Newfoundland Loggers Respond to the Great Depression

Accounts of the 1959 International Wood workers of America strike in Newfoundland have portrayed the Newfoundland Lumbermen's Association, the local union which held jurisdiction over many of the island's loggers, as a "company union" and its president, Joseph Thompson, as a co-opted unionist. This essay examines the NLA's origins during the 1930s and shows that Thompson built an autonomous union to improve logger's lives. The paper also brings to the fore the loggers' own experience of the Great Depression to show they did not passively accept economic hardship and exploitation and took an active role in the making of their union. At times, the loggers' militancy dictated the NLA's bargaining positions and prompted some social change in the woods. The paper concludes that while Thompson and the NLA did not view class and class conflict in explicitly political terms, it does not diminish their importance in the loggers' working lives during the 1930s. Resumes Les compte-rendus de la greves travailleurs forestiers affilies a l'International Woodworkers of America, a Terre-Neuve, en 1959, nous decrivent le syndicat local, l'Association des travailleurs forestiers de Terre-Neuve (NLA), comme un "syndicat d'affaires" dont le president, Joseph Thompson, fut coopte par le patronat. Cette etude retrace les origines de la NLA au cours des annees 1930 alors que Thompson organisa un syndicat autonome afin d'ameliorer les conditions des bucherons. Elle souligne aussi l'experience des travailleurs forestiers au cours de la Crise afin d'illustrer leur role actif dans la formation de ce syndicat. Le militantisme des travailleurs dicta parfois les conditions de negotiation a la NLA et contribua a certains changements sociaux dans les exploitations forestieres. Ainsi, quoique Thompson et la NLA n'ont pas percu de facon explicite l'appartenance et la lutte de classes en terme de positions politiques, cela ne diminue en rien leur importance sur le plan des conditions de travail des travailleurs forestiers au cours des annees 1930.