75th Anniversary of the Stelco Strike of '46
Seventy-five years ago on July 15, 1946, Hamilton, Ontario steelworkers took on the country's biggest steel producer in a crucial strike for union recognition. With strong community support, they held the line for almost three months to win an historic victory, with the strike ending October 4, 1946. Throughout the world at the end of World War II, hundreds of millions upon millions of working and oppressed peoples yearned for and were demanding change. The imperialist socio-economic system was weakened. A new socialist state existed on one-sixth of the globe. There emerged a continuing upsurge in the industrialized countries and movements for rights, national independence and national liberation in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the U.S. and Canada big capital was fat with war profits. The war economy was of no benefit to working people at home or abroad. A massive strike movement broke out, known as the Spirit of '46, which embodied this striving. In the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over the 18 months that followed, some 7 million workers engaged in the largest, most sustained wave of strikes in U.S. history. About 144 million days of work were lost in those 18 months, more than in the entire decade of the 1980s or the 1990s and just slightly less than the total "days idled by work stoppages" in both those decades combined. In Canada, there were 70,688 workers out on 36 strikes in June 1946.[1] The Spirit of '46 announced to the world the workers' claim to the wealth they create and the standing of their collectives, including putting union recognition on a legal basis.
In 1946, the workers and their communities were able to make headway because the union fought and a critical mass of workers and the people of Hamilton stood with it in the face of great difficulties. Throughout its history, Local 1005 has faced constant attacks from directors and executive managers who wanted to smash it and impose their will on the workers with impunity. The workers have always fought to uphold their rights and the rights of all, especially since the anti-social offensive was launched with one of its aims to dismantle the union, refuse to negotiate in good faith and treat the workers as expendable. Hamilton steelworkers have shown time and again that security lies in the fight for the rights of all. On this basis, they can achieve success. They have inspired the labour movement and all Canadians nationwide.    
Notes1. It Started with a Whisper: A History of the 1946 Strike, published by USW Local 1005 on January 1, 1996 on its 50th Anniversary, page 26. 2. "The Siege of '46," on the history of the 1946 Stelco strike, part of a digital collection on the history of labour and technology in Hamilton and district posted on the McMaster University website, part of the SchoolNet Digital Collections program of Industry Canada.
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Canadian Stelco
steelworkers waged a historic strike in Hamilton
in 1946 to force the government
to recognize their union, USW 1005, and to
improve their wages and benefits, and establish
their pensions. When the company was organizing
to have the Ontario Provincial Police and RCMP
attack the workers' picket lines, the people of
Hamilton from every sector rallied around the
striking workers. At a crucial moment in the
strike, hundreds of World War II veterans
marched from Woodlawns Park down to Stelco's
gates. The strong Italian contingent of striking
workers often held mass buffets, with men and
women preparing food for thousands of hungry
strikers. One night, over $6,000 in donations
was collected, and the "money used to further
the strike by providing more food and other
necessities. Some local merchants and farmers
displayed their sympathies by extending credit
and donating tons of food. Entertainers
regularly visited the picket lines."[