E arly

By IWA Reviewer

“We've been scolded by a
woman and deserve it,” was the
opinion offered by a trade
unionist upon reading ‘Faith,
Sweat and Politics” by Doris
French. “What’s more, we've
said so little about the early
struggles of trade unionism in
Canada, that most of our new
members take everything gained
by the unions for granted. We’re
becoming an organization of
cynics, seldom looking beyond
the next wage hike in the off-

”

ing”.

“Faith, Sweat and Politics’, the early
trade union years in Canada, by Doris
French, McClelland and Stewart Ltd.
Available at Duthies. Hard cover $3.50,
paper back $2.75.

a

This reviewer thinks Doris French
is right. Her greatest difficulty in
understanding the trade union move-
ment was trade unionists themselves.
“It is difficult to warm to a corpor-
ate body which presents itself in such
unspeakably dull terms,” she says.

She complains that all the
humour, tragedy and high spirits of
trade union struggles have been mur-
dered. “When they (trade unionists)
talk about themselves they pontify
alarmingly.” How true! Her book
brings this reviewer to the penitent’s
bench as one of the guilty commen-
tators on trade union history.

There is nothing dull about Doris’
book. It centres around the life and
work of a warm-hearted Irish-Cana-
dian, Dan O’Donoghue, properly de-
scribed as the father of the Canadian
trade union movement. ‘The talents
which he devoted to the early strug-
gles for recognition of trade unions
in Canada would easily have won
him rich rewards in commercial
enterprise.

Who was Dan O’Donoghue? Most
trade unionists today would flunk
that question. Because we cannot,
for space reasons, convey the sparkle
of her book, we must rely on a “dull”
recital of some of her facts, hoping
that the book itself will be widely
read.

“The Rag, Tag
and Bobtail"

Dan was elected the first labour
member of a Canadian legislature,
when trade unions were held in con-
tempt as the “rabble” by press and
politicians alike. Upon presentation
to Lord Dufferin, Governor-General
of Canada, and asked for his creden-
tials, he proudly answered, “Your
Excellency, I represent the rag, tag
and bobtail!”

The story of how Dan became a
Member of the Ontario Legislature
and maintained his independence as
a labour member for two terms is
a story as exciting as any found in
fiction. When defeated, and forced
to leave Ottawa for Toronto, he was
one of the prime movers in founding
what later was called the Trades and
Labour Congress of Canada.

The book brings out the facts of
the strange political development
that first legalized trade unions in
Canada. The villains of the piece are
those trade unionists who allied
themselves with employer-dominated
interests to end Dan’s political
career.

This remarkable man was un-
daunted by his poverty and his re-
verses. He out-faced his critics in
the first Canadian Labour Congress
and won support for independent
political action in the name of labour.

We must let the reader judge the
worth of Dan O’Donoghue’s contri-
bution to labour’s cause in Canada.

Lone [rishman’'s Fight

Makes Labour History

Doris French tells it so well that it
is possible to understand how the
man inspired working-class action in
the face of vicious persecution. The
book holds a thrill for trade union-
ists who will note that every stirring
anecdote is well-documented by
Doris French. Her conscientious re-
search has placed the Canadian trade
union movement under a debt of
gratitude for revealing chapters on
early labour history in the Do-
minion.

At the risk of lapsing into the
“dullness” of which Doris complains,
it must be said that a major value
of her book for present-day trade
unionists is her account of conditions
endured by Canadian workers in the
nineteenth century.

How Unions Were
First Made Legal

The fight for the nine-hour day
brought the printers in Toronto out
on strike in 1871. Twenty-five of the
leading strikers were arrested and
marched off to jail, charged with
“seditious conspiracy”. This provided
the occasion for the famous Thanks-
giving Day demonstration in Tor-
onto, when two thousand men, four
abreast, marched through the streets
to Queen’s Park to be greeted by ten
thousand cheering supporters. This
led to the 1872 enactment of the
Trades Unions Act, legalizing trade
unions in Canada for the first time.
An amusing sidelight is that the
Tories passed the legislation, mainly
to embarrass the Grits and capture
the workers’ vote.

Nowadays it is difficult to imagine
the extent to which workers were op-
pressed in Canada, especially if they
attempted to organize in defence of
their rights.

A printer named Chabot was re-
fused Christian burial because he had
joined a trade union.

Workmen were called into court
and fined for leaving their employ-
ment and the workman’s master
could prosecute any other employer
who hired him.

Loggers Worked for
Whisky Wages

It was a common practice for
lumber workers to be “secured” by
the hotelkeeper who kept them brief-
ly, supplying them with whisky while
they stopped in town and arranged
with the lumber boss to be repaid
from the men’s wages in the bush.
The lumber worker lived not much
better than a serf in bondage.

Men reduced to vagrancy were run
out of town with a police escort.

Highly - skilled workers, such as
printers, received eight dollars a
week, and worked fifty-eight hours
a week. Housing conditions were de-
plorable, as few could afford decent
living quarters.

Canadian Legend
Now Debunked

Doris French debunks the popular
legend about the rugged pioneer in-
dividualism- which built Canadian
industry.

She says “We do not believe, be-
cause we have never been told, that
some of our ancestors worked as

“NOTICE

I closed my Dental Office on May 5, 1962,
after having practised dentistry for nearly 50
years. I have never had any dentists associated
with me during my practice. I did not dispose
of my dental practice to any person,

Thanking my thousands of patients for their
support over the years, I only wish that I
could continue to bring guaranteed dentistry
to the public at prices they can afford to pay.

“OLD DOC”

DR. R. LLEWELLYN DOUGLAS, D.D.S.

Phone: AM 1-1886

1344 Dogwood Ave., Vancouver, B.C.

children on night shifts from dusk
till dawn as helpers in a mill, quite
frequently losing fingers under whir-
ring saws. We do not know that it
was a customary thing to physically
discipline young girls who worked
in cigar factories, and that these girls
sometimes wound up at week’s end
owing the boss money because they
were charged more for making defec-
tive cigars than for making good
ones. No one has ever seen fit to
point out that part of Canada’s child-
hood was spent in dirty, unsanitary,
unsafe, lint-filled, dreary mills, earn-
ing only a little, but that mattering
so much that the parents fought to
keep them there. And not so very
long ago.”

John D. Rockefeller set the tone
for Canadian business men, when he
said, “the growth of a large business
is merely the survival of the fittest.
It is merely the working out of a law
of nature and a law of God.”

Families lived on
Starvation Income

Men working in the Ontario knit-
ting mills received about $7.75 for

Union Story Brought To Light —

a fifty-nine hour week; women
worked the same hours and if under
sixteen got about $1.65 a week.

A government commission of en-
quiry reported in part, “we were
sorry to report that in very many
instances the children, having no
education whatever, could not tell
their ages; this applies most particu-
larly to those from 12 years down-
wards—some being found as young
as 8 or 9 years of age. The appear-
ance of the children . . . was any-
thing but inviting or desirable.

“They have to be in the mill or
factory at 6.30 a.m., necessitating
their being up from 5.30 to 6.00 a.m.

. . Some having to walk a mile or
more to work. . . . Female labour is
often extensively employed . . . some-
times in the attic of a four-storey
building, or others in low, damp
basements.” . . . “Many workers
took material home with them to be
done at night with the families’ help,
while the paysheet simply recorded
the total wage, regardless of hours.”

Dan O’Donoghue was largely re-
sponsible for the investigation which
revealed appalling conditions in On-
tario industry. His reports, published
at that time by the trade unions,
present a blunt picture of misery and
distress that surely should never
have happened in Canada.

Biscuit-packers, female, under six-
teen, worked fifty-eight hours a week
for $2.91. Coppersmiths and glass-
blowers were among the elite, for
they got $20.28 and $22.52 a week.
This was a fortune, for salesmen,
who worked longer hours than any-

one else, over sixty a week, received
a pay envelope of $9.20 on Saturday
night. Machinists got $9.47 for sixty
hours.

Families averaged an annual in-
come of $447.60 a year, with the

income brought in by husband, wife
and five children. Food, rent, fuel
and clothing totalled $417.75 a year.
How well did they eat even in those
days on $216.42 a year? How well
were they housed on only $74.41 a
year? Could they buy enough fuel
to warm their homes and cook food
on $40.53 a year? Many lived on
less.

No Treatment
For Injuries

Bateau men, whom we would now
call log barge men, worked fifteen

days without pay at first and went
without pay during unloading. Their
wages were no higher than $150 a
year. Shantymen, now called loggers,
if injured, received no treatment ex-
cept from the logger working next to
him. His pay was stopped and he
was charged $1.00 a day for board
as long as he stayed in the shanty.
The terrible accident toll, espec-
ially among children, led to trade
union agitation for laws now known
as Workmen’s Compensation Acts.
Immigration was a_ profitable
source of cheap labour, and called
for vigorous opposition by the early
trade unions. The authorities lauded

See “EARLY UNION” Page 8

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