• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About Your Union
    • CCFA Executive
    • Committees
    • Policies
    • Careers
  • Collective Agreements
  • News
    • Calendar
    • Confluence Blog (Newsletter)
      • Academia & Education
      • Arts & Leisure
      • By Members
      • Committees
      • Community
      • Equity & Social Justice
      • From the President
      • Indigenization
      • Labour Relations
      • Workshops & Infosessions
      • The Confluence Newsletter Archives
  • Resources
  • Contact

Ginger Goodwin Was Murdered & Why You Should Care

June 2, 2022 by CCFAASC Leave a Comment

Ginger Goodwin

Contributed by J. Hunt: If you have driven up island to the Comox Valley area, you will likely have noticed the “Ginger Goodwin Way” signs on a stretch of the Island Highway. Although you may have heard of Ginger Goodwin as a B.C. labour activist, you may not know many details about his life.

Albert Goodwin, commonly known as “Ginger” for his red hair, was born in a coal-mining town in Yorkshire, England in 1886 but migrated to Canada in 1906 to work in the coal mines of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. After a few years there, he moved across the continent to Vancouver Island where he was employed by the Canadian Collieries Mining Company as a coal miner in Cumberland in 1910.

Goodwin’s Way

Conditions in the mines were terrible at the time, as the health and safety of workers were largely disregarded. Gas explosions and other safety issues caused hundreds of deaths. This incited Goodwin to become a labour activist to fight for better conditions and higher wages. He was actively involved in the 1912-1914 Vancouver Island coal strike, which started in Cumberland to protest dangerous working conditions and lack of union recognition, eventually spreading to other mines on the island. The strike came to an end in part due to the advent of WWI.

After the strike, Goodwin was blacklisted from working in the coal mines, so he moved to Trail to work in the smelter there instead. He continued his work as a labour activist, becoming vice-president of the BC Federation of Labour and running for political office. He also organized a strike in 1917 to try and establish an eight-hour work day for the smelter workers. Most likely due to this activism, Goodwin was deemed fit for military duty only eight days after the strike ended, despite earlier being turned down for conscription due to health issues. It seems that the government had sided with the smelter company.

As a conscientious objector, Goodwin fled back to the Cumberland area to avoid going to war. He and other draft dodgers lived in the forests near Cumberland, and helped by local farmers, managed to survive for several months. However, on July 27, 1918, at the age of 31, he was hunted down and shot in the head by Dan Campbell, a constable in a special force to capture men evading conscription. Although Campbell declared the killing to be in self defence, there were no witnesses, and his story was widely questioned. In fact, anger about Goodwin’s killing incited the 24-hour Vancouver General Strike on August 2, the first general strike in Canada.

In 1996, the B.C. NDP government dedicated a 12-kilometre portion of the highway near Cumberland to Ginger Goodwin, erecting signs which were removed only five years later by the provincial Liberal government. Back in power in 2018, the NDP government replaced the signs and on the centenary of Goodwin’s death, named July 27th Ginger Goodwin Day to recognize his important work in the labour movement.

Sources and Further Information on Ginger Goodwin:

Dictionary of Canadian Biography; “Goodwin’s Way” Documentary; Miners’ Memorial;  Wikipedia (Images)

Goodwin’s Way – Full Documentary [2016]

33rd Miners Memorial Weekend and Ginger Goodwin Commemoration 2018

The Shooting of Ginger Goodwin

Want to submit your own blog post on the CCFA website?

The Confluence Blog is for members, by members. Your colleagues are interested in what you have to say! Contact us or send your article in by College Email. New blog posts can be published daily, accounting for staff availability. Feel free to include images licensed through Creative Commons, that you personally own rights to, or other royalty free open resource images.

Related

Filed Under: Arts & Leisure, By Members, Confluence Blog (Newsletter)

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Professional Development Funding

  • How to submit an application?
  • When is the next PD Committee Meeting?

Search

Sign Up for Announcements

Collective Agreements

  • FPSE Common Collective Agreement
  • CCFA Local Collective Agreement

President

Lynelle Yutani
ac.ytlucafnusomac@tnediserp

Young Building Y222
Phone: 250-370-3594

Administration & Operations

Peg Ford
Laurence Toffoletto

ac.ytlucafnusomac@afcc

Office Hours:
Young Building Y221 / Monday- Friday
8:30am – 3.30pm
Phone: 250-370-3655  

Footer

About CCFA

Your Union represents the voices of over 600 continuing and term members employed at Camosun College. We support and advocate for your employment rights under our collective agreement and seek to improve your working conditions through collective bargaining.

Together we are stronger.

The CCFA is proud to be a Unionized Employer.  Our staff are members of CUPE 1004.  You can view their local agreement by clicking here.

 

Useful Links

  • CCFA 2022/23 Executive
  • Professional Development
  • Member Resources
  • Committees
  • About CCFA
  • The Confluence Newsletter Archives
  • Calendar

Search

Administrative Login

Share or Re-blog with Creative Commons Attributions:

Creative Commons Licence
CCFA Website & Confluence Blog by Camosun College Faculty Association is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at ac.ytlucafnusomac@tnediserp:otliam.

The Camosun College Faculty Association serves it’s members while residing on the traditional and unceded territories of the Lkwungen (Esquimalt and Songhees) and W̱SÁNEĆ (Pauquachin, Tsartlip, Tsawout, Tseycum) peoples. We express our profound gratitude to our traditional hosts’ welcome and tolerance of our uninvited presence while we strive to dismantle our colonial, patriarchal, and racist cultural biases.
Copyright © 2023 CCFA