Royal Commission of enquiry into capital and labor

The royal Commission of enquiry into capital and labor is a royal commission of enquiry setting-up at the Canada of 1886 at 1889 by the federal government liberal-conservative to sir John Alexander Macdonald, aiming at studying the work conditions and the living conditions of the proletarians in the Canadian Entreprise S.

This commission, formed of thirteen people resulting from various mediums, and chaired by Québécois judge James Armstrong, was setting-up under the pressure of the labor movement incipient following the recrudescence from the industrial accidents, of the poor quality of life of the workers and decrepitudes of the employers' relations - working.

The diagnosis

This commission clarified terrible fate of the workmen of the time. Low wages, exploitation of the women and the children, immoral and often illegal behavior of employers were noticed by the police chiefs.

The commission also discovered the existence of a anti-trade-union system in order to expurger of the companies in a permanent way the Syndicaliste S and the left-wing policy militants. For this purpose, black lists were drawn up and it circulated within the groups of businesses. One attended also regularly with arbitrary dismissals of Militant S and the forced signing of contracts making promise to the workmen not to adhere to a trade union.

Recommendations

The commission recommended several legislative measures, of which the introduction of the nine hours day's work and 54 hours per weeks. She will also propose the prohibition of the Travail of the children of less than 14 years, the setting-up of a system of compensation for wounded with work, the creation of a service of inspection of safety and hygiene on the work places and the creation of a mechanism of mediation and arbitration and work-related conflicts.

Some measurements timidly were installation 10 years later, but the majority of the recommendations were ignored during several tens of years, in particular from the fact that work is of provincial jurisdiction in the Canadian federal system.

Sources

History of the labor movement in Quebec, 150 years of fights , (2001), CSN-CSQ, 329 p.
Working-class families in Montreal: age, kind and daily survival during the phase of industrialization , BETTINA Bradbury, Montreal, Boreal, 1995.

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