Frontier Labourers, Crafts in Crisis and the Western Labour Revolt: The Case of Vancouver, 1900-1919

Studies of the 1918-19 labour revolt in western Canada have generally emphasized the leading role of frontier resource workers. In contrast, recent studies of the labour revolt in central Canada and elsewhere have stressed the workplace struggles of craftsmen threatened by changes in the labour process. These interpretations are assessed through a historical comparison of the experiences of workers in the Vancouver area between 1900 and 1919. First, comparison of participants in the major events of the 1918-19 revolt shows that it grew out of the interests, solidarities, and histories of collective action of both frontier labourers and craftsmen in crisis. Second, continuities between strike waves in 1900-03, 1910-13,and 1917-19 show that sources of the 1918-19 labour revolt in Vancouver lay within the city, rather than being only an effect of the western resource frontier or of exceptional wartime conditions. Strengthened mobilization, militant strike action, repressive employers, and growing but threatened power were conditions of the labour revolt in Vancouver in 1918-19. Instead of being unique, the experience of Vancouver workers was similar to that of workers elsewhere in Canada and internationally.