The Fishermen's Protective Union (sometimes called the Fisherman's Protective Union, the FPU, The Union or the Union Party) was a workers' organisation and political party in the Dominion of Newfoundland. The development of the FPU mirrored that of the United Farmers movement in parts of Canada.
Origins and purpose
The FPU was founded on 3 November 1908 by William Coaker and nineteen men following a speech by him at the Orange Hall in Herring NeckFormation of the Fishermen's Protective Union, Maritime History Archive, Memorial University. Retrieved 20 February 2008. as a cooperative movement for fishermen on the northeast coast of Newfoundland. It was the first serious attempt to organise fishermen as a mass political movement along class lines. With a rallying cry of "to each his own" the FPU sought to achieve reforms in Newfoundland society to attain an equitable distribution of wealth in the fishing industry. At its peak, it had more than 21,000 members in 206 councils across the island; more than half of Newfoundland's roughly 40,000 fishermen.
The FPU set up the Fishermen's Union Trading Co. (UTC or FUTC), which established stores throughout the province that would purchase fish from fishermen for cash. It would also import goods to sell to fishermen directly at a non-inflated price. This circumvented the St. John's fish merchants. Previously, merchants did not pay cash for fish but advanced fishermen staple goods at an inflated price on credit and then took the fishermen's cured fish at the end of the season at rates determined by the merchant. This Truck system kept most fishermen in perpetual debt to the merchant.Fisheries Policy, Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18 February 2008.
The FPU's newspaper, "The Fishermen's Advocate", was founded in 1910 and ceased publication in 1980. From 1914 to 1924, the Advocate was published in both daily and weekly editions, and for a short time in 1917, had three editions, evening, morning, and weekly. It published as a weekly from 1914 to 1980.
Electoral Politics The FPU believed that the interests of fishermen were being ignored by the mainstream parties, and that candidates elected on a class basis would be able to hold the balance of power and influence government in the interests of fishermen. As early as 1910, the FPU began to lay the groundwork for a formal entry into parliamentary politics. In the next few years, Coaker toured the country, enlisting members, helping start new councils, and rallying support for the FPU's eventual entry into politics.
The Bonavista Platform In 1912, the FPU adopted the Bonavista Platform, a political manifesto calling for radical change in fishery policy, social policy and governance. Consisting of 31 planks, it advocated co-operative marketing and government regulation of fish grading. In social policy, it proposed the reduction of tariffs on staple foods, improvements to old age pensions, free and compulsory education and a minimum wage. The Platform also called for democratic reforms such as the right to recall Members of the Newfoundland House of Assembly and having a salary for elected representatives to make it feasible for those who are not independently wealthy to be involved in politics.Webb, Jeff A. The Fishermen's Protective Union and Politics, Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage. Retrieved 19 February 2008.Union and Politics, Maritime History Archive, Memorial University. Retrieved 20 February 2008.
The Union Party The FPU entered electoral politics in 1913 by establishing the Union Party, campaigning on the Bonavista Platform and in particular calling for government regulation of the fisheries, administrative and constitutional reform, and the extension of education and social welfare. Eight members of the FPU were elected to the House of Assembly in 1913 including Coaker himself, having won one of the three seats for the district of Bonavista. In his maiden speech to the House of Assembly, Coaker spoke of the significance of outport fishermen gaining a measure of political power. "It is not an accident we have come here," he said, "[a] revolution ... has been fought in Newfoundland. The fisherman, the toiler of Newfoundland has made up his mind that he is going to be represented on the floors of this House."
Support and Opposition From the early days of the FPU's founding, the union attracted sympathy and support in some quarters and fierce opposition in others. While the FPU was popular among many fishermen, it was deeply unpopular among merchants, the political elite, and some religious elites.
Relationship with Political and Business Elites Coaker initially had had a warm relationship with the progressive Plaindealer newspaper and Edward Morris's People's Party, and had eschewed the Liberals, who, under Prime Minister Robert Bond had favoured limited government and retrenchment. But by the spring of 1909, he had incurred the enmity of the Plaindealer's editors and financiers,Melvin Baker, "Plaindealing and the Fishermen’s Protective Union, 1908–1910," Newfoundland Quarterly 105, no. 4 (Spring, 2013): 43–51. and over time the FPU shifted its support toward the Liberals.
The FPU was the target of heated rhetoric throughout much of its history, particularly in its early years. Journalists, parliamentarians and others attacked the union for attempting to undermine duly constituted order, for seeking to alter the inexorable law of supply and demand, or being "godless.""Employ Sectarianism to Discredit Coaker and Fool the Voters", Fishermen’s Advocate, 30 August 1913. Later, attacks on the FPU came in the form of attempts to associate it with the Bolshevik Revolution and Marxism.Sean Cadigan, Death on Two Fronts : National Tragedies and the Fate of Democracy in Newfoundland, 1914–34 (Toronto: Allen Lane, 2013). However, the acrimony between the FPU and Newfoundland's elites went both ways. One notable event in FPU history was its protests and petitions to arrest Abram Keanfor his role in the sealing disasters of 1914.Melvin Baker, "The Struggle for Influence and Power: William Coaker, Abram Kean, and the Newfoundland Sealing Industry, 1908–1915", Newfoundland and Labrador Studies 28, no. 1 (2013): 63–96.Jenny Higgins, "The 1914 Sealing Disaster," Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador, retrieved 4 December 2022 from https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/sealing-disaster-1914.php
Where the FPU was inactive The FPU was also mostly a non-factor in some areas of the country, including St. John's. While a United Trading Company store existed in the capital city, no local council did. The FPU did not seek to extend its influence or mandate to cover other members of the broader working class, though occasionally fishers or sealers held rallies in the city and sometimes received the support of locals.
Moreover, the FPU's decision to limit the union's political influence to a balance of power strategy limited any impulse there might have been to extend its influence further. As Coaker said of the Union Party, "No effort will be made to control public affairs... The Union [members] don’t want to rule...""Editor’s Notes", Fishermen’s Advocate, 29 October 1910. This meant that even some fishing areas of the country, such as the southwest coast, were deprioritized and tended not to have many councils or UTC stores. This was partly because such fishers were involved in the inshore fishery, which was less conducive to or receptive of the union idea.Robert J. Brym and Barbara Neis, "Regional Factors in the Formation of the Fishermen's Protective Union of Newfoundland", Canadian Journal of Sociology 4, no.3 (1978): 391–407Barbara Neis, "Competitive Merchants and Class Struggle in Newfoundland", Studies in Political Economy 5 (Spring 1981): 127–143.
Relationship with Roman Catholics The union had Protestant and Catholic supporters, but retained the bulk of its support from Newfoundland's Protestant fishers in the northeast of the island. It was distrusted and opposed by some elements within the Roman Catholic Church, including Archbishop M.F. Howley of St. John's and his successor, Archbishop E.P. Roche, who varyingly took issue with the union's links with the Orange Order, the initial requirement that members swear an oath of secrecy, its unionism, its alleged socialism and atheism,Circular letter to Roman Catholics from Archbishop M.F. Howley, 31 March 1909, Maritime History Archive, retrieved 5 December 2022, from https://mha.mun.ca/mha/fpu/documents_full_view.php?img=documents/106_19_1b&galleryID=doc1 its decision to enter politics, and its perceived threat to the "feudal and paternal system" that had structured outport life.Ian McDonald, "W.F. Coaker and the Fishermen's Protective Union in Newfoundland Politics, 1908–1925" (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1971), 88Earl Burt, "Archbishop Howley sounds an alarm: the interpretation and application of papal social teachings to unions in Newfoundland, 1905–1912", (B.A. Honours dissertation, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1988), p. 49.
The church's hostility initially discouraged the continuation of FPU locals in Catholic areas of the southern Avalon Peninsula, such as those in Argentia, Salmonier, Riverhead and Trepassey. Yet other Catholic officials, including the Bishop of St. George's, Neil McNeil, permitted Catholic membership in the union. Several parish priests, such as those in Tilting, were either permissive or supportive of Catholic membership in the union, and Catholic schools and community halls were often opened up to receive Coaker and FPU candidates during tours and election campaigns.Liam O’Flaherty, "Rogues Among Rebels: Entanglements between Irish Catholics and the Fishermen’s Protective Union of Newfoundland," SFU Theses, 2017, chapter 3, retrieved from: https://summit.sfu.ca/item/17553.
By late 1909, the Church quietly dropped its ban on Catholic membership in the union, partly due to these fissures within the church, pressure from lay Catholic fishers, and the FPU's elimination of the oath of secrecy. Catholic councils that had previously folded in Salmonier and Riverhead were reconstituted, and new FPU locals formed in heavily Catholic towns such as Branch, North Harbour, Witless Bay, and Petty Harbour.Map of Southern Avalon Locals, Maritime History Archive, Memorial University. Retrieved 4 December 2022. Coaker estimated that the union had 1,200 Catholic supporters in northern districts.Ian McDonald, 'To Each His Own': William Coaker and the Fishermen's Protective Union in Newfoundland Politics, 1908–1925 edited by James Hiller (St. John's: ISER, 1987), p. 41 The vice-president of the union, Andrew Broaders, was a Catholic from Bay de Verde, and during the acrimonious election of 1913, pressed the case that Catholics could belong in the union.Liam O’Flaherty, "Rogues Among Rebels: Entanglements between Irish Catholics and the Fishermen’s Protective Union of Newfoundland," SFU Theses, 2017, pp. 100–102, retrieved from: https://summit.sfu.ca/item/17553.
Years in Office The election held on 30 October 1913, launched a new chapter in the history of the FPU as it started to make political gains. However, within a year of their inaugural election, the Union Party's agenda was waylaid by the onset of the First World War.
The First World War Years