Wages were another concern of the Vancouver Island coal miners. The failure of the 1903 strike, which ended with a twelve percent reduction of wages and worse contracts, had coal miners’ agitated with their recent loss of pay (Hinde, “When Coal Was King” 137-138). With only a select few companies possessing control over the labour market, these companies were able to “keep wages down and hours high” (Norris 57). Miner wages were considered to be generally high due to expectations of miners being the sole breadwinner of their families. Although pay was considered high, miners’ wages were not sufficient enough to support the miners and their families due to employment being irregular and wages not accounting for work stoppages, danger, and lack of security in this field of work (Hinde, “‘Stout Ladies and Amazons’” 40, 41). Local MLA Parker Williams argued that the miners were fighting because of class struggle since the agreement in Nanaimo mines “did not guarantee a living wage” (Hinde, “When Coal Was King” 170). Companies had agreements for different mines to expire on different dates in order to make forming a union harder for the miners, and keep discussion of wages to a minimum. In the workplace, “no discussion of working terms or wages was ever admissible” and wages offered to employees remained to be strictly “take it or leave it” (Hinde, “When Coal Was King” 170). Before the strike began, the Vancouver Sun speculated that there would soon be a general strike due to the agitation over wages. Miners were asking for a wage increase and a standard minimum wage, which was negatively responded to by the premier who expressed that the government would not be assisting their cause (“Miners may strike” 5). A standard minimum wage would allow miners to assure that they would not be underpaid and be able to properly support their families. Without the government or mining companies heeding workers demands for an increase in wages, it was inevitable that conflict would arise in the form of a strike.
2 miners underground working a coal seam, photograph, 1900s, C166-009, No.6 Mine Album, Cumberland Museum and Archives, Canada, https://www.flickr.com/photos/cumberlandmuseum/6961043111/in/album-72157629074146400.
