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Snapshots in History: June 14: Remembering Trade Unions in Canada

June 16, 2015 | John P. | Comments (0)

On June 14 and beyond, take a moment to remember the moment when trade unions were deemed legal entities in Canada: June 14, 1872. Prior to this date, consider the backdrop of the Nine-Hours Movement which sought to reduce the length of a working day for most workers by two to three hours per day. Shorter work days freed up time for education and learning, family, and community. The Toronto printers’ strike from March 25 to mid-May 1872 involved greater than one hundred striking workers belonging to the International Typographical Union (ITU). The workers were successful in winning a 54-hour work week and improved wages but the Nine-Hour Movement itself suffered a reversal from the printers’ strike and from arrests made from a mass demonstration at the provincial legislature at Queen’s Park on April 15, 1872. However, politicians began to debate what had happened and the Parliament of Canada passed the Trade Union Act with royal assent occurring on June 14, 1872. Trade unions were NOT to be considered organizations that blocked trade. Consequently, strikes were indirectly recognized but picketing continued to be a criminal offence until the Criminal Code was changed in 1934 to permit information picketing.

The debate over the efficacy and effectiveness of trade unions and organized labour continues to the present day. Trade unions have evolved within a continuum from just craft unions in the beginning through to industrial unions through to unions in both the private and public sectors. Those not convinced of the value of trade unions often point to increased wages and benefits leading to job losses and loss of individual freedom and initiative, while those supporting trade unions and collective bargaining point to better wages, improved working conditions, and advocacy on issues such as pay equity, ethnocultural and gender equality, and job protection from technological change.

The workforce (as a percentage of non-agricultural paid workers) in Canada belonging to trade unions has declined from 34.7% in 1997 to just 30% in 2013. This compares to a unionization rate of just 11.3% in the United States in 2013, down from 20.1% in 1983.

Consider the following titles for borrowing from Toronto Public Library collections:

Books:

From crisis to austerity neoliberalism, organized labour, and the Canadian state Labour goes to war the CIO and the construction of a new social order, 1939-45 Our union UAW CAW Local 27 from 1950-1990 Transforming labour women and work in post-war Canada Labouring Canada class, gender, and race in Canadian working-class history Building a better world an introduction to trade unionism in Canada 2nd edition Working people 5th ed rev and updated Canadian working-class history selected readings 3rd ed Walking the union walk stories from CEP's first ten years The Canadian auto workers the birth and transformation of a Union Hard lessons the Mine Mill Union in the Canadian Labour Movement On the job confronting the labour process in Canada



eBooks:

Laying it on the line driving a hard bargain in challenging times






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