All Solid along the Line

As the Canadian and international record will testify, the years between 1917-1920 were critically important to workers' aspirations for industrial unionism. An account of the Newfoundland Industrial Workers' Association (NIWA) has largely been passed over in the writing of the Island's labour history. Yet this organization figures prominently in the events which helped to shape the labour-capital relationship during the wartime period. In the Newfoundland context, the effective use of the strike weapon during this period is a telling indicator of the heightened sense of militancy resulting from the temporary convergence of labour organizations around issues relating to the war. Centred in St John's, but exerting an Island-wide presence, the NIWA arose out of a pressing need for Newfoundlanders to address the economic and political exigencies of World War I. This article examines the NIWA in terms of its structure, membership, and mandate for change with specific reference to the major confrontation waged between the NIWA and their principal opponent, the Reid Newfoundland Company in the spring of 1918. Resume Comme on peut l'observer dans le contexte canadien et a l'echelle internationale, les annees de 1917 a 1920 furent d'une importance capitale pour les ouvriers aspirant au syndicalisme industriel. Largement negligee dans la litterature sur le mouvement ouvrier terre-neuvien, la Newfoundland Industrial Workers' Association (NIWA) joue pourtant un role de premier plan dans les evenements qui marquerent les rapports entre le capital et le travail au cours de ce conflit mondial. Dans le contexte terre-neuvien, le recours efficace a la greve constitue un indice revelateur d'un esprit de militantisme accentue, fruit du ralliement temporaire des associations syndicales en reponse aux problemes souleves par la guerre. Situee a Saint-Jean mais manifestant sa presence dans toute l'ile de Terre-Neuve, la NIWA est issue du besoin pressant chez les Terre-Neuviens de reagir aux exigences economiques et politiques de la premiere guerre mondiale. Cette etude porte sur la structure, la composition, et le programme de reforme de la NIWA, s'attardant particulierement a la confrontation majeure opposant la NIWA a son principal adversaire, la Reid Newfoundland Company, au cours du printemps 1918

Geometry · Line (geometry · Canadian Identity and History · History · Mathematics · Geology