4. Meeting Room No. 10,
    Winnipeg Labor Temple
Special Police line up in front of city Hall after riots of 
Bloody Saturday, 1919
By 1913 the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council stood highest among worker organizations in western Canada and equal to any in the east. Its headquarters, the James Street Labor Temple, served eighty unions as well as fraternal and benevolent associations. No space was more used nor more symbolic of the labor movement than Meeting Room No. 10, which is partly reproduced in the Museum.

During the months leading to the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, within the weeks of conflict itself, and the Strike's aftermath, thousands of unionists gathered in Meeting Room No. 10 to discuss, debate, plan, organize, direct, and console among themselves. The Museum re-creates part of that drama through a multi-media representation.

Meeting Room No. 10 and the Social Progress Gallery adjacent to it house exhibits exploring early forms of labour self-help; the emergence of organized labour; labour protection legislation; elections management; and the history of social programs such as social insurance benefits and health care provisions.

Opened: October 28, 1999

MORE INFORMATION: Canadian Labour History, 1850-1999