The legacy of the Winnipeg General Strike -- 100 years later

Next Tuesday, June 25 marks the 100th anniversary of the end of the Winnipeg General Strike. Today's program features a panel discussion about the impact of the strike a century later.

It was done by the Global Research News Hour, hosted and produced by Michael Welch in the same city where the Winnipeg General Strike happened. Global Research News Hour is produced and broadcast at CKUW, the campus/community radio station at University of Winnipeg.

The strike started on May 15, 1919 and lasted for six weeks. Over 30,000 workers walked off the job and shut down factories, shops and city services, and had a lasting impact on the labour movement and workers rights in general.

Today's guests are talking about that legacy:

Julie Guard is Professor of Labour Studies and History at the University of Manitoba. She has authored numerous academic articles and chapters in books. Her research focuses on Canadian labour history, social movement history, history of dissent and repression, history of the Canadian left, women's history, consumer and food history She is the author most recently of the 2019 book Radical Housewives: Price Wars and Food Politics in Mid 20th Century Canada.

Harold Dyck is a long time anti-poverty and welfare advocate based in Winnipeg. He has played prominent roles with a number of Winnipeg-based anti-poverty organizations including the Manitoba Committee for Economic Justice, the National Anti poverty Organization and the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg. He is also the long-time director of the Low Income Intermediary Project which conducts advocacy work for people on social assistance.

John Clarke is a long time organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, a grassroots antipoverty organization based mostly in Toronto that combines collective struggles on behalf of individuals fighting for tenant rights, welfare access, and those threatened with eviction and deportation, with larger political campaigns geared toward policy changes in support of the most marginalized in our society.

Image: Wikimedia – RNWMP operations in Winnipeg General Strike, 1919