Victoria delegates traveled to Calgary in March for the BCFL convention, (56) which Joe Taylor chaired, and the Western Labor Conference, where the OBU idea was given organizational cohesion.
Victoria's Times described the OBU's birth as "one of the most momentous things to have happened in the annals of the labor movement in Canada." But amid the visionary statements and vigorous applause, Victoria's Joe Taylor, elected BCFL vice-president, provided a sober voice of reason:
When delegate Laundry reported on the Calgary proceedings, the VTLC voted 26-5 to approve the aims of the BCFL convention and Western Labor Conference.
On 30 June, six plainclothes RNWMP officers raided the Victoria homes of BCFL vice-president Joe Taylor and VTLC president Eugene Woodward, and targeted the local headquarters of the SPC, striking longshoremen's union, and labour's Semi-Weekly Tribune, seizing a quantity of paper work.
craft union system." The OBU-controlled BCFL, however, was livid over the constitutional amendments and increased executive powers, informing the VLTC that it had "severed its connection with the Congress and returned its charter." (159)
As the OBU approached its first birthday, AFL leaders dispensed with any pretense of unity, abandoning the cause of the Winnipeg strike leaders and writing off the BCFL. The VTLC filed unread a request from the BC Defense Committee for funds to aid in Bob Russell's appeal to the Privy Council.
Instead, the BCFL executive pursued a strategy centred around preparing to reelect the NDP in the provincial election fixed by law for 2005.
At its meeting soon after the bill's passage, the PE decided to keep HEU picket lines (dubbed "protest lines" now that the strike was illegal) up, call for other unions and community groups to join them, arrange an emergency meeting with BCFL leaders, ask for May Day rallies to support HEU lines, and develop a political action plan to defeat the provincial Liberals.
(55) The PE met again late Thursday evening, with BCFL officials present; the PE later decided that "to return to work with dignity, HEU's priority would be a return of our no contracting out language." (56)
Acting on requests from BCFMWU members, CSC flying squads caused the cancellation of early morning ferry sailings before both HEU and BCFL leaders, apparently fearful of the consequences of this economic disruption, ordered the pickets to fold.
The Minister of Labour held a private meeting with several top HEU and BCFL officials.