West Coast Longshore Strike (1923)

Mon Oct 08, 1923

Image

On this day in 1923, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) in Vancouver struck for higher wages. With a force of 350 company guards protecting the dock and scabs, work continued until the strike’s defeat in December.

The Shipping Federation imported strikebreakers, housed in the CPR ship Empress of Japan, while an armed group of 350 men guarded the waterfront from potential interference from striking workers.

The longshoremen gave up on December 10th, and the Shipping Federation took over the dispatch of the work force, formerly controlled by the union, and set up a company union, the “Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers Association”.

This union would go on to lead the more well-known West Coast Longshore Strike of 1935.