Trades and Labor Congress of Canada

The Trades and Labor Congress of Canada was a Canada-wide central federation of trade unions active from 1883/1886 to 1956. It was founded at the initiative of the Toronto Trades and Labour Council and the Knights of Labor. It was the third attempt at a national labour federation to be formed in Canada: it succeeded the Canadian Labour Union which existed from 1873 to 1877 and the Canadian Labour Congress which held only one conference in 1881.

In December 1883, the Toronto Trades and Labor Council, under its president Charles March, convened roughly 50 delegates from various Toronto workers' organizations to discuss forming a Canadian union central; the meeting attracted mainly Toronto unionists, with no one attending from outside Ontario. It adopted policies which denounced government supported immigration, the Salvation Army for its alleged efforts to bring London's poor to Canada; it opposed any Asian immigration, called for female factory inspectors to protect women workers, a single tax system, government only issued currency (Banks issued money at this time), the end of child labour, and the use of convict labour. This first meeting did not establish a permanent organizational structure; that took shape only at the second assembly, in 1886.

History

The Toronto Trades and Labour Council began in 1881, and similar citywide coordinating bodies were soon formed in Montreal, Vancouver, Brantford, Ottawa and other cities. They banded together in 1886 as The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada. At first it primarily represented Ontario and Quebec, but it gained national reach over the following decade by establishing provincial legislative committees to lobby provincial governments, in Manitoba (1896), British Columbia (1896), and New Brunswick (1899). It helped resolve jurisdictional disputes among its member unions.