Mable Elmore is a bus driver with local 111 of the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW), an executive member of the Vancouver and District Labour Council, co-chair of the CAW’s Peace and Justice committee and a co-ordinator of Stopwar.ca, Vancouver’s largest anti-war coalition. We sat down with her on the eve of International Women’s Day.

1. To some people on the Left, especially in the era of anti-globalisation politics, there’s a certain stigma attached to organized labour. As someone who works in the unions, what do you tell activists who are suspicious about the union movement?

Activists outside of the union movement? Yeah, I think I’m running into that more and more, and on some parts I think that it’s well-founded, in terms of labour not being progressive or taking a leading role. On the other hand, it’s also up to union activists to correct some of the mistakes. For example, with Stopwar, I think that’s a good model for union activists, to be active in the union movement but also coming into a broader coalition and do work with the community, and make those bridges. So I think that’s the route that union activists have to go. There’s a lot of work we have to do within the union, but we have to make those links with community groups and support community issues outside of workplace issues.

2. Some people in B.C. have looked to experiences such as Operation Solidarity, which they see as an example of the failure of labour to work with community groups. Your experience with Stopwar.ca, which bills itself as a labour-community coalition, would you say that that is a more positive trend?

Well definitely. I won’t go too much into Operation Solidarity, I have a number of opinions on that, but, I’ve been telling activists in the union movement and community groups that I’ve found the structure of Stopwar, and how we’ve been functioning as a good example of how organized labour can work with community groups and a broad spectrum of academics and organizations, working together on common issues.

3. Labour, in this province, in its history, has dealt a lot with international issues. We’ve got all sorts of labour martyrs, like Ginger Goodwin who took a stand on war and imperialism. Is today’s labour movement able to contribute to a fight around international issues?

Well that’s one of the – I think, with Stopwar, what’s been positive personally and within the labour movement is that the leadership of the B.C. Federation of Labour, Jim Sinclair, has given his support, put his whole support behind Stopwar. We’ve also been endorsed by the executive, the BC FED executive, in terms of participating. And we’ve seen that [endorsement] politically, in terms of putting our endorsements out and circulating our flyers but also financially, putting up some financial resources, and also talking about maybe bringing in a structural change to bring that component – international solidarity – to integrate it more into the Federation and into the work.

4. Is the decision of the Canadian Labour Congress to sanction May Day activities this year going to help radicals in the labour movement?

Well we’re really excited about it, right? I mean, May Day and the chance to have a big rally, and the participation of – traditionally, the Vancouver and District Labour Council has always had a May Day rally, but this is the first time that the B.C. Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress, a little bit reluctantly, have agreed to endorse it. So there’s going to be a big call and a big push to mobilize workers. And we’re planning to do some more radical actions as well, bring workers into the street, and so, yeah, I’m excited about it.

5. What kind of reactions have you received -- because you’re a rank-and-file activist -- from your co-workers and your fellow union member in your local to some of the anti-war work that you’ve been doing in the union?

It’s been tough. And I’m in a male-dominated union, we’re ninety per cent men, and a lot of middle-aged brothers and I’m in the minority; I’m an activist, I’m a lesbian of colour, and out in the union, and so it’s kind of hitting all those fronts. And in terms of the anti-war stuff, it’s really been a struggle. We have vocal Zionists in our worksites, and we’ve had to battle them, and – really, I’d characterize it as ‘battles,’ in terms of turning our executive members around, and bringing educationals into our workplace, and being shut out by management, and having to have our workshops outside of the worksite, and facing continual backlash. But the backlash is also a sign of making progress. So that’s how we take that perspective, but, it’s been tough but we’re going to continue to push. We’re signing up more and more members [to the Peace and Justice Committee], and that’s continuing that mobilizing, and that hasn’t been easy.

6. So you’re saying that local 111 is a combative environment. Would you say that the infamous transit strike of a couple of years ago has had any kind of legacy in terms of the way that the union local is operating?

It was a huge transformation in my local and I think in terms of local politics, municipally, it generated, and really was a concrete experience for our rank-and-file members to realize the importance of being involved politically, and the need to engage Translink, because it evolved as a neo-liberal structure. And so our members came up against that, that right-wing core who were trying to privatize transit. So we’ve started a political action committee, of which I’m also the chair, and that’s also a source of backlash, and we take the framework of fighting neo-liberalism and improving public transit. We have the support of the membership on that end, but it’s a continual struggle to educate and mobilize our membership. That’s been a really positive outcome from the strike.

7. In the face of these massive anti-labour onslaught, like the one we’re facing from the government of Gordon Campbell and his B.C. Liberals, should the labour movement moderate its demands, or is now the time to step up the offensive and to rediscover the movement’s radicalism?

You know I talk to different activists in the women’s movement and the labour movement, and we’ve said that we’re under attack in an unprecedented way, you know for the last several years. But it’s also provided the opportunity for labour to go back to our roots, and go back to grassroots organizing. And we’re forced to become more militant, and I guess I would be characterized as a radical, so I think that it’s always the time to strike back and to become more militant. The worsening social conditions also create the objective situations for us. It’s easier to educate our members, it’s easier to mobilize our members. But it’s that continual challenge.

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