The Winnipeg General Strike

World War I was over, but by 1919 relations between Canadian workers and
employers were becoming explosive. Unions had grown stronger during the war,
and they wanted to keep and expand their power. Wages and working conditions
had improved little, if at all, since the turn of the century.

In March 1919, western labour leaders met at the Western Labour Conference in
Calgary. Delegates proclaimed solidarity with revolutionaries in Russia and
Germany and broke off from the more conservative, Ontario-centred Trades and
labour Congress. The leaders proposed One Big Union, a plan to organize all
workingmen and women. In the following months, a referendum was held to ask
union members if they supported the idea.

In an unrelated labour dispute, the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council (WTLC)
had reached a standoff with management. The WTLD wanted better pay and
working conditions for its members in the metal and building trades. Management
refused to recognize the WTLD, or its right to bargain collectively for workers. On
May 15, 1919, the Council called for a general strike.

Within days, more than 30,000 unionized and non-unionized workers walked off
the job. They included postal workers, firefighters, police, telephone operators,
waiters, and factory workers. Trains stopped running, shops closed. Winnipeg
ground to a halt. As the strike continued it would last six weeks it won support
from people across the city and across Canada. Eventually, sympathy strikes
spread from Nova Scotia to British Columbia.

Winnipegs most powerful industrialists, bankers, and politicians quickly formed

the Citizens Committee of 1000. They refused to meet with WTLC leaders and
denounced the strike as the work of communist enemy aliens. They used the
local press to get their message out.
The
Winnipeg Tribune

declared Winnipeg
was now under the Soviet system of government. As the strike wore on, it became
international news.
The New York Times
ran feature editorials, including one that
called the strike an attempt at revolution.

In Ottawa, Prime Minister Robert Borden feared the conflict would grip the nation.
He sent federal representatives to Winnipeg, led by Arthur Meighen, minister of
the interior. Meighen immediately supported the Committee of 1000 and refused
to meet with the strikers. He advised the government to order federal employees
back to work or lose their jobs. The government amended the Immigration Act so
that any immigrant, including British-born, could be deported more easily. Then
the Criminal Code definition of sedition was broadened to give police sweeping
new powers of arrest.


On June 17, ten strike leaders (eight of them British-born) and two leaders of the
One Big Union were arrested and denied bail. Four days later, on June 21, a crowd
including women and children gathered peacefully on Winnipegs Main Street
to protest the arrests. Members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police rode into
the group, swinging baseball bats. When strikers started hurling stones, the police
opened fire with real bullets. One man was killed and 30 injured in what is now
known as Bloody Saturday.

For the next five days, government militia patrolled Winnipeg streets riding in
cars with mounted machine guns. The cars had been donated by some of
Winnipegs wealthiest citizens. After six weeks of tension, and finally bloodshed,
the WTLC called off the strike. On June 26, it was all over.

No enemy aliens were ever discovered or deported. But seven of the arrested
leaders were convicted of conspiracy and received sentences from six months to
two years. Even while jailed, they continued their activism for workers rights
Arthur Meighen never apologized for the governments hard-line approach, but
Prime Minister Borden promised a Royal Commission would study labour
conditions. The WTLC, too, took a different approach: the next battles for better
wages and working conditions would be fought in the political arena, not on the
streets.

The Winnipeg General Strike, however, was a terrible defeat for organized labour.
It would take 30 years before the federal government recognized unions and the
right to collective bargaining. But one person arrested was J.S. Woodsworth, a
pacifist and former Methodist minister. His crime had been to write editorials
supporting the strike. In 1921, Woodsworth was elected to parliament. He
remained an immensely popular Winnipeg MP for the next 21 years. He would
grill Meighen in the House of Commons. In 1927, he would pressure Mackenzie
King to introduce Canadas first old age pension. By 1932, Woodsworth would
help found the Co-Operative Commonwealth Federation, which would later
become the New Democratic Party.

Questions:

1. Was it a fair fight between the WTLC and its opponents? What
strengths did each side have and use?

2. With what you know about working conditions at this time, do you feel
the workers were justified in going on strike? Explain.