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Jacob Lawrence Cohen was a prominent Canadian labour and civil rights lawyer in the 1930's and 1940's. Cohen was instrumental in negotiating a number of landmark labour disputes that helped pioneer legislation in Canada. He also defended a number of trade unionists, many of whom were Communist, imprisoned under the War Measures Act. His staunch defense of society's underdogs brought him a great deal of respect and notoriety. Cohen's career reflected many of the tensions of Canadian society in the period. The growth of industrial unionism, the development of progressive labour legislation and a growing fear of Communism, all touched him professionally and personally. His brilliant career ended abruptly in 1946 after his conviction of assault. His trial raises a number of questions about the judicial system. After a four year struggle in the courts, Cohen's law practice resumed in 1950 but he failed to regain his former prominence. He died in May 1950. J.L. Cohen had a great impact in developing and fighting for progressive labour laws to deal with the changing society of the 1930's and the 1940's. He was in the centre of a turbulent period in Canadian history as counsel in diverse and unpopular legal cases. Many of his struggles helped legitimize the aspirations of the labour movement and develop the legal and jurisdictional regulations that govern all trade unions today.
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The focus of this thesis is the Liberal government's program of mandatory wage and price controls introduced on October 14, 1975. Beginning with a brief discussion of the marxist theory of the state, the thesis examines prior experiences with wage restraint programs, the evolution of post-war industrial relations, and the emergence of symptoms of economic crisis toward the end of the 1960's. Thereafter it considers the progress of state efforts to introduce wage/ price restraint, the social forces which shaped the pattern of state intervention, the actual operations of the Anti-Inflation Board, and the character of organised labour's opposition to compulsory controls. The thesis argues that state intervention into the sphere of wage bargaining is one concrete example of the deeper contradictions which lie at the basis of the state structure. With the end of the long boom of post-war expansion, the underlying tendencies toward a crisis of capital accumulation became manifest. The deteriorating effectiveness of established techniques of economic management, and the failure of the Liberal government to develop a coherent program of capitalist planning set the immediate context for the program of wage and price controls. The objective of controls was to restrict the rate of wage increases, thereby easing the downward trend in profit levels and relaxing the fiscal crisis of the state. The record of the Anti-Inflation Board revealed two general characteristics of the current economic and social crisis. First, the capitalist state is virtually powerless to exercise any influence over the long term pattern of inflation and slump. At the present stage of capitalism, attempts to plan economic development simply exacerbate the inherent anarchy of capitalist production. Second, the weakness of organised labour's opposition to controls indicates the urgent necessity for a restructuring of the economic and political organisation of the working class in order to defend the economic and social gains of the postwar period.
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During the Depression Canadian workers faced a series of assaults on their wages and working conditions. Threatened by shrinking markets, Canadian employers moved to reduce labour costs. When the Canadian Western Lumber Company at Fraser Mills, B.C., attempted to follow the pattern being set throughout the Canadian economy, the millworkers went out on strike. Lasting for two and half months, the labour protest by the millworkers and their families ended in success. The success of the 1931 strike stands in sharp contrat to the generally abysmal performance of organized labour during the thirties. The strength of this particular protest was derived from two totally unrelated factors. The strike was led by the militant Lumber Workers' Industrial Union, an affiliate of the Workers' Unity League. During the thirtiees the Workers' Unity League was one of the most dynamic labour organizations in Canada. The real strength of the protest, however, lay in features to the community. The worker community of Maillardville/Fraser Mills was remarkably stable and socially cohesive. This was largely due to the existence of a persistant, tightly organized community of French-Canadian workers. The workforce at Fraser Mills had a well-defined associational network which not only faciliated organization prior to the strike but also ensured its success once the strike was underway. This study of the Fraser Mills strike of 1931 analyzes the relationship between labour protest and the community from which it emerged.