When the American-based United Steelworkers raided Mine Mill Local 598 in 1961, accusations of communism abounded and the tension in the city led to violent clashes, threats and widespread fear from city hall to the kitchen table
The dawn of the 1960s was a time of unrest across North America, with the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, and the second-wave feminist movement fighting to make changes in society. Here at home in the late summer of 1961, we had a different kind of period of unrest, one of the labour kind, that would radically reshape the worker-workplace relationship, but also the relationships among co-workers.
“It was a period when the eyes of the world were on Sudbury,” reader Adam Spindler recalled. “Everyone was looking to the possible consequences of the strikes, the spread of labour unrest, and how to influence it, direct it, or control it — by fair means or foul.”
Of course, as he added, “It’s a bit hard to imagine now how it was then.” And, nearly 65 years later, that is where your stories and memories come into play. This is especially important as we move farther away from those days and the main characters in the story disappear from our lives. Now before we move on to our readers’ memories, I would like to add one of my own, since these walks down memory lane sometimes have a way of bringing forward historical anecdotes about my own family and people whom I grew up around.
For the rest of this article: https://www.sudbury.com/memory-lane/memory-lane-broken-bones-and-car-bombs-the-1961-union-raids-10793559