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First Strike In Saskatchewan
The first strike known to have occurred in the territory that would become Saskatchewan took place in 1777 at CUMBERLAND HOUSE: that first labour dispute, led by Orkney Islanders James Batt and William Taylor, resulted in an increase in wages for employees who worked at the HBC’s inland posts, as opposed to those assigned to less arduous work at posts located on Hudson’s Bay. -
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Labour Law In Saskatchewan
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Trade Union Act
It would not be until 1872, when the government of Sir John A. Macdonald passed The Trade Union Act, that Canadian workers could legally belong to an organization that tried to engage in collective bargaining. -
Construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway
The construction of the CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY (CPR), which began in the early 1880s, saw a new wave of wage earners appear on the Canadian PRAIRIES. A small army of men and hundreds of horses and mules were required to build the roadbed and lay the tracks for the new railroad. Approximately 7,600 men were employed in the construction of the CPR from central Canada to the Pacific coast; about of third of that number worked on the construction of the prairie section. -
Maple Creek Strike against the CPR
Labour disputes erupted during construction of the railroads when wages were late or pay cuts were threatened. A strike by construction crews occurred near MAPLE CREEK in 1883; the boomers’ picket lines were broken by a contingent of North-West Mounted Police. In most of the strikes involving late wages, the boomers refused to return to work until their wages had been paid. -
Settlement Boom Starts
During the settlement boom, which lasted roughly from 1900 to 1913, many workers came west to take advantage of plentiful job opportunities and of wages that were typically higher than what could be earned in central Canada. -
Exodus Of Labour Following World War I
The settlement boom and the frenzied business speculation that accompanied it sputtered out by the time World WAR I began in 1914. Once it became clear that the war would be a long one, more workers left the province to seek jobs elsewhere, reducing the need for municipalities to provide relief work to the unemployed. -
Women Push For The Ban on Alcohol
The forces of temperance including the WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE UNION campaigned for PROHIBITION, deploring the fact that some families went hungry because Saturday’s pay packet was squandered at the bar before the worker made it home. The battle for the prohibition of the sale of alcohol in the province was won in 1917, following the awarding of the electoral franchise to women in 1916; the taps would stay turned off until 1925. -
Minimum Wage Created
The province’s first Minimum Wage Act, passed in 1919, applied only to female workers: it excluded domestic servants, even though these accounted for most of the women working at the time. -
The Stagnant 20's
There was little for working people to roar about during the 1920s. Saskatchewan’s business community and the province’s labour movement eagerly anticipated a return to pre-war prosperity, but wishing didn’t make it so: the provincial economy never matched the settlement boom growth for the next two decades. -
Union Boom Post WWII
The union movement experienced growth on many fronts during the post-war period. By the early 1970s Saskatchewan’s workforce was one of the most unionized in the country, with over 20% of workers belonging to unions.
