1910-1920

1911-12: New industrial additions in Edmonton include several packinghouses and GWG, the latter a clothing manufacturer employing largely female labour.

1912: Workers at the Great West Garment plant in Edmonton form Local 120 of United Garment Workers International Union

1912: Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) organizes a strike of 250 sewer construction workers in Edmonton – railway construction workers across Alberta (Noble Cause 116)

1912: The founding meeting of the Alberta Federation of Labour is held in Lethbridge; farmers are included in organization

1913: Edmonton Musicians go out on strike

____?: Apprenticeship programs officially established in Alberta

1914: The latest of a number of explosion at Hillcrest Mines results in loss of 189 lives

1916: Edmonton’s inside workers lead the way in creating continuing trade unions for municipal employees.

1917: The Edmonton District and Labour Council creates the Labour Representation League to field working-class candidates for all levels of government. The League, opposing the federal government’s plans to use conscription to fill military ranks, calls for conscription of wealth before conscription of men can be considered during the war. (Finkel)

1917: IWW organizing amongst farmworkers in Southern Alberta (Danysk 107)
– Bolshevik revolution in Russia lays basis of USSR
– Borden Government imposes conscription

1916-17: Alberta leads with some of the most progressive labour legislation in Canada

1918: Alberta Legislature passes a Workmans’ Compensation Act based on the Meredith Principles

1919: One Big Union formed in Calgary at a meeting of Western Federations of Labour on March 13
– Civil Service Association of Alberta (CSA) is formed in Edmonton
Edmonton teachers go on strike
– Sympathy strikes take place as Alberta caught up in general strike movement; support Winnipeg General Strike *

1919: A year of radicalism in Edmonton, marked by a month-long sympathy strike with Winnipeg’s General Strike participants
– First teachers’ strike in Alberta
– Establishment of the Civil Service Association of Alberta (forerunner of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees)
– Creation of a labour newspaper, the Edmonton Free Press, which, in various incarnations, survives until 1953.

1918-22: Miners across in the Crowsnest, Drumheller and Lethbridge areas lead militant Province-wide strike action