Item AAAB4014 - Alice Person interview

SUPPLIED TITLE OF TAPE(S): Alice Person : rank and file -- women's issues in the wood industry RECORDED: Coquitlam (B.C.), 1978-07-28 SUMMARY: Mrs. Person has been active in the IWA. She moved to Websters Corners from the prairies during the Depression; got a job in the wood industry during the war; and was active in organizing her plant. She became a member of the plant executive. She discusses relief; agricultural labour during the Depression; the Japanese internment; working conditions in wood; organizing the IWA and her plant; equal pay for equal work; attitudes to women workers; struggles against layoffs after the war. She and her sister were in the first group of women to be hired on at Hammond Cedar in 1942. Mrs. Person, although told by co-workers that "girls don't need as much", decided that equal pay was a woman's right, and this issue became a primary motivation for her and other women to join the union. She feels that many workers were inspired by the IWA leadership. Mrs. Person served as a steward and a warden on the executive.