'We've come a far way': Retired rail worker reflects on history of Black activism as force for change

A retired Via Rail worker is reflecting on his career and legacy this Black History Month and how he helped break down a lingering barrier in the rail industry.

In the early 1990s, while workingin middle management for Via in Winnipeg,Tony McFarlanerecommended management enda long-standing practice.

Higher-paid train staff were booked in separate, and sometimes more expensive, hotel accommodations than lower-paid staffa good proportion of whom were people of colour, he says.

"I feel proud of it," McFarlane, who retired in 2016 after 26 years with Via, said over the phone from Quebec. "That became the standard and the guys in Toronto and Montreal followed that protocol."

Though he wasn't aware of it at the time, McFarlane now appreciates how the shift fits into a longer history of workplace inequities Black rail workers faced dating back to the early 1900s.

McFarlane immigrated to Winnipeg in the early 1980s. He landed a middle-management position with Via in Winnipeg in 1989.

As a senior purchasing agent for Western Canada, one of his duties was to book hotel accommodations for train staff during stopovers.

At the time,purchasing agents wereto book the higher-paid locomotive engineers and train masters in one hotel, and lower-paid "back of the train" staff in another, he said.

McFarlane wasn't aware of a single engineer or train master at the time who was Black, though he says several staff of colour worked the back of the train positions.

McFarlanesayshe didn't feel the practicewas deliberately designed to dividestaff alongclass or race lines, but it had that effect. He also noticed how much Via would save by booking everyone in one hotel.

He took his concerns to management in the early 1990s, and withina couple of years, managers agreed tobookall train staff in the same hotels.

McFarlane was reminded of that accomplishment in recent years when learning more about a century-old fight for equality within Canadian railway companies.

Black sleeping car porters

In the first half of the 20thcentury, Black sleeping car porters working for the Canadian Nationaland Canadian Pacific railwaysfaced racist hiring policies and poor work conditions.

Black employees were limited to working as porters, who tended to the every need of largely white train passengers from showing them to sleeping quartersto buffing shoes and babysitting. They were paid less than other railway workers, and for years often weren't provided with their own sleeping quarters during round trips that could last more than three days.

The Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees rejected a request from Black employees to join the union, so in 1917, Black porters in Winnipeg formed their own the first Black railway union in North America.

But the workplace inequality continued for decades.

WATCH | Lee Williams in CBCBlack history documentary from 2000:

CBC Archives (2000): Sleeping car porters and black immigration to Manitoba

5 years ago

Duration 9:29

In this piece from 2000, CBC reporter Sandra Batson covers immigration of black communities to the Prairies and the struggles they encountered in Canada.

"We [were] treated as third-class citizens," Lee Williams, a former porter in the 1930s and 1940s, told the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992.

"The whites worked in dining cars and we worked in the sleeping cars. They gave us food that should have been thrown away."

Eventually, the efforts of people like Williams and John A. Robinson, who helped lead the push to unionize in 1917, helped dismantle racist policies and push for better wages and access to job opportunities.

Diversity efforts at Via

Fast forward to 1977. That year, the federal government founded Via Rail to take over the Canadian passenger train business from CN and CP.

"We inherited those different philosophies that came into Via Rail, and what was interesting was Via Railhad to switch to being customer-services orientated," said John Wright, a former Via colleague of McFarlane'sin the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Like McFarlane, Wright, who was based in Toronto, worked in purchasing. He said there was adivide between the transportationandcustomer workers like porters in whatwas a male-dominated company at the time.

"Transportation people thought of themselves totally different from the customer service; it's like the pilot not talking to the stewardesses."

Herecalls when the hotel booking practices switched.

A Via Rail spokesperson declined to address questions about the old practice, but said the company is committed to providing an inclusive workplace that reflects Canada's diversity.

The spokespersonsaid a range of initiatives launched in 2019 aim to increase workplace representation and inclusivity of women, people with disabilities, Indigenous peopleand other visible minority groups.

That year, management began taking diversity and inclusion workshops and unconscious bias training. The company also did an analysis of diversity and inclusion practices elsewhere to bolster its own processes and inform its current five-year strategy.

"A key component of this plan is to offer an inclusive, result-oriented and innovative culture. Our ultimate objective is to continue to celebrate and promote diversity and inclusion for years to come," the spokesperson said.

'It's a good feeling'

McFarlane retired from Via in 2016 as a contracts manager in charge of capital projects worth millions of dollars. He climbed the ladder and isproud ofhis career with Via, and he praises the company's efforts to diversify its ranks.

He's been reflecting this Black History Month onthe Black sleeping car porters, and his own contribution to shaping the company he worked for.

"It's a good feeling. We've come a far way" from the struggles faced by the porters, he said."It's more equalized."

McFarlane downplays his contribution compared to those of the porters, but a University of Minnesota history professor said those efforts should be hailed.

"The victories may seem small from the outside, but corrections to inequalities register as huge wins in people's lives, especially blue-collar workers too often overlooked," said Saje Mathieu, author of North of the Color Lines, a book on the history of the Black sleeping car porters.

"When we tell the story of the past that is more accurate, more textured, more honest, and more inclusive of the range of lived experiences, we are rewarded with a more robust understanding of the world that we have inherited."

For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.