Human Rights Program & Women's Program

Black porters and the labour movement

Black workers were a pool of cheap and docile labour… or so the Canadian railway companies thought.

At the end of the 19th century, the introduction of sleeping car services on transcontinental trains increased demand for railroad travel, which meant record profits for railway companies. Due to a labour shortage and the fact white workers were unionizing, the companies aggressively recruited African-Canadians, as well as Blacks from the U.S. and the Caribbean.

At a time when racial discrimination barred black workers from most jobs, the railway became one of few places where African-Canadians could find steady work, especially as sleeping car porters. But it meant for low pay and oppressive working conditions. Black porters were often forced to work 24 hours with no overtime pay, and the average monthly pay was $80 a month. There were no vacations, and management acted arbitrarily and fired porters indiscriminately.

Black workers were also aware that they were hired because they fit the widespread racist belief that they were meant only for menial, servile labour. Stanley G. Grizzle, a former sleeping car porter and union leader, described in his memoir the effect this treatment generated: “Some porters were a study in controlled anger during their work shifts, always angry… for this was a job where, every day, you were made to feel that you were beneath the passengers. You were a servant, the epitome of the white man’s stereotype of the Black man.”

Seeing how the union improved the pay and working conditions of white workers, Black workers demanded equal treatment and wanted to join the union. But the pervading racist culture at the time was also entrenched in the union. It was, in fact, written in the constitution of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railroad Employees (CBRE) that membership was for whites only.

Black porters were undeterred. In 1918, under the leadership of J.A. Robinson, a porter from Winnipeg, they formed the Order of Sleeping Car Porters (OSCP). They applied for a charter with the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada (TLC), but the congress rejected the application, preferring the porters to be a part of CBRE. Through constant pressure and criticism from the porters’ union and the TLC, the CBRE finally relented and accepted the OSCP as an auxiliary organization. Shortly after, the CBRE eliminated the “whites-only” clause from its constitution and gave the Order full status. However, the CBRE insisted on segregated collective agreements, and this condition persisted until 1964.

The OSCP’s victory improved pay and working conditions, at least for porters working for the Canadian National Railway. Emboldened by their progress, they began organizing the Black porters at the privately owned Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). The company, however, used aggressive anti-union tactics, including firing without cause 36 porters who were either known or suspected union leaders.

Undaunted, the CPR porters continued their efforts to unionize. In 1925, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was founded in New York City, led by firebrand A. Philip Randolph. From 1939 to 1941, Randolph, along with African-Canadian porter Arthur Blanchette, conducted an underground campaign to organize CPR porters. By 1942, three BSCP divisions were established in Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg, and on May 18, 1945, with a 99 per cent vote of support from Black porters, the union signed the first collective agreement with CPR.

The accomplishments of the BSCP stretched beyond improvements in the workplace. Under the leadership of Grizzle, who later became the first labour officer in the Ontario Labour Relations Board and later the first judge in the Court of Canadian Citizenship, the Brotherhood fought to make changes to provincial and federal legislations. Their lobbying efforts helped eliminate many of the discriminatory policies in immigration and labour laws and paved the way for human rights legislation in Canada.

Sources and further readings:

Grizzle, Stanley G. My Name's Not George: The Story of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in Canada. Toronto: Umbrella Press, 1998.

Mathieu, Sarah-Jane (Saje). “North of the Colour Line: Sleeping Car Porters and the Battle Against Jim Crow on Canadian Rails, 1880-1920.” Labour/Le Travail, Spring 2001.
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/47/02mathie.html

Winks, Robin W. The Blacks in Canada. New Haven: Yale University Press and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997.