially known as “The Raids” at the Sudbury Then and Now Facebook group that he “can still remember Father O’Brien at Holy Redeemer Church in Minnow Lake days before that first vote saying from the pulpit at the end of a sermon about Communism: ‘I hope when you vote that you think about the ramifications of how you vote.’ One devout Catholic got up genuflected, bowed his head to the altar and walked out of church. Before he got to the back of the church, he was followed by a large percentage of those miners. I remember walking out myself and my dad making me go back into the church.”
Phil Rowe remembers “my dad saying how friendships were destroyed (and) fights broke out. A car was blown up a few streets from us. I remember the blast in the middle of the night.”
To which he had his own speculation of the reasoning behind The Raids, looking in from the outside, “I guess the union dues for 12,000 men can be a big motivator for union big shots.”
The fears of the general public at the time appeared to be well-founded and reached across the entire spectrum of society in the Sudbury Basin. They were expressed perfectly in a write-up by a reporter from Maclean’s Magazine published in early 1962.
“Walking the streets and listening to as many people as would talk to me, and there were many who would not, I learned that just about everyone was frightened by the union war,” he wrote. “The chief of police was afraid of violence and kept a number of constables in plain clothes, he wouldn't tell me how many, stationed in hotel beverage rooms in case trouble broke out. It had, the Saturday before I arrived, and several hotels closed down their beverage rooms early in the afternoon. The editor of the Sudbury Star was afraid of offending subscribers, and told me he did not intend to write any editorials endorsing either side.
“The mayor was afraid of losing votes. He was a union man himself on leave of absence from Inco for his term of office. He said he intended to vote in the union war but he had ‘no comment’ to make on which union he intended to vote for.
“The businessmen were afraid of a strike … . The merchants were afraid the union that won might be forced to strike in order to make good its promises. The clergy were afraid of communism but they were more afraid of being accused of meddling in union affairs. Catholic priests were under orders from the bishop to say nothing about union affairs, and most Protestant ministers kept silent voluntarily. Nonunion citizens had good reason to fear being caught on the wrong side of a union war.”
Even after the dust had settled in the battle between Steel and Mine Mill for the workers at INCO, there was still anger and resentment among the ranks.
As reader Jerry Pentilla remembers, “Even though I was too young to be involved … I was amazed when eight years later while employed at INCO the bitterness was still evident as there were still miners who were paying union dues to Mine Mill even while having to pay dues to the Steelworkers union.”
While Karl Myllymaki’s “grandfather retired in ‘79 and never paid Steel dues, (he) was allowed to pay Mine Mill dues. (There were) much hard feelings.”
For Kimberly Komarechka Kmit’s grandfather, “after the merger was complete, he was hired as a Steelworker Staff Representative and transferred to Winnipeg. Although there were many bad feelings, he chose to focus on advocating for working people, no matter which union he represented. That being said, when he passed, it was a Mine Mill pin placed on his lapel, not a USWA pin.”
As Gerry McIntaggart wrote, “the strong men and women … of Mine Mill & Smelter Workers Union Local 598 … has never recovered or forgotten how an American-based union could come into Canada and use their ‘red baiting’ tactics to raid and destroy a Canadian union which was successfully established in Sudbury.”
To which he added that it was “a dark time for our labour history.”
While union advocate Merle Smith added that “they all fought so hard for the union, they worked so hard to help the downtrodden workers (but) Mine Mill never really had a chance as so much was against them.”
But, some of our readers even took their experiences in the Nickel Belt and used them to shape their own future union work. Pete Bellefeuille said that his “Sudbury experience was the determining influence in my lifelong fight on behalf of workers — I’ve never had any doubts or regrets about the decisions I made supporting unions, the only real organizations fighting on behalf of all workers: Solidarity Forever.”
Well dear readers, we come to the end of this week’s column, and your memories of the Mine Mill-Steel Raids of the early 1960s have shown, as labour history researcher Elizabeth Quinlan wrote, “All these events certainly did — and often still do — prompt great passion and division, even after all these years.” See you again in a couple of weeks for another stroll down Memory Lane.
Jason Marcon is a writer and history enthusiast in Greater Sudbury. He runs the Coniston Historical Group and the Sudbury Then and Now Facebook page. Memory Lane is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.