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Timeline of labour issues and events in Canada

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This is a timeline of labour issues and events in Canada.

1700s

  • 1799: After establishing furtrading post Greenwich House at Lac la Biche, workers refuse to proceed to Lesser Slave River because of lack of provisions. First known strike action in Alberta.

Early-mid 1800s

  • 1803 - Seven men working for Peter Fidler at Lake Athabasca would not stay unless wages increased.1800s
  • ca. 1812 - dock workers in St. John (NB) and Halifax organized a union.

1870s

  • 1842 - In Quebec, T.M. Moore began to publish People's Magazine and Workingman's Guardian, the first labour-oriented reform newspaper.
  • 1871 - Toronto Trades Assembly formed. First central union body in Canada
  • 1872- Nine Hour Movement - labour activists call for nine-hour day and 54-hour workweek.Origins of Labour Day
  • 1872 - March 25, The Toronto Typographical Union goes on strike against their employer, the editor of The Globe, Liberal Party leader George Brown, demanding a nine-hour workday. Union activity then being a criminal offence, 24 members of the strike committee are jailed for conspiracy. John A Macdonald's Conservative government passed the Trade Unions Act on June 14, legalizing trade unions.
  • April 15, 1872, the Toronto Trades Assembly hold the country's first significant workers demonstration.
  • September 3, 1872 - Ottawa unionists hold a 10,000-person-strong parade through the city. Prime Minister John A. Macdonald joins and gives a speech where he promises to abolish the sort of laws that had put the Toronto printers in jail. (Canadian Parliament named Labour Day a holiday in 1894, and now it is a holiday world-wide.)
  • 1873 – A first attempt at establishing a national trade union centre is made by the founding of the Canadian Labour Union. It dissolved in 1878.

1880s

1890s

1900s

  • 1900 – Parliament passes the Conciliation Act and establishes the federal Department of Labour
  • 1900 (byelection) Arthur Puttee elected as the first Labour Member of Parliament (MP). Ran under the Winnipeg Labour Party label. Served as MP 1900–1904.
  • 1903 Consolidated Lake Superior riot
  • 1903 - Frank Rogers shot to death at picket line during strike at CPR, Vancouver
  • 1906 - Thomas Belanger and Francois Theriault shot to death during strike at Maclaren Company pulp mill at Buckingham, QU
  • 1906 - Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), formed in Chicago in 1905, came to BC. Founding convention of BC branch in 1906. Western Federation of Miners (WFM) instrumental in its early efforts.
  • 1906 - IWW Lumber Handlers Union No. 526, composed largely of Tsleil-Watuth First Nations people of Burrard, struck in opposition to demands of longer hours and lower pay. First IWW strike in western Canada. Strike unsuccessful; only success was getting jobs back and having scabs fired.
  • 1907 – Quebec Bridge, still under construction, collapsed, killing 75 Nine worst safety disasters in Canadian history
  • 1907 - IWW achieved majority control of the AFL-CIO unions in Nelson. (Just a couple years later it was largest union in Nelson and led successful fight for the 8-hour day and higher wages for city workers.)
  • 1907 Aug 28 – At Cobalt (Ontario) an IWW member killed when scabs overloaded a charge at the mine.IWW Members Killed 1907-1974 - IWW History Project
  • 1907- Rise of industrial unionism pre-World War 1 involved the IWW and other workers as well. In 1907, in Quebec, workers in the textile sector, predominantly Francophone or Jews, organized industrial unions and conducted strikes.
  • 1909 - Alberta provincial election - Charles O'Brien, of the Socialist Party of Canada, elected by coal miners in the Rockies.
  • 1909 - Prince Rupert (BC) - 123 IWW men walked off sewer construction worksite.
  • 1909 - Victoria IWW branch signed up 300 men employed in street construction and led them out on strike. That same year Victoria IWW called for a general strike to demand release of McNamara brothers, arrested for the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building.
  • 1909 - Vancouver Free Speech Fight, wherein the IWW, supported by the Socialist Party of Canada, refused to give in to mayor's and police demands that labourites not hold open-air rallies and meetings. Prominent U.S. leftist speakers also assisted - Lucy Parsons and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (Vancouver Free Speech Fight re-fought in 1911 and 1912.)

1910s

The Winnipeg general strike in 1919

1920s

  • 1920 – Independent Labor Party formed in Manitoba. elected Winnipeg MP J.S. Woodsworth (1921), Winnipeg MLAs and city councillors. STV adopted to elect Winnipeg MLAs and city councillors - four labour-oriented MLAs elected in 1920; 3-5 Labour councillors were elected in the 1920 city election.
  • 1920 - Five Labour MLAs elected in coalmining parts of Nova Scotia - Cumberland: Archibald Terris; Cape Breton: Joseph Steele, Arthur R. Richardson, Forman Waye and D.W. Morrison.
  • 1921 – United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) elected government in Alberta. The post of Minister of Labor given to Labor Party MLA Alex Ross, one of four Labor MLAs elected in Alberta in 1921.
  • 1921 – Canadian Labor Party revived under James Simpson. Labour MPs William Irvine and Joseph Tweed Shaw (backed by both the UFA and the DLP) were elected in Calgary. J.S. Woodsworth elected in Winnipeg under the label Independent Labor Party. Woodsworth, Irvine and others participated in the Ginger Group, a leftist caucus in House of Commons.
  • 1922 - Raid on Dominion Coal Company's store at Sydney, NS. Thirteen men sentenced to two or three-year prison sentences. (A company store was similarly pillaged in the 1995 film Margaret's Museum.)
  • 1922-1925 – Cape Breton Labour Wars for recognition of the United Mine Workers of America as miners' bargaining agent
  • 1924 – An informal coalition of progressive MPs forms the Ginger Group in the House of Commons to fight for labour and social issues.
  • 1925 – Coal miner William Davis was killed by company police and many injured during a protest during a major strike at the British Empire Steel and Coal Company (BESCO) in New Waterford, Nova Scotia. Davis Day was established in the memory of Bill Davis. The labour dispute resulted in the deployment of 2000 soldiers, the largest peacetime deployment of the Canadian Militia for an internal conflict since the North-West Rebellion of 1885.
  • 1926 -– Alberta used proportional representation (STV) to elect MLAs in Edmonton and Calgary. CLP's Lionel Gibbs elected in Edmonton; DLP's Fred White and Independent-Labour candidate Robert Parkyn elected in Calgary. (Use of STV to elect Edmonton MLAs produced election of Labour/CCF MLA every election from 1926 to 1955, excepting 1935 and 1940. In Calgary under STV, Labour/CCF elected in 1926, 1930, 1944 and 1948. After change to First Past the Post in 1956, no CCF/NDP elected in Edmonton until 1982, in Calgary not until 1986.)
  • 1928 – Ontario - Hollinger gold mine mining disaster. 39 were killed. Nine worst safety disasters in Canadian history
  • 1929 Thunder Bay – Death (suspected murder) of Finnish-Canadian union organizers Rosvall and Voutilainen

1930s

1940s

Female shop stewards at the Burrard Drydock, North Vancouver, British Columbia. The company hired more than 1000 women during World War II, all of whom were dismissed after the war to free up jobs for the men returning from armed service.

1950s

1960s

  • 1961 – The New Democratic Party is founded as the successor to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and establishes a formal relationship with the organized labour movement. In 2011, it became the Official Opposition in the House of Commons. By 2020, it has formed government at one time or another in six provinces and in the Yukon. (A non-union affiliate of the NDP, the Woodsworth-Irvine Socialist Fellowship, based in Edmonton, carried on socialist education from 1962 to about 2000.)
  • September 10, 1961 -– A Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers meeting at the Sudbury Arena, regarding the union's controversial proposal to merge with the United Steelworkers, erupts into a riot.
  • 1963 - Reesor Siding Strike. Three strikers shot to death by picketline-crossing log suppliers.
  • 1963 – The Canadian Union of Public Employees is formed through from the merger of the National Union of Public Employees and the National Union of Public Service Employees.
  • 1965 – Wildcat postal strike, leading to the extension of collective bargaining rights to the majority of the public service
  • 1967 – The international Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers merge with the United Steelworkers. Local 598 in Sudbury, Ontario, is the only Mine Mill local in the world to reject the merger, instead continuing operations as an unaffiliated union organization until 1993.
  • 1968 -– Air Canada agents in British Columbia begin work-to-rule over a dispute over the industrial relations department's bargaining methods.
  • 1969 – Murray-Hill riot, Montreal police force on strike. FLQ, taxi drivers and others took radical action
  • 1969 - New Democratic Party of Manitoba elected government. In power until 1977

1970s

1980s

  • 1981 – Hibernia oilfield near Newfoundland - Ocean Ranger, an offshore oil rig, sank, killing all 84 on board Nine worst safety disasters in Canadian history
  • 1984, the Canadian Auto Workers Union (properly the National Automobile, Aerospace, Transportation and General Workers Union of Canada) founded. Bob White, an official of the United Auto Workers, encouraged the Canadian membership of the U.A.W. to split away and form a separate union. He later became first president of C.A.W. (split covered in NFB film Final Offer)
  • 1985 – The Canadian Auto Workers become independent of their former parent union, the United Auto Workers. This process is later documented in the film Final Offer.
  • 1986 -– Alberta NDP took 16 seats, a record until 2015, and became Official Opposition (Brian Mason elected as MLA - he would be a NDP cabinet minister in 2015)
  • 1986 -– Six-month-long strike at the Gainers meatpacking plant in Edmonton

1990s

2000s

2010s

  • July 5, 2010 - A tentative resolution of the Vale strike in Sudbury is announced.
  • September 11, 2012 - Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and the Liberal party pass Bill 115 'Putting Students First Act 2012', thereby eliminating the rights of all teachers in the province to go on strike for the next two years. Bill 115 also freezes wages, grants ten sick days per year (down from twenty) and eliminates banked sick days from previous years. Unions state that this bill is a violation of their members' rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that the bill violates the Ontario Labour Relations Act of 1995.
  • February 4, 2012 - in Halifax, Amalgamated Transit Union went on strike, crippling the city's public transportation until March 14, 2012. Transit workers were denied salary or compensation increases, due to a reported $3M deficit.
  • 2013 – Unifor is formed through the merger of the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, becoming the largest private-sector union in the country.
  • 2015 – NDP elected government in Alberta, in power until 2019
  • 2019 – SMWIA ICI members Go on strike in Ontario for 8 weeks May - June first strike in 30 years for that organization.

2020s

See also

Footnotes

  1. Verzuh. Radical Rag. The Pioneer Labour Press in Canada. p. 3.
  2. Verzuh. Radical Rag. p. 1.
  3. ^ Phillips, Pattie (September 4, 2009). "Highlights in Canadian Labour History". CBC News. Retrieved June 5, 2016.
  4. Rouillard & Bullen 2013.
  5. Gregory S. Kealey and Bryan D. Palmer. Dreaming of What Might Be: The Knights of Labor in Ontario, 1880–1900 (1982).
  6. Marsh 2016.
  7. McDonald, Robert A J; Barman, Jean (1986). Vancouver past: essays in social history. UBC Press. p. 59.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. Mouat, Jeremy. "Rogers, Frank". Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Retrieved 2024-04-11.
  9. Gambone and Alperovitz. They Died for You. pp. 3–4.
  10. Gambone and Asperovitz. They Died For You. pp. 5–6.
  11. Gambone. For Freedom We Will Fight. pp. 1–3.
  12. Gambone. For Freedom We Will Fight. pp. 1–2.
  13. Gambone. For Freedom We Will Fight. pp. 8–9.
  14. Gambone. For Freedom We Will Fight. p. 15.
  15. Gambone. For Freedom We Will Fight. pp. 9–10.
  16. A Report on Alberta Elections 1905-1982.
  17. ^ Gambone. For Freedom We Will Fight. p. 11.
  18. Gambone. For Freedom We Will Fight. pp. 11–14.
  19. ^ Gambone. For Freedom We Will Fight. pp. 18–19, 23–25.
  20. "Vancouver Island War", Knowledge Network preview/summary video(3 minutes) Archived 2014-11-01 at the Wayback Machine
  21. Gambone and Asperovitz. They Died For You. pp. 7–9.
  22. Jennissen 1981, p. 55.
  23. "To Collect Funds for Rowan's Defence". Edmonton Bulletin, Aug. 17, 1914: 8.
  24. Angus 2004, p. 95.
  25. Bernard, Elaine (1985). "Vancouver General Strikes, 1918 and 1919". Working lives : Vancouver, 1886–1986. Vancouver: New Star Books.
  26. "By narrow margin Citizens score victory Winnipeg contest...". Edmonton Bulletin (Dec. 4, 1920): 1.
  27. "Items of Pass Interest". Blairmore Enterprise. March 23, 1922. p. 12.
  28. Mardon and Mardon. Alberta Election Results 1882-1992.
  29. Knafla, L.A. (ed.) (1981) Crime and Criminal Justice in Europe and Canada, Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfried Laurier University Press. p 246.
  30. Gambone and Asperovitz. They Died For You. pp. 18–20.
  31. Gambone and Asperovitz. They Died For You. pp. 21–23.
  32. Gambone and Asperovitz. They Died For You. pp. 24–25.
  33. Gambone and Asperovitz. They Died For You. pp. 26–28.
  34. Smith 2013.
  35. Palmer et al. 2015.
  36. "Asbestos Strike of 1949".
  37. Canada, Quebec, and the Uses of Nationalism. Toronto: McLelland & Stewart Inc. 1986. ISBN 9780771022616
  38. "Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks – NFB – Collection".
  39. Valour at Sea - Canada's Merchant Navy". Veterans Affairs Canada. Archived from the original on May 15, 2021. Retrieved February 19, 2022.
  40. Miller 1975, p. 311.
  41. Erickson & Laycock 2015, pp. 13–15.
  42. Leon Crane Bear, Larry Hannant, Karissa Robyn Patton. Bucking Conservatism: Alternative Stories of Alberta from the 1960s and 1970s.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  43. "Fighting the good fight: Homer Seguin tells his story" Archived 2012-03-08 at the Wayback Machine, Northern Life, October 15, 2008. northernlife.ca
  44. Gambone and Asperovitz. They Died For You. pp. 28–29.
  45. Laxer 1976, p. 127.
  46. "Air Canada Hit By Work-to-Rule", The Sun, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, pp. 1–2, 9 December 1968, retrieved 28 November 2016
  47. Gambone and Asperovitz. They Died For You. p. 30.
  48. Gambone and Asperovitz. They Died For You. p. 32.
  49. "1973 – 1982: CUPE Becomes a Seasoned Political Force". Canadian Union of Public Employees. 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  50. "The largest labour protest in Canadian history". 14 October 2018.
  51. Legrande, Linda (1979). "Merger of Retail Clerks, Meat Cutters Created Union Exceeding 1.2 Million". Monthly Labor Review. 102 (9). Bureau of Labor Statistics: 56–57. Retrieved June 6, 2016.
  52. Gambone and Asperovitz. They Died For You. p. 33.
  53. ^ "Vale reaches deal with workers at Sudbury nickel mine". The Gazette, July 5, 2010.
  54. "Love the Way We Bitch".

References

Gambone, Larry and D.J. Asperovitz, They Died For You. A Brief History of Canadian Labour Martyrs, 1903-2006. IWW Vancouver Island GMB Literature Committee (2011)

External links

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