1914 Saint John street railway strike
Saint John street railway strike | |||
---|---|---|---|
Date | 22 July 1914 - 24 July 1914 | ||
Location | |||
Caused by | Firing of union members, punitive enforcement of policies | ||
Methods | Strike, riot | ||
Resulted in | Success. Union members re-hired. | ||
Parties | |||
| |||
Lead figures | |||
Fred Ramsey, Sidney Mosher H.M. Hopper | |||
Number | |||
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Casualties | |||
Injuries | 2+ dragoons, many rioters[1] | ||
Arrested | 14+ rioters[1] |
The Saint John street railway strike of 1914 (sometimes called the Saint John street railwaymen's strike)[1] was a strike by workers on the street railway system in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, which lasted from 22–24 July 1914, with rioting by Saint John inhabitants occurring on 23 and 24 July. The strike shattered the image of Saint John as a conservative town dominated primarily by ethnic and religious (rather than class) divisions, and highlighting tensions between railway industrialists and the local working population.
Background
Political climate
The strike and subsequent riot followed in a tradition of mass militant activity which preceded it by decades. Ethno-religious conflict, embodied by struggles between Orangemen and Irish Catholics, began in the 1840s and involved repeated episodes of violence and intimidation, with Orangemen conducting armed marches through Irish neighbourhoods for decades. This conflict strengthened ethnic and religious allegiances, especially between Protestant workers and their Protestant employers.
Warning shocks of the conflict to come were indicated by repeated episodes of crowd violence starting in the early 1900s, often revolving around holidays such as New Year's Eve, which would set a tone of decisive mass action on the part of ordinary people living in Saint John.
Street railway
Starting in 1866, public transit consisted of horse-drawn cars which mostly funneled traffic from the ocean to ferries on the
Positive public opinion on the trolley system quickly soured, with citizens complaining of infrequent service and overcrowded cars. The company delayed expansion of the system to Saint John's West Side, with contemporary critics claiming it as an issue of class, arguing that "the railway clings to the streets where the nickels are the thickest."
Following the Tory victory in the 1908 provincial election, a Board of Public Utility Commissioners was formed and given the ability to fine utility companies for violating utility regulations, raising the stakes of the struggle. A warning sign appeared on New Year's Eve in 1910, when 500-600 people vandalized a streetcar.
In 1913, with new suburban lines seemingly not forthcoming, the city introduced bills to charter a rival railway company. Further attempts by the city to purchase the railway failed, and the company executives issued even more stock to finance moderate expansions amid complaints of overcrowding in the downtown and the inaccessibility of suburbs. By then, it had come under the control of Colonel Hugh H. McLean (a prominent Orangeman and maritime lawyer, known for representing Canadian Pacific and Bank of Montreal interests), F.R. Taylor (a member of his law firm), Senator W.H. Thorne (a prominent merchant), and James Manchester (part-owner of the leading wholesaler in the Maritimes). H.M. Hopper was the general manager of the company.
Railway union
In the midst of this crisis appeared Local 663 of the
The company reception to the formation of the eighty-member Local 663 was abrupt and decisive, with ten-year employee and local union president Fred Ramsey being summarily fired for abandoning his trolley car to go into a saloon, a charge he denied; and the company refusing to negotiate with the union's business agent. The union made a filing under the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act to challenge Ramsay's firing and threatening a strike if the company did not negotiate. In the subsequent hearing, Ramsey's coworkers and the saloon keeper all denied that he had entered the saloon, and a company inspector failed to find evidence of any wrongdoing on Ramsey's part. Only a detective hired by the company was left claiming Ramsey's guilt. In the investigation, three trolley workers claimed harassment by company management over the union, bolstering the union's position. The investigation concluded by ruling that Ramsey would be re-hired by the company and instructing the company to negotiate with the union leadership. Instead, the company refused to re-hire Ramsey or negotiate with the union. It also instated new, very strict employee regulations, then fired more and more workers for claimed violation of them: eight men on July 18, then three on July 20, all prominent union members who were replaced with non-union workers. At 3am on July 22, the union declared a strike.
Strike
The union began with pickets at the car barns where the trolleys were stored overnight, which prevented two-thirds of the trolley cars from leaving the barns. Meanwhile, the company had hired fifty professional strikebreakers from a Montréal agency and the mayor of Saint John swore in six "special" police officers. As the day went on, many of the non-union trolley operators simply abandoned their cars in the street and joined the strikers. The union also made the tactical decision to hire a horse-drawn bus to provide service to Saint John inhabitants who were inconvenienced from the strike, winning public support and denying the company fares in the same act.
By the afternoon of July 22, crowds of bystanders had gathered to alternately cheer on the strikers and jeer at scabs. By the evening, a crowd of 2000 people had gathered to cheer on the strikers, which swelled to 7-8000 in the space of a few hours.
On July 23, fifteen strikebreakers arrived from Montréal, but union business agent Sidney Mosher warned that the union had no ability to control the crowd if it turned violent. Numerous incidents occurred of citizens blocking tracks or otherwise delaying trolleys throughout the day. The situation peaked when a mob of up to 10,000 people tossed small stones at passing trolleys in King Square, with the crowd defending itself from police attacks, disarming one policeman when he fired on them with his revolver. The street railway workers maintained strict discipline and were not involved in the fight.
![The aftermath of the riot, taken on the morning of July 24, 1914.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cc/1914_Saint_John_riot_aftermath.jpg/220px-1914_Saint_John_riot_aftermath.jpg)
By 9pm, Mayor James Frink had made the decision to read the
The deadlock was broken by Fred Ramsey's resignation as union president in exchange for accepting a job with the city public works department, a deal negotiated between him and John B.M. Baxter, the city recorder, who acted as an informal negotiator. In exchange, the company agreed to re-hire the fired workers and to guarantee them a right of appeal against dismissals in the future, with an agreement ratified by 11:30 that night.
Aftermath
Saint John, seen as a conservative town with a highly established social order, was wracked with controversy as a result of the rioting. Newspapers were indignant about the loss of public order. Politicians, conscious of the unpopularity of the railway company, refused to pay for the damages incurred (a total of $15,560) by rioters. Additionally, almost all of the rioters escaped with minor injuries, and those who were arrested mostly had their charges dismissed. All were soon distracted by the
References
- ^ ISSN 0044-5851. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
- ^ Babcock, Robert H. "The Saint John Street Railwaymen's Strike and Riot. 1914". Frank and Ella Hathaway Labour Exhibit Centre. Archived from the original on 2016-04-27. Retrieved 13 May 2016.
- ^ "Social Violence". University of New Brunswick. Retrieved 13 May 2016.