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TYRLC 150 years

He has often been dubbed "the father of the Canadian Labour movement."

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Daniel John O’Donoghue

International Typographical Union 1844-1907

Born in Ireland, Daniel O’Donoghue migrated to Canada as a boy with his family. He apprenticed as a printer in Ottawa, and then travelled around North America before settling in Ottawa in 1866. There he became a leader in the local labour movement. During the Toronto printers’ strike of 1872, he successfully lobbied Sir John A. Macdonald to introduce the Trade Unions Act that legalized unions. He became active in the new Canadian Labor Union. In 1874 he ran and won as a labour candidate in a provincial election. Defeated in 1879, he moved to Toronto the next year and returned to printing. For nineteen years starting in 1881, he was chair of the legislative committee of the Toronto Trades and Labor Council. He also became one of the most prominent leaders in the new Knights of Labor and helped launch the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada in 1883. O’Donoghue served on the board of the Toronto Technical School for many years and, in 1900, was appointed Canada’s first fair-wage officer in the new Department of Labour. He has often been dubbed “the father of the Canadian Labour movement.”

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