Jean Rands

I grew up in Saskatchewan in the 50s – a time and place without human rights legislation or women’s rights. Indigenous people had no right to vote and were segregated.

Our family had moved to Saskatchewan after my father was fired for being a communist. The CCF government attracted left-wingers from across Canada and beyond, but the CCF was also full of McCarthyism and racism.

My mother was a feminist and a socialist and encouraged me and my siblings to fight for our rights. (Much later my sister joined me in organizing working women in Vancouver.) In my high school days the double standard prevailed. Even in the most extreme weather girls weren’t allowed to wear jeans or pants to school. Friends and classmates had their lives determined by teen-age pregnancy. There were few role-models for girls.

I helped organized peace marches and joined picket lines in support of striking workers. I was active in Cuba support and the Young CCF.

Just before I graduated from high school, I fell in love with Al Engler and decided to move to Toronto and join the LSA (the Trotskyist League for Socialist Action). We were in the LSA for about six years. I met some awesome women and learned a lot (including typing and typesetting, which stood me in good stead). I read The Second Sex, The Feminine Mystique, The Golden Notebook.

I worked in insurance offices – more double standards. Men were either managers or management trainees. They were called “mister” while we women were called by our first names. Women were subject to arbitrary dress codes, paid less, and subject to firing without cause or due process. I passionately wanted to be involved in union organizing of working women.

When I was 19, Al and I moved from Toronto to Vancouver. We were active in the anti-war movement and supporting the student movement and the independent Canadian union movement. In 1968, I got a job at SFU typesetting the student newspaper and immediately got involved with Women’s Caucus. I was somewhat intimidated by academia, but the Women’s Caucus women were enthusiastic about organizing working women on and off campus.

Because of my access to the typesetting equipment, I was involved in the Women’s Caucus newspaper, the Pedestal, from the beginning. I was active in many aspects of Women’s Caucus: demonstrations on working women’s rights, abortion rights, abortion referrals, and speaking at high schools. In the Working Women’s Associationm I was inspired by the courage of young working women. Meeting Jackie Ainsworth and Melody Rudd, especially, made me believe that my dream of a women’s union could be a reality.

After Women’s Caucus
While WWA members were drafting the constitutions of SORWUC and AUCE, UBC posted a typesetting job. I applied and got it and became a founding member of AUCE. The union struggles that grew out of the WWA changed my life. Through the Muckamuck strike, the first contract and illegal strike of AUCE at UBC, and the bank organizing campaign, I made friendships that would last forever. I worked on the establishment of the Vancouver abortion clinic and helped build union support for it.

I’ve been reading and occasionally writing and speaking about the need for independent democratic unions and the need for a powerful working class movement against capitalism. I supported and helped my life partner Al Engler (who was always supportive of my feminism and organizing of working women) with his writing against capitalism and for economic democracy. For the last 24 years of my working life, I was active in the democratic independent union of support staff at BC Teachers Federation (UTFE/TFEU). I have been active in the environmental movement and was arrested in Clayoquot Sound. Since retiring in 2010, I’ve been enjoying my grandchildren while trying to do my bit to make a safe and healthy world for them.