Page 11 - William H. "Bull" Marah - Still Fighting

ISSUE : Issue 72

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1997/6/1

had no problem with any of them. Common sense. Know when you're ahead. You've got to have guts. You've got to have guts, or you're in trouble.... Oh, you take--we'd be negotiating a con? tract. To me, it was like a roast on the ta? ble. Everybody wants a bite. You can't get the whole roast in one bite. Our men used to want the whole roast in one bite! Laughs. Harold Gordon was a stubborn, stubborn, stubborn, stubborn, gutty son-of-a-gun, you know!... Fight with him and fought with him. But I had a lot of respect for him. To me--I'm an Irishman. I can fight with you--when I'm representing men--that's my job. I'll fight. I'll fight all I have to fight. That's my job. But there's nothing personal in it. I don't know whether I can describe that to you or not. It was like a ball game. I used to catch senior baseball. You were coming into the plate, you had to kill me to get through. I had it blocked.... Many's the time I ar? rived ingloriously over against the bandstand! Some big s.o.b. coming in, and he'd hit you dead on. And away you went. Before I was ever president of the district, or before I ever went president of the local--when I was nothing,eh?--we flattened the whole district. (What does that mean--flattened? ) An illegal wildcat strike. We had 10,000 out. And we stopped all the fans and stopped all the pumps. We were flooding the pits. We were doing everything. (Your union leaders didn't take you out.) Oh no, no, no. They were trying to get us back! (Who was your president then?) Freeman Jenkins. That was 1950. I was working in the pit then, in 16. I had two kids--wife and I. Trying to get along--trying to pay for--I never even had a car. Just trying to pay for a house. And every time I'd go to work, somebody would tie the pit up. (One person?) Or a bunch, or something. You'd have an illegal wildcat strike. And I was watching this going, and I'm get? ting fed up with it. (In other words, when you'd go to work in your place, there was no work for you, because of a wildcat strike.) Yeah, we'd go home. (But) you'd see all the roadmakers'd be going down and onnie prince & Flora's Grill The Home of Scottish Hospitality 50ReevesSt. -'_ iciA SYDNEY 5o7-151U 'Cape Breton's Pub" DOWNTOWN SYDNEY 456 CHARLOHE STREET Great Stuff! f ...to see do & enjoy at the Nova Scotia Museum 'Folhya: '.'''' I the Key 'ft(''~'M . Museum of Natural History Maritime Museum of the Atlantic Ross Farm Museum Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic Wile Carding Mill Perkins House Ross-Thomson House and Store The Dory Shop 9 Barrington Woolen Mill 10 Old Meeting House 11 Firefighters' Museum 12 North Hills Museum 13 Prescott House 14 Haliburton House 15 Shand House 16 Uniacke Estate Museum Park 17 Lawrence House 18 Fundy Geological Museum 19 Balmoral Grist Mill 20 Sutherland Steam Mill 21 McCuUoch House 22 Museum of Industry 23 Gossit House 24 Sherbrooke Village 25 Fisherman's Life Museum NOVA SCOTIA MUSEUM A FAMILY of 2' MUSEUMS Browse and shop at in most locations 11

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