This Month in
Labour History

May 7, 1872 – Unions Become Legal in Canada

Unions fight for workers’ rights and for good jobs. Whether it is working conditions, human rights, or social justice, laws are needed, and get changed, if people stand together in solidarity. But laws that protected workers in Canada were not always there.

In the early 1870s there was an international movement that Canadian workers took part in called the “Nine Hour Movement.” The goal was to standardize shorter working days to 9 hours when many workers were required to labour for up to 12 hours.

In April of 1872, Toronto’s unionized printers went on striking demanding the 9-hour day. They paraded with union supporters to Queen’s Park where a crowd of 10,000 strong rallied on their side. The following day they were arrested and jailed at the request of their employers. This could happen because it was legal for workers to use their collective action as union members to strike their employers. Under old British law workers taking strike action was seen as a conspiracy to restrain economic trade.

On May 15, Hamilton’s union members defied opposition by employers and 1,500 marched through the streets, causing a virtual general strike of the city’s skilled workers. Capitalizing on the political folly of the employers, many who were prominent Liberals and the growing public outrage at the arrest of the printers, Conservative Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald passed the first labour law in Canada. The ‘Trades Unions Act’ was born, and union members were exempted from “criminal conspiracy” for taking strike action. In Ottawa Union members marched to his home in celebration and paraded him through the streets by torch light.

The 9-hour workday was not realized in the 1870s but workers actions gained political support and changed the law protected striking workers. Their militancy and determination lead to the formation of the Canadian Labor Union (CLU), the first central union body in Canada the following year.

Web links:

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/nine-hour-movement https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/fr/article/mouvement-pour-une-journee-de-travail-de-neuf-heures

http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/labour/labh09e.shtml http://www.museedelhistoire.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/labour/labh09f.shtml ]

Hamilton’s “nine-hour pioneers” defied opposition with a procession of 1500 workers. (Canadian Illustrated News courtesy Library and Archives Canada 2932698)