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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 Partyenforced a boycott
against right-wing merchants, and supported higher standards of
relief for the unemployed.1
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
IndustryOverview, Rapid Expansion,
Domestic and Steam Coalfields,
1914-1947: The Struggling Industry,
Collapse and Rebirth,
Settlement of the West,
Issues and ChallengesOverview,
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 SafetyOverview,
The State and
Labour Relations,
The State and
Development after 1918.
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