Workers in the Cape Breton steel industry also began commemorating their own history during the 1980s. In 1986, the Steelworkers’ Memorial Monument was established outside of the USWA Local 1064 union hall on Prince Street. This monument included the names of 308 steelworkers who had been killed at the Sydney steel plant during the 20th century, and it presents a number of themes and meanings that are important to the memory of steel in that community. Temporally, this monument fits into the wave of commemorations that swept industrial Cape Breton during the decade. It is also another example of localization. As workers in the mining communities erected monuments to their history, steelworkers in Sydney wanted to commemorate their memories as well.
In 2007, the monument was moved into a small park on the site of the former Sydney steel plant. The steel plant was closed in 2001, and the monument’s placement was part of a wider attempt to physically remediate the site. The monument now stands in the middle of what was once the sprawling steelworks.
Standing before the monument, one is struck by the sheer number of names. The names of the dead are even more staggering when one realizes that the total number of people who have lost their lives at the Sydney steel plant is likely much higher. Charles MacDonald, a USWA member, was responsible for the selection of names on the steelworkers’ monument; these names were compiled using fatality lists from the steel plant and local union records. MacDonald asserts that in the early years of the plant the only deaths that were recorded were those that occurred on steel plant property, even if a victim was injured on the job and died later at hospital. [1]
The Steelworkers’ Memorial Monument embodies a number of different meanings, some of which have changed since its original erection in 1986. Art historians Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin argue that monuments vitally exist within, and reveal, many present-oriented networks of relationships. Unlike archival documents or art objects, Nelson and Olin assert, “the monument does not privilege the past at the expense of the present . . . . Rather it engages both to make claims for and against the future.” [2]
The decline in numerical fatalities throughout the century expresses one particular set of the monument’s meanings, as it implies improved working conditions and a smaller workforce. The USWA symbol commemorates the success of steelworkers in establishing a union at the plant, despite heavy opposition from management. It also indicates the importance of the union for the community, not only in the fight for recognition, but also with the achievement of regulatory legislation, the 8-hour workday, and advances in on-site health and safety. The dates after 1967 represent an affirmation of the ability of steelworkers and their families to influence government policy through direct action as the result of the 1967 “Parade of Concern” protest over plans to close the plant. The monument’s location, on the site of the former steel plant, speaks to the inability of government to modernize the plant in a timely fashion and the ultimate failure of the steel industry in Sydney. Each of these meanings requires some historical understanding of the community’s industrial past; they might not be immediately accessible to somebody without supporting contextual information. This labour landmark implicitly commemorates the role played by workers and their families in shaping the community identity of the largest community in industrial Cape Breton and also presents their public memories for wider dissemination within the collective memory of the community.
Footnotes
[1] Charles MacDonald in an interview recorded by Syd Slaven, 9 November 1996, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Beaton Institute Archives, Cape Breton University
[2] Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin, “Introduction,” Monuments and Memory Made and Unmade, ed. Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 6.
In 2007, the monument was moved into a small park on the site of the former Sydney steel plant. The steel plant was closed in 2001, and the monument’s placement was part of a wider attempt to physically remediate the site. The monument now stands in the middle of what was once the sprawling steelworks.
Standing before the monument, one is struck by the sheer number of names. The names of the dead are even more staggering when one realizes that the total number of people who have lost their lives at the Sydney steel plant is likely much higher. Charles MacDonald, a USWA member, was responsible for the selection of names on the steelworkers’ monument; these names were compiled using fatality lists from the steel plant and local union records. MacDonald asserts that in the early years of the plant the only deaths that were recorded were those that occurred on steel plant property, even if a victim was injured on the job and died later at hospital. [1]
The Steelworkers’ Memorial Monument embodies a number of different meanings, some of which have changed since its original erection in 1986. Art historians Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin argue that monuments vitally exist within, and reveal, many present-oriented networks of relationships. Unlike archival documents or art objects, Nelson and Olin assert, “the monument does not privilege the past at the expense of the present . . . . Rather it engages both to make claims for and against the future.” [2]
The decline in numerical fatalities throughout the century expresses one particular set of the monument’s meanings, as it implies improved working conditions and a smaller workforce. The USWA symbol commemorates the success of steelworkers in establishing a union at the plant, despite heavy opposition from management. It also indicates the importance of the union for the community, not only in the fight for recognition, but also with the achievement of regulatory legislation, the 8-hour workday, and advances in on-site health and safety. The dates after 1967 represent an affirmation of the ability of steelworkers and their families to influence government policy through direct action as the result of the 1967 “Parade of Concern” protest over plans to close the plant. The monument’s location, on the site of the former steel plant, speaks to the inability of government to modernize the plant in a timely fashion and the ultimate failure of the steel industry in Sydney. Each of these meanings requires some historical understanding of the community’s industrial past; they might not be immediately accessible to somebody without supporting contextual information. This labour landmark implicitly commemorates the role played by workers and their families in shaping the community identity of the largest community in industrial Cape Breton and also presents their public memories for wider dissemination within the collective memory of the community.
Footnotes
[1] Charles MacDonald in an interview recorded by Syd Slaven, 9 November 1996, Sydney, Nova Scotia, Beaton Institute Archives, Cape Breton University
[2] Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin, “Introduction,” Monuments and Memory Made and Unmade, ed. Robert S. Nelson and Margaret Olin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 6.
Names On the steelworkers' monument
Each name on the steelworkers’ monument has its own story, but to explore each of them would overstep the scope of this project. Instead, an examination of one name from each decade that is represented on this monument allows for a fuller understanding of the human stories that exist behind the inscriptions and imagery. The scarcity of available material limits the extent to which these individual stories can be explored; the accounts provided here are drawn primarily from contemporary newspaper accounts and historical vital statistics. There are also, however, a number of different meanings that become visible through a close analysis of this monument. This requires more than a superficial acceptance of the monument as a memorial to the dead, for it requires an understanding of the changing contexts of work at the steel plant during the 20th century, advancements in labour organization, unionism, and workers’ rights. With a wider historical understanding, the viewer is able to contextualize other significant meanings of the monument, such as the decline in on-site fatalities during the 20th century.
Each name below is a worker that was killed at the Sydney steel plant. Please click the links to read about these workers lives, the situation surrounding their death, and the wider context of work at the plant during the decade in which they were killed.
Each name below is a worker that was killed at the Sydney steel plant. Please click the links to read about these workers lives, the situation surrounding their death, and the wider context of work at the plant during the decade in which they were killed.