1919 Winnipeg General Strike Coming to Schools

Many people have said for many years that the near complete absence from the school curriculum of labour principles and issues is a serious problem. A project produced by the Manitoba Museum and funded by the Manitoba Department of Education, the University of Winnipeg Department of Education, and the Centre for Oral History at the University of Winnipeg is planning to correct that situation – at least in regard to Manitoba's watershed labour event, the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike..

MFL Convention delegates heard about the 'Strike Kit' from Sharon Reilly, Curator of Social History at the Manitoba Museum, and Nolan Reilly, Chair of the Department of History, University of Winnipeg. Nolan opened the presentation by talking how the idea for a general strike began when R. B. Russell, Helen Armstrong and several other labour leaders of the day were walking home from a meeting on the evening of May 14, 1919.

The idea caught on quickly, especially among women telephone operators who were the first to walk off the job. By noon of the first day of the general strike, between 30,000 and 50,000 workers were already off the job. The issues they were fighting for included an eight hour day and a living wage, but above all else, the strike was about forcing employers and governments to recognize their unions and the right to collective bargaining.

Despite the fact there was no strike pay, despite the fact most workers had nothing in the way of savings to live on, the solidarity of the workers was undiminished throughout the six weeks of the strike – which was finally brought to an end by Bloody Saturday, June 21. That tragic day that resulted in the death of two workers and injuries to many more may have ended the strike, but the solidarity forged during the strike lives on to this day.

Sharon Reilly told delegates that the Strike Kit will be placed in every high school in Manitoba by Christmas. It's designed to make it easy for teachers to talk about the strike and labour issues in the classroom. The kit contains replicas of various strike related items, including the badges and clubs (held by Nolan in above photo) used by the 'Specials”, additional police officers hired to break the strike – often by breaking strikers' bones.

The kit also contains five CDs of strike related documentaries produced by the CBC, National Film Board and the Manitoba Labour Education Centre. There is also an audio CD containing an oral history of the strike, recorded in the early 1970s as a series of interviews with people who lived through it.