The war brought bloodshed and killing to the millions of men who fought it. But while the armies suffered through the poison gas and bullets of the battlefields, Canadian industry was humming happily along. During wars the capitalist economy usually booms. The demand for war materials - - guns, tanks, planes, ammunition, uniforms -- creates a whole new market, it also creates enormous profits for the industries who get government war contracts. Many Canadian fortunes were founded during the high profit years of the First World War.
The war taught the Canadian people several lessons. They learned that in wartime, as in peacetime, it was all right to sacrifice the lives of workers, but not to sacrifice the making of profits. The government broke its promise not to conscript workers for the army but refused to conscript the wealth of Canadians.
But the biggest lessons were reserved for the years after the war. With the fighting over, Canadians expected to find some of the freedom and happiness they had been told they were fighting for. They were disappointed.
The complete irrationality of our economic system is shown by the fact that once the war was over, the economy fell into a major depression. As the demands of the country switched from war supplies to the needs of ordinary people -- good homes, good food, cheap clothes and other goods, steady work -- the economy slowed right down. There was little profit to be made from selling the necessities of life at a reasonable price. The owning class preferred to sit on its wartime profits rather than satisfy the needs of working people.
Soldiers returning home found their families in poverty and no jobs available. In Cape Breton fewer and fewer shifts were required in the mines as the pace of the economy slowed down. The steel plant was operating only two days a week, and in the middle of 1919, it shut down completely.
Canadian workers did not take the crisis quietly. Militancy increased drastically all across Canada at the end of the war. The workers wanted their share of the profits that had been earned from their sweat during the war, both on the battlefields and in the factories and sweatshops at home. It was not right for the capitalists to reap all the profits in good times and for the workers to bear the brunt of the suffering in bad.
Canadian workers were beginning to understand the crisis in terms of more than whether they could get higher wages or have a union of their own. These battles would still be fought for years, but the workers were gaining a deep understanding of the nature of the capitalist system as a whole. They were looking for alternatives.
The government was extremely worried about the spread of radical ideas among Canadians. Under the War Measures Act -- the same piece of legislation Pierre Elliott Trudeau was to use more than 50 years later -- the prime minister outlawed 14 different political and trade union organizations and made it a crime to possess any one of 1,000 books.
During May and June of 1919 the workers of Winnipeg fought the first of a series of militant union struggles which spread across the country during the following years. In the midst of these battles – over wages, prices and the principles of trade unionism --something new was being born. An awareness was growing that an entire system was under question; Canadian workers, were looking for alternatives. It would require the brute force of the Canadian state to suppress them.
Friday, 28 December 2007
DEFEAT AT THE POLLS
“But the miners and all the other men
Saw the prices go up once again;
And the workers began to blame the laws
That always acted against their cause.
Yes, the very men that they used to cheer
were greeted now with a hiss and a jeer.
For they said that now, to change the law,
They would send McLachlan to Ottawa.”
--Dawn Fraser
There are two main political parties in Canada. Although there are superficia1 differences between them, on basic principles there is no real distinction. This is because they are both paid for and run by Canada’s big businesses.
To win elections the parties resort to lies and promises, threats, intimidation and bribes. In Cape Breton the food and whiskey wagons were standard parts of Liberal and Conservative Party apparatus.
The 1921 election is a good example of what happens at election time. The whole country was in a turmoil that year. Unemployment, high prices and poverty were the rewards Canadians got for fighting a war for freedom and democracy. Because the cost of living rose so rapidly, Cape Bretoners actually suffered a drop of 30 per cent in their earnings from 1918 to 1920. In 1921 the two party system (one party in office, and the other one out but waiting to take over) did not perform well. The Conservatives, who ruled through the war, were thrown out. The Liberals became the government. But a crucial new force had appeared on the scene -- the Farmer and Labour men. A group of 67 candidates nominated by Canadian farmers and workers was the second largest group elected to the House of Commons.
In Cape Breton it was logical that Farmer and Labour candidates would run in the election. In 1918 labour men won elections to the town councils of New Watèrford, Glace Bay and Sydney. For years candidates picked and elected by the working people of these towns occupied the most important positions on these councils.
J.B. McLachlan was the popular choice for a labour candidate in Cape Breton. His campaign was so turbulent and enthusiastic that local politicians and the mineowners panicked. Their newspapers raved bitterly against “Bolshevism” and the clergy preached the evils of “atheism.” The general manager of the British Empire Steel and Coal Company (Besco had replaced Dosco as the owner of the mines and steel plant) 1eaped into the fray himself, shutting down several mines as a warning calling for “a return to sanity.”
Big business and frenzied finance control both Govern-
ment and Opposition and both Mr. Meighen and Mr. King
march to the click of typewriters in the offices of
Canadian Pacific Railways, British Empire and Steel
Corporation, and the Royal Bank of Canada. Meighen
and King are but corporals working under a general
staff composed of bank presidents, railway owners
and captains of industry. It is from this source that
Meighen and King get their marching orders and have
their election expenses paid.”
-—J.B.McLachlan
The night before the election the Liberal candidate, a Besco lawyer named Billy Carroll (all the other candidates were lawyers), produced a forged document aimed at discrediting McLachlan. He produced this document -- which alleged that McLachlan had betrayed the miners by making a secret pact with Besco - - in the final ten minutes of the last public meeting of the campaign.
Before he actually made the charges, they had been printed on the front page of the Sydney Record. Naturally, McLachlan had no chance to make a reply to the charges, later shown to be ridiculous.
But the dirty work had its desired result. Although McLachlan won handily in the mining districts of his riding, he was defeated in Sydney. When the totals were added up Carroll had defeated him by just over 1800 votes.
Saw the prices go up once again;
And the workers began to blame the laws
That always acted against their cause.
Yes, the very men that they used to cheer
were greeted now with a hiss and a jeer.
For they said that now, to change the law,
They would send McLachlan to Ottawa.”
--Dawn Fraser
There are two main political parties in Canada. Although there are superficia1 differences between them, on basic principles there is no real distinction. This is because they are both paid for and run by Canada’s big businesses.
To win elections the parties resort to lies and promises, threats, intimidation and bribes. In Cape Breton the food and whiskey wagons were standard parts of Liberal and Conservative Party apparatus.
The 1921 election is a good example of what happens at election time. The whole country was in a turmoil that year. Unemployment, high prices and poverty were the rewards Canadians got for fighting a war for freedom and democracy. Because the cost of living rose so rapidly, Cape Bretoners actually suffered a drop of 30 per cent in their earnings from 1918 to 1920. In 1921 the two party system (one party in office, and the other one out but waiting to take over) did not perform well. The Conservatives, who ruled through the war, were thrown out. The Liberals became the government. But a crucial new force had appeared on the scene -- the Farmer and Labour men. A group of 67 candidates nominated by Canadian farmers and workers was the second largest group elected to the House of Commons.
In Cape Breton it was logical that Farmer and Labour candidates would run in the election. In 1918 labour men won elections to the town councils of New Watèrford, Glace Bay and Sydney. For years candidates picked and elected by the working people of these towns occupied the most important positions on these councils.
J.B. McLachlan was the popular choice for a labour candidate in Cape Breton. His campaign was so turbulent and enthusiastic that local politicians and the mineowners panicked. Their newspapers raved bitterly against “Bolshevism” and the clergy preached the evils of “atheism.” The general manager of the British Empire Steel and Coal Company (Besco had replaced Dosco as the owner of the mines and steel plant) 1eaped into the fray himself, shutting down several mines as a warning calling for “a return to sanity.”
Big business and frenzied finance control both Govern-
ment and Opposition and both Mr. Meighen and Mr. King
march to the click of typewriters in the offices of
Canadian Pacific Railways, British Empire and Steel
Corporation, and the Royal Bank of Canada. Meighen
and King are but corporals working under a general
staff composed of bank presidents, railway owners
and captains of industry. It is from this source that
Meighen and King get their marching orders and have
their election expenses paid.”
-—J.B.McLachlan
The night before the election the Liberal candidate, a Besco lawyer named Billy Carroll (all the other candidates were lawyers), produced a forged document aimed at discrediting McLachlan. He produced this document -- which alleged that McLachlan had betrayed the miners by making a secret pact with Besco - - in the final ten minutes of the last public meeting of the campaign.
Before he actually made the charges, they had been printed on the front page of the Sydney Record. Naturally, McLachlan had no chance to make a reply to the charges, later shown to be ridiculous.
But the dirty work had its desired result. Although McLachlan won handily in the mining districts of his riding, he was defeated in Sydney. When the totals were added up Carroll had defeated him by just over 1800 votes.
WAR IS ON CLASS WAR
Capitalism is a system where people are divided into two classes -- those who live by working, and those who live by owning. Under capitalism the property owners are more important than the people who create the wealth. This is because they control the state, the army, the newspapers and the schools, as well as the industries and factories. Through these institutions they make the rules for the working people to follow. If the workers produce more goods than can be sold at a profit, many of them will be fired or laid off. If the owning class decides it wants more income from its properties, then the workers’ wages will be cut. This is what happened in Cape Breton in 1922.
Once the dangerous 1921 election was safely over, Besco could move from its defensive position to the attack. During 1921 Besco had been forced by government pressure to jack up the miners’ wages to meet the soaring cost of living. Now Besco set out to recover lost ground and abolish the “1921 rates.“
-Why did Besco decide
it had to cut wages?
--Because it needed more
money.
--More money for what?
--To pay more dividends
to the owning class.
Within two weeks after the election, just in time for Christmas, Besco issued its ultimatum —-wages would be cut by 37½ per cent. This meant that for every dollar a miner had earned in 1921, he would be earning 62½ cents in 1922. It was a fine Christmas greeting for the workers.
What would this cut mean to the workers and their families? In terms of cash it meant this: a family would be expected to live on about $700 a year, provided the miners worked four or more shifts a week. After paying for clothes, rent, water, fuel and other needs, a family would have $250 left for food. For a five person family -- and many were much larger -- this added up to four cents per person per meal. According to the statisticians in Ottawa, a family of five required an income of $2200 a year to survive at a reasonable level. The cutback meant hunger and near starvation, it meant children would wear potato sacks and have neither coats nor shoes to wear to school...
And what would the wage cut mean to Besco? It meant a good chance of topping the $9.6 million profit for 1921. And continuing to pay healthy dividends on their inflated stock values to the coupon clipping class.
Remember our old friend Justice Mellish? The old company lawyer? In his capacity as a judge he granted the corporation permission to put the wage cut into effect. Besco thanked him and went ahead. Shortly afterwards a government “conciliation” board also agreed to the cut.
But the workers didn’t. More than 10,000 miners cast votes against the cut, while a meagre 486 men were willing to take it. “War is on,” declared J.B. McLachlan, “A class war.” McLachlan argued that the workers should adopt a bold and imaginative tactic -- the slowdown strike. Production in the mines would be cut back to the level where Besco’s profits would vanish; only enough coal would mined to pay the miners wages. This strategy exposed the very roots of capitalism - - - the robbery of part of the workers’ labour power. The minister of labour in Ottawa declared the slow-down “un-British, un-Canadian and cowardly.” Both he and Prime Minister Mackenzie King were publicly voted enemies of the Canadian people’ at a union meeting.
In June the miners gathered in convention to map their strategy. They would not accept any wage cut at all. A strike deadline was set for August 14. That the miners understood clearly the importance of their fight against the mineowners is shown by this resolution they adopted:
“We proclaim openly to all the world that we
are out for a complete overthrow of the ca-
pitalist system and of the capitalist, pea-
ceably if we may; forceably if we must; and
we call on all workers, soldiers and minor
law officers in Canada to join us in libe-
rating labour.”
___________________________________________
“In the 1909 strike the Dominion Coal Co. Put a live wire around
Their stockade at No. 2 mine. One old man and two boys were killed by
accidentally coming into contact with the live wire.
“In the 1922 strike the Company were preparing to, put
a live wire around the stockade at No. 2 mine. But the
strike was 100 per cent strong and the workers refused
to furnish the necessary electricity to kill men and boys.
In the first strike capital was in control. In the second strike labour was in control.”
--Maritime Labour Herald
Sept. 14, 1922
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
On August 13, the day before the strike was to start, Besco lost its nerve. That Sunday afternoon the corporation summoned the union leaders to an eleventh hour conference. If the union leaders would call off the strike, Besco promised to cut wages only 21 percent.
While the union leaders were closeted with Besco, the rank and file were meeting in a Glace Bay theatre. In anticipation of a tough strike, the miners planned to buy a schooner to bring in potatoes from PEI and fish for cod to supply their families.
Fresh from their long meeting with Besco, the union leaders tried Sunday night to call off the showdown. But they couldn’t do it. The men wouldn’t listen to their leaders. On the Monday morning 5,000 angry miners assembled at the Glace Bay ballpark. McLachlan was forced to admit that the union’s executive did not have the power to call off a strike for less than the demands the men themselves had set,-- no cuts at all. The strike was back on. By midnight Monday 12,000 men were on strike -- the entire work force. The local paper reported: “The executive found that the rank and file had taken charge, and that the officials had but to obey the men whom they serve.”
As in 1909 the mineowners resorted to armed force to back up their position. Barbed wire, machine gun nests and searchlights went up around the pits. More than 1,000 soldiers and 1,000 “special police” were despatched from Halifax. A squadron of British battleships with marines entered the Glace Bay harbour. The town councils in the mining towns refused flatly to pay the cost of sending in troops they considered unnecessary. The miners’ union, the veterans’ association and the town police cooperated in keeping law and order -- subduing rowdy “specials” and keeping company liquor out of town.
The 1922 strike was a 100 per cent strike. This means there was great solidarity among the workers, but it also refers to a special tactic they adopted. Every last worker left the mines, including pumpmen and firemen. Since most of the Cape Breton coal seams run out under the ocean floor; continuous pumping is required to keep the mines in good working order. When the miners refused to scab on themselves by keeping maintenance men on the job, they added a powerful weapon to their grim determination. If the mineowners wanted to minimize the damage to their mines, they would have to settle quickly. To the workers the hunger of their families and their struggle for a decent life style were more important than the private property of Besco.
“If a half—drowned pump
is put up aqaiflst a
half-starved baby, there
are those people who
will exclaim ‘the poor
pump.
In 1922 the people of Cape Breton pitted their empty stomachs and empty pockets against the millions of the British Empire Steel and Coal Company. Locked out of many mines by shutdowns and with a huge wage cut hanging over the heads of those who were allowed to work, starvation stared many families in the face.
In the midst of this privation the company stores became the centres for showdowns. The first raid ona company store that year took place at New Aberdeen, when the father of nine hungry children came to ask credit. When the No.9 mine re-opened, the company could take it out of his pay, as it had always done. He was refused credit.
“This miner thereupon ordered the manager
aside,” reported the Maritime Labour Herald,
“and helped himself. He asked the manager to
to weigh the butter he took and take note of
the other stuff. The manager refused. The
other miners present followed the example of
the miner. They took ~hat they needed. There
was no disorder. Only food was taken.”
The miner, Frank Maclntyre, and four others were arrested for stealing. One of the men had taken only a bag of flour to give his family a meal of pancakes. Under the laws of capitalism the claims of private property take priority over the rights of hungry stomachs. Thirteen men were sentenced to two years in jail each for stealing food. They were only a handful of the hundreds who took part in raids on the company stores.
During that same month in 1922 three children under one year of age died because they had no milk.
By the beginning of September the strike was over. The miners voted 8,000 to 3,000 to accept a wage cut of 18 per cent, a much softer blow than the original 37½ per cent Besco sought to impose. A major factor in the vote was the fact that the international headquarters of the UMW failed to come through with strikefunds.
The strike was not won, but it was not lost either. The miners had tested their solidarity, won some concessions, and learned that if they stuck together they caused considerable fear among the owning class. It was not a quiet surrender, but a defiant one. Dan Livingstone, the newly-elected District 26 president, declared:
“The wage schedule was accepted by the miners
under the muzzles of rifles, machine guns,
and gleaming bayonets, with further threate-
ned invasion of troops, and marines with war-
ships standing to.The miners, facing hunger,
their dominion and provincial governments
lined up with Besco, were forced to accept
the proposals.”
Once the dangerous 1921 election was safely over, Besco could move from its defensive position to the attack. During 1921 Besco had been forced by government pressure to jack up the miners’ wages to meet the soaring cost of living. Now Besco set out to recover lost ground and abolish the “1921 rates.“
-Why did Besco decide
it had to cut wages?
--Because it needed more
money.
--More money for what?
--To pay more dividends
to the owning class.
Within two weeks after the election, just in time for Christmas, Besco issued its ultimatum —-wages would be cut by 37½ per cent. This meant that for every dollar a miner had earned in 1921, he would be earning 62½ cents in 1922. It was a fine Christmas greeting for the workers.
What would this cut mean to the workers and their families? In terms of cash it meant this: a family would be expected to live on about $700 a year, provided the miners worked four or more shifts a week. After paying for clothes, rent, water, fuel and other needs, a family would have $250 left for food. For a five person family -- and many were much larger -- this added up to four cents per person per meal. According to the statisticians in Ottawa, a family of five required an income of $2200 a year to survive at a reasonable level. The cutback meant hunger and near starvation, it meant children would wear potato sacks and have neither coats nor shoes to wear to school...
And what would the wage cut mean to Besco? It meant a good chance of topping the $9.6 million profit for 1921. And continuing to pay healthy dividends on their inflated stock values to the coupon clipping class.
Remember our old friend Justice Mellish? The old company lawyer? In his capacity as a judge he granted the corporation permission to put the wage cut into effect. Besco thanked him and went ahead. Shortly afterwards a government “conciliation” board also agreed to the cut.
But the workers didn’t. More than 10,000 miners cast votes against the cut, while a meagre 486 men were willing to take it. “War is on,” declared J.B. McLachlan, “A class war.” McLachlan argued that the workers should adopt a bold and imaginative tactic -- the slowdown strike. Production in the mines would be cut back to the level where Besco’s profits would vanish; only enough coal would mined to pay the miners wages. This strategy exposed the very roots of capitalism - - - the robbery of part of the workers’ labour power. The minister of labour in Ottawa declared the slow-down “un-British, un-Canadian and cowardly.” Both he and Prime Minister Mackenzie King were publicly voted enemies of the Canadian people’ at a union meeting.
In June the miners gathered in convention to map their strategy. They would not accept any wage cut at all. A strike deadline was set for August 14. That the miners understood clearly the importance of their fight against the mineowners is shown by this resolution they adopted:
“We proclaim openly to all the world that we
are out for a complete overthrow of the ca-
pitalist system and of the capitalist, pea-
ceably if we may; forceably if we must; and
we call on all workers, soldiers and minor
law officers in Canada to join us in libe-
rating labour.”
___________________________________________
“In the 1909 strike the Dominion Coal Co. Put a live wire around
Their stockade at No. 2 mine. One old man and two boys were killed by
accidentally coming into contact with the live wire.
“In the 1922 strike the Company were preparing to, put
a live wire around the stockade at No. 2 mine. But the
strike was 100 per cent strong and the workers refused
to furnish the necessary electricity to kill men and boys.
In the first strike capital was in control. In the second strike labour was in control.”
--Maritime Labour Herald
Sept. 14, 1922
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
On August 13, the day before the strike was to start, Besco lost its nerve. That Sunday afternoon the corporation summoned the union leaders to an eleventh hour conference. If the union leaders would call off the strike, Besco promised to cut wages only 21 percent.
While the union leaders were closeted with Besco, the rank and file were meeting in a Glace Bay theatre. In anticipation of a tough strike, the miners planned to buy a schooner to bring in potatoes from PEI and fish for cod to supply their families.
Fresh from their long meeting with Besco, the union leaders tried Sunday night to call off the showdown. But they couldn’t do it. The men wouldn’t listen to their leaders. On the Monday morning 5,000 angry miners assembled at the Glace Bay ballpark. McLachlan was forced to admit that the union’s executive did not have the power to call off a strike for less than the demands the men themselves had set,-- no cuts at all. The strike was back on. By midnight Monday 12,000 men were on strike -- the entire work force. The local paper reported: “The executive found that the rank and file had taken charge, and that the officials had but to obey the men whom they serve.”
As in 1909 the mineowners resorted to armed force to back up their position. Barbed wire, machine gun nests and searchlights went up around the pits. More than 1,000 soldiers and 1,000 “special police” were despatched from Halifax. A squadron of British battleships with marines entered the Glace Bay harbour. The town councils in the mining towns refused flatly to pay the cost of sending in troops they considered unnecessary. The miners’ union, the veterans’ association and the town police cooperated in keeping law and order -- subduing rowdy “specials” and keeping company liquor out of town.
The 1922 strike was a 100 per cent strike. This means there was great solidarity among the workers, but it also refers to a special tactic they adopted. Every last worker left the mines, including pumpmen and firemen. Since most of the Cape Breton coal seams run out under the ocean floor; continuous pumping is required to keep the mines in good working order. When the miners refused to scab on themselves by keeping maintenance men on the job, they added a powerful weapon to their grim determination. If the mineowners wanted to minimize the damage to their mines, they would have to settle quickly. To the workers the hunger of their families and their struggle for a decent life style were more important than the private property of Besco.
“If a half—drowned pump
is put up aqaiflst a
half-starved baby, there
are those people who
will exclaim ‘the poor
pump.
In 1922 the people of Cape Breton pitted their empty stomachs and empty pockets against the millions of the British Empire Steel and Coal Company. Locked out of many mines by shutdowns and with a huge wage cut hanging over the heads of those who were allowed to work, starvation stared many families in the face.
In the midst of this privation the company stores became the centres for showdowns. The first raid ona company store that year took place at New Aberdeen, when the father of nine hungry children came to ask credit. When the No.9 mine re-opened, the company could take it out of his pay, as it had always done. He was refused credit.
“This miner thereupon ordered the manager
aside,” reported the Maritime Labour Herald,
“and helped himself. He asked the manager to
to weigh the butter he took and take note of
the other stuff. The manager refused. The
other miners present followed the example of
the miner. They took ~hat they needed. There
was no disorder. Only food was taken.”
The miner, Frank Maclntyre, and four others were arrested for stealing. One of the men had taken only a bag of flour to give his family a meal of pancakes. Under the laws of capitalism the claims of private property take priority over the rights of hungry stomachs. Thirteen men were sentenced to two years in jail each for stealing food. They were only a handful of the hundreds who took part in raids on the company stores.
During that same month in 1922 three children under one year of age died because they had no milk.
By the beginning of September the strike was over. The miners voted 8,000 to 3,000 to accept a wage cut of 18 per cent, a much softer blow than the original 37½ per cent Besco sought to impose. A major factor in the vote was the fact that the international headquarters of the UMW failed to come through with strikefunds.
The strike was not won, but it was not lost either. The miners had tested their solidarity, won some concessions, and learned that if they stuck together they caused considerable fear among the owning class. It was not a quiet surrender, but a defiant one. Dan Livingstone, the newly-elected District 26 president, declared:
“The wage schedule was accepted by the miners
under the muzzles of rifles, machine guns,
and gleaming bayonets, with further threate-
ned invasion of troops, and marines with war-
ships standing to.The miners, facing hunger,
their dominion and provincial governments
lined up with Besco, were forced to accept
the proposals.”
PROFITS
In 1922 the average amount of coal produced by each of Besco’s more than 12,000 workers was three tons of coal a day. The average daily wage was just under $6.
When Besco took the coal to market, the corporation got a price of $6 per ton. For three tons, $18. So, for the produce of one man’s daily labour -- three tons of coal -- Besco could get $18. After you subtracted the cost of the worker’s labour --$6-- the capitalists still had $12.
It is out of this $12, value created by the worker but not paid to him, that the capitalists pay their own handsome salaries, pay the costs of equipment and pocket their profits.
In 1921 the profits pocketed by Besco in this way amounted to a clear $9.6 million. During the war years, we might add, profits were frequently double this amount. That’s why it was so important for Besco to cut the workers’ wages: they wanted to get back to that higher profit level.
This profit amounted to a robbery of about $800 from each of the men who toiled in Besco’s mines in 1922. A miner was lucky if he was paid that much in a year of work.
This whole process amounts to little more than a socially sanctioned form of robbery. The owning class says to the workers: ‘You go and produce the wealth and you can have half of all you produce if you give us the other half.’ The capitalists control the state, the armies, the newspapers and the school systems to teach people to accept this arrangement.
When Besco took the coal to market, the corporation got a price of $6 per ton. For three tons, $18. So, for the produce of one man’s daily labour -- three tons of coal -- Besco could get $18. After you subtracted the cost of the worker’s labour --$6-- the capitalists still had $12.
It is out of this $12, value created by the worker but not paid to him, that the capitalists pay their own handsome salaries, pay the costs of equipment and pocket their profits.
In 1921 the profits pocketed by Besco in this way amounted to a clear $9.6 million. During the war years, we might add, profits were frequently double this amount. That’s why it was so important for Besco to cut the workers’ wages: they wanted to get back to that higher profit level.
This profit amounted to a robbery of about $800 from each of the men who toiled in Besco’s mines in 1922. A miner was lucky if he was paid that much in a year of work.
This whole process amounts to little more than a socially sanctioned form of robbery. The owning class says to the workers: ‘You go and produce the wealth and you can have half of all you produce if you give us the other half.’ The capitalists control the state, the armies, the newspapers and the school systems to teach people to accept this arrangement.
THE WORKER'S PRESS
When you pick up a newspaper the best question to ask is ‘Who owns it’. The answer determines whose interests the paper will serve. If it is owned by capitalists, the main purposes of the paper will be first, to make money, and secondly, to convince you that cpitalism is a good system. A newspaper which is in itself a business enterprise bent on profit-making cannot be a true champion of the working people. Instead, it will defend the interests of the newspaper owner and his friends and advertisers.
In Cape Breton the newspapers of the ruling class have played a leading part in attacking the workers whenever they have tried to fight the monolithic corporations which control their daily lives. The hysterical election day smear against J.B.McLachlan in the 1921 election is a good example. But these newspapers not only lied about the workers’ struggle.
A main problem with having the capitalists controlling the news media was that important information could not be circulated among the workers -- information about the activities of the various local unions, the struggles and conditions of workers abroad and across Canada, the ghastly incompetence of the industries of Cape Breton. All of this information would rightly considered downright subversive by the press.
The workers of Cape Breton needed their own spokesman, a newspaper which would help them in their fight for a better world. It had to be a newspaper which did not have a vested interest in making profits; it had to be a workers’ newspaper.
The Maritime Labour Herald, the first of Cape Breton’s working class papers, was set up in the fall of 1921 by two militant trade unionists --, J.B. McLachlan and D.N.Brodie. The initial capital was raised among the locals of the UMW and privately. The first issue, published on October 14, 1921, launched the paper’s remarkable five-year career with a clear statement of where the paper’s heart lay:
“The Maritime Labour Herald is different from
other papers. The other papers have their nice
clothes on and wear a collar and tie. The Ma-
ritime Labour Herald is a paper with its
shirtsleeves rolled up and its neckband
turned under. We are ..the workingman’s paper
and wear no frills.”
Quickly, the paper got a warm response from Cape Bretoners. Circulation climbed to well over 6,000, which meant perhaps ten times as many people actually read it. Its pages are filled with letters from workers describing working conditions and daily problems. One of the goals of the paper was to have the workers themselves write as much of the paper as possible. Crammed with lively humour and a clear grasp of economic problems, the paper won the respect and sympathy of working people.
On the front page of the first issue the basic theme was set in this brief analysis of the economic crisis of the time:
“The workers produce a great deal more wealth
than the wage they receive will enable them
to buy back, and the surplus left over fills
warehouses, cold storage plants, etc. There
are more ships, more engines, more steel pro-
ducts, more food and clothing than is needed
but these things are in the hands of the capi-
talists who cannot sell them, and because the
workers are unemployed they cannot buy the
food they so badly need, and hence go short
amid plenty...
“Capitalism and capitalism alone is the evil
tree that bears such bitter fruit.”
Twice the building of the Maritime Labour Herald burned down, but it never failed to publish. Eventually the weekly paper incorporated its principles into its banner on the front page:
“Workers of all lands unite, you have nothing
to lose but your chains, and a world to win.
We demand a Labour Party, Industrial UnionisM
and Nationalization of Industry with Workers’
Control.”
For, five, hard years the paper fought bravely for these principles.
In Cape Breton the newspapers of the ruling class have played a leading part in attacking the workers whenever they have tried to fight the monolithic corporations which control their daily lives. The hysterical election day smear against J.B.McLachlan in the 1921 election is a good example. But these newspapers not only lied about the workers’ struggle.
A main problem with having the capitalists controlling the news media was that important information could not be circulated among the workers -- information about the activities of the various local unions, the struggles and conditions of workers abroad and across Canada, the ghastly incompetence of the industries of Cape Breton. All of this information would rightly considered downright subversive by the press.
The workers of Cape Breton needed their own spokesman, a newspaper which would help them in their fight for a better world. It had to be a newspaper which did not have a vested interest in making profits; it had to be a workers’ newspaper.
The Maritime Labour Herald, the first of Cape Breton’s working class papers, was set up in the fall of 1921 by two militant trade unionists --, J.B. McLachlan and D.N.Brodie. The initial capital was raised among the locals of the UMW and privately. The first issue, published on October 14, 1921, launched the paper’s remarkable five-year career with a clear statement of where the paper’s heart lay:
“The Maritime Labour Herald is different from
other papers. The other papers have their nice
clothes on and wear a collar and tie. The Ma-
ritime Labour Herald is a paper with its
shirtsleeves rolled up and its neckband
turned under. We are ..the workingman’s paper
and wear no frills.”
Quickly, the paper got a warm response from Cape Bretoners. Circulation climbed to well over 6,000, which meant perhaps ten times as many people actually read it. Its pages are filled with letters from workers describing working conditions and daily problems. One of the goals of the paper was to have the workers themselves write as much of the paper as possible. Crammed with lively humour and a clear grasp of economic problems, the paper won the respect and sympathy of working people.
On the front page of the first issue the basic theme was set in this brief analysis of the economic crisis of the time:
“The workers produce a great deal more wealth
than the wage they receive will enable them
to buy back, and the surplus left over fills
warehouses, cold storage plants, etc. There
are more ships, more engines, more steel pro-
ducts, more food and clothing than is needed
but these things are in the hands of the capi-
talists who cannot sell them, and because the
workers are unemployed they cannot buy the
food they so badly need, and hence go short
amid plenty...
“Capitalism and capitalism alone is the evil
tree that bears such bitter fruit.”
Twice the building of the Maritime Labour Herald burned down, but it never failed to publish. Eventually the weekly paper incorporated its principles into its banner on the front page:
“Workers of all lands unite, you have nothing
to lose but your chains, and a world to win.
We demand a Labour Party, Industrial UnionisM
and Nationalization of Industry with Workers’
Control.”
For, five, hard years the paper fought bravely for these principles.
THE GENERAL STRIKE: 1923
“Steel is the backbone of Sydney. The long rows of ugly chimneys
belching forth torrents of smoke and fire bear witness to the fact (of
which the papers are so proud) that Sydney is a town of steel. Under this
small forest of chimneys toil the slaves 0f steel - - chained, by grim necessity,
to the chariot of a brutal, relentless corporation.
Yes. Slaves. ‘Tis a strong word - - but then the facts are strong and demand
strong words. Sydney is a town of steel slaves. Just That!”
-- Maritime Labour Herald
February 3, 1923
Little more can be said about conditions at the steel plant. The men worked shifts os 11 and 13 hours a day, seven days a week, with a 24 hour swing shift from 7 a.m. Monday every second week. The steelworker was paid $2.85 for each gruelling day’s labour. This was even less than the mineworkers received, for when Besco tried to slash the miners’ wages37 ½ percent in 1922, they got away with a 45 percent cut in the steelworkers’ pay. This was the opening staggering blow in Besco’s attempt to smash the spreading idea of trade unionism among the steelworkers.
1923 was a year of great union militancy in Cape Breton. The miners were still smarting over their failure to win a victory over Besco the previous year, and the steelworkers were preparing to fight the basic fight - - for the right to a union of their own choice.
At the end of 1922 Besco offered its men a company union. A company union is an organization set up by the company for the workers. Naturally, it has no powers. The workers voted the offer down. They preferred to stick with their own idea - - a real trade union. Since 1917 militant workers had been organizing (in spite of constant spying and harassment by company police) a local of Amalgamated Iron, Steel and Tin Workers. Open to all employees at the steel works, this industrial union would unite all of the men there into a single force. Instead of having blacklists in one union, carpenters in another and moulders in the third, they would all belong to a single union.
As part of their escalating organizing campaign, the union members - - about 400 of the 2700 employees belonged to the union at this stage - - posted huge signs about the steel palnt calling for wage raises, recognition of the union and proclaiming: “Every day in every way, we are getting stronger and stronger.” These signs were greeted enthusiastically by the men, but were found distasteful by the plant management. An order was put out forbidding posters anyplace on company property. Besco itself continued to post its posters - - signs encouraging the men to take flowers home with them.
In Canada in 1923,681,490
workers produced $3.5 bil
lion worth of goods. For
this ,Canadian workers
were paid only $700 mi—
lion.
The workers got one dol-
lar in salaries and wa-.
ges for every five dol-
lars they produced.
There was a brief scuffle in February, several months before the big showdown between the workers and the corporation. When a union’ activist was fired and blacklisted , the men walked out en masse, refusing to let anyone into the plant. With their backs to the wall, Besco promised immediate recognition of the union if the men would come back to work.
Besco was lying. The company would never recognize the union, for, said Besco,”trade unionism is wrong in principle.” it took a lot of gall for a monopoly the size of Besco to preach the evils of “organizing.” Stiffly, the, workers were warned that Besco would allow no changes in hours or wages. This turned out to be false again. Two weeks later Besco’s hard heart softened and an across the board wage hike of ten percent was benevolently announced.
Meanwhile Besco went carefully about its preparation for a violent showdown. They convinced the premier of the province to beef up his provincial police to fight “Bolshevism” at the steel plant. The authorities recruited several hundred unemployed men off the streets of Halifax, armed them and shipped them to Sydney. Besco organized its own private police force under the command of a character by the name Of D.A.Noble. Noble also worked as an RCMP special agent and an army intelligence officer. Noble’s goon ‘squad consisted of 400 men armed with 20-pound steel bars. The provincial police force, an unruly collection of waterfront toughs, drunkards and criminals, numbered more than 1,000 men. Feeling secure with’ this assemblage of armed might, Besco took the offensive, launching a systematic campaign of blacklisting and the replacement of fired men with scabs. Laughing and defiant, Besco was soon to taken by surprise.
On June 28, at 3 a.m. the night shift began to walk out of the plant. Noble’s goons, stationed inside the steel works, began to drag men physically back to their jobs and a pitched battle was fought. The struggle centred on the blast furnaces and the coke ovens. For two days, as the strike spread to include more than 80 percent of the steelworkers, a small battalion of workers defended the ovens and refused to surrender them. Outside the plant the striking night shift was greeted by men from the day shift arriving to form picket lines. The plant was tied up tight by mass picketing. The Riot Act was read several times during these two days, and on one occasion troops fired into the air over the heads of a crowd of strike supporters.
For Besco the steel plant, was in enemy hands, its lifeline, the coke ovens, was held by rebellious workers. The rights of private property had to be asserted. On the morning of June 30 a trainload of 250 infantry arrived from Halifax. The provincial police were thrown Into battle and managed to overpower the men at the coke ovens. Private property was preserved, but the crisis was deepening.
In the early evening of the next day, Sunday July 1, 1923, there occurred one of the most vicious incidents in the entire history of Cape Breton - - an unprovoked attack by mounted police on a peaceful group of citizens. The wild charge took place on Victoria Road, Whitney Pier. Swinging whips and baseball, bats, the police beat and trampled men and women sparing neither the old nor the young, chasing them down and whipping them. Many were followed into their own homes. One man was followed to the second floor of a building by a mounted policeman. Most of the people on the street were returning from evening church services.
Here’s how J. B. McLachlan, at this time Secretary-Treasurer of the miners’ union, described the incident in a report sent to the union’s locals:
“On Sunday night last the provincial police,
in the most brutal manner, rode down the
people of Whitney Pier, who were out on
the street, most of whom were coming from
church. Neither age, sex, nor physical disa-
bility were proof against these brutes. One
old woman over 70 years of age was beaten
into insensibility and may die. A boy of nine
years old was trampled under the horses’
hooves and had his kreast bone crushed in. A
wolan, being beaten over the head with a po-
lice club, gave premature birth to a child.
The child is dead and the woman’s life is
despaired of. Men and women were beaten up
inside their own homes.”
And here is how a government Royal Commission, later set up to investigate the “unrest” among the steelworkers, recorded the incident:
“On Sunday evening July 1, between eight and nine
and nine O’clock a riotous condition prevai-
led outside gate No.4 and in the adjacent
streets. The provincial police were called
upon to suppress the riot and to disperse
the unlawful assembly. They did that. After
that there was no more rioting.”
Later in the month J.B. McLachlan was arrested for writing his description of the incident even though several Sydney policemen said publicly that the attack was pre-arranged by the provincial police.
The strike spread, Besco and its allies had tried crudest form of intimidation but they had not broken the will of the Steelworkers. The police riot of July 1 propelled the strike onto a higher level. It became a general political strike. “No miner or mineworker can remain at work while this government turns Sydney into a jungle,” declared McLachlan. And the miners agreed. On July 3 they closed down the mines to show their Solidarity with the striking steelworkers and to demand the withdrawal of troops and police from Cape Breton. This gesture of solidarity turned the strike into more than a wage struggle; it had become a political struggle as well.
Besco and the government launched a second offensive to answer the miners’ action. First, troop strength was boosted to more than 2,000 men. Secondly, warrants were issued for the arrest of the two men Besco and the Liberals hated most -- Dan Livingstone the president of District 26, and J.B. McLachlan, the union’s secretary-treasurer. They figured that if they could get rid of the leaders of the miners, resistance would collapse. At the same time raids were carried out on the homes of people who had “participated in the “riot” of July 1. The idea was to fix responsibility for the outrage on innocent citizens. In Western Canada, meanwhile, miners went on strike to support the demands of their Cape Breton brothers.
If Besco thought these tactics could break the miners they reckoned poorly the deep roots of the miners’ solidarity. But this was not all. There was a secret element in Besco’s strategy.
The surprise was the intervention of John L. Lewis, the international president of the UMW. Lewis issued a simple order to the men of D1strict 26 saying that the contract they had signed with Bésco in 1922 had to be observed and that nothing could take priority over a signed contract. Lewis was ignored.
Lewis’ idea of trade unionism was quite different from that of the ordinary workers. The main object of trade unionism according to Lewis, was to make peace between the owning and working classes. If working and living conditions happened to be improved this way; that was fine. But the main purpose was to make a deal, to establish a stable, business-like relationship between the exploiter exploited. This kind of unionism which is known as business unionism is preferred by employers above all other forms of unionism except company unionism. Naturally, Lewis could have no sympathy for the idea of a general political strike such as was taking place in Cape Breton in the summer of 1923.
The other characteristic of business unionism is that it is fundamentally undemocratic. Decisions are not madeby the rank and file of the membership, but by all-powerful leaders. Once Lewis found himself in the presidency of the UMW (he was not elected to the job) he did not relinquish the post for 40 years. Surrounding himself with personal supporters, he set up a virtual one-man dictatorship and ruthlessly suppressed criticism and dissent.
And so, John L. Lewis pulled the rug out from under the feet of the people of Cape Breton. On July 18 he revoked the district’s hard-won charter and declared the executive offices of the district vacant. He appointed a provisional president, Cape Bretoner Silby Barrett. Lewis delighted the mineowners by publicly denouncing the strike as “indefensible and morally reprehensible.”
To the miners of Cape Breton this was an outrage. To them, their union was the organized fighting force of the working people. They would use it to defend themselves and their lives against intimidation, blacklisting, beatings and starvation, against the company and against the government. A defiant mass meeting that same day left no doubts. When to go back to work - and when to go off - was the worker’s own decision. It could not be dictated by any “leader.”
McLachlan, now released on bail from prison, was cheered wildly as he hurled defiance at the government, press, army, Besco and the international headquarters of the union. As far as capital was concerned, said McLachlan, the miners had committed a great crime by becoming solidly organized.
While workers’ meetings all over the district voiced defiance of Lewis, his supporters in Cape Breton were also making headway. Using the courts, Barrett managed to take over the union offices. With the cooperation of Besco, the flow of union dues to the local unions was diverted to Barrett. A back-to-work campaign was launched by Barrett. Using the daily press, he created the impression that this was a widespread grassroots movement. In these ways Lewis and his local supporters broke the miners solidarity. By August they had succeeded. Without enough funds to support a lengthy strike, the miners went back to work.
He crushing of the miners speeded the defeat of the steelworkers as well. With police and troops outnumbering them two to one, the steelworkers voted to go back to work. Neither of their main demands – union recognition and wage increases -- had been won. It would be more than 12 years before the steelworkers again fought to win these goals.
Casting a sorrowful eye over developments in Cape Breton, Canada’s business newspaper lamented: “The situation is not even one of armed neutrality. It is that of a conquered territory held down by the sword.” Besco moved swiftly to make sure that no more labour trouble would disturb its conquered territory. Most of the steelworkers who had so ungratefully gone out on strike were never allowed back to work. This included men who had slaved more than 20 years in the plant. Secondly, the company union scheme, previously rejected by the workers, was introduced at once, but without a vote among the workers this time.
Advice was also given to Besco by a royal commission set up by Liberal Prime Mintster Mackenzie King. (When working for the Rockefellers in the U.S. King had helped originate company union schemes.)
The investigators highly favoured the idea of a “general plant council.” It would preserve “personal sympathy and the human touch” while still increasing production and efficiency. Whether such a goal could ever be achieved under exploitative and undemocratic conditions was never considered. That would have involved questioning the ownership and goals of the corporation. It would have involved pointing out that the plant should be turned over completely to the Canadian people and managed and operated by its workers.
The royal commission also urged Besco to follow a second American example - - to switch from the longstanding two-shift plan to a three-shift system of eight hour spells. “The 12-hour day is inhuman,” the commissioners admitted in their only words of sympathy for the workers. Although such a plan would cut into Besco’s profits, the commission pointed out that Besco’s profits were quite substantial.
The question the commissioners didn’t dare to ask the question the workers themselves had asked. If conditions were inhuman, why shouldn’t men fight back? Men work to live, they don’t live to work. To show that this right was more important than the capitalist’s profit, the working people had to revolt.
JB’s crime
‘Fore he went and broke the laws
Jim McLachlan was the cause
Of all sin, distress, and crime
That occurred in modern time,
Now they can’t blame it on him -—
Merry Christmas to you, Jim
--Dawn Fraser
It was an unwritten law that McLachlan had broken. So they had to fish about among the various written laws available to find one that would match JB’s “crime.”
Four days after the events of July 1 warrants were obtained for the arrest of Livingstone and McLachlan on charges of “unlawfully publishing false tales.” The police drove up to union headquarters in Glace Bay and asked the two men to step outside. They were jumped by a small army of police who handcuffed, gagged and shackled them and then took them to Halifax. Bail was refuised and no charges were laid. Eventually the two men appeared in court and were charged with “publishing misleading information and importing communistic literature into Glace Bay.” By August, after the strike was broken the charges were revised to “seditious libel” and the charge against Livingstone was dropped.
--What laws did Jim
McLachlan break?
--He broke the unwritten
law.
--What unwritten law?
--The law that it is a
crime to tell the truth
about capitalism and to
organize your fellow
workers to fight back.
It turned out that the specific crime for which McLachlan was to be tried was his truthful description of the events of July 1. How JB’s brief report to the union locals could be described as “seditious libel” takes a lot of imagination. But then we have to remember that the government and the corporations were out to “get” the man they considered responsible for all the “trouble” in Cape Breton. It was a rare honour to be charged with “seditious libel.” The charge had not been used since the days when Joseph Howe did battle against the merchant aristocracy of his time.
When the trial began in October the courts decided it had to be held in Halifax. A Sydney jury, familiar with the real facts of the July 1 riot, would be likely to support McLachlan instead of branding him a criminal. The judge in the case was our old friend Justice Mellish, the onetime corporation lawyer, still serving his masters’ interests.
The trial turned into a hysterical witch-hunt. The province’s attorney-general came down to the courtroom personally to make a fool of himself by arguing:
“The issue is not whether the statement
(McLachlan’s) published is true or false.
There are many things which are true, but
cannot be published. It is not a question
of the truth of the statement, but a question
of whether it was said with the intention of
creating dissatisfaction and disturbance.”
This line of reasoning reveals part of the secret logic of capitalism. It is all right to have free speech as long as you don’t say anything that upsets anyone. Mellish sentenced McLachlan to two years in Dorchester Penitentiary. Under pressure from Farmer and Labour MP’s in Ottawa the Prime Minister ordered the release of JB in the spring. But those five months in prison had taken their toll. It was there that McLachlan contracted the bronchial disease he was to die of 13 years later.
The only difference bet-
ween jail and a job is
that here I am separa-
ted from my wife and fa-
mily. Under capitalism.
all the workers are in
jail all the time. And
lots of them haven’t
got the security of
shelter and food that
is offerred in a
penitentiary.”
belching forth torrents of smoke and fire bear witness to the fact (of
which the papers are so proud) that Sydney is a town of steel. Under this
small forest of chimneys toil the slaves 0f steel - - chained, by grim necessity,
to the chariot of a brutal, relentless corporation.
Yes. Slaves. ‘Tis a strong word - - but then the facts are strong and demand
strong words. Sydney is a town of steel slaves. Just That!”
-- Maritime Labour Herald
February 3, 1923
Little more can be said about conditions at the steel plant. The men worked shifts os 11 and 13 hours a day, seven days a week, with a 24 hour swing shift from 7 a.m. Monday every second week. The steelworker was paid $2.85 for each gruelling day’s labour. This was even less than the mineworkers received, for when Besco tried to slash the miners’ wages37 ½ percent in 1922, they got away with a 45 percent cut in the steelworkers’ pay. This was the opening staggering blow in Besco’s attempt to smash the spreading idea of trade unionism among the steelworkers.
1923 was a year of great union militancy in Cape Breton. The miners were still smarting over their failure to win a victory over Besco the previous year, and the steelworkers were preparing to fight the basic fight - - for the right to a union of their own choice.
At the end of 1922 Besco offered its men a company union. A company union is an organization set up by the company for the workers. Naturally, it has no powers. The workers voted the offer down. They preferred to stick with their own idea - - a real trade union. Since 1917 militant workers had been organizing (in spite of constant spying and harassment by company police) a local of Amalgamated Iron, Steel and Tin Workers. Open to all employees at the steel works, this industrial union would unite all of the men there into a single force. Instead of having blacklists in one union, carpenters in another and moulders in the third, they would all belong to a single union.
As part of their escalating organizing campaign, the union members - - about 400 of the 2700 employees belonged to the union at this stage - - posted huge signs about the steel palnt calling for wage raises, recognition of the union and proclaiming: “Every day in every way, we are getting stronger and stronger.” These signs were greeted enthusiastically by the men, but were found distasteful by the plant management. An order was put out forbidding posters anyplace on company property. Besco itself continued to post its posters - - signs encouraging the men to take flowers home with them.
In Canada in 1923,681,490
workers produced $3.5 bil
lion worth of goods. For
this ,Canadian workers
were paid only $700 mi—
lion.
The workers got one dol-
lar in salaries and wa-.
ges for every five dol-
lars they produced.
There was a brief scuffle in February, several months before the big showdown between the workers and the corporation. When a union’ activist was fired and blacklisted , the men walked out en masse, refusing to let anyone into the plant. With their backs to the wall, Besco promised immediate recognition of the union if the men would come back to work.
Besco was lying. The company would never recognize the union, for, said Besco,”trade unionism is wrong in principle.” it took a lot of gall for a monopoly the size of Besco to preach the evils of “organizing.” Stiffly, the, workers were warned that Besco would allow no changes in hours or wages. This turned out to be false again. Two weeks later Besco’s hard heart softened and an across the board wage hike of ten percent was benevolently announced.
Meanwhile Besco went carefully about its preparation for a violent showdown. They convinced the premier of the province to beef up his provincial police to fight “Bolshevism” at the steel plant. The authorities recruited several hundred unemployed men off the streets of Halifax, armed them and shipped them to Sydney. Besco organized its own private police force under the command of a character by the name Of D.A.Noble. Noble also worked as an RCMP special agent and an army intelligence officer. Noble’s goon ‘squad consisted of 400 men armed with 20-pound steel bars. The provincial police force, an unruly collection of waterfront toughs, drunkards and criminals, numbered more than 1,000 men. Feeling secure with’ this assemblage of armed might, Besco took the offensive, launching a systematic campaign of blacklisting and the replacement of fired men with scabs. Laughing and defiant, Besco was soon to taken by surprise.
On June 28, at 3 a.m. the night shift began to walk out of the plant. Noble’s goons, stationed inside the steel works, began to drag men physically back to their jobs and a pitched battle was fought. The struggle centred on the blast furnaces and the coke ovens. For two days, as the strike spread to include more than 80 percent of the steelworkers, a small battalion of workers defended the ovens and refused to surrender them. Outside the plant the striking night shift was greeted by men from the day shift arriving to form picket lines. The plant was tied up tight by mass picketing. The Riot Act was read several times during these two days, and on one occasion troops fired into the air over the heads of a crowd of strike supporters.
For Besco the steel plant, was in enemy hands, its lifeline, the coke ovens, was held by rebellious workers. The rights of private property had to be asserted. On the morning of June 30 a trainload of 250 infantry arrived from Halifax. The provincial police were thrown Into battle and managed to overpower the men at the coke ovens. Private property was preserved, but the crisis was deepening.
In the early evening of the next day, Sunday July 1, 1923, there occurred one of the most vicious incidents in the entire history of Cape Breton - - an unprovoked attack by mounted police on a peaceful group of citizens. The wild charge took place on Victoria Road, Whitney Pier. Swinging whips and baseball, bats, the police beat and trampled men and women sparing neither the old nor the young, chasing them down and whipping them. Many were followed into their own homes. One man was followed to the second floor of a building by a mounted policeman. Most of the people on the street were returning from evening church services.
Here’s how J. B. McLachlan, at this time Secretary-Treasurer of the miners’ union, described the incident in a report sent to the union’s locals:
“On Sunday night last the provincial police,
in the most brutal manner, rode down the
people of Whitney Pier, who were out on
the street, most of whom were coming from
church. Neither age, sex, nor physical disa-
bility were proof against these brutes. One
old woman over 70 years of age was beaten
into insensibility and may die. A boy of nine
years old was trampled under the horses’
hooves and had his kreast bone crushed in. A
wolan, being beaten over the head with a po-
lice club, gave premature birth to a child.
The child is dead and the woman’s life is
despaired of. Men and women were beaten up
inside their own homes.”
And here is how a government Royal Commission, later set up to investigate the “unrest” among the steelworkers, recorded the incident:
“On Sunday evening July 1, between eight and nine
and nine O’clock a riotous condition prevai-
led outside gate No.4 and in the adjacent
streets. The provincial police were called
upon to suppress the riot and to disperse
the unlawful assembly. They did that. After
that there was no more rioting.”
Later in the month J.B. McLachlan was arrested for writing his description of the incident even though several Sydney policemen said publicly that the attack was pre-arranged by the provincial police.
The strike spread, Besco and its allies had tried crudest form of intimidation but they had not broken the will of the Steelworkers. The police riot of July 1 propelled the strike onto a higher level. It became a general political strike. “No miner or mineworker can remain at work while this government turns Sydney into a jungle,” declared McLachlan. And the miners agreed. On July 3 they closed down the mines to show their Solidarity with the striking steelworkers and to demand the withdrawal of troops and police from Cape Breton. This gesture of solidarity turned the strike into more than a wage struggle; it had become a political struggle as well.
Besco and the government launched a second offensive to answer the miners’ action. First, troop strength was boosted to more than 2,000 men. Secondly, warrants were issued for the arrest of the two men Besco and the Liberals hated most -- Dan Livingstone the president of District 26, and J.B. McLachlan, the union’s secretary-treasurer. They figured that if they could get rid of the leaders of the miners, resistance would collapse. At the same time raids were carried out on the homes of people who had “participated in the “riot” of July 1. The idea was to fix responsibility for the outrage on innocent citizens. In Western Canada, meanwhile, miners went on strike to support the demands of their Cape Breton brothers.
If Besco thought these tactics could break the miners they reckoned poorly the deep roots of the miners’ solidarity. But this was not all. There was a secret element in Besco’s strategy.
The surprise was the intervention of John L. Lewis, the international president of the UMW. Lewis issued a simple order to the men of D1strict 26 saying that the contract they had signed with Bésco in 1922 had to be observed and that nothing could take priority over a signed contract. Lewis was ignored.
Lewis’ idea of trade unionism was quite different from that of the ordinary workers. The main object of trade unionism according to Lewis, was to make peace between the owning and working classes. If working and living conditions happened to be improved this way; that was fine. But the main purpose was to make a deal, to establish a stable, business-like relationship between the exploiter exploited. This kind of unionism which is known as business unionism is preferred by employers above all other forms of unionism except company unionism. Naturally, Lewis could have no sympathy for the idea of a general political strike such as was taking place in Cape Breton in the summer of 1923.
The other characteristic of business unionism is that it is fundamentally undemocratic. Decisions are not madeby the rank and file of the membership, but by all-powerful leaders. Once Lewis found himself in the presidency of the UMW (he was not elected to the job) he did not relinquish the post for 40 years. Surrounding himself with personal supporters, he set up a virtual one-man dictatorship and ruthlessly suppressed criticism and dissent.
And so, John L. Lewis pulled the rug out from under the feet of the people of Cape Breton. On July 18 he revoked the district’s hard-won charter and declared the executive offices of the district vacant. He appointed a provisional president, Cape Bretoner Silby Barrett. Lewis delighted the mineowners by publicly denouncing the strike as “indefensible and morally reprehensible.”
To the miners of Cape Breton this was an outrage. To them, their union was the organized fighting force of the working people. They would use it to defend themselves and their lives against intimidation, blacklisting, beatings and starvation, against the company and against the government. A defiant mass meeting that same day left no doubts. When to go back to work - and when to go off - was the worker’s own decision. It could not be dictated by any “leader.”
McLachlan, now released on bail from prison, was cheered wildly as he hurled defiance at the government, press, army, Besco and the international headquarters of the union. As far as capital was concerned, said McLachlan, the miners had committed a great crime by becoming solidly organized.
While workers’ meetings all over the district voiced defiance of Lewis, his supporters in Cape Breton were also making headway. Using the courts, Barrett managed to take over the union offices. With the cooperation of Besco, the flow of union dues to the local unions was diverted to Barrett. A back-to-work campaign was launched by Barrett. Using the daily press, he created the impression that this was a widespread grassroots movement. In these ways Lewis and his local supporters broke the miners solidarity. By August they had succeeded. Without enough funds to support a lengthy strike, the miners went back to work.
He crushing of the miners speeded the defeat of the steelworkers as well. With police and troops outnumbering them two to one, the steelworkers voted to go back to work. Neither of their main demands – union recognition and wage increases -- had been won. It would be more than 12 years before the steelworkers again fought to win these goals.
Casting a sorrowful eye over developments in Cape Breton, Canada’s business newspaper lamented: “The situation is not even one of armed neutrality. It is that of a conquered territory held down by the sword.” Besco moved swiftly to make sure that no more labour trouble would disturb its conquered territory. Most of the steelworkers who had so ungratefully gone out on strike were never allowed back to work. This included men who had slaved more than 20 years in the plant. Secondly, the company union scheme, previously rejected by the workers, was introduced at once, but without a vote among the workers this time.
Advice was also given to Besco by a royal commission set up by Liberal Prime Mintster Mackenzie King. (When working for the Rockefellers in the U.S. King had helped originate company union schemes.)
The investigators highly favoured the idea of a “general plant council.” It would preserve “personal sympathy and the human touch” while still increasing production and efficiency. Whether such a goal could ever be achieved under exploitative and undemocratic conditions was never considered. That would have involved questioning the ownership and goals of the corporation. It would have involved pointing out that the plant should be turned over completely to the Canadian people and managed and operated by its workers.
The royal commission also urged Besco to follow a second American example - - to switch from the longstanding two-shift plan to a three-shift system of eight hour spells. “The 12-hour day is inhuman,” the commissioners admitted in their only words of sympathy for the workers. Although such a plan would cut into Besco’s profits, the commission pointed out that Besco’s profits were quite substantial.
The question the commissioners didn’t dare to ask the question the workers themselves had asked. If conditions were inhuman, why shouldn’t men fight back? Men work to live, they don’t live to work. To show that this right was more important than the capitalist’s profit, the working people had to revolt.
JB’s crime
‘Fore he went and broke the laws
Jim McLachlan was the cause
Of all sin, distress, and crime
That occurred in modern time,
Now they can’t blame it on him -—
Merry Christmas to you, Jim
--Dawn Fraser
It was an unwritten law that McLachlan had broken. So they had to fish about among the various written laws available to find one that would match JB’s “crime.”
Four days after the events of July 1 warrants were obtained for the arrest of Livingstone and McLachlan on charges of “unlawfully publishing false tales.” The police drove up to union headquarters in Glace Bay and asked the two men to step outside. They were jumped by a small army of police who handcuffed, gagged and shackled them and then took them to Halifax. Bail was refuised and no charges were laid. Eventually the two men appeared in court and were charged with “publishing misleading information and importing communistic literature into Glace Bay.” By August, after the strike was broken the charges were revised to “seditious libel” and the charge against Livingstone was dropped.
--What laws did Jim
McLachlan break?
--He broke the unwritten
law.
--What unwritten law?
--The law that it is a
crime to tell the truth
about capitalism and to
organize your fellow
workers to fight back.
It turned out that the specific crime for which McLachlan was to be tried was his truthful description of the events of July 1. How JB’s brief report to the union locals could be described as “seditious libel” takes a lot of imagination. But then we have to remember that the government and the corporations were out to “get” the man they considered responsible for all the “trouble” in Cape Breton. It was a rare honour to be charged with “seditious libel.” The charge had not been used since the days when Joseph Howe did battle against the merchant aristocracy of his time.
When the trial began in October the courts decided it had to be held in Halifax. A Sydney jury, familiar with the real facts of the July 1 riot, would be likely to support McLachlan instead of branding him a criminal. The judge in the case was our old friend Justice Mellish, the onetime corporation lawyer, still serving his masters’ interests.
The trial turned into a hysterical witch-hunt. The province’s attorney-general came down to the courtroom personally to make a fool of himself by arguing:
“The issue is not whether the statement
(McLachlan’s) published is true or false.
There are many things which are true, but
cannot be published. It is not a question
of the truth of the statement, but a question
of whether it was said with the intention of
creating dissatisfaction and disturbance.”
This line of reasoning reveals part of the secret logic of capitalism. It is all right to have free speech as long as you don’t say anything that upsets anyone. Mellish sentenced McLachlan to two years in Dorchester Penitentiary. Under pressure from Farmer and Labour MP’s in Ottawa the Prime Minister ordered the release of JB in the spring. But those five months in prison had taken their toll. It was there that McLachlan contracted the bronchial disease he was to die of 13 years later.
The only difference bet-
ween jail and a job is
that here I am separa-
ted from my wife and fa-
mily. Under capitalism.
all the workers are in
jail all the time. And
lots of them haven’t
got the security of
shelter and food that
is offerred in a
penitentiary.”
THE SLAVE PACT
The Christmas season of 1923 was a lean one for the miners of Cape Breton. One man was killed and two others seriously injured in an explosion at Dominion No.6. The miners were working short weeks --- as little as one shift a week. The steel plant had been shut down for weeks. Seven fellow workers were in jail for their part in the struggle of the summer months. The miners’ union had been taken from them was being ruled by an appointed dictator.
How did District 26 function under the direct rule of the international? In the first months of 1924 a contract had to be negotiated. Now the miners got a taste of what business unionism, John L. Lewis’ unionism, meant. The rank and file of the miners never laid eyes on the new contract until it had been signed, sealed and delivered to Besco.
In the new “Slave Pact”, as the miners labelled it, District 26 undertook never again to engage in a 100 per cent strike as in 1922, and to stop supporting the working people’s newspaper, the Maritime Labour Herald. Another item fixed responsibility for mine accidents on the workers themselves: everytime a worker was killed in the pits, every miner was to be fined 5O cents.
A slight wage increase was allowed, but this was takeaway with the other hand through a 50 per cent rise in the cost of house coal to the workers’ families. Under pressure Silby Barrett finally allowed the men to vote on the contract. In a two to one vote, they rejected the “Slave Pact.” The workers’ opinion was ignored.
What kind of trade unionism was this? The workers wanted an end to backrooms negotiating; they wanted everything out in the open, where they could see it. When they went out on strike, they had to know exactly why, and when they came back to work they had to know exactly what they had won or how badly they had been defeated. Undemocratic business unionism allowed them none of this.
A further step of the international was to prohibit the deposed union executive from ever again holding office in District 26. This lifetime blacklist included the most active, experienced and militant group of trade unionists in Cape Breton. It would have a great effect on the future shape of the UMW.
In May the grassroots resentment against the emasculation of the IJMW began to take a solid form. An “outlaw” convention with representatives from the district’s 1ocals formed a Committee of Action to fight for the restoration of the union’s autonomy, democratic procedures and fighting traditions. They managed to persuade the second provisional president, William Houston of Pennsylvania, to allow district elections in the fall. The return of autonomy after more than a year of suspension brought a militant slate of officers back into command.
How did District 26 function under the direct rule of the international? In the first months of 1924 a contract had to be negotiated. Now the miners got a taste of what business unionism, John L. Lewis’ unionism, meant. The rank and file of the miners never laid eyes on the new contract until it had been signed, sealed and delivered to Besco.
In the new “Slave Pact”, as the miners labelled it, District 26 undertook never again to engage in a 100 per cent strike as in 1922, and to stop supporting the working people’s newspaper, the Maritime Labour Herald. Another item fixed responsibility for mine accidents on the workers themselves: everytime a worker was killed in the pits, every miner was to be fined 5O cents.
A slight wage increase was allowed, but this was takeaway with the other hand through a 50 per cent rise in the cost of house coal to the workers’ families. Under pressure Silby Barrett finally allowed the men to vote on the contract. In a two to one vote, they rejected the “Slave Pact.” The workers’ opinion was ignored.
What kind of trade unionism was this? The workers wanted an end to backrooms negotiating; they wanted everything out in the open, where they could see it. When they went out on strike, they had to know exactly why, and when they came back to work they had to know exactly what they had won or how badly they had been defeated. Undemocratic business unionism allowed them none of this.
A further step of the international was to prohibit the deposed union executive from ever again holding office in District 26. This lifetime blacklist included the most active, experienced and militant group of trade unionists in Cape Breton. It would have a great effect on the future shape of the UMW.
In May the grassroots resentment against the emasculation of the IJMW began to take a solid form. An “outlaw” convention with representatives from the district’s 1ocals formed a Committee of Action to fight for the restoration of the union’s autonomy, democratic procedures and fighting traditions. They managed to persuade the second provisional president, William Houston of Pennsylvania, to allow district elections in the fall. The return of autonomy after more than a year of suspension brought a militant slate of officers back into command.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)