General strike

I believe this social movement is a significant example of the need for comprehensive reform to the Criminal Code. “The Winnipeg General Strike” began in 1919 which was less than thirty years after the Criminal Code was enacted. This was one of the most influential social movements in Canada. Their intention was to earn rights for Canadian workers through strikes. Canada virtually had no labor laws at this time so workers fought to gain their rights. I believe this social movement represented the need for changes to be made to the Criminal Code as this movement was an illegal six week strike and was threatening to Canada. The government responded to fear by overreacting and allowing the RCMP to brutalize demonstrators. The book titled When the State Trembled by Reinhold Kramer and Tom Mitchell, supports my argument that the government did not know how to respond to such a movement. The authors “not only disclose the relationship between the state and private structures in civil society during periods of deep social crisis, but also says something about state formation, the public sphere, the languages…

The Winnipeg General strike started on May 1st, 1919 due to metal and building workers who wanted a higher wages. Two weeks later the Labour Councils and the Winnipeg trades also decided to join the strike to support metal and building workers. Despite the fact that the Winnipeg General strike was a fail it was still one of the biggest strikes in Canada. It involved about 25,000 to 30,000 Canadian workers. The strike ended on June 26th, 1919 and left a lot of people disappointed. During the…

Till date, the Winnipeg General strike has left a lasting impact on unions and government enforced legislation against workers. In this essay, I argue that the committee indeed was the leading cause of the Winnipeg General strike in 1919, known as Bloody Saturday. Due to failing negotiations, harsh measures to stop the strike and basic humanitarian needs, the strike was simply an outcry of the situation. The situation had been bubbling up longer then the Saturday itself. Negotiations had…

A staggering 30,000 Winnipeg citizens refused to work between May 15 to June 25 of 1919 in Canada’s largest and best known strike, the Winnipeg General Strike. After World War I, Canada was not in a peaceful state, as soldiers returned to find their original jobs occupied, and horrid wages and working conditions for workers. With unemployment and bankruptcy rates reaching their highest ever, 30,000 Winnipeg citizens held a strike, declining to return to their jobs until they have been granted…

A strike is a refusal to work organized by a body of employees as a form of protest, typically in an attempt to gain a concession or concessions from their employer. (www.dictionary.com). The Winnipeg General Strike killed the city in a couple of hours where movement was postponed because of the lack of workers. The strike was historically significant because of its events and also because of it’s before and after effects. The following essay will demonstrate how in all of Canadian history, with…

Manitoba — The Winnipeg General Strike finally came to an end on June 26th, 1919, and the members of the Central Strike Committee returned to work as of yesterday. Although this was the most massive general strike in Canadian history, the government fails to acknowledge the demands of the strikers. This strike started at the end of World War I when the soldiers arrived home from the war front. As a result of the war, Canada’s economy entered recession causing many of factories to shut down…

General Overview: Resentment among the working class has been growing in Winnipeg for several years. Unions (employees) complained that Government supported employers over workers. In the spring of 1919, the Winnipeg metal and building trades began negotiations with their employers. As they usually demand for higher wages and an eight- hour workday, the unions demanded the right to collective bargaining - to negotiate on behalf of their members rather than each worker negotiating for him or…

Politics aside, 1919 was also a year of a number of huge scales social protests and riots. The Seattle General Strike, for one, was a five days strike of workers demanding a higher wage. The strike first started with about 35,000 participants but had grown to 60,000 by the time it ended on January 16th. Although no violence was involved throughout the whole protest, the Seattle General Strike was, however, considered by many as a radical attempt of overthrowing the US institution. Another…

The Great Railroad Strike started on July 17, 1877 in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Employers cut pay for workers because of the debt the country was in from fighting in the Civil War. Many workers did not support this. Railroad companies stopped working and started striking. Workers stopped all trains and blocked any traffic from coming to the stations. Federal troops were called in to stop the strike, but they were unsuccessful. The strike spread to Baltimore, Maryland. This went from peaceful…

The first repercussion of the strike was the destruction of PATCO. At the beginning of the strike, a federal court impounded PATCO’s $3.5 million strike fund and another federal judge imposed fines totaling $4.75 million on the union.On AUgust fourth judge Thomas C. Platt in New York fined PATCO $100,000 per hour for defying a 1970 injunction against striking. The President of the AFL-CIO Lane Kirkland expressed outrage at Reagan, who was described as ‘union busting’ by labor leaders. It was…