Canada’s industrial workers faced the same miserable working conditions as their counterparts in Europe and the United States – long hours, subsistence pay – and reacted to it the same way – by striking. Worker meetings started organizing to give voice to their greivances and organize the response. One of the first to strike was the Toronto Typographical Society, walking out on their employer The Globe newspaper (the predecessor of the Toronto Globe and Mail). Their cause, the “Nine-Hour Movement” gained popular support, and forced the Prime Minister to declare trade unions legal.

On this day, June 14, in 1872, after arrests of the leaders of the Toronto Typograhpical Society sparked more populist outrage, the Canadian Parliament passed Trade Unions Act of 1872, giving legal status to trade organization. Prime Minister John Macdonald signed it almost immediately.

The new law did have some limitations: employers still did not have to negotiate with unions, and labor’s strongest weapon, its ability to strike, was still kept illegal. Nevertheless, the Society won its nine hour day. Four years later the Trade Unions Act was amended to allow for picketing, as long as it was kept peaceful.