IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cir/cirwor/2000s-28.html

Hope against Hope: Persistent Canadian Unions in the Interwar Years

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Huberman
  • Denise Young

Abstract

Current forecasts paint a dismal future for unions; observers in the 1920s and 1930s also projected bleak prospects for organized labor. Analysts in the interwar years were off the mark. This paper seeks to investigate whether the revival of the labor movement before WWII was the result of institutional change, in particular the coming of the CIO, or the outcome of an internal dynamic that gave rise to rapid declines and spurts in growth. We test these two views in a war-of-attrition context, using a newly constructed data set on Canadian strikes between 1920 and 1939. Estimation is undertaken in a competing-risks framework. We find that workers did not cave in when employers sought to break their unions, and under certain conditions workers could outlast employers. The increasing proportion of worker wins in the early to mid 1930s led to the rise in union membership observed before the arrival of the CIO in Canada in 1937. We conclude that current predictions regarding the end of unions in the twenty-first century may prove to be premature. Tout comme les analystes contemporains, certains observateurs des années 1920 et 1930 prédisaient un avenir sombre à la syndicalisation. Leurs prévisions étaient fausses. Cet article vise à vérifier si la renaissance des syndicats avant la Deuxième Guerre mondiale est associée à un changement organisationnel, soit l'arrivée du CIO, ou le résultat d'une dynamique interne qui produit des périodes de croissance et de décroissance rapide. En utilisant une nouvelle banque de données sur les grèves au Canada entre 1920 et 1939, dans un modèle de guerre d'usure, cet article teste ces deux propositions. Nous trouvons que les travailleurs n'ont pas reculé face aux menaces des employeurs et dans certains cas ils ont remporté des conflits. Grâce à ces grèves gagnantes, le nombre de travailleurs syndiqués s'est accru même avant le CIO. On conclut que les prévisions courantes vouant les syndicats à la disparition au vingt-et-unième siècle sont prématurées.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Huberman & Denise Young, 2000. "Hope against Hope: Persistent Canadian Unions in the Interwar Years," CIRANO Working Papers 2000s-28, CIRANO.
    • Handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2000s-28
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cirano.qc.ca/files/publications/2000s-28.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard B. Freeman, 1998. "Spurts in Union Growth: Defining Moments and Social Processes," NBER Chapters, in: The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century, pages 265-296, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Rosenbloom, Joshua L., 1998. "Strikebreaking and the Labor Market in the United States, 1881–1894," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(1), pages 183-205, March.
    3. Harrison, Alan & Stewart, Mark, 1989. "Cyclical Fluctuations in Strike Durations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 827-841, September.
    4. Kennan, John, 1985. "The duration of contract strikes in U.S. manufacturing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 5-28, April.
    5. Michael D. Bordo & Claudia Goldin & Eugene N. White, 1998. "The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bord98-1, May.
    6. Card, David & Olson, Craig A, 1995. "Bargaining Power, Strike Durations, and Wage Outcomes: An Analysis of Strikes in the 1880s," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(1), pages 32-61, January.
    7. Peter Cramton & Morley Gunderson & Joseph Tracy, 1999. "The Effect Of Collective Bargaining Legislation On Strikes And Wages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 475-487, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Huberman, Michael & Young, Denise, 2002. "Hope against Hope: Strike Activity in Canada, 1920-1939," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 315-354, July.
    2. Geraghty, Thomas M. & Wiseman, Thomas, 2008. "Wage strikes in 1880s America: A test of the war of attrition model," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 303-326, September.
    3. Molinder, Jakob & Karlsson, Tobias & Enflo, Kerstin, 2022. "Social democracy and the decline of strikes," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    4. Sadat Reza & Paul Rilstone, 2016. "Semiparametric Efficiency Bounds and Efficient Estimation of Discrete Duration Models with Unspecified Hazard Rate," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(5), pages 693-726, May.
    5. Peter Cramton & Morley Gunderson & Joseph Tracy, 1999. "The Effect Of Collective Bargaining Legislation On Strikes And Wages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(3), pages 475-487, August.
    6. Michele Campolieti, 2023. "An event study analysis of the effects of collective bargaining legislation on strike outcomes," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 37(2), pages 242-279, June.
    7. Huberman, Michael & Young, Denise, 1999. "Cross-Border Unions: Internationals in Canada, 1901-1914," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 204-231, July.
    8. Geraghty, Thomas M. & Wiseman, Thomas, 2011. "Conflict and compromise: Changes in U.S. strike outcomes, 1880 to 1945," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 519-537.
    9. Susan Wolcott, 2008. "Strikes in Colonial India, 1921–1938," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 61(4), pages 460-484, July.
    10. Michele Campolieti & Robert Hebdon & Benjamin Dachis, 2014. "The Impact of Collective Bargaining Legislation on Strike Activity and Wage Settlements," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 394-429, July.
    11. Belloc, Filippo, 2021. "Industrial actions and firing regimes: How deregulating worker “Exit” reshapes worker “Voice”," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 251-264.
    12. Silviano Esteve Pérez & Mariluz Marco Aledo & María Engracia Rochina Barrachina, 2006. "A Competing Risks Analysis of Strike Duration in Spain: Agreement and Non-Agreement Outcomes," Revista de Economía Laboral - Spanish Journal of Labour Economics, Asociación Española de Economía Laboral - AEET, vol. 3, pages 14-45.
    13. Kyung nok Chun & Zachary Schaller & Stergios Skaperdas, 2020. "Why Are There Strikes?," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 130(6), pages 929-956.
    14. Enflo, Kerstin & Molinder, Jakob & Karlsson, Tobias, 2018. "The Power Resource Theory Revisited: What Explains the Decline in Industrial Conflicts in Sweden?," CEPR Discussion Papers 13130, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    15. Hanes, Christopher, 2010. "The rise and fall of the sliding scale, or why wages are no longer indexed to product prices," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 49-67, January.
    16. Campolieti, Michele, 2020. "The distribution of union size: Canada, 1913–2014," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 558(C).
    17. Bhattacharjee, A. & Samarjit Das, 2002. "Testing Proportionality in Duration Models with Respect to Continuous Covariates," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0220, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    18. Michele Campolieti & Robert Hebdon & Benjamin Dachis, 2016. "Collective Bargaining in the Canadian Public Sector, 1978–2008: The Consequences of Restraint and Structural Change," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 192-213, March.
    19. Timothy J. Hatton & Mark Thomas, 2010. "Labour markets in the interwar period and economic recovery in the UK and the USA," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(3), pages 463-485, Autumn.
    20. William H. Greene & Ana P. Martins, 2002. "Striking Features of the Labor Market," EERI Research Paper Series EERI RP 2002/08, Economics and Econometrics Research Institute (EERI), Brussels.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cir:cirwor:2000s-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ciranca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.