THE HEARSE BRINGS LIFE TO THE LABOUR MOVEMENT

In earlier stories I told of the first days of the Hearse and the last days. But as you may have guessed there are a few stories in between.
I purchased the Hearse in early 1966 while I was working at Maritime Motors, I was earning $40.00 a week. The pay scale there was based on your needs, if your were married you earned more than a single guy and for each child you earned more.The married men with kids made about $70.00 per week. We were paid each friday afternoon, in cash ,always new bills. I would recieve two new $20.00 bills , the guy making $70.00 one $50.. and 0ne $20.00, hence the pay envelopes were the same thickness, hard to tell who made the most.
In the mid 60's you also had a booklet from the Gov't to record your employment. Each pay week you would receive a stamp, yes about the size of a postage stamp, you would stick this in the book. When you had enough stamps you could collect Unemployment Insurance. Today people still refer to "stamps" without knowing the history.
Also at this time unions were rare,and anyone caught trying to organize one was fired. Donnie Mackay and Leo Cannon tried to organizie on at a car dealership and were caught and fired.
The poorest off were labourers, they had seasonal employment and worked in dangerous enviroments, with no job protection.
They began to organize and walk off construction sites in protest for a living wage.

One day at the shop a couple of men came in looking for the owner of the "Hearse", Charlie Currie took them down to me. One of the guys was named Rejean and he wanted to rent the Hearse for a demonstration.They had stopped by my home and Mother told them where I worked.
Making forty bucks a week, I didn't have money to register the Hearse, at this time all veichles had to be regeistered by April 1. The office was in the old Queen Square School. Working people could only go there on their lunch break and half the staff would be on their break. It was very difficult to not only find the money but the time to do it.
The hearse was not registered at this time, so the men went down and paid for the registration, insurance and filled it with gas. Almost two weeks pay for me.
Well they took the Hearse and drove around the city going to construction sites. They went by the shop, the Hearse in front a few dozen workers following behind. The owner came down and watched the parade while shooting stares at me.



We went to Summerside one day after this for a demonstration, Paul "Buff" Connoly was laid out in back and would pull the curtains open every now and then and rise from the dead. I don't remember how much they paid us for this.

Rejean stooped by the house and asked if I would go to Moncton for a demonstration, the guys were excited to go, so we planned to catch th 6am boat and be there for noon. Rejean told us this one might get ugly as there was alot of opposition to unions.
I got up early Sunday morning and found Rejeans card and $50.00 on the front seat of the Hearse and a note saying"the demonstration was off, they settled".
I never heard from him again.
So in retrospect the Hearse did bring life to the labour movement on PEI.