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Since the 1980s, the world’s working class has been under continual assault by the forces of neoliberalism and imperialism. In response, new labor movements have emerged across the Global South—from Brazil and South Africa to Indonesia and Pakistan.Building Global Labor Solidarity in a Time of Accelerating Globalization is a call for international solidarity to resist the assaults on labor’s power. This collection of essays by international labor activists and academics examines models of worker solidarity, different forms of labor organizations, and those models’ and organizations’ relationships to social movements and civil society. --Publisher's description.
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This book investigates the labour history of a people who have not been involved in the twentieth-century labour movement in large numbers: North American Mennonites. It explores their historically-constructed attitudes toward organized labour and unions, which it attempts to understand on its own terms. Although Mennonites are typically associated with rural life, they in fact became very involved as workers in specific locations in both traditional Mennonite enclaves in Ohio, Indiana, Ontario, and Manitoba, and those to which they migrated in the twentieth century, such as British Columbia and California. Mennonites in these locales found employment both as field workers for large agri-business operations (for example, the orchards and packing plants of the San Joaquin Valley in California) and as factory hands in manufacturing firms (such as the automotive factories in southern Ontario). The late twentieth century experiences of North American Mennonites in these settings caused them to confront and reassess their attitudes toward unions. A study of these Mennonites--united by transnational ties of ethnic and religious identity yet shaped, at times, in distinct ways by their differing geographic locations, immigration histories and ethnic origins, denominational ties, and class positions--provides insights into how and why the majority of North American Mennonites have rejected labour unions in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The oral histories of the 113 Mennonites interviewed provide insight into why many working North Americans are not union supporters, and how people in general negotiate tensions between their commitments to faith and conscience and the demands of their employment. An important aim of the book is to bring labour historians and historians of religion into conversation. --Publisher's description
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For decades, manufacturers from around the world relied on asbestos from the town of Asbestos, Quebec, to produce fire-retardant products. Then, over time, people learned about the mineral's devastating effects on human health. Dependent on this deadly industry for their community's survival, the residents of Asbestos developed a unique, place-based understanding of their local environment; the risks they faced living next to the giant opencast mine; and their place within the global resource trade. This book unearths the local/global tensions that defined Asbestos's proud and painful history to reveal the challenges similar resource communities have faced--and continue to face today. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Foreword: the long dying / Graeme Wynn -- Introduction: introducing Asbestos -- Creation stories: Asbestos before 1918 -- Land with a future, not a past, 1918-49 -- Negotiating risk, 1918-49 -- Essential characteristics, 1918-49 -- Bodies collide: the strike of 1949 -- "Une ville qui se deplace," 1949-83 -- Useful tools, 1949-83 -- Altered authority, 1949-83 -- Conclusion: surviving collapse: Asbestos post-1983.
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“Building The Power” is a fascinating look into the history of LiUNA Local 1611, documenting the dramatic events and accomplishments of its members since 1937, written by Local 1611’s Strategic Researcher and labour activist Mark Warrior. In 1953, Stacey Warner, while organizing pipeline workers, was threatened with a shotgun by a company thug hired for the sole purpose of intimidation. The police did not take notice. In 1981, the Labour Relations Board ignored the fact that the employer offered union member a $1,000 bribe to change his vote—right at the Labour Relations Board office—when LiUNA Local 1070 was attempting to certify his bargaining unit. Ignoring naked violence had been replaced by ignoring blatant lawbreaking. But the result was not the same. Warner succeeded in organizing the workers. These are examples of the conflict and often dangerous scenarios those in the Labour Movement have faced in their effort to secure workers’ right and fair working wages and safe working conditions. --Website description
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Many Canadians believe their nation fell on the right side of history in harbouring escaped slaves from the United States. In fact, in the wake of the American Revolution, many Loyalist families brought slaves with them when they settled in the Maritime colonies of British North America. Once there, slaves used their traditions of survival, resistance, and kinship networks to negotiate their new reality. Harvey Amani Whitfield’s book, the first on slavery in the Maritimes, is a startling corrective to the enduring and triumphant narrative of Canada as a land of freedom at the end of the Underground Railroad. --Publisher's description