Part II: Searching for unity
The Civil Service Association (CSA) almost immediately started to talk about the need to unite the “inside” and “outside” service if federal workers were to have a strong and united voice. Inside workers were those who worked in Ottawa or at headquarters while outside workers were those who worked in regional or local office. The CSA set up a unity committee that drafted bylaws and started planning a meeting of the various Dominion civil service associations across the country. On April 29th and 30, 1909, 34 delegates from a wide assortment of employee organization such as the Post Office, Customs, and various regional associations, the largest group being the Civil Service Association of Ottawa (CSAO), met on Parliament Hill. Again J. Lambert Payne moved the motion to call the new umbrella organization the Civil Service Federation of Canada (CSF) From the outset the CSF was a very loose coalition of groups as none of the associations wanted to give up their autonomy. With transportation and finances being an issue within such a large country, the main work fell to those in Ottawa. Then, as now, there was much criticism and suspicion about the work ethic of federal works, often from the ranks of conservative MPs on the opposition benches. But then with criticism the government always provided poor financial compensation to their workers. An odd arrangement with some of the local associations was they were led by sitting Members of Parliament. The MPs had fostered and used them for their own election purposes and since those associations felt they had a voice in Parliament there was reluctance to cede authority to a national committee. There were tensions, rivalries, and jurisdictional disagreements. At the 1911 convention the Civil Service Association of Canada, which was based in Winnipeg, refused to associate with the Civil Service Association of BC which were mainly based in Vancouver. BC delegates attended the convention, so Winnipeg did not. The Civil Service Association of Ottawa (CSAO) established a women’s branch at a meeting attended by some 200 women in 1918. The CSAO created 2 seats on the executive to be held by women. They quickly became active organizers in the association. It was women that held the first strike by the “inside” federal government employees in 1918. The work demands of the First World War meant moving staff between departments and jobs. When 10 women who had not received the promised wage raise from $50 to $60 a month felt they were ignored, they held a sit-down strike at their desks refusing to work. Management quickly acted and they happily started typing once again with newfound respect and the 20 per cent wage increase they had been promised. The Civilian newspaper ran an editorial in 1918:Civil servants are wage earners – daily toilers for bread – just as are carpenters and engine-drivers and cigarmakers. They have their union just as the bricklayers and machinist have theirs. The only difference is that Civil Service unions are the poorest of the lot. They are not strong enough to enforce closed shop rules, and only recently have discovered that some are strong enough to run a successful strike.


