The Winnipeg General Strike The year of 1919 has been one of the most influential years of strikes
in Canadian history. The event that occurred on this year still
lingers in Canadian minds and continues to be one of the most
meaningful and powerful effects of labor protest and the struggle of
people to create trade union rights. As it is stated it is “the first
and the only time in Canadian history that a major city was split
clearly into two opposing classes.” (McNaught, 1963). The implications
of The Winnipeg General Strike were far more reaching that just
Winnipeg alone. It is argued that: “it involved the federal state,
which threw its whole weight behind the business interests of
Winnipeg, and aroused deep and bitter feelings in the ranks of labor
all over the country. Its impact was far wider than the immediate
economic issues of the strike. In the end, the six weeks that shook
Winnipeg also shook the politics of Canada, and the legacy of the
strike is more to be seen in its political consequences that in any
other of its many aspects.” (Penner, 1975).
During WWI, which began in 1914, Canada showed its loyalty to Britain
by sending many Canadian soldiers to fight in the battlefield. Canada
was also a big supplier of ammunition and food to Europe during the
war. This created many jobs during the war and even the unskilled and
unemployed were able to find employment. Although war proved to be
go...
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...rtially achieve their goals.
Reference
Abid, May 20, 1919.
Abid., May 30, 1919.
Belawyder, A. (1967). The Winnipeg General Strike. Toronto, ON: The
Copp Clark
Publishing Company.
Bercuson, D.J., McNaught, K. (1974). The Winnipeg General Strike: 1919.
Toronto, ON:
Longman Canada Limited.
Masters, D.C. (1950). The Winnipeg General Strike. Toronto, ON:
University of Toronto
Press.
McNaught, K. (1963). A Prophet in Politics. Toronto, ON: University of
Toronto Press.
Penner, N. (1975). Winnipeg 1919: The striker’s own history of the
Winnipeg General
Strike. Toronto, ON: James Lorimer & Company Publishers.
Rea, J.E. (1973). The Winnipeg General Strike. Toronto, ON: Holt,
Rinehart and
Winston of Canada Limited.
Robson, K.C. (1970). Royal Commission. Manitoba.
Hollingsworth and Tyyska discuss the employment of women in their article, both wage work and work performed outside of the “paid labour force.” (14). They also look at work discrimination of women based on gender and marital status. They argue that disapproval of married women working for wages during the Depression was expressed not only by those in position of power, such as politicians, but also by the general public and labour unions. They suggest that the number of women in the workforce increased as more young wives stayed working until the birth of their first child and older women entered the workforce in response to depression based deprivation. Hollingsworth and Tyyska also give examples of work that married women did that was an extension of their domestic duties such as babysitting for working mothers or taking in laundry. They also state that some women took in boarders, sold extra produce from gardens, or ran make-shift restaurant operations out of their homes.
Throughout history, the actions of governments have always been debated; however, occasionally there are certain events which spark much controversy, both at the time of the event and by historians today. One of these controversial acts was the invocation of the War Measures Act in 1970, an act which suspended the civil liberties of Canadian citizens. In October 1970, in what became known as the October Crisis, the Front de libération du Québec, (commonly known as the FLQ) which was a French Canadian organization advocating independence from Canada, kidnapped two politicians. This initiated a series of events, one of which was the invocation of the War Measures Act by Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Many historians argue that Trudeau was justified in invoking the War Measures Act because the October Crisis ended shortly after the Act was invoked. However, this argument is invalid as justification; primarily because the War Measures Act was an extreme overreaction by Trudeau, as the threat of the FLQ was largely small-scale, and the demise of the FLQ was impending with the rise of the Bloc Quebecois. Furthermore, the Act may have inspired Quebecers who favoured separatism, as they saw the government desperately employ the most extreme measure to stop the FLQ. Finally, the War Measures Act suspended the civil rights of citizens within a democracy, violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The 1919 steel strike was an attempt to organize the United States steel industry after World War One. The strike lasted about five months, and was unsuccessful. It began on September 21, 1919, and collapsed on January 8, 1920. It was started by the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, or the AA. The AA had formed in 1876. It was a union of iron and steel workers which was very committed to creating unionism, but advancements in technology had decreased the amount of skilled workers in the industries.
George Pullman was not always believed to be a cruel boss. George Pullman started off believing that anyone could be successful if they worked hard enough. But as his business grew, he took this belief too far, furthering his own company by working his employees hard, treating his employees like slaves. There were many factors included in how the Pullman strike started. George Pullman and the company’s treatment of employees, how the town of Pullman, Illinois reacted to their treatment, other strikes that led up to the Pullman employee unhappiness and their reaction, the Pullman Strike.
The Pullman Strike of 1894 was the first national strike in American history and it came about during a period of unrest with labor unions and controversy regarding the role of government in business.5 The strike officially started when employees organized and went to their supervisors to ask for a lowered rent and were refused.5 The strike had many different causes. For example, workers wanted higher wages and fewer working hours, but the companies would not give it to them; and the workers wanted better, more affordable living quarters, but the companies would not offer that to them either. These different causes created an interesting and controversial end to the Pullman strike. Because of this, questions were raised about the strike that are still important today. Was striking a proper means of getting what the workers wanted? Were there better means of petitioning their grievances? Was government intervention constitutional? All these questions were raised by the Pullman Strike.
...s became even more desperate at the time of the great depression that ultimately led to the great railway strike, in which many workers lost their lives at the hand of the Pennsylvania militia. This act proved to be a major turning point in the evolution of the labor movement in the United States.
Canada: The Quiet Revolution in Quebec The English-French relations have not always been easy. Each is always arguing and accusing the other of wrong doings. All this hatred and differences started in the past, and this Quiet revolution, right after a new Liberal government led by Jean Lesage came in 1960. Thus was the beginning of the Quiet Revolution.
"Oppression can only survive through silence" said Carmen de Monteflores and history proved this concept most thoroughly. However, the oppressed groups are generally not silent at all. They revolt, get violent, and are repressed again. This is not a rule, just a simple generalization and, of course, there are numerous exceptions. There is always a possibility that these downtrodden factions will get together to form a strong opposing force that will be an equal or almost equal rival to those that oppress. The coercion of the working class continued throughout the eighteenth century. Horrible working conditions, poverty, and hunger were blooming in the world of the industrial proletariat. The fruitless revolts did not change the situation and just when it seemed like the treatment of the waged people could not get any worse, the resolution appeared in all its glory. This historical period (1860-1914) could be best described using the Hegelian philosophy. The constant oppression of the working class will serve as thesis. The antithesis would come with the unification of the proletariats, forming the trading unions. The role of synthesis is given to the emergence of political democracy and mass political parties.
The Newark riots of 1967 were very extreme and terrible time in Newark, New Jersey, one of the worst in U.S. history. The riots were between African-Americans and white residents, police officers and the National Guard. The riots were not unexpected. The tension between the city grew tremendously during the 1960's, due to lack of employment for Blacks, inadequate housing, police brutality and political exclusion of blacks from government.
The important prelude to the Coal Strike of 1902 was the strike of 1990. This strike occurred just as the 1900 presidential elections were happening (Grossman). John Mitchell, president of the United Mine Workers called this strike into effect on September 17, 1900 (Grossman). It proved effective because he had the support of most miners. The election also helped the miners cause as it brought the strike to national attention. Political bosses took note and convinced mine owners that a strike was bad news for their party (Grossman). This allowed the strikers to get the 1...
The early 1900s was a time of many movements, from the cities to the rural farms; people were uniting for various causes. One of the most widespread was the labor movement, which affected people far and wide. Conditions in the nation’s workplaces were notoriously poor, but New York City fostered the worst. Factories had started out in the city’s tenements, which were extremely cramped, poorly ventilated, and thoroughly unsanitary. With the advent of skyscrapers, factories were moved out of the tenements and into slightly larger buildings, which still had terrible conditions. Workers were forced to work long hours (around 12 hours long) six hours a day, often for extremely low pay. The pay was also extremely lower for women, who made up a large portion of the shirtwaist industry. If a worker were to openly contest an employer’s rule, they would be promptly fired and replaced immediately. Also, strength in numbers did not always work. Managers often hired brutal strikebreakers to shut movements down. The local police and justice were often of no help to the workers, even when women were being beaten. At the time, the workers needs were not taken seriously and profit was placed ahead of human life. This was not just a struggle for workers’ rights; it was also a movement for the working class’ freedom.
The Strike of 1934 displayed the power the organized labor had, and how the mistreatment of labor can shut down an entire city and coast. The timing was just right for the maritime workers to strike. The grips of the Great Depression fueled laborers to maintain and improve their quality of life and security for their families. Congresses investigation into the 1934 San Francisco Strike concluded that “the aspirations of labor which led to the strike were directed from the change in public opinion expressed in the National Industrial Recovery Act. The potentialities of a protected right to bargain collectively were quickly perceived by waterfront workers.
The Winnipeg General Strike was one of the largest strikes in Canadian history. Over thirty thousand workers and World War 1 veterans joined in solidarity to obtain the right for collective bargaining. This massive strike paralyzed the city of Winnipeg, even as capitalists insisted everything was normal. Business owners and government officials scrambled to find volunteers and “scabs” to fill in the countless empty positions. Despite all that, the strike failed. Their leaders were imprisoned or deported. How did a strike that was supported by the majority of the working class and World War 1 Veterans fail? To begin to contextualize this historical event, the general environment of fear and paranoia later labeled as the Red Scare must be explored.
The strike was a youth led campaign, triggered by the want of change in the way two major heads of the newspaper industry Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers compensated their child labor force.
To what extent and with what degree of certainty can we decide who was responsible for the limited areal support for the Home Army (AK) during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944?