Trouble on the Waterfront

In 1949, after years of ruinous, Communist-inspired waterfront strikes, Canadian labor and shipping-company leaders turned to Harold Chamberlain Banks for help. A bluff, barrel-chested San Francisco union troubleshooter who once served a San Quentin term for passing bad checks (he was later pardoned), Banks moved to Montreal and in short order managed to run the Red-infiltrated Canadian Seamen's Union right out of business.

But Iowa-born Hal Banks proved as tough a customer as the Communists he was imported to rout. As boss of the Seafarers' International Union of Canada, he rigged union elections and bullied shippers; opponents of the S.I.U. and members of rival seamen's unions were endlessly threatened, beaten and shot at. Banks ran up extravagant expense accounts, got a new white Cadillac from the union yearly. In 1960 the Canadian Labor Congress expelled the 15,000-man S.I.U. as a "hoodlum empire," set up a competing maritime union. Shrugged Banks: "I've had to fight finks and scabs and look out for my boys. Sometimes I haven't had time to be a gentleman."

Desk-Thumping Applause. Last week, a board of trustees appointed by the Canadian government finally decided to oust the 54-year-old Banks. Rising in Parliament, Labor Minister Allan J. MacEachen drew desk-thumping applause when he announced: "It is not in the interests of the union, the shipping industry, Canada or the public at large that Mr. H. C. Banks remain in office." The trustees then named a temporary union president for Canada's S.I.U., and the government continued to press two separate criminal actions against Banks on charges of conspiracy to beat up union foes.

Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson's administration had long delayed such a drastic step, though a S.I.U. walkout and the dynamiting of a Canadian freighter manned by a rival union last fall indicated that there would be no waterfront peace as long as Banks was in power. For the past five months, government-appointed trustees have run the S.I.U. in an effort to clean it up and get the members themselves to vote Banks out.

"Massive Blockade?" The government action against Banks is not likely to make sailing any smoother on the Great Lakes. While most Canadian unions supported the government, the parent S.I.U. decided to keep Banks on the payroll at $20,000 a year. It seemed likely that trouble on the waterfront might block shipment of the $254 million worth of grain that Canada still has to deliver to Russia. The New York-headquartered S.I.U., with some 70,000 members and A.F.L.-C.I.O. backing in the dispute, pledged "absolute support for Hal Banks," hinted at the possibility of a "massive blockade" of Canadian shipping in U.S. lake ports when the seaway shipping season opens April 10. Said a worried Canadian official: "We expect all hell to break loose."

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