This summer marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most influential strikes in Cape Breton history: the Sydney steel strike. This strike was soundly ...
Royal 22 Regiment on patrol during the Steel Plant Strike, Sydney, 1923. 89-504-18699. Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University.P.E.I. young skaters shine at skateboarding competition in Stratford | SaltWireThis summer marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most influential strikes in Cape Breton history: the Sydney steel strike. This strike was soundly broken by the company but it had lasting impacts on the Cape Breton workforce for generations.
BESCO’s first attempt to make a profit came at the expense of the workers. The company cut wages drastically, sometimes by two-thirds. As a result of their pay cuts, unionism spread across the steel plants and the coal mines like wildfire.Wolvin recognized that unionism was unavoidable but he did not want a worker-driven union. He preferred a company union, which would be firmly under the control of the company. He tried to organize a joint employer-employee plant council.
As discontent grew, Roy Wolvin convinced the premier of Nova Scotia that there was an outbreak of Bolshevism that needed federal and provincial intervention to maintain the peace. Premier Ernest Howard Armstrong was also aware the BESCO provided two-thirds of the provincial government’s revenue and was responsible for 45 per cent of the coal mined in Canada. Any stoppage would impact the province’s bottom line.
J.B. McLauchlin wrote extensively about the incident and drew attention to the cause. He organized a sympathetic strike by coal miners. Sadly, this was not the best time for a coal miner’s strike as the company took the strike as a shutdown that they were in no hurry to end. McLachlan, however, was arrested for seditious libel shortly thereafter.
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