The Rise of Industrial Unionism in Canada

Carol Williams and Jennifer Dee of the Industrial Relations Centre Library provided valuable assistance during the research phase of the project and the wordprocessing of Kim Gratton greatly facilitated the preparation of the manuscript. [...] Nevertheless, the crafts were the main target of the church's wrath and they complained, in return, of shameless strikebreaking and the acceptance of substandard wages and conditions by the syndicates. [...] The specific aims of its Canadian standard bearer, the WUL, were to press for industrial unionism; bring dissident members from the CFL and the IWW back into the TLC fold; organize the unorganized and the unemployed; educate Quebec catholic union members and the clergy; and strengthen the district trades and labour councils. [...] In the United States, the Wagner Act had acknowledged the adversarial interests of employers and employees in the law, but Canada's chief minister in the person of Prime Minister Mackenzie King, returned to power in 1935, saw the interests of capital and labour as fundamentally harmonious — provided the workers were led by the right sort of person — preferably the employer himself. [...] The Trades and Labour Congress (TLC) expelled the seven Canadian CIO unions the following year: the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, the Fur Workers, the Quarry Workers, the United Auto Workers, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee and the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers.