Winnipeg General Strike - Aftermath

Aftermath

The eight strike leaders arrested on June 17 were eventually brought to trial. Sam Blumenberg and M. Charitonoff were scheduled for deportation, although only Blumenberg was deported, having left for the United States. Charitonoff appealed to Ottawa and was eventually released. Of the other eight leaders, five were found guilty of the charges laid against them. Their jail sentences ranged from six months to two years.

After the strike many employees had mixed emotions about the solution the mayor provided for them. The Metal workers received a reduction from their working week of five hours but did not receive a pay increase. Many of these workers lost their pension rights and a deeper division of working class and business was present. the newly civic employees were obligated to sign an oath promising not to partake in any sympathetic strikes in their future. Among the Bloody Sunday strikers, many lost their jobs and others resumed their previous jobs but were placed at the bottom of the seniority level.

The Royal Commission which investigated the strike concluded that the strike was not a criminal conspiracy by foreigners and suggested that "if Capital does not provide enough to assure Labour a contented existence ... then the Government might find it necessary to step in and let the state do these things at the expense of Capital."

This strike is now considered the largest general strike in Canadian history and debated to be the largest in North America.

Organized labour thereafter was hostile towards the Conservatives, particularly Meighen and Robertson, for their forceful role in putting down the strike. Combined with high tariffs in the federal budget passed in the same year (which farmers disliked), this contributed to the Conservatives' heavy defeat in the 1921 election. The succeeding Liberal government, fearing the growing support for hard left elements, pledged to enact the labour reforms proposed by the Commission.

J. S. Woodsworth, a strike leader, had seditious libel charges against him dropped after a jury acquitted Fred Dixon. Woodsworth went on to found the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, forerunner of the New Democratic Party.