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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class. It's a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello everybody, I'm Eaves and you're tuned into

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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class, a show where we travel

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Speaker 1: back in time, one day at a time. Today it's February.

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Speaker 1: The day was February fourteenth, nineteen forty nine. Miners in

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Speaker 1: and near the town of Asbestos, Quebec in Canada went

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Speaker 1: on strike. The strike helped lead to the Quiet Revolution,

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Speaker 1: a time of political and social turbulence in the province

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Speaker 1: of Quebec during the nineteen sixties. Asbestos is a silicate

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Speaker 1: mineral used in fabrics, in fire resistant and insulating materials.

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Speaker 1: Now asbestos is known to cause cancer and other serious

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Speaker 1: health issues, but in nineteen forty nine, people around the

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Speaker 1: world used asbestos in common products like home installation, packing materials,

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Speaker 1: brake pads, and electrical wiring, and Quebec supplied most of

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Speaker 1: the world's asbestos. Asbestos was a mining town in Quebec's

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Speaker 1: eastern townships. The miners there were demanding higher wages, paid holidays,

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Speaker 1: union participation in management of the minds of pension, and

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Speaker 1: company action to protect workers against illness caused by asbestos exposure,

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Speaker 1: but the negotiations that took place between December of nineteen

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Speaker 1: in February of nineteen forty nine went nowhere. Both parties

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Speaker 1: were required to go to arbitration, but because the government

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Speaker 1: favored pro business arbitrators, the miners were sure that arbitration

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Speaker 1: would not turn out well for them, so at a

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Speaker 1: general assembly of miners on February, the miners decided to

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Speaker 1: go on a strike. Early on February fourteenth, the strike began.

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Speaker 1: Workers from Betford Mines Quebec also joined the strike. The

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Speaker 1: miners were represented by the Canadian Catholic Confederation of Labor,

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Speaker 1: a group of unions that the Catholic Church established in

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Speaker 1: nine to counter the anti clerical and socialist influence of

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Speaker 1: international unions. But Marie's Duplessi, the premier of Quebec, and

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Speaker 1: the conservative Union Nationale party that he led, supported imperialist

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Speaker 1: interests and undermined unions. The government declared the strike illegal

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Speaker 1: and sent provincial police to asbestos. The Catholic Church largely

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Speaker 1: supported the strikers, which was significant because it usually sided

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Speaker 1: with Duplessy's government. Joseph Charbonneau, the Archbishop of Montreal, gave

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Speaker 1: a speech in which he said that quote the working

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Speaker 1: class is the victim of a conspiracy aimed at crushing them,

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Speaker 1: and when there is a conspiracy to crush the working class,

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Speaker 1: it's the church's duty to intervene. He even called for

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Speaker 1: people to donate to the striker's families, but Duplessi pushed

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Speaker 1: the church to get the archbishop to resign, and Charbonneau

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Speaker 1: ended up becoming a chaplain in Victoria, British Columbia. But

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Speaker 1: the John's Manville Company, which owned the mind many of

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Speaker 1: the workers were employed at, hired replacement workers. The strikers

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Speaker 1: set up roadblocks to keep the workers from getting to

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Speaker 1: the mines, and the strike became violent. Police attempting to

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Speaker 1: break the picket lines attacked strikers with tear gas, and

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Speaker 1: strikers beat and disarmed police. More heavily armed police were

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Speaker 1: sent into Asbestos, and on May six they arrested around

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Speaker 1: two hundred people, though most were soon released. Just over

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Speaker 1: a week later, the union leaders were arrested on conspiracy charges.

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Speaker 1: The violence that erupted as part of the strikes barnered

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Speaker 1: media attention. Archbishop Maurice Roy of Quebec City mediated the

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Speaker 1: strike as it dragged on. On July one, the strike

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Speaker 1: finally ended when the two sides reached an agree meant

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Speaker 1: miners got a wage increase of five cents per hour

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Speaker 1: rather than the fifteen cents that they wanted, but their

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Speaker 1: health and safety demands were not addressed and many of

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Speaker 1: them did not get their jobs back. Labor unionists Jean Marshaun,

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Speaker 1: journalists j Rar Peltier, and union activist Pierre Trudeau all

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Speaker 1: played significant roles in the strike. They eventually transitioned into

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Speaker 1: political careers and became known as the Three Wise Men.

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Speaker 1: The strike marked a turning point in Quebec's history and

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Speaker 1: set the stage for the Quiet Revolution, a time of

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Speaker 1: rapid change in the province. I'm each deaf Coote and

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Speaker 1: hopefully you know a little more about history today than

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Speaker 1: you did yesterday. If you'd like to follow us on

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Speaker 1: social media, you can do so at t d I

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Speaker 1: prefer something a little bit more formal, then you can

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Speaker 1: write us at this Day at heart media dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll be back tomorrow.

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