Abstract
During and after the First World War, labour groups in Canada mobilized to ameliorate their position as members of the working class. In their struggle to secure better hours, improved working conditions, and the right to collective bargaining, union activists resorted to increasingly radical measures to achieve their goals. These actions, however, were soon met with swift opposition from the state. Through restrictions on unions, crackdowns on strikes, and surveillance of their activities, labour faced formidable opposition from the economic and security apparatus of the state in the immediate postwar years. Since then, the struggle between workers and the state has called into question the collective solidarity of the Canadian labour movement. To answer that question, this article comparatively evaluates the strength of the labour movement to the strength of the state in Canada from 1914 to 1924. In so doing, it demonstrates that while the state was successful in its efforts to suppress labour, the extremity of this reaction testifies to the power that labour ultimately commanded at this time.
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