In this episode of On the Line, we present a compelling tale of British Columbia's Diana Kilmury, a bold and fearless truck driver who became immersed in the murky male dominated world of the Teamsters Union back in the days when women behind the wheel of big trucks were as scarce as generous employers. She took on both sexist attitudes on the job and a union that was then, in the United States, riddled by corruption, with a top down leadership that was closely connected to organized crime and crushed any challenge to the way the union was run. Yet against all odds, Kilmury eventually found herself in the highest echelons of North America's largest union.
Host: Rod Mickleburgh
Research and writing: Patricia Wejr
Technical wizard: John Mabbott
Source:
Diana Kilmury Interview. Conducted by Rod Mickleburgh, 13 April 2023, https://vimeo.com/833432166
Music:
Theme song: "Hold the Fort” (traditional) - Arranged & Performed by Tom Hawken & his band, 1992.
"Truck Driving Woman” by Si Kahn (1974). Performed by Aya!
In this episode of On the Line, we present a compelling tale of British Columbia's Diana Kilmury, a bold and fearless truck driver who became immersed in the murky male dominated world of the Teamsters Union back in the days when women behind the wheel of big trucks were as scarce as generous employers. She took on both sexist attitudes on the job and a union that was then, in the United States, riddled by corruption, with a top down leadership that was closely connected to organized crime and crushed any challenge to the way the union was run. Yet against all odds, Kilmury eventually found herself in the highest echelons of North America's largest union.
Host: Rod Mickleburgh
Research and writing: Patricia Wejr
Technical wizard: John Mabbott
Source:
Diana Kilmury Interview. Conducted by Rod Mickleburgh, 13 April 2023, https://vimeo.com/833432166
Music:
Theme song: "Hold the Fort” (traditional) - Arranged & Performed by Tom Hawken & his band, 1992.
"Truck Driving Woman” by Si Kahn (1974). Performed by Aya!
Rod Mickleburgh [00:00:05] Welcome to another edition of On the Line, the podcast that brings to light stories from British Columbia's rich labour heritage. I'm your host, Rod Mickleburgh. In this episode of On the Line, we present a compelling tale of Diana Kilmury, a bold and fearless B.C. truck driver who became immersed in the murky male-dominated world of the Teamsters Union back in the days when women behind the wheel of big trucks were as scarce as generous employers. She took on both sexist attitudes on the job and a union that was then in the United States, riddled by corruption, with a top down leadership that was closely connected to organized crime and crushed any challenge to the way the union was run. Yet against all odds, Kilmury eventually found herself in the highest echelons of North America's largest union. This is her story, much of it in her own words. Born in Montreal, Diana Kilmury came to Vancouver in 1954 when her father, a doctor and research scientist, accepted a position at UBC. She grew up on the university endowment lands, but the stuffy world of academia was not in the cards for the rebellious young Diana. She dropped out of school at 16 to get married. By the time she was 19, she was divorced with two kids, looking for work. I interviewed Diana Kilmury for the Labour Heritage Centre's Oral History project last April, and I asked her how she wound up driving a truck.
Diana Kilmury [00:01:52] Well, I was going to Langara College trying to pick up on my education, and I happened to be going out with this guy whose father owned a trucking company. So I used to go with him running around in his dump truck. So one day, Jim, this is the owner of the company. You know, he's swearing up a blue streak, saying, you know, "Where's my driver? The driver didn't show up again." I said, "Well, I could drive that." And, you know, this is back in like the early '70s, '71 or '72 or some such. So, I took the truck out for for a boot and ran up to the dump and, you know, did what was necessary there. I mean, you know, it wasn't very long before the single axle guy didn't show up. So I ended up with his truck. And then a little while later, the tandem guy didn't show up. Meanwhile, Trevor, the guy I was going out with, was not impressed. He didn't want to, you know, date a female truck driver. And I said, "That's fine. I'll take the truck. See you later."
Diana Kilmury [00:03:15] I was actually going to buy my own truck. But the contract I was after came with some bulldozing and the like. So I put my name in for the heavy equipment operator's course and I became the first woman in B.C. to take that course. And then on the day that we graduated, United Contractors, that was building the Upper Levels Highway, said they would take any or all of the graduating class. I got off the ferry at Horseshoe Bay and stopped at the United Contractors shack there, and I said -- and I had my newly minted heavy equipment operator certificate and I already had my air ticket, Class 2 license. And I'd gotten my Class 1 over there in the course. And he says, "my god, you're a broad." And I said, yes, well, I'm aware. And he says, "well, honey, think you can drive that?" And I look over and it's the biggest truck I've ever seen, you know, an off-road. They're called cat wagons. I mean, you've got to go up a staircase to get in the thing. So, in for a penny, in for a pound. So I get in this frigging thing and you're looking around. Huh? No clutch. I mean, I'd never heard of a truck without a clutch. But, you know, there's a gearshift, and it says R and D 1, 2, 3. And so I put it in gear, go get a load of rock out of the screening machine, go up the fill. And like, in a standard dump truck, you have these levers, you pull and the tailgate -- of course, cat wagon, there is no tail gate. And I'm looking around, I wonder what puts this thing up? And there's this really big lever down there and I thought, hmm, well, it's either an ejection seat or, you know. So I pull that up and (sound effect), like, you know. And this load of rock, you know, thunders off. And of course, kind of relieved that I had figured out what made it go. I go like this (smacks hand). Well, you know, I just about broke my neck on the roof, you know.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:06:00] So it was an ejection seat.
Diana Kilmury [00:06:03] Almost, you know. So anyways, I come back down. He said, "well, I'll be god-damned". And he says, "well, get your ass down to the Teamster Hall and if they'll take you, I'll take you." So I go down to 490 East Broadway, the Teamster's Hall, and, you know, really, there's this guy from central casting, behind a little wicket. And he says, "yeah, what do you want"? And I'm going, well, I was just at United." You know, I'm nervous. This guy's got a stogie stuck in the corner of his mouth and looks like he's 8000 years old, you know? And I got my hair up in my little pony tails, and, you know, you can't imagine. So I tell him, you know, United has hired me on. Slam goes the window. "We'll see about that"! And then these enormous business agents come in and there's great consultations and you know consternation but they'd screwed up because under the contract they have 72 hours to supply. And for whatever reason, you know, they hadn't supplied. So United could hire off the bank, as they call it, you know.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:07:35] Non-union?
Diana Kilmury [00:07:37] No, no, no. They're a union contractor.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:07:39] But, I mean, they could hire whoever they wanted?
Diana Kilmury [00:07:41] Yes, yes. Anybody off the street, you know, because there's dispatch system and that's how I became a Teamster.
Music: Truck Driving Woman sung by Aya [00:07:52] You see me on the highway and you nearly shift the load. Take another look, good buddy, for you nearly leave the road. You've never seen a truck driving woman, 90 pounds of fire in a five foot frame. You better move on over, I'm right behind you in the left-hand lane....
Rod Mickleburgh [00:08:22] As a single parent, the increased pay and benefits that resulted from her membership in Teamsters Local 213 were a godsend.
Diana Kilmury [00:08:31] I was at that time, I was making $2.50 an hour as a non-union tandem dump truck driver, and the day I became a Teamster I was making $5.40 and double on double-time. And, you know, pensions and health and welfare plans. I mean, I thought I had arrived in heaven.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:08:50] After completing work on the Upper Levels Highway, Kilmury was dispatched to the Site One Hydroelectric project near Hudson Hope in northeastern B.C., the only woman among a huge workforce of men. So you ended up north, 2500 guys and you. What was it like?
Diana Kilmury [00:09:14] Well, you know, the scenes in Western movies, you know, the guy comes into the saloon and the whole place goes quiet. So, you know, first shift, there was about 1500 people on day shift. So anyways, I'm "don't trip over your feet." You know, they're just people. A lot of people, all guys. But you can do that.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:09:46] Were you intimidated, nervous or?
Diana Kilmury [00:09:49] No. Well, you know, I'll tell you what happens. As long as you do your work and you're competent, you know, like you're not trying to get special privileges or be treated different. I mean, my dispatch up there was the water truck. So there's like 40 huge belly dumps, which are, you know, semi-trailer things and these other godforsaken things that hauled the concrete buckets. They're like converted scrapers. But anyways, on the haul roads every time a truck goes by, you know, of course, there's dust everywhere to the point where you can't see. So my job was to keep the haul roads wet. But where I would fill up, was this gigantic pipe and it had a little tiny wrench affair on it, a valve to open and close it. So, you know, I go to the mechanic shop and I said, "I need a pipe about this big." And what do you need that for? And I said, 'well, because I'm not going to break my wrist and my back pulling this fricking rusted valve on the water fill." So, "ah, we'll bring it down for you." And of course, they found a pink rag and put a bow on it for me. You know, we we got on.
Diana Kilmury [00:11:34] At coffee break, like all the trades have a shack, you know, where you can pull in and have coffee. So I go in -- actually I was staying out of there because I like to read. So, coffee break, you know, turn off the frigging motor for ten minutes and I'd be reading. So, you know, one of the guys comes over and said, "yeah, Kilmury, you too good to sit with us?" And I said, "no, I didn't want to invade your space, actually. Sure, I'll come have a coffee." I don't actually drink coffee, but I'll come and spend coffee with you. So I go in and obviously they had it all planned, cause, you know, we're not talking Playboy posters. Pinups, you know, we're talking deeply disgusting Penthouse stuff. So I don't say anything, just, you know, coffee is over. But, you know, then I sneak in there on graveyard and got some pictures from Playgirl, and put them up there. Next day, no posters of either kind. You know, it's a matter of how you handle it. Like you can't go to Rome and insist that they start speaking Spanish. You know, when in Rome do as the Romans do. But, you know, you got to defend your two square feet.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:13:19] After time in a bunkhouse, Kilmury bought a three-bedroom trailer that she shared with a friend and her youngest son. She was accepted by her co-workers and began to be active in the Teamsters Union. The more she learned about its inner workings, however, the more she felt something wasn't quite right. A spark of activism was lit that led her to question the Teamsters well-worn status quo. And that meant taking on Senator Ed Lawson, the top Teamster in Canada, who had dominated the union for years.
Diana Kilmury [00:13:55] After they saw that I could drive, after they saw that I was a good Teamster, I mean, I ended up being the assistant steward up there because I could spell and construct a proper paragraph, you know?
Rod Mickleburgh [00:14:10] Is that when you started to think there might be something wrong in the union, was it up there or was that...?
Diana Kilmury [00:14:15] Well yes. At the time, Local 213 was the 12th largest local in the whole of the Teamsters Union, which at the time had about 750 locals. So I think in our heyday we had 11 or 12,000 members, whatever it was a big local. But the heavy construction, road building and pipe liners, you know, were the cream of the crop. And there was this really good Business Agent named Jack Vlahovic, and he decides to take on the principle officer, a guy named Al Medley. So anyways, this is 1976 now. So Vlahovic wins, you know, runs and wins. And then Lawson, the great Senator Ed Lawson. Well, at the time, Lawson was a trustee of Local 213, president of Joint Council 36. He was the director of the Canadian Conference of Teamsters, the eighth vice president in the International, and a Canadian Senator. You know, insofar that that means anything. So he took exception that his boy Medley had been usurped by Vlahovic. So, you know, they drum up a bunch of phoney charges and they remove Vlahovic from office.
Diana Kilmury [00:15:57] Well, you know, by this time I'm heavily into the union and we just went crazy. We picketed the hall. We were going to shut down every construction site in B.C. And, you know, people were punching each other out. And so Vlahovic goes to Washington, D.C., which is where the IBT headquarters are, the Teamster headquarters. And he comes back and he says, "wow, I ran into these guys, you know, they're with something called Teamsters for a Democratic Union." He said, "the most amazing people I've ever seen." So pretty soon, you know, we're all members of TDU. You know, we had one of the biggest chapters of TDU at the time because all the construction drivers that were supporting Vlahovic, you know, joined TDU.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:17:01] As this was going on, Killmury and her son were seriously injured in an accident while driving from Hudson Hope to Vancouver. Her son never fully recovered and she was unable to work for the next three years. During this time, she became increasingly active in a reform group called Teamsters for a Democratic Union, the TDU. She's convinced this activism against the established leadership led to her disability claim being denied. But she didn't let that financial blow dampen her fight for change. That landed her and other TDU members from Vancouver in the middle of the union's massive International convention in 1981, held -- no surprise -- in Las Vegas. Your campaign... Vlahovic never did get his job back, did he?
Diana Kilmury [00:17:58] No.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:17:59] Okay. But you campaigned to be delegates to the 1981 International Convention in Las Vegas.
Diana Kilmury [00:18:08] But because they had removed Vlahovic, we actually got to have an election and we won all the spots that we could compete for.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:18:22] Teamsters were Democratic Union won those spots.
Diana Kilmury [00:18:25] Yeah, the BC and Yukon chapter, so it was me, Vlahovic, George Fennell and you know, a whole bunch of others. So anyway, TDU has decided that they're going to have a protest candidacy. So Jack Vlahovic from Local 213 is going to run for general secretary-treasurer and a guy out of Hoffa's Local 299 in Detroit, Pete Camarata, is going to run for president. So off we go into the lion's den. We show up at the door, you got to get your credentials and the like. So, Vlahovic said, "hey, Kilmury, you go first. They won't hit a woman." I said, thanks a bunch. So anyways, I go to the usual doors and I'm looking right at this guy's belt buckle. I mean, he's like seven feet tall. I mean, it just... I said, "I'm Diane Kilmury, duly elected delegate from Local 213. My fellow delegates, Jack Vlahovic, George..." You know, introduce them. I said, "would you mind stepping aside? We want to register, get our credentials." And he says, "why sure, little lady." You know, and he moves, just enough. I'm sucking in my gut and other body parts trying to get by this freaking monstrosity of a human being. It was just unbelievable.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:20:10] You got your credentials?
Diana Kilmury [00:20:12] Oh, yes. Like I said, you know, they're not going to whack you in front of God and everybody.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:20:19] As the convention went on, with huge catcalls from the several thousand delegates every time a TDU member tried to speak, instead of being intimidated Kilmury got angry. It all came to a head over debate on a TDU resolution to establish an Ethical Practices Committee.
Diana Kilmury [00:20:40] I had about had it up to here with the mob and whatever, so I'd worked for six months getting the language just right for an Ethical Practices Committee. You wouldn't think you'd even have to have such a thing, you know, in a union. They just went absolutely bananas. And I lost my temper, you know, as I am want to do. All of it came together, you know, removing Vlahovic, denying me my long term disability, all this stuff that had gone on. And by this time, the whole history of the Teamsters and every member that was blacklisted, beat up, etc., etc.. And I'm standing on the floor of the lion's den, so I let them have it.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:21:37] She made a speech that rocked the convention. Surrounded as she was by all those jeering Teamsters, it also electrified the media. I was at that convention and it still gives me chills. The highlight of her speech and Ed Lawson's harsh response was captured on video. It featured prominently on American newscasts.
Audio from 1981 Convention [00:22:01] Diana Kilmury is a Teamster, a heavy equipment driver from Vancouver, British Columbia. And she is also a very active member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, or TDU, the most visible of the dissident movements at the convention:
Diana Kilmury [00:22:14] I didn't indict you all. I didn't say you were all a bunch of crooks. I don't think that. But what I do think is that we've had a few rotten apples before, and if you're too damn scared to have an Ethical Practices Committee, that you, yourselves, the general executive board, will control, then my God, you must be up to something.
Ed Lawson [00:22:35] I would like to see an Ethical Practices Committee that would prevent the TDU and their magazine convoy from printing all the lies and distortions about the officers and the members!
Rod Mickleburgh [00:22:46] That was your moment, wasn't it?
Diana Kilmury [00:22:48] Yes, but it just, you know, by happenstance, just me losing my temper...
Rod Mickleburgh [00:22:56] You hadn't planned that?
Diana Kilmury [00:22:57] Oh, no, no. I had a very, you know, respectful staged speech, highlighting, you know, how beneficial it would be, an Ethical Practices Committee and how it would improve our reputation and help with organizing and blah blah blah. And I'm listening to these organized, mobbed up twits up there on the podium.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:23:22] I mean, you became famous.
Diana Kilmury [00:23:25] I did. But I think a lot of it had to do with with the fact that I was young and female and a truck driver.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:23:35] Did that change your life?
Diana Kilmury [00:23:37] Yes. Although I was heavy, heavy, heavy into TDU. By this time I was co-chair of TDU. So, you know, I'm spending more and more time in the United States. I've always been kind of TDU's lead cheerleader.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:23:59] Because you're good at it.
Diana Kilmury [00:24:00] Well, because I believe, you see. I mean, you know, and people can tell the difference between the people that are just mouthing the phrase and what you really believe. And then, you know, of course, "hey, this is the broad that told them off in Las Vegas!"
Rod Mickleburgh [00:24:19] Did it go to your head at all? Did you get a little pleased with yourself that all this attention was being paid to you?
Diana Kilmury [00:24:27] Well, yeah. You know, I keep my head well shrunk because there's so many people that have fought the fight in, you know, just terrible places, that had been beaten up and blacklisted and whatever.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:24:47] By this time, the story of the fiery female truck driver taking on all that was wrong in the Teamsters Union had attracted movie makers. A made for TV movie resulted called, Mother Trucker, The Diana Kilmury Story, directed by well-known Canadian filmmaker Sturla Gunnarson and starring Barbara Williams as Kilmury. It's pretty good. You can find it online under a different title, Justice on Wheels, The Diana Kilmury Story:
Audio from movie [00:25:18] The top officials in this union have done time for bribery, stealing from the pension fund, murder. They don't care about you, don't care about a cannery worker who makes four bucks an hour. They don't care about sister Kilmury, back there, still waiting for disability cheque. Should have been in her mailbox months ago. But there's good news. Those warehouse workers and those truck drivers are going to run those fat cats and the mob right out of this union. They don't have to listen to one voice, but they have to listen to a movement. They have to listen to the TDU, the Teamsters for a Democratic Union. We got members in over 100 locals, some of the deadliest, men and women who'll stand up for what they believe in... and do it in an organized fashion. And we want you to become part of this movement. We want to start a chapter right here. In fact, you guys can do what no other local can do in the U.S. especially. You can elect the delegate that you're going to send to the Las Vegas convention in June. Elect. A novelty. Join with us and be a voice that's heard from coast to coast by two million Teamsters. We can run these bastards out and you guys can be the ones to do it. Thank you very much. [applause]
Diana Kilmury [00:26:44] 15 minutes later, I'm the financial secretary of the B.C. and Yukon chapter of TDU.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:26:52] But back to real life events and the dramatic rise of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union. In 1989, the U.S. Department of Justice brought racketeering charges against the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. This opened the door for the TDU. Kilmury worked closely with organization co-founder, Ken Paff. But they didn't always agree. They differed on the question of whether the union should be taken over by trustees or whether the membership should be given a voice by actually voting for a new leadership.
Diana Kilmury [00:27:30] You know, the biggest fight that we ever had in TDU, because of course all of us are strong-willed people and so me and Ken Paff were going at it. I said, if we can reach into this pack of shit and get the -- excuse my language -- and come out with the right to vote. And Paff is going, no, no, no, we're...
Rod Mickleburgh [00:27:57] It was important because always you had the president and everybody elected at convention and they controlled the delegates. So this would be one member, one vote. So the elections would be thrown open to the whole membership.
Diana Kilmury [00:28:13] Right. And since 1976, for 12 years, you know, TDU had a Bill of Rights saying on it, was the direct election of the top officers and convention delegates. And Paff is just a strategic genius. I mean, that guy is so smart it's amazing.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:28:35] All right. I'm going to advance a bit here. So you actually then, in this tremendous decision, you got the right to membership vote and therefore, every member had a right to vote for president. And the TDU decided to run a candidate for president, right?
Diana Kilmury [00:28:59] Yes. But the story of how we got the right to vote, like you said, Giuliani is saying that they're going to trustee the union. Well, no, you're not. I mean, who's going to negotiate the national master freight agreement for one, you know? Government mostly can't run a popsicle stand, it certainly can't run an International union with 1.5 million members in Canada, the United States and Puerto Rico. You know, no. But I said, "we can get in this thing and set as the remedy. The solution to this mob influence is give the members the right to vote and we'll vote them out." We don't meet with Giuliani, but we do meet with Randy Mastro and this whole herd of, you know, DOJ prosecutors and whatever. And they don't get it. "Well, we don't understand why you're unhappy." I said, "because it's a union! There's 750 locals, there's Canada, the United States. You think I as a Canadian would be happy with the Department of Justice, of a foreign frigging country running my union? I don't think so." If you want to get rid of the mob, give us the right to vote and we'll vote these people out of office.
Diana Kilmury [00:30:35] And we won. We won. You know, if I died that day... And then I thought, oh my God, what have we done? You know, we're up against the mob, millionaire people with private planes. You know, millions and millions of dollars. And there's this ragtag band of activists. And to run Carey. So I end up being the first person that Ron Carey picks to run with him on his slate. And I say to Ken Paff, are you sure? You know what I'm like. You know, I'm sorry. I just can't help it. You know, I can only take so much BS and then you're going to hear what I think. Me and Carey, we meet and you know, I explain to him that I'm a bit of a wild child, so, you know, think about this. He says, "nah, ever since 1981, I knew you were the right one." So now we have two years to go to 750 locals, 8 billion loading docks, you know, everything from San Diego zookeepers to Mickey Mouse as a Teamster. You know all the truckers. And I think, oh, my God, you know.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:32:06] And you went on the road.
Diana Kilmury [00:32:07] Oh, I did, Yes. Bought one of the motor homes off the movies and there was this fantastic sign place and they had these reflective decals, you know, said Teamsters for a Democratic Union. And you know, big, Teamster logo on it, on a Canadian flag. yeah. Drove that from hither to yon and yon to hither.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:32:35] But you won. Ron Carey became the president, general president of the Teamsters. And Diana Kilmury, Local 213 Vancouver, B.C., was elected first vice president.
Diana Kilmury [00:32:51] Yes, I got the highest amount of votes next to Carey.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:32:56] What was that like? You remember that night when you found out?
Diana Kilmury [00:32:58] Absolutely amazing. But I have to tell you this story. So, you know, it's a supervised election. So, of course, the DOJ, you know, has got this -- I guess it's an office building somewhere by DuPont Circle, if you know anything about about DC. But anyway... and there's more ballots than you can imagine exist in the world. And, you know, so of course, we think we've got this local and that local. But, you know, we're not sure. It's hard to say. People tell you they'll vote for you, but do they bother, you know? So about halfway through the first day of the count, we're not only winning all the locals we thought we were winning, we're winning quite a few other ones, too. And the old guard is just going batshit. You know, they just, they can't believe that it's happening. They can't believe that, you know, this little band of TDU dissidents has knocked them off, you know?
Diana Kilmury [00:34:22] But my favourite story. So anyways, we get sworn in and you know, that is the most nervous I've ever been because we got sworn in on the steps of the Marble Palace. That's what they call Teamster headquarters. But anyway, so now we're busy. You know, we're now employees of the IBT sort of filling out paperwork and whatever. So I'm standing in a little alcove and it's a little more complicated with me because I'm Canadian, and they thought maybe they would pay me in Canadian funds. So I said, no, no, no, no, no. You know, it says 75 grand in the Constitution and that'll be in U.S. funds. You know, we're not going to pay the one female, you know, like 20 grand less. So anyway, so I'm filling out all this paper. And here comes Lawson. And I forget who all was with him but you know, they're defeated in their, you know, I guess getting their millions of dollars of pensions and he says, "you know, we should have never fucked over Kilmury." And I wanted to leap out and say, ya think! Game, set, match!
Rod Mickleburgh [00:35:43] Were you ever tempted to give up?
Diana Kilmury [00:35:46] You know, in a group like TDU, the worst part was after the conventions and you think, oh gawd, it's five more years of these assholes. But, you know, you get little victories along the way. I don't know, there was never a good time to quit. It needed to be done and we were the people that were going to get it done. So. You know, I think it must be like the Ukraine army.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:36:19] So you defeat, the TDU overthrew the biggest, the baddest, the most corrupt, the largest, the most powerful union leadership in North America. I mean, and the headquarters for a lot of that was right here in Local 213 in Vancouver. Do you think that's a fair statement?
Diana Kilmury [00:36:40] Well, again, because we could, because of the delegate thing and because, you know, the heavy construction people were the force in 213. And I mean, you know, it's not like you'd spend your life in, you know, JB Honk and company, you know, making widgets or something. I mean, we were boomers, behind the pipeline on one job, you know, building a dam on another one, paving the roads or you know.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:37:14] But local 213 in Vancouver played a role...
Diana Kilmury [00:37:17] Oh yes.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:37:18] ... in overthrowing this huge corrupt organization that was notorious.
Diana Kilmury [00:37:23] Because of Lawson and his power. Because of the size of the local. Because the local 213 folks were hardass boys, let me tell you. You know, it's when men were men, I gotta say, you know, the whole of the building trades is like that.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:37:46] And one hardass woman.
Diana Kilmury [00:37:48] And one hardass woman. Yeah.
Rod Mickleburgh [00:37:50] Kilmury tells great stories about what it was like helping to direct policy during her five years in the union's lavish Washington headquarters after all those years of scuffling at the bottom. But they are not part of this podcast. You can find the entire interview on the B.C. Labour Heritage Centre's website under oral history. The TDU's inspiring victory was not the end of the story. Although Ron Carey was re-elected narrowly in 1996 as president, he fell afoul of a dubious irregularity that led to his downfall. And Kilmury was defeated in a subsequent runoff election in 1998. For the next 20 years or so, the union was led by Jimmy Hoffa Junior, son of his disappeared father, the legendary Jimmy Hoffa. But the union remained lightyears from the corrupt Mafia-tainted leadership of the past. And that's due in no small measure to the small band of TDU reformers and a tough truck driving woman from Vancouver named Diana Kilmury. It's one of my favourite labour stories. [theme song] I hope you've enjoyed this edition of On the Line. Thanks to the other members of the podcast collective, Patricia Wejr, Donna Sacuta and John Mabbott for their work putting this together. There would be no On the Line without them. The song Truck Driving Woman was written by the Great Si Kahn and performed by the Vancouver group, Aya. I'm your non-truck driving host, Rod Mickleburgh. We'll see you next time, On the Line.