WORKERS PRIOR TO 1850
Prior to 1850, Canada's economy was based primarily on the export of natural products to markets in Europe. Workers toiled for masters at remote fur trade posts, fishing stations, or timber camps. They also lived in the towns, employed as skilled workers producing products of wood, metalwork, etc, and as less skilled labourers at construction sites and on the docks. Some persons, primarily women, also worked as domestic servants.
Curing and drying cod in Newfoundland, c. 1720
© Library and Archives Canada [LAC] , C-3686 / Herman Molk |
During this period, the small workplace was the norm. Whether in remote locations or in urban shops, employees usually worked in small groups and had personal contact with their bosses. Among the urban trades or crafts such as carpentry, masonry, and blacksmithing, there was a distinct artisanal way of life passed down from master to apprentice over centuries, starting in Europe, and later adapted to the New World. There were also the beginnings of worker organizations during this period.
During the time of French rule, between 1608 and 1763, the commercial economy was based mainly on the export of furs from the interior and of fish from the east coast. In the towns, such as Montréal and Québec City,
Forge, 18th Century
© Library and Archives Canada [LAC] , C-70037 / C.W. Jefferys |
a working-class culture emerged that was different from that of the leaders of society. Within that culture, an important distinction arose between skilled and unskilled workers. The former had a much more tightly knit social network. They used work skills that had evolved over centuries in the European tradition, and that had been transposed and adapted to conditions in the new world. These skills were jealously guarded and passed on to apprentices, who often lived in the homes of their masters and who could legitimately look forward to owning their own shops some day. Labourers, on the other hand, were set apart from apprentices and skilled workers, working on the docks, in warehouses, or on construction projects. They were more likely to move from job to job. While they sometimes shared in the social world of the apprentices, they were less likely to establish personal relationships with employers and form lasting associations.
Crafts workers had a history of organization. For centuries, European artisans had formed associations to regulate their trades and ensure the survival of their traditional working practices. In the new world, there were organizations of barbers and other artisans in New France. These associations were also ways for skilled workers to assert their respectability within society. In spite of their relative lack of wealth and power, they proclaimed themselves worthy of respect based on the social value of their work and their independence and control within the workplace. When larger, more impersonal workplaces evolved after 1850, crafts people used this organizational experience to form modern trade unions.
While particular staple products and markets shifted after the British takeover in 1763, the general pattern of employment did not. The fur trade eventually declined, but new markets developed for timber and grain in the early 19th century, leading to timber production in Upper and Lower Canada and New Brunswick, and to the production of grain for export in the two Canadas.
Cropping and sawing
© Library and Archives Canada [LAC] , C-82908 / Picturesque Canada, 1882 |
Workers were employed both in the new rural industries and in the towns. Ship-building developed from the timber industry in Québec City. In this and other urban centres such as Halifax, Saint John, Toronto, Hamilton and Montréal, employment was still characterized by small workplaces, by personal relationships between the employer and the employed, and by shared obligations of fair treatment and service that both parties honoured. As in the French period, skilled crafts people followed the European tradition of establishing craft associations, representing the seed from which unions would later grow. Among the working class, there were commonly-held values and social traditions distinct from those of persons in positions of influence and power and representing the beginnings of a worker or producer culture.
This period was also set off from the previous one by the appearance of large public works projects, especially canal construction. The building of the Lachine, Welland, Rideau, and St. Lawrence canals, among others in Upper and Lower Canada, as well as the Shubenacadie Canal in Nova Scotia, represented some of the first projects to offer mass employment in Canada.
Cutting firewood in front of houses in Montreal
© Library and Archives Canada [LAC] , C-40272 |
Between 1821 and 1848, in particular, thousands of skilled and unskilled labourers, many from Ireland, worked on these projects. It was a rough, impersonal milieu where workers came and went, rarely coming to know their employers. They sometimes reacted to threats of wage cuts or to ethnic or religious rivalry with riots, demonstrations, and strikes that erupted suddenly and disappeared once their immediate cause had passed. Thus were precedents for later work conflict set, though the amount of organized protest would become greater once unions had been formed.