Resource industries are notoriously sensitive to market
forces and the coal mines of the Lethbridge region were no
exception. The primary Lethbridge market was always for domestic
coal although it was used in CPR locomotives when the mines were
first opened. Unlike steam coal, where users tended to be a few
railways and industries with a constant demand, users of
domestic coal consisted of thousands of householders drawing a
heavy supply in winter for heating and cooking but a very
limited supply in summer for cooking purposes only. Further, the
domestic coal fields were tied to the agricultural economy of
the prairies so that demand varied with crop conditions.
Variable winter weather strongly influenced demand. The coal
could not he stored in the open so mines had to operate on the
basis of producing only sufficient coal to fill current orders.
This led to great fluctuations in demand with full employment
for a few months followed by lengthy layoffs. When generally
difficult labour relations, particularly in the early years,
were added to strongly seasonal demand and a volatile market the
potential for trouble was always present. Strikes became a
frequent event, instigated by whichever side was in a position
temporarily to exert economic pressure on the other.
It should be pointed out that this referred mostly to the
early years from about 1905 to 1930. Local miners were members
of the United Mine Workers of America, the most powerful union
in North America for decades. It was not until the 1950s that
industry in general began to confront such union strength in,
for example, the American Federation of Labour and the Congress
of Industrial Organizations or AFL/CIO, and not until the 1950s
that government began to do so in, for example, the small but
militant Canadian Union of Postal Employees or CUPW. Thus, many
people failed to understand the difficulties faced by early mine
owners in negotiating wage-benefit contracts with a monolithic
union such as the UMWA. Strikes became less frequent as both
parties learned from their mistakes and, eventually, long
periods of relative labour peace began to characterize the
industry.
One of the most celebrated of these strikes was the miners'
strike of 1906. Rising prices, a natural outgrowth of an
overheated economy, caused considerable discontent among a large
majority of Lethbridge's workers. In February, believing that
their wages were not keeping pace with inflation, miners from
the Galt and Ashcroft collieries sought to increase their
earnings and decrease their working hours by forming Local 574
in District 18 of the United Mine Workers of America. Only a
month later they presented the Alberta Railway & Irrigation
Company with a list of demands. The company, under managing
director Sir Augustus M. Nanton, rejected the demands out of
hand and on 9 March 1906 the union called a strike, initially
the strike was peaceful but when the company hired 100 men to
keep the mine open and several private detectives to spy on the
strikers, the situation turned ugly. Several times during the
summer angry miners and their wives attacked policemen
protecting the strike-breakers; on two occasions explosives
damaged the homes of employed workers.
By the end of the summer the strike had reached a stalemate
and intervention was necessary to prevent a coal famine later
that winter. Lethbridge's city council and its board of Trade
tried to arbitrate but met with little success as neither was
trusted by labour. In November the Hon. W. R. Motherwell,
Commissioner of Agriculture with the government of Saskatchewan,
fearing a coal shortage, pressured the dominion government to
act. The federal government was receptive to intervention
because a coal famine would seriously hurt immigration to the
prairies and would create much localized hardship. It sent its
senior mediator, Deputy Minister of Labour William Lyon
Mackenzie King, to find a settlement. King set up in the
Lethbridge Hotel and, by alternately cajoling and bullying the
workers, brought about an accord. King was helped by the absence
of Nanton, who was at the Montreal bedside of his dying mother,
and by being able to deal directly with Peter Lawrence Naismith,
general manager, and William D. L. Hardie, mines manager, of the
Galt interests in Lethbridge. The mines reopened on 6 December
1906.
Oral tradition among mine officials of the region has it that
a basis for settlement of the strike had been arrived at before
Mackenzie King reached Lethbridge. Negotiators wired him at
Winnipeg to return to Ottawa as he was not needed. However,
Mackenzie King insisted on proceeding to Lethbridge to reap the
political benefits and publicity that accompanied a settlement.
The long and bitter strike provided workers with few
immediate gains. The miners won a small wage increase and the
right of collective bargaining, but because the company refused
to collect union dues from the mens' wages, they failed to gain
union recognition. The disappointment left a bitter legacy:
strikes varying in length from three to eight months occurred in
1909, 1911, 1919, 1922, 1923 and 1924.
Based on his experience at Lethbridge, Mackenzie King in 1907
drafted, and Parliament enacted into law, The Industrial
Disputes Investigation Act, long a model of labour conciliation
legislation. A Royal Commission, chaired by Arthur L. Sifton,
was set up to study the coal mining industry in the Province of
Alberta. Partially as a result, the Alberta government in 1907
passed its first Workman's Compensation Act. And in 1908, the
government legislated the eight-hour day, popularly known as
"The Eight-Hour Law," long an objective of labour. The law
became effective on 1 April 1909.
This article is drawn from Lethbridge: Its Coal Industry by
Alex Johnston, Keith G. Gladwyn and L. Gregory Ellis (Lethbridge:
City of Lethbridge, Lethbridge Historical Society, Occasional
Paper No. 20, 1989). The Heritage Community Foundation and the
Year of the Coal Miner Consortium would like to thank the
authors and the City of Lethbridge, which is the Year of the
Coal Miner lead, for permission to reprint this material.
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