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Alberta Online Encyclopedia
When Coal Was King
Industry, People and Challenges
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1921-1950s: Labour Unrest and Setbacks
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As a result of an 8-month strike that split friends and families, in 1933 Blairmore elected a Town Council completely made up of workers.  They proceeded to clean up town administrative practices and re-name, for a short time, the central boulevard in honour of Communist leader Tim Buck. Blairmore Town Councillors:  Front roe:  Harvey Murphy, Joe Anschacher, Angelo Pagnucco, Mayor William Knight, Joe Krkosky Sr., Jack Packer, Evan Morgan, Sam Patterson, Ole Olson, Joe Krkosky Jr., Police Chief Fitz Patrick, Norman Bonneau, Albert Bosetti, Domenic Campo, Goerge Maniquet, Gaston Bazzill, Leo Amadino.Following the election of a Communist president, the MWUC formally affiliated with the WUL in 1931. The move alienated moderate miners and made the union a target of anticommunist attacks by corporations and state officials. The situation came to a head during strikes at Coleman, Blairmore, and Bellevue, in the Crowsnest Pass, in 1932. Intent on destroying the union, the operators precipitated the work stoppages by insisting that the miners must renounce their allegiance to the MWUC before talks could begin. The owners were supported by a right-wing coalition in the mining towns, including a Citizens' League of local merchants fearful of Communism, and a group of reactionary miners seeking preference for workers of British descent. At Coleman, these forces were successful, resulting in miners returning to work and agreeing to establish a union on company terms. At Blairmore and Bellevue, however, the strikers maintained their unity and forced a settlement in which the owners agreed not to reduce wages further, or discriminate against miners on the basis of union affiliation. The militancy at Blairmore carried over into the election of a left-wing municipal council in 1933. This body declared main street to be "Tim Buck Boulevard"—in honour of the leader of the Canadian Communist Party—enforced a boycott against right-wing merchants, and supported higher standards of relief for the unemployed.1

Hector Rae, Tony and Jennette Patera are pictured walking in Calgary.  Tony Patera was a life-long union supporter and organizer.  At the age of 20, he got the men working at Pozzi’s Brick Cleaning Plant in Frank to ask for more money.  While working in the mines in Blairmore, he became active in trade unionism and organized unions in Michel and Corbin.  He was President of the Blairmore Local Union until the mine closed and then he helped organize the unemployed miners.  He was a member of the UMWA and attended labour and miners conventions.In 1935, another change in the union movement resulted in the re-emergence of the IIMWA as a force in the coalfields. Once again the Communist Party played a crucial role. Responding to the rise of international Fascism, the Canadian leadership ordered members to return to the policy of working within established leftist organizations. In the region, the party supported the merger of the Mine Workers' Union with the UMWA, which was now involved in a campaign to win back coal miners. In the past, this union had seemed too undemocratic and conciliatory to the companies. However, its leader-John L. Lewis-was now co-operating with American Communists in an effort to organize workers into a vast new association of industrial unions, the Committee (later Congress) of Industrial Organizations. As a result of this more militant image, a majority of the coal miners in Alberta and southeastern British Columbia supported the merger with the UMWA in a referendum held in June 1936. Within two years, the reconstituted union solidified its position by negotiating a contract, containing a small raise for workers.2

During World War Two, the LTMWA once again benefited from the federal government's concern with the strategic importance of coal. Miners became disenchanted with the contract negotiated, with Ottawa's help, in 1940. This agreement had tied wages to the rate of inflation, but miners argued that the government's cost-of-living calculations were unrealistic, when applied to company-controlled towns. The grievance became one factor in an international strike, staged in 1943, by coal miners from both Canada and the United States, who were dissatisfied with wage structures established by their respective federal governments. Reversing its position from the First World War, the UMWA strongly supported the workers. In both countries, federal authorities chose to be conciliatory to reduce disruption. The pay scale introduced in Canada, as Professor Allen Seager has pointed out, brought the miners back to where they had been prior to the long series of pay cuts in the 1920s and 1930s.3

After 1945, the coal miners gradually ceased to be a significant force in the Canadian labour movement. As the industry declined, in the wake of the oil discoveries at Leduc and elsewhere, miners lost their bargaining leverage. A nation-wide strike in the coal industry in 1948 was broken by management after only six weeks.4

In spite of the eventual decline of the coal miners, they had achieved many gains and concessions during the first half of the 20th century. Their fight for better wages brought them prosperity in the early 1920s and the years of the Second World War, and minimized wage reductions in the later 1920s and 1930s. At the provincial level, they had been instrumental in the introduction of the eight hour work-day in Alberta. At the federal level, the example of the coal industry had helped to inspire Mackenzie King's Industrial Disputes Investigation Act, the federal government's first major attempt to minimize labour unrest in large industries.

The miners' had also established themselves in Canadian labour history. They were among the earliest workers in the West to become organized and among the most successful in labour negotiations until 1920. They also played a central role, during that time, in the broader movement of labour radicalism that set the West apart from the more moderate positions of workers in central Canada. In the 1920s and 1930s, when labour across most of the country was in retreat, the Western coal miners continued to sustain a high level of organization and militancy, and remained among the leading spokesmen for radical positions.5

The miners' predilection for left-wing positions also extended to electoral politics, where they consistently expressed themselves in favour of politicians supporting the interests of labour Not all miners were socialists, but the support for radical positions was strong. Especially in the Crowsnest Pass and Banff-Canmore areas, where left-wing politicians were well organized, large numbers of miners voted for candidates repudiating the existing social and economic order, and favouring its replacement with one in which workers controlled the means of production. However, the impact of their votes was limited. Their candidates were often unsuccessful in coal-mining constituencies because of the more conservative preferences of the adjacent rural areas.6 Nonetheless, the miners' consistent support for labour interests emphasized their commitment to a social vision quite distinct from that emerging elsewhere, especially in Alberta. Nurtured by their experience in the coalfields, miners argued for the interests of the working class in a society largely dedicated to the ideals of private enterprise.

William N.T. Wylie, "Coal-Mining Landscapes: Commemorating Coal Mining in Alberta and Southeastern British Columbia," a report prepared for the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Parks Canada Agency, 2001.

See Also: The Coal Industry—Overview, Rapid Expansion, Domestic and Steam Coalfields, 1914-1947: The Struggling Industry, Collapse and Rebirth, Settlement of the West, Issues and Challenges—Overview, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Underground Techniques, Surface Technology, Surface Mining, Social Impacts, Unions, 1882-1913: Unionization and Early Gains, 1914-1920: Revolutionary Movement, 1921-1950s: Labour Unrest and Setbacks, Mining Companies, People of the Coal Mines, The Middle Class, Miners and Local Government, Politics and Economics ,Environmental Impacts, Health and Safety—Overview, The State and Labour Relations, The State and Development after 1918.
 

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