Embedded Files
Canadian Flag History
Nineteen thirty-three was a difficult year for working people in Canada. A quarter of all wage earners were looking for jobs and many needed “relief” to cover the basics. And yet, that fall, hundreds of workers at Stratford’s furniture factories decided that years of wage cuts and unpredictable shifts could no longer be tolerated. They joined the Chesterfield and Furniture Workers’ Industrial Union, recently established by the Workers’ Unity League, and went on strike. In short order, women working as chicken pluckers at the Swift food-processing plant walked off the job as well. They were no longer prepared to endure terrible working conditions and “abusive and vile” language from their foremen for the reward of 2 cents per chicken.
They were later joined by men from the butter, egg and cream departments. The city’s unionized railway workers supported the strikers. There had been layoffs and wage cuts at the CNR as well.
Within a few days of the strike starting, trucks attempting to leave the Preston Noelting plant with radio cabinets were stopped by a large crowd. Stones were thrown. One truck broke down – perhaps because a spark plug had been removed – and, when some people began pulling the load off into the street, local police intervened. The union held a parade through the downtown to a rally at the bandshell next to the lake on Sept. 22. Talks were held at five of the factories that afternoon, with negotiations breaking down for all the plants by the next day. Mayor G. I. Graff was asked to provide police protection to allow replacement workers into the factories. At the Swift plant, replacement workers were brought in. The police chief estimated that 1,000 strikers and their supporters arrived to protest.
Strike-breakers were escorted out with police protection as power lines had been cut, and rocks and eggs were thrown. Extra provincial police had arrived to help and were needed again the next day. Billy clubs and tear gas were used on the strikers and their supporters. The factory foreman promised to meet with the striking workers the next day and peace was restored.
However, such incidents convinced the provincial attorney general the police needed assistance from the military. On Sept. 27, soldiers and “baby tanks” – actually machine gun carriers – arrived from London on a passenger train and waited for trucks to take them to the armouries on Waterloo Street. Thousands gathered at the lakeside bandshell that night, demanding the troops be sent away and the mayor resign. There was another parade on Sept. 28, complete with a mock-up tank named Big Bertha, escorted by guards wearing pots and pans as their steel helmets – seen here in a photograph from Stratford-Perth Archives.
The Beacon-Herald reported that more than 1,500 men, women and children marched to protest the troops that had been sent to Stratford. It was reported “the parade formed at the strikers’ headquarters in the former Brooks Steam Motor Co. plant on Ontario street and wound its way through the east end of the city, past the furniture factories and then through the downtown section passing the armouries on two occasions. As they passed the building, loud boos and jeers were hurled at members of the militia units who were leaning out of the upstairs windows and apparently enjoying the demonstrations.” Perhaps this was the event recalled by proud “East Ender” Marj Gibson. Gibson’s father worked at Kroehler’s. Marj recalled the anger about the militia’s arrival and remembers riding in a truck with her father and other striking workers, singing as they were driven up and down streets all over town.
Her memories are preserved in Lindsay Kroes’ collection of Stratford Stories published in 2013 as Gather by the Avon. At the end of the parade, the crowd learned that replacement workers had returned to the Swift plant so they rushed over there. Oliver (O.J.) Kerr, a longserving machinist and chair of the shop committee at the Stratford Chair Company, as well as a city alderman and the de facto leader of all of the striking workers, convinced the crowd not to storm in and arranged for a committee to meet with company executives later. The Swift plant closed indefinitely on Sept. 29.
The troops did not leave until Nov. 4. In the meantime, the strikes continued with factory owners now refusing to negotiate with the Chesterfield and Furniture Workers’ Union because of its relationship with the Workers’ Unity League. Workers received letters declaring the Criminal Code “allowed for imprisonment of members and supporters of illegal organizations such as the Communist party and its auxiliary bodies.”
One striking worker’s response was quoted in the paper — “we don’t give a potter’s damn whether or not Minster and Collins (the WUL organizers) are Reds. We aren’t interested in their politics and they are only here to organize and keep us running. We are out for better working conditions and, if they succeed in establishing a union for us that will give us the protection we want, we don’t care what they are.”
Skirmishes continued and benefit rallies were held in nearby cities to collect money, food and clothing for the workers and their families. Yet, morale was sinking. Winter weather was coming in and the factory owners seemed to be making plans to relocate. More or less identical contracts were signed in early November with all of the furniture factories. The Swift strike also ended on Nov. 3. Nancy Stunden wrote her master’s thesis on the Stratford Strikes in 1975.
She concluded “the Stratford furniture and food workers ended their strikes because they realized that to continue would be pointless and self-defeating. The Stratford workers did not win their strikes in 1933. However, they did achieve substantial improvements in their working conditions and they demonstrated their determination and ability to stand up to their employers. Their triumph came one month later when O. J. Kerr led a slate of labour candidates to victory over the Property Owners’ Association in the most hotly contested municipal election ever witnessed in the city” to become mayor of Stratford, along with six labour councillors. Source: Betty Jo Belton, Stratford-Perth Archives
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse