During the trials of the strike leaders, the WLL campaigned for the defendants’ freedom and raised funds for their defense.

Helen Armstrong, Katherine Queen, Gertrude Puttee, Lynn Flett, and a Mrs Webb held prominent roles in the WLL. Many more women, whose stories remain untold, joined them to make it a dynamic organization. The WLL supported women in unions, but dedicated great energy to organizing telephone operators, retail stores clerks and other non- unionized women. The WLL had three members on the Winnipeg Trades and <--caption--> Labor Council and on the Central Strike Committee. It campaigned for minimum wage and mothers’ allowance, equal opportunity and wages for women, and for birth control clinics. In the early 1920s, the Winnipeg branch sent relief parcels to WLL members in Nova Scotia to help striking coal miners. The League dissolved in the coming years as women shifted their organizational energies into political action.

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The Labor Café

The Labor Café set up by the WLL during the strike reflected the impressive solidarity that united Winnipeg’s working women and men in 1919. Many women – especially young strikers – had little support during this time. They were without strike pay and had meagre, if any, savings. The Labor Café provided thousands of women with free meals, offering soup and sandwiches made by volunteers in the kitchen, or donated by women throughout the working- class community. Men picketing downtown, or without other support, could also have meals here. William Ivens’ collected $4,500 for the kitchen through his Labor Church. Other strikers – women and men – also raised funds to support the work of the café.

The Labor Café first opened at the Strathcona Hotel

(567 Main Street, at Rupert Avenue); moved to the Oxford Hotel (216 Notre Dame Avenue); and, finally, re-opened in the more spacious Royal Albert Arms Hotel.