Historical Context of Labor Reforms in Canada

The assignment provides a detailed analysis of the historical events that led to the establishment of employment insurance in Canada. It highlights the significance of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 and the subsequent On to Ottawa Trek, which ultimately resulted in the creation of unemployment insurance. The document also discusses the impact of these events on Canadian labor laws and the eventual adoption of Employment Insurance in 1940.

Running head: EMPLOYEE AND LABOR RELATIONS
Employee and Labor Relations
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1EMPLOYEE AND LABOR RELATIONS
The year of 1919, saw the soldiers returning to their respective homes just after that of
World War I and found high inflation and a great amount of unemployment. They did not get
back their work due to the high social tension. Moreover, the workers of various trades
wanted to get fair amount of wages, very much similar to the workers of today’s generation.
They simply wanted to get enough earnings in order to support families within that of the
changing economy. In that year, the workers decided to walk off their jobs and protested on
to the streets of Winnipeg, in Canada (Blanpain & Bisom-Rapp, 2014). This created the path
for the largest labor actions that Canada had ever seen.
Strikers on the streets were inclusive of public as well as private sectors and the range
was from the garment workers to the police officials. The Royal North West Mounted Police
as well as the hired union busters were riding on the horses in order to fire the crowd
consisting of around thousands of the workers on June 21, 1919. This fatal incident killed two
workers and injured many. This later came to be marked as “Bloody Sunday”, that marked
the ending date of the workers’ strike. In Canadian history, it became the largest general
strike and started setting the stage for the upcoming labor reforms.
The year of 1929-39 saw the economic depression and unemployment insurance was
born. During this period of economic depression, unemployed men were forced to serve in
the government working camps in exchange of meager wages in deserted places
(Rosenbloom, 2014). In addition to this, the Vancouver workers were abandoned into the
camps, which later gave rise to the workers’ strike. They protested for two months, but there
was no sign of relief. Failing miserably to promote their points they took this case directly to
Ottawa (Thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. 2018). Some travelled their by foot and some by the
then railway system.

2EMPLOYEE AND LABOR RELATIONS
This journey later came to be called ‘On to Ottawa trek’. However, trek was being
stopped by that of RCMP on getting orders from that of Ottawa. The strike ended after riots
as well as arrests of the leaders of the union. Later on, Mackenzie King’s liberals were
instrumental in winning the election and they legislated against that of repressive government
by abolishing camps. The epic trip along with strike was able to capture the mind as well as
hearts of several Canadians. It was instrumental in creating the Unemployment Insurance in
year 1940. Canada however, became the last major country in the west, adopting an
Unemployment Insurance System. In modern days, this particular system is referred to as
Employment Insurance or EI (Basok & López-Sala, 2016).

3EMPLOYEE AND LABOR RELATIONS
References
Basok, T., & López-Sala, A. (2016). Rights and Restrictions: Temporary Agricultural
Migrants and Trade Unions’ Activism in Canada and Spain. Journal of International
Migration and Integration, 17(4), 1271-1287.
Blanpain, R., & Bisom-Rapp, S. (2014). Global Workplace: International and Comparative
Employment Law Cases and Materials. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Rosenbloom, D. H. (2014). Federal service and the constitution: The development of the
public employment relationship. Georgetown University Press.
Thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. (2018). Retrieved 17 April 2018, from
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/working-class-history/