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1946 Strike

No Scabs

The Strike also tested the neighbourhood, since some Brightsiders employed at Stelco refused to join in the struggle, choosing instead to work inside the besieged steel company’s gated premises, sometimes even living inside the factory to avoid picket line confrontations. The social stigma of being labeled a “scab” haunted people long after the resolution of the strike. 

This <em>Maclean’s Magazine</em> article details the ‘on-the-ground’ human cost of the strike. (Source: <em>Macleans Magazine</em> 15 Oct. 1946; Courtesy <em>Macleans Magazine</em>)
<em>Hamilton Spectator</em> coverage of female office workers crossing the Wilcox St. picket line to go to work in the Stelco plant. (Source: <em>Hamilton Spectator</em>, 15 Oct. 1946; Courtesy of LHA, HPL)
Houses of workers who broke the picket line were sometimes vandalized. (Source: United Steelworkers of America. Local 1005 McClure Fonds; Courtesy of William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University)

Listen: A Dirty Strike. Click the play circle below.

Show/Hide Transcript

Speaker 1:    

I was born in 1922, I guess I was 24… 

Speaker 2:    

Alright! 

Speaker 1:    

Yeah. It ah, it was the dirtiest strike. I’ve ever seen. 

You know, father fighting son; it was terrible. 

Because we didn’t believe in scabs. 

That’s what it was all about. 

If you scabbed, that meant that you were doing somebody out of a job. 

Yeah, that was dirty. 

But, we enjoyed it. 

Listen: Strikes, Scabs & Ethnicity. Click the play circle below.

Show/Hide Transcript

Speaker 1:    

The people from, uh, England - all these guys they were like, fancy machinists – all titled, titled guys, eh. 

So, they went around the plant and they were telling all the foreign type people - not too well educated – ‘you go, we’re going to go on strike; we’re going to do this. You go out on strike and we go with you.’ 

You know what happened? 

The opposite. 

They all stayed in. 

And all our guys went out. 

They all stayed in. 

BUT, they paid the price. 

Speaker 2:    

Yeah. 

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