Labour history levelled

(February 18) - I was driving down Dawson Road a couple of weeks ago. Lynne and I were going to Rona to see what they had in the way of kitchen counters. Suddenly she let out a shout somewhere between a question mark and an exclamation point. The Steelworkers Hall is gone, she said. I looked over and, sure enough, there it wasn’t.

The sight was more of a shock than a surprise. There had been lots of warning that the building would be torn down. Even when you see something like this coming, it is still a slap when it arrives. It hasn’t been the St e e l w o rk e r s Hall for 10 years, but I’m the sort who still refers to the Olde Quebec Street Mall as "the old Eaton’s Centre". As we all know, that’s just down the street from where the Red Barn used to be.

The Steelworkers was a huge part of the lives of a huge number of Guelph workers. Good things happened there.

The three meeting halls held union meetings, labour council meetings, NDP meetings. Thirty years ago, the large hall saw more wedding receptions than just about any other place in town. It held scores of contract ratification meetings. There was a time when it was fashionable for unions to hold annual dinner dances for their members. The Steelworkers was the place to have them. The NDP riding association held annual fundraising banquets in the large hall.

In the early ’70s I was recording secretary and then president of CUPE Local 1334, representing maintenance and custodial workers at the university. We belonged to the Guelph Labour Council, and the monthly meetings were in the middle room. It wasn’t unusual to get as many as 50 delegates at a meeting. Issues important to the labour movement were hotly debated. Then, on adjournment, we’d go through to the club room and unwind.

The bar was the home of the Royal City Labour Association. If you held a union card, you could join. If you joined, you could get in and enjoy cheap beer and good company. If you weren’t a member, you could be signed in by someone who was.

Every Saturday afternoon it was taken over by a dart league. The atmosphere was friendly, the darts were competitive. Double in and double out was the order of the day.

Union halls are neither salamander nor silver maple. We don’t go all bleary-eyed at the prospect that one day they too will become extinct. I think there is only one left in Guelph, the CAW hall on Silvercreek. It is in a 19th-century schoolhouse and is protected from demolition. The building envelope that held the Steelworkers Hall was not deemed to be “architecturally significant.”

Its importance was as a cultural and historic landmark. It contained the legacy of old union leaders, people like Charlie Pinson and Joe Mezey. They, and others like them, lifted working families into the financial middle class. They built their halls not just for themselves, but for their neighbours. Unions are the quintessential community organizations. They have always been vehicles of social progress, lifting standards not just for their members but for all who work for wages. The halls were their way of engaging with the communities from which they grew.

Unions may be an endangered species these days, but they cannot become extinct. Like salamanders, they can regenerate lost limbs. They will march again as we emerge from this recession with lower wages, fewer benefits and greater insecurity.

Meanwhile, the Steelworkers Hall is gone for good. It won’t be forgotten. It will be missed.