Manitoba Winnipeg - Magnificent fight: the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike

MAGNIFICENT
FIGHT

MAGNIFICENT
FIGHT

THE 1919 WINNIPEG GENERAL STRIKE

DENNIS LEWYCKY

Fernwood Publishing
Halifax & Winnipeg

Copyright 2019 Dennis Lewycky

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Editing: Jessica Antony

Cover photo: Courtesy of University of Manitoba Archives &
Special Collections, UM_pc018_7188_18-6233a-019

Cover design: Housefires Design
eBook: tikaebooks.com

Printed and bound in Canada

Published by Fernwood Publishing
32 Oceanvista Lane, Black Point, Nova Scotia, B0J 1B0
and 748 Broadway Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3G 0X3

www.fernwoodpublishing.ca

Fernwood Publishing Company Limited gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism under the Manitoba Publishers Marketing Assistance Program and the Province of Manitoba, through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, for our publishing program. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Province of Nova Scotia to develop and promote our creative industries for the benefit of all Nova Scotians.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Magnificent fight : the Winnipeg General Strike / by Dennis Lewycky.

Names: Lewycky, Dennis, author.

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190061693 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190061707 | ISBN 9781773630977

(softcover) | ISBN 9781773630984 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781773630991 (Kindle)

Subjects: LCSH: General Strike, Winnipeg, Man., 1919.

Classification: LCC HD5330.W46 L49 2019 | DDC 331.892/9712743dc23

CONTENTS

The Winnipeg 1919 Strike was a dramatic cultural revolt. To show how a mass working-class protest became a rebellion and then a revolution, this book puts the Strike into its historic context. At its heart, this book commemorates the working people of Winnipeg and what they stood for, their sacrifices and contributions to instilling values that are becoming a part of contemporary Canada. I would like to pay tribute to the men and women who took courageous action in promoting their social and economic rights in Winnipeg in 1919. Though not identified in this book, we should also commend the union and community activists who have struggled for the same social ideals and rights as the 1919 strikers over the last century.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Material for this book comes from a host of authors who deserve credit for deepening our understanding and appreciation of the Winnipeg 1919 Strike. There are dozens of books, theses and articles about different aspects of the Strike (some are referenced at the end of this book) that I relied on. I am standing on their shoulders in re-telling the Strike story. A few people with a far greater experience of the history of labour and the Strike than I, people who have done extensive research, have reviewed this book and graciously contributed to its content. The staff of Fernwood Publishing also deserve credit for making this book a reality. As much as possible, perspectives from this broad library of knowledge have been attributed. However, I take responsibility for the whole presentation of the information and particularly the analysis, overt and by implication, running through the book.

PREFACE

I have been asked why I wanted to write a book about something that happened a hundred years ago. Similarly, I have been asked why I would write a book about something already well documented, and by very reputable historians.

Very important questions. Questions that I needed to answer for those who asked and for myself.

Part of the answer is that I was curious about what happened in Winnipeg in 1919 and I thought other people would be equally interested. I had a number of questions about what happened in Winnipeg. Specifically, in the spring of 1919, how could 35,000 very ordinary Winnipeg workers create a very extraordinary event? How could the Winnipeg 1919 General Sympathetic Strike start as trade union confrontation, become a mass protest, then become branded a revolutionary threat and now stand as an iconic inspiration? I knew I could not expect others to read everything that is available, but I could put it into one serious summation to help answer those questions.

From what I had read, the world saw a conflict between workers and employers over wages and union recognition. Unions banded together to shut down industries, close businesses and slow the provision of many public services. Workers and veterans held protests to expose terrible living conditions. And in response, all three levels of government and the national police used violence.

As well, for many I have given tours of the city on the anniversary of the Strike. So, I had a basic knowledge of the events, people and locations of the Strike. Most reports on the Strike document how it all started with a breakdown in bargaining between employers and workers. Other unionized workers saw common cause in that confrontation and saw an opportunity to be proactive on their issues. It seems logical that unionized workers would support their brothers in other unions. Or was it so simple?

But, over a third of the striking workers were not unionized. They were new to Canada immigrants. Thousands were Eastern Europeans who found Canada a very strange place to settle. Thousands were living in poverty always faced with precarious work, sub-standard housing and never enough money to buy necessities. Why did they get involved and what sustained them for so long? It is safe to assume that the working class in 1919 was fed up with poverty and the Strike may have been an opportunity to expose oppressive living conditions. They were struggling to survive, living from day to day, without the amenities others in society had, many in desperate poverty. While thousands were recent immigrants who came to Canada with dreams of prosperity, hundreds more were veterans returning to Winnipeg expecting benefits for their sacrifice. They wanted recognition of their unions and, more than that, they wanted a say in the governing of their lives.

My ancestors emigrated from Ukraine. They were from a line of serfs and peasants who were forced off their land and dreamt of a land of milk and honey to be found in Canada. Some of my family were farmers, one was a teacher, one a seamstress. My father delivered milk and my mother worked in a mail-order outlet before they started a small business. One great uncle was a frequent participant in events at the Ukrainian Labour Temple ( ULT ). Other relatives never set foot in the ULT . So, a latent desire of mine seems to have been to write more about the mass of unnamed workers who were the foundation of the Strike. I wanted to profile the women who literally did all the dirty work of keeping the strikers fed and clothed, who were as courageous as the men we know more about. I wanted to write more about the veterans who played an import part in the Strike and in particular how the Strike ended.

I have been involved with people working to end poverty and discrimination in Africa, Caribbean and Asia, and then recently in Ottawa and Winnipeg. For nearly forty years I have had the privilege of working with men and women who lived and knew intimately the reality of poverty or homelessness. I knew people living in poverty already had huge barriers to meeting their daily needs. How could people in a new land, with huge daily challenges, be part of this historic event? How did an estimated twelve thousand unorganized workers, many just struggling to survive, decide to strike and what sustained them?