The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
The past decade or so has not been a good one for organized labour. Unions have at best stagnated.
The real growth of organized labour in Wellington County came with the aftermath of the First World War, and with the big industrial unions in the late 1930s and 1940s. The roots, though, go back a couple of generations before that, to the Nine Hour Movement and union activity in the early 1870s.
Organized labour first appeared in Wellington County in 1869, with a branch of the Order of St. Crispian in Guelph. Like fraternal organizations of the time, labour groups tended toward secrecy and ritual. Nothing of substance has survived concerning this organization. It may have been dominated by shoemakers, because St. Crispian is their patron saint.
The Coopers International Union achieved a higher profile when they set up branches in Guelph and Elora/Fergus in 1871. Organized in the United States in 1870, this union enjoyed remarkable success in the early 1870s, and growing to 10,000 members within a year.
Through the efforts of its Canadian organizer, John Howitt of Toronto, the Coopers Union achieved a strong presence in Canada. Howitt helped the union organize in Wellington County.
The Elora branch staged several brief strikes during 1871 and 1872, over issues of piece work rates and working conditions. Total employment at the three barrel making shops in Elora and Salem was less than 20 in the early 1870s, so these labour skirmishes got sorted out quickly. Nevertheless, public sentiment quickly mounted against the coopers. Without barrels the flour mills could not ship their product, with consequent ripple effects through the whole local economy.
Unable to maintain either member loyalty or momentum, the local branches folded after a few years, and the International Coopers Union itself expired in 1880.
A less aggressive organization was the Guelph Working Mens’ Association, established in early 1872. As much a social as a labour organization, it does not seem to have lasted more than a few months.
Other than the coopers, only a handful of trades had organized unions by the early 1870s: bakers, cigar makers, iron moulders, and typographers. Of these, the iron moulders showed the greatest inclination to unionize locally. Guelph’s largest industry in 1870 was the foundry of Inglis and Hunter, with about 50 employees. Another half-dozen foundries employed from 10 to 30 men.
At least one “union” was misnamed. The Tailors’ Trade Union organized in Elora in September of 1871. On close examination, though, this was not an association of workers, but of the proprietors of the village’s half-dozen tailoring shops.
They banded together to fix the rates they charged for alterations and custom-made clothing. Cheap ready-made clothing flooded the local market after the railway opened in 1870. A couple of the locals attempted to compete by lowering their prices, and the result was a suicidal downward spiral in their charges. This so-called union was really a cartel. Blacksmiths, bakers, and barbers adhered to similar voluntary agreements from time to time.
The early attempts at organizing the workforce found a focus in a desire for shorter hours. The Nine Hour Movement was the result. Interestingly, this movement seems to have been strongest in Canada, but it had its origins in England, and some activity could be found here and there in the United States.
Most factories of the 1870s worked a 10-hour day, and six days per week. Employers calculated wages on a per-day or per-week basis, rather than by the hour. The 10-hour day had gradually become standard across North America, after agitation by the Ten Hour Movement in the textile mills of New England in the late 1840s. There were many exceptions. Some shops worked 12, and a few as many as 14 hours per day, and some calculated their wages on a piece-work basis, allowing employees some flexibility in their hours of work.
A handful of union leaders formed the Nine Hour League early in 1872. The Canadian movement centred at Toronto, where the printers’ union had presented the city’s newspapers with a list of demands that included the nine-hour day.
By March 1872 the action had shifted to Hamilton and its numerous foundries and machine shops. In April, several employers locked out their workers, and shut down their operations rather than discuss the issue with Nine Hour leaders. Workers went on strike in other factories. By the first week of May, Hamilton’s entire metal working industry was idle, with more than 1,500 men out of work.
A branch of the Nine Hour League formed in Guelph in early April 1872, organized by the leaders of the Guelph Working Mens’ Club. Most came from Guelph’s foundries. Several hundred workers in Guelph supported the movement and sent some financial aid to Hamilton (where 10,000 workers and supporters paraded on May 15) and to the workers who had struck the giant Goldie & McCullough works in Galt in mid May.
Both sides in Guelph avoided confrontation and ultimatums. The workers met with their employers in the various shops, raised the issue of a shorter work day, and generally found sympathy with the concept, though all employers stated that it could not be implemented immediately.
One employer, the Guelph Sewing Machine Co., makers of the Osborne sewing machine, did grant a minor concession by reducing the Saturday work day to nine hours. Employees of the firm gathered after work to thank the proprietor, William Dyson, for the first step.
Dyson told his men that the nine-hour day could not be implemented until Canadian industry was stronger, but at the same time sensible people wanted “to avoid a cycle of strikes and lockouts.”
In Wellington County, interest in the Nine Hour movement did not spread far beyond Guelph. Elora workers watched developments but did nothing, and there was no interest at all in either Harriston or Mount Forest in the north. Employees of the new Wilson, Bowman & Co. sewing machine factory in Fergus seemed to be interested.
This was a branch plant of a Hamilton firm, and with 100 employees, the largest payroll in the county by a wide margin. Just as the Nine Hour Movement reached its peak, the factory laid off about half its workers while others retooled the plant. The owners were discontinuing the Lockman sewing machine, and had a contract to make the popular Singer machines.
To forestall labour agitation, Wilson, Bowman & Co. reduced their Saturday workday from 10 to five hours at Fergus and at Hamilton, where employees were threatening to strike. The Ontario Foundry, the other major Fergus employer, was closed in May 1872.
The Nine Hour Movement in Guelph peaked on May 28, with a huge rally called for the market grounds. Bad weather forced the early arrivals into City Hall, but the crowd continued to swell, forcing the speakers outside again. Eventually the crowd marched up to St. George’s Square. The Guelph Mercury put the numbers at 1,000, but other sources estimated the crowd was at least 2,000.
Guelph’s Nine Hour League invited the leaders from Hamilton to attend. They were glad to comply. To achieve success, they realized that the nine-hour day would need to be general to preserve the competitive relationships between employers and towns. D.M. Martin, head of Guelph’s Nine Hour League, presented a resolution to the crowd that reflected the moderate tone exhibited by both sides over the previous month: “That we, the working men of Guelph, do unanimously affirm that the nine hours movement has become a matter of urgent social necessity, and we pledge ourselves to co-operate with other Leagues throughout the Dominion in order to obtain it as speedily as possible.”
The crowd lustily cheered James Ryan of Hamilton when he got up to speak. The reception for Dr. William Clarke, the moss-backed politico who had dominated politics in the 1850s, was not so kind. The doctor claimed that a nine-hour day would ruin the country, and that he had always been happier when he could work 12 or 14 hours per day than 10. He persisted through a constant barrage of hisses, laughter, catcalls and insults. No one could call Dr. Clarke a coward.
A couple of speakers, representing employers, expressed sympathy with the nine-hour concept. One stated that it should be implemented in Guelph “when it becomes general throughout the country.”
On the other side, some people, both workers and employees, resented the fact that Hamilton men were present in a leadership role. They believed this was a Guelph issue, and should be settled locally, not by agitators from outside town.
At the end of the rally, the crowd endorsed the original motion by their cheers. But as the days lengthened into summer, the Nine Hour Movement quickly fizzled out.
Labour historians have long argued over the success of the movement. There were some immediate consequences. The Toronto printers achieved the nine-hour day immediately, as did the mechanics at the Great Western Railway shops in Hamilton. These gains led many workers to believe that the barn door was opened, and a general rush to the nine-hour day would follow in due course.
In Guelph, there was no hurry to reduce working hours, and the 10-hour day remained the standard for a generation, though most employers eventually reduced Saturday to a half day. The Nine Hour League, with its moderate tone, initiated a reputation for labour peace in Guelph that lasted into the 20th century.
In the decade following the events of 1872, only the moulders of the city established a strong union. There were also political consequences. The last holdout among the Toronto publishers was George Brown of the Globe. After a major rally of workers in the city, he had the leaders of the movement arrested for conspiracy. His vehemence surprised many: only a few months earlier, he had published editorials advocating an eight-hour day for factory workers.
Brown’s old foe, Sir John A. Macdonald, took advantage of Brown’s position. In June 1872 he introduced the Trade Unions Act into parliament. It made unions legal, and prevented leaders from being charged with conspiracy.
This Act made Macdonald popular with a large segment of the working class, and gave the Conservative Party a claim on the labour vote. And this had an impact on politics in Wellington County for the rest of the 19th century.
*This column was originally published in the Advertiser on Oct. 11, 2002.
