page_title: Relief Camp Workers' Union
section_title: After the Trek
hierarchical_section_title: Relief Camp Workers' Union / After the Trek
caption_attribution_description: Post office and Art Gallery sit-down strike, May and June 1938. Policemen and R.C.M.P. evicting demonstrators from Post Office with tear gas.
context_page_description: The Relief Camp Workers' Union was a union in which the workers employed in the Canadian government relief camps organized themselves into in the early 1930s. The RCWU was established by the Workers' Unity League and was associated with the Communist Party of Canada. The creation of the union was a direct response to the conditions of the camps and the lack of financial compensation for the work the men provided. The union is best known for helping to organize the On-to-Ottawa Trek during the Great Depression.
context_section_description: The On-to-Ottawa Trek was crushed in Regina, and most of the men returned to the camps, but their efforts instigated the process which would lead to significant reforms and were later considered by historians to be an important turning point paving the way for the post war welfare state in Canada. In 1935, the Communists' abandoned the Third Period doctrine under which the WUL toiled, and many RCWU Communists left to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War with the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. The relief camp issue would once again descend on Vancouver in 1938 when the RCWU's successor, the Relief Project Workers' Union led another walk out and another series of protests. The climax this time came when, on May 20, 1938, a group of protesters occupied a number of buildings including the post office in the Winch Building (now the Sinclair Centre). Over a thousand men continued to occupy the post office for almost a month, until were violently removed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on June 18 in what came to be known as "Bloody Sunday." Many were injured (including several police officers) and 28 men were jailed. Protesters in Vancouver and Victoria demanded the release of the prisoners and the resignation of Premier Patullo.
caption: A plainclothes Mountie attacking protesters during the eviction of the Post Office in 1938.
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