Davis Day History

June 11 is marked as Davis Day in the mining communities of Nova Scotia.

Family Mining Heritage

To understand the origin of this day, I turn to historian David Frank who writes about the 1920’s in Cape Breton and poster artist Karen Jeane Mills who presents some of the story of “standing the gaff” in Cape Breton in the 1920’s.

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 Coal was still the main source of industrial energy in Canada, as it would be into the 1950s, but markets fell apart at the end of the First World War when industries in Central Canada turned to suppliers in the United States. For the British Empire Steel Corporation, wage cuts were the preferred solution to their ongoing crisis of corporate survival. But to succeed, they would have to break the union...
When the wage cuts came, the coal miners went on strike, repeatedly showing the effectiveness of workers’ control in the industrial workplace. In the 1922 “strike on the job,” they cut production by one-third to match the wage cut. Later, in “100 per cent” strikes, maintenance workers joined the walkouts, putting company property at risk. In 1925, miners took control of the power plant at Waterford Lake, where a confrontation with provincial police on 11 June led to the shooting of William Davis.1

Our family connection with coal mining goes back to the beginning of the 19th Century in Pictou County. My ancestors followed the coal from Pictou County to Springhill and finally to Cape Breton at the turn of the 20th Century where my grandfather found employment outside the coal mines with the steel plant in Sydney.

I grew up in Glace Bay where my Dad was an electrical engineer working in the coal mining industry of Nova Scotia.

It is important to remember the origins of Davis Day, when today, we remember the miners who have lost their lives in the industry in Nova Scotia.

The struggle of the labour unions in this province to increase wages, limit the working day, and insist on safety measures has improved the working lives of all Nova Scotians. “Stand the gaff” is defined in the Dictionary of Cape Breton English as “to survive severe hardship or privation.”

Today, we may need the fortitude of our mining ancestors and labour unions to “stand the gaff” of neoliberal capitalism that puts shareholder profit before the welfare of working people thereby increasing inequality and suffering in our society.

References

1(2020, February 13). Poster #15: Cape Breton Coal Strikes, 1920s | Graphic History .... Retrieved June 11, 2020, from https://graphichistorycollective.com/project/poster-15-cape-breton-coal-strikes-1920s