Graphic Communicator photo by Susan Zachem

In her Vancouver studio, British Columbia 525M employer and member Melva Forsberg produces union-label Babylon Buttons that speak to union members and their allies. From left are Local 525M Business Rep. Alex Charles, Carice Bowers, and Forsberg.

Around Canada, she's known as the "button lady" – a moniker that Melva Forsberg doesn't mind because she's doing what she loves and getting paid for it.

Forsberg is a unique member of British Columbia 525M and the owner of Babylon Buttons, a small company that produces lapel buttons for unions and allied groups. All her buttons bear the Local 525M label.

Forsberg's factory is located in a small studio in East Vancouver's warehouse district. Her workshop is surrounded by studios of other graphic artists and musicians.

During Vancouver's "Culture Crawl" weekend, she said, she gets thousands of people dropping into her studio to view her wares and her work processes. At other times, she goes to the masses at rallies and union conventions to display her work.

Politicians and social issues are all fair game for Forsberg's buttons. British Columbia's Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell is a favorite target at the moment and an easy one for his assaults on union workers, the province's health care system, and other public social programs.

Her button slogans range from the broad – "stop corporate rule," "a woman's place is in her union," "globalize resistance," "no concessions," and "syndicat oui" – to the specific.

"Is he Asper or Izzy a schmuck?" she asks about the CEO of CanWest, Izzy Asper, who owns the majority of daily newspapers in Canada and who has become infamous for concession demands since buying the newspapers from Conrad Black.

Another button sports the Nike "swoosh" logo and reads: "slave labor is cool." Of the U.S. law imposing economic sanctions on Cuba, she wrote: "If Helms-Burton is the answer, it must have been a stupid question."

Forsberg said sometimes groups bring her their slogans for buttons, but most times she makes them up. Thinking buttons comes naturally, she said. "After so many years, I start to think in terms of what would be good on a button."

Forsberg joined Local 525M in the mid-1980s when she began to make buttons. She began by selling at union gatherings, environmental rallies, and political demonstrations. After she became better known, groups began coming to her for orders.

While she used to paint buttons by hand and still does some, now Forsberg does most of the type and artwork on a Macintosh computer. After they are printed out, they are hot laminated, then cut in squares and pressed onto metal casings.

Alex Charles of Local 525M said that, despite her strong pro-union philosophy, Forsberg is still an employer and the local negotiates a contract with her.

But negotiations with her are unique, like her art, Charles said. For example, he doesn't worry that she will demand fewer holidays like a typical employer might do, he said. He only has to cope with what holidays she will choose. During the Graphic Communicator interview, she was leaning for two of them toward International Women's Day and May 1 – "the real labor day," as she put it.