In 1961, Mine Mill Local 598 found itself the target of a raid by the United Steelworkers Union. Perhaps the most powerful union in Canada at the time, Mine Mill found itself fighting for its life and refusing to go down without a fight
There will probably never again be a labour struggle quite like the union war that was fought in Sudbury in 1961. It began as a division among the 17,000 members of the largest union local in Canada and ended by frightening and dividing an entire city. It was a conflict of ideals and loyalties: coworkers, friends, and even families were divided, fighting amongst each other. It was a war of particular passion and bitterness.
On Aug. 26, 1961, the national office of the International Union of Mine Mill and Smelter Workers seized Local 598’s hall after executive member Tom Taylor publicly charged that meetings held by local President Donald Gillis during the summer of 1961 with the Canadian Labour Congress were actually a plot to secede from Mine Mill and deliver the local over to the United Steelworkers of America.
Ken Smith, the national president of Mine Mill, accused Gillis of secession and as he had the power to do under Mine Mill’s constitution, formally ousted Gillis and his executive and sent an administrator and group of supporters to take possession of the union hall.
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