Item AAAB0250 - Ruth Bullock interview : [Diamond, 1979]

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Ruth Bullock : women in the C.C.F. and workforce, 1935-1950 RECORDED: Vancouver (B.C.), 1979-07-25 SUMMARY: Ruth Bullock grew up in Beaton, B.C. She attended school until the age of 10 and a half, when her father was killed in a mining explosion, leaving her mother as the single support of five small children. The family later moved to a sheep ranch on Saltspring Island. At 17, she left the farm and became a domestic in Hatzic for $15 a month. Later, she moved to another farm for $20 a month. There were no unions for domestics and they were not protected by government legislation. She first married in 1929 and soon had a daughter. Ruth grew up in the radical Scots tradition, first becoming interested in birth control after her daughter's birth and difficult delivery. She joined the newly formed C.C.F. in 1932-33, where she met Vivian Dowding of the Parent's Information Service. At this time, unions were very weak. The Spanish Civil War further radicalized her and she helped to support the struggles of the unemployed and the Longshore Strike. She later left her husband. In 1944 she became interested in the Trotskyists, disagreeing with the Labour Progressive Party's no-strike policy in the war industries. She worked in a canning factory where the workers resisted speed-ups and the distribution of poor quality food to the rank and file soldiers and high quality food to the officers. She was a member of the I.W.A. Women's Auxiliary, and assisted in organizing clerical workers at Burrard; Drydocks in the 1950s.