By Jim Selby, AFL Staff

Long-time Alberta trade union leader and activist Roy Jamha passed away on Monday, February 21, 2000.

Roy Jamha was an organizer with the United Packinghouse Workers of America – affiliated with Alberta Industrial Federation of Labour. He also served as the chief spokesperson and administrator for that provincial organization.

In 1953, Roy was hired as an organizer by the Oil Workers International Union – and in that capacity, helped Neil Reimer organize CIL and Celanese. Both of those plants are still represented by the eventual OWIU successor, the Communications Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.

In late 1959, Roy Jamha contracted multiple sclerosis – which at the time was considered a ‘dread disease’. That meant that it was thought to be so incurable that life insurance policies paid out benefits upon diagnosis.

However, Roy remained active for twenty more years – despite his illness. He helped found the Alberta New Democratic Party in 1961. In 1963 he became Secretary-Treasurer of the merged Alberta Federation of Labour (the Alberta Industrial Federation of Labour – CCL merged with the Alberta Federation of Labour – TLC).

He was elected President of the Alberta Federation of Labour in 1969. Then, in 1971 he was named Chairperson of the Workers Compensation Board. During his three terms there, he was credited with humanizing the organization (although it has deteriorated from that today).

As his long-time friend and fellow union leader Neil Reimer said: "Roy Jamha worked his entire life to build a better Alberta and a better Canada."