Celebrate Labour on Labour Day

Celebrate Labour and its history this Labour Day. From CAW Council 4000

These days, Labour Day is more often viewed as the last summer long-weekend than what those who fought so long for it really intended it to be - a heart felt
celebration of labour, workers and their families, and to affirm the dignity and honour of working people everywhere. Today we take paid holidays, safe work
places, medical care, unemployment insurance, fair work hours, union wages and "the weekend" for granted.

Perhaps this comes only from the labour movement's enduring success in improving the lives of so many working Canadians.

How many of these advances would have happened if it were not for the long-forgotten heroes who fought so hard to make unions, and Labour Day, a reality in
the first place?

Workers created unions to protect themselves in what were then viewed as new impersonal labour markets - like some unfortunately remain today. Although
the first unions were small, local organizations, they attracted hostile reactions from governments and most employers. In fact, governments declared unions
illegal.

Union sympathizers confronted constant harassment, firings, blacklisting, and arrests. Despite this opposition, poor wages and dangerous working
conditions led to an increasing number of strikes and protests.

At the turn of the century, workers often toiled for 60 to 70 hours a week. The work in the factories and on the assembly lines was repetitious, and often
physically demanding. Many labourers were seriously, sometimes fatally, injured due to faulty equipment, poor safety measures or human error.

The labour movement eventually succeeded in convincing the government that employers, who then had little concern for workers health and safety, needed to
improve the situation. After years of hard lobbying, the government appointed factory inspectors, who ensured that certain standards were maintained.
Although the introduction of inspectors did improve factory conditions and reduce the number of incidents of worker abuse by employers, accidents continued
to occur, as shown by these reports from Ontario inspectors in 1899:

Right leg hurt by revolving shaft

Right thumb cut off by circular saw

Arm burned by molten iron

Three fingers, left hand, cut off by shaper

Fell down elevator shaft

Killed by bursting cylinder of hair picker

Scalded -seated on edge of vat and fainted

Eyes burned while pouring babbit metal

Arm torn - caught in set screw of a reamer

Forearm cut - lifted planer top, sleeve caught in knives, drew in arm, severely cut it

Caught in belt and wound around shaft - Died five hours after accident


As unions began to organize, the working conditions of workers slowly improved.

The first signs of permanent unions date to the mid-nineteenth century. In manufacturing towns, craft workers such as printers, shoemakers, moulders,
tailors, coopers, and bakers established local unions. Railroad workers also actively pursued trade unionism. In the hostile atmosphere of this era, the life of
these associations proved fragile and their existence was never guaranteed. Eventually, unions strengthened their situation through the creation of local
assemblies, and by looking farther afield to establish links with the larger British and American unions.

One of Canada's first sole Canadian unions was the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees. Founded in Moncton, New Brunswick by Aaron R. Mosher
on October 12, 1908, the union diversified its membership from railway workers of blue collar and white collar clerical workers, to include highway
transportation workers, hotel and hospitality, health workers and seafarers to name a few. Based on the diverse membership of the Canadian Brotherhood of
Railway Employees, which was continuing to grow, the union changed its name to one that was more fitting given its wide diversity, Canadian Brotherhood of
Railway, Transport and General Workers Union (CBRT&GW).

The 5,400 union members of what is now known today as CAW National Council 4000 were once proud members of the
CBRT&GW.

In addition to starting the CBRT&GW, Mosher was also a founder of the All-Canadian Congress of Labour in 1927 as well as the Canadian Congress of Labour in 1940. He was a seasoned veteran of union battles over nationalism, communism, and industrial unionism. When the Canadian Labour Congress was formed in 1956, Mosher was named
honorary president.

Of the many accolades Mosher's career in the labour movement brought him, the biggest came in 1981 when the Government of Canada issued a stamp in honour of him. Not only was the stamp issued in the centennial year of Mosher's birth, but also on the 25th anniversary of the Canadian Labour Congress and was officially released on Labour Day! Mosher is the only union leader ever to be depicted on a Canadian postage stamp.

The stamp includes the figures of two railway workers flanking Mosher's portrait. It is as near as we come to a stamp paying tribute to organized labour in Canada.

One of the best known stands taken by labour unions and activists came in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1919. Starting on May 15th and running until June 25, The
Winnipeg General Strike is Canada's best-known general strike. Massive unemployment and inflation, the success of the Russian Revolution (1917), a wave
of strikes across Canada and rising revolutionary industrial unionism all contributed to postwar labour unrest.

In March of 1919, Western Labour leaders met in Calgary to discuss the creation of ONE BIG UNION. In Winnipeg on May 15th, when negotiations broke down
between management and labour in the building and metal trades, the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council (WTLC) called a general strike.

The Winnipeg General Strike is just one of the many struggles that trade unions and labour activists have fought over many years, struggles that today has
brought workers all across Canada rights to secured union recognition, collective bargaining, improved working conditions, wages and benefits, to name only
a few. Thanks to the years of efforts of many men and women!

In Solidarity - Happy Labour Day!

Source: Canadian Labour History and Civilization - CAW Council 4000