Workers' Unity League

The 6th World Congress of the Communist International held in summer 1928 adopted a militant political line, opposed to reformism and compromise with the moderate left. The Comintern believed global capitalism had entered a 'Third Period', which would be marked by economic collapse, leaving the working class ripe for radicalization. The Communists Party, as a Comintern member, accepted this new political line.

Communist Party member Samuel Carr returned from Moscow's Lenin School in Spring 1929, relaying the Comintern's intention for a Communist labour union centre in Canada. The Communist Party of Canada declared its intention of creating a 'red union centre' separate from the established Trades and Labor Congress of Canada during its June 1929 conference. The Workers' Unity League six months later, in January 1930.^[6]

The first action of the Workers' Unity League was a walkout in the National Steel Car Company factory in Hamilton, Ontario. Led by YCL member Harvey Murphey, 1200 workers walked off the job, most of them Finnish immigrants. Although members of Hamilton's Trades and Labour Council (HTLC) were initially sympathetic, the aggressive communist rhetoric scared the moderates on the council. A delegation of the strikes who came to the HTLC to ask for support and resources were turned away and denounced for their "nerve and effrontery."^[7]

The strikes then appealed to the Finnish Organization of Canada, which had been supportive of labour in the past. The Finnish Organization of Canada ignored their appeals. 300 of the 1200 workers maintained the strike for a full 6 weeks before it ended in defeat for the workers.

The failure of the strike was a major setback for the Workers' Unity League. The WUL faced failures in organizing miners in Alberta and Nova Scotia. A major difficulty faced by the WUL was that the depression made jobs hard to come by, and although conditions were bad, organizing with a union ran the risk of losing what little they had. Additionally, many workers were wary of communism- a fact only bolstered by the WUL's portrayal as a Soviet puppet in the media.

In spite of this, the WUL found success in organizing unemployed workers, led by Arthur "Slim" Evans. Unemployed workers were usually a hindrance to organized labor -striking workers were often replaced by the unemployed, who were willing to work for less- but the WUL organization brought them into the labour movements fold, and instead of crossing picket lines, unemployed workers joined them.^[8][9]

In 1931, the WUL had less than 7,000 members. By 1932, this had more than doubled to 15,000 workers. Between 1929 and 1932, the TLC' membership fell by 25%, from 141,000 to 105,000. At its peak in 1935, the Workers' Unity League had over 40,000 members. The WUL's willingness to organize sectors previously considered organizable was a major factor in its growth.

The WUL, despite being smaller than the TLC and All-Canadian Congress of Labour, started 90% of strikes in Canada between 1933 and 1936. In 1933, 181 of the 233 strikes in Canada was led by the WUL and it won 111 of the strikes.^[10]

La Liga de la Unidad Obrera fue el sindicato más activo de su época y se distinguió por su disposición a la huelga. Sam Scarlet, veterano organizador sindical y miembro de los Trabajadores Industriales del Mundo , afirmó que la Liga de la Unidad Obrera era el "único lugar para un verdadero luchador de clase".

En 1933 y 1934 se produjeron las huelgas más numerosas y violentas desde 1920. Los sindicatos afiliados a la Liga de Unidad Obrera representaron el 71 % de los días de huelga durante este período y, a pesar de representar a una minoría de trabajadores, la mitad de todos los huelguistas eran miembros y la mayoría de las huelgas fueron llevadas a cabo por ella. ^{[ 11 ]} Esto incluye el sangriento paro de los mineros de Estevan, Saskatchewan, en el que la policía mató a tres huelguistas, y la huelga de los trabajadores del mueble y los desplumadores de pollos en Stratford, Ontario, que fue sofocada con la intervención del ejército canadiense. ^{[ 12 ]}

La WUL proporcionó una base sólida para el crecimiento del Partido Comunista, con una membresía que pasó de 1.300 en 1930 a más de 9.000 en 1935. ^{[ 11 ]}

En 1935, los acontecimientos internacionales modificaron la estrategia de la Internacional Comunista. El auge del fascismo en Europa impulsó a Stalin a convocar un Frente Popular de comunistas y no comunistas contra la extrema derecha. Siguiendo la estrategia del Frente Popular, la Liga de la Unidad Obrera se fusionó con el Congreso de Organizaciones Industriales , una facción dentro de la TLC. Muchos comunistas, como Henry Segal, Fred Collins y Leo Sax, obtuvieron cargos ejecutivos en el CIO. Siguiendo la línea de la Comintern de «unidad a cambio de un precio», muchos sindicatos industriales de la WUL fueron liquidados y sus miembros distribuidos entre los sindicatos gremiales afiliados a la TLC. Por ejemplo, el sindicato rojo de Trabajadores de la Alimentación se disolvió en los respectivos sindicatos de panaderos, camioneros y empleados de hoteles y restaurantes afiliados a la TLC. ^{[ 13 ]}

En 1938, la CIO fue expulsada de la TLC, acusada de simpatías comunistas. Los sindicatos expulsados ​​fundaron una nueva central sindical, el Congreso Canadiense del Trabajo (CCL). Destacados comunistas fueron expulsados ​​del nuevo sindicato, y la influencia comunista sobre el movimiento obrero comenzó a menguar en favor de la Federación Cooperativa de la Commonwealth . El CCL se fusionó con la TLC en 1956, formando el actual Congreso Laboral Canadiense (CLC). ^{[ 14 ]}