Canada After WWI!!
1914-1929 was a time of social upheaval and reform.
The Twenties
Two big movements: labour and women’s rights
The Labour Movement!
The war created jobs and wages soared, but so did the
cost of living.
Communism!
When the war ended 500,000 men returned looking for
work.
Inspired by Marx, the Bolsheviks seized power in
Russia. In the Utopian “workers paradise”, private
ownership would be banned and collective planning
would take place.
Assembly-line factories were undermining the historical
importance of higher-paid skilled workers.
Communism in its time was as much a religious as a
political movement.
One Big Union
We know now that communism introduced some of
the most brutal regimes in human history, but in those
early days, it seemed like a panacea for all of society’s
woes.
The fight for improved working conditions became
infected by ideology. Unions became increasingly
radical, and strike action became less a bargaining ploy
than a political weapon.
Led by British emigrants fresh from the socialist arenas
of Europe, Canadian unions, especially in the West,
became increasingly radical and delegates to Canada’s
Trades and Labour Congress (TLC) became
increasingly militant.
Frustrated with the conservative approach, the more
radical members broke away from the Congress.
OBU objectives:
In June 1919 the OBU was formed.
A self-declared “revolutionary industrial union,” the OBU
was Marxist in outlook and rhetoric.
Their favoured method was one of general strike,
shutting down entire towns and cities in a show of
worker solidarity.
Better wages
Legal recognition of the union
A six-hour workday and a five-day workweek
A repeal of earlier government restriction on labour
The Winnipeg
General Strike!
Winnipeg was one of the most unionized cities.
It was the war and its aftermath that finally pushed
things over the edge.
WWI, with its spiraling inflation and frantic employment,
made workers aware of both their increasing power
and their increasing vulnerability.
As early as 1917, there was talk of a general strike over
conscription, and in 1918, when the Winnipeg City
Council outlawed the right to strike for civil employees,
municipal workers walked off the job and several other
unions joined them.
Their actions shook the council and the city quickly
backed down in defeat.
The 1918 lesson was learned: Strength in numbers,
victory through militancy.
The Winnipeg General Strike was one of the most
pivotal moments in Canadian labour history.
Returning veterans played a key role in both sides.
They were, to a man, sick of war and longing for a
permanent peace.
No one seems too clear on why it happened.
They drifted in two camps: pro reform and union, and
anti reform and union.
Both were inspired by the same wish: to see something
good come of out of WWI.
Massive unemployment, social unrest, and rising
inflation all played a part.
Union leaders like R.B. Russell saw the strike as a
straightforward fight for collective bargaining rights
and the legal recognition of industrial unions.
The government and the business community saw
it as an attempt at staging a full-scale Bolshevik
revolution, spurred on by the many shady Eastern
European immigrants that had been flooding into
the city.
The labour unrest started small but it quickly
caught fire.
Momentum overtook events, and the Winnipeg
Trades and Labour Council called for worker
solidarity and a city-wide general strike.
The initial solidarity was overwhelming. of 96 unions,
94 joined the strike. The only two that didn’t were the
typographers and the police (who voted to strike but
were asked by the strike committee to stay on the job).
An ad hoc Citizens Committee of 1,000, made up of
manufacturers, bankers, and politicians, spearheaded
opposition to the strike. the army worked closely with
them, and Ottawa consulted as well.
At promptly 11:00 a.m., May 15, 1919, the city of
Winnipeg was shut down. Completely.
More than 30,000 workers--phone operators, milkmen,
firefighters, trainmen, factory workers, streetcar
operators, postmen, shippers, craftsmen, garbage
collectors, street-sweepers--all joined the strike.
Ottawa was concerned for good reason. Sympathy
strikes appeared across the nation.
Police strikebreakers poured into Winnipeg. They went
from 27 to 272.
Something was in the air.
machine guns were shipped in and mounted on trucks,
and a fully operational assault tank was ordered in.
The army was standing by.
The Citizens Committee, backed by the militia, called
for the mass arrest of strike organizers.
Arthur Meighen, acting minister of justice, thought this
was a swell idea, but had to admit that this was, sadly,
against the law.
The solution? Change the law.
It soon turned into a riot.
Strikers attacked a tram and set it on fire.
Mounties responded by riding in on horseback,
swinging sticks.
The police then fired on the crowd, killing one and
injuring at least 20 others (a second man died later).
Canada’s Immigration Act and the Criminal Code
were quickly revised to allow the government to
arrest, detain, and deport naturalized citizens on
the mere suspicion of advocating revolution.
A dozen men were arrested.
On Saturday, June 21, armed strikers and angry
war veterans, along with women and children,
gathered on Winnipeg’s main street to protest the
government’s strong-arm tactics
The crowd broke and ran--only to find itself
penned in by a line of armed troops. Soldiers,
wielding clubs cracked some skulls.
More than 80 demonstrators were arrested, and
by dusk the army ruled the streets.
The general strike had been broken.
“Bloody Saturday” was over. Employees slowly
began returning to work, and by June 25 it was all
over. It had lasted six weeks.