One Big Union (Canada)

70,000 (1919)Robert B. Russell
Roger Ernest BrayAffiliationsSocialist Party of Canada

The One Big Union (OBU) was a left-wing industrial union based primarily in Western Canada.^[1] Launched formally in Calgary on June 4, 1919, the OBU, after a spectacular initial upsurge, lost most of its members within a few years. It finally merged with the Canadian Labour Congress in 1956.

Towards the end of World War I, labour activism in Western Canada became more radical. Western Canadian radicals protested the management of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada (TLC), the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the governments in power. Western unions were represented by only 45 of 400 delegates at the September 1918 TLC convention. Their resolutions to condemn Canada's efforts for World War I were defeated easily. Moreover, the socialist TLC president James Watters, who had had this post since 1911, was replaced by the conservative Tom Moore.

The federal state clamped down on radical publications and organizations, outlawing 14 organizations including the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). But, labour activists and socialists were determined not to allow the vision of a new society to die and established a new organization with the IWW motto, "Workers of the World, Unite!" as its credo.

Western TLC unionists met annually in what became known as the Western Labor Conferences. The 1919 event was held on March 13, prior to the annual national TLC congress. The WLC conference was dominated by members of the Socialist Party of Canada, who favored secession from the TLC. The majority at the conference voted to form a new "revolutionary industrial union" separate from the AFL/TLC, to be initiated officially at a convention scheduled for June 11.^[2] The conference also approved resolutions condemning the Canadian government's practices during the war and expressing solidarity with the Bolsheviks in Russia and the Spartacist League in Germany. It was also decided to poll Canadian workers on a general strike.

The general strike that began in Winnipeg on May 15 was in large part inspired by the One Big Union's ideals.^[3] A number of OBU leaders, including Robert B. Russell, were arrested in conjunction with the strike; Russell was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Edmonton, Calgary, Drumheller and Vancouver began their own general strikes, spurred on by Winnipeg. Most strike leaders, such as Edmonton's Joe Knight, Calgary's Mrs. Jean MacWilliams, and Amherst's Frank Burke, were OBU affiliates.^[4] A.S Wells, leader of the BC Federation of Labour at the time, was a founding member of the OBU.

The AFL and the TLC resisted the secession, by what would soon become the OBU. OBU members and OBU unions were expelled from most local trades councils. Nonetheless, thousands of workers resigned the AFL and the TLC and joined the OBU. These included loggers, hard rock miners, coal miners, longshoremen, construction workers, metalworkers, shop craft workers, etc. The One Big Union organized by industry rather than by trade, in response to a de-emphasis of craftsmanship (Taylorism) and the burgeoning demand for unskilled labour.^[5] The OBU's anti-capitalist policy was evident by its constitution's pre-amble:

The O.B.U. ... seeks to organize the wage worker not according to craft but according to industry; according to class and class needs; and calls upon all workers irrespective of nationality, sex, or craft to organize into a workers' organization, so that they may be enabled to more successfully carry on the every day fight over wages, hours of work, etc. and prepare themselves for the day when production for profit shall be replaced by production of use.^[6]

By late 1919 the OBU's membership was 70,000. Although primarily organized in western Canada, the OBU had a significant presence in Nova Scotia, organizing coal workers during the Cape Breton Labour War, and covered nearly all of Amherst's workers.^[1]

The union's maximum was attained during late 1919 or early 1920. Due to persecution by employers, the media, government and even other unions, membership decreased. Employers refused to bargain with the OBU's representatives, and OBU organizers were beaten, kidnapped and dismissed from coalfields.^[7] By 1921, it had only approximately 5,000 members and by 1927 only 1,600, almost all in Winnipeg. By 1922, most of the union's income came from a lottery that ran in its weekly bulletin. At the time lotteries were illegal in Canada, but it took the authorities years to successfully prosecute the union. The bulletin had a large circulation because of the lottery; even businessmen bought it for the lottery coupons.

During the late 1920s the OBU briefly joined the All-Canadian Congress of Labour and considered joining the Canadian Congress of Labour during World War II, but by then nearly all of its members were employees of the Winnipeg Transit System. In 1956, the One Big Union, consisting of 24,000 members, merged with the Canadian Labour Congress.

• Bercuson, David (1990), "Syndicalism Sidetracked: Canada's One Big Union", in van der Linden, Marcel; Thorpe, Wayne (eds.), Revolutionary Syndicalism: an International Perspective, Aldershot: Scolar Press, pp. 221–236, ISBN 0-85967-815-6
• Devine, Jason (2009), “You understand we are radical”: The United Mine Workers of America, District 18, and the One Big Union, 1919-1920 (PDF) (Honours Thesis), University of Calgary
• Haq, Gordon (1989), "British Columbia Loggers and the Lumber Workers Industrial Union, 1919-1922", Labour/Le Travail, 23: 67–90

• Newell, Peter E. (2008), The Impossibilists: A Brief History of the Socialist Party of Canada, Athena Press

• Warrian, Peter (1971), The Challenge of the One Big Union Movement in Canada, 1919-1921 (M.A. Thesis), University of Waterloo