Teamsters Canada Rail Conference

Published: September 1st 2010
Source: Merritt Herald 
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In a time when the news of labour news is dominated by disputes between millionaire athletes and billionaire owners, history provides a useful perspective on a time when working people had to fight to work less than 12 hours a day. The “Nine-Hour Movement” began in Hamilton, Ontario, and then spread to Toronto where its demands were taken up by the Toronto Printer’s Union.

“Obviously we would not have a labour day if the workers did not feel it was necessary to do so,” says Harry Lai.

In 1869 the union sent a petition to their employers requesting a weekly reduction in hours per week to 58, placing itself in the forefront of the industrialized world in the fight for shorter hours. Their request was refused outright by the owners of the printing shops, most vehemently by George Brown of the Globe.

On April 14 a demonstration was held to show solidarity among the workers of Toronto. A parade of some 2000 workers marched through the city, headed by two marching bands. By the time that the parade reached Queen’s Park, the sympathetic crowd had grown to 10,000.Earliest records show that the Toronto Trades Assembly, perhaps the original central labour body in Canada, organized the first North American ‘workingman’s demonstration’ of any significance for April 15,1872. The parade marched accompanied by four bands. About 10,000 Torontonians turned out to see the parade and listen to the speeches calling for abolition of the law which decreed that trade unions were criminal conspiracies in restraint of trade.

“Working people were able to win the day and labour day became a paid holiday for workers across this country,” says Lali.

“They wanted to have a certain number of hours in the working day, some time off, just the basics of working standards.”

Soon pressure for legislation to declare a national holiday for Labour Day was exerted in both Canada and the United States. In 1894 the government of Sir John Thompson enacted such legislation on July 23, with the Prime Minister piloting the bill through Parliament against the opposition of some of his Conservative followers.

There can be little doubt that the annual demonstrations of worker’s solidarity each Labour Day in North America owe their inspiration to small group of ‘illegal’ members of the Toronto Trades Assembly.

Labour Day parade in Toronto, Canada in 1900