The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 9, 1919, Page 9

Page views left: 0

You have reached the hourly page view limit. Unlock higher limit to our entire archive!

Subscribers enjoy higher page view limit, downloads, and exclusive features.

Text content (automatically generated)

i ’&Win‘ni.peg Labor Men “We'll Stickers” ““Most Remarkable Strike in America” Built on One-Big-Union Plan—W orkers Demand Recognition and Living Wage—Complete Order Maintained BY E. B. FUSSELL 7 [N THE train to Winnipeg I heard, that the general strike which had been called there, and which had been on at’ that time for more than a week, was the most remarkable strike ever called in America. I heard also that strikers had set up a soviet form of government, that the strike had been called by the I. W. W.s, that -the strike was broken, that the strike was spreading, that troops would be called in, that troops would - not be called in, and various other things. Arriving in Winnipeg, a city of 200,000 people, I found that the first statement—that the strike is the most remarkable in America—is a true one. It is the most complete strike in America. The city hall is closed—the clerks are on strike. So are the city firemen, the government postal employes, the government telephone employes. When I was there . no mail had been distributed for 10 days, news- papers had been suspended a week and the only daily was a strike bulletin put out by the strikers. But the surprising thing about the strike— the feature that silences all opposition—is that there has not been a single case of disorder or violence of any kind. “Don’t Work and Don’t Worry” is the big headline of the daily labor paper. “Go home and stay there,” is the advice given the strikers by their leaders. “Win the strike by doing nothing.” Nearly 35,000 men and women are obeying these injunctions. The city po- “lice, themselves unionized and ready to strike if nec- the “Russian soviet government.” Such is the silly character of the opposition to the strikers. The case of the Winnipeg strikers is of interest to members of the Nonpartisan league because they have been through exactly the same battle as the farmers on the south side of the international line. Throughout the war the labor forces have been making a campaign against Canadian food and munitions profiteers. Even less was done in Cana- da to- stop profiteering than in the United States, possibly because the labor forces, although organ- ized in unions, had less political power than the organized farmers of the United States. Although the labor men have five seats in the Winnipeg city council o_ut of 14 members, they .have only one member in the Manitoba provincial parliament and none at all in the Domlmon parhament at Ottawa. WORKERS LEARN LESSON GOING INTO POLITICS “You people are stronger than we are, because you have gone into politics,” one labor man after another told me in Winnipeg. “We are learning the lesson and are going into politics too.” A Labor party has been organized in eight provinces of Canada now and is bound to be a big factor in the next general election. The labor men have almost the same platform as the Nonpartisan league—public ownership of public utilities, eliminating the middlemen who speculate in food products, stiff taxes on special This is exactly the same idea that the farm- ers of the Nonpartisan league have adopted. Instead of the wheat farmers having one or- ganization, the sugar beet men another, the cotton growers a third, and so on, all farmers are united, knowing that their problems, in their basic facts, are the same—that the mid- dlemen and manufacturers make too great profits from the products that are raised by the farmers. It is the “one-big-union” idea that is at the basis of the present strike in Winnipeg. Employers in the building trades and in the metal trades refused to pay workers a living wage and refused to deal with their organizations. The men quit work— nothing happened. Then all the other unions took strike votes, in sympathy with the metal workers and building trades workers. Every union in Winnipeg, with one exception, voted to go on a sympathetic strike to demonstrate their. solidarity and to obtain relief for their brothers in the metal trades and building trades. Mail service stopped, so did telegraph service, so did the daily news- papers. The stores ¢losed. Clerks refused to work at the city hall. The tieup was complete. But the leaders of the strikers had good enough sense not to make the ordinary citizens—the inno- cent bystanders—suffer any-real hardship. After the first 24 hours, during which all housewives had enough food to last them, enough men were put back at work to distribute bread and milk and other foods, telegraph service was re- sumed to the extent of handling = messages dealing with death and serious illness and water pressure was resumed. The business forces that are i fighting the strikers in Winni- i g essary, are still keeping peg today are not able to cite ;: on the job, but there is a single case of actual hard- ! really no need for them. ship suffered by any individual 1 The;e have been fewer ar- on account of the strike. But, { rests, less crime, since the of course, the business men are (; strike than before. not able to do.business—trade Nk The strikers are pursuing is gt a standstill, and they are Py the same policy that Nonparti- losing money. P the market and depressing i) position to the League farmers. prices. g I was in the outside office of Mayor Charles A. pnvxlege to pay the cost of the war. The move- Thirty-five thousand men walked out in the Win- w Gray the other day, waiting to see the mayor. The ment is appealing to all Canadian liberals. aipeg strike. fis ihis f}‘ls wlrit}ten tf}:llfy atre s(tiill O?ti . < mayor has surrounded himself by an unofficial group : . overnment and city officials have threatened postal 4 of business men as volunteer aides. : miz‘:fi;igolfa;govfm El arsl;ideflée gll(lil;hl(l:l %Vwi?lf‘?s}:p workers, telephone workers, firemen and other em- 4 One of them was talking about Rev. Mr. Ivens, & " o0 aiticle inga later I;ssue og the Leader sopmg: ployes that they will be permanently dropp_ed from Methodist minister who is aiding the strikers. thing will be told of the strides toward public their jobs unless they return by a certain date. SR “THAT MAN OUGHT_TO BE TAKEN OUT, ownership, of the municipal lighting systemp that That order has brought a few back, but not many. STOOD UP AGAINST ‘}1 BRICK WALL AND (¢ the rate from 20 cents to 3 cents per kilowatt 26 OTHER TOWNS AND : SHOE, she bustness man; declared. hour, of the new city water system that brings CITIES READY TO STRIKE - SOLDIERS AS STRIKEBREAKERS, water from 100 miles away, with the city-owned (n the other hand, 26 other cities and tow.s in o IS BUSINESS MAN’S PLEA rafix::d :fi:t gsfilaullg;ie];:}slti;n tah;vgt!:l;::gmive}.lich western Canada have notified the strike committee. Another of the mayor’s unofficial aides was tell- means principally the labor forces of Winnipeg— :}I:at 3};? ;‘reoé‘ef.}(lig :gri%{(; ofr;i?it;gce, X’:& 1fh1;hetz}-:em1i ing what ought to be done. ° are planning now tl:lat the city shall go into the sazds ofgrajlroad workers known' as the “running - “The government ought to brmg in these dls- Sialry business, erecting a big $600,000 pl_ant. Milk trades” in Canada, will g’o out, if necessary, and i charged soldiers and put them in all the places is now bought from the farmers at a price around 4o up transportatio’n throughout the entire country. 7 that have been held by the strikers,” he said. 5 cents a quart and costs',the consumer, dehvex:ed, I asked James Winning, president of the Winni- X “They are used to taking orders. That is the 13 or 14 cents for the ordinary grades and as high .0 Tyades and Labor council, how it was possible = way to settle this strike.” as 18 cents a quart for special .grades. :I‘he labor to get the 35,000 workers, most of whom -had no The men who made these remarks did not know Men figure thz?t they can pay a better price to the o ;v nces of their own, to walk out to help their that the writer was connected with the Nonpartisan ~ Producer anl;i 1§du_ce the cost to the cons}lllmer at the 1 ihers. Leader; hence I shall not use their names. But I ’srame time by having the city go into the bgsmess. “Education and organization did it,” he said. “We fi can tell their names and their business connections he matter will be voted upon some time this sum- have shown the men, in our publications and in to any one who doubts this statement. mesr. it b Lt Z + ie b speeches, that if they would stick together they " The daily papers of Winnipeg, all of which are e° lthca?be seent ?‘1 t;‘l e;'e is a strong tie be- .1 win. They appreciated the point. There is o R ‘against the strikers, refer to them as “reds,” “I. WEEN the - anol men anc. tneiarmers: no bitterness in this strike. It is brought to insist san league farmers pursued last year during the campaign, when tar-and-feather parties and yellow paint were the rule. No violence, no reprisals, are their watchwords. There 'is most emphatically no soviet government, there are no I W. W.s connected with the movement in any way, the troops are not in evidence, nor is'there any excuse for them. The opposition, too, is pur- suing the same policy as the op- W. W.s,” “anarchists” and so forth. The Winnipeg Bulletin published an article stating that .a number of new $50 and $100 United States bills were in cir- culation in the city and that undoubtedly these con- stituted “Russian propagandist money” supplied by Canadian metropolls look similar today. The above photograph was taken in Winnipeg on Labor Day. The streets of this western The streets are crowded with the striking workers, all going peacefully about whatever business they have during the strike. There is a stronger tie in the fact that Cana- dian labor. men have adopted the idea of “one big union”—which means that all labor men shall act together, regardless of whether they are plasterers, bricklayers, or railroad men. ' PAGE NINE The strikers are able to cite cases in which foodstuffs on hand in Winnipeg were shipped out of the city by wholesalers to create an artificial shortage of food and thus turn public _sentiment against the strikers. Of course, this is a common enough trick. In ordinary times middlemen have been known, in hundreds of cases, wilfully to destroy usable food to prevent it from getting on upon two principles—the right to a living wage and the right of collective bargaining.” “Have you ever heard of our motto, ‘We’ll stick and we’ll win’?” I asked Mr. Winning. “That’s our motto, too,” he said.

Other pages from this issue: