Collection search - William Walsh fonds [textual record (some microform), graphic material]
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William Walsh fonds [textual record (some microform), graphic material]
Hierarchical level:FondsContext of this record:Fonds includes:9 lower level description(s)View lower level description(s) -
Finding aid Textual record (Electronic) Finding aid MSS1566 (part 1) is a file list of volumes 1 to 47; it also includes a copy of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario finding aid for microfilm reels M-5445 to M-5447. MSS1566 (90: Open)
http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf002/p000003294.pdfTextual record (Electronic) Finding aid MSS1566 (part 2) is a file list of volumes 48 to 63. At present, only the section listing volumes 48 to 55 is available. It is anticipated that the section listing volumes 56 to 63 will be governed by the same access conditions as the records themselves; these access conditions have yet to be established. MSS1566 (90: Open)
http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf001/p000000807.pdf -
Record information William Walsh fonds [textual record (some microform), graphic material]
Date:1932-1998.Reference:R4771-0-9-E, MG31-B27Type of material:Textual material, PhotographsFound in:Archives / Collections and FondsItem ID number:101745Date(s):1932-1998.Bilingual equivalent:Place of creation:CanadaAdded country of publication:Germany, United Kingdom, United StatesExtent:12.37 m of textual records.
3 microfilm reels positive.
10 photographs : b&w, col.Language of material:EnglishScope and content:Fonds consists of records concerning the career and personal life of labour leader William Walsh. The records document his work as labour consultant and arbitrator with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) and other unions; his work with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (Inuit Tapirisat of Canada) and the Dene Nation; and his involvement with the Communist Party of Canada (CPC), the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE). The files also document his internment and subsequent service in the Canadian Army during the Second World War and personal and family matters.
Records include awards, decisions, reports, collective agreements, submissions, minutes, negotiations papers, correspondence, print matter, and photographs.
Fonds also includes a collection on microfilm of correspondence and other papers of William Walsh, Anne (Weir) Walsh, Esther (Slonimsky) Steele-Walsh, and Dick Steele (1932-1946).
Also included are photographs of Mine-Mill (Sudbury Local 598); 30th anniversary of the unionization of Falconbridge Nickel Mines (1973); nurses receiving a settlement for wrongful dismissal (1971); Canadian miners in the Soviet Union as guests of Soviet Coal Miners Union (1973); William Walsh at an open air strike meeting at the Westinghouse plant (1946); and Walsh speaking at the Association of Canadian Postmasters meeting.Provenance:Biography/Administrative history:Walsh, William, 1910-2004 : Moishe Wolofsky (later known as William "Bill" Walsh) was born in 1910 in Montreal. His father, Herschel "Harry" Wolofsky, was the publisher of the "Der Keneder Odler," a Yiddish-language newspaper. Moishe Wolofsky attended and graduated from Montreal primary and high schools. Following three years of work and studies in New York, Moishe Wolofsky and a friend, Moishe Kosawatsky (later known as Dick Steele), travelled to Europe and the Soviet Union in 1931. In the USSR, they worked in metal works factories in Minsk and Moscow, and joined the Young Communist League.
Wolofsky returned to Canada in 1933, and soon adopted the name William Walsh. He became active in the Friends of the Soviet Union in Montreal, and in union organizations in Montreal and Ontario. In 1935, Walsh became an organizer for the Communist Party of Canada (CPC), and for the remainder of the Depression he worked as a party and union organizer; he played an important role in organizing rubber workers in Kitchener and autoworkers in Windsor. Walsh's political activities led to his arrest in December 1940, and he was subsequently jailed and interned in Guelph, Ontario, and Hull (Gatineau), Quebec, under the Defence of Canada Regulations. Following his release in October 1942 and the death of his first wife Anne (Weir) Walsh in 1943, he joined the Canadian Army and served in Europe with the Essex Scottish Regiment. After the war, Walsh was hired by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) as a staff representative based in Hamilton, Ontario. He was a key organizer during the 1946 strike wave in the major industrial plants in Hamilton, one of the key phases in the Canadian labour movement's post-war campaign for union security and wage increases. Also in 1946, Walsh married Esther Steele, whose first husband Dick Steele had been killed in action during the war. Walsh continued to serve as a UE representative until his resignation in 1965; among his chief responsibilities was servicing the large Westinghouse local in Hamilton. While working for the UE, Walsh remained active in the CPC, serving on the City Council of Hamilton during the 1950s. Walsh resigned from the CPC in 1967, and in the early 1970s, he was active in the Labour Caucus of the New Democratic Party's Waffle Movement.
After leaving the UE, Walsh developed a practice as a labour consultant and arbitrator; he provided services to unions in several industries, most notably the health care, white-collar and public sectors. He worked for various unions including the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Letter Carriers Union of Canada, the Sudbury Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union, the Draftsmen's Association of Ontario, the Ontario Nurses' Association, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, and locals of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and of the Service Employees International Union. Walsh's consulting work included assistance in collective bargaining strategy and negotiations, strike strategy, labour education, and drafting constitutions. Walsh was one of the pioneers of labour arbitration in Canada, and he was the union counsel in the first case reported in "Labour Arbitration Cases" in 1948. Much of Walsh's work as the union appointee to arbitration boards involved public sector workplaces (such as hospitals, nursing homes, nursing, and municipal and provincial employees), although he also worked regularly in cases in private-sector industries.
Because of his experience as a negotiator, in the 1970s and early 1980s the Dene Nation and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (Inuit Tapirisat of Canada) asked Walsh to assist in their negotiations with the Canadian government. In the 1980s and 1990s, he was also active in Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, a peace group composed of ex-military people. Mr. Walsh died in 2004.
More biographical information is available in "A very red life: the story of Bill Walsh" by Cy Gonick (Canadian Committee on Labour History, 2001).Additional information:General note:The originals were received between 1979 and 2001 from William Walsh, of Toronto, Ontario. The microfilms were received in 1980 from the Multicultural History Society of Ontario (MHSO).Associated material note:Related material is held at the Ontario Jewish Archives, Toronto, Ontario. See the Steele and Walsh family fonds (Accession Number 2017-2-12).Related material:For related materials, see the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) fonds (R1268; finding aid MSS906) for records concerning Walsh's career with that union.Subject heading:- Trade-unions - Canada, 1941-1982 Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act, 1971-1981
- Trade-unions - Law and legislation, 1941-1982 Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, 1973-1982
- Political parties - Canada, 1941-1969 Public Service Staff Relations Act, 1978-1981
- Canadian Union of Public Employees, 1973-1982
- Ontario Liquor Control Board, 1973-1982
- Ontario Housing Corporation, 1973-1982
- Canadian Union of Postal Workers, 1961-1982
- Draftsmen's Association of Ontario, 1941-1969
- Communist Party of Canada, 1941-1969
- United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers, 1941-1965
- Dick Steele , 1941-1944
- Anne Wier Walsh, 1941-1943
- Esther Slonimsky Steele (Walsh), 1941-1945
- Moishe Kosowatsky, 1941-1944
- Don Jail (Toronto, Ont.), ca. 1940-1942
- Defence of Canada Regulations, ca. 1940-1942
- Labour - archival fonds
Source:PrivateFormer archival reference no.:MG31-B27Other accession no.:1985-166 DAP -
Ordering and viewing options Conditions of access:Access restriction documentTextual records[Consultation Restricted]Finding aid box [FA 1566] 122[Consultation Closed]Graphic (photo)[Consultation Open]Volume [R4771] 1[Consultation Open]Textual records: microform[Consultation Open]Microfilm reel M-5445--M-5447[Consultation Open]Terms of use:Photographs: Various copyright and unknown. Credit: Name of photographer / National Archives of Canada / Copy negative no.You can order materials in advance to be ready for you when you visit. You will need a user card to do this.
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