Fonds consists of files on labour organizations in which Carl Berg participated, n.d., 1929-1958; personal, general, and family papers, n.d., 1920-1982; diaries, 1919-1958; print matter reflecting the activities and interests of Carl Berg, n.d., 1901-1967.
Fonds also contains photographs and medallic related material relating to Berg's career in the Canadian labour movement and the Edmonton Exhibition, 1920-1958.
Berg, Carl Emil, 1888-1958 : Karl Emil Berg was born in 1888 in Stockholm, Sweden. Berg emigrated in 1904 to North America, where he worked as a miner and in railway construction in the Canadian and American west. Berg soon became active in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and its affiliate, the Western Federation of Miners, and he worked as an organizer for the IWW.
Carl Berg moved to Edmonton ca. 1910 and became active in the labour movement. Following the First World War, Berg was chairman of the committee that organized the sympathy strike of Edmonton workers during the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. Berg was an important figure in the formation of the One Big Union (OBU) during 1919-1920; he raised funds, produced and distributed OBU literature, and otherwise maintained the OBU presence in Edmonton and Alberta. After the collapse of the OBU in Edmonton, Berg moved into more traditional labour circles. From the 1920s until his death in 1958, Berg was closely associated with the International Hod Carriers', Building and Common Laborers' Union of America; he served as Canadian representative of the union's international headquarters and was a member and officer (recording secretary) of Edmonton Local 92.
Berg served several terms as president of the Edmonton Trades and Labor Council and as secretary-treasurer of the Alberta Federation of Labor. During the Great Depression Berg worked with municipal relief programmes for the unemployed. Berg also served in the late 1930s as a representative for the Hotel and Restaurant Employees' International Alliance and Bartenders' International League of America.
Berg was also prominent in the national labour federation, the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada (TLC), from the 1930s to the 1950s. He was selected as the TLC's fraternal delegate to the British Trades Union Congress convention in 1937, and was appointed as an organizer for the TLC. He chaired the Resolutions Committee at several TLC conventions. In 1943, he was elected vice-president of the TLC, a position which he held until the TLC's 1956 merger with the Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL). Berg's tenure as a TLC organizer and vice-president coincided with many major developments in the history of the TLC, such as the rivalry with the CCL, attempts by the American Federation of Labor to dominate the TLC, anti-communism and the expulsion of the Canadian Seamen's Union, and the 1956 merger that formed the Canadian Labour Congress. Berg also represented the TLC on the National Employment Committee of the Unemployment Insurance Commission, 1941-1950.
Berg represented the Canadian labour movement at international meetings on three occasions. In 1947, he was the Canadian workers' delegate at the International Labour Conference in Geneva, and at the 1953 International Labour Conference he was an advisor to the Canadian workers' delegate. He was a TLC delegate to the 1953 meeting of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions in Stockholm.
Notwithstanding his early involvement in the IWW and the OBU, Berg came to oppose left-wing involvement in the labour movement. He vigorously opposed Communist influence and leadership in unions, and also resisted efforts to bring the labour movement to endorse the social democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. Berg was awarded an MBE in 1946.
