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The First Century of
Canadian Unions
Lesson 2—Grade 10
Prescribed Learning Outcomes
- compare roles and daily activities of men and women.
- evaluate the changes to Canada’s immigration policy/the Asiatic Exclusion League.
- evaluate the influence of immigration on Canadian society 1815–1914.
- describe the development of British Columbia’s economy 1815–1914.
LESSON TITLE
The First Century of Canadian Unions
Time
60–75 minutes
Objectives
Students will:
- examine the stages of development of the Canadian Labour Movement
from Pre-Confederation through its first one hundred years.
- evaluate the impact of urbanization, and the movement within the
labour movement from primarily craft unions to industrial unionism.
- assess the gains made to worker and human rights through this period
of the labour movement’s development.
- analyze the relative impact of the radical versus moderate arms of the
labour movement.
INTRODUCTION/overview
The positive effect of labour unions cannot be overstated. This short
introduction will help the student understand their basic historical development and the social-justice issues labour unions championed.
MATERIALS NEEDED
The article: The First Century of Canadian Unions
The questions: 1–11
ACTIVITIES
Have students read the article and answer the questions. Discuss the
answers with the class.
Evaluation/Assessment
Teacher could mark questions.
The First Century of Canadian Unions
The labour that laid the foundation for our nation was mostly hard backbreaking work. The exploitation of this labour was ruthless: 12-hour
days, six-day weeks, wages just above subsistence levels, and child labour.
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Starting in the early years of the 19th century, workers began to unite to
improve their living standards. The first unions were formed: shipbuilders, shoemakers, printers, mechanics, and bakers. Those craft unions of
skilled workers were formed in the hope that collective bargaining would
protect jobs, increase living standards, and serve as mutual aid societies
in times of illness, unemployment, and death of a member.
As Canada became more urban (as late as 1851, 87% of the population
didn’t live in towns or cities) and encouraged by labour movements in
Europe and the United States, labour organizations increased.
The early unions were local, but by the 1860s, workers joined unions
started in the United States and Britain. Canadian unions became dominated by “internationals”—American unions with the majority of their
members working in the United States. The new American unions were
bigger and more powerful, but some critics argued that Canadian labour
was to become dominated by American concerns.
As the number of working-class organizations increased, efforts to improve and co-ordinate the activities of the working class grew, local craft
unions formed trade assemblies or labour councils that included unions
in a certain city or geographical area. Furthermore, a national convention
of unions called for in 1873 established the first national central organization, the Canadian Labour Union.
One of the first political victories was in the Toronto printers strike of
1872, demanding the nine-hour day. George Brown, of The Globe newspaper, had nine strikers arrested on charges of seditious conspiracy, organizing a union. (Unions were illegal at the time). Sir John A. Macdonald,
eager to win labour support against Brown and the Liberals in the next
election, passed through parliament the Trade Unions Act legalizing
trade unions. Brown was forced to meet the demands of the workers,
and the strike was won.
With the advance of the Industrial Revolution and the factory system
came the rise of the new forms of labour organization to address the aspirations of the expanding labour force. The most spectacular expression
of this was the American-based Holy and Noble Order of the Knights
of Labour. The Knights, unlike the craft unions, attempted to organize
workers not by craft, but “all” workers into one union. Nevertheless, the
Knights suffered from racism and refused to organize Asian workers
doctors, bankers, lawyers and saloonkeepers. The new form of organization was far more threatening to the capitalist class. The workers were
to be organized as a class rather than into narrow crafts that could be
divided by appealing to the interests of a few skilled craft workers. The
Knights quickly spread, establishing union locals from Nova Scotia to
British Columbia.
The increase of union activity in the 1880s brought the labour movement
into the forefront of the battle for social legislation. The labour movement
flexed its new organizational strength and began to organize for a long
list of demands: a nine-hour then eight-hour day, a two-day weekend, old
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age pensions, paid holidays, pay equality, end to child labour, free public
education, minimum wage, workers’ compensation, votes for women...
In 1883, a new central labour organization, the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada (TLC), was formed, the forerunner of today’s central
body the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). Also labour councils were
cropping up from coast to coast, bringing together unions in a particular
community. The labour councils became politically active, endorsing
certain pro-worker candidates and, more significantly, running their own
candidates. Independent labour politicians ran under the banner of Labour
Party and Socialist Party. The first labour leader to be elected was Daniel
O’Donoghue to the provincial legislature in Ontario. He became known
as “the father of Canadian labour”. Daniel O’Donoghue was followed by
many other Labour candidates elected across the country. Nevertheless,
labour found the electoral arena difficult to organize in. Many workers
were still not allowed to vote because of their sex, race, lack of a permanent
home, and their inability to meet income qualifications.
Even though a few gains had been made, many workers felt that the
capitalist system was fundamentally unjust. In the two decades before
World War I, workers throughout the world became better organized
and more radical. The numbers of strikes worldwide increased; riots,
rebellions, and factory and land occupations were common. Workers
everywhere discussed socialism, anarchism, and revolution. In Canada, the
most dynamic expression of the discontent was organizing activities of the
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). The IWW was an Americanbased revolutionary left-wing union. The first line of its charter underlines
this radicalism: “The working class and the employing class have nothing
in common.” The IWW was an industrial union that considered craft
unions dangerous because they divided and weakened the labour movement. The Wobblies, as they were called, believed that all the workers
in the world should be in one union, the One Big Union (OBU). The
Wobblies organized everyone regardless of occupation, sex, and race (up to
that time, craft unions had avoided organizing Asian workers and actually
called for their expulsion from Canada). The IWW’s greatest influence
was in British Columbia among the highly mobile immigrant, mine, rail,
and wood workers. IWW strikes were often pre-revolutionary formations,
with the union taking over services in the towns and strike areas.
The IWW was part of the socialist revolutionary union movement that
shook the world in the two decades before World War One. The repression against the union (IWW denounced the war) ensured the IWW
would be broken: leaders jailed and deported, offices closed down, and
leaders murdered.
Adapted from History of Canadian
Labour—CLC publication
36M/2/81.
Youth, Unions, and You
The first hundred years of labour struggles for social justice laid the
foundations for the labour organizations today. Many of the basic rights
we enjoy resulted from workers sacrifices: many suffered, and some were
murdered, but the labour movement was firmly established. When we
study the lives and experiences of the heroic pioneers of labour and the
organizations they built we begin to rediscover a heritage that needs to
be passed on to each new generation.
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Answer the following:
1. What were the early conditions of work like in Canada?________________________________________
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2. What were the reasons workers began to form unions?_________________________________________
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3. Why did Canadian workers join international/American unions?_________________________________
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4. What is a labour council?________________________________________________________________
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5. Why did John A. Macdonald support the Trade Unions Act?____________________________________
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6. Why were the Knights of Labor a greater threat to the capitalist class than were the craft unions?_______
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7. How many of the early demands the labour movement fought for have not been accomplished?________
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8. Who was Daniel O’Donoghue?___________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________
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9. Why do most historians consider the IWW the most radical of the labour organizations in Canadian history?___________________________________________________________________________________
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10. Why did the IWW suffers such a decline in a membership during and after Word War I?____________
______________________________________________________________________________________
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11. Why does the author believe students should study the history of Canadian unions?_________________
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