Early in the morning beneath the small town of Plymouth, Nova Scotia, a methane gas leak into the Westray mine shaft from the Foord coal seam mixed with coal dust and caused in an explosion. The sky lit up with a blue flash and homes more than a kilometer away shook with the force of blast. Within seconds 26 miners working underground on that shift were killed.

In little over an hour a team of men was down the mine on foot to attempt a rescue. They were soon joined by rescue teams from mines in Cape Breton, Pugwash and Bathurst as is the tradition of miners rushing in to help their fellow miners. But there were no survivors of this explosion.

When the explosion happened, the Westray mine was the only working underground coal mine in Pictou County, Nova Scotia’s coalfield. The coal seam there had been mined for 200 years with a long history of explosions. The nearby Allan mine, which closed in 1951, experienced eight methane explosions in its 40-years of operations.

The Westray death toll was Canada’s worst mining disaster since the 1958 “bump” in the Springhill coal mine that claimed the lives of 75 miners. Coal mining has always been dangerous work. Between 1838 and 1950, 246 Pictou County miners were killed in similar methane and coal-dust explosions. Many of them were mining the Foord seam that the Westray mine was working. Between 1866 and 1972, another 330 miners were killed in other mine related accidents. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics a worker in the coal mining industry is six times more likely to die of a job-related issue than in any other private industry on earth.

Despite these dangers, it turns out the Westray mine was an accident waiting to happen. Before the mine opened, concerns had been raised about its safety. During its construction, in July 1991, a letter was sent to the provincial Labour Minister from MLA Bertin Boudreau warning that the new coal mine “is potentially one of the most dangerous in the world.” The promise of new jobs, rich profits and political reward left those warnings and others unheeded.

Following the disaster, a provincial inquiry lead by Justice Peter Richard found “The Westray story is a complex mosaic of actions, omissions, mistakes, incompetence, apathy, cynicism, stupidity and neglect.”  (The Westray Story: A Predictable Path to Disaster.) Yet, all attempts to prosecute the company and its officials for actions that lead to the deaths of 26 men failed.

Canada’s unions responded with a campaign to change the Criminal Code so corporate managers and directors who fail to take steps to protect the lives of their employees could be held criminally liable in the event of workplace deaths. Private members’ bills were introduced in Parliament only to fail until, on the fifth attempt, in 2003, the federal government enacted what would come to be known as the “Westray Bill” that provided a new framework for corporate liability in Canada.

The Westray mine site was razed in 1998 and the mine shaft sealed entombing the bodies of 11 miners. A memorial was built in a park in nearby New Glasgow approximately at the location above ground where the remaining miners were trapped. The memorial’s central monument, engraved with the names and ages of the twenty-six men who lost their lives in the disaster, states, “Their light shall always shine.”  The memorial lands were protected by the Nova Scotia government and further mineral exploration is prohibited within the park.

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The mill relied on the local supply of logs to make wood pulp. Along with the woodcutters who were facing a wage freeze, local farmers provided 25% of the logs the pulp mill needed to function. The land in the region was poor and despite the extra income earned from logging, it was difficult to make a living farming. When asked by the union to stop providing logs to the mill to help put pressure on their employer to settle, the farmers refused and relations quickly soured. The striking workers responded by sabotaging the farmers’ lumber, making it unsaleable.

Conflict within the community escalated. On January 23, the mayor of Kapuskasing, Norman Grant, was quoted in the Globe and Mail saying, “These settlers are getting so desperate they are going to go into the bush with guns and shoot anyone who tries to interfere with their cutting.”

At midnight on February 10, a group of 400 unarmed workers gathered to stop a shipment of the farmers’ wood from being loaded onto railcars. Twenty farmers were waiting for them at the loading station, determined to protect their lumber. Standing between them were fewer than 20 Ontario Provincial Police officers and a line of chain.

The workers easily got past the police and their chain, but as they approached the lumber, a number of the farmers stepped out from hiding and began shooting into the crowd of workers. They killed Fernand Drouin, and brothers Irenée and Joseph Fortier. Eight others were wounded: Harry Bernard, Ovila Bernard, Joseph Boily, Alex Hachey, Albert Martel, Joseph Mercier, Léo Ouimette and Daniel Tremblay.

Later, the leader of the Ontario NDP, Donald C. MacDonald, publicly declared that affidavits revealed that police knew farmers had brought firearms with them that night, but did nothing to prevent their use.

After the attack, the province sent 200 police officers to the area and appointed Professor Bora Laskin of the University of Toronto as mediator between the LSWU and Spruce Falls. Workers voted to end the strike and return to work under the terms of their old contract on February 17 agreeing to arbitration to resolve the issues behind the 33-day long strike.

Over half of the workers were temporarily held in a former POW Camp, south of Iroquois Falls, on charges of rioting until they were released on bail posted by the union. The farmers had their firearms seized (14 in total) and faced charges of non-capital murder. Eventually, 138 union members were found guilty of illegal assembly, with the union paying $27,600 in fines, while three farmers were found guilty of firearms violations and fined $150 each.

Today, Reesor Siding is a ghost town. A memorial to the incident, raised by the workers’ union, and a provincial historic plaque are all that remain to remind us of the conflict, the scars of which lingered for years afterward. The Globe and Mail reported threats to destroy the monument when it was built.  In 1969, musician Stompin Tom Connors wrote his song “Reesor Crossing Tragedy” and reported receiving death threats and orders for him not to play the song at upcoming venues.

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En avril 1872, des imprimeurs syndiqués faisant la grève pour demander une journée de travail de neuf heures ont été arrêtés à Toronto, puis emprisonnés.  Ils demandaient que le nombre d’heures travaillées par jour soit réduit à 9 heures alors que certains travailleurs devaient travailler jusqu’à 12 heures par jour.  Les imprimeurs ont défilé en compagnie de partisans syndicaux à Queen’s Park où une foule de 10 000 personnes s’était réunie pour les encourager. Le lendemain, les employeurs, dirigés par le libéral George Brown du Globe, ont fait arrêter les 24 responsables de la grève, lesquels ont été accusés de complot criminel.  Il était possible pour eux de le faire puisqu’il était illégal pour les travailleurs d’utiliser leur action collective en tant que membres d’un syndicat pour faire la grève.

Tirant parti du délire politique du geste de George Brown et de l’indignation croissante, le premier ministre conservateur Sir John A. Macdonald a déposé et fait adopter la Loi sur les syndicats ouvriers, rendant légale l’adhésion syndicale. Il a aussi affaibli les efforts de George Brown en écartant l’accusation de « complot criminel » pesant contre les membres du syndicat pour avoir fait la grève.

Manœuvre politique éhontée, elle a permis à John A. Macdonald d’obtenir un important soutien à l’approche de l’élection fédérale. À Ottawa, des syndiqués ont marché jusqu’à la résidence du premier ministre pour célébrer le geste et ont fait défiler ce dernier dans les rues sous la lumière de flambeaux. Alors que ce geste a donné le droit aux travailleuses et travailleurs d’adhérer à un syndicat, il faut noter que le gouvernement Macdonald a fait adopter simultanément une autre loi rendant le piquetage illégal.

Dans les années qui ont suivi cette « grande première », les syndicats ont réalisé que les gouvernements pouvaient abolir leurs droits aussi facilement qu’ils pouvaient les leur accorder. Les grèves légales, dont la liberté de tenir des réunions syndicales, étaient déclarées des actes criminels selon le bon vouloir des gouvernements.

Aujourd’hui, le droit d’appartenir à un syndicat et le droit de grève sont protégés par la Charte des droits et libertés en tant que droits fondamentaux. Les syndicats du Canada ont obtenu ces droits après des années de lutte et d’arguments juridiques devant le remaniement de la loi sur le retour au travail et des conventions collectives par le biais de mesures législatives.

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Paid maternity leave benefits – a guaranteed period for new mothers to be away from the workplace and then return to their job – had only been established a decade earlier. Before that, a new mother had to quit her job or return to work quickly if her family depended on her income.

Work leave for new mothers was first introduced in Canada when BC introduced the Maternity Protection Act of 1921. This legislation enabled women to take a limited leave of absence before and after giving birth and made it unlawful to dismiss women for these absences. She was also permitted thirty minutes twice a day to nurse her child while at work. Employers not abiding by the legislation were subject to hefty fines.

It does not sound very progressive, but at the time, it really was. It was the only legislation of its kind in Canada at that time, and for many years afterward.

In 1940, the Unemployment Insurance Act was introduced in Canada. It did not cover maternity leave in its early decades. Maternity leave, as we currently understand it, was first introduced in BC in 1966. Five years later, the federal government followed suit, amending the Canada Labour Code.

Under the 1971 provisions, mothers with at least 20 weeks of insurable earnings could claim up to 15 weeks of benefits through the Unemployment Insurance system. It was more than a touch controversial to cover expectant and new mothers under a program intended for the unemployed, and it represented a departure from provincially administered maternity leave to a federally regulated system, as we know it today.

At the beginning of the 1960s, just over 30% of women aged 20 to 30 participated in the Canadian labour force. By the end of the 1970s, the proportion of working women had doubled to just over 60%. Today, over 70% of mothers with children under five years of age are working.

Canada’s unions soon pushed for changes to make maternity leave more accessible, not only in legislation, but also by bargaining for better maternity leave for their members. They negotiated with employers for longer leave times with higher benefits that topped up the portion of the salary paid by UI benefits. Unions also won guarantees that women could return to the jobs they held before their maternity leave, as well as expanded parental leave for new fathers and leave for parents of newly adopted children.

In 1979, Quebec’s Common Front, representing government, education and health workers negotiated 20 weeks of fully paid maternity leave, 10 weeks leave when parents adopted a child, and five days of paternity leave.

But the 1981 strike by postal workers, lead by the CUPW, proved to be the tipping point. The trend was clear: workers and their unions were demanding expanded maternity benefits and they were prepared to strike in order to get them. The following year, federal clerks, members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), and Bell telephone workers, members of the Communications Workers of Canada (CWC), negotiated paid maternity leave.

Unions didn’t stop at maternity leave. Adoption leave, paternity leave, and parental leave – available to either parent – were routinely negotiated with employers.  In response, the federal government has continually improved the maternity and parental benefits offered through its employment insurance program.

Today, unions continue to advocate for improved access to parental benefits through expanded access to employment insurance benefits overall and through better access to quality and affordable childcare for all workers.  Access to childcare and early childhood education provide economic benefits beyond families with young children. Allowing parents to return to the workforce and to participate fully boosts productivity and delivers proven economic benefits overall.

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Canada’s West was also quickly growing and already chafing under the economic and political control based in the East. Its rapidly growing labour force and union movement reflected this geographic divide.

Workers in the west had a much more radical tradition. Many immigrants had come from socialist traditions and were looking for a new world order in a new land. The creation in 1905 of the Industrial Workers of the World found its strength in the western US and Canada and was symbolic of those views. Uniting all workers into one union was, many believed, the way to build true solidarity and achieve the social forms they wanted.

But Canada’s labour movement was dominated by unions from the East, which were controlled by American unions and focused on representing skilled workers in craft unions. The 1902 convention of the Dominion Trades and Labour Congress (TLC) saw the expulsion of most independent Canadian unions, including the Knights of Labor, which was the strongest voice for industrial workers, and a union that admitted almost all skilled and unskilled workers, women, and racialized workers.

Support for World War I and conscription further divided Canada’s unions. While the TLC supported the war and conscription, opposition to both was strong in the West. In 1917, western union leaders were outraged when Canadian labour leaders attended an American Federation of Labour (AFL) conference to call for labour to support US entry into the war and signed a pledge of loyalty to “the Republic of the United States against enemies, whomsoever they may be.” They saw it as an act subjugation to American interests and American craft unions.

The following year, well known British Columbia coal miner, labour organizer and Vice-President of the British Colombia Federation of Labour (BCFL), Albert “Ginger” Goodwin, was hunted down and murdered as a draft dodger – but western workers knew why he died. He had stood up to the coal companies and the government in his opposition to the war and to conscription. His death sparked Canada’s first general strike in Vancouver.

After the war, the workers and their families who had sacrificed much over the previous years were not willing to do so any longer. Soldiers returned from the war to unemployment. The prosperity they fought to secure was not being shared. Workers across Canada demanded better, so they organized and the strongest voices for change came from the West.

In 1919, at the annual “Western Labour Conference” meeting of western TLC unions, held in Calgary, things came to a head. Some 250 delegates representing major unions from Winnipeg to Victoria attended – the BCFL went so far as to move its convention to Calgary that year so more delegates could go. Years of frustration and alienation convinced a majority of those delegates to vote in support of a resolution to form a new “revolutionary industrial union”, separate from the AFL and the TLC. A founding convention for this “One Big Union” was set for June 1919.

Time was not on the OBU’s side. Before the founding convention happened on June 4, workers in Winnipeg went on a general strike. Many OBU supporters in Winnipeg were imprisoned and some deported following the suppression of the strike, so could not attend. The new union was founded but faced a changed landscape. After the defeat of strikers in Winnipeg, employers and governments were more willing to use all of the tools at their disposal against organizing workers, often with the support of the TLC.

The OBU was a moderate force in the West until 1956 when it merged into the newly formed Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). It never gained the strength that its founders had hoped for and, until the 1970s, the labour movement in Canada was largely controlled by unions based in the United States.

Today, the CLC is Canada’s largest labour organization. It brings together 55 national and international unions, 12 provincial and territorial federations of labour, and represents over 3.3 million workers. Over more than 60 years, the CLC has been instrumental in supporting the labour movement’s many achievements.

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To put pressure on the newly elected government of Jacques Parizeau, David organized a mass march, branded “Bread and Roses”. Bread symbolizing work and better economic conditions and roses symbolizing a better quality of life – the theme was a deliberate tribute to the 1912 textile workers’ strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts that was lead by women and inspired generations of union and social justice organizers.

David’s plan was to use the march to build public support for a list of demands that included increasing the minimum wage, pay equity laws, freezing tuition fees, greater social supports and improved collection of support payments.

Starting May 26, 1995, women from across Québec spent ten days marching to the provincial capital. They marched through 57 villages and followed three routes from Montréal, Longueil and Rivière-du-Loup. More than 800 women joined the march for more than one day, including 525 women who marched the 250 km from Montréal to Québec City. They converged at a rally on June 4 outside the province’s National Assembly.

The government agreed to most of the marchers’ demands, in one form or another, and put Québec well ahead of other provinces on many issues from pay equity, to child care.

The theme song of the march, Du pain et des roses, composed by Hélène Pedneault and Marie-Claire Séguin remains an anthem of the labour movements of Quebec and Canada.

The solidarity of the march inspired the 2000 “World March of Women” that continues to this day as an international project aimed at improving the lives of women around the world. Its focus on ending poverty and violence against women built solidarity and laid the foundation for work that many of Canada’s unions continue today.

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In 1991, Delwin Vriend worked in Edmonton as a full-time chemistry laboratory coordinator at The King’s College, a school affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church. Openly gay and equally open about his same-sex relationship, his supervisor ordered him to “quit or be fired” after the college adopted a statement of religious belief that targeted workers like him. Vriend refused and the college fired him.

Wronged, he contacted the Alberta Human Rights Commission to file a discrimination complaint but was refused because sexual orientation was not written into the Alberta Human Rights Code and, therefore, not protected. Denied justice, he sued the provincial government and the Human Rights Commission.

In 1994, an Alberta court ruled in Vriend’s favour. Echoing previous court rulings on the matter, the judge ruled that sexual orientation should be “written in” as a protected class under human rights law. The province’s Conservative government appealed, and in 1996, the Alberta Court of Appeal overruled the decision.

Vriend appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, joined by the Canadian Labour Congress as one of the intervening parties. He won his case. The Court ruled on Vriend v. Alberta that provincial governments could not exclude protection of individuals from human rights legislation based on sexual orientation. It found no legal basis for drawing a distinction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms between a positive act and an omission in the law – a controversial ruling because neither Alberta’s Human Rights Code nor the Charter made specific reference to sexual orientation.

With its decision, the Supreme Court read-in sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for discrimination. In response, a few religious groups and Alberta Conservative MLAs called on the governments of Alberta and Canada to invoke the “notwithstanding clause” to overrule the Court’s ruling. But the writing was on the wall and Conservative Premier Ralph Klein declined to take up the cause, even going so far as to suggest that public protests against the ruling were hateful.

The Vriend decision was one of many court challenges that saw interventions from Canada’s unions and the Canadian Labour Congress. Unions had been standing up for the rights of workers in same-sex relationships at the bargaining with employers, before legislative committees, in the courts and on the streets for years. Today, same-sex families and LGBTQ2SI workers can count on greater equality, access to the same pay, benefits and opportunities thanks to the work of unions.

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The origins of the Common Front can be traced back to the 1971 La Presse strike. In response to draconian anti-worker measures on the part of the Quebec government and Paul Desmarais, the new owner of La Presse, workers from several different unions joined in solidarity with the striking La Presse workers. A march of 12,000 demonstrators in support of the strikers was brutally suppressed by police, leading to riots that wounded many and resulted in the killing of Michele Gauthier, a student activist. The shared experience of the police riot created common ground for the coming together of normally competitive and divided unions.

The Common Front of 1972 was an alliance between the Confederation of National Trade Unions, the Quebec Federation of Labour, and the Quebec Teachers Corporation, as well as several smaller unions to present a united set of demands during negotiations with the provincial government. It represented 210,000 out of 250,000 public employees (84%) and demanded: an 8% increase in wages, job security, increased control over working conditions to better service provision, and a $100 per week minimum wage regardless of race, sex, religion, or job sector. When the government was unwilling to cede to these demands, the Common Front struck, and on April 11, 1972, 210 000 workers walked off the job.

The government of Robert Bourassa had ridden the swelling wave of change that was sweeping Quebec society to win power in the 1970 election. Faced with economic turmoil and the new political threat of the nationalist Parti Québecois, Bourassa’s Liberals (and the political establishment they represented) feared being scuttled. The wave needed breaking.

The province targeted its hospital workers, obtaining 61 injunctions, which the workers ignored. The response was harsh: 13 low-paid workers were jailed for 6 months and fined $5000 each (about a year’s pay) and their union was fined $70,600. Overall, 103 workers were sentenced to a total of 24 years and fined half a million dollars during a few days.

On April 21, the provincial government passed Bill 19. The new law forced unionized workers back to work and banned all fundamental trade union rights for two years. When the leaders of the Common Front – Loius Laberge, Marcel Pépin and Yvon Charbonneau – urged workers to defy the law, they were arrested, and each was sentenced to a year in jail.

“That’s the justice system,” said Brother Laberge, “while big corporations are fined $75 or $500 for polluting our rivers, killing people or breaking the law, we – the criminals – must got to jail for exercising a right – the right to strike.”

The profound unfairness of sending the three men to jail triggered popular outrage across Quebec’s working class. Over the month of May, work stoppages broke out across the province in public and private workplaces – construction and metal workers, miners, machinists, auto and textile workers, salespeople, print-shop employees, the staff of major news media, teachers and some hospital workers.

In towns like Sept-Îles, Thedford, Sorel and Joliette, the strike was profound, with people talking about the strikers “occupying” and “being in control of” workplaces. Radio and television stations were occupied by the union members, who broadcast their messages.

The massive scale of the public revolt forced the government to back down. The labour leaders were released from jail after serving four months and many of the Common Front’s demands were agreed to during negotiations. Employers across Quebec had also heard the message from their workers loud and clear and were reserved in their demands for years to come. This solidarity among Quebec’s working class would last for a generation and is one reason why union density in that province remains among the highest in the country.

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On March 27, no longer able to tolerate the unbearable living conditions in the work camps, the 8,000 “dynos and dirthands” walked out. The strike extended over 400 miles of territory, but the IWW established a “1,000-mile picket line” as Wobs (short for “Wobblies” as members of the IWW began to be called that year) picketed employment offices in Vancouver, Seattle, Tacoma, San Francisco, and Minneapolis to halt recruitment of scabs.

Meanwhile, the strike camps were so well run and disciplined that the press began calling the Yale camp in particular a “miniature socialist republic.” While not going that far, the west coast IWW weekly, Industrial Worker,  proudly pointed to this example of working class solidarity in which Canadians, Americans, Italians, Austrians, Swedes, Norwegians, French and other countrymen – one huge melting pot into which creed, colour, flag, religion, language and all other differences had been flung -were welded together in common effort.  Even “demon rum” was proscribed, which alone indicates the seriousness of the strikers.

Authorities arrested the strikers by the thousands for “unlawful assemblage” and vagrancy. Many were forcibly deported, forcibly at gunpoint. But the picket lines held.  In August they were joined by 3,000 construction workers on the Grand Trunk Pacific in BC and Alberta. The entire action, better known as the Fraser River Railway Strike, was popularized in song by Joe Hill‘s “Where the Fraser River Flows.” The strike also spawned the nickname Wobbly. A Chinese restaurant keeper who fed strikers reputedly mispronounced “IWW” in asking customers “Are you eye wobble wobble?” and the name stuck.

The CN strike lasted until the fall of 1912, when exhausted strikers settled for a few minor improvements: better sanitary conditions and a temporary end to the gypo system. The BC Grand Trunk strike was called off in January 1913 after the Dominion government promised to enforce sanitation laws. A greater gain was development of the “camp delegate” system in which the IWW secretary in town delegated a worker to represent him in the field – a method later refined into the permanent “Job Delegate” system of the roving Agricultural Workers.

Other unique features of the strike are worth mentioning. One, used again in the 20’s on the Northern Railway strike in Washington, was to “scab on the job”  by sending convert Wobs into scab camps to bring the workers out on strike. Another came in response to the “free” transportation offered scabs by the Railways on condition a man’s luggage was impounded until such time as his strike breaking wages repaid the fare. Large Wob contingents signed on, leaving the Railways with cheap suitcases stuffed with bricks and gunnysacks, and then deserted en route.

_{Excerpt (edited for language and to include hyperlinks) from THE IWW IN CANADA, by G. Jewell 1975, IWW General Administration/Chicago
http://www.spunk.org/texts/groups/iww/sp000476.txt}

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Trade unions, left-wing parties like the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and civil libertarians united to have the law repealed, eventually succeeding in 1936 following the sound defeat of Bennet’s Conservatives. However, the newly elected conservative Union Nationale government of Maurice Duplessis was quick to pick up where his federal predecessors had left off, and passed it’s own anti-communist law the following year.

The Padlock Act (Act Respecting Communistic Propaganda) empowered the attorney general to close (often with a padlock on the door) any building used for propagating “communism or bolshevism” for one year. A judge could order the lock removed if the owner could prove that the building had not been so used during the preceding year. Further, the Act empowered the attorney general to confiscate and destroy any printed matter propagating communism or bolshevism. Anyone printing, publishing or distributing such material could be imprisoned for up to a year, without appeal.

This meant the Premier could close down any house, apartment, or place of business without the necessity of formally laying charges or going to court. Duplessis said this was not necessary because “communism can be felt”.

Ultimately, the government took advantage of these new powers and used the law to persecute anyone whom it and the Premier disliked: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, communists, trade union members and activists, and anyone else it suspected of “subversion”. It used the law to confiscate literature from the Montreal Jewish Cultural Center, Protestant missionary groups, and non-French ethnic clubs. It even sent police to raid the provincial headquarters of the CCF.

This abuse of power made the law a rallying point for civil libertarians. Opponents formed the Canadian Civil Liberties Union a month after it came into force, and it spent most of its efforts attempting to have the federal government disallow the law, or refer it to the Supreme Court for a ruling. Despite this, Mackenzie King and his federal Liberals knew that there was political support for the law in Quebec and did not want to harm its chances in the province.

For the labour movement, the law was a disaster. It outlawed closed shops and allowed the government to change collective agreements at will. In an effort to divide labour’s opposition, the government drove a wedge between international and Catholic trade unions. The Research Director of the Canadian Congress of Labour (and later the Canadian Labour Congress), Eugene Forsey, was a leading critic of the law.

The law remained in effect for 20 years until 1957 when the Supreme Court in 8 to 1 decision struck the law down as unconstitutional because it not only violated the constitutional right to free speech, but also because provincial governments did not have the power to legislate in the field of criminal law.

In the years since, Canada’s unions have stood up for fairness in defence of civil liberties and the rights of workers including, most recently, the Anti-terrorism Acts of 2001 (Bill C-36) and 2015 (Bill C-51). They have also played key roles in upholding the Charter rights of unions and workers, including the right to union activism, the right to bargain collectively and the right to strike. Unions have also succeeded in thwarting attempts by employers to use surveillance cameras, surveillance software, random drug tests and other unfair violations of worker rights.

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In 1960, work on the Hogg’s Hollow water main was in full swing. Built under the Don River to connect a pumping station with the water distribution on the other side, the work was done mostly by hand, in cramped and confined quarters 10 meters underground. It was also nearly a year behind schedule, the result of a failed contractor, faulty equipment and other delays. Pressure to finish the work resulted in corners being cut with disastrous consequences.

The underground workers that build tunnels for city water works and subways are known as “sandhogs”, and their working conditions were often more reminiscent of the 19th century than a modern, post-war Canadian city. 

Workers later testified that the tunnels lacked fire extinguishers and resuscitators, the timber supports were not strong enough, grout was not used on the floor of the tunnel to keep out sand and silt, and there were no extra air compressors. They didn’t even have flashlights. In spite of these issues, the site had been deemed to meet the safety standards of the day.

Late on Thursday March 17, hours after work should have stopped, a dozen workers were still underground welding steel plating in a compression chamber west of Yonge Street when a fire started and smoke began to fill the main tunnel. A valve that would have allowed the smoke to blow out of the tunnel would not open.

Firefighters arrived quickly, but were told to wait at least 30 minutes before watering the tunnel for fear it would collapse. While half of the workers had managed to escape down the tunnel to the east, the rest were trapped inside with riding temperatures, toxic smoke and rising levels of sand, silt and water. Two workers tried to get down to the trapped men and thought they heard at least three voices moaning, but were forced back by the intense heat. The next day Pasquale Allegrezza, Giovanni Carriglio, Giovanni Fusillo, and brothers Alessandro and Guido Mantella were dead – poisoned by carbon monoxide and drowned.

A coroner’s jury later ruled that the deaths were preventable, “the inevitable result of the failure to implement and enforce regulations.” The resulting media coverage, community outrage and demands from unions forced the Ontario government to call a Royal Commission, which led to new regulations on fire protection, worker safety in tunnels and the first overhaul of the province’s labour laws in nearly 40 years. It also spurred the organization of more construction workers and more immigrant workers into unions, so they could stand up for their rights, health and safety.

Disasters like the tragedy at Hogg’s Hollow, the Heron Road Bridge collapse in Ottawa, and the Westray Mine cave in years later all changed workplace health and safety laws by shining a light on the unsafe and, in the case of the five immigrant workers killed at Hogg’s Hollow, unfair conditions faced too often by many working people. In 1984, the Canadian Labour Congress established a National Day of Mourning for workers killed and injured on the job to keep pressure on employers and politicians.

Today, unions continue to stand up for fairness, safety and the health of workers with winning campaigns to ban asbestos, prevent workplace harassment and violence, win supports for workers experiencing domestic violence, and help working people struggling with mental illness. 

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The idea for a formal day of action belongs to Luise Zietz, who initially championed the cause at the 1910 International Women’s Conference in Copenhagen, organized to precede a general meeting of the Second International. Delegates from 17 countries agreed to promote equal rights and voting rights for women on an annual basis. On March 19^th, 1911, protests in Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland marked the first truly international day. Over 1 million women and men rallied to demand the right to vote, the right to work, to vocational training and to end workplace discrimination.

During World War I, women in Europe protested on March 8^th, 1914, calling for an end to war and to express worker solidarity.  In 1917, Russian women called for a “Bread and Peace” strike on the last Sunday in February, which fell on March 8^th in the Gregorian calendar – an event that marks the start of the Russian Revolution.

The day was finally entrenched on March 8^th in 1975, when the United Nations declared International Women’s Year (IWY). In Canada, IWD and IWY have been platforms to demand equal citizenship, voting rights, pay equity, reproductive rights, Indigenous rights, childcare, equality and justice.

Today, unions work with community groups, national organizations and international partners to win a better deal for women and their families including: comprehensive pay equity, a national public childcare program, workplace support for victims of domestic violence, and ending the culture of discrimination and harassment.

Women and their unions are #donewaiting and working together for fairness from employers and governments.

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Work in canal construction was hard and done by hand using small tools, picks and shovels. There was little use of animals, so the rocks and soil the workers dug was hauled away by wheelbarrow. A canal “Navvie”, short term for navigator, worked 14 to 16 hour days, 6 days a week.

Working conditions were often deplorable. During construction of the Rideau Canal, around 1000 workers lost their lives to worksite injuries or disease. Some died during the blasting of rock, others drowned in rivers or swamps, but most died from diseases like “Ague” or “swamp fever”, a form of malaria carried by mosquitos. Today, the canal is dotted with monuments and memorials to the men and women who toiled and died along its length.

Workers were also vulnerable to exploitation. The money earned by workers was vulnerable as the men who hired them also acted as sellers of food, shelter, whiskey and tobacco – an early “company store”. In winter, there was often little other work available to support a family. Often, workers found themselves pitted against one another in a struggle for limited work – protestant workers vs catholic workers, French-speaking workers vs English-speaking workers – all to the advantage of employers.

However, some of the early struggles at Bytown managed to unite all workers. The March 2, 1829 riot was not the first time workers had risen up to protest poor pay and working conditions. Work on the Rideau Canal stopped three times in 1827 because of worker protests.

Throughout history, workers have found power when they came together and worked for the common good. In 1167 BC, there is recorded history of organized work-action during the building of the pyramids in Egypt. Angry about poor treatment and food rations, workers downed their tools until the Pharaoh conceded to their demands. Craft guilds formed in medieval Europe as a means for skilled workers to control the quality of their craft and the value of their labour. The trade and industrial unions of the 19th and 20th centuries transformed society, taking the working-class out of the world written about by Dickens and into the prosperity of the middle class.

Today, where workers have rights to unions, collective bargaining and to legally strike, it is rare for them to riot over working conditions. However, working people do still take to the streets when it is time to demand fairness – often with the help of the labour movement and union members. The “fight for 15 and fairness” and public campaigns to expand public pensions, pharmacare, and ban asbestos are recent examples of how unions help working people make a difference.

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Unions were not legally recognized within the federal public service even in 1965, when another postal union, the Canadian Postal Employees Association, (the forerunner of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers), who represented inside workers went on a national ‘wildcat’ strike to protest poor working conditions and the lack of union recognition. 

The early 1960s was a time of militancy and organizing for workers in the federal public sector, driven by the authoritarian management style of civil service managers and the lack of staff input into their wages and working conditions. The cancellation of wage increases –twice – by the Conservative government of the day was the final straw for many. Postal workers turned to the recently formed Canadian Labour Congress, which trained hundreds of new organizers within their ranks. This training was put to good use in the coming years.

The election of a new minority Liberal government in 1963, which had promised to bring collective bargaining rights to federal employees gave hope and spurred on organizing efforts. The Civil Service Association of Canada and Civil Service Federation along with the Professional Institute called for collective bargaining rights. Postal workers also wanted the right to strike, but the Federation was content to have disputes go to arbitration.

The Liberals, meanwhile, dragged their feet until July 22, 1965 when postal workers started an illegal strike that forced the government into action. It introduced C-170, the Public Service Staff Relations Act later that year. While there was widespread support for giving bargaining rights to federal employees, there was sharp division over giving them the right to strike.

Organizing and advocacy on the part of workers won the day, bringing significant changes to labour relations between the federal government and, eventually, provincial and territorial governments and their workers. On February 23, 1967 Canada became just the third country, joining Sweden and France, to allow its public sector workers to go on strike.

Federal government employees responded by joining unions in record numbers. The Civil Service Association of Canada and Civil Service Federation joined forces to create the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).  Between them, they had majority support in most job categories of the federal government, which allowed them for the first time to address many issues for their members.

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“What I found [at Asbestos]… was a Quebec I did not know, that of workers exploited by management, denounced by government, clubbed by police, and yet burning with a fervent militancy. I was later to describe the strike . . . as a “turning point in the entire religious, political, social and economic history of the province of Quebec.”

_{P. E. Trudeau, Approaches to Politics. 2010}

The conservative Union Nationale was the government of Quebec. The Premier, Maurice Duplessis, was known as “Le Chef,” ruling the province with a strong hand. Supporters benefited from patronage, those in opposition were punished.  His time in office has been called La Grande Noirceur (“The Great Darkness”).  He championed a rural Quebec working with the Catholic Church to protect the population from the evils of Communism and militant Unions that would jeopardise American industrial investment.

In 1937 his government enacted the “La loi du cadenas” / “Loi protégeant la province contre la propagande communiste”, (Act to protect the Province Against Communistic Propaganda or as it was known the ‘Padlock Law’). This act made it illegal to use a dwelling to propagate Communism or Bolshevism. A violation would allow the Attorney General to padlock the building for up to one year.  A person guilty of involvement in prohibited activities could be jailed for thirteen months.  (In the 1957 the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the law.) So when the miners struck their employers they also were taking on the right wing provincial government of Duplessis.

The miners wanted a wage of $1 per hour, union security, a pension, and action to check the spread of lung choking ‘silicosis’ caused by exposure to asbestos.  They did not have to wait long for premier to respond to their demands. On February 23 their strike was declared illegal and Duplessis dispatched a battalion of provincial police to the small town of Asbestos. For over two months calm in the community was preserved with almost a holiday atmosphere as people strolled about with music entertainment for the workers and their families but all that was soon to change.

Quebec supplied 85% of the world’s asbestos and the American Johns Manville Company began to hire replacement workers. The police supported them by intimidation and threatening the miners, breaking up their picket lines, even padlocking a church to prevent the miners from meeting there. The strikers fought back setting up roadblocks to prevent the “scabs” from entering the town.  On March 14 someone set off an explosion on the railway track leading into the plant and a company official was beaten by the workers.

Duplessis called the strikes “saboteurs” and “subversives.” At the picket lines the police attacked the strikers with tear gas and fired warning shots into the air. Strikers responded by dragging police from their cars and beat them. On May 6 a heavily armed provincial police force arrived arresting several strikers and beating them in the process. However now there was a photographer for Time magazine as a witness making the strike worldwide news and the brutality of the police the central issue. Journalist Gérard Pelletier labelled them “Hitler’s elite troops.”

The culture that had allowed the Union Nationale to rule with an iron fist was cracking. Young intellectuals like future Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau came from Montreal to the support of the miners. The traditionally conservative union movement of the “Canadian Catholic Confederation of Labour (CCCL),” originally set up by the church to keep workers away from communist and radical unions, was itself fighting back against their employers and the government. Workers cheered militant union leader Jean Marchand when he spoke. Even the traditionally conservative Catholic Church found it was in sympathy with the strikers raising support to sustain the miner’s families.

The strike end on July 1^st with Archbishop Roy mediating a settlement. While Quebec was starting its Quiet Revolution the workers would have to wait.  Many were not rehired, those that were continued to work in one of the most dangerous workplaces in the world. Trudeau, Marchand and Pelletier, would go on play profound roles in shaping the political developments of Quebec and Canada. As for asbestos the health and safety struggles of 1949 continue to play out as it has taken Canada until this year to start banning it proposing the prohibition of the use, sale, import and export of asbestos and products containing the hazardous material.

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The first commercially produced car in Canada, the Le Roy, went on sale in 1902. It was actually a close copy of the popular American “Oldsmobile”. Two years later, Henry Ford established Ford of Canada to produce his famous Model T’s. This was the beginning of the interdependent Canada-U.S. auto industry.

Prior to the Auto Pact, car and truck parts were made in the US and assembled in Canada. The Auto Pact resulted in the removal of tariffs between the two countries, meaning parts and vehicles could travel freely across the border. There were also job guarantees stipulating that automobile production in Canada would not fall below 1964 levels.

The goals of the pact were to increase efficiency and reduce production costs in Canada by producing a smaller range of vehicles and components than previously. The Pact also sought to lower vehicle prices for consumers. The main result was an invigorated Canadian car industry – and a stronger economy. More jobs were created, wages in the sector increased, and within a short time, the auto sector became Canada’s most important industry. However, importantly, the Canadian industry remained firmly in the hands of the American “Big Three” companies – Ford, General Motors and Chrysler.

Ultimately, “free trade” killed the Auto Pact. The deal was always about protecting jobs while improving trade, but today’s global trade regimes put the free movement of capital ahead of workers and communities. In 2001, the World Trade Organization (WTO) decreed that the Auto Pact was illegal and Canada’s auto industry has been in turmoil ever since.

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Written as a song for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and first used as a marching song at a hunger demonstration in Chicago, on the very day it was completed.

Later in life, Chaplin would express deep regret that his poem – which calls for workers to stand together and take over the world – had become the anthem for industrial unionism and social democratic/labour political parties. Still, countless singers and musicians have performed the song over the past century. Unions even composed variations of the original Solidarity Forever to reflect the changing face of their membership and new priorities.

The words have also been adapted to reflect the changing face and priorities of the labour movement.

———-

Solidarity Forever
Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin, 1915

When the union’s inspiration through the workers’ blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one,
But the union makes us strong.

Chorus:

Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
Solidarity forever,
For the union makes us strong.

Is there aught we hold in common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into serfdom and would crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to organize and fight?
For the union makes us strong.

Chorus

It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid;
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made;
But the union makes us strong.

Chorus

All the world that’s owned by idle drones is ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
It is ours, not to slave in, but to master and to own.
While the union makes us strong.

Chorus

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn,
But without our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain our freedom when we learn
That the union makes us strong.

Chorus

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, multiplied a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old
For the union makes us strong.

——

A variation used in Canada:

We’re the women of the union in the forefront of the fight,
We fight for women’s issues, we fight for women’s rights,
We’re prepared to fight for freedom, we’re prepared to stand our ground,
Women make the union strong.

Chorus

Through our sisters and our brothers, we can make our union strong,
For respect and equal value we have done without too long,
We no longer have to tolerate injustices and wrongs,
For the union makes us strong.

Chorus

When racism in all of us is finally out and gone,
Then the union movement will be twice as powerful and strong,
For equality for everyone will move the cause along,
For the union makes us strong.

Chorus

—–

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This brief history shows the rise and fall of UI/EI in Canada.

1918 – Faced with the integration of returning soldiers back into the workforce, the Employment Officers Co-ordination Act is introduced in which the federal government subsidized provincial employment offices. The federal government also created the department of Employment Services, mandated to provide employment data and advice.

In 1919, the Government of Canada signed a draft document which recommended public unemployment insurance at the first International Labour Conference. In the same year, the federal government also appointed a Royal Commission on Industrial Relations. The Commission recommended the implementation of a national scheme of social insurance for workers who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

1930s – In response to high rates of unemployment caused by the Great Depression, various levels of government set up a system of “relief”. This was often limited to vouchers not cash and tied to providing labour to public works or in work camps. 

March 1935 – Failed first attempt – Employment and Social Insurance Act passed third reading in Prime Minister Bennett’s Conservative government.

June – July 1935 – Dire conditions in work camps on the West Coast prompt the On To Ottawa Trek, which ends in a police instigated riot in Regina on July 1^st. Relief camps are shut down, and the incident highlights the need for a social insurance system in Canada.

October 1935 – With Bennett’s government defeated, the Employment and Social Insurance Act is never implemented. It is deemed unconstitutional the following year, because employment falls under provincial jurisdiction.

Between 1935 and 1940 – Growing pressure from unions, social groups and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF was the forerunner of the NDP) forced the Liberal government of W.L.M. King to take action. 

1940 – The effects of the depression so deeply marked Canadians that the provinces unanimously agreed to change the constitution. Prime Minister King finally gets British approval and unanimous provincial support to allow UI to fall under federal jurisdiction, and the Unemployment Insurance Act passes. Only 40% of labour force covered, as seasonal workers, public servants, and others excluded. Workers are required to show they are unemployed, available for suitable work, and have contributed to the program for 180 days over the past two years.  Benefits last between 6 to 52 weeks.

1955 – Under Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent, an extensive overhaul of program extends benefits to approximately 75 percent of the Canadian labour force and changes benefit duration to 15 – 36 weeks.

1971 – Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau passes a new Unemployment Insurance Act that covers 96% of wage/salary-earning workers. People need 8 weeks of work over past year to qualify, with a minimum of 20 hours per week. The maximum benefit duration is raised to 50 weeks, but calculated on a complicated formula based on labour force attachment, the national and regional unemployment rate. Benefits for illness, maternity, and retirement are added.

1977 – The Trudeau government simplifies the benefit duration formula, but adds a variable entrance requirement based on the unemployment rate in the region where someone lives. Workers who live in a low unemployment region must work twice as long to qualify for benefits as workers living in a high unemployment region.

1978 – Trudeau’s government increases the number of UI regions from 16 to 48.

1990 – Prime Minister Brian Mulroney ends federal (tax dollar) contributions to the program, making UI entirely financed by worker and employer contributions. The number of UI Regions is increased to 62 and a single benefit duration schedule is introduced based on weeks of insurable earnings and the regional unemployment rate.

1990 – 1996 – Successive Conservative and Liberal governments make a number of changes that reduce the benefit amount paid to recipients, reduce the duration of benefits, and increase the weeks needed to qualify in some regions.

1996 – Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s government introduces major reforms, changing the program’s name to Employment Insurance (EI). The entrance requirement is increased substantially. In the lowest unemployment regions, for example, it increases by 240% from 20 weeks at 15 hours/week (300 hours) to 720 hours of work.

1996 – 2006 – Under successive Liberal governments, the reduced ability of unemployed workers to quality for EI benefits builds up a massive surplus of $57-billion. Rather than save the money for future employment needs, the money is taken out of the fund, and used to balance federal budgets that offer substantive tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy.

2008 – Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government establishes a new Board to govern Employment Insurance financing (Canadian Employment Insurance Financing Board), wipes out the $57B “borrowed” by the federal government and reboots the program with only $2B in EI fund. Unions take the government to court, asking for the $57B to be repaid, but the Supreme Court sides with federal government. Later that year, the Great Recession hits.

2012 – Harper’s government changes the definition of “suitable employment” so that all EI claimants are compelled to accept job offers at wages lower than their previous job – between 10% and 30% depending on previous EI usage and length of time on current claim. The appeals process is also changed from face-to-face hearings with a three member Board of Appeals to mostly written submissions decided by a single member of the Social Security Tribunal.

2013 – 2017 –  see “Resources”

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An official inquest into the disaster laid blame on the engineers, the use of green lumber and the lack of diagonal bracing on the wooden support forms, which caused them to collapse as concrete was being poured to form the bridge deck.

The consequences for those responsible – the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario suspended two of its members, reprimanded a third, and the construction company, O.J. Gaffney Limited of Stratford, Ontario, was fined $5,000 (the maximum penalty under the Construction Safety Act). 

Ontario’s construction safety standards were rewritten following this incident.

In 1987, the Canadian Labour Congress placed its National Monument to Workers Killed and Injured Each Year at Work in Ottawa’s Vincent Massey Park, within sight of the bridge. It is here that the Canadian Labour Congress, the Ottawa & District Labour Council, and local unions hold their ceremony each year on April 28 to mark the National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job.

Occupational “accidents” and work-related diseases kill more than 2.3 million workers around the world each year. According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety:

“The most recent statistics from the Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada (AWCBC) tell us that in 2016, 904 workplace deaths were recorded in Canada. Among those dead were 5 young workers aged fifteen to nineteen years; and another 20 workers aged twenty to twenty-four years.

Add to these fatalities the 240,682 claims accepted for lost time due to a work-related injury or disease, including 7,562 from young workers aged fifteen to nineteen, and the fact that these statistics only include what is reported and accepted by the compensation boards, and it is safe to say that the total number of workers impacted is even higher.

What these numbers don’t show is just how many people are directly affected by these workplace tragedies. Each workers death impacts the loved ones, families, friends and coworkers they leave behind, changing all of their lives forever.”

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The Travellers, best known for their rendition of a Canadian version of “This Land Is Your Land” with lyrics that reference the unique Canadian geography was the closing act at the famous Mariposa festival 54 years ago.

Formed as a result of singalongs at Camp Naivelt, a Jewish socialist vacation community that is operated by the United Jewish Peoples’ Order located west of Toronto. For a generation the group sang across the country and at a number of union halls and labour conventions. As past member, Helen Grey put it “The Travellers were formed to bring the message of peace brotherhood and the importance of working people through song.”

Today there are many – too many singers and songwriters to mention. But while summer is still here, try listening or singing to some of our favorite labour songs listed here:

10 of the Best Union Songs of All Time (CBC)

Top Ten Labour Day Songs (The Nation)

Last Christmas on the Place (Healy & Juravich)

100 Years of Solidarity (UFCW-Canada)

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Summer is the time for Pride events and marches in Canada. But while these celebrations are now somewhat commonplace in many cities across the country, just over 45 years ago a small brave group of people marched on Parliament Hill to demand what was then referred to as “gay rights” in a manifesto entitled “We Demand”.

The labour movement in Canada has been, and continues to be, a strong ally and voice for LGBTQ2SI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, 2-spirited, Intersex) rights and in fighting homophobia and transphobia in Canada – in the workplace and beyond. This includes:

• Hosting committees and working groups to fight against homophobia, transphobia and harassment. Many unions have changed their own constitution to reflect this.
• Negotiating a range of clauses in collective agreements that protect the rights of LGBTQ2SI workers above and beyond the law.
• Bringing to court violations of LGBTQ2SI rights such as individual grievances and provisions such as marriage leave, leaves of absence, spousal benefits, and pensions plan benefits.
• Mobilizing and lobbying to change laws including the Canadian Human Rights Act, equal benefits, employment equity, equal marriage and gender identity and gender expression.
• Collaborating with civil society organizations, within Canada and internationally, to fight for LGBTQ2SI rights through awareness campaigns and active participation in events.

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Some of the work being done by unions and the labour movement:

• Canadian Labour Congress
• Public Service Alliance of Canada

​

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As Vice-President of the BC Federation of Labour, Ginger Goodwin led several strikes and was an outspoken opponent to the First World War, all of which brought him to the attention of government and military authorities.

Like many coal miners, Goodwin suffered lung problems and was initially classified as “unfit” for fighting overseas. However, following a strike he led for the 8-hour day at a smelter in Trail BC, his conscription status was changed to ‘fit for service in an overseas fighting unit’. 

With the help of townspeople, he traveled to Vancouver Island and went into hiding in the bush near Cumberland, where other war resisters received support from local community members. In a series of still-contested events, Goodwin was tracked down on July 27, 1918 and shot by a private constable employed by the Dominion Police (forerunner of the RCMP), just 4 days after an amnesty had been declared for draft evaders.

Goodwin’s body was taken through the streets in a procession that was a mile long before being interred at the Cumberland Municipal Cemetery. Less than a week later, on August 2, the Vancouver General Strike – the first general strike in Canadian history – took place, organized as a one-day political protest against Goodwin’s murder. Before his murder, Goodwin had called for a general strike in the event that any worker was drafted into military service against their will.

The strike was met with violence. Three hundred men ransacked the offices of the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council, many of them returned soldiers who had been mobilized and supplied with vehicles to storm the Labour Temple, located at 411 Dunsmuir Street.

In 2001 the newly-elected BC Liberal government removed the name Ginger Goodwin Way from the road that passes by the grave yard that holds his remains. The signs and the name were restored in June 2018 by BC’s NDP government. While the Ginger Goodwin Way signs on the inland Island Highway come and go, Goodwin is commemorated by Ginger Goodwin Creek (1982) and Mount Ginger Goodwin (1989), the unnamed mountain that he was shot and killed on. Each year the citizens of Cumberland hold a graveside memorial to pay tribute to him and what he fought for.

June 27, 2018 was official designated “Ginger Goodwin Day” by the BC provincial government to mark the centenial of his murder.

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Like today’s “Leap Manifesto”, the Regina Manifesto was met with a mix of disbelief, denial and doubt about its goal of changing Canada for the better. To the status quo, it was a fantasy; to determined socialists, it was milquetoast.

Adopted at the first national convention of Canada’s newest political party, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), the Regina Manifesto imagined a socialized economy, calling for a nationalized system of transportation, communications, electrical power and other services. It called for a National Labour Code that included the right for workers to organize unions, “insurance” to cover illness, accident, old age and unemployment and social programs such as publicly-funded health care.

National health care, old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, national labour standards, family allowances, and crown corporations for services including telecommunications, transportation and energy – the Regina Manifesto outlined economic and political reforms and proposed approaches to issues that still resonate and are in fact still key election issues today.

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In 1991, Moore was posted to the Canadian Embassy in Indonesia. When he applied for spousal benefits related to the move for his partner, Pierre Soucy, he was denied on the grounds that Soucy was not considered a spouse because he was the same gender as Moore.

In 1992, Akerstrom applied to change his benefit status from single to family to make his partner, Alexander Dias, his beneficiary for death benefits and his spouse under the Public Service Health Care Plan. He was denied because, under the terms of the plans, spouse was defined as a person of the opposite gender.

Both men filed complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which ruled in their favour, based on a 1992 ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeal (in the case of Haig v. Canada) that deemed discrimination based on sexual orientation to be prohibited under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The ruling stated it was “crystal clear that the law is that denial of the extension of employment benefits to a same-sex partner which would otherwise be extended to opposite-sex common-law partners is discrimination on the prohibited ground of sexual orientation.” The federal government was found to have discriminated against Moore and Akerstrom, was ordered to stop using the definition of spouse and to compensate both men.

In another case, Egan v. Canada, the Supreme Court unanimously endorsed a lower court’s finding that sexual orientation is a prohibited ground of discrimination under s. 15 of the Charter.

The federal government was out of options. In May of 1996, legislation was passed to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act by including “sexual orientation” to its list of prohibited grounds of discrimination. That change came into force on July 15, giving all federal government workers the same rights to benefits.

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In the 1930s, “The Great Depression” had crippled the Canadian economy and resulted in massive unemployment. In response, the Federal Government created “relief camps” where thousands of men lived and worked at a rate of twenty cents per day.

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By 1935, people had had enough. In April that year, following a two-month protest in Vancouver over the dismal and unfair working conditions in the camps, more than a thousand unemployed workers boarded – or rather jumped on top of – railway box cars in what became to be known as the “On‑to‑Ottawa Trek.” Their goal: to meet as a group with the Conservative government of the day and demand better conditions and a fairer way to address unemployment.

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The Prime Minister eventually agreed to meet, but only with a handful of representatives, not all of the workers. While those representatives travelled to Ottawa, the hundreds of other trekkers “waited” in Regina (they were actually being held in place by the RCMP).

The meeting went badly, with the Prime Minister accusing the trekkers of being radicals leading an insurrection. When the workers’ representatives returned to Regina with news of their meeting, nearly 2000 people joined 300 trekkers as a show of protest and solidarity for workers’ rights. 

The police charged the crowd, setting off hours of hand-to-hand fighting throughout the city’s centre. People fought back with sticks and stones while police used tear gas and fired bullets above and into groups of people.

Damage to property was considerable and personal injuries were many; one trekker and a plainclothed policeman died while hundreds of injured local residents and trekkers were taken to hospitals or private homes. The police proceeded to arrest those in hospital, along with over 100 others.

The police claimed 39 injuries in addition to the dead police officer, but denied that any protesters had been killed in the melee. Hospital records were subsequently altered to conceal the actual cause of death.

Later that year, in reaction to public support for a better deal for the unemployed, the federal government passed the Employment and Social Insurance Act and the country’s first national unemployment plan.

Eventually, the government was defeated, and its hastily-crafted law struck down in the courts. But, the bold attempt at reform paved the way for the establishment of a national unemployment insurance program under the new government, led by W.L.M King, in 1940.

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Within weeks of the start of the war in August 1914, Canada’s parliament passed the War Measures Act. In 1916, the press censorship was introduced by an Order-In-Council. In total of the 253 publications banned during the war, 164 were in a language other than French or English. But it was the 1917 Russian Revolution, and its withdrawal from the war, that caused the Canadian government to crack down harder on any social dissent.

By Order-in-Council PC2384, the federal government outlawed political and labour groups, focusing on German, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish speakers. It banned freedom of association, assembly, and speech for many Canadians.

One of the labour groups banned was the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), or as they were known “Wobblies”.  This industrial union organization had been founded in 1905 in Chicago and quickly spread across North America. By 1906, the first Canadian chapters had been formed in B.C.

The IWW espoused the idea that workers should all be in one union as opposed to the tradition of Trades. It organized all workers including women and workers of colour. It organized unskilled laborers, the poor, and recent immigrants, all who were often on the margins of society. The IWW believed in “revolutionary syndicalism” where, once organized, workers would initiate a general strike and replace capitalism with a society run by workers. The Wobblies also opposed the First World War and the price paid by working people and, as a result, became an enemy of Prime Minister Robert Borden and the Canadian government.

On September 24, 1918, Borden’s government made membership in the Industrial Workers of the World and thirteen other (primarily ethnic radical political organizations) illegal. The maximum sentence for membership in the IWW, or affiliation with the banned organizations, was five years to be served in one of 24 internment camps.

The ideas of the Wobblies were harder to stop, however. When western Canadian workers formed an organization called the One Big Union (OBU) in 1919, its ideas were closely aligned with those of the IWW. Today every time “Solidarity Forever” is sung on a picket line or at a union convention the IWW spirit lives on because that was their song! 

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The issue of “union security” quickly became the issue in the labour dispute, because the union knew that it needed the financial security of an automatic dues checkoff system to effectively represent its members. Without it, the union steward was required to approach each worker to seek payment of union dues, and then hand out pins for them to wear to show they were members in good standing.

Negotiations stalled and, on September 12, the 11,000 workers at Ford’s Windsor plant went on strike. And the workers dug in. The thousands of soldiers who were returning to Canada and re-entering the workforce wanted a better world after sacrificing so much. They weren’t going to give up easily.

The strike closed the company’s powerhouse and shut off the heating system for the plant. As winter approached, the company grew desperate. It convinced the city and the province to mobilize hundreds of police officers to help break up the strike. In response, on November 5, 8,000 union workers from 25 plants walked off the job in solidarity with the Ford workers (and stayed out for a month without strike pay to support their families).

The next day, workers showed up with their cars and trucks and formed a blockade that stopped all traffic within 20 blocks of the Ford plant. It lasted for three days, effectively preventing a confrontation with the police force. The union’s show of strength forced the federal government to step forward with a proposal to end the strike by binding arbitration on the union membership and dues checkoff issues.

The arbitrator, Mr. Justice Ivan Rand, came up with a compromise. He provided for the dues checkoff, but not for the closed shop. All workers who benefited from the collective agreement had to pay dues to support it, but were not required to join the union. In return, the union would support all workers in enforcing the collective agreement and its benefits.

This uniquely Canadian compromise known as the “Rand Formula” eventually spread across the country, bringing with it union security and establishing the legitimacy of unions in workplaces from coast, to coast, to coast.

Since its enactment in 1946, the Rand Formula’s has come under attack many times, including a challenge based on the “freedom of expression” and “freedom of association” guarantees in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that went all the way to the Supreme Court (which unanimously ruled against the challenge).

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But, as is the case with most holidays, the origins of Labour Day come from the struggles of working people and the demand for fairness. In this case, it was the movement to establish a 9-hour work day (the standard was a 12-hour work day and a 6-day work week) and a strike by printers in Toronto in the spring of 1872 to get it.

It’s the same old story: the callous and violent response of the printers’ employers – police were called in, union leaders were jailed, livelihoods were destroyed, reputations ruined – turned public opinion against the status-quo. Sensing a political opportunity to win support among Canada’s growing industrial working class (just months ahead of a federal election), Prime Minister John A. Macdonald passed the Trade Union Act, which legalized and protected union activity in Canada.

The strike ended shortly afterward. While it didn’t achieve its goal of a 9-hour work day, its legacy was long-lasting. Unions – now legal – began to demand fair wages, working hours and safer workplaces. The political class recognized that working people, as voters, were interested in issues that impacted their lives. The parades held in support of the Nine Hour Movement and the printers’ strike became annual events Toronto and Ottawa.

In 1882, an American labour leader witnessed the annual May “labour day” festivities in Toronto which inspired him to organize the first American “labor day” on September 5 that same year. The popularity of the event spread across the country. By the time President Grover Cleveland declared the first Monday of September as an official federal holiday in 1894, 30 states were already celebrating Labor Day.

In Canada, pressure had been mounting to declare a national labour holiday. On July 23, 1894 the government of Prime Minister John Thompson passed a law making Labour Day official. A huge parade took place in Winnipeg that year and the tradition of a Labour Day celebration quickly spread across Canada.

Today, hundreds of communities across Canada and the United States hold picnics, parades, concerts and marches to mark the day. Unions also keep the tradition of using Labour Day to advance workers’ rights and advocate for changes to improve the lives of working people and their families.

In Canada, this year, that tradition continues with the call for a national, publicly-administered, universal prescription drug plan – Pharmacare – for every Canadian and in every province and territory.

Join the call for a universal prescription drug plan at aplanforeveryone.ca.

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“Annie Buller, married name Guralnick, political activist, union organizer (b in Ukraine 9 Dec 1895; d at Toronto 19 Jan 1973). Her Jewish parents immigrated to Montréal when she was a child. During WWI she became active in the Socialist Youth Movement, and after studying Marxism at the Rand School of Social Sciences, New York, established the Montréal Labour College with Becky Buhay and Bella Gauld. She joined the Communist Party of Canada in 1922 and devoted herself to full-time party organizing and managing party publications.

“In the early 1920s she went to Cape Breton to organize mine workers. After returning to Toronto, where her son Jim was born, she organized for the communist-led Industrial Needle Trades Workers Union in the early 1930s. While serving on the IUNTW executive board, she helped lead a general strike of Toronto dressmakers in 1931. That same year, she organized support for coal miners in Estevan, Sask. After a riot in which 3 strikers were killed by the RCMP (see Estevan Coal Miners Strike, 1931), Buller was jailed. While working as a business manager for the communist paper The Western Clarion in 1939, she was again arrested and interned until 1942.

“After the war she concentrated on party organizing, managing party publications such as the Tribune and National Affairs. She also participated in the party’s National Women’s Commission and the Housewives’ Association campaign to roll back prices. She retired from full-time party work in the late 1950s but remained politically active until her death.”

Source: http://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/annie-buller/

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Oppenheim’s poem was also associated with the 1912 Lawrence textile strike, often referred to as the “Bread and Roses” strike. Led by immigrant women workers, the strike developed new tactics that have become standard procedures in labour disputes, among them the moving picket line to get around loitering charges.

It received a new lease on life with the resurgence of the women’s movement in the late 1960s and the interest in the role played by women in trade union history. In 1974, Mimi Fariña composed the now familiar tune that has become a standard for women in the labour movement.

In Canada, the slogan was reborn as the theme of the “Bread and Roses March” and the “World March of Women” that it inspired.

The first Bread and Roses March, an initiative of the Fédération des femmes du Québec, began on 26 May 1995. Over the course of 10 days, more than 800 Québécoise demonstrators set off from Montréal, Longueuil and Rivière-du-Loup and converged on Québec City with nine demands of the government to combat poverty.

The theme song of the march, Du pain et des roses, composed by Hélène Pedneault and Marie-Claire Séguin remains an anthem of the labour movements of Quebec and Canada.
 

BREAD AND ROSES

As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day 
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray 
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses
For the people hear us singing, bread and roses, bread and roses.

As we come marching, marching, we battle too, for men, 
For they are in the struggle and together we shall win. 
Our days shall not be sweated from birth until life closes, 
Hearts starve as well as bodies, give us bread, but give us roses.

As we come marching, marching, un-numbered women dead 
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread, 
Small art and love and beauty their trudging spirits knew 
Yes, it is bread we. fight for, but we fight for roses, too.

As we go marching, marching, we’re standing proud and tall.
The rising of the women means the rising of us all.
No more the drudge and idler, ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories, bread and roses, bread and roses.

—–

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Alberta’s Conservative government eliminated tens of thousands of public sector jobs between 1993 and 1994 while cutting the wages and benefits of the workers who remained. The 1994 budget delivered a 20% cut in health care, a 21% cut in post secondary education and a 12.4% cut in K-12 education. Welfare rolls were cut in half over one year. Within two years, Alberta program spending declined by over 21%. Homelessness climbed 740% during the Klein years in office.

The labour movement, overwhelmed by the ferocity of the government’s attack on people to delivered essential services, was left struggling to respond. So, when the Klein-appointed Calgary Health Authority moved to further the province’s privatization agenda by contracting out the jobs of Calgary hospital laundry workers, it expected little resistance. They were wrong.

The workers had already taken a 28% cut in the previous round of bargaining in order to keep their jobs. They had given enough to “King Ralph” and were determined not to become pawns in the Conservative’s game plan to destroy the public sector.

The first to respond were 60 laundry workers at the Calgary General Hospital, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. When they learned that their jobs would be handed over to K-Bro Linens in Edmonton, they all called in sick. Workers at the Foothills Hospital where the laundry workers were members of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, followed suit the following day.

Within ten days, about 2,500 workers in six hospitals and nine nursing homes were on wildcat strikes and hundreds of other health care workers joined work-to-rule and other worker solidarity efforts. Trade unionists from outside the health sector as well as many members of the general public demonstrated solidarity with the strikers on their picket line and in public rallies.

Premier Klein watched in horror as his carefully orchestrated dismantling of public services in Alberta seemed to crumble. The Calgary Health Authority, under pressure from the government, offered the unions a delay in contracting out of 18 months, long enough for most of the affected workers to find other jobs. The “tough guy” government of Ralph Klein had blinked and it was a group of mainly immigrant women workers who had caused it to blink. 

The courage displayed by the laundry workers inspired a wave of strikes and job actions by other health care workers; licensed practical nurses and general support service workers repeatedly took part in some of the largest walk outs in Alberta’s history during the closing years of that decade.

While the laundry workers’ victory was a partial one, the events that they set in motion marked a victory for all Alberta working people. The cuts and privatizations largely stopped for several years and the government began reinvesting in public services however modestly.

“I would just like to add to that, and that is that after the laundry workers’ strike the Klein government was a different animal than before the laundry workers’ strike. Before that, as Tom said, they were ideologically driven, they refused to discuss. There was no discussion of any of their policies, they were simply enacted. After that they became much more of a kind of populist government. Yes, they still had their ideological conditioning, but they looked before they leapt. They compromised, they backed off of things. If it looked like people were ready to make a fight out of things, they backed off. They did not come in and take people on directly that way again I don’t think, and I think that was a victory for the labour movement.”

Jim Selby interview.

– – – – – – – – – –

Source: Alberta Labour History Institute

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Ontario’s teachers walked out in protest.

At the time, the protest was the largest work action by teachers in North American history, involving 126,000 teachers. Picket lines were set up across the province. Demonstrations took place at schools, on the streets, and at the offices of Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs). Teachers and their unions organized mass rallies, including one on the front lawn of the legislature at Queen’s Park that drew thousands.

The government responded with a propaganda campaign, spending millions on television ads in an attempt to label the protest as an “illegal strike” and teacher unions as selfish “special interests” – but people were not buying it. One week into the protest, a poll found 63% of Ontarians wanted the government to scrap its reforms.

Harris’ attempt to have the protest declared an illegal strike by the courts also struck‑out when judges ruled that the teachers’ action was a legitimate protest. He responded by threatening back-to-work legislation to silence and punish the teachers instead.

After two weeks away from work, many teachers felt they had made their point and voted to end the strike.

No, they had not stopped the government’s plans to shift power away from local school boards, but they had won over public opinion. Talking with students, parents and media, the teachers and their unions exposed hidden aspects of the government’s agenda – plans to lay off teachers and cut education budgets that Harris himself had denied during the election campaign.

The solidarity shown by Ontario’s unions in support of the teachers and their protest also planted the seeds of future resistance to the ideologically driven austerity agenda that was at the heart of the Harris CSR.

Canada’s unions have a long history of standing up to the unfairness of government austerity, especially the ferocious and cult-like austerity seen in the 1990s under conservative-minded governments lead by Mike Harris in Ontario, Ralph Klein in Alberta and more recently under Liberal governments in British Columbia and Nova Scotia.

Funding tax cuts for wealthy investors and powerful interests by slashing public spending on health care, education, public infrastructure and social programs is an old corporate trick. So is undermining the unions, journalists, public institutions and social movements that stand up against them.

The 1997 Ontario teachers’ protest was a moment when people stood up and said enough. While it did not stop the government, it made them blink and it woke people up.

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At its peak, the FPU had more than 21,000 members in 206 councils across the island, representing a majority of Newfoundland’s fishers. It established the Fishermen’s Union Trading Company (UTC) that set up stores to buy fish and sell goods to fishermen at fair prices and free them from exploitation by the St. John’s merchant class. In 1916, it built Port Union, the only town in North America founded by a trade union.

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In 1912, the FPU adopted the Bonavista Platform, a manifesto that called for radical change in fishery policy, social policy and governance. Among its demands were co-operative marketing and regulation of the fishery, old age pensions, free education, a minimum wage, and democratic reforms aimed at lessening the influence of big money and the wealthy. The next year, it elected 8 members to the House of Assembly, including Coaker.

Over the next decade, Coaker and his party wielded influence over successive governments, with Coaker becoming Fisheries Minister in 1917. But extraordinary wartime conditions and the opposition of fish exporters prevented much of the FPU’s platform from being enacted. Powerful anti-union sentiment following the end of the First World War took the wind out of Coaker’s sails. He became less energetic in politics and more interested in managing the Union’s businesses.

The FPU faded away as a political force by the end of the 1920s and ended entirely with the suspension of responsible government in 1934. It carried on as a service organization for its members, running businesses and activities on behalf of fishers and loggers. It survived until 1977, when it fell into receivership and its last stores were sold.

While some like to portray the FPU as a failure, those with a sense of history know that it made Newfoundland a better place to live and work, and improved the lives of working families like no other political movement before, or since.

Today, the FPU’s legacy rests in the hands of the province’s unions and labour councils, and with the leadership of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour. 

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For decades, the labour movement and women’s organizations have pushed for improvements to the federal pay equity system, calling for a shift from a complaints-based approach toward proactive legislation.  This was a key demand of the Canadian Women’s March 2000, when thousands of women, trade unions and national women’s organizations mobilized for a comprehensive strategy to end poverty and violence against women.

In 2001, a federal Pay Equity Task Force was appointed, and after an extensive and exhaustive process, made over a hundred important recommendations to address the gender wage gap in Canada. Their 2004 report also recognized that wage discrimination exists for people with disabilities, Indigenous workers and racialized workers.

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Canada’s unions have been hard at work to ensure the Task Force recommendations are put in place. They condemned the current Liberal government’s decision to delay any action on pay equity until 2018, despite the lofty campaign promises and publicly stating that having a gender wage gap in Canada today is unacceptable. After two years in power, they have also failed to eliminate the Conservative’s Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act, legislation takes away the right of women federal public servants to equal pay for work of equal value.

Only two provinces – Ontario and Quebec – have proactive pay equity laws covering both public and private sector workers. Under these laws, employers must take active steps to identify and eliminate wage discrimination. Several provinces have no pay equity legislation at all. Unions push for proactive pay equity laws in all jurisdictions to make sure that workers in both the public and private sectors have their rights respected.

Collective bargaining and pay equity measures significantly reduce the wage gap for women. That’s because together, women and their unions negotiate pay that reflects their skills, education and responsibilities. And that fair pay puts more into women’s pockets to spend on their families and in their communities.

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The miners wanted set daily working hours, better working conditions, the end of the company store monopoly, and a wage increase. The mining company refused to recognize either their union or their demands, so the workers went on strike on September 7.

To gain public support for their cause, the miners and their union organized a solidarity parade in the nearby town of Estevan. The mayor and town council quickly declared the march illegal and called in the RCMP to reinforce the local police.

On September 29, several hundred coal miners gathered, along with their families, for the parade. Waving the Union Jack and carrying banners that read “We will not work for starvation wages”, “We want houses, not piano boxes” and “Down with the company store”, they slowly drove from Bienfait into Estevan. They were met by a line of police, backed by the RCMP and a firetruck. Words were exchanged and a scuffle broke out. The police fired, at first to frighten the marchers, but they soon turned their weapons toward the crowd that included women and children. Within minutes, three of the striking miners were dead with more people injured.

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The next morning 90 RCMP descended on the homes of the miners, arresting 13 strikers on charges of rioting. Others were arrested in the days that followed. A number of workers, including the leaders of the unions, were put on trial and sentenced to hard labour. The police who killed the three men were never charged.

The riot, police violence and murder of three men – Peter Markunas, Nick Nargan and Julian Gryshko – hardened public opinion and only grew support for the labour movement across the Prairies.

By October 6, the mine owners finally agreed to implement an eight-hour day, a minimum wage of $4 a day, reduce the rent for miners’ houses and end the company store monopoly – but they would not recognize the union (and didn’t until the Second World War).

Today, in the northwest corner of the Bienfait cemetery, there stands a single grave that holds the remains of the three murdered strikers. The tombstone reads “Least We Forget. Murdered in Estevan Sept 29 1931 by RCMP”. Over the years it has been vandalized by removing “RCMP” which was always repainted by those who remember their history.

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Inflation was on the rise along with that unemployment. The Canadian dollar lost its value and drastic increases in the price of oil, caused by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) export quotas, resulted in price shocks that hit consumers hard. Over the 1970s, the price for a barrel of oil jumped from $3 to $40, an increase of over 1300%.

To compensate, workers demanded higher wages while businesses accelerated plans to cut costs while raising prices to satisfy their need for profit. Unemployment and prices continued to rise, while the economy sputtered – a phenomenon economists and politicians labeled “stagflation”.

During the 1974 federal election campaign, the Conservative Party campaigned on a platform to impose legal caps on wages and prices. Seeking re‑election, the Liberal Party, led by Pierre Trudeau, openly ridiculed the idea and presented itself to Canadians as an anti-control party. Working people, fearing the loss of jobs and income, flocked to the Liberals, returning them to power with a majority government.

Just one year later, Trudeau broke his promise. Canadians were outraged.

Wage caps were imposed on workplaces with 500 or more employees, on all federal workers, and on most other public-sector employees. While inflation stood at nearly 11% in 1975, Trudeau’s law limited wage increases over the next three years to 8%, then 6%, and finally 4%. The attack on inflation was, in fact, an attack on workers’ wages as negotiated pay increases and collective agreements were rolled back.

The labour unrest caused by Trudeau’s betrayal resulted in over 11.6 million work days lost to strikes and lockouts in 1976 alone. The CLC, under the leadership of Joe Morris, called for a National Day of Protest on October 14^th that resulted in the largest labour protest in the country’s history. Over a million Canadians took part – walking off the job, marching in the streets, and voicing their opposition to Trudeau’s unfairness.

Despite the sacrifice imposed on millions of Canadian workers, their families and their communities, inflation had declined by just 1.7% when wage-and-price controls ended in 1978. Trudeau’s Liberals were defeated in the next federal election.

Today, Canada’s unions continue to push back against unfairness. Government austerity – cuts to programs and services, wage and hiring freezes, privatization, the selling of public assets, etc. – shifts the burden onto those who can least afford to pay. “From each according to their means, to each according to their needs” remains the golden rule.

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Years later, Douglas became active in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a political party formed in reaction to the social and economic conditions of the early 20^th century that culminated in the Great Depression. He was elected to the House of Commons in 1935, where he served before going on to lead the CCF to election victory in Saskatchewan in 1944. As Premier of Saskatchewan, Douglas led North America’s first social-democratic government.

Over the next two decades, Douglas oversaw the formation of social programs that continue today. He established the publicly-owned Saskatchewan Power Corporation , Canada’s first public automobile insurance program, and a number of Crown Corporations to deliver essential services. He passed laws that allowed government workers to unionize and adopted a Saskatchewan Bill of Rights 18 months before the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

But he is most remembered for establishing Canada’s first publicly run Medicare system in Saskatchewan in 1961. In doing so he became the father of universal health care in Canada.

In 1962, Douglas left Saskatchewan politics to become the first leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP), created by a merger of the CCF and the labour movement, led by the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). He served as the party’s leader until 1971 and retired from elected politics in 1979.

In 1981 Douglas was appointed to the Order of Canada and in 1985 was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit. He died on February 24, 1986 in Ottawa. In a 2004, CBC viewers voted to crown Tommy Douglas the “Greatest Canadian“.

Happy Birthday Tommy! And thanks for making sure all Canadian’s have affordable healthcare!

This is a great legacy for Canada and one many of us are proud of. But there is still work to do. The work of leaders like Tommy Douglas, groups like the Canadian Health Coalition, political parties like the NDP, and Canadian workers through their unions and the labour movement continues with today’s drive to win a universal prescription drug plan that covers all Canadians regardless of their income, age, or where they live. 

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Between 1980 and 2012, the RCMP reported close to 1,200 cases of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls across Canada (although many working on the front lines believe the number is much higher). While they make up only 4% of Canada’s female population, Indigenous women and girls make up over 16% of female homicides and 11% of missing women.

What began with eleven vigils in 2006 has grown to over 200 vigils today, in communities across Canada, including a vigil on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

In response to calls from Indigenous families, communities and organizations, including unions and the Canadian Labour Congress, the Government of Canada launched an independent National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in September 2016.

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In response, the CLC stated:

“We must ensure the inquiry addresses the root causes of violence against Indigenous women, such as racism, sexism and misogyny so that it truly does result in justice and meaningful change.

Canada’s unions will stand in solidarity with Indigenous women, girls and their communities both as the inquiry is underway and beyond to help ensure our country truly addresses the root causes of violence against Indigenous women.

We will also continue to urge the government to implement strategies that include clean water, affordable housing, accessible education and poverty reduction in Inuit, First Nations and Métis communities.”
(news release, 02-21-2017)

NWAC has created a quarterly report card about the inquiry to encourage transparency and to measure its progress.

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“We are all experiencing profound grief and anger right now. But as we take time to mourn the victims and condemn these acts of violence, we must still remain focused on the core issues raised by black communities and movements like Black Lives Matter,” said Canadian Labour Congress Executive Vice-President Marie Clarke Walker.

“As a long-time labour leader I want to stress that unions are committed to continuing to peacefully confront the systemic causes of all forms of racism, including anti-black violence, in the U.S., Canada and around the world. We will continue to work with our allies to push for change and to build a better and more equitable world for our children,” Walker added.

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The labour movement has a long history of making the day-to-day lives of LGBTQ individuals better. Many of the rights and benefits we have won for our members are now standard in workplaces across the country.  

During Pride season, we celebrate many of these victories:

• It was the postal workers who first negotiated same sex health benefits in their contracts.
• Unions across most industries created committees and working groups to fight against homophobia, transphobia and harassment, and many even changed their own constitution to reflect that.
• In the early 2000s unions challenged equal marriage.
• Workers who are transitioning can access special leave because of the work unions have done.
• We have put diverse clauses in collective bargaining agreements that protect the human rights of LGBTQ workers above and beyond the law.
• World Pride in Toronto hit a record number of delegate participation by union members last year.
• The ongoing support of teachers’ unions and federations who hold Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs) in our school boards.

This Pride, the CLC is proud to release a new guide for unions called “Bargaining Equality for LGBTQ Workers”. This checklist helps union members and employers negotiate better language to recognize, protect and include LGBTQ workers. This is a great resource for stewards, allies and union members in general and helps build solidarity within the movement.

The CLC is working hard to help elect a government that will support the rights and equality of LGBTQ communities. We urge union members to consider electing candidates who will support Bill C-279 to add gender identity to the criminal code and human rights act, who support anti-bullying action plans to end homophobia and transphobia, and who support a national pharmacare program that will help LGBTQ individuals access expensive medication. 

The CLC is proud to join with the LGBTQ community and its affiliates in celebrating Pride Season.  

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