This year in labour: workers fight back despite instability and hardship

This month in labour history

1-01-1988 The Ontario Pay Equity Act comes into effect, the first law in North America to address gender pay inequity. It makes unions and employers equally responsible for implementation. [more]

1-01-1952 Old Age Security, the country's first universal pension plan, comes into effect for Canadians at 70 years of age. The Canada Pension Plan, based on employment contributions, follows in 1966. [more]

8-01-2007 The 21,000 members of ACTRA, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, break new ground for cultural workers with the first strike in their 64-year history. An agreement is reached after 17 months of bargaining. [more]

15-01-1889 Innkeeper Joe Beef of Montréal dies, a legendary friend to the outcast poor and labouring classes. More than 50 unions march in his funeral procession. [more]

18-01-1893 In the harbour at Nanaimo, British Columbia, Coast Seamen's Union organizers board the SS Bawnmore, whose crew had not been paid in months. A high-profile kidnapping trial follows, with the provincial premier acting as Crown Prosecutor. [more]

19-01-1973 Annie Buller, a veteran Communist organizer, dies in Toronto at 78 years of age after a lifetime of activism in support of labour and political causes. [more]

20-01-1914 Joseph Mairs, 21, a coal miner from Ladysmith, British Columbia, dies in prison after failing to receive adequate medical treatment. He is one of more than 200 strikers arrested in a long struggle for recognition of the United Mine Workers of America [more]

20-01-1950 Barred windows and locked doors prevent workers from escaping a fire in a small basement garment factory in downtown Toronto. Of the eleven people in the shop, six die in the blaze, including the owner and his son, and three more in hospital. [more]

23-01-1918 In wartime Nova Scotia, 88 men are killed in an explosion in a coal mine at Stellarton. The casualties are later listed on a memorial. Another nearby monument lists the 69 local soldiers killed during the four years of the First World War. [more]

24-01-1979 Le Journal de Montréal declares a lockout in an attempt to “gigify” the workers’ collective agreement. The dispute lasts for 764 days. [more]

24-01-1979 The first bank strike in Canadian history begins when workers picket branches of La Banque d'épargne de la cité et du district de Montréal. [more]

25-01-1988 Members of the United Nurses of Alberta defy a ban on strike action and begin a province-wide strike against cutbacks in health care. They win their case, and a better contract follows two years later. [more]

26-01-1981 Some 16,000 Ontario hospital workers, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, take part in an illegal strike. CUPE President Grace Hartman later goes to jail for supporting her members. [more]

27-01-1872 A public meeting at the Mechanics' Institute in Hamilton, Ontario adopts resolutions to reduce the normal six-day working week from 60 to 54 hours. When the Nine Hour League is announced, support grows in a dozen centres, from Sarnia to Montréal. [more]

29-01-1980 Jean-Claude Parrot, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, begins a three-month jail sentence for defying a back-to-work law that ended a legal strike by postal workers in 1978. [more]

29-01-1946 Supreme Court Justice Ivan C. Rand releases his report on the Ford strike and imposes the Rand Formula to promote union security. [more]

31-01-1907 More than 400 women telephone operators in Toronto walk out when Bell Telephone attempts to introduce longer hours and lower pay. [more]