The Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada was a

trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

lumberjacks Lumberjack is a mostly North American term for workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees. The term usually refers to loggers in the era before 1945 in the United States, when trees were felled us ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. LWIUC was founded in

Sault Ste. Marie Sault Ste. Marie may refer to: People * Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, a Native American tribe in Michigan Places * Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada ** Sault Ste. Marie (federal electoral district), a Canadian federal electora ...

1924 by

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

s, who were dissatisfied with the

Lumber Workers Industrial Union The Lumber Workers' Industrial Union (LWIU) was a labor union in the United States and Canada which existed between 1917 and 1924. It organised workers in the timber industry and was affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Hi ...

of the

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with indu ...

and the OBU. The two founding national secretaries of LWIUC were Alfred Hautamäki and Kalle Salo, both Finns.Saarinen, Oiva W.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place A Historical Geography of the Finns in the Sudbury Area
'. Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1999. p. 194 A prominent figure in the founding of LWIUC was A. T. Hill, a former

wobblie The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with indu ...

and the leader of the Finnish section of the

Communist Party of Canada The Communist Party of Canada is a federal political party in Canada. Founded in 1921 under conditions of illegality, it is the second oldest active political party in Canada, after the Liberal Party of Canada. Although it does not currentl ...

. Overall, LWIUC maintained strong links with the Communist Party. Through the halls run by the Finnish Organization of Canada (an organization that was collectively affiliated with the

Workers' Party of Canada The Workers' Party of Canada refers to: *The Workers' Party of Canada, the legal face of the then-banned Communist Party of Canada The Communist Party of Canada is a federal political party in Canada. Founded in 1921 under conditions of ill ...

, the legal front of the Communist Party), LWIUC rapidly gained thousands of members. Iacovetta, Franca.
A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers, and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s - 1960s.
' Toronto .a. Univ. of Toronto Press, 1998. pp. 303-304 The headquarters of the LWIUC were initially at Port Arthur.Abel, Kerry M.
Changing Places: History, Community, and Identity in Northeastern Ontario
'. Montreal; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006. p. 174

''Metsätyöläinen''

LWIUC began publishing the monthly magazine ''Metsätyöläinen'' ('The Forest Worker') in December 1925, and it became an important mouthpiece of the Finnish-Canadian leftwing. The magazine was edited by Hautamäki. ''Metsätyöläinen'' was published by the ''

Vapaus ''Vapaus'' (Freedom) was a Finnish-Canadian communist newspaper, published in Sudbury, Ontario from 1917 to 1974.C.M. Wallace and Ashley Thomson, ''Sudbury: Rail Town to Regional Capital''. Dundurn Press, 1993. . ''Vapaus'', whose content was pub ...

'' printing press until 1935.

Organizational strengthening

During the latter part of the 1920s LWIUC managed to establish itself as the dominant lumber workers union in

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. LWIUC undertook a militant mobilization campaign in north-eastern Ontario in 1927, an effort that enabled LWIUC to gain a strong presence at the White and Plaunt operations along the CNR line north of

Sudbury Sudbury may refer to: Places Australia * Sudbury Reef, Queensland Canada * Greater Sudbury, Ontario ** Sudbury (federal electoral district) ** Sudbury (provincial electoral district) ** Sudbury Airport ** Sudbury Basin, a meteorite impact cra ...

. It also began to accept agricultural workers into its fold. By 1928, LWIUC had established branches in

South Porcupine The city of Timmins, Ontario, Canada contains many named neighbourhoods. Some former municipalities that were merged into Timmins continue to be treated as distinct postal and telephone exchanges from the city core. According to Barnes, "With the ...

Porcupine Porcupines are large rodents with coats of sharp Spine (zoology), spines, or quills, that protect them against predation. The term covers two Family (biology), families of animals: the Old World porcupines of the family Hystricidae, and the New ...

Timmins Timmins ( ) is a city in northeastern Ontario, Canada, located on the Mattagami River. The city is the fourth-largest city in the Northeastern Ontario region with a population of 41,145 at the 2021 Canadian census and an estimated population of ...

Connaught Connacht or Connaught ( ; or ), is the smallest of the four provinces of Ireland, situated in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms ( Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine ...

and several seasonal logging camps.

Rosvall and Voutilainen

In 1929 LWIUC sent out two organizers, Viljo Rosvall and John Voutilainen to Onion Lake to mobilize union activity amongst workers at the Pigeon Timber Company. The company was managed by the subcontractor ''Pappi'' ('Reverend') Leonard Mäki, who opposed union organizing and had a conscious policy of mainly recruiting White Finns. Rosvall and Voutilainen never returned, and in April the following year their bodies were recovered. Official reports stated that the men had died of drowning, but the LWIUC claimed that they had been murdered. Around 4,000 people participated in the funeral of Rosvall and Voutilainen in Port Arthur.

WUL period

In 1930, LWIUC joined the

Workers' Unity League The Workers' Unity League (WUL) was established in January 1930 as a militant industrial union labour central closely related to the Communist Party of Canada on the instructions of the Communist International. This was reflective of the shift in ...

. The office of LWIUC was situated in

for a while.Saarinen, Oiva W.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place A Historical Geography of the Finns in the Sudbury Area
'. Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1999. p. 195 With the formation of WUL, the influence of the Communist Party over LWIUC became stronger. Within WUL Hautamäki's leadership was questioned, and the union was criticized for not launching strikes. However, successful strike actions were almost impossible to organize in northern Ontario until the logging industry had recovered in around 1933. At this point, LWIUC began a new wave of strikes and mobilizations. Now the union sought to recruit non-Finns into its fold, for which an

English-language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

publication was launched (''The Lumber Worker'') and a J. Gillbanks, an Anglophone communist from Lakehead, was delegated to assist the union in organizing non-Finns. Through these efforts the membership of LWIUC was broadened significantly, gaining a strong presence amongst

Swedes Swedes (), or Swedish people, are an ethnic group native to Sweden, who share a common ancestry, Culture of Sweden, culture, History of Sweden, history, and Swedish language, language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, ...

Slavs The Slavs or Slavic people are groups of people who speak Slavic languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout the northern parts of Eurasia; they predominantly inhabit Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, and ...

, English- and French-speaking Canadians and other groups. In 1934 the LWIUC office was moved to Timmins, with W. Delaney as its new president.

Disbanding

In 1935, LWIUC was disbanded. This followed a shift in policy in the

Communist International The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internationa ...

. The communists now abandoned the idea of forming militant trade unions, and began to work within the established mainstream unions. The workers previously organized by LWIUC joined the Lumber and Sawmill Workers' Union (a union affiliated to the

American Federation of Labor The American Federation of Labor (A.F. of L.) was a national federation of labor unions in the United States that continues today as the AFL-CIO. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, in 1886 by an alliance of craft unions eager to provide mutual ...

). Iacovetta, Franca.
A Nation of Immigrants: Women, Workers, and Communities in Canadian History, 1840s - 1960s.
' Toronto .a. Univ. of Toronto Press, 1998. p. 311

References

{{Authority control 1924 establishments in Ontario 1935 disestablishments in Ontario Defunct trade unions in Canada Defunct trade unions in Ontario Finnish-Canadian institutions Timber industry trade unions Timber industry in Canada Trade unions established in 1924 Workers' Unity League