Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In the wave of working-class rebellion that swept much of the world in the aftermath of World War I, the Winnipeg general strike stands as one of the key confrontations on the North American continent. Winnipeg, the capital of Manitoba and the largest city on the Canadian prairies at the time, was a transportation, industrial, and service hub whose boosters liked to consider the “Chicago of the North.” For six weeks, from May 15 until late June, about 35,000 Winnipeg workers effectively shut down the city. The immediate cause of the strike was the refusal of the city's employers to bargain with the newly established building trades' and metal trades' federations. Consequently, the Winnipeg Trades and Labor Council organized a poll of its affiliated members, who voted 11,000 to 500 in favor of organizing a general strike. Both the scale of the strike and the employers' response to it suggest that much more was at stake than the collective bargaining rights of two groups of workers. The majority of those who struck were not union members and had little to gain directly from their struggles. In fact, large numbers were Central and Eastern European immigrants who had largely been excluded from the craft union movement. Even the demand that employers recognize their union federations represented a move from craft unionism to a desire to build broader and more unitary workingclass organizations. ... log in or subscribe to read full text