The man who led B.C.'s labour movement for 15 years is being recognized for his years of service to workers.

Kwantlen Polytechnic University has announced that former B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair will receive an honorary degree this spring.

At the Fed, Sinclair was a strong proponent of better training and apprenticeship programs.

He also advocated for a higher minimum wage and greater safety for workers, including nonunionized young people who worked graveyard shifts.

Before joining the Fed, he spent nearly two decades working at the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union. In his younger days, Sinclair was a journalist, cofounding Co-Op Radio in Vancouver and later working at the Nelson Daily News.

In 2004, he told the Straight that the paper's owner, Sterling News, had dismissed him in the 1980s. At the time, Sterling News was owned by publishing tycoons Conrad Black and David Radler.

“I was laid off/fired over…whether or not Radler could write editorials condemning our local MLA for actions he didn’t even do,” Sinclair said. “It was factually incorrect. I made a big stink about it. They went nuts on us.”

Sinclair later took delight when Black was fired by his own board of directors at Hollinger International after taking "noncompete payments" from the company. Both Black and Radler eventually went to jail.

After being fired, Sinclair occasionally wrote to Black to object to how he was running his newspapers.

When Sinclair complained about his company employing strikebreakers at the Calgary Herald, Black replied: “We have shown nothing but respect for the ‘basic right of workers’, including the right not to be used as industrial cannon-fodder by corrupt union leaders. The present strike is an attempted left-wing coup d’état in the newsroom of the Calgary Herald, which serves a community that includes very few mindless socialists of the type you would find convivial.” 

That prompted Sinclair to issue a news release, in which he stated: “Conrad Black’s remarks are so far from reality that they would be funny—if he didn’t own a majority of Canada’s daily newspapers.”

Sinclair sometimes came under criticism from left-wing activists, notably for supporting Vancouver city council when it lifted a moratorium on slot machines in 2003. This provided unionized jobs at what was then known as the Royal Diamond Casino.

The labour movement also backed the creation of Vision Vancouver, which ultimately vanquished COPE. This came after five COPE politicians objected to a three-year TransLink plan and 10-year outlook that the B.C. Federation of Labour was supporting.

For many years, Sinclair worked closely with Vision councillor Geoff Meggs at the fishermen's union and at the B.C. Federation of Labour. Meggs was a key aide to then-mayor Larry Campbell when he bolted from COPE to create the new party, which now controls Vancouver city council.

In September 2013 Sinclair riled fellow New Democrats when he appeared at a news conference with Premier Christy Clark to support her efforts to spur a liquefied-natural-gas industry in B.C. Sinclair stood by the premier to express support for better training programs for new workers in this sector.

More recently, Sinclair vigorously stood up for teachers when they went on strike last year. He helped coordinate $8 million in interest-free loans from unions to the B.C. Teachers' Federation.

It was widely believed at the time that Premier Christy Clark and Education Minister Peter Fassbender were hoping to force the teachers to capitulate by not going to mediation. However, these loans from the labour movement helped push the B.C. Liberal government to reverse this position because it was clear that the teachers were prepared to remain on picket lines for a long time, if necessary, to force changes to class size and composition.

The employer and the BCTF reached a settlement less than a week later.