Nic Shugalo told me that Larry was a member before he was. When he first met him, Larry evinced such a disdain for reformists and social democrats that Nic was a bit intimidated. It seems likely that Larry first came across the Trotskyists in the CCF.

Two expressions were often repeated by Larry.
One was, “Hit the bricks!” I was told that in his union local he as known as Hit the Bricks Nozaki.
The other was referring to things being mixed up “like a dog’s breakfast.”

Larry had long experience in union activity. He once told me that I should pepper my remarks in a union meeting with jokes. That way, people would listen, not wanting to miss a joke

A CUPW PIONEER LEAVES US
 
I have just received the news that Brother Larry Nozaki, who was an active participant in the “illegal” postal strike of 1965 from which emerged both postal unions, as well as a long-time Local Executive member and shop-floor leader in CUPW, has died. His passing brings back many memories of our work together in the Vancouver Local of CUPW. Here is some of what I would explain to younger postal workers about how I remember him:
 
Larry became an inside postal worker just in time to become immersed in the 1960s explosion of working-class struggle in this country–the most important for several decades–and the first major expression of the determination of public sector workers that militant trade unionism would represent their future.  Larry immediately began participating in  the Vancouver postal workers organizing work.  This meant, since Montreal and Vancouver (both inside workers and outside letter carriers) were effectively leading this fight for union recognition, that Larry would play a crucial role.
 
Larry’s role in organizing the 1965 strike, and his continuing leadership in the CUPW Vancouver Local was recognized in Michael Ostroff’s labour documentary  Memory and Muscle, featuring Larry commenting on what an amazing difference of attitude on the work floor became obvious after the strike–because it revealed  that workers banding together in solidarity could really win important things.
 
I started work at Canada Post in 1972, and, as luck would have it, I was assigned to the same general work section as Larry, who was already a senior Local union executive officer and Shop Steward. To some degree, I knew Larry prior to this from his political work in the League for Socialist Action, as a result of my own developing commitment to a socialist understanding of the world. But It will come as no surprise to trade union activists that you really get to know your union Brothers and Sisters when you deal with them day-to-day, resisting employer attacks and representing your fellow members.  And so it was with Larry.  It was as a result of this solidarity relationship that I learned of Larry’s childhood in the WWII Japanese internment camp at Blind Bay in 1940, with all the racism and collective hardship it implied. Larry’s family was unable to return to Vancouver until 1949.  Since my family lived in the 1960s in Greenwood, B.C. where a similar interment camp had been established in the war years, I was able to gain a little insight into what Larry had gone through.
 
Larry became a significant mentor to me as I learned what it meant to be a shop-floor organizer and representative.  He taught me the basics of work-floor “mapping” and what to expect–and who to expect it from–in the daily to and fro with supervisors, superintendents and other managers whose purpose in life appeared to focus on doing an end-run around our collective agreements. Importantly, he also provided leadership in analyzing the internal union political struggles that characterized CUPW National and Local life. He remained on the Local executive and was a delegate to many Conferences and Conventions for a number of years. I especially remember the way he was able to bring his experience to bear so effectively in the Vancouver Local Strike Committee during the many tense moments of the 1978 CUPW strike where postal workers defied back-to-work legislation by Trudeau the Elder, and in the 1981 strike where CUPW won the break-through victory of paid maternity leave. 
 
I was reminded of this reading Joan Campana’s memory of Larry’s ” frequent admonitions and succinct homilies”, including his oft-quoted reminder that we need to be always be prepared for a long struggle. On a lighter note, we could without fail be assured at least once during any union discussion of a collective agreement offer by the boss that “it’s nothing more than a dog’s breakfast!”, and that if the union foolishly accepted it “then we’re really up Shit Creek!”.
 
Larry Nozaki was a friend, a mentor, a union Brother and a comrade. His work as a trade unionist and socialist to build a better world has provided an important contribution to the continuing struggle.

Evert Hoogers