Cross-Border Unions: Internationals in Canada, 1901–1914

Abstract

Debate on the role of international unions (unions with headquarters in the United States) in Canada is longstanding. One school of thought maintains that internationals have weakened Canada's union movement; another view holds that international and national unions acted in concert and increased the number of disputes and the likelihood of workers' victory. Using a newly created data base of strike dimensions for the period before World War I, the key years of union growth in Canada, we test these opposing views in a competing-risks framework. We find that internationals did not weaken Canada's union movement; nor did the two union types act in concert. Instead, internationals were absorbed in Canada's industrial relations framework.