On June 21, 1919, a photographer named Lewis Foote set up his camera in the window of an office building on Winnipeg's Main Street and waited for the action to begin. Within hours one man was dead, another was dying and Foote had captured priceless images of the Winnipeg General Strike - a keystone moment in Canadian labour history.
A group of young men tip over a streetcar on Bloody Saturday.
See photos and archival footage from the strike.
Foote's remarkable photographs came at the end of six weeks of high drama in Winnipeg. On June 21st – Bloody Saturday - the Royal Northwest Mounted Police charged a crowd of 'rioters' - strikers, returned soldiers, and spectators - and effectively put an end to the walkout. The charge also started an argument that has lasted for eight decades over who was right and who was wrong.
Was the strike a legitimate protest against low wages, poor working conditions and a lack of bargaining rights, or was it an attempt to import 'Bolshevism' and a new political order to Winnipeg and the rest of Canada? When 30,000 of Winnipeg's 160,000 citizens walked off the job on May 15th, the battle lines were drawn over that question.
Special constables are signed up after police are fired for supporting the strike.
The strike was a spontaneous protest and an act of blind faith. More than two-thirds of those who walked off the job were non-union workers. Many strikers had no idea how they would feed their families, how long they would be out of work, or whether they would ever get their job back once it was over. For those in the business class the strike was a threat to an ordered world, where capital and labour knew their places. A threat that seemed very real to many, considering the violent changes that were sweeping across Russia.
Winnipeg was and still is a city divided by the CP Rail yards. At the time of the strike, most of those from the business class resided on the south side of the tracks, while many of the city's labourers and working people lived in what is still known as The North End. In 1919, anti-strike leaders from the south end raised the alarm, charging that a so-called Bolshevik revolution was underway, incited by "enemy aliens" - immigrants from Eastern Europe who were accused of bringing radical and 'Red' politics with them to Winnipeg.
An immigrant family outside the CP rail station from around the time of the strike.
In truth, the main strike leaders were mostly skilled workers and staunch trade unionists, or socialists from the British Isles. They pleaded with their supporters to "do nothing" and to keep the strike peaceful. But as the weeks passed without a resolution, the dispute became a war of words and ideas. Government lined up behind the anti-strike forces. The Mayor banned parades and demonstrations. And when the strike leaders were arresting and charged with inciting revolution, returned WWI veterans announced that they would hold a protest parade and the stage was set for violence.
In Bloody Saturday, CBC Television takes a contemporary look at the key moments of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike and how lives were lost and changed during those six hot weeks in May and June.
