The Alberta Labour History Institute collects, preserves, and disseminates the stories of Alberta’s working people and their organizations. This website includes full transcripts, podcasts, and profiles of our interviewees. It also includes videos, booklets, themed essays, annual calendars, and a link to a book created by ALHI. To learn more about us, visit About.
Dave Werlin: a life in workers’ struggles
August 18, 1934 – February 6, 2025
“A working class hero is something to be” *
A lifetime in pursuit of social justice for working people, peace, and socialism is a fine thing. Dave Werlin lived that life with enthusiasm and pride. He had endless faith in the capacity of the working class to change the world for the better and relished the many forms such struggles took. His dedication, energy, wit, humour, and firm principles will be missed. One of his great strengths was his simple and uncompromising analysis which demanded that the main question to be asked in any situation was what was in the interests of the workers, or more broadly, what was in the interest of the working class.
Dave was a stalwart life-long trade unionist, who saw the labour movement as the best place to participate in the struggle for an egalitarian, democratic, socialist society. He was also a dedicated member of the Communist Party of Canada, which he saw as the political arm of the working class, from the 1950s until the split in the Canadian party upon the demise of the Soviet Union. He despised the human misery, violence, and corruption created by capitalism.
Dave was, above all, a labour activist. He was proud of his trade union participation and activism first in CUPE Local 37 (Calgary outside workers) and ATU Local 583 (transit drivers) in Calgary in the 1950s, and then in his home local, CUPE 1004 representing Vancouver outside workers. He was secretary/ business agent for Local 1004 where he was later given a life membership. At CUPE regional and national conventions and at both the BC Federation of Labour and Canadian Labour Congress he honed his political analysis, organising, and speaking skills as part of the left action caucuses who educated and mobilised around socialist projects.
*John Lennon
Black History Month
Sound the Battle Cry
With Black History Month here, it is an opportune time to take the temperature of quickly growing Black community which is estimated at over 7.6% of Edmonton’s population. Always a part of the marginalised and integrated working communities, Black workers are understanding all the signs of economic and social attacks on all working people. As they raise their standards and flags high on protest lines, they hum this union song:
Sound the battle cry. See the foe is nigh.
We see 2025 ushered in a new year of increased attacks on working people, with a provincial leadership scurrying south of the border to offer up the province’s mineral, productive and human wealth on a platter. See, the Foe is Nigh. In 2024 they downgraded our standard of healthcare – forcing many to question the basic value of health protection in a vaccine; they attacked our medical professionals across the board, tried to manipulate our CPP, bombarded working marginalized communities with threats, and promoted legislation aimed at crippling workers rights while wages remain stagnant.
See, the foe is nigh.
Swinging the wrecking ball in 2025 at thousands of special education staff and other public sector workers the onslaught continues.
Gird Your Armour on
Stand Firm Everyone
With information pickets and ‘days of action’ population our work places again, as we get ready to rumble, Nurses United remind that current threats and conditions are a return to the 1980s which led them to take strike action in 1988. Black nurses interviewed by ALHI are reminded of the “Klein Cuts” and the consistent attacks on health care. Cecile Sangster-Locker remembers a grocery clerk’s pay being more than her RN wage. The critical role that their solidarity played was essential in winning demands. Beryl Scott, veteran nurse advocate, led the charge on building solidarity. Karen Three-Persons, herself a Residential School survivor and senior nurse, amplified the effects of the cuts on her vulnerable community. Petrochemical workers recently interviewed by ALHI express similar experiences of attacks on health and safety.
Rest Your Cause Upon the Power of Truth
Some are thankful that ALHI, ever present, has recorded so many stories with video clips, of their protests over the years – in healthcare, in education, on university campuses, among industry workers, in Amber Valley, Fort McMurray, meat processing plants, among coalminers, and so many other fronts of struggle.
The knowledge that our recorded history provides reinforces our power and intent to stand firm. While the attacks on labor rights and economic security have intensified, so too has the resolve of workers to fight back. The battle cry has been sounded, and the foe is indeed nigh.
Rouse them Soldiers
Rally Round the Banner
For more interviews from Black Communities in Alberta, click here.