We Stood Together: First-Hand Accounts of Dramatic Events in Canada's Labour Past

Told for the first time, here are the stories of twelve of Canada's outstanding labour leaders and organizers. Their accounts tell the behind-the-scenes stories of some of the key events in twentieth-century Canadian history: the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike; the 1935 On-to-Ottawa trek of the unemployed, which played a major role in the defeat of Tory Prime Minister R.B. Bennett; the 1945 Ford strike in Windsor, which consolidated the rights of big industrial unions; the 1972 Common Front of Quebec's public sector workers. Gloria Montero travelled across the country to interview the labour leaders whose stories make up this book. We see the Winnipeg General Strike and the trials which followed through the eyes of Bill Pritchard, one of the eight strike leaders arrested and later tried by the government. In Vancouver Bill Walsh gave a first-hand account of riding the rails to Regina with the On-to-Ottawa trekkers. Madeleine Parent tells about organizing Quebec workers in the Forties against the anti-labour regime of Maurice Duplessis. Among other noted labour leaders whose stories are told here there are BC's Homer Stevens, Quebec's Yvon Charbonneau, Ontario's Grace Hartman, and the UAW's George Burt. The result is a book alive with people who are usually shadowy figures in the news and in the history books, but who played major roles in Canada's colourful and turbulent labour past. --Publisher's description

OCLC: 6488802