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As the Canadian and international record will testify, the years between 1917-1920 were critically important to workers' aspirations for industrial unionism. An account of the Newfoundland Industrial Workers' Association (NIWA) has largely been passed over in the writing of the Island's labour history. Yet this organization figures prominently in the events which helped to shape the labour-capital relationship during the wartime period. In the Newfoundland context, the effective use of the strike weapon during this period is a telling indicator of the heightened sense of militancy resulting from the temporary convergence of labour organizations around issues relating to the war. Centred in St. John's. but exerting an Island-wide presence, the NIWA arose Out of a pressing need for Newfoundlanders to address the economic and political exigencies of World War I. This article examines the NIWA in terms of its structure, membership, and mandate for change with specific reference to the major confrontation waged between the NIWA and their principal opponent, the Reid Newfoundland Company in the spring of 1918.
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This study examines the critical years in which the Canadian industrial relations system assumed many of its lasting characteristics. Specifically, it explores the actions of management, unions, and the federal state under the exceptional conditions of the wartime "command economy" and later, with the transition back to a peacetime footing. Frustrated with the inadequacy of existing collective bargaining legislation, and sensing that this period signalled a realignment in the labour-capital relationship, Canadian workers took advantage of special wartime conditions to press home their demands for basic workplace rights framed by a more equitable labour code. The result of this campaign was the establishment of a new legal framework which defined the respective roles for all three groups over the next thirty years. Of particular importance is an investigation of the ambivalent legacy achieved by the Canadian labour movement with its pursuit of the essential rights of free association and collective bargaining. Building on the intense workplace struggles of the war years, labour pushed federal authorities to support mandatory collective bargaining, compulsory wage deductions of union dues, finally entrenching these reforms under the Industrial Relations and Disputes Investigation Act (1948).
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The story of the Newfoundland Industrial Workers' Association (NIWA) is one which has largely been passed over in the writing of the island's labour history. Yet this organization figures prominently in the events which helped shape the labour-capital relationship during the World War I years. As the Canadian and international record will testify, these years were critically important to the development of modern working-class organizations, while maintaining a direct link to the previous struggles of an earlier era. Centred in St. John's, but exerting an Island-wide influence, the NIWA arose out of a pressing need for working people to confront the economic and political realities of their class in a manner intended to redress the subservient and exploitive circumstances to which they were subjected. This thesis examines the NIWA in terms of its structure, membership, and mandate and attempts to place this movement into the larger context of the international labour revolt of 1917 to 1920. In doing so, it argues that class formation, development, and conflict is central to history.
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- Journal Article (1)
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