Asbestos strike began - February 14, 1949

On this day in 1949, miners in Quebec led a strike for better working conditions and wages.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class. It's a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello everybody, I'm Eaves and you're tuned into
This Day in History Class, a show where we travel
back in time, one day at a time. Today it's February.

(00:24):
The day was February fourteenth, nineteen forty nine. Miners in
and near the town of Asbestos, Quebec in Canada went
on strike. The strike helped lead to the Quiet Revolution,
a time of political and social turbulence in the province
of Quebec during the nineteen sixties. Asbestos is a silicate

(00:44):
mineral used in fabrics, in fire resistant and insulating materials.
Now asbestos is known to cause cancer and other serious
health issues, but in nineteen forty nine, people around the
world used asbestos in common products like home installation, packing materials,
brake pads, and electrical wiring, and Quebec supplied most of

(01:06):
the world's asbestos. Asbestos was a mining town in Quebec's
eastern townships. The miners there were demanding higher wages, paid holidays,
union participation in management of the minds of pension, and
company action to protect workers against illness caused by asbestos exposure,

(01:27):
but the negotiations that took place between December of nineteen
in February of nineteen forty nine went nowhere. Both parties
were required to go to arbitration, but because the government
favored pro business arbitrators, the miners were sure that arbitration
would not turn out well for them, so at a

(01:47):
general assembly of miners on February, the miners decided to
go on a strike. Early on February fourteenth, the strike began.
Workers from Betford Mines Quebec also joined the strike. The
miners were represented by the Canadian Catholic Confederation of Labor,
a group of unions that the Catholic Church established in

(02:08):
nine to counter the anti clerical and socialist influence of
international unions. But Marie's Duplessi, the premier of Quebec, and
the conservative Union Nationale party that he led, supported imperialist
interests and undermined unions. The government declared the strike illegal
and sent provincial police to asbestos. The Catholic Church largely

(02:33):
supported the strikers, which was significant because it usually sided
with Duplessy's government. Joseph Charbonneau, the Archbishop of Montreal, gave
a speech in which he said that quote the working
class is the victim of a conspiracy aimed at crushing them,
and when there is a conspiracy to crush the working class,
it's the church's duty to intervene. He even called for

(02:57):
people to donate to the striker's families, but Duplessi pushed
the church to get the archbishop to resign, and Charbonneau
ended up becoming a chaplain in Victoria, British Columbia. But
the John's Manville Company, which owned the mind many of
the workers were employed at, hired replacement workers. The strikers

(03:17):
set up roadblocks to keep the workers from getting to
the mines, and the strike became violent. Police attempting to
break the picket lines attacked strikers with tear gas, and
strikers beat and disarmed police. More heavily armed police were
sent into Asbestos, and on May six they arrested around
two hundred people, though most were soon released. Just over

(03:40):
a week later, the union leaders were arrested on conspiracy charges.
The violence that erupted as part of the strikes barnered
media attention. Archbishop Maurice Roy of Quebec City mediated the
strike as it dragged on. On July one, the strike
finally ended when the two sides reached an agree meant

(04:00):
miners got a wage increase of five cents per hour
rather than the fifteen cents that they wanted, but their
health and safety demands were not addressed and many of
them did not get their jobs back. Labor unionists Jean Marshaun,
journalists j Rar Peltier, and union activist Pierre Trudeau all
played significant roles in the strike. They eventually transitioned into

(04:24):
political careers and became known as the Three Wise Men.
The strike marked a turning point in Quebec's history and
set the stage for the Quiet Revolution, a time of
rapid change in the province. I'm each deaf Coote and
hopefully you know a little more about history today than
you did yesterday. If you'd like to follow us on

(04:45):
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Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll be back tomorrow.

(05:07):
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