1946 Montreal Cottons strike

The Montreal Cottons Company strike of 1946 was a hundred-day-long strike in which 3,000 mill workers in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Quebec, fought for the right to obtain a collective agreement with the management of the Montreal Cottons Company mill. Mill workers in Valleyfield walked off the job on June 1, 1946, as part of a larger textile strike movement.

Workers at one of Dominion Textile's mills located within Montreal went on strike at the same time. By August 1, the strike had been settled in Montreal and workers had returned to work at the Dominion Textile mills after entering negotiations with the company.

In Valleyfield the situation was different, and only after a violent riot on August 13 did the company seriously enter negotiations with the workers.

Both strikes were organized by the Textile Workers Union of America (TWUA), an international union. Kent Rowley and Madeleine Parent acted as representatives of the UTWA in Valleyfield.

After their riot closed down the mill as a going concern, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield strikers returned to work September 9, and a collective agreement was signed November 26 between Montreal Cottons Ltd. (the parent of Montreal Cotton Co.) and union representatives.

Locally, the strike was important since it was the first time that workers at Montreal Cotton's Valleyfield mill obtained a collective contract. The labour activism and the role of women in this strike challenge the historical narrative of a hegemonic conservative Quebec under the leadership of Maurice Duplessis.