There may still be some folks in Sudbury who remember that time in May, many years ago, when angry miners staged a wildcat walkout.
If it is the kind of thing you remember hearing about, maybe around the kitchen table or an evening fire out at camp, then Liz Quinlan, a professor in the University of Saskatchewan’s Sociology department, would like to have a chat. She's doing a research project on the impact of the Sudbury walkout and the real reasons why workers were angry.
It was May 18, 1960, when roughly 170 employees of Falconbridge Nickel's Hardy Mine property in Onaping staged a walkout after some employees were fired for refusing to wear safety glasses, states a Canadian Press report from the time.
Other picket lines arose in other Sudbury locations in support of the Onaping workers, the same Canadian Press report states. Traffic was blocked to some Falconbridge properties. Only maintenance workers were being allowed past the pickets, said the reports.
The walkout gained support from other Falconbridge employees and although the union, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Local 598, kept asking workers to respect the collective agreement and return to work, hundreds did not.
Falconbridge appealed to the Ontario Labour Relations Board to have the strike declared illegal and 230 union members were formally given notice to attend a hearing, The Canadian Press reported.
According to union members back then, the dispute was because the company had ordered that all workers in all departments must wear safety glasses. The workers argued that safety glasses were too uncomfortable and were really not necessary to be worn by all employees.
Local 598 officials had been urging the workers to return to work since the walkout was a violation of the collective agreement.
Eventually the safety glasses question was resolved, but Quinlan said the issue was actually far deeper than complaints over the use of safety glasses.
"When you put that up against the fact that the Falconbridge workers had been advocating for the previous 10 years, at least, to form a joint safety committee with management to discuss safety issues, and over the previous 10 years, those requests were turned down," Quinlan said.
In a case report on the wildcat strike, Quinlan said it was easy to understand why frustrations boiled over for those workers back in the day — workers were concerned with their own safety and management’s response was to insist on safety glasses.
"In just that previous decade, in the 1950s, there were 18 fatalities as a result of workplace accidents and so when the, as I understand it, when the company insisted that the workers, every single worker, wear these safety glasses, that the men figured were not helpful at all," said Quinlan.
Members of Mine Mill had requested a formal meeting with Falconbridge management to hash out no less than 16 key concerns in that spring of 1960. She said there were 15 union representatives on the committee.
"They had drafted a list of 16 safety issues that had been left unresolved for years and had caused unnecessary deaths, and the company refused to meet with these 15 (miners). So that really was the impetus of the wildcat strike," said Quinlan.
As part of her research into the possible root causes of the wildcat walkout, Quinlan will be visiting Sudbury in June. It is her hope to participate in the annual memorial service held to commemorate the June 20, 1984 tragedy, when four miners were killed in a seismic event at the Falconbridge Mine.
The union has held formal ceremonies over the years to commemorate the deaths and raise awareness of the need for health and safety reform.
Along with her visit for the 40th memorial anniversary of the mine deaths, Quinlan said she is hoping to find people in Sudbury who have memories or information on the 1960 walkout. She is also keen to talk to people who may have heard stories from others who were involved.
Since her research is ongoing, she is keen to speak to anyone in Sudbury who may have memories of these events or who may simply have heard stories about working conditions at Falconbridge in the late 1950s and 1960s, said Quinlan’s website.
She is also hoping to find people who have memories of the walkout or memories of anyone who might have a family connection to those who took part. Quinlan's office is asking members of the public to discuss the story and to contact her to share any stories.
Quinlan can be reached by email at [email protected]; by phone or text to (306) 227-4039, or; by mail to:
409 9th Street East
Saskatoon, SK
S7N 0A7
(Please be sure to include your name & phone number)
Len Gillis covers mining and health care for Sudbury.com.
