Newfoundland’s first true trade Unions were the Shipwrights Union (1851) and the Sealskinners Union (1854). The first industrial Union appeared in 1917 when over 500 employees of the Reid Newfoundland Company banded together to bargain with the company for higher wages and better working conditions. This Union, the Newfoundland Industrial Workers Association (NIWA), encompassed trades and non-trades employees alike. They struck the Reid Newfoundland Company on March 27, 1918 seeking higher pay and better working conditions. Included in this strike were streetcar operations, the forerunner of the present day Newfoundland Power.

On April 8, 1918, the Reid Newfoundland Company tried to defeat the strike by using non-company workers from the Goulds to operate the streetcars. The following day streetcar services were discontinued when conductors and motormen joined the Union. The strike lasted for one month until the company agreed to accept a mediation report from the government that was favourable to the employees. Therefore, we can conclude that the first strike against Newfoundland Power or one of its predecessor companies was in 1918, not 1973 as history records show!

Unions have always had a strong presence in this province. Donald MacDonald of the Canadian Congress of Labour visited Newfoundland in 1944. MacDonald observed that Unionism in Newfoundland, on a per capita basis, was twice that of Canada.

MacDonald visited Newfoundland with the intention of organizing labour and increasing the membership of his organization. He found that St. John’s, with a population under 75,000 was already well organized. Nearly every worker he met was a member of one of the three-dozen Unions in the city. MacDonald reported strong Union representation in every other major center that he visited while in the country. Much of this organization can be credited to the organizing efforts of the Newfoundland Federation of Labour (NFL), formerly known as the Newfoundland Trades and Labour Council.