MADE IN HAMILTON
20TH CENTURY
INDUSTRIAL TRAIL

SITE 29
WALLACE-BARNES & COMPANY LTD., 1921

The Wallace-Barnes Company of Bristol, Connecticut opened its first Canadian branch plant here in 1921, in leased space near the west end of the city. Five years later it moved into this plant on Sherman Avenue. In its heyday, over 300 men and women worked here.

Workers at this plant produced valves and springs for the automotive industry. They also produced springs for stoves, refrigerators, agricultural tools and other products. Much of the steel for this production came from Hamilton mills. Over the years, the company's main customers have been the Big Three auto makers, and such Hamilton plants as International Harvester and Canadian Westinghouse.

In 1964, the company opened a second plant in Burlington after space at the Sherman Avenue plant became cramped. All production has been moved to Burlington, where the company now operates as Associated Spring-Barnes Group of Canada.

Wallace-Barnes was a hard plant to organize. By the early 1950s the United Electrical Workers (UE) had succeeded where a couple of others had failed. But the battle lines were again drawn when the union's first contract expired in 1953. The United Springmakers' Association, a company union, had been hastily formed to break the UE's hold on the plant. A storm was brewing as members of UE Local 520 hit the pickets. The company, backed up by the local labour movement, red-baited the union through the local press. An attempt by members of the rival union to enter the plant on 16 October ended with police and UE pickets brawling on Sherman Avenue. Picket marshal Tom Davidson received an unprecedented 2 month jail term for his part in the fracas. In the end, the chilled winds of the Cold War froze the UE out of the plant. The plant was organized by the Steelworkers some years later.

Workers at this plant are organized as United Steelworkers of America Local 8761.