VANESSA CHILDS ROLLS: 100th anniversary of one of the most influential strikes in Cape Breton

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This summer marks the 100th anniversary of one of the most influential strikes in Cape Breton history: the Sydney steel strike. This strike was soundly broken by the company but it had lasting impacts on the Cape Breton workforce for generations.

During the First World War, the Dominion Iron and Steel Company was making record profits but the post-war era saw a sharp decline in their sales and demand for Cape Breton steel. The situation was further aggravated by the development of steel plants in Ontario which fed the expanding western frontier by proximity and cheaper shipping fees.

From 1917 on, the steelworkers belonged to the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labour. In 1919, the Dominion Steel Corporation was bought out and renamed the British Empire Steel Corporation. BESCO, as it was called, controlled all steel and coal production in Cape Breton and beyond. The new company was run by a new manager Roy Wolvin, or as the workers lovingly called him, Roy the Wolf.

BESCO’s first attempt to make a profit came at the expense of the workers. The company cut wages drastically, sometimes by two-thirds. As a result of their pay cuts, unionism spread across the steel plants and the coal mines like wildfire.

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Wolvin recognized that unionism was unavoidable but he did not want a worker-driven union. He preferred a company union, which would be firmly under the control of the company. He tried to organize a joint employer-employee plant council. This idea was defeated by a general referendum in 1922 by a vote of 1562 to 1021.

Wages were not the only problem the steelworkers had. Conditions at the plant were at issue as well. Workers worked 11-hour shifts during the day and 13-hour shifts at night, often seven days a week with no holidays.

Further, work conditions at the steel plant were unsafe. The men handled molten steel with very little safety equipment. They would return home at night dirty, with burn holes in their clothes, and on their skin.

Clearly, the workers needed change in their work environment.

On March 14, 1923, BESCO posted notices around the plant establishing company policy. They would keep an open shop. There would be no check-off. There would be no wage increases and finally, there would be no changes in the hours of work.

As discontent grew, Roy Wolvin convinced the premier of Nova Scotia that there was an outbreak of Bolshevism that needed federal and provincial intervention to maintain the peace. Premier Ernest Howard Armstrong was also aware the BESCO provided two-thirds of the provincial government’s revenue and was responsible for 45 per cent of the coal mined in Canada. Any stoppage would impact the province’s bottom line. So, the premier sent soldiers and the provincial police to maintain the peace, protect scab workers and keep the strikers under control. On June 30, a train full of soldiers and provincial police arrived from Halifax.

The soldiers and the police camped at the plant and they installed searchlights on the nail mill and machine guns on the plant gates. Tensions were high and the strikers clashed with the soldiers and the provincial police almost daily.

July 1, 1923, was Bloody Sunday. A group of mounted provincial police rode down Victoria Road and into Whitney Pier. A group of people returning from church were caught in the street unaware. The provincial police galloped in, bats and clubs swinging. One group of people ran from the police into the lobby of a local hotel. They were followed by the men on horseback into the hotel. On that day many men, women and children were trampled and beaten.

J.B. McLauchlin wrote extensively about the incident and drew attention to the cause. He organized a sympathetic strike by coal miners. Sadly, this was not the best time for a coal miner’s strike as the company took the strike as a shutdown that they were in no hurry to end. McLachlan, however, was arrested for seditious libel shortly thereafter.

John. L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America, placed the coal miners under his trusteeship and suspended their union leaders. This ended the miner’s sympathetic strike.

After the steelworkers lost the support of the miners they were faced with mass eviction from their company-owned homes. This pressure caused the strikers to fold. They gave up their demands and accepted a company union. The company announced that with a reduction in steel orders, they were unable to employ as many workers as they had before the strike. Also, several strikers were blacklisted. BESCO declared they would take back “no chronic troublemakers.” Those who were blacklisted, most of them Ukrainians, ended up leaving the area. There was no one left to lead the union charge at the steel plant. Those who were lucky enough to get rehired but had been vocal during the strike were given less than glamorous jobs on the plant. Some of the men called it purgatory. The company union ran until the United Steel Workers of America established a union in 1936.

The breaking of the steelworkers had a lasting impact on the Sydney workforce and the coal miners. Perhaps breaking the union only taught workers what the consequences of giving in were and that was a price too high to pay.