The story of Canada’s 'only union-built town' | CBC News

N.L.’s Port Union was created to end the exploitation of fishermen by the merchant class

You might have heard of “union towns” — blue-collar cities like Chicago, Ill., and Scranton, Pa., where labour unions exercised enormous political power.

But perhaps nowhere has a better claim to be a “union town” than a small community on Newfoundland and Labrador’s Bonavista Peninsula.

Port Union wasn’t just run by unions, it was founded by one. Parks Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador call it Canada’s only union-built town.

The fifth of seven children, Coaker was forced to leave school at age 11 to help support his family. As a fish handler on the St. John’s harbourfront, he had a firsthand view of exploitative labour practices and instigated his first strike when he was just 13-years-old.

After learning the merchants he was working for were paying their young employees less than rival firms, he convinced all the boys to stop work until they received a raise.

Coaker represented their grievance to management, and they blockaded the entrances to the merchants’ premises to keep out scabs. Under pressure to offload the ships arriving in the harbour at the end of the fishing season, the company conceded two days later and raised the boys’ pay by a third.

Over the following years, Coaker travelled around the island and took on a variety of jobs, from store manager to telegraph operator to farmer.

His interest in labour rights only grew as he saw the way rural fishing families were mistreated by the merchant class.

Working under the “truck system,” they lived in a near-constant state of debt. Merchants ran the local stores where families bought clothing, dry goods, fishing supplies and other essentials on credit in the winter and spring. In the fall, they paid back what they owed with their catch of salt cod.

The problem was, the merchants not only set the local price of cod, concealing its true value on the international market, they also rarely disclosed the price of the goods families were buying upfront. When they settled accounts in the fall, the merchants could manipulate the prices to keep the fishers in debt and keep the firms from having to pay out any cash.

Coaker’s solution was unionization. Through collective action, fishers could fight for fair treatment.