Photo Source: (2019). Thousands of Ontario students out of school as public high school teachers launch one-day strike [Photograph]. CTV News.
Across Ontario
Unions: Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO), Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF), Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA), and Association des Enseignantes et des Enseignants Franco-Ontariens (AEFO)
Employer: Ontario Ministry of Education--Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) & Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association (OCSTA)
Summary of Events
In late 2019, four of the major teachers unions across Ontario began a work-to-rule campaign to fight for smaller class sizes, better education for students with disabilities, and against school budget cuts. The work-to-rule campaign eventually turned into rotating strikes, where one or more of the unions going on strike once a week. The rotating strike tactic was used as a way to avoid a back-to-work legislation from the Ontario government, as the strikes would not cause a major interruption to students' education. A tentative deal was reached in March 2020.
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Photo Source: Roberts, M. (2018). Union rally shows support for striking casino workers [Photograph]. CBC News.
Windsor, Ontario
Union: Unifor. Local 444
Employer: Caesars Windsor (Casino)
Summary of Events
“The 2,300 unionized workers at Caesars Windsor are wrapping up their 7th week on strike. Twice, they have voted down tentative agreements that were recommended by the bargaining committee of Unifor Local 444. The sheer size of the bargaining unit and the variety of occupations involved are likely making it difficult for union leadership to get a deal their members like, according to Johanna Weststar, a professor at Western University in London who specializes in industrial relations.”
“We expect striking workers to disagree with their employer, but striking workers at Caesars Windsor also disagree with each other. That was made clear when they rejected a second tentative contract agreement. … ‘It makes communication to the membership more complicated because you have many more issues to deal with, many more people to bring onside and many more people to sort of make sure that they are getting something that they need in the contract,’ [Weststar] said.”
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Toronto, Ontario
Union: Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Local 3903 (Contract Faculty, Teaching Assistants, Graduate Assistants and Research Assistants)
Employer: York University
Summary of Events
“For the second time in three years, thousands of faculty at York University are on strike, with exam preparation and final marks hanging in the balance for 46,000 undergraduate students. Teaching assistants, part-time faculty and graduate assistants were expected to hold a rally on Monday morning on the campus in north Toronto. Picketing will start Tuesday, although classes remain open.”
“Six months of bargaining did not lead to an agreement between the union representing the instructors and the university, the two parties announced Friday. The weekend brought no last-minute deal and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents the striking workers, said that the strike began Monday at 12:01 am. Temporary contracts, job security and the structure of work and funding for graduate students and assistants are among the issues still on the table. Unlike in the spring 2015 strike, however, York has not cancelled courses. … But with thousands of instructors out of the classroom, students may find some of their classes cannot continue.”
“Relations between the school and the union are frayed. Last year, CUPE filed a complaint at the Ontario Labour Board against the university, alleging that a change in how it funds graduate students cost it 690 members. The complaint was put on hold during bargaining. But instructors’ demands are also similar to those voiced by other professors in the higher education sector. College faculty who took to the picket lines for five weeks this fall argued that colleges are overly reliant on temporary staff.”
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Across Ontario
Union: Ontario Public Sector Employees Union (OPSEU). Local 653
Employer: College Employer Council
Summary of Events
The five-week college teachers' strike is the longest labour stoppage in the history of the Ontario college system. On Sunday, November 19, 2017, the Ontario Liberal Government passed back-to-work legislation, Bill 178, Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Labour Dispute Resolution Act, 2017 (An Act to resolve the labour dispute between the College Employer Council and the Ontario Public Service Employees Union)
Almost 70 per cent of college professors voted in favour of a strike in September 2017. Just over 234,000 full-time and almost 100,000 part-time students attend the province's colleges. The College Employer Council, which bargains for all the colleges in Ontario, offered to extend the current contract and raise wages by 7.75 per cent over four years, with a cap on maximum salaries of $115,378.
The colleges were not budging on two demands. One of the most contentious was the union's insistence that faculty must have a greater say in the governance of colleges. The union wanted to begin discussions that would lead to the creation of senates, in which faculty make up a majority of the governing body. Senates are standard at universities where they operate alongside boards of governors. But in the college sector, only Sheridan College has such a body – Sheridan is working toward becoming a university by 2020.
Eight-six per cent of faculty voted to reject Council’s November 6 offer. Ninety-five per cent of the 12,841 people on the voters’ list voted.
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Ottawa, Ontario
Union: Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). Local 71201.
Employer: Ontario Lottery Gaming Corp. (OLG)
Summary of Events
The unionized workers at the Rideau Carleton Raceway Slots were locked out by management in December 2015. After five months, the workers with PSAC, Local 71201, agreed to binding arbitration. On Sept. 15, 2016 arbitrator William Kaplan opted to go with the final offer put forth by the OLG. The 124 workers got a lump sum payment of $2,800, a wage increase of 1.75% in year four, and no increase in year five. PSAC had asked for a lump sum payment of $5,000, a 2% wage increase in year four and another 3% increase in year five. Workers were set to return to work on June 2, 2016.
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Photo Source: Calabrese, D. (2015). U of T strike taking toll on undergraduate student [Photograph]. The Globe and Mail.
Toronto, Ontario
Union: Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Local 3902 (Unit 1) (all Post-Doctoral Fellows, graduate students in the School of Graduate Studies and undergraduate students in the University of Toronto employed as teaching assistants, teaching fellows, demonstrators, tutors, markers, instructors, teaching laboratory assistants, Chief Presiding Officers, invigilators and part-time lecturers)
Employer: University of Toronto
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/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/gta/2015/03/09/striking-york-u-employees-vote-on-deal-this-evening/strike.jpg)
Photo Source: (2015). York University strike drags on as union split on latest offer [Photograph]. The Toronto Star.
Toronto, Ontario
Union: Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Local 3903 (Contract Faculty, Teaching Assistants, Graduate Assistants and Research Assistants)
Employer: York University
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Toronto, Ontario
Union: United Steelworkers (USW). Local 9176
Employer: Crown Metal Packing Canada (Weston, Ontario plant)
Summary of Events
The 133 employees of USW Local 9176 went on strike 6 September 2013, which ended 22 months later. The Crown Metal plant in northwest Toronto called for a two-tier wage schedule, where new hires would be paid less than existing workers. The contract initially offered by Crown Metal also limited workers’ ability to file grievances and eliminated an existing cost-of-living allowance.
After the walk-out, Crown Metal used replacement workers – management, new hires, and workers brought in from their non-unionized Calgary plant – to continue operations. The USW has used boycotts, public advocacy campaigns and lobbying at Queen's Park to force a settlement.
In March 2015 the province appointed Morton Mitchnick, an experienced mediator-arbitrator and former chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board to conduct an Industrial Inquiry Commission to facilitate a resolution in the dispute. The last time the government appointed an Industrial Inquiry Commissioner was in 2007.
A new six-year collective agreement was reached with the assistance of the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB). The USW filed a complaint of bad faith bargaining and unfair labour practices with the OLRB. A tentative agreement was reached on 8 July when the company dropped its condition that the 34 leading union supporters could not have their jobs back even after a settlement is reached. The new collective agreement guarantees the rights of all striking employees to return to their jobs. Under existing Ontario law, striking workers have the right to automatically return to their jobs but this right is lost after six months on the picket line. It also includes enhanced retirement and severance provisions for employees who decide not to return to the plant.
Marty Warren, USW Ontario Director: "Clearly, this strike demonstrates the pressing need for amendments to the Labour Relations Act that would provide for binding arbitration in long and difficult strikes and would impose a ban on the use of replacement workers. We urge the Liberal government to take the necessary steps through the current labour law review process to commit to those reforms."
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Across Ontario
Union: Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF)
Employer: Ontario Ministry of Education--Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA)
Summary of Events
Teachers began political protests in September 2012 when the Ontario Government passed Bill 115, the Putting Students First Act. Teachers stopped voluntary and extracurricular activities and in December elementary teachers staged one-day strikes across the province to protest the Act.
Terms of the Putting Students First Act include:
ETFO planned a one-day, province wide walkout for January 11, 2013 and OSSTF planned a one-day, province wide walkout on January 16, 2013. The government went to the Ontario Labour Relations Board to stop the planned walkout. The OLRB ruled that the walkout is an illegal strike and the teachers called off the one-day strike. Elementary schools in the Greater Essex County District School Board were closed.
The Putting Students First Act was repealed on January 23, 2013..
On March 1, the secondary school teachers ended their extracurricular protest as a goodwill gesture in light of positive talks with the province's government.
On 19 April 2013 the OSSTF voted 84% in favour of a deal, which is made up of amendments to the two-year contracts the government imposed on teachers under Bill 115. The new agreement has improved maternity leave benefits, and boosted payouts to newer teachers who are not eligible for payments of unused sick days when they retire. The agreement also states that no changes to teachers' pay grid - giving them automatic yearly wage increases for education and years teaching - will be imposed.
On 23 June 2013 the ETFO voted 91% to accept the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), will override and improve upon the imposed terms of Bill 115. The MOU gives them a 2% salary increase, effective September 2014. The salary increase will eliminate a wage gap between public elementary teachers and their Catholic and French counterparts.
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Hamilton, Ontario
Union: United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1005
Employer: Hamilton Works U.S. Steel Canada
Summary of Events
750 USW Local 1005 members were locked out of the Hamilton Works steel manufacturing plant since November 2010. At issue was the employee pension plan. The employer U.S. Steel wanted to end pension indexing and change the current defined pension plan to a defined contribution scheme. This extended lockout ended with EI benefits running out and U.S. Steel considering shutting the plant.
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Sudbury, Ontario
Union: United Steelworkers (USW) Local 6500
Employer: Vale Corporation
Summary of Events
3300 United Steelworkers (USW) local 6500 members went on strike against Vale Corporation, a subsidiary of a large multinational mining company. The strike lasted almost a year, the longest strike in Canadian history, and on July 7, 2010 USW members returned to work accepting some major concessions. The biggest issues on the negotiating table were changes to pension plans for new hires, reductions in the profit-sharing benefits and imposed retirements and layoffs. Vale used 1200 contract staff during the strike to maintain operations.
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Toronto, Ontario
Union: Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 416 (outside workers) and Local 79 (inside workers)
Employer: City of Toronto
Summary of Events
In the six-week 'garbage strike of 2009' 24,000 indoor and 6,000 outdoor workers of the City of Toronto walked off the job June 22, 2009. They went on strike over concessions, the main one being the right for municipal workers to bank and cash out unused sick leave. The city claimed the banked sick days had become an expensive entitlment that most other municipalities had elminated. The most noticeable effect of the strike was the cessation of garbage pickup and the creation of temporary drop off locations.
The settlement reached included annual wage increases of 1, 2, and 3 percent respectively over three years and a gradual phasing out of sick-leave entitlements.
Toronto, Ontario
Union: Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Local 3903 (Contract Faculty, Teaching Assistants, Graduate Assistants and Research Assistants)
Employer: York University, Toronto
Summary of Events
3,350 contract professors along with teaching and research assistants of CUPE Local 3903 walked off the job on November 6, 2008. One of the major issues being negotiated was job security for the contract faculty as York University has begun hiring more and more staff on temporary contracts. This was one of the longest university faculty strikes in Canadian history as they did not return to work until 85 days later on January 29, 2009, when the provincial parliament legislated the union back to work with the York University Labour Disputes Resolution Act. The case was then referred to binding arbitration.
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Leading the modern university : York University's presidents on continuity and change, 1974-2014 by Ottawa, Ontario
Union: Amalgamated Transit, Local 279
Employer: The City of Ottawa
Summary of Events
As the snow piled up, so did the animosity between staff and the city, when in late 2008, Ottawa's transit workers walked off the job. Amalgamated Transit, Local 279, represented 2,300 drivers, mechanics and dispatchers who worked for OC Transpo, in a bitter battle with the City of Ottawa that lasted 51 days. With federal back-to-work legislation likely, the two sides hammered out a deal as the strike stretched into its eighth week. Contentious issues included: work scheduling, wage increases, sick leave and contracting out services.
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Toronto, Ontario
Union: Amalgamated Transit Union Local 113
Employer: Toronto Transit Commission (TTC)
Summary of Events
The 2006 strike was an illegal "wildcat" strike and the 2008 strike was a legal strike action. Both strikes lasted one day and generated much discussion about back-to-work legislation.
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Across Ontario
Summary of Events
In the fall of 1997, 126,000 teachers participated in an illegal strike in reaction to the Mike Harris led Ontario government's education reform legislation. It lasted 2 weeks. There were 9 days of action which happened in the following two years where public sector workers essentially shut down cities across Ontario.
Toronto, Ontario
Union: Ontario Public Service Employees' Union
Employer: Ontario Government
Summary of Events
45,000 public service employees voted overwhelmingly to strike and went off the job March 13. The strike ended May 5, 2002, 54 days later. OPSEU won significant wage increases and greater job security for contract employees. The government gained the right to pay for performance bonuses, but lost the attempt to take full control of the pension plan surplus.
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Toronto, Ontario
Union: York University Faculty Association (YUFA)
Employer: York University
Summary of Events
York University faculty and librarians were on strike from March 20 to May 13, 1997.
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Ontario-wide
Union: Ontario Public Service Employees' Union
Employer: Ontario Government
Summary of Events
OPSEU struck legally for the first time in their history (Ontario civil servants were given the legal right to strike by Bill 117 in February 1994, during Ontario's first NDP government). The strike lasted five weeks and was in opposition to Mike Harris government's proposed job cuts.
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Ontario-wide
Union: Canadian Union of Public Employees - various locals
Employer: Ontario Hospital Association (OHA)
Summary of Events
The strike began in less than 36 hours on January 25, 1981 with over 50 of the 65 CUPE unionized hospitals and over 10,000 workers participating in the strike. The strike was caused by a government fiscal crisis, which caused the government to lower their expenses, which caused pressure on hospital administration to try and be more cost efficient and workers increase their productivity (ie, they would have to see more patients and the patients were to have a higher turn-around time). Since the unionized workers did not fare well with CUPE, due to various prejudices, there was not much support with their issues and the hospital workers were forced to strike on their own accord. The illegal strike happened despite the threats made the government, police, and the OHA made regarding legal action, being suspended or dismissed, and even abuse against the workers if they decided to strike. The Ontario Supreme Court released an injunction against the strike on January 31, 1981, forcing these workers to get back to work. After being forced back to work, the union was refused a no retaliation clause. This meant that many striking union members had to face penalties; 34 workers were fired and over 3000 workers were suspended for varying periods of time (ranging from a few days to a year long).
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Hospital strike : women, unions, and public sector conflict by Sudbury, Ontario
Union: United Steelworkers
Employer: Inco (later renamed Vale)
Sources and related resources
*The CIRHR library maintains an archive on the 1978 - 1979 strike, please request from Library staff.
One year later : t: 1978-79 strike at INCO : the effects on families by The 1978-79 strike at INCO : the effects on families: a report by Ontario-wide
Union: Local 2078 of the United Auto Workers
Employer: Ontario Hospital Association/Blue Cross
Summary of Events
A first contract strike between Local 2078 of the United Auto Workers and the Ontario Hospital Association/Blue Cross. The union was eventually decertified.
Sources and related resources
Ontario Labour Relations Board Reports - Cases dealing with this strike appear in the following issues: March 1979 p. 2, July 1980 p. 1036, December 1980 p. 1759, March 1981 p. 304, April 1981 p. 468, June 1981 p. 763. (Request from library staff)
*The CIRHR library maintains an archive on this strike, please request from Library staff.
Union: United Steelworkers
Employer: Radio Shack
Summary of Events
A first contract strike lasting August 9, 1979 to April 7, 1980 between the United Steelworkers and Radio Shack. Charges of unfair labour practices resulted in a case before the Ontario court.
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*The CIRHR library maintains an archive on this strike, please request from Library staff.
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*The CIRHR library maintains an archive on this strike, please request from Library staff.
Kenora and Fort Francis, Ontario
Summary of Events
A strike between the lumber and sawmill workers union and Boise Cascade from July 1978 until November 1981. Several other unions were involved and considerable violence occurred.
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Articles:
*CIRHR Library maintains a collection of newspaper clippings on this strike
Centralia, Ontario
Summary of Events
The Fleck Strike was a 163 day strike of 80 female workers trying to obtain a first contract from Fleck Manufacturing. The conditions of the plant were negligible, with no temperature control (in both winter and summer), the building had rats, uncollected garbage, high dust levels and poor safety conditions (including no guards) on the machines. According to workers, clean-ups were only done on the days of inspection and unsafe equipment were temporarily shut down for the day in order to get past the Ministry of Labour's inspections. The strike began on March 6, 1978 and the company continued to operate without the striking workers, using the employees who decided against striking, supervisors, and summer student workers. Conflicts on the picket lines resulted in two striking workers being arrested and there were reports of picketers being pushed into snowbanks by police officers, as well as other police tactics to intimidate the picketers. The picketers decided to do secondary picketing to Fleck's biggest customer, Ford Motor Company of Canada, in order to put added pressure on Fleck. As a result from the pressure that was put on Ford, the company decided to cut back on their quotas required of Fleck. A mediator eventually came in and argued for a compromise between UAW and Fleck, where the company must recognize the union and all the workers, including the replacement workers, must vote for a first contract. Since this strike was a huge public relations issue, the premier Bill Davis decided to make the Rand Formula mandatory within Ontario law.
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*CIRHR Library maintains a collection of newspaper clippings on this strike.
The Fleck strike: law on the line by Sources and related resources
*The CIRHR library maintains an archive on this strike. Request from Library staff.
A report on the 1975 Metro Toronto teacher-board negotiations and strike by Elliot Lake, Ontario
Summary of Events
In 1974 1,000 Steelworkers went on a three-week wildcat strike at Elliot Lake's Denison uranium mine that resulted in the Government of Ontario appointing a royal commission headed by James Ham. The workers struck over the high levels of radiation exposure. The strike was one of Canada's first health and safety-related walkouts.
The Ham Commission on Mine Safety resulted in the creation of the Occupational Health and Safety Act in 1979.
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Report of the Royal Commission on the Health and Safety of Workers in Mines by Toronto, Ontario
Summary of Events
First contract strike.
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*The CIRHR library maintains an archive on this strike, please request from Library staff.
Rebel Youth by Sources and related resources
*The CIRHR library maintains an archive on this strike. Request from Library staff.
Reesor Siding, Ontario
Image credit: Detail from the Reesor Siding Memorial monument. Reesor Siding, Ontario, Canada
Summary of Events
1500 members of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America union went on strike halting producation at the Spruce Falls Power and Paper Company. The month long strike ended in a brutal interaction between the police, the woodcutters and the farmers in the region and 11 people were shot resulting in 3 deaths. This has become an important strike in Canadian history.
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*The CIRHR library maintains an archive on this strike, please request from Library staff.
Oshawa, Ontario
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Sit-down: the General Motors strike of 1936-1937 by Hamilton, Ontario
Summary of Events
"July 15, 1946: About 2,000 Stelco workers walk off the job in one of the most bitter strikes in Canadian labour history. They want higher wages, a 40-hour work week and, most importantly, formal recognition of their union as a bargaining unit. The 81-day strike is later hailed by academics as a major victory for the union movement."
Source:
Windsor, Ont.
Summary of Events
After workers found out that their demands could not be met, they quickly formed picket lines and began a 99 day strike. The workers' main demand was for union security and union dues. In order to reinforce picket lines, workers created a barricade of vehicles in which the army was being instructed to remove the vehicles to get rid of the barricade. The president of United Auto Workers Local 200 declared any removal of the vehicles from this barricade to break the strike. Other unions such as Chrysler Local 195 joined the protest and picket lines in solidarity to the Ford workers. The Ford Strike of 1945 ended through an agreement that created the Rand Formula, where workers who benefit from a union must help in the maintenance of their union by paying union dues.
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*The CIRHR library maintains an archive on this strike, please request from Library staff.
Strike!: 99 days on the line: the workers' own story of the 1945 Windsor Ford strike by Ninety-nine days: the Ford strike in Windsor, 1945 by Kirkland Lake, Ontario
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Oshawa, Ont.
Summary of Events
After a failed attempt to unionize in 1928, about 4,000 assembly-line workers at Oshawa, Ont.,'s General Motors (GM) Canada plant went on strike on April 8, 1937. Top demands included: an 8-hour workday, increased wages, a seniority system, and recognition of the union -- UAW, Local 222. In response, Ontario's premier ordered reinforcements from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). This move was not received well. Yet, on April 13 more RCMP reinforcements were called in. Then-Ontario Premier Mitchell Hepburn ultimately created his own police force, derisively dubbed "Hepburn’s Hussars” and “Sons-of-Mitches.” GM eventually settled with the union on April 23. The strike is credited with bringing industrial unionism north of the 49th parallel.
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Image credit: Protesters in the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919 (Photograph courtesy of the Ex-Press)
Stratford, Ont.
Summary of Events
Amidst the Great Depression workers in Stratford, Ont., on September 14, 1933. Employers of the five largest furniture manufacturers in the Southwestern Ontario city refused to recognize the workers union -- the Workers Unity League. By September 21, chicken pluckers also took to the picket lines. Emotions rose over who would feed the chickens while workers were on strike, which some assumed was a guise for strikebreaking activities. In late September the military was called in. This aggressive move brought national attention to the workers' plight. More than a month after the strike began one of the companies made a deal with its workers on October 18. By October 27 the military presence was called off due to bad publicity. This did not spell an end to the strike, though, as employers still refused to recognize the union. Workers gave up on unionizing, instead opting for wage increases and a shorter work week. By November 4, 1933, all the furniture workers and chicken pluckers were back at work.
Summary of Events
"The noon blast of July 23, 1919, whistled some 2,500 silver miners to a work stoppage in the Northern Ontario town of Cobalt. The men, members of Cobalt Miners Union, Local 146 of the International Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union, struck fourteen active mines in the Cobalt area. The dispute pitted employees against managers, the latter represented by the well-organized Temiskaming Mine Managers Association, presided over by H.A. Kee, manager of the Kerr Lake Mine. On the employees' side, the Cobalt Miners Union had as president J.P. (Jimmy) Maguire, a man intimately associated with the union since its coming to Cobalt in 1906."
Source:
Summary of Events
"Operators were happy with their new contract. Wages for the highest-paid operators would increase to 291.40 a wekk by September 1981. The drastic disparity between operators working in different regions would be eliminated the month after. The company paid everyone retroactive back pay of 15.9 percent on wages earned from November 2, 1978, to November 25, 1979; and 12.2 percent for the time period after November 25, 1978. On November 2, 1980, wages were to increase by a further 9.0 percent with a COLA provision for inflation beyond 8 percent on November 1, 1981. The new contract expired on November 24, 1981."
Source:
Summary of Events
"It was 11 March 1886, the second day of a labour dispute triggered by unionists in the employ of the privately owned Toronto Street Railway Company (tsr), which had a monopoly on streetcar services in the fast-growing city. Commentators divided over how serious these public disturbances were. Judge McDougall, chairman of the board of police commissioners, was concerned about maintaining public order and insisted it was imperative “to demonstrate the fact that a mob cannot do with this town as it pleases.” The Toronto World asked rhetorically, “If a crowd can rule the street whenever it sees fit, where is it all going to end. Yet, William Howland, Toronto’s urban-reform mayor appeared less perturbed by the crowd actions when he publicly chastised the tsr for provoking the dispute with its anti-union policy. Journalists writing for the daily press were struck by the good-humoured mood of the vast crowds, and maintained that even the police, hard pressed as they were to maintain order, seemed to enter into the fun at least in the dispute’s early stages."
Source:
Image credit: Manifestation à Hamilton (Canada) pour revendiquer une réduction du nombre d'heures de travail. Encyclopédie Canadienne
Hamilton, Ontario
Summary of Events
The fight for a shorter workday, dubbed the Nine-Hour Movement, gained steam in the late 1800s in North America, culminating in the Toronto Printers’ Strike of 1872. The movement reportedly started with a gathering in Hamilton in the first month of 1872. The idea quickly caught on, with many other local unions across Canada staging protests. The Toronto Typographical Union went on strike on March 25, 1872, much to the chagrin of the owner of Canada's largest newspaper at the time, The Globe. The prickly George Brown ran anti-union ads and editorials in his newspaper, which backfired by only bringing more attention -- and support -- to the workers. Ultimately the Nine-Hour Movement failed, but set the stage for the "Eight Hours Work, Eight Hours Leisure, Eight Hours Rest" movement. And while workers didn't get a nine-hour workday in 1872, unions did become legal on June 14, 1874 with the introduction of the Trade Union Act by then-Prime Minister John A. Macdonald.
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