The Winnipeg General Strike: A Case Study

The investigation will examine the research question: “To what extent did the Newsies strike of 1899 affect labor laws and unions?”. This investigation will go into depth about the Newsies strike, how and why the strike started, and why it was important. During this strike, a group of boys called “ newsies” protested the prices of newspapers sold by Pulitzer & Hearst. Newsies were often poor and homeless, barely scraping by, this is why the price of the newspaper was so significant. Prices were only raised for the newsies as Pulitzer & Hearst knew there was nowhere else for them to earn a living.

Railroads, “the great money-maker of the age” were a major part of the political, economic, and social development of the United States.1 After the panic of 1873, the United States experienced an economic depression which caused wage cuts, evictions, evictions, breadlines, and left as many as three million people unemployed. Even though some people were still able to keep their jobs, their wages were severely decreased up to the point that the workers do not have enough money to sustain their families. One such company is the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad who cut the wages by 10 percent, and decreased their brakemen’s wage from $70 to $30 – the second wage cut in just eight months. The hardships that the workers experienced after the cutting

In late July of 1877, Chicagoans played their part in the first nationwide uprising of workers. On July 16, railroad workers in Martinsburg, West Virginia, walked off the job to protest a 10 percent wage cut leveled by their employer, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Strikes to protest cutbacks in the midst of a period of nationwide economic depression soon spread westward across the country. News of attempts to control boisterous crowds fueled worker protest and sporadic violence.

In the next few hours, 30,000 workers have been response the strike action. Citizen Committee's media believed that the strike action was the result of foreign penetration, which was the Bolshevik Party. Since Russia had been controlled by this party after the Russian Revolution, the spread of worker movement had come to Canada. There is no evidence to prove these unreasonable charges. In order to prevent the strike action to further expand the influence of other cities, the Ottawa government had decided to intervene the Winnipeg general strike.

“The American Federation of Labor is an American organization,” declared William Green, president of the AFL, in his 1947 keynote speech, “It believe[d] in American, the fundamental law of the United States, the Constitution, freedom, liberty and democracy. We will have nothing to do with Communism in any shape, or form ... This sixty-sixth convention will redeclare its opposition to Communism and to Communist philosophy, and ... to [those who would] attempt to establish it among the organized labor of our country.” Though Green declared “Communism abhorrent to American labor” not all the members of the AFL were American. Indeed, Canadians and their

Since the very beginning of the nation’s history, America has strongly upheld the right of its citizens to practice free speech. As working conditions in the United States only grew worse in the 20th century, more laborers exercised their rights to free speech in efforts to gain the respect they deserved in the workplace. The Boston Police Strike of 1919 proves as a perfect example of workers’ efforts to improve the setting of their employment. On September 9th, groups of policemen all facing the same plight gathered to protest the dreadful circumstances they faced in the workplace, many struggling with the poor salaries and unacceptable environment they faced in their jobs. In wake of the protest, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge made

Every Canadian citizen can enjoy living in a country today where everyone has equal rights and freedom. Canadians today have many rights and freedoms that they take for granted. The rights and freedoms we have today were only made possible are many struggles that people in the past have faced. Various groups, specifically, Chinese workers, African Canadians, natives and women dealt with discrimination daily. Their battle for equal rights and freedoms amongst everyone has contributed greatly to the development of our nation to what it is today.

In the meantime at San Francisco State College, students in the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), a coalition of African-American, Latino, and Asian-American student groups, began demanding reforms that addressed the concerns of students of color and the surrounding community. After more than a year of negotiating with the school and organizing students, they called a strike on November 6, 1968, that became the longest student strikein United States history. When it was finally settled in March 1969, many of the students' demands were met, including the establishment of a School of Ethnic Studies.

The Winnipeg General Strike happened from May 15-June 25, 1919. This strike is Canada’s best known strike in its history. Massive unemployment and inflation, the success of the Russian Revolution in 1917, and rising Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, all were contributions to the postwar labor unrest that put the strike in motion.

In 1968, a major change occurred in not only New York’s educational system, but also in the U.S. In the book The Strike That Changed New York, Jerald E. Podair aims to delve into the experiment known as Ocean Hill- Brownsville, that ultimately led to one of the largest teacher strikes in America’s history.

After the war, Canadian factories that manufactured war supplies were permanently closed. This produced a lot of unemployment and bankruptcy. The cost to live was increasing dramatically and many people (who were still employed) could not compete with the inflation.(CBC, N/A, 1). WW1 veterans who had returned home after the war found that the wages were far too low.(School Work Helpers, 2016, 1). Some people wished to be employed, while others wished for better working conditions.(CBC, N/A, 2). On May 15, 1919, metal and building workers and the trades and labor council declared a strike. In a few hours, 30,000 left their jobs to participate in the strike.(Reilly, 2006, 3). One Big Union (OBG) was designed to speak for the workers.(School Work Helpers, 2016, 1). The House Of Commons had modified the Immigration Act so that any individual who was not born in Canada would be deported.(School Work Helpers, 2016, 2). The government feared that this strike would create a revolution, so they interfered. Workers were told to either go back to work or be fired.(Reilly, 2006, 6). On June 21, 1919, otherwise known as Bloody Saturday many people engaged in a silent protest. 2 people were killed that day and many sustained injuries. Several of the union leaders were arrested.(School Work Helpers, 2016, 2). Strike leaders were afraid that more people would be killed so on June 25, they went back to work.(Reilly, 2006, 3).

In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, labor was anything but easy. Factory workers faced long hours, low pay, high unemployment fears, and poor working conditions during this time. Life today is much easier in comparison to the late 1800s. Americans have shorter days, bigger pay and easier working conditions. Not comparable to how life is today, many riots sparked, and citizens began to fight for equal treatment. Along with other important events, the Haymarket Riot, the Pullman Strike, and the Homestead strike all play a vital role in illustrating labor’s struggle to gain fair and equitable treatment during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

In the first half of the 19th Century the working class in the newly industrializing American society suffered many forms of exploitation. The working class of the mid-nineteenth century, with constant oppression by the capitalist and by the division between class, race, and ethnicity, made it difficult to form solidarity. After years of oppression and exploitation by the ruling class, the working class struck back and briefly paralyzed American commerce. The strike, which only lasted a few weeks, was the spark needed to ignite a national revolt by the working class with the most violent labor upheavals of the century.

The Winnipeg General Strike The year of 1919 has been one of the most influential years of strikes

This article talked about the general things of the National Labor Union back in the 1800’s. It mostly talked about the negative effects of the NLU such as exclusion of women, racial prejudice, and failing to enforce the eight-hour labor law. The article did mention about groups of skilled, unskilled, and farmers were unable to share and participate in united political views unless they were intensely focused on labor union. After William Sylvis death in 1869, the NLU suffered politically and dealt with the Depression of 1873, where the NLU finally collapsed.