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Chronicles Russell's rise to become one of the "Red Five" leaders of the Winnipeg General Strike as well as his instrumental role in founding the One Big Union. Also describes Winnipeg in the early 20th century and the labour movement's struggle to improve the conditions of the working class. Intended for secondary school students, the abundantly illustrated book includes suggestions for skits and debates about unions and issues that surround labour-management confrontations.

Pour rédiger cet ouvrage sur la pensée et l'action de Monseigneur Eugène Lapointe, l'auteur a puisé abondamment dans les archives de la Société historique du Saguenay. Il s'en tient exclusivement au domaine syndical. Rappelons que Mgr Lapointe est à l'origine de la Fédération ouvrière mutuelle du Nord, remplacée plus tard par la Fédération catholique des employés de pulperies et papeteries du Canada. --Résumé de l'éditeur

Contents: The working man in a frontier town, Hamilton, 1820-1850 ; The railway city, 1850-1870 / John Weaver -- Researching the Hamilton working class, 1870-1900 / Bryan Palmer -- The working class of Hamilton, 1900-1930 / Craig Heron -- The labour movement of Hamilton, 1930-1956 -- Selected bibliography of Hamilton labour, 1956-1977 / Charlotte A. Stewart.

Canada is the only country in the world whose unions have headquarters in a foreign country. More than two-thirds of Canadian workers in the private sector pay dues to "international" head offices in the United States. Canadian Workers, American Unions continues the historical account begun in the first volume of Trade Unions and Imperialism in America, "Yankee Unions, Go Home!: How the AFL Helped the U.S. Build an Empire in Latin America." --Publisher's description

[The author] introduces some of Canada's most extraordinary trade unionists. We encounter nine Ottawa mandarins who pave the way for the destruction of Canada's merchant navy, ship building industry, and 50,000 jobs. We meet certain employers whose greed was boundless and who were prone to violence and lawlessness. And we view the antics of politicians who turn out to be considerably less than honourable. Mr. Stanton tells the shameful story of the union's death from, as he says, "employer intransigence, government corruption, judicial bias, and American thuggery." It took a commission of inquiry, a government-imposed Administratioin, and almost a generation to clear up the mess left by U.S. gangsters. They had been brought into the shipping industry by ruthless employers unrestrained by the Mackenzie King government. For, as Mr. Stanton demonstrates, Mackenzie King was "an employer's man, first, last and always." --Publisher's description

Poetry chapbook.

Reminiscences of homesteading, railway construction, logging, mining and life in the farming and resource communities of western Canada in the years since1912 by two populist/socialist participants. Accounts markedly different from the usual picture of rural conservatism and quiescence. --Author's summary

There have been many attempts to convince Labor that Capital is a friend. In this book Victor Levant lays bare the ideological basis of the contention that Labor and Capital are partners and in so doing he exposes the mis-leaders of labor who week to take workers along the road paved by Capital. --Publisher's description

The opening of the twentieth century saw a fervour of radical political movements in Western Canada. Ross McCormack explores the constituencies, ideologies, and development of early reformist, syndicalist, and socialist organizations from the 1880s up to the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919. He distinguishes three types of radicals - reformers, rebels, and revolutionaries - who competed with each other to fashion a gneral western constituency. The reformers wanted to change society for the betterment of the workers, but both their aims and methods were moderate, essentially transfering the philosophy and tactics of the British labour movement to the Canadian west. The rebels, militant industrial unionists, periodically battled the Trades and Labour Congress in order to establish unions strong enough to defeat the employers and, if necessary, the state. The revolutionary Marxists were committed to the destruction of industrial capitalism and the establishment of a society controlled by the workers. The book describes the origins of radicalism, traces the histories of the various organizations that expressed its ideals, and discusses the impact of the First World War on the labour movement. Using previously unexplored sources, McCromack has produced the first comprehensive examination of the early history of the radical movement in western Canada, adding an important dimension to our knowledge and understanding of Canadian labour history. --Publisher's description. Contents: The emergence of the socialist movement in British Columbia -- Militant industrial unionism and the first western rebellion -- The ascendancy of the Socialist Party of Canada -- A case study in labourism: Winnipeg 1899-1915 -- The Industrial Workers of the World and militant industrial unionism -- Western radicals and the Great War: the first phase -- Western radicals and the Great War: the second phase.

When craftsman from Britain began to pour into Canada at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century they brought more than industrial skills with them. They brought a trade union consciousness from a country where the labor movement was already highly developed, and many also came with socialist ideas, which they proceeded to implant on Canadian soil. Socialist ideas at the same time also came from the United States, and somewhat later immigrant laborers from eastern and central Europe added to the strength of socialism in Canada. --Introduction

If these arguments are correct [i.e., arguments against a sexist psychological interpretation], then we must set ourselves another course to explain the failure of working class women in the 1896 to 1914 [period] to respond to their problems in a more explicitly collective fashion. The framework for such an alternative explanation rests upon a more concrete understanding of the work-life and work-place ecology of working women. Reliance on reliable clichés and "momified" abstractions about feminine psychology has hindered a recognition of the strictures that demographic and occupational influences placed on the possibilities for a concerted action. Combined with an appreciation of some of the thoughts and activity of working women, this approach should help us to reevaluate both the objective constraints and organizing capacities of the woman worker and the interplay of various aspects of her consciousness--particularly her feminism, her sense of feminity and her class consciousness. --From author's introduction

Inco is the world's largest producer of nicke. This gripping account of the corporation is an essential contribution to an understanding of concentrated economic power, how it operates in Canada and the Third World, and its human consequences. J.P. Morgan, Wilfrid Laurier, John Foster Dulles, and the CIA all play roles in the intrigue surrounding Inco's growth. Ranged against them are the workers who produce the wealth. Members of the Western Federation of Minders, the Industrial Workers of the World, the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers and the United Steelworkers of America all confront Inco. A story of resistance emerges - of union busting, of attacks by company goons, and of successful organizing drives. Today the struggle broadens to achieve safe working conditions and a cleaner environment. As Inco extends its arms around the world in an attempt to keep up its profits, Indonesia and Guatemala are confronted with a new chapter in a familiar colonial story. Military dictatorship and corporate expansion go hand in hand. The largess of the Canadian government facilitates the process. --Publisher's description

Ken Adachi's historical study of racism in Canada towards those of Japanese ancestry spans almost a century, from 1877 to 1975. He focuses on Japanese immigration, the Japanese Canadian community organization and the forced evacuation and relocation during the second world war. Also included, is an afterword by Roger Daniels that documents the efforts of the Japanese Canadian community post 1975, to gain redress for their unjustified internment and dispossession during World War II. More than four decades later, their struggles successfully lead to the Canadian Government's formal apology and to the Japanese Canadian Redress agreement of 1988. --Canadian Race Relations website

Contents: Theatre our weapon. Maguire. T. Unemployment / T. Maguire -- Looking forward / F. Love --  Eight men speak / O. Ryan, et al. -- Scientific socialism / N.W. Bowles -- Unity / O. Ryan -- Joe Derry / D. Livesay -- War in the East / S. Ryerson -- And the answer is / M. Reynolds.

It is Christmas Eve, 1970. In the shipping room of a Montreal dress factory, the workers get drunk and decide to go on strike. "So many of the guys I knew on the street are gone dead or crazy, man. There's no escape. This whole country is just one big factory, one big jail, Billy … Either you're a good nigger or ya die. Know what I mean? … Black, yellow, white. We're all niggers down on Rockefeller's Plantation, man." "Punks, Billy. All we get now is punks … I used to have this shipping room running like a new machine, remember, Billy? … No trouble, no fuss, 'cause everybody did their job and knew their place, but now … In the last five years, the kids been getting more and more like that Gary Boyce. Shit disturbers. They all got that look in their eye. Know what I mean? Like they don't give a damn." On the Job is David Fennario's post-mortem on the '60s and a look at the Canadian class structure. The play was first performed at Centaur Theatre, Montreal. Subsequently, it has been performed at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa; been revived by Centaur Theatre; and been staged at the Arts Club Theatre, Vancouver. --Publisher's description

The following lengthy study of "The History of Labour Unrest in Canada, 1900-66," was undertaken on behalf of the federal government's Task Force on Labour Relations, which is now sponsoring dozens of separate research projects, in response to what appeared to be a major "crisis" in labour relations in this country during 1965-66. ...One final, and more specific, justification for undertaking a lengthy and detailed history of labour unrest in Canada, as manifested in strikes and other forms of overt conflict, is, to put it simply, that it has not been done before. As noted below, in discussing sources that were drawn upon in writing this study, there is a remarkable paucity of literature on the subject of industrial unrest and conflict in Canada. This is particularly the case in scholarly, academic and literary circles. --From introduction