Your search

Traditional architectural histories of Canada have tended to define the Ukrainian architectural presence only in terms of the sacro-religious or the rustico-picturesque. The more complex reality—that of the community's secularity, urbanity, and proletarianization throughout its history—is demonstrated by a third building type, the chytalnia or reading room, of which a Labour Temple is a socialist/pro-communist variant. These institutions were often found in urban centres where they were frequently located in industrial vernacular houses. Their study therefore confounds conventional notions of Ukrainian piety and rusticity, of a historical geography that consists exclusively of rural Prairie settlement, and of formalist paradigms regarding architectural form. Similarly, the architectural history of Ottawa has been predicated upon monumentality and picturesque settings to the neglect of regional vernacular forms, as well as upon a bilingual/bicultural ethnoculture that negates the polyethnic nature of the city. This study posits the Ottawa Ukrainian Labour Temple as a case study for exploring the limitations of traditional historiography regarding vernacular architecture, Ukrainians in Canada, and industrial vernacular housing in Ottawa.

In 1923, after nearly three decades of class conflict on the Vancouver waterfront, the Shipping Federation of British Columbia, an umbrella organization of shipping, stevedoring, and warehousing interests, undertook a far-reaching agenda of welfare capitalism. Drawing on wider currents of progressive reform which were cresting in the interwar period, and inspired by the example set by its counterpart in Seattle, the Shipping Federation created new joint political structures, adopted a range of paternalist initiatives, and decasualized the waterfront workplace. From its vantage point, this was a "good citizens" policy, and it was designed to: build bridges across the class divide, gain greater control of the work process, stave off the intervention of unions and the state, and, in the end, mould a more efficient and compliant waterfront workforce. The creation and implementation of this reform agenda, the ways in which white and aboriginal waterfront workers negotiated the politics of paternalism and labour market reform, and the long-term ramifications of this dynamic are at the core of this thesis. -- Welfare capitalism shaped patterns of life and labour on the waterfront significant ways: informal ways of regulating the workplace atrophied; labourism was revived; and some waterfront workers acquired a reasonable standard of living. The trade-off at work, here, was this: only those employees who divested themselves of more radical political sensibilities, and adhered to waterfront employers' broader vision of an efficient, decasualized workplace, could hope to secure a living wage and fulfill their obligations as breadwinners, husbands, and citizens. For aboriginal longshoremen, most of whom were from the Squamish First Nation, this bargain was especially difficult to negotiate for it came freighted with the additional challenges associated with being "Indian" in a white society. Unlike their white counterparts who passed muster, they were marginalized from the waterfront during this time as decasualization's new time-work discipline conflicted with their more traditional sensibilities and ongoing need to work at a variety of tasks to ensure material and cultural survival. -- Straddling labour history, aboriginal history, and the burgeoning literature on law and society, this thesis rejects conventional interpretations of welfare capitalism that conceptualize it as either a failed experiment in industrial democracy, or a drag on the emergence of the welfare state. In doing so, it re-positions welfare capitalism in the context of the wider return to normalcy following the Great War, and the powerful reform impulses that took aim at family, citizen, and nation. Rather than forestalling the welfare state, this citizen-worker complex--which manufactured a new sense of entitlement amongst white waterfront workers--was part of a broader cultural shift that would, after the trials of the Great Depression and challenge posed by the Communist Party of Canada, eventually underwrite the state's very expansion. On a broad level, then, this analysis illustrates how the prevailing liberal-capitalist order was successfully rehabilitated after the Great War and 1919, and how, in the long-term, it successfully contained, by consent and coercion, those forces which were antithetical to the prevailing economic and political status quo.

In 1933, an American entrepreneur offered the people of St. Lawrence, a small town on the south coast of Newfoundland, the prospect of escaping rampant unemployment and meager public relief by starting a mine to extract the area's vast deposits of fluorspar, which is used in the manufacture of steel, aluminum, and various chemical products. Coming in the context of the Great Depression and the collapse of the fishing industry, the mining industry was eagerly embraced by residents of St. Lawrence and surrounding communities. Several mines were subsequently established, by both the original American company, the St. Lawrence Corporation of Newfoundland, and later by the Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan). The fragile prosperity that accompanied the industry from the 1930s until closure of the last Alcan mine in 1978, however, exacted a heavy price. Many St. Lawrence workers lost their lives to industrial diseases caused by dust and radiation in the mines. -- This thesis explores the history of industry, labour, and health and safety at the St. Lawrence mines. This study focuses on the struggle by workers and their union for recognition of workplace hazards, improved working conditions, and adequate compensation for industrial disease victims and their families. The thesis argues that, rather than being passive victims of an unavoidable tragedy, workers at St. Lawrence were aware of the adverse health impacts of their work from the very early years of mining, and fought constantly over several decades to have their concerns addressed. Furthermore, the thesis argues that the disaster which ultimately unfolded at St. Lawrence was primarily the result of industry and government authorities ignoring or downplaying legitimate concerns and thereby shirking their moral and legal responsibilities.

Constitutional reform dominated the Canadian public policy agenda during the 1980s and early portion of the 1990s. As a pressure group operating within a federal system, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) has been unable and unwilling to confront the issue of constitutional reform. The CLC's confederal structure, combined with its political relationship with the New Democratic Party (NDP), has prevented the CLC from acting as a progressive force for positive constitutional change. Ideological and philosophical differences between the Quebec Federation of Labour and the NDP convinced the CLC to remove itself from the patriation debate in the early 1980s. Labour's short-sighted non-involvement in the process of patriating the Constitution eliminated the possibility of having collective rights enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Subsequently, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the right to strike and bargain collectively were not constitutionally protected. The Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords provided organized labour with a renewed opportunity to promote a pro-union, class-based, constitutional rights discourse, but the CLC's internal cleavages over language, region, and identity, once again, proved too powerfiil a force to overcome. The Canadian labour movement's vision of social justice and economic equality has been obstructed by its unwillingness to adequately confront divisive constitutional issues. However, in an era of rights discourse and neo-liberalism, constitutional reform may provide organized labour with the best opportunity to have its voice heard.

The period between 1935 and 1945 was a key one for the Communist Party of Canada [CPC or CP] due to the tumult of the Great Depression and the Second World War. Women were key players in the success that the CPC had during this period, one in which Communist and other left-wing movements grew and were more 'respectable' than they were during the Cold War that would follow. Yet women were secondary players in the Communist movement in Vancouver. While CP women played crucial roles in raising money for the Party, setting up fighting organizations such as the Vancouver Housewives league, and supporting the Allied war effort, CP members of both sexes pushed Party women into more traditional 'feminine' roles of wives, mothers, and ornaments. The Vancouver Communist Party offered a substantial challenge to Canada''s liberal state and the CP provided radical women with an outlet to channel their abilities against capitalism. In the end, however, the CP failed to alter substantially the fundamental division of labour between radical men and women. Communists upheld the mainstream doctrine of "separate spheres": they believed that men were workers, labour organizers, and producers while left-wing and working class women were domestic, passive, and consumers. This thesis concludes that while we cannot expect radical organizations to be completely separate from the gender ideals of the period in which they existed, the CPC did little to challenge traditional gender roles.

While it has been generally understood that domestic service was an institution of particular importance to working-class women and to middle-class householders in North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, we still know little about the interwar years, a period during which the occupation declined in overall importance, but still defined many women's working lives. In the 1920s and 1930s, a vast majority of women who grew up in Newfoundland's coastal communities, where household production and the family fishery remained the mainstay of the economy, spent part of their lives performing domestic tasks for pay. To begin to understand the historical and cultural significance of domestic service to women's lives in Newfoundland, this dissenation uses a case-study approach. It focuses on the pulp and paper mill town of Grand Falls, where there was a steady demand for domestics by mill workers and their families, the town's elite, and hotels and boarding houses during the 1920s and 1930s. One of a number of single-resource towns supported by Newfoundland's economic diversification policies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Grand Falls was built in the interior of the island by the Harmsworth brothers of Britain in 1905. By tracing domestics' lives and experiences from countryside to company town, into the household = as workplace - and then into their married lives, the study explores themes relating to the gendered nature of uneven development. For instance, many Grand Falls employers shared much in common with the women they hired, in terms of religion, ethnicity and social origin., which raises interesting questions about the gender and class dimensions of an employer/employee relationship that has traditionally been characterized as one of domination and subordination. It also considers that relations of gender and class within the company town were formed in conjunction with factors such as migration patterns, pre-existing concepts of the gender division of labour within household production, company paternalism and social stratification within the workplace, the household and the town. The ways in which these factors overlapped and shaped the lives of domestics forms the backdrop of this study.

Cette thèse traite de l'évolution du mouvement ouvrier montréalais de 1918 à 1929. Nous examinons les diverses organisations ouvrières, tant leur structure et leur composition, que les différentes idéologies qui coexistent dans les groupes ouvriers de la région montréalaise. Après avoir retracé les origines de ces organisations, leur évolution au cours de la Première Guerre mondiale, nous analysons leur développement au cours de la décennie qui suit la fin guerre. Nous cherchons, au delà des présupposés et des généralités, à comprendre le processus d'évolution du mouvement ouvrier montréalais. L'analyse de l'évolution des syndicats et des organisations politiques permet de saisir toute la complexité de rapports sociaux et les difficultés pour les travailleurs d'occuper une place significative. Notre analyse décrit aussi la place des diverses composantes nationales présentes dans le mouvement ouvrier montréalais. Nous insistons sur la place des travailleurs francophones et sur le rôle des travailleurs juifs jusqu'ici méconnu. Nous subdivisons cette tranche historique en trois périodes qui recoupent des conjonctures spécifiques. Les années de l'immédiat après-guerre sont marquées par une très forte agitation ouvrière alors que de très nombreux ouvriers et ouvrières se dotent de syndicats et revendiquent de meilleures conditions de vie et de travail. Le syndicalisme international de métier voit sa prédominance contestée par le syndicalisme canadien et le syndicalisme révolutionnaire. À droite de l'échiquier syndical, le syndicalisme catholique s'installe définitivement au Québec et constitue une des caractéristiques majeures du mouvement ouvrier québécois. L'effervescence ouvrière ne débouche pas sur des organisations politiques fortes malgré l'existence d'un parti ouvrier qui obtient quelques gains électoraux alors que les organisations de gauche doivent se réorganiser, victimes notamment de la répression gouvernementale et patronale. La crise, qui s'enclenche dès le milieu de 1920, affecte considérablement des organisations ouvrières lorsque le capitalisme tient à revenir aux situations qui prévalaient avant la guerre. Les organisations syndicales cherchent à résister à cette stratégie mais le nombre de syndicats décroît. Toutefois, cette baisse du membership syndical ne ramène pas le nombre de syndiqués au niveau de 1913 parce que, parmi les syndicats apparus dans la foulée de la révolte ouvrière, de nombreux syndicats résistent efficacement, dont des syndicats canadiens et des syndicats catholiques. La gauche se réorganise autour du Parti communiste canadien, creusant un fossé entre eux et le reste des militants ouvriers. Le Parti ouvrier du Canada entreprend sa lente marginalisation. Au milieu de la décennie, profitant d'une reprise économique, le mouvement ouvrier se relève. Les syndicats se réorganisent, leur membership augmente et leurs revendications deviennent plus offensives montrant ainsi un regain de militantisme. Mais les divisions s'accentuent dans les rangs syndicaux alors que les syndicats canadiens et catholiques contestent de plus en plus le leadership occupé par les syndicats internationaux de métier. Au plan politique, le Parti communiste occupe pratiquement toute la place, les socio-démocrates se voyant relégués à quelques bastions.

The following study examines the NDP and the union vote. The NDP and labour unions have been officially linked since the NDP's formation in 1961. Despite the initial optimism of the NDP-labour link, the change from the CCF to the NDP has resulted in limited electoral success, especially at the federal level. The partnership between labour and the NDP has met with limited electoral fortunes. Although their tendency to vote NDP is higher than that of other groups, the vast majority of union members still vote for other parties. Federal election studies have repeatedly shown that 10 percent of non-union members, 20 percent of union members, and 30 percent of NDP affiliated union members vote for the NDP. The question is why do the remaining 70 to 80 percent of union members fail to vote for the NDP. This study aims to address this problem using survey research. The first chapter reviews the link between the NDP and labour and voting determinants in Canada. The second chapter looks at the research design and methodology of this thesis. Chapter three and four examines the results of the statistical analysis. Finally, chapter five summarizes with a discussion and concluding remarks.

Analysant la mobilité sociale dans le gouvernement de Québec sous le Régime français, ce mémoire aborde la propriété seigneuriale en tant qu'illustration de la promotion sociale dans la vallée du Saint-Laurent au XVIIe et au XVTIIe siècle. Cette analyse, portant sur une soixantaine d'individus aux origines modestes, issus notamment de la paysannerie, ayant accédé à la propriété seigneuriale, se veut une contribution a l'étude de la promotion sociale en Nouvelle-France. Quatre parties constituent l'essentiel de ce mémoire. L'origine de ces individus et les modes d'élévation sociale sont étudiés dans une première servant de cadre contextuel et de présentation sociodémographique. Les trois chapitres suivants visent à répondre plus directement à la problématique de l'étude, à savoir l'impact socio-économique de la propriété seigneuriale chez ces seigneurs aux humbles origines. La durabilité de la propriété seigneuriale, ainsi que le fait d'y résider ou non et le peuplement de la seigneurie sont les éléments étudiés dans le deuxième chapitre. Le troisième chapitre aborde la question du prestige tributaire de la seigneurie, en s'intéressant aux appellations attribuées aux seigneurs, de méme que les fortunes seigneuriales, pour connaître l'incidence économique de la propriété seigneuriale. Dans un dernier temps, le quatrième chapitre met en relief les alliances matrimoniales des familles seigneuriales, également révélatrices du possible impact de la possession d'une seigneurie. Au sein de cette société française d'Ancien Régime, transplantée sur les rives du Saint- Laurent, d'importantes mutations s'opèrent. L'une de ces transformations est perceptible par la plus grande possibilité de mobilité sociale, quasi inexistante en France. Par l'analyse des destins d'hommes dont la naissance ne laissait en rien présager un tel parcours, ce mémoire vise a comprendre l'enjeu de la propriété seigneuriale pour de tels individus ainsi que ses répercussions.

The Union of Northern Workers, known as the Northwest Territories Public Service Association prior to 1987, is the largest labour union in the Northwest Territories. Northern labour is a little explored field in Canadian history, and as such, this work surveys new ground. Trade unionism in the North's private sector began at the close of the Second World War. The UNW, however, like most public sector unions in Canada, had its roots in the 1960s. This study examines issues pertaining to the union's leadership and staff from 1967, when correctional workers in Yellowknife first organized, until the 1996 convention, when the union took steps to divide into two separate unions in anticipation of the creation of Nunavut in 1999. From its start, the union's geographic jurisdiction distinguished the UNW as unique among Canada's public service unions. It and its predecessor, the NWTPSA represented workers in Canada's most northern reaches. The challenges of life in the North were as real for the union as they were for its members. A relatively small membership spread across such a huge land mass presented obstacles with regards to leadership and service. Also, cultural factors differentiated the organization from others. With an increasing native membership, mostly Inuit, lnuktitut became the union's second language. Distinguishing the union institutionally was its component status within the Public Service Alliance of Canada. The quality of the relationship between these two bodies regularly fluctuated between excellent and belligerent. Similarly, the union's relationship with the Nonhwest Territories Federation of Labour degenerated from founding member to pariah status, in spite of the UNW comprising the overwhelming majority of the Federation's membership. As the union grew from a fly-by-night, seat-of-the-pants organization of less than 100 members at its inception, to over 5,000 when it divided, leadership and staffing gained increasing importance. To meet the challenges of representing northern workers, the union increasingly attempted to professionalize its leadership cadre. The effect of this was an increasing distance between members and leaders which ultimately resulted in the secession of the Nunawt membership.

The period 1935 to 1947 provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the ways in which the employment and training policies of Canadian welfare state forms delineated the boundaries of gender, race, class and nation in ways that actively constituted (il)legitimate social and economic forms of work, of motherhood, of sexuality and citizenship. Covering attempts starting in the Depression and accelerating during the Second World War into the postwar period, this study tracks the constitution and deployment of government attempts at mapping the female labour supply, of monitoring the activities of women in the labour market, of charting and opening up to scrutiny the conditions of women's labour force attachment: all in an effort to predict and prescribe patterns of women's employment and problems of female unemployment. I approach government reports, studies, commissions and committees as policy events—exercises in governance—as markers for policy analysis which signified important shifts in governmental approaches to the phenomenon of female participation in the formal waged economy. Viewed during the war as a crucial national resource, central to the war effort, women war workers would be cast as a largely ‘unskilled female labour reserve’ by war's end. I examine how ideas about mental testing, intelligence and human capacities—ideas that comprised the foundation of the mental hygiene programme during this period—informed employment and training policies in the formation of the Canadian welfare state for the period 1935–1947. During the Depression, studies of the labour force produced classifications of unemployed women and men. Scrutiny of female employment patterns resulted in the production of categorical knowledges about employability. These practices were further elaborated through the unprecedented research opportunities presented by the war. Suitable vocation, aptitude, and measures of intelligence: these concepts were drawn upon as part of a growing apparatus of employment policy intended to facilitate the smooth transition into the postwar period. I argue that the roster of policies and programmes devised in the name of postwar rehabilitation constituted ideas about female employability which were deeply imbued with the principles of scientific racism and sexism at the core of the mental hygiene program. Vocational planning, counselling and training practices reorganised relations of employment and of unemployment in ways that reflected the managing principles of the risk society. Postwar planning drew upon and constituted new areas of activity for government and community agencies, creating opportunities for the deployment of knowledge-practices such as personnel selection while opening up the interior of the subject as an object of governance, by assessing and calibrating allegedly innate human capacities.