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1919 – The Winnipeg General Strike

For more than six tense weeks in the spring of 1919, the residents of Winnipeg witnessed an unprecedented display of labour solidarity when local union and non-union workers from the private and public sectors paralyzed their city in a general strike. Banks, mail and food delivery, newspapers, telephones, taxis, water, power and even police and fire services were either cut off or drastically reduced. The strike was sparked by a dispute between metal workers and their bosses; it quickly spread throughout the city’s working class, fanned by deeper discontents over inflation, unemployment and ideological ferment. Today, the Winnipeg General Strike is considered the biggest and most traumatic general strike in Canada.

After World War I began in 1914, Canada displayed its patriotism by dispatching a half million troops to the front and by shipping millions of dollars of foodstuffs and munitions to Europe. The war snapped Canada out of a pre-war recession, thereby virtually banishing unemployment and boosting Canadians’ incomes. But costs in the overheated economy were not held in check and inflation began to erode the new prosperity. The war also promoted regional imbalances; central Canada reaped the fruits of industry, while the West and the East were relegated, many argued, to the role of resource hinterlands. When the war ended in November 1918, so did the heightened demand for goods and services. Many factories, such as those in war-sensitive chemical and steel production, faced a sharp drop in demand. This industrial downturn, combined with the flood of demobilized soldiers, triggered severe unemployment. The “war to end all wars” had not produced a prosperous peace.

Those workers who still had their jobs agitated for higher wages to recoup the wartime erosion of their standard of living by inflation. Across Canada, the working class grew restless. Events elsewhere emboldened Canadian workers: the rise of the British Labour Party and the 1917 Russian Revolution seemed to demonstrate a global working class solidarity. Western Canadian workers talked of forming One Big Union to oppose capitalism. Early in 1919, Winnipeg became the Canadian epicenter of this agitation when workers in the building and metal trades found both their wage demands and their unions’ standing flatly rejected by their employers.

By the beginning of May, the metal workers moved to strike. Their action quickly elicited sympathy from the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council (WTLC), the umbrella organization for all local labour. The members of the WTLC overwhelmingly endorsed the cause of the metal workers and, on May 15, called a general strike in sympathy with the metal workers’ cause. Canada had never before seen an industrial conflict of such magnitude. In a city of almost 175,000 people, more than 30,000 workers – many of them positioned at the strategic centre of the local economy – went on strike.

Winnipeg’s business class and politicians vehemently opposed the strike, saying that it was the product of “enemy aliens”, smacked of “Bolshevism” and sought to undermine social and political values. They formed a Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand to challenge the strikers and to restore order to the city. The committee forced the city council to dismiss the strike-sympathetic police force, and then urged the recruitment of a special 2000-man force to tame the strike. The federal and provincial governments lent their support to this reaction, portraying the strike as a conspiracy aimed at the very foundation of the nation. For their part, strikers adopted non-confrontational tactics. Nonetheless, the federal government utilized the Immigration Act to deport British-born strike leaders. Not surprisingly, the strike quickly became national and then international news.

On June 17, 1919, several leaders of the Central Strike Committee were arrested and sent to a jail outside the city. The Winnipeg labour force was outraged. On Saturday June 21, pro-strike ex-servicemen defied the mayor’s ban on parades and filled the streets in front of City Hall. A contingent of Royal Northwest Mounted Police, backed by federal troops, charged into the crowd to clear the protest. By late afternoon, downtown Winnipeg was deserted. One person lay dead, and almost a hundred people were injured in the events of what came to be called Bloody Saturday.

On June 26, the strike was officially called off. The metal workers returned to work, without a pay increase. Telephone workers were rehired only after pledging that they would never take part in a sympathetic strike again. Other workers were imprisoned, others deported; and thousands more lost their jobs.

Though demands for higher wages and better hours were not met, workers did accomplish some of their goals. Legislation soon obliged employers to recognize the right of workers to bargain through their union. Beyond these gains, the strike left a powerful legacy in the minds of working Canadians. In 1920, 11 labour candidates won seats in the Manitoba legislature, 4 of them being strike leaders. A year later, James Woodsworth, a Methodist minister-turned-striker, became the first independent labour MP elected to Ottawa; he would later become the founding leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, today’s New Democratic Party (NDP).

Links

Labour’s Revolt – Winnipeg General Strike
Source: Civilization Canada
http://www.civilization.ca/hist/labour/labh22e.html

Remembering the Winnipeg General Strike
Source: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
http://archives.cbc.ca/400d.asp?id=1-73-717-4239-20&wm6;=1

Guide to Canadian Labour History
Source: Library and Archives of Canada
http://www.collectionscanada.ca/2/26/index-e.html

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