Bill Robb

Doug Miller 00:00

Recorded nice voiced lady there, so I usually start with, with asking you to confirm that you’ve read the consent form for the Canadian Anti-Apartheid History Activist History Project, and that you understand that we’re doing this as an educational project, so your story will be publicly available via website and other forms of presentation, and, and so, if you do understand that and agree with it, would you please acknowledge that on live?

Bill Robb 00:35

Yeah, yes, I have read it, and I agree with it. Thanks.

Doug Miller 00:39

No problem. Excellent. Well, Bill Robb, to be very familiar, maybe we could start with you just telling us a bit about your own personal background and whatever led you to an awareness about issues around apartheid, and eventually get involved in union work, and that.

Bill Robb 01:00

Sure I probably started in the 70s, just I was at University of Regina, and it was a haven for progressives and lefties of every description under the sun, and that probably started me off, and then, like you, Doug, I actually had some CUSO experience, and I started working for CUSO in 1978 in the Regina office, and a lot of work around development education, and of course the international end of it as well, and CUSO had a strong program in Southern Africa, and actually I was part of an organizing group that helped unionize CUSO with CUPE, and so immediately we were sort of starting to get into the connection between the NGOs and the unions, which I think was very important, certainly here in the West, and then in 1980 I worked through the 80s at the One Sky Education Center Development Education Center in Saskatoon, and then I spent five years with Saskatchewan International Labor Program from 1989 to 94 before actually becoming a staff person with CUPE, and I played quite a few different roles with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, so you know, part of that focus through that whole time period certainly was South African solidarity work, and the anti-apartheid work, which was common to so many non-governmental organizations, NGOs, and church groups, student groups, labor groups, unions, and so on.

Doug Miller 02:50

Tremendous. Well, that’s great. We have common paths, so amazing that we’ve crossed paths. I can throw out a whole bunch of names, but that’s not the purpose of this entry right now, so, so let’s get back to then where you first ran into the SACTU solidarity committee and had started having relations with them.

Bill Robb 03:12

Well, you know, I think Ken, you were certainly part of that. You came out to the West a number of times, and so I think you were kind of the beginning of it, and it fit into the environment and the political struggles and the development of a movement out here in Saskatchewan, so you know it became part of it, that South African solidarity work.

Ken Luckhardt 03:42

Yeah, Bill, I remember your mention of slip. I think that’s one of the most important things we remember from the SACTU Central Committee back here in Toronto. I call it that. You know, the idea that four unions could get together and work on international issues was quite unique. I mean, elsewhere in the country, we worked with one single union at a time, water workers, coastal workers, etc. etc. CUPE in Ontario, but to have four unions at the table at the same time, each with its own interest, perhaps in Southern Africa, that was a fantastic experience. And I can’t remember when I first met you, but it probably was at one of those meetings.

Bill Robb 04:21

Yes, I think it was, and if I might just spend a couple of minutes talking about how you know Saskatchewan International Labor Program got started, because that became a fundamental base, and at the beginning it was CUSO, Oxfam, Labour Project, and so you know it came out of progressive NGO community, and then it came to involve, like, the unions you’re talking about, so CUPE, Canadian Union of Public Employees, Saskatchewan Government Employees Union, SGU retail Wholesale Department Store Union was, was involved, but not, not on the board, Grains Services Union was on the SILP Board, CUPW, Canadian Union Postal Workers, you know, came on, and they actually had sustaining memberships, so that they made an annual contribution to SILP. We had one full-time staff person, you know, throughout the piece, and really it was quite an accomplishment, because I got to tell you, you know, back near the beginning it was all about helping to build the base and to, you know, connect activists and get stronger.

Just to illustrate this, one of the best activists from SGU in this whole area that I’m describing, you know, he went to their board and asked for a contribution of $100 to Oxfam, and that motion was defeated, and the very next motion was $3,000 for buttons for a campaign, and that passed with no questions. So, I mean, we sort of, you know, I mean, that was that was the beginning of it, and, and really things went a long way from there, and, and I think the other thing I would say about SILP, too, is that is to connect it with, you know, your group in Toronto, but there were so many others throughout the country, labor world in Edmonton, another SAC two solidarity committee, and in Vancouver, trade union group in Vancouver, you know, development education center, Latin American working group, there were a lot of solidarity groups across the country, and quite a lot of networking, which, which made a big difference, actually, you know, to assist each other and, and to coordinate different tours, and so on.

Doug Miller 06:51

It, I find it extremely interesting, given my internationalist perspective, that, that in Saskatchewan, you had such a great impact, you, you really were present with that international solidarity outreach from the union to fellow workers around the world. How do you figure that was so, so prevalent there, and so, so present there in Saskatchewan?

Bill Robb 07:20

Well, I mean, there was a critical mass of activists and progressive people. I mean, that’s one thing. So, organizations like Saskatoon Solidarity Committee were very strong people. You would know Michael Murphy, you know, from Southern Africa. He had come back, and he was working for Oxfam, and you know, there was just a lot of different connections, but I think a big part of it, Doug, was that our approach was this going for solidarity, being mutual aid between forces fighting for the same objectives, the old Samora Michel, the president of Mozambique, a rough translation of his quote, but the idea being that when we were doing our solidarity work, we were also strengthening our own struggle here in Canada, and I think that became quite critical, so that then we would set up a worker to worker type of approach, we would, we started building up union to union approaches, and I can talk, you know, more about that later, you know, if you like, but I think that was that was a big part of it, and also it was an area where we ran into some resistance with workers here too. I would say, you know, why are you working on this? It’s a good idea, you know, to do anti-apartheid work, but really we have our own problems here, and the same kind of conversation came up, you know, when we were doing work, say, around the North American Free Trade Agreement, you know, again, there was this kind of resistance, and so, you know, we had to work on that, and so, for example, the soap shirts that we had made up, and of course this was the time of political t-shirts and buttons, and so on. To let’s not forget that, but you know, the shirt said “Solidarity knows no borders, and another one at that time period that people were using is when they win, we win, and so we had to do a lot of work to talk about the global nature of the struggle, but, and of course, globalization as a more, well, I don’t want to say advanced or developed, but globalization really did take place, and then it became very obvious, or more obvious, that what we were talking about made sense, because the world has become, as you know, extremely interconnected, but so anyway, that you know, that’s some backdrop to all of that.

Doug Miller 09:50

On another interview I did with Mike Murphy, he mentioned that critical mass of very good activists, very busy people who got involved and believed. It’s for such a tiny population of Saskatchewan. It’s a remarkable phenomenon.

Bill Robb 10:08

I know, like, we would have a demonstration, maybe on El Salvador or something like that, March, and with a population of 200,000 or whatever Saskatoon at that time, we’d get over 1000 people out for it, I mean, you know, it’d be hard to get over 1000 people out to a march right now, although you know it’s minus 24 today, so it’s hard to get 10 people out.

Doug Miller 10:31

Minus 24 Well, yeah, we just had a plus 23 only two days ago, here in Montreal.

Bill Robb 10:42

Your softies out there,

Doug Miller 10:44

Yeah, softies. So Ken and Jane can help us out here, because you had the sector solidarity committee, speak.

Ken Luckhardt 10:54

There are a couple of people who come to my mind that I just wanted, for the record, get on the tape, Brian Corpion in Saskatoon, very much involved in the early days of that struggle, and then, of course, lost his life, unfortunately, in Africa. I believe one person want to ask you about Bill, and I had lost all touch with him, Laurie Thompson, who was a Cupid activist in the hospital sector. Whatever happened, is he remained active.

Bill Robb 11:22

Yes, Laurie did, and he was an incredible leader, that’s for sure. And he ended up working within healthcare sector later on, but absolutely he remained active and remains in Saskatoon to this day. The Saskatoon Solidarity Committee that he and Michael and Brian and myself and many other people were involved in actually did a study and put out with what at the time was a very controversial pamphlet called CLC Partners in Imperialism, and you know that would, and Lori did some of the lifting on that.

Ken Luckhardt 12:05

That’s good

Bill Robb 12:07

For sure and you know, I think it’s only fair to bring up that you know a lot of the Labor Solidarity work was done in spite of the Canadian Labor Congress, and with, in fact, the active resistance of it, you know, if you go back into the early 80s and the 70s, not I don’t know about the rest of the country, I wouldn’t be qualified to comment on that, but that did change, but I mean, there was a time when, you know, the Sketch International Labor Program was not allowed to have an information table at the Saskatchewan Federer Federation of Labor Convention. I mean, the resistance was, was like that, and you know, part of the CLC was, was that they felt that union affiliates should basically do business unionism and support the NDP. That was the two-pronged strategy from the CLC point of view at that time, and that anything to do with international solidarity or the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, ICFT, or anything that was the purview of the Canadian Labor Congress, and affiliates should not be getting into it, and certainly mucky groups like SILP and the SAC-2 Solidarity committee shouldn’t be involved either, and so there was a, you know, kind of an active resistance, but happily, I mean, I can say that we collectively won the deal on that, and if you look at union affiliates in this country, I mean, they developed strong international solidarity programs, and I think that we all played a part in that, but you know, they formed committees, global justice funds, or solid international solidarity funds. I mean, you look at steel workers, the old Canadian auto workers, CUPE, a number of unions, and it became actually embedded in the union affiliates, which for me anyway was certainly one of my objectives in it was to integrate it right into the unions, and I really feel like collectively in the kind across the country we had a lot of success in that, and I’m very proud of that, for you know, and it was so many people, and so many groups involved in it, but I think we did a, we did a good job, you know,

Doug Miller 14:27

I’m interested in the, in the paper that you say you wrote about CLC, Agent of Imperialism, that can you come up with, can you give us any other actions that you would have been doing to promote the anti-apartheid struggle out of your.. I’m missing the initial Saskatchewan International Labor Project, SILP. Is that right?

Bill Robb 14:52

Yeah, you’ve almost got it, but program, not project,

Doug Miller 14:55

Program. Okay.

Bill Robb 14:56

At the end, I know everybody always did that. Well, you know. I think a lot of it helped when Bafo Bafo Nyango came on with SACTU in Canada, and he was out of, based out of Toronto, and I’m sure you would have worked with him, but he came out a lot to Saskatchewan, and so I would say a big part of it was like the worker to worker, part of it, Doug, where you know people are meeting each other, and, and so Bafo, Sticks, as he was known, and, of course, later became Ben Gumsey Sofungo, but that’s another story.

Anyway, you know, he would come to labor schools, conventions, and so on, and like when I was recalling the business at the Saskatchewan Federation of Labor, for example, he spoke at what we call solidarity luncheons many times, and we would have this luncheon, and the powers that be didn’t really appreciate that, because a lot of the members would get 80 or 100 or more members coming to our luncheon with featuring people like Sticks, and it was, you know, again building that that whole movement. So there was a lot of direct contact.

The other thing is that CUPE, for example, became sister unions with National Education, Health, and Allied Workers Union, NEHAW, which was one of the union affiliates of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, COSATU. Anyway, so that happened early on, probably mid 80s, I guess, and that was around the time that we set up our own Global Justice Committee nationally within CUPE, and so we had many tours of, you know, comrades from NEHAW and then later on from others, later on, in fact, CUPE twinned with South African municipal workers, SAMU of South Africa, and did some interesting, you know, projects with them, but you know, people really, our workers, our members, really responded, and to that direct contact.

I would say that, you know, when I look back on it, I think that was one of the key things was developing that relationship, and it always helped you when we would have people coming in that they, you know, if it was someone from the Postal Workers Union, for example, if we could do a workplace tour with members of CUPW in the post offices, that’s where you know the magic happened when you actually had similar unions and the workers together, because believe me, there was a lot in common, even though there was incredible differences, obviously, with the struggle against apartheid.

Ken Luckhardt 17:51

Bill, we appreciate you raising this question of Cold War politics, because every interview we’ve done that comes up in one fashion or another, Bickerton with the postal workers, Schniad with TW in Vancouver. One person after another, after another, has made reference to the struggle we all had, scaled C in those days. So we appreciate that. And you might want to go at some point watch the thing that kicked this whole project off. The Toronto Workers History Project did an hour and a half interview with all of us who were involved in the sector work in Toronto, and that focuses also on the Cold War politics of the day. So we appreciate anyone who mentioned that, because that was our daily life.

Bill Robb 18:31

It was part of the reality we were struggling through, that’s for sure.

Doug Miller 18:37

Ken, I’m interested as well, Bill. The obviously times have changed and things have evolved, but what about connections with the struggle for gender rights and for indigenous rights and environmental, for that matter? Was there any connection with the kind of work you were doing that also brought these elements in, or brought them up. Were there any linkages, for instance, between the people from South Africa and the native people, and their, the indigenous people in their particular struggles, and even the history of South Africa being involved learning about the reservation system.

Bill Robb 19:18

Sure. Well, that’s a big question, but I’ll break it down a little bit. Yes, there were connections, and I would say some of them played out through CUSO and Oxfam, which, as I mentioned earlier, were part of part of our program, and so that there again, while there were differences between the struggles of First Nations and Metis associations, etc. and South Africa. There were a lot of similarities, that’s for sure. So, some of that work was there, and again, it happened more through other organizations than SILP directly, because again. We had, we tried to keep a laser focus as much as we could with limited resources on the union aspect of it, but we did support that, that work also.

I would say, like, around the gender issue you bring up, like, in, I would say it was around, and I do want to talk about this before we’re done, too. The solidarity mission program that we set up, but around that time of 1990 women in Africa, South Africa, were making 1/3 the wage on average as South African men, and in Canada, I’m not sure what the numbers were, but they weren’t great either, and so there was a whole pay equity issue that was really in common. And another project that CUPE did with SAMU, with Municipal Workers Union, I think was really interesting and pretty important, where they sponsored and got involved with an analysis of the effects of privatization on women, specifically, because while some of it was across the board, the effects of privatization on everybody in the society, it was found that, in actual fact, the there was more significant, more serious negative impacts on women through the privatization of public services, and so on. So that was that was a great project. So we were, you know, working, trying to integrate these things into the program whenever possible, and but ideally, like the last example was when the two unions were doing it together with support, so I think you know that was very good.

Ken Luckhardt 21:51

One more name, if I may. One of my most memorable trips to the West in your group was when Fiona Bishop did his major Ron Bourgeault, who was the indigenous leader, student at that time, I guess, who had made the connection between the creation of apartheid and the Indian Act and the reservation system in Canada. That, to me, was a very important part of our understanding of making some of those international links, and we’ve even included some of that information in this project that we’re working on here by making sure we included Ron’s research in that. Did you work with him at all?

Bill Robb 22:31

I didn’t. I knew of him, didn’t work directly with him, but definitely. Yeah, he, he was an activist of great renown here, for sure, and you know the connections I think were a little bit stronger with the Metis Nation of Saskatchewan than they were with First Nations, and that’s just the way it was. I mean, there was outreach in both cases, but I think that for whatever reasons it was a stronger connection. So, for example, CUPE developed a pretty strong relationship with Metis Nation of Saskatchewan over the years, and we did quite a bit of programming with them, and also strengthening the committees within QB at the same time, and our education work with our members. So, I mean, there were a lot of connections. There was some work done with the First Nations, but I think they preferred to kind of concentrate on their own focus, and I respect that.

Ken Luckhardt 23:50

And they were also being divided by South Africa, as I remember the regime would try to get indigenous leaders to go from Saskatchewan to South Africa to be part of a, you know, the parade of people would come back and dismiss what all of us were trying to do, that was certainly part of the Saskatchewan native politics in those days.

Bill Robb 24:10

Yeah, and the other thing to recall, and you know, I was thinking about this in advance of this interview, but there was a lot of work being done on the shell boycott at that time. Also, there was a huge push for full sanctions by the Canadian government on South Africa, full and comprehensive sanctions, and so these were part of the political program as well, you know, within the union movement, but it was, it was really cut across society, and there’s no question that there were, I know we had we had one journalist in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix who, who was about as blatantly pro-apartheid as you could get, and still actually write and get it published, you know. So, I mean, and he also had went on to have a radio talk show.

So I mean there was a lot of give and take debate on the left, like should someone from the apartheid regime be given a place at an event to speak, for example, should that be free speech or is that person a fascist and a racist who shouldn’t have a voice at that, so I mean, you know, these were questions, Dan. And I’ll tell you what, if you look south of us right now, at the minute, the midterm elections tonight, boy, the questions of fascism are becoming very serious again, not just there but everywhere.

Doug Miller 25:40

Absolutely.

Jane Armstrong 25:45

Just referencing some of the points that you raised earlier. Michael Murphy’s thesis that was published or completed in 1985 from U of S investigating the ties between foreign affairs, the CLC, International Affairs Department, the funding, John Harker, etc. really is a seminal piece of work that I think very few are aware of. I’m hoping to some degree through our project and the work we’re doing, that some of this work that sort of has been sitting collecting dust gets raised to a higher level, even in the bibliography that we’ve been working on over the last couple of years, trying to find every book, article, paper reference to the SAC to Solidarity Committee, and the work we were doing. I think I only found out of all the academic references one, possibly two, that even mentioned Michael Murphy’s thesis, and yet so many of the academics in the little bit that’s been published don’t know and misinterpret a lot of what the CLC was doing because their research is thin on the trade union movement, so we’re hoping that some of this work, and the, this yours is the 20th interview we’ve done in the oral history span, which Library and Archives Canada are extremely interested in.

It will help unearth the solidarity that happened and the struggles that happened within the labor movement, and you’re absolutely right, many others have talked about how the struggles that we were part of in the 1980s in the labor movement for both anti-apartheid work, but also Central America, that the pushback, particularly that was singularly visible at the 1986 CLC convention, when we defeated the international affairs paper, then after that, what you’re talking about the whole shift of unions now taking responsibility for international affairs just gained momentum, and the CLC never had the credibility after that to the same degree, because it was shown to be so anti-communist, Cold War, all that kind of thing, but do you also recall, was Lindsay Pickett from CAW active in Saskatoon during that time as well?

Bill Robb 28:54

Yes, yeah, Lindsay was quite active, very progressive.

Jane Armstrong 28:58

Okay, okay, I knew him from high school in Regina.

Bill Robb 29:03

I’m not sure, but I think Lindsay might have ended up in Vancouver.

Jane Armstrong 29:09

He was a couple years behind me, but he came out of the Canadian Airline Employees Association that I was part of in the early 80s, before we moved, merged with CAW, but

Bill Robb 29:25

Things really improved when Bob White became president of the CLC, compared to the previous regimes, in my opinion.

Jane Armstrong 29:32

Yes, Harker was more or less fired or resigned, I can’t remember exactly which, but that whole era shifted dramatically, yes. Yeah

Doug Miller 29:43

Dennis McDermott crew.

Doug Miller 29:48

I was interested in your union unionization activities with CUSO, because I had been promoting that, but from a far afield in a single office, you’re not able to organize all that well, and I suspect Steve Seaborn was part of that when he got back to Canada as well, and I think that was an important evolution in NGO union relations, because then we started seeing the unions getting the solidarity funds going, and their sort of solidarity for more organized, I thought after that kind of thing occurred.

Bill Robb 30:26

That’s right. Steve Seaborn was part of the organizing committee, Walter Davis, Paul Graham, Lily Massan, a number of people in Canada. It was a little easier to connect, like you say, because you know, I don’t think they really had an internet back in those days, so I’ll write you a letter, you’ll receive it two weeks from now. Think about it for a week, so luckily two weeks later I’ll receive your letter.

Ken Luckhardt 30:56

How’s your Gestetner machine working?

Bill Robb 30:58

I hated those damn things.

Doug Miller 31:02

Oh my, do I got some filthy –

Bill Robb 31:03

I know that’s it’s funny to think back to that. Yeah, the photocopier was a wonderful thing.

Ken Luckhardt 31:09

Now you were involved with Briar Patch as well, weren’t you, Bill?

Bill Robb 31:13

Uh, yeah, you know, I wrote some articles for them, supported them, and so on, but I was never actually on the board, but yeah, I mean, they were a big part of the progressive culture, they’re still going, which is pretty impressive to me after all these years.

Doug Miller 31:30

Well, they were big. What happened to SILP in the end?

Bill Robb 31:35

Well, the SILP funding base was, was, as I mentioned, some money from CUSO and Oxfam and from the three unions, and then we also got money through the Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation, SCIC, which was the provincial umbrella group for all the international NGOs, and that money was originally from the provincial government, and then, as one SCIC president said, at one point, we, we really have to come up with a better model than having the state fund the revolution, which I always laughed and remembered thinking about that, because sure enough, then eventually the that funding was cut off by the Conservatives, and so we lost that part of the funding base, but we still have money coming in from the Development Education Program through CIDA, Canadian International Development Agency, and then eventually that that dropped off too.

Now I stopped working with SILP and moved over to QP in 94. I think that SILP went on for probably another four or five years, so you know it made it over 20 years, probably 25 years, which was pretty good, and then it just folded because of lack of funding support, also, I think, like I mentioned earlier, I think that part of the mission was completed, you know, in the sense that that the work was embedded in a number of the unions, and so it continued on, so it wasn’t like the work stopped, but the organization stopped, and I think that happened to a number of organizations. I know the One Sky Development Education Center made 25 plus years, but then it also folded eventually.

Doug Miller 33:35

But so, and in your view, how do you see the state of affairs in international solidarity today?

Bill Robb 33:43

Well, I’m not quite as connected as I was, but I’ve been retired now for four years. But I do feel like it’s, it’s a normal part and an important part of Canadian unions right now, and I know just the union. I know the best, of course, is QPU. I worked for almost 25 years. You know, like there’s an international solidarity forum at every national convention, there’s a global justice committee, there’s always international speakers, you know, there’s still support for sister union relationships, and there’s active involvement, and it’s, you know, it’s an integrated part of the union. So I feel like, like it is going forward. I mean, we’re so connected right now in the world as we talked about earlier, that it, I’m sure, it will, will continue, I have no doubt about that, and be an important part moving forward, so I feel it’s pretty strong.

Ken Luckhardt 34:58

When I’m 16 years retired, night for. Sitting from my position, I would say that CUPE is one of the leading unions now in terms of international work, as you know. Questions like college sign, which most unions aren’t touching, postal workers, of course, always are always there. So workers, QP, public sector initiatives, I, that’s where I see it from my retirement city,

Bill Robb 35:22

Could I take a couple of minutes and talk about that one program that I mentioned?

Doug Miller 35:31

Oh, yes, please, please.

Bill Robb 35:32

So, I think it’s a good example of, you know, how things had evolved through the work of these various different activists in the West and Saskatchewan, particularly, but in 1988 I had pieced together five different funders and got to Southern Africa for seven weeks, and I was in Lusaka, where you were based, for a while there, too, Doug, and met with at that point, that was where the African National Congress had their headquarters outside of South Africa. They were still banned, and I met with six people from SACTU, South African Congress of Trade Unions, you know, in Lusaka, and you know we talked about the possibility, and just to back up a little bit, they did talk about how integrated they were with the developing Cosatu, Congress of South African Trade Unions, which you know, I think that was part of that Cold War business too, trying to create a split between SACTU and COSATU, and you know all of that.

But my direct experience was that they were all working together and they saw a role anyway at that point they did say to me in the meeting that they felt that there was a possible, you know, that they would look favorably on a tour with their involvement, SACTU and Cosatu, and that was 88 and by 1990 we actually did do that, and so we called it the Solidarity Mission with Southern Africa, and so it involved was just going to be a Saskatchewan program, and then it expanded.

Grain Services Union had a longstanding linkage with Union Cyan in Mozambique, so that was built into it, so one of their activist leaders from Manitoba joined in, as well as a key staff person, Walter Eberly from Saskatchewan, and then we had CUPE, we had Saskatchewan Government Employees Union involved, including Fiona Bishop, who worked for them, but also Don Veron, who was a member. We had several different QP members, including a Metis activist who worked at the West Side Community Clinic in Saskatoon, was part of that, going back to your other connection that you were talking about, and Susan Stout, you folks would know her from Vancouver, I believe she was part of a SAC two kind of solidarity committee there too, and CAW was involved, Kevin Flaherty from Labor World in Edmonton, CUPE member, and also running that solidarity program, and Barb Byers, who at this point in time was the president of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labor, was part of it, and it was done with SAC to direct involvement with Bafo Nyango, Sticks as we called him.

And of course by this time the Federation had changed completely with Barb’s very progressive came out of SGU, and then I mean it was just like night and day, you know, was so perfect to have that kind of support from the Fed, and so we all got involved in this, and we spent almost a year before going over there, developing the program, doing orientation sessions, people consulting with their unions. We went over the main group for 25 days, most of which was in South Africa. Apartheid was still on then, and Sticks only got thrown in jail twice on the tour, so it wasn’t too bad. Once in South Africa, and once in London, on the way over, you know, which, so it was stressful, you know. And then, but also we had time in Zimbabwe, meeting the unions there, and women’s groups there, and so on. And then half the group went to Namibia, which I was part of, and half went to Mozambique.

We met up in, in South Africa, but you know, part of the program had been sabotaged a bit by the CLC, by the way. And this is 1990 and so we had to regroup the program, which we did in South Africa. And then, you know, we came back. It was a pretty incredible experience. Sure, for everybody, and then we did. We continued to operate as a group for over a year, doing follow-up work to it, and I think that was, you know, pretty phenomenal, because, you know, some tours by necessity, or design, or both, I suppose. Sometimes, you know, would be a day of orientation, the unionists would go, they’d come back, do a report or two, and maybe that was more or less it, but we did a reciprocal tour. We had a fellow from the President of Patois Postal Workers and others in South Africa, as well as Stephen Sandiazi, that was Mangisi Kangwani and Steven Sandiazi from Food and Allied Workers Union, so they came over, and so we were able to meet different, have them meet different types of workers.

So this is after our return, and so you know it became quite a, quite a large program, and I think that that really helped. That wouldn’t have been possible 10 years before, like that, we just couldn’t have, couldn’t have, couldn’t have done that, but so we actually had a Zoom meeting, all the participants of that 30th anniversary tour, so that was pretty cool, although in person would have been, you know, a lot better, but, but you know, so I think it’s a sign of, of how things had evolved and gotten stronger from a program basis, and so it’s good to look back on these things and to remember them, but you know, again, it was just so important, the impact of having people here.

And I know that you folks in Toronto helped out a lot, and many others from head offices of unions, but you know when you’d have a speaker come into a convention, say CUPE Provincial Convention in Saskatchewan, or Federation of Labor Convention, or CLC conventions, for that matter, like it created an impact on a lot of people. I mean, that was very direct, and then people would talk with them. A lot of things happened after the speech was over, and maybe there were forums, and so on, and workers here, and union members were very generally speaking really receptive to that, and I think that over time, and continuing to build that, those relationships were possible, and just the exposure, I think it really made a big difference, and you break down other things, maybe some racist attitudes, for example, which we’re all, you know, we grow up in an imperfect world, so everybody has to struggle with these things, and I think that a lot of those things got broken down. It was an interesting time, that’s for sure.

Ken Luckhardt 42:54

Why aren’t you, and Fiona, and Susan Stout, and others put that in writing? I know they have photographs. I know that with Susan, there’d be a lot of photographs with pianographs as well, but you can build together a nice little booklet of that.

Doug Miller 43:08

The role, the roll call of militant activist progressive people that you went through, just setting that up is very, very impressive, and you can see also the pedagogy behind it, you’re without ever going to teacher college, you’re way ahead of the pedagogues in terms of getting a learning experience going, you know.

Bill Robb 43:30

Well, it was incredible. And then, you know, again, I think it really helped to have that solidarity perspective that we wanted to build a movement here and support the building of the movement there and make those connections, and as much as possible, worker to worker, and ideally union to union. Yeah, so I think a lot of that did happen. I’m trying to locate the SILP files right now. Some of them are in the Saskatchewan archives, and maybe we can create a link through that, and some of them are in a box somewhere in Regina, so, but I do recall Ken, that we did a very lengthy report on this, which unfortunately my NGO training got me going with evaluations and funding submission programs and reports, there’s there is a long report. I don’t have to have a copy with me now, but I for sure want to deposit that with the work that you folks are doing, and there would be a lot of information in there, and it’s heartwarming to hear you taught you guys talking about some of the people you know that were active here, and it kind of illustrates just what a national movement it really was, even though we didn’t have a huge number of resources, actually.

Doug Miller 44:53

No, no, absolutely, and some fairly heavy opposition, you talked about perhaps in the unions, but. You know, we were talking about big business and military banks. We were up against a formidable enemy, I call him that.

Doug Miller 45:09

Yes, that’s for sure.

Doug Miller 45:13

Magisterial. What a wonderful presentation, Bill. Thank you so much. And you’re more than well. Anybody else another last comment or question.

Ken Luckhardt 45:24

I just echo your thoughts there, Doug, and thanks so much, Bill. It’s great to reconnect with you and also, each interview begs a new interview, so could you send Doug or myself or Jane a contact for Lori Thompson if you have it?

Bill Robb 45:39

Yes, I will.

Ken Luckhardt 45:40

Contribution to this sector work, especially in Saskatoon, would be really important for us to capture. He was really helpful,

Doug Miller 45:49

And on that score of preempter Jane by saying we have already made one deposit to Library and Archives Canada last year, November, December, I think it was, and we’re doing another one early December this year. We intend to continue this work for another year at least, and so there’s time to pull these things together. And by submitting our submissions as package under sectors name, it stays in one reference file, it doesn’t get scattered out by the different names that might be involved. So we’re hoping to continue this, and I thank you again for your efforts on that front.

Bill Robb 46:27

Well, I’d like to thank you all, and again, just say how much I appreciate the work you’re doing. It’s probably pretty ambitious, to say the very least, but to kind of create these, these records of all these experiences and the struggles that we had, and the successes and victories that we had. It’s so important. So, five stars, way to go.

Ken Luckhardt 46:52

Brian Mulroney was not responsible for the defeat of apartheid.

Bill Robb 46:59

That is true.

Doug Miller 47:01

Okay, if everybody’s okay with that, I’m going to turn the recorder off at this point, and the experiences being that we always say some of the best stuff after it’s off.