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Making Reform Happen: The Passage of Canada's Collective-Bargaining Policy, 1943–1944
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 August 2017
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Patrick Conroy, the secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL) from 1941 to 1951, was not someone who gave up easily. As a friend observed, the Scottish-born coal miner was a committed trade unionist whose “moral certitude was admirable and… one of his great strengths.” In late 1942, however, Conroy seemed ready to call it quits on the CCL's campaign to win a national collective-bargaining policy in Canada. Since its inception in September 1940, the Congress, which represented most of the industrial unions in the country, had pushed hard for a comprehensive labor policy like the National Labor Relations or Wagner Act in the United States, which protected and advanced the rights of workers. But the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mackenzie King repeatedly refused to move beyond a turn-of-the-century conciliatory framework that emphasized moral suasion and compromise. In late 1942, when a regional organizer asked Conroy whether a collective-bargaining policy appeared likely in the future, the CCL leader replied: “We do not feel it worthwhile to raise people's hopes when the record of the federal government is as it has been.”
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1. Forsey, Eugene, A Life on the Fringe: The Memoirs of Eugene Forsey (Toronto, 1990), 81.Google Scholar
2. National Archives of Canada (NAC), MG28 1103, Canadian Labor Congress, vol. 155: “O'Brien, Daniel—Vancouver Correspondence—Part III,” Patrick Conroy to Daniel O'Brien, 2 December 1942.
3. Between March 1944 and July 1946, the labor relations boards granted 2,773 of 3,628 certification applications. Only 96 of these applications did not result in agreements. NAC, RG 27, Department of Labour, vol. 896, File 8-9-23 Part 1: “Standing Committee on Industrial Relations,” Report, 16 July 1946.Google Scholar In 1944, the total union membership in Canada was 724,000 and in 1946 it was 832,000. Chaison, Gary N., “Union Growth, Structure, and Internal Dynamics,” in Anderson, John C. and Gunderson, Morley, Union-Management Relations in Canada (Don Mills, Ontario, 1982), 149 Google Scholar.
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5. The only published studies that offer in-depth examinations of PC 1003's origins are Logan, H. A., State Intervention and Assistance in Collective Bargaining: The Canadian Experience, 1943-1954 (Toronto, 1956), andGoogle Scholar MacDowell, Laurel Sefton, “The Formation of the Canadian Industrial Relations System During World War Two,” Labour/Le Travailleur 3 (1978): 175–96.Google Scholar For unpublished studies, see Coates, Daniel, “Organized Labor and Politics in Canada: The Development of a National Labor Code” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1973);Google Scholar Fudge, Judy, “Voluntarism and Compulsion: The Canadian Federal Government's Intervention in Collective Bargaining from 1900 to 1946” (Ph.D. diss., University of Oxford, 1988);Google Scholar Hollander, Taylor, “‘Down the Middle of the Road’: The Canadian State and Collective Bargaining, 1935-1948” (Ph.D. diss., Binghamton University, 1998).Google Scholar Other studies that offer less detailed but informed considerations include: Woods, H. D., Labour Policy in Canada, 2d ed. (Toronto, 1973), chap. 3;Google Scholar Millar, Frederick David, “Shapes of Power: The Ontario Labour Relations Board, 1944 to 1960” (Ph.D. diss., York University, 1980), chaps. 1-3;Google Scholar Warrian, Peter Jon, “‘Labour Is Not a Commodity’: A Study of the Rights of Labour in the Canadian Postwar Economy” (Ph.D. diss., University of Waterloo, 1986), chaps. 1-2;Google Scholar Russell, Bob, Back to Work? Labour, State, and Industrial Relations in Canada (Scarborough, Ontario, 1990), chap. 6;Google Scholar McInnis, Peter Stuart, “Harnessing Confrontation: The Growth and Consolidation of Industrial Legality in Canada, 1943-1950” (Ph.D. diss., Queen's University, 1996), chap. 2Google Scholar.
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8. Toronto, News, 17 April 1943.Google Scholar
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10. Between 1941 and 1943, the absolute number of strikes increased from 231 to 402, the number of workers involved in strikes increased from 87,091 to 218,404, and the person-days lost jumped from 433,914 to 1,041,198. These numbers translate into the following national strike dimensions:
(a)—strikes per 1 million nonagricultural workers
(b)—average number of workers involved per strike, calculated as the number of workers involved divided by the number of strikes
(c)—average working days lost per person on strike, calculated as total person-days lost divided by the number of workers involved
Sources: For strike figures, see Labour Gazette 45 (March 1945): 388, 393.Google Scholar For nonagricultural labor-force figures, see Craig, Alton W. J., The System of Industrial Relations in Canada (Scarborough, Ontario, 1983), 80.Google Scholar For measures of strike activity and data shortcomings, see Cruikshank, Douglas and Kealey, Gregory S., “Strikes in Canada, 1891-1950,” Labour/Le Travail 20 (Fall 1987): 86–88, 123-45.Google Scholar
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12. The consumer price index rose by only 2 percent during this same period. Wolfe, David A., “The Delicate Balance: The Changing Economic Role of the State in Canada” (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1980), 549 Google Scholar.
13. The booming war economies of Ontario and British Columbia, for example, obscured the fact that two-thirds of the male heads of urban households in Canada earned less than what one report called “a desirable minimum budget” of $123/ month. Millar, , “Shapes of Power,” 36;Google Scholar Granatstein, J. L., Canada's War: The Politics of the Mackenzie King Government, 1939-1945 (Toronto, 1975), 260.Google Scholar Even within Ontario, the industrial heartland, Hamilton workers earneda weekly wages that were 30 percent less than workers in Windsor. Canada Department of Trade and Commerce, Bureau of Statistics, The Employment Situation at the Beginning of February 1943 (Ottawa, 1943), 23–24.Google Scholar Moreover, the majority of wage-earning women remained employed in traditionally female occupations where they experienced severe wage differentials. NAC, RG 35/7, Public Records Committee, vol. 20, file 10: “Historical Activities Re. Employment of Women in the War,” Table II–Average Earnings Hourly and Weekly of Female Wage-Earners in Selected Manufacturing Industries, 1941 and 1944, n.d.
14. As a packinghouse worker from Alberta explained, collective bargaining meant that “nobody buys the boss any booze, nobody is going to date the boss to keep their job. You're humanized…you can walk in there, lift up your head and you can tell the foreman, O.K., I'm working too hard or whatever. You can stand toe-to-toe to him and talk to him without fear of being fired.” Quoted in Carragata, Warren, Aiberta Labour: A Heritage Untold (Toronto, 1979), 146 Google Scholar.
15. Wolfe, , “The Delicate Balance,” 549.Google Scholar
16. Hollander, , “‘Down the Middle of the Road,’” 166–71.Google Scholar
17. Ibid., 175–83, 242–43. For a detailed consideration of the Kirkland Lake strike, see MacDowell, Laurel Sefton, “Remember Kirkland Lake”: The Gold Miners' Strike of 1941-42 (Toronto, 1983)Google Scholar.
18. NAC, MG28 1103, Canadian Labour Congress, vol. 312, file 12: “George Burt Correspondence, 1942–46,” Pat Conroy to Philip Murray, 5 March 1942.
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20. Financial Post, 13 March 1943.Google Scholar For the TLC's refusal to work with the CCL, see NAC, MG28 1103, Canadian Labour Congress, vol. 330, file 10: “TLC Executive Council Minutes, 1939-42,” 10-13 February 1942 and file 11: “TLC Executive Council Minutes, 1943-45,” 14 January 1943 and 17–19 Google Scholar December 1943; vol. 319, file 16: “Cooperation Between the TLC and CCL, 1941-48,” Percy Bengough to Patrick Conroy, 22 January 1943 and 15 June 1943.
21. NAC, MG32 B5, Brooke Claxton Papers, vol. 31: “Correspondence with George V. Ferguson,” Brooke Claxton to George Ferguson, 3 February 1942. By fall 1942, public support for the social democrats had reached an unprecedented 21 percent–a twofold increase since January. Canadian Forum (October 1942): 198 Google Scholar.
22. Quoted in Abella, Irving Martin, Nationalism, Communism, and Canadian Labour: The CIO, the Communist Party, and the Canadian Congress of Labour, 1935–1956 (Toronto, 1973), 75.Google Scholar
23. Quoted in Martin, Paul, A Very Public Life–Volume 1: Far From Home (Ottawa, 1983), 325.Google Scholar For the popular support of the parties, see Granatstein, J. L., The Politics of Survival: The Conservative Party of Canada, 1939-1945 (Toronto, 1967), 162 Google Scholar.
24. Canadian Forum (October 1942): 210.Google Scholar
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26. Saturday Night (21 February 1942).Google Scholar During the first four years of the war, corporations enjoyed average pretax profit levels of 17 percent, nearly double what they experienced during the 1930s. David Wolfe, A., “The Rise and Demise of the Keynesian Era in Canada: Economic Policy, 1930–1982,” in Cross, Michael S. and Kealey, Gregory S., eds., Modern Canada, 1930-1980s: Readings in Canadian Social History, vol. 5 (Toronto, 1984), 66 Google Scholar.
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28. Financial Post, 3 October 1942.Google Scholar
29. Millar, , “Shapes of Power,” 78–81.Google Scholar Individual justices from Ontario's Supreme Court presided over the Labour Court for two-week stints. Although initially supportive, union officials soon protested that the Court entangled their organizations in excessive legalism and that the judges did not have enough knowledge of industrial relations to make informed and impartial rulings. As a result, they demanded administrative machinery like the National Labor Relations Board in the United States for PC 1003. NAC, MG28 1103, Canadian Labour Congress, vol. 199, file 20: “Provincial Government, Ontario Minister of Labour, 1038–44,” A. R. Mosher and Patrick Conroy to Peter Heenan, 20 July 1943; Millar, , “Shapes of Power,” 93;Google Scholar Proceedings of the National War Labour Board Enquiry, vol. 9 (Ottawa, 1943), 825 Google Scholar.
30. Quoted in Gray, Stephen, “Woodworkers and Legitimacy: The IWA in Canada, 1937-1957” (Ph.D. diss., Simon Fraser University, 1989), 116 Google Scholar.
31. As Norman McLarty, the Labour Minister from September 1939 to December 1941, acknowledged, PC 2685 “merely endorsed the soundness of employers and employees bargaining collectively.” NAC, MG27 III B10, Ernest Lapointe Papers, vol. 35, “Unions—Amendment to the Criminal Code Concerning the Right of Association,” Norman McLarty to Ernest Lapointe, 21 September 1940.
32. NAC, MG28 1127, Canadian Association of Administrators of Labour Legislation, vol. 1: “Proceedings,” 3–5 May 1943 Google Scholar.
33. In contrast, the provincial governments were more sensitive to changes in the political climate because they had active legislatures and slim leads over opposition parties. They were also not as preoccupied with the exigencies of the war effort.
34. As Martin recalled, “Brooke Claxton and I felt that what was required was a sympathetic understanding of labour's general needs.” Martin, , A Very Public Life, 296 Google Scholar.
35. See, for example, NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 182, 14 January 1943 Google Scholar.
36. Margaret Mitchell, the Chief of the Legislative Branch, was one DOL official who believed that a more comprehensive labor policy would curtail the rising strike rate. NAC, MG28 1127, Canadian Association of Administrators of Labour Legislation, vol. 1: “Proceedings,” May 1942.Google Scholar Between November 1942 and June 1943, sixteen officers left the DOL. For the internal problems and preoccupation with the National Selective Service, see, for example, NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 180, 17-18 November 1942;Google Scholar Financial Post, 28 November 1942;Google Scholar Globe and Mail 5 June 1943.Google Scholar It was common knowledge that Mitchell disliked the tactics and goals of the more aggressive industrial unions and kowtowed to C. D. Howe. For Mitchell's views on aggressive unionism and his relationship with C. D. Howe, see, respectively, Financial Post, 24 October 1941,Google Scholar and NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 182, 19 January 1943 Google Scholar.
37. Pickersgill, J. W., The Mackenzie King Record: Volume 1, 1939-1944 (Toronto, 1960), 7.Google Scholar For a more in-depth review of King's industrial relations background, see David Jay Bercuson, “An Introduction,” in King, William Lyon Mackenzie, Industry and Humanity (Toronto, 1973);Google Scholar Ferns, Henry and Ostry, Bernard, The Age of Mackenzie King (1955: reprint edition, Toronto, 1976)Google Scholar.
38. King, , Industry and Humanity, 137.Google Scholar
39. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 132, 8 March 1939;Google Scholar King, , Industry and Humanity, 133 Google Scholar.
40. Hollander, , “‘Down the Middle of the Road,’” 149–56.Google Scholar
41. For King's views on hard-line employers, see, for example, NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 159, 5 May 1941.Google Scholar For his views on CCL and TLC leaders, see, respectively, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 171, 27 February 1942,Google Scholar and Transcript 160, 31 May 1941.
42. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 178, 2 October 1942.Google Scholar Globe and Mail, 28 and 29 August 1942;Google Scholar Canadian Congress journal 21 (September 1942): 14–23 Google Scholar.
43. NAC, RG35/7, Public Records Committee, vol. 21, file 18: “Wartime Activities of the Industrial Relations Branch,” Report, March 1946;Google Scholar Fudge, , “Voluntarism and Compulsion,” 205 Google Scholar.
44. NAC, MG26 I, Arthur Meighen Papers, Microfilm C3593-144301, Eugene Forsey to Arthur Meighen, 18 January 1943.
45. Giobe and Mail, 10 April 1943.Google Scholar For complaints about the first NWLB, see Financial Post, 21 November 1941;Google Scholar Canadian Forum (July 1942);Google Scholar Financial Times 5 March 1943;Google Scholar NAC, MG28 1103, Canadian Labour Congress, vol. 190, file 10: “Federal Deputy Minister Correspondence, Part 2, 1930–43,” Patrick Conroy to Humphrey Mitchell, 23 July 1942; vol. 43, file 1: “USWA Local 2251 Sault Ste Marie, Part 1, 1940-44,” A. R. Mosher to Charles Millard, 7 August 1942; vol. 331, file 3: “CCL Executive Committee Minutes,” 20 November 1942; MG30 A94, J. L. Cohen Papers, vol. 34, file 3052-1: “Cohen Correspondence—NWLB,” Report on Problems of the Wartime Wages Control Policy, 24 April 1943 Google Scholar.
46. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 180, 17 November 1942.Google Scholar In a rare moment of cooperation, the TLC and CCL sent a joint letter to King that demanded Mitchell's removal from office. NAC, MG28 103, Canadian Labour Congress, vol. 314, file 25: “Federal Government Correspondence Concerning Wartime Relations with Organized Labour, 1942–45,” Percy Bengough and A. R. Mosher to Mackenzie King, 27 November 1942.
47. For events leading up to the strikes, see MacDowell, Laurel Sefton, “The 1943 Steel Strike Against Wartime Wage Controls,” Labour/Le Travailleur 10 (Au-tumn 1982): 65–73;Google Scholar Coates, , “Organized Labor and Politics in Canada,” 117–18;Google Scholar Canadian Forum (October 1942): 205–10Google Scholar.
48. NAC, MG26 I, Arthur Meighen Papers, Microfilm C3593-144301, Eugene Forsey to Arthur Meighen, 18 January 1943.
49. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 182, 14 January 1943 Google Scholar.
50. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 182, 25 January 1943.Google Scholar For the settlement of the strikes, see MacDowell, , “The 1943 Steel Strike,” 73–80;Google Scholar Coates, , “Organized Labor and Politics in Canada,” 119–26;Google Scholar Canadian Forum (March 1943): 342;Google Scholar Financial Post, 16 January and 23 January 1943;Google Scholar NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 182, 12-15, 18-19, 22-25 January 1943 Google Scholar.
51. For McTague's early law career, see Martin, , A Very Public Life, 100.Google Scholar Previously McTague had served as the chair of the War Contracts Depreciation Board and as an adviser to the Department of Labour, making sure that wage contracts conformed with an earlier set of wage guidelines called PC 7440.
52. Montreal, Gazette, 6 April 1943;Google Scholar Financial Post, 10 April 1943 Google Scholar.
53. Globe and Mail, 12 April 1943;Google Scholar NAC, RG35/7, Public Records Committee, vol. 23, file 26: “NWLB History,” Draft by R. H. Neilson, n.d.
54. For more on the Niagara Industrial Relations Institute, see NAC, RG27, Department of Labour, vol. 3520, file 3-26-10-1, “Strikes and Lockouts. Correspondence,” Submission by the Niagara IR Institute to Humphrey Mitchell, April 1943. For more on “progressive” employers, see Canadian Business (November 1941): 32–34;Google Scholar Financial Post, 6 November 1943 Google Scholar.
55. An important exception is MacDowell, Laurel Sefton, “J. L. Cohen–Labour Lawyer,” Paper presented to Woodsworth College as part of the Sefton Lecture Series, Toronto, Ontario, April 1992 Google Scholar.
56. Forcey, 92. In fall 1941, the Steelworkers' Organizing Committee published a widely read pamphlet by Cohen that was an extremely sweeping and articulate condemnation of existing labor policies. Cohen, J. L., Collective Bargaining in Canada: An Examination of the Legislative Record and Policy of the Government of the Dominion of Canada (Toronto, 1941).Google Scholar Cohen was so intensely driven that he often failed to recognize his own physical limits. On a few occasions, he was forced to check into sanatoriums to recover from nervous breakdowns. See, for example, NAC, MG30 A94, J. L. Cohen Papers, vol. 50, file 10: “Cohen, J. L.” Credit Manager of the Neuro-Psychiatric Institute of Hartford, Connecticut to Dorothy Cohen, 12 January 1941.
57. Humphrey Mitchell and C. D. Howe, the Minister of Munitions and Supply, voiced particularly loud objections to Cohen's nomination. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 183, 3 and 12 February 1943;Google Scholar Transcript 184, 16 March 1943. The Cabinet formally reconstituted the NWLB on 11 February 1943.
58. Montreal, Gazette, 6 April 1943;Google Scholar Financial Post, 10 April 1943 Google Scholar.
59. NAC, RG 2, Privy Council, vol. 2, file D-16: “Department of Labour, 1940-41,” Proposed Amendment to PC 7440 and Establishment of a National and Regional War Labour Boards, 9 October 1941.
60. In spring 1942, the Mitchell NWLB did initiate a comparative study of labor laws to consider the appropriateness of collective bargaining in crown corporations. NAC, RG35/5 National War Labour Board, vol. 25, file 909-1-16: “Collective Bargaining Rights in Government Departments or Agencies,” Humphrey Mitchell to R. H. Neilson, 12 January 1942.
61. NAC, MG30 A94, J. L. Cohen Papers, vol. 34, file 3052-1: “NWLB Correspondence,” J. L. Cohen to C. P. McTague, 19 August 1943.
62. During spring and summer 1943, the Prime Minister made little mention of the board or collective bargaining in his diary, papers, or speeches. Nor were any of his views revealed in the memoranda and correspondence of colleagues or the DOL.
63. Granatstein, , Canada's War, 263–64.Google Scholar
64. Premier Adélard Godbout of Quebec wrote a public letter to King that lamented the lack of French Canadian representation, and Gérard Picard of the Confédération Travailleurs Catholiques du Canada, who had sat on the original NWLB, resigned in protest from the board's advisory body. Montréal, Matin, 19 February 1943;Google Scholar Quebéc, Chronicle, 20 February 1943;Google Scholar Windsor, Daily Star, 27 February 1942.Google Scholar For Cohen's response, see NAC, MG30 A94, J. L. Cohen Papers, vol. 34, file 3052-1: “NWLB—Correspondence,”J. L. Cohen to C. P. McTague, 11 March 1943; MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 183, 22 February 1943 Google Scholar.
65. Globe and Mail, 30 April 1943.Google Scholar For the connection between McTague and Lalande, see Martin, , A Very Public Life, 101.Google Scholar For Lalande's views on labor policy, see NAC, MG32 B5, Brooke Claxton Papers, vol. 170, file: “Labour II,” Lalande, Léon, “The Status of Organized Labour: An Outline of the Development of the Law in Great Britain, the United States, and Canada,” Address to the Canadian Bar Association, 12 September 1941 Google Scholar.
66. Labor leaders were particularly upset that the NWLB set the basic wage rate at 50 cents an hour plus a nine-cent cost-of-living bonus. Although the original “memorandum of understanding” called for a basic wage rate of 55 cents an hour that included a COLA bonus, the Steelworkers claimed that they subsequently negotiated a verbal agreement with the DOL that the 55 cents an hour would not include the COLA bonus. After the publications of the NWLB decision and a Steelworkers' pamphlet that described the betrayal in detail, both Humphrey Mitchell and Mackenzie King repeatedly denied the union's version of what happened. Globe and Mail. 8 April 1943;Google Scholar 22 April 1943; 26 May 1943; 31 May 1943; 3 June 1943; Canadian Forum (July 1943): 78–80 Google Scholar.
67. Globe and Mail, 8 April 1943.Google Scholar
68. MacDowell, , “The 1943 Steel Strikes,” 84.Google Scholar NAC, MG30 A94, J. L. Cohen Papers, vol. 34, file 3052-1: “NWLB Reasons for Judgements (1943),” Algoma Steel, Dosco, and Trenton Steel Works Ltd. vs. the USWA, 31 March 1943; file 3052-1: “Cohen Correspondence,” C. P McTague to Mackenzie King, 22 April 1943.
69. In the late spring, for example, Mitchell challenged the NWLB's ruling on the illegal status of a union in the Montreal Tramways dispute. Globe and Mail, 25 and 26 May 1943;Google Scholar Montreal, Daily Star, 25 May 1943 Google Scholar.
70. Cohen, , Collective Bargaining in Canada, 63.Google Scholar For Cohen's early life, see MacDowell, “J. L. Cohen–Labour Lawyer.” For Toronto's immigrant Jewish community, see Frager, Ruth A., Sweatshop Strife: Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in the ish Labour Movement of Toronto, 1900-1939 (Toronto, 1992).Google Scholar My thanks to Margaret Rung for encouraging me to think about the religious backgrounds of the board members.
71. For McTague, see Financial Times, 9 April 1943;Google Scholar NAC, MG28 1103, Canadian Labour Congress, vol. 120, file 14: “Bishop's Committee for Social Questions Round Table Conference,” Report on Collective Bargaining Session, 4-7 February 1944. For Lalande, see MG 32 B5, Brooke Claxton Papers, vol. 170: “Labour III,” Lalande, Léon, “The Status of Organized Labour: An Outline of the Development of the Law in Great Britain, the United States, and Canada,” Address to the Canadian Bar Association, 12 September 1941xsGoogle Scholar.
72. NAC, MG34 A90, J. L. Cohen Papers, file 3052-3: “NWLB Speeches,” Address to the Annual Convention of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada, 1 September 1943.
73. Globe and Mail, 12 April 1943;Google Scholar Montreal, Standard, 17 April 1943 Google Scholar.
74. Globe and Mail, 10 April 1943.Google Scholar
75. MacDowell, , “The 1943 Steel Strikes,” 84–85.Google Scholar The USW did continue to push the federal government for a more acceptable resolution to the basic wage question. Globe and Mail, 18 June 1943 Google Scholar.
76. Financial Times, 17 April 1943. See alsoGoogle Scholar Globe and Mail, 10 April 1943 Google Scholar.
77. Globe and Mail, 16 April 1943;Google Scholar Montreal, Daily Star, 15 and 16 April 1943 Google Scholar.
78. For an overview of the presentations, see NAC, RG 2, Privy Council, vol. 46, file D-16-2: “Department of Labour—Labour Relations Problems, 1942-43,” Analysis of Submissions Re. Labour Relations and Wage Conditions in Canada, NWLB Inquiry, 4 May to 18 June 1943.
79. The only exception was the nationalistic Confédération Travailleurs Catholiques du Canada, which lamented the ineffectiveness of PC 2685, but stopped short of endorsing a federal policy that would encroach on provincial responsibilities. Proceedings of the National War Labour Board Public Enquiry, vol. 2 (Ottawa, 1943), 148–49Google Scholar (hereafter referred to as the NWLB Proceedings).
80. NWLB Proceedings, vol. 3, 168, 186; vol. 6, 593-96; Financial Post, 5 June 1943.Google Scholar A similar argument is found in Fudge, , “Voluntarism and Compulsion,” 253–56Google Scholar.
81. NWLB Proceedings, vol. 9, 859.
82. Globe and Mail, 5 June and 21 June 1943;Google Scholar Financial Times, 20 August 1943;Google Scholar Financial Post, 5 June 1943 Google Scholar.
83. McTague and Lalande wanted to fold current COLA bonuses, which ranged from 60 cents to $4-25/week into wage rates and then either discontinue the system or start it anew. Rather than perpetuate existing inequalities, Cohen recommended leveling up all bonuses to the maximum and then continuing the system on a parity basis. NAC, MG32 B5, Brooke Claxton Papers, vol. 169, file: “Labour,” NWLB Reports: Attitude of the Government to the Recommendations, 3 September 1943.
84. The following discussion draws on Fudge, , “Voluntarism and Compulsion,” 256–59Google Scholar.
85. McTague and Lalande also recommended that an expert board administer the new regulations, while Cohen called for a representative body. And the Majority Report called on the courts to impose penalties for infractions, while the Minority Report gave the administrative board the power to enforce the code. NAC, RG 19, Department of Finance, vol. 4664, file: “Economic Advisory Committee—Wage and Labour Policy,” Report to the Minister of Labour of the Departmental Committee on Reconstruction on Recommendations of the NWLB, n.d.
86. NAC, MG32 B5, Brooke Claxton Papers, vol. 169, file: “Labour,” NWLB Reports: Attitude of the Government to the Recommendations, 3 September 1943. The author is probably Paul Martin.
87. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 191, 28 August 1943,Google Scholar and Transcript 192, 1 September 1943; Gibson, Frederick W. and Robertson, Barbara, eds., Ottawa at War: The Grant Dexter Memoranda, 1939-1945, vol. 11 (Winnipeg, 1994), 423 Google Scholar.
88. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 191, 28 August 1943.Google Scholar Much to the frustration of the labor movement, the Reports remained confidential until 28 January 1944. Labour Gazette 44 (February 1944): 124 Google Scholar
89. Quoted in Gibson, and Robertson, , eds., Ottawa at War, 427.Google Scholar
90. Granatstein, , Canada's War, 265–72.Google Scholar
91. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 192, 1 September 1943 Google Scholar.
92. Certainly King favored the Majority Report over the Minority Report. See, for example, NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 192, 3 and 7 September 1943 Google Scholar.
93. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 192, 14 September 1943.Google Scholar A few hours before PC 1003 was tabled in the House of Commons, one of King's ministers asked him to reconsider his actions. NAC, MG26 J134, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 198, 17 February 1943.Google Scholar Other reasons for the delay included: the passage of another wage order; the conflicting visions of state officials; and several consultations with labor and business groups. See Hollander, , “‘Down the Middle of the Road,’” 272–80Google Scholar.
94. Although Reilly's specific role in the policymaking process requires further research, Stewart wrote a key draft of the proposed order that was submitted to labor and business groups for comments. For Stewart, see NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 195, 29 November 1943.Google Scholar For Reilly, see NAC, RG 27, Department of Labour, Access 83/84 206 Box#1 F7-2-1-1 Part 1: “General Correspondence PC 1003, 1943-47,” V. C. MacDonald to Gerard Reilly, 28 December 1943.
95. NAC, MG32 B12, Paul Martin Papers, vol. 1: “Labour Code, 1941-44,” Standard, n.d.
96. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 191, 30 August 1943;Google Scholar Transcript 192, 1 and 15 September 1943.
97. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 195, 25 November 1943 Google Scholar.
98. In brief, Cohen criticized the inclusion of conciliation mechanisms in PC 1003; the exclusion of an outright ban on company unions; the broad definition of the term “employee,” which allowed for the inclusion of supervisors and foremen; and the lack of provisions for certification procedures that were already completed or under way. See Hollander, , “‘Down the Middle of the Road,’” 295–97,Google Scholar 307-8. For the Cohen-McTague dispute, see NAC, MG30 A94, J. L. Cohen papers, vol. 34, file 3052-1: “NWLB Correspondence,” J. L. Cohen to C. P. McTague, 18 August 1943, and C. P. McTague to J. L. Cohen, 19 August 1943; MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 192, 3 and 7–10 September 1943;Google Scholar Montreal, Daily Star, 18 August 1943,Google Scholar 10 September 1943; Toronto Telegram, 19 August 1943; Globe and Mail, 21 September 1943.Google Scholar Some labor leaders actually accused Bell of “scabbing” when he took Cohen's place on the board. NAC, MG28 1103, vol. 21, file 4: “UAW—General, 1944, Part 1,” George Burt to M. J. Coldwell, 12 July 1944.
99. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 200, 23 April 23 1944Google Scholar.
100. A high-ranking Labour Department official blamed the NWLB's inflexibility for a 1946 strike wave. National Archives of the United States, RG 59, The State Department, vol. 6013, file 842.5045/4-546: “1945-1949,” Paul Norgren to the Secretary of State, 5 April 1946.
101. NAC, MG26 J13, Papers, W. L. Mackenzie King, “Diaries,” Transcript 192, 16 September 1943 Google Scholar.
102. NAC, MG28 1103, Canadian Labour Congress, vol. 313, file 3-15: “Patrick Conroy Correspondence,” Patrick Conroy to W. N. Davidson, 4 March 1942.