Union locals rented rooms here and the building housed the offices of the Winnipeg Trades and Labor Council (WTLC). Helen Armstrong, as President in the Women’s Labor League, also had an office here. In early May in 1919, the Building Trades Council petitioned the WTLC for help in negotiations with their employers. They were not disappointed.

On May 13, the Western Labor News reported, “… never before in the history of Winnipeg has there been such a Trades Council session. It was tense, electric and determined. Every inch was jammed with a seething mass of trade unionists, men and women. Amid an oppressive hush,” the WTLC announced the results of its ballot for a city-wide sympathetic general <--caption--> strike of all workers – “over eleven thousand had voted aye and only five hundred no. The meeting broke into cheers. It was unanimously and enthusiastically decided to call the strike at 11:00 am on Thursday, May 15.”

The meeting elected 300 members to a General Strike Committee, from which a 15-member Central Strike Committee was elected. This smaller committee met daily at the Labor Temple throughout the strike. It authorized those in essential services, like the police, to continue working and issued “Permitted by the Authority of the Strike Committee” posters to the corner stores in the North End to provide strikers with essentials like milk and bread. Mayor Gray and the Citizens’ Committee claimed that these posters represented the usurpation of constituted authority by the strikers. On June 17, the police raided the building, smashing windows, doors, and furniture. Union offices were trashed and documents seized.

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For the strike leaders it was a demanding but exciting time. Each day began with a discussion of “…strike business in the morning, <--caption-->including the general view of the situation [and]…an hour in the Strike Committee…” In the afternoon, the leaders went off “…to address the waiting crowds, [to] pass along whatever news was available.” The Committee reassembled until 6:00 pm and then dispersed, once again, “…to all points of the compass, within the city and outside, to talk to other waiting crowds; returning to meet with the Strike Committee until the wee small hours…” until, finally, “a weary tramp homewards.”*

* Western Labor News, May 1919