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This paper examines the role of Canadian immigration policies in the creation of an ethnically segmented working class in pre-Second World War British Columbia. Existing research on the British Columbian working class has documented the radical nature of (white) working class trade union and socialist organization, while at the same time identifying anti-Asian racism as a major feature of organized (white) working class activity in the province. The formation of an ethnically segmented working class occurred through a complex and reciprocal process of ethnic segmentation within the labour market and the political and ideological practices of the working class. In British Columbia, I argue, state immigration policies played a crucial role in this process by according Asian immigrants, in contrast to European and American immigrants, an inferior political status as "non-settlers' within Canada, reinforcing their marginal economic position within the labour market and placing Asian workers in a position of economic and political inferiority vis-a-vis other workers in the province. In this context, immigration policies became a focus of class conflict in British Columbia, and working class organization and consciousness developed in an ethnically segmented and racist form.
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Examines the struggle for equal pay for women in a large office union composed of female clerical and male technical and manual workers. The Office and Technical Employees' Union pursued "equal pay for equal job evaluation" for over thirty years from 1949 to 1981, while the employer, B.C. Electric/Hydro, systematically restructured unequal pay. At the same time, union negotiating practices and priorities also reinforced the gendered hierarchy in the workplace, and equal pay for women remained a sectoral "women's issue" rather than a core general union issue.
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The history of labour in Canada is most often understood to mean – and presented as – the history of blue-collar workers, especially men. And it is a story of union solidarity to gain wages, rights, and the like from employers. In Contracting Masculinity, Gillian Creese examines in depth the white-collar office workers union at BC Hydro, and shows how collective bargaining involves the negotiation of gender, class, and race. Over the first 50 years of the office union's existence male and female members were approximately equal in number. Yet equality has ended there. Women are concentrated at the lower rungs of the job hierarchy, while men start higher up the ladder and enjoy more job mobility; men's office work has been redefined as a wide range of 'technical' jobs, while women's work has been concentrated in a narrow range of 'clerical' positions. As well, for decades Canadian Aboriginals and people of colour were not employed by BC Hydro, which has resulted in a racialized-gendered workplace. What is the role of workers and their trade unions in constructing male and female work, a process that is often seen as the outcome solely of management decisions? How is this process of gendering also racialized, so that women and men of different race and ethnicity are differentiallv privileged at work? How do males in a white-collar union create and maintain their own image of masculinity in the face of a feminized occupation and a more militant male blue-collar union housed within the same corporation? What impact does the gender composition of union leadership have on collective bargaining? How do traditions of union solidarity affect attempts to bargain for greater equity in the office? These are the central questions that Contracting Masculinity seeks to answer in this in-depth look at a Canadian union. --Publisher's description
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The article reviews the book, "Formations of Class & Gender," by Beverley Skeggs.
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This dissertation addresses the articulation of class, ethnic, and gender relations among the working class in Vancouver during its formative period, between 1900 and the eve of the Second World War in 1939. The historical development of a labour market segregated by ethnicity and gender is traced, and the effect of labour market segregation, ethnic relations of white domination, and patriarchal relations of male domination on the political practices of the working class is assessed. It is shown that the economic and political marginality of Asian and women workers in British Columbia affected their involvement in the Vancouver labour movement. Although many Asian and women workers played an active role in labour struggles, both were in a much weaker position than white male workers. Moreover, the practices of the predominantly white male labour movement reinforced the marginal position of Asian workers through exclusion, and women workers through the perpetuation of relations of dependence. Political divisions within the labour movement reflected the salience of ethnicity and gender in defining workers' lives, while at the same time reproducing the subordination of Asians and women within the labour market and throughout civil society. Conditions facilitating solidarity within the working class began to develop during the severity of the economic depression of the 1930s, when socialist politics were strengthened, and when Asian worker's and women workers began to place their own issues on the political agenda of the Vancouver labour movement.
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Presents seven papers from the workshop: "Feminist Reflections on the Writing of Canadian Working Class History in the 1980s" by Kathryn McPherson, "Peculiarities of British Columbians" by James R. Conley, "The British Columbia Working Class: New Perspectives on Ethnicity/Race and Gender" by Gillian Creese, "Teaching Working Class History in B.C." by Peter Seixas, "Labour Programmes: A Challenging Partnership" by Elaine Bernard, "Labour Historians and Unions: Assessing the Interaction" by Michael J. Piva, and "The New Brunswick Experience" by Raymond Leger.
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