Cape Breton coal strike of 1981

The Cape Breton coal strike of 1981 was a strike by coal miners who were members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) District 26 against the Cape Breton Development Corporation (DEVCO) of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada. It was the first strike by District 26 since 1947. The high double-digit inflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s affected the buying power for the miners. The strike, which was bitter and violent, began on July 17, 1981. It ended on October 8, 1981 after the fourth contract vote.

1981 Cape Breton coal strike
DateJuly 17–October 8, 1981
Location
Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
GoalsWage increases
MethodsStrike, sabotage, bombing
Resulted inSchism within the union, lower than asked-for wage increase
Parties
Number
4,000 miners

In the aftermath of the strike, the UMW leadership, both locally and internationally were criticized. The UMW did not issue the pre-paid strike fund, so the miners went 13 weeks without any pay. The local's president and executive were removed by the president of the UMW in 1983. It was a move to stop a challenge from a new Canadian union trying to decertify the UMW. In the end, the UMW prevailed, but the strike left bitter feelings between the local and the international union.

Historical context

Coal miners in Nova Scotia were first organized by the Provincial Workmen's Association (PWA) in 1881.[1] The United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) attempted to organize the miners and supplant the PWA in 1909.[2] The two unions fought for control, but in 1917 joined forces and formed the Amalgamated Mine Workers of Nova Scotia.[1] The Amalgamated affiliated fully with UMWA within three years.[2] Miners were represented continuously by District 26 of UMWA over the next 80 years. Strikes during this period were exceedingly rare. Nevertheless, major and often violent work stoppages occurred in 1920s.[2]

BESCO/DOSCO

In 1920, the British Empire Steel Corporation (BESCO) took ownership of all coal mines on Cape Breton Island.[3] UMWA and BESCO had an extremely adversarial relationship. Three strikes in 1921, 1922 and 1925 eventually damaged BESCO.[4][5]

The company was not making a profit and was reorganized, emerging in 1928 as the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation.[5] In the post-war period of the 1950s and 1960s, technological innovation, the difficulty of mining coal (coal in Cape Breton was increasingly mined from veins under the sea floor), and the availability of natural gas (piped from oil fields in Western Canada) led to rapid decreases in the amount of coal mined as well as the number of miners.[6] The economic viability of the Cape Breton mines declined significantly to the point that they were only operable because of federal government subsidies.[7]

DEVCO

On July 7, 1967, the Cape Breton Development Corporation (DEVCO) – a federal crown corporation – was founded.[5] Its original mandate was to close the mines, but when it took ownership of the Cape Breton mines management discovered they could continue for at least another 15 years with modernization.[8] Relations between the District 26 and the various companies that owned the mines post-war were good. These amicable labour relations meant there was over 33 years of labour peace since the previous strike in 1947.[4]

Strike

Lead-up to the Strike

Wages became a major issue as the 1980-81 recession and double-digit inflation eroded a miner's buying power.[9] The miners were without a contract since December 31, 1980 and were making a base pay of $58 per day (roughly $181 CAD in 2023).[9] Nova Scotia judge Nathan Green wrote a conciliation report in spring 1981 recommending an $8.50 (roughly $26 CAD in 2023) per day raise, each year, over a two-year contract that DEVCO accepted.[9] However, when District 26's president, Ray Holland, brought it to a ratification vote on July 7, the rank and file members rejected it 1,954 to 827.[9] On July 13, Holland informed DEVCO president Steve Rankin that they were in a legal strike situation, and would strike if they didn't get a better offer from the new federal mediator.[9]

The Strike Begins

On July 17, 1981, 4,000 miners in the Cape Breton coal fields went on strike against DEVCO. The miners sought a 50 percent wage increase over two years.[10] It was the first strike since nationalization of the mines in 1968.[5] The 13-week strike was a bitter one.[11] When the Cabinet of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau met in Sydney, Nova Scotia, in mid-September 1981, striking miners forced their way onto the airport tarmac and cornered Mark MacGuigan and local Member of Parliament Russell MacLellan to demand an end to the strike.[12] The 125 or so strikers were expecting Prime Minister Trudeau but his plane arrived a few hours later.[12] Three federal mediators attempted to negotiate an end to the strike, and three times the miners rejected tentative contracts (the last one proposing a 50 percent wage hike over three years).[13]

Vandalism against company property began in August, and quickly escalated. In mid-September, a bomb was detonated at a DEVCO mine, and DEVCO coal rail cars derailed at the company's Lingan mine in New Waterford.[14]

A fourth federal mediator arrived just days after the bombings. The strike finally ended on October 8, 1981, when a tentative agreement which raised wages 50 percent over two years was ratified.[11][15]

Missing UMW Strike Fund

160,000 UMW members were on a 72-day strike in the United States during the spring of 1981.[16] This major strike only ended on June 6, 1981.[17] There was no money left in the international union's strike fund.[18] The Cape Breton miners were deeply angered when the UMW was unable to support their District 26 strike after paying the American union millions of dollars in dues since their last strike.[18] A delegation from District 26 went to the UMW's headquarters in Washington, D.C. during the strike and were told "it was their responsibility to provide a strike fund."[15] To support the strike effort, the local union organized a United Mine Workers Wives Association to raise funds and provide food, financial support, and other charity for strikers' families.[18]

Aftermath

Seething over the international union's inability to fund the strike, dissident miners attempted to organize their own union with the help and support of the Confederation of Canadian Unions (CCU).[11] The attempt to decertify the United Mine Workers and replace it with a new union was part of a larger movement among Canadian labour unions to split away from their parent "international" unions in the United States.[19] Widespread discontent existed over the amount of dues sent to international union headquarters in America (many Canadian unions called them "profits") and the relatively minor attention given to the problems of Canadian workers in return.[19]

The CCU founded the Canadian Mineworkers Union, and began an organizing campaign in 1982.[20] In a federally-supervised union election in March 1983, the miners voted 1,750 to 1,393 against affiliating with the CMU.[20] CMU forced a second election in March 1984 when it signed up a majority of DEVCO's 3,400 workers.[20] The UMWA's new president, Richard Trumka, flew in from Washington about a week before the second vote. His visit boosted the UMWA and the miners rejected disaffiliation a second time by a vote of 1,795 to 1,242.[19] CMU's support declined quickly thereafter, as miners became disenchanted with the constant campaigning for votes. UMWA was never challenged again, and continued to represent miners on Cape Breton Island for the next 17 years.

However, the economic viability of the Cape Breton coal mines continued to decline.[21] On September 13, 1999, DEVCO's Lingan Phalen mine was abruptly closed a year early because of safety concerns making 430 miners jobless.[22] DEVCO closed all mines in 2001, and UMWA Local 26 disbanded.[23]

Citations
  1. Coats, R.H. (1923). "The Labour Movement in Canada". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 107 (1): 283–285. doi:10.1177/000271622310700140. S2CID 144819997. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  2. CBC Staff (December 8, 2004). "INDEPTH: CAPE BRETON – The Unions". CBC News Online. Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on May 27, 2005. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  3. "British Empire Steel and Coal Company (BESCO)". MemoryNS. Sydney, N.S.: Beaton Institute Archive. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  4. Davis, Murdoch (June 13, 1980). "How my great-grandfather was killed by mine police". The Citizen. Ottawa. p. 48. Retrieved July 25, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. CBC Staff (December 8, 2004). "INDEPTH: CAPE BRETON – Cape Breton Coal". CBC News Online. Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on May 25, 2005. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  6. Tupper, Allan (Autumn 1978). "Public Enterprise as Social Welfare: The Case of the Cape Breton Development Corporation". Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 4 (4): 530–534. doi:10.2307/3549976. ISSN 0317-0861. JSTOR 3549976. Retrieved July 26, 2023 – via JSTOR.
  7. Dow, Alistair (September 20, 1967). "Subsidies: Not Economic but Political". Toronto Daily Star. Toronto Star Limited. p. 25. ProQuest 1418607737. Retrieved July 26, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  8. Watkins, Lyndon (January 5, 1968). "Cape Breton's Coal Mines Far From Finished, DEVCO President Discovers". The Globe and Mail. Toronto: The Globe and Mail Limited. p. B5. Retrieved July 26, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  9. CP Staff (July 15, 1981). "Coal strike could be first since 1947". Alberni Valley Times. Alberni, British Columbia: Sterling Newspapers Ltd. The Canadian Press. p. 20. ISSN 0839-2706. Retrieved July 28, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. CP Staff (October 5, 1981). "Nova Scotia miners set to vote on new contract". Toronto Star. Torstar. The Canadian Press. p. A16. Retrieved July 25, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  11. Donham, Parker Barss (October 19, 1981). "Bitter Strike Ends Bitterly". MacLean's. Vol. 94, no. 48. Toronto. p. 48. ISSN 0024-9262.
  12. Ferguson, John (September 9, 1981). "Striking miners shout angrily at cabinet ministers". The Wig-Standard. Kingston, Ontario. The Canadian Press. p. 13. Retrieved July 25, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. Plaskin, "Nova Scotia Premier to Meet With Striking Miners," United Press International, September 16, 1981.
  14. "Regional News," United Press International, September 19, 1981.
  15. CP Staff (October 5, 1981). "Miners to vote on tentative pact". Star-Phoenix. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The Canadian Press. p. 11. Retrieved July 26, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. Globe Staff (June 9, 1981). "Coal miners begin work return". The Globe and Mail. Canadian Newspaper Company Limited. p. B21. ProQuest 1143190655. Retrieved July 25, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  17. Franklin, Ben A. (June 2, 1981). "MINERS' PRESIDENT RECEIVES PRAISE ON TRIP PROMOTING NEW COAL PACT". The New York Times. p. B7. Archived from the original on August 21, 2023. Retrieved August 21, 2023.
  18. Story, Alan (January 30, 1983). "David and Goliath in N.S. mine fight". The Winnipeg Sun. Sun Media. p. 12. Retrieved July 25, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. Martins, Douglas (March 12, 1984). "A CANADIAN SPLIT ON UNIONS". New York Times. p. D12. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 25, 2023.
  20. Donham, Parker Barss (January 28, 1984). "Labor battles on hold as 'rebel' leader settles in". The Globe and Mail. Toronto. p. 8. ProQuest 386546995. Retrieved July 25, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  21. DePalma, Anthony (August 28, 2001). "Canada Shuts Atlantic Coal Mines for Efficiency". New York Times. p. A4. Archived from the original on July 25, 2023. Retrieved July 24, 2023.
  22. AP Staff (September 14, 1999). "Cape Breton colliery, closes lays off 430 miners". Toronto Star. Torstar. The Associated Press. p. A6. ProQuest 1348927609. Retrieved July 25, 2023 – via ProQuest.
  23. CBC Staff (November 22, 2001). "Cape Breton's Last Underground Coal Mine Closing". CBC News. Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on October 24, 2020. Retrieved July 24, 2023.

See also

References
  • Earle, Michael and Gamberg, Herbert. "The United Mine Workers and the Coming of the CCF to Cape Breton." Workers and the State in Twentieth Century Nova Scotia. Michael Earle, ed. Fredericton, Nova Scotia: Acadiensis Press, 1989. ISBN 0-919107-21-4
  • Forbes, Ernest R. The Maritime Rights Movement, 1919-1927. Paperback ed. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1979. ISBN 0-7735-0330-7
  • Frank, David. "Industrial Democracy and Industrial Legality: The UMWA in Nova Scotia, 1908-1927." In The United Mine Workers of America: A Model of Industrial Solidarity? John H.M. Laslett, ed. State College, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-271-01537-3
  • Macgillivray, Don. "Military Aid to the Civil Power: The Cape Breton Experience in the 1920s." In Cape Breton Historical Essays. Don Macgillivray and Brian Tennyson, eds. Sydney, Nova Scotia: College of Cape Breton, 1980. ISBN 0-09-233604-3
  • Mackay, Ian and Morton, Suzanne. "The Maritimes: Expanding the Circle of Resistance." In The Workers' Revolt in Canada, 1917-1925. Craig Heron, ed. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8020-8082-0
  • MacKinnon, Harvey. "Cape Breton Coal Unrest." New Maritimes. February 1983.
  • Meller, John. The Company Store: James Bryson McLachlan and the Cape Breton Coal Miners, 1900-1925. Toronto: Doubleday Canada Limited, 1983. ISBN 0-385-12812-6
  • Remple, Chris. "Cape Breton Miners Tell Story of Their Fight." The Militant. March 27, 2000.
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