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The Catholic unions were reorganized at the end of WWI, stressing protection of members' rights and interests as workers. Anxious to unite their forces, they jointly formed the Canadian Catholic Confederation of Labour in 1921 with about 17 600 members.

United Automobile Workers of Canada Founded in 1937 as an affiliate of the UAW in the US, it won its first major victory in the famous OSHAWA STRIKE of 1937 and went on to become one of Canada's largest and most dynamic unions. Its leaders since 1937, Charles H.

 That workers should have political representatives of their own class has been a recurrent theme in Canadian labour history, but no one organization has provided a permanent home for this idea. Many union leaders have preferred to advance their cause through established political parties.

The Knights of Labor, the leading labour reform organization in the late 19th century, played a key role in the development of the working-class consciousness in Canada. It was also an important player in the development of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and interceded with authorities to improve living standards for the working class. The movement fell victim to internal conflict and the successes of other unions, and began fading out at the end of the 1890s.

Two days later, the 3 main UNION CENTRALS defied a municipal ban to organize a huge march in solidarity with the newspaper workers. More than 12 000 people clashed with 100 Montréal policemen. The outcome was some 50 arrests, several dozen injuries and one death from natural causes.

Labour History, see WORKING-CLASS HISTORY.

On 10 March 1957, the 1,000 workers of Gaspé Copper Mines in Murdochville, Québec, struck for the right to unionize. The conflict lasted 7 months and ended in defeat for the miners. Moreover, a 15-year judicial battle finally awarded the company $1.5 million in damages from the United Steelworkers of America ("Métallos" in Québec).

Since 1965 the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (previously Canadian Postal Employees Association) has been involved in approximately 19 major disputes over several complex issues.

The Wobbly poet and martyr Joe Hill visited the camp at Yale and wrote several songs, including "Where the Fraser River Flows," still a labour standard.

The Drumheller Strike of 1925 1925, ushered in a period of rival or "dual" unionism in Alberta's coalfields. The Drumheller miners, rejecting wage cuts negotiated by the United Mine Workers, struck in June 1925.

IWW propaganda was disseminated primarily in street meetings. In 1912, when Vancouver authorities tried to ban street demonstrations, the Wobblies started and won a spectacular free-speech fight.

The first significant attempt to organize on an industrial basis was undertaken in the 1880s by the KNIGHTS OF LABOR, which advocated unity of the producing classes and opposed employer blacklists and discrimination.

The Québec Shoe Workers' Strike, properly a lockout, 27 October-10 December 1900, was the first direct intervention in a labour conflict by Québec Catholic clergy and the first step toward the creation of Catholic unions (see CONFEDERATION OF NATIONAL TRADE UNIONS).

Under s67 of the Criminal Code, where a riot involving 12 or more people is in progress, a justice, mayor, sheriff or other designated official is authorized to order the rioters to disperse in the name of the Queen. In popular terms, this is "reading the Riot Act.

Women's Labour Leagues emerged in Canada prior to WWI. Modelled on the British Labour Leagues, auxiliaries to the Independent Labour Party, their purpose was to defend the struggles of women workers and support the labour movement.

The Windsor Ford Strike was a 99-day strike from 12 September to 19 December 1945 by 11,000 employees of the Windsor, Ontario, Ford Motor Company plant. Some 8,000 auto workers from other plants also participated. The Ford workers, who were led by the United Automobile Workers of Canada (UAW), demanded recognition of their union by Ford and mandatory membership for all plant workers. The strike was ultimately resolved through binding arbitration under Supreme Court Justice Ivan C. Rand and resulted in the widely used Rand Formula.

The One Big Union (OBU) was a radical labour union formed in Western Canada in 1919. It aimed to empower workers through mass organization along industrial lines. The OBU met fierce opposition from other parts of the labour movement, the federal government, employers and the press. Nevertheless, it helped transform the role of unions in Canada.

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