Archive for the ‘Wobblies’ tag
Who were the “working class,” how did they respond to industrialization, and what explains these responses?
Introduction
Sharpening of class differences (the class interests of both the buyers and sellers of wage labour) occurred during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Increase number of strikes, as Canada witnessed labour conflict from coast to coast. But who were the wage workers and how were they organized?
How did industrialization change the Canadian working class?
Historiography
The historiography has tended to focus on skilled workers who belonged to trade unions. This labour elite enjoyed higher status, more job security, and greater income than unskilled. The trade unions that they were associated to grew out the defensive struggle to preserve skilled workers’ autonomy within the work place, and their place at the top of the working class.
Craig Heron notes that skilled workers, “recognized their exalted status over helpers and labourers.”
However, the majority of wage workers were unskilled. These unskilled workers lacked specialized skills, received lower wages, and more likely influenced by seasonal fluctuations of work.
Significantly, skilled workers tended to be white, males, of mostly British ethnic origin.
Women and ethnic or racial minorities such as Eastern Europeans and Chinese had little place in trade union movement.
Theories
Historians looking for examples of class consciousness have tended to focus on those most likely, the skilled workers.
Controversies
Who represented the working class? How representative were skilled workers? What does the experience of unskilled workers tell us about labour conflict during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
Sources and methods
Increase number of strikes
Worksongs – “There Is Power in the Union”
Events and incidents
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies – establishment of one Big Union. Why was there a need for one Big Union?
Conclusion
Industrialization transformed the Canadian working class. Historians should perceive the working class as fragmented by skill, gender, race and ethnicity. Yet the Industrial Workers of the World sought to override this fragmentation by establishing one “Big Union” that would unite all of labour against capital. Although the Wobblies ultimately failed, they popularized the idea of the “grand industrial union” and the “general strike,” ideas that would be revitalized after World War I.
What explains the level of class consciousness that Canada’s working people exhibited in response to industrialization from the 1880s to the 1920s?
Introduction
From the 1890s to the 1930s, Canada witnessed the transition from industrialism to the age of industry. In the age of industry, capital and labour relations became strained, as industrial expansion transformed the Canadian workplace. Skilled workers were displaced, new immigrants joined the workforce, and business and government bureaucracies became feminized. At the end of World War I, social tensions between capital and labour reached a tipping point. On May 15, 1919, 30,000 workers in Winnipeg walked off the job – the Winnipeg General Strike had begun.
Historiography
Historians have recently placed the Winnipeg General Strike within a larger context of labour unrest from 1917 to 1925. As Craig Heron notes, the statistics on strikes and union membership suggest that long-established divisions within the trade union movement were giving way to a “remarkable spirit of working-class unity and class consciousness.”
Theories
Why? Because of the stresses of World War I. Serious erosion of real wages after 1917 and the sense that the working-class had been asked to make an unfair contribution to the war effort.
The workers’ revolt was a critique of industrial capitalism in Canada.
Steven Penfold article on class and gender.
Controversies
The revolt quickly faded when prosperity collapsed in mid-1920.
Economic reasons – labour stronger when economy stronger.
Business countered with labour management, company pension and health plans.
Old divisions within working-class. Skilled workers undermined by mass unionization.
Sources and methods
American leaders of United Mine Workers of America failed to support radical leadership of Cape Breton miners.
Events and incidents
Winnipeg General Strikes
Increase in strikes and union membership
Conclusion
Consciousness of class topped racial, gender factors post World War I. However, make-up of Canadian working-class is class, race, and gender.
Industrial Workers of the World
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies were a radical union organization. In comparison to trade unions, the Wobblies aimed to organize all workers in an industry, skilled and unskilled, native and immigrant, men and women. Wobbly theorists believed that industrial unions were eventually to give way to one “grand” or “big” union, in order to unite against capital.
Although the economic downturn of 1913-1915 and World War I eroded Wobbly strength, however, their history testifies to the tension created by industrialization in Canada, and to the very different ways that various elements within the working class responded to such tensions. The Wobblies popularized the idea of the “grand industrial union” and the “general strike,” both of which would guide Canadian workers-skilled and unskilled-in their protest against social conditions at the end of World War I.