Publications

The asbestos miners’ strike begins

On midnight February 14, 1949, workers at four Quebec asbestos mines walked off the job and with that action started a major political and cultural shift not only in that province but the history of Canada. It was, as Pierre Trudeau later wrote, “a violent announcement that a new era had begun.” “What I found [at Asbestos]… was a Quebec…

Striking pulp mill workers gunned down by local farmers in northern ontario

On February 10, 1963, one of the bloodiest labour conflicts in Canadian history took place when armed local farmers clashed with striking workers in the small community of Reesor Siding – a tragic case of working people being turned upon each other, spurred on by corporate greed. A month earlier, on January 14, the 1,500 members of Local 2995 of…

Jean-Claude Parrot, President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, is sent to prison for defying a back-to-work law

On January 29, 1980, Jean-Claude Parrot started serving a three-month prison term for defying Parliament after it imposed back-to-work legislation on his members, who had walked off the job in frustration after 18 months of fruitless bargaining and employer shenanigans. Labour relations between Canada Post and the workers who sort and deliver the mail for people have rarely been good.…

The Canada-U.S. auto pact created the modern Canadian auto industry

On January 16, 1965, Prime Minister, Lester Pearson, and President Lyndon Johnston met in Texas to sign the Canada-US Auto Pact. The agreement represented an important compromise between free trade and providing decent work Canadians. The Auto Pact is credited for invigorating the domestic Canadian auto industry. It established new rules for the manufacture of cars in both the U.S.…

Ralph Chaplin finishes writing Solidarity Forever, perhaps the most famous labour anthem of all.

SOLIDARITY FOREVER! On January 15, 1915, Ralph Chaplin finished composing a poem he began writing the previous year while he was covering the Kanawha coal miners’ strike in Huntington, West Virginia. Despite his later regrets – Chapman was a dedicated Wobbly who later came to lament the success of industrial unionism – Solidarity Forever has become the labour movement’s most…

“There was a union maid, she never was afraid.”

“In the dark days prior to and during the Great Depression of the thirties there appeared on the Canadian scene a young woman whose fiery spirit and love of humanity carried her to the forefront of the struggles of the men and women who were striving to find a way out of the darkness of poverty, unenlightenment, and despair.” **…

Anti-terrorism legislation threatens to undermine the freedom the government claims it would protect

The Canadian Labour Congress says that Bill C-51, proposed anti terrorism legislation, threatens to undermine the very freedoms the government claims it wants to protect. “Canadians agree that terrorism is a threat and the government has a responsibility to safeguard public safety, but it has not justified why it cannot do that using the existing criminal code,” said CLC president…

Canadian unions join February 18 global mobilization on right to strike

The International Trade Union Confederation is calling on unions around the world to demonstrate their support for the right to strike on February 18. The mobilization comes in advance of a key decision being made in March by the International Labour Organization (ILO) Governing Body about whether to refer a dispute over the right to strike to the International Court…

It’s (still) time for leadership on jobs: Revised job numbers for July don’t change the story

OTTAWA ― While today’s revised job numbers from Statistics Canada show fewer jobs were lost than those originally reported, it’s the same story as far as the quality of the new jobs available to Canada’s 1.35 million unemployed workers. Between June and Quam temere in vitiis, legem sancimus haerentia. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient. A communi observantia non…