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From 1870 to 1970 between ten and twenty per cent of women in paid work held jobs described by the Canadian census as "professional." In this important historical study, Mary Kinnear explores the experience of the first generations of professional women in Canada. Kinnear presents five case studies of professional women in Manitoba: university teachers, physicians, lawyers, nurses, and schoolteachers. Although the unrelenting efforts of nineteenth-century feminists won women access to higher education and the professions, the author reveals that most women, whether in male- or female-dominated professions, were forced to accept subordinate positions. They responded with acquiescence, indifference, resentment, or resistance. Kinnear considers the reasons for and the cost of these various strategies. In addition to quantitative data culled from census and other records, Kinnear has collected testimony from more than two hundred professional women, a rich mine of information. A significant contribution to the growing literature on women and the professions, In Subordination helps explain why professional women continue to fight for equality today. --Publisher's description

Labour bureaucracy has long been a subject of interest to sociologists and industrial relations specialists, but it has rarely been examined by labour historians. In Red Flags and Red Tape Mark Leier aims to understand how and why bureaucracy came to dominate an organization that was established to promote greater democracy for the working class. The formative years of the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council, from 1889 to 1910, provide the basis for his study of the interplay between bureaucracy, class, and ideology. Leier sets himself three tasks: he examines the theoretical debates on the labour bureaucracy; he investigates the early history of the VTLC to show how and why bureaucratic structures evolve over time; and he looks at the ideology and personnel of the labour council to try to understand the complex relationship between bureaucrats on the left and right of the political spectrum. He describes the ideology of the bureaucrats (including their attitudes towards gender and race) and how it compares to that of the council's members, and observes that bureaucrats are defined by their power over a movement rather than by their ideology. Finally, since the VTLC was, at different times, dominated by labourists and socialists, Leier explores why different leaders held variant or antagonistic views. Leier concludes that the pressure of trade unionism and the class position of labour officials led to increased bureaucracy and conservatism, even among the socialists of the labour council, and as the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council matured, increased red tape isolated the officials from the membership. --Publisher's description

Over the past seventeen years, trade union educator D'Arcy Martin has conducted hundreds of courses for Canadian workers. He has learned that there are people-"conscious romantics"-who dream of a more egalitarian world while confronting the obstacles that stand in the way of building it. This book provides a refreshing personal account of union culture and its dynamics. --Publisher's description

The 1920s are seen by historians as a crucial period in the formation of the Canadian working class. In Ideal Surroundings, Suzanne Morton looks at a single working-class community as it responded to national and regional changes. Grounded in labour and feminist history, with a strong emphasis on domestic life, this analysis focuses on the relationship between gender ideals and the actual experience of different family members. The setting is Richmond Heights, a working-class suburb of Halifax that was constructed following the 1917 explosion that devastated a large section of the city. The Halifax Relief Commission, specially formed to respond to this incident, generated a unique set of historical records that provides an unusually intimate glimpse of domestic life. Drawing on these and other archives, Morton uncovers many critical challenges to working-class ideals. The male world-view in particular were seriously destabilized as economic transformation and unemployment left many men without the means to support their families, and as the daughters of Richmond Heights increasingly left their class-defined jobs for service and clerical positions. Drawing on recent theoretical and empirical work, Morton expertly combines interpretive and narrative material, creating a vivid portrayal of class dynamics in this critical postwar era. Her focus on the home and domesticity marks and innovative move towards the integration of gender in the study of Canadian history. --Publisher's description

In the 1890s, Rossland was the most important mining centre in southeastern British Columbia. In Roaring Days, Jeremy Mouat examines many different aspects of mining, from work underground to corporate strategies. He also brings to life the unique individuals who were a part of this history – the miners who toiled long hours under unimaginable working conditions, the citizens of Rossland who built a bustling town out of the wilderness, and the mine owners and entrepreneurs who became wealthy beyond all expectations. --Publisher's description

Exploring the role of women and feminism in the early Canadian socialist movement, Janice Newton traces the growth and ultimate decline of feminist ideas within the Canadian Socialist League, the Socialist Party of Canada, and the Social Democratic Party. Newton argues that socialist women and their concerns posed a radical challenge to the male-dominated left. Early socialist women fought to be treated as equals and actively debated popular women's issues, including domestic work, women in industry, sexuality, and women's suffrage. They provided a unique and vibrant perspective on these issues and challenged the middle-class bias inherent in the women's movement. Broadening our understanding of Canadian social history, Newton analyses the intersection of two important social movements - the labour/socialist and the turn-of-the-century feminist movements - and draws conclusions that are essential for understanding the class and gender characteristics of social criticism and activism in this period. --Publisher's description

Duddy Kravitz is obsessed with his grandfather's maxim, “A man without land is nobody.” He sets his heart on acquiring property and does not let any obstacle dissuade him. If he becomes hated along the way, he couldn't care less. In spite of enormous sacrifices and setbacks, Duddy never loses faith in realizing his dream. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is the novel that established Mordecai Richler as one of the world's best comic writers. A classic tale of coming of age on Montreal's St. Urbain Street, it is an unforgettable story of ambition, dreams, and familial love. --Publisher's description

Between 1920 and 1960 wage-earning women in factories and offices experienced dramatic shifts in their employment conditions, the result of both the Depression and the expansion of work opportunities during the Second World War. Earning Respect examines the lives of white and blue-collar women workers in Peterborough during this period and notes the emerging changes in their work lives, as working daughters gradually became working mothers. Joan Sangster focuses in particular on four large workplaces, examining the gendered division of labour, women's work culture, and the forces that encouraged women's accommodation and resistance on the job. She also connects women's wage work to their social and familial lives and to the larger community context, exploring wage-earning women's 'identities,' their attempts to cope with economic and family crises, the gendered definitions of working-class respectability, and the nature of paternalism in a small Ontario manufacturing city. Sangster draws upon oral histories as well as archival research as she traces the construction of class and gender relations in 'small town' industrialized Ontario in the mid-twentieth century. She uses this local study to explore key themes and theoretical debate in contemporary women's and working-class history. --Publisher's description

This book brings together the voices of contemporary labour leaders, activists, old timers, and academics to discuss the first hundred years of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union. --Worldcat catalogue record

Jamie Swift combines sharp-eyed journalism that brings out the nuances of daily life with a penetrating analysis of jobless recovery. He describes the emerging world of work through the eyes and experiences of people in Kingston and Windsor-two Ontario cities with roots in the pre-industrial past, places poised for the post-industrial information age. --Publisher's description

Contents: Introduction : the workplace and labor regulation in comparative perspective / P.K. Edwards, Jacques Bélanger, and Larry Haiven -- A comparison of national regimes of labor regulation and the problem of the workplace / P.K. Edwards -- Job control under different labor relations regimes : a comparison of Canada and Great Britain / Jacques Bélanger -- Workplace discipline in international comparative perspective / Larry Haiven -- Shopfloor relations at U.S. and Canadian plants of an automotive parts supplier, 1936-1988 / Stephen Herzenberg; Bargaining regimes and the social reorganization of production : the case of General Motors in Austria and Germany / Karen Shire -- New technology and the process of labor regulation : an international perspective / Anthony E. Smith -- Conflict and compliance : the workplace politics of a disk-drive factory in Singapore / Chung Yuen Kay -- The new international division of labor and its impact on unions : a case study of high-tech Mexican export production / Harley Shaiken -- Patterns of workplace relations in the global corporation : toward convergence? / Stephen Frenkel -- Conclusion : globalization, national systems, and the future of workplace industrial relations / Larry Haiven, P.K. Edwards, and Jacques Bélanger; Introduction : the workplace and labor regulation in comparative perspective / P.K. Edwards, Jacques Belanger, and Larry Haiven -- A comparison of national regimes of labor regulation and the problem of the workplace / P.K. Edwards -- Job control under different labor relations regimes : a comparison of Canada and Great Britain / Jacques Belanger -- Workplace discipline in international comparative perspective / Larry Haiven -- Shopfloor relations at U.S. and Canadian plants of an automotive parts supplier, 1936-1988 / Stephen Herzenberg; Bargaining regimes and the social reorganization of production : the case of General Motors in Austria and Germany / Karen Shire -- New technology and the process of labor regulation : an international perspective / Anthony E. Smith -- Conflict and compliance : the workplace politics of a disk-drive factory in Singapore / Chung Yuen Kay -- The new international division of labor and its impact on unions : a case study of high-tech Mexican export production / Harley Shaiken -- Patterns of workplace relations in the global corporation : toward convergence? / Stephen Frenkel -- Conclusion : globalization, national systems, and the future of workplace industrial relations / Larry Haiven, P.K. Edwards, and Jacques Belanger

The second edition of Canadian Labour History invites the reader to enter the debate that has made this field of study such a dynamic one in the past two decades. Covering the period from 1840 to 1980, these essays focus on a variety of Canadian regions demonstrating the similarities and differences of regional experiences. Similarly, alternate approaches to a single event-the Winnipeg General Strike-illustrate the diversity in the interpretation of labour history. --Publisher's description. Contents: The formation and fragmentation of the Canadian working class, 1820-1920 / Daniel Drache -- Listening to history rather than historians: Reflections on working class history / Bryan D. Palmer -- Ethnicity and class, transitions over a decade: Ontario, 1861-1871 / A. Gordon Darroch and Michael Ornstein -- Women and wage labour in a period of transition: Montreal, 1861-1881 / Bettina Bradbury -- Strikes in the Maritimes, 1901-1914 / Ian McKay -- Labour's civil war / David J. Bercuson -- 1919: The Canadian labour revolt / Gregory S. Kealey -- “We are all kin”: Reconsidering labour and class in Calgary, 1919 / David Bright -- Communists and auto workers: The struggle for industrial unionism in the Canadian automobile industry, 1925-1936 / John Manley -- The United Mine Workers and the coming of the CCF to Cape Breton / M. Earle and H. Gamberg -- The 1943 steel strike against wartime wage control / Laurel Sefton MacDowell -- Woodworkers and the mechanization of the pulpwood logging industry in Northern Ontario, 1950-1970 / Ian Radforth -- Inside postal workers: The labour process, state policy, and the workers' response / Bruce Laidlaw and Bruce Curtis -- A heritage of hope and struggle: Workers, unions, and politics in Canada, 1930-1982 / Wayne Roberts and John Bullen.

For more than two decades sociologists have debated the social and political consequences of an emergent postindustrial society. This comparative study addresses these debates, using original empirical data from five advanced capitalist economies - Canada, the United States, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. For some, the postindustrial world promises a new kind of capitalism that will draw its vitality from an expansion of knowledge and the creative capacities of working men and women. Others have highlighted postindustrialism's darker side and concluded that it is simply the next stage in the degradation of labour. For some, the massive entry of women into paid labour that accompanies postindustrialism will finally liberate women from domestic patriarchy. For others, it is no more than an extension of private patriarchy into the public sphere. The authors show that historical residues and the contemporary impact of major economic and political factors have produced not one but several postindustrial trajectories. They reveal how postindustrialism has brought a new distribution of productive forces and of effective powers over people, and show that the shape of that distribution varies considerably in different countries and different fields as a result of both institutionalized practices (inherited from industrial capitalism) and the contemporary effects of state policies, organized labour, and the women's movement. Addressing issues of class and gender, Relations of Ruling deals with problems involved in regulating paid labour as well as the relationship between paid and domestic labour. It will be of particular interest to specialists in gender issues and scholars in women's, family, and labour studies. --Publisher's description

In 1919 at the height of the post-war labour revolt,the Royal Canadian Mounted Police took responsibility for national security. This volume contains archival materials and other materials received through Canadian Access to Information legislation. It includes lists of personal files, subject files, and security bulletins circulated to the government. In general the material provides an excellent overview of the genesis of the Canadian state security system. --Publisher's description

The experiences of working women are explored in Women, Work, and Place. Tied together by the conceptual theme "place matters," the essays emphasize the social, cultural, economic, historical, and geographical contexts in which women work, and the effect of specific conditions on women's experiences. Topics include the transformation of the work force in nineteenth-century Montreal (Bettina Bradbury), feminization of skill in the British garment industry (Allison Kaye), the relationship between work and family for Japanese immigrant women in Canada (Audrey Kobayashi), experiences of women during a labour dispute in Ontario (Joy Parr), contemporary restructuring of the labour force in the United States (Susan Christopherson) and in an urban context in Montreal (Damaris Rose and Paul Villeneuve), the effect of gentrification on women's work roles (Liz Bondi), inequality in the work force (Sylvia Gold), and theoretical issues involved in understanding women in the contemporary city (Linda Peake). An introductory essay provides a review of current issues. --Publisher's description

The late "Lefty" Morgan, a British Columbia railway engineer, outlines his philosophy of workers' control in this fascinating volume. The volume has a scholarly introduction by University of New Brunswick anthropologist, Gail Pool, and University of Toronto PhD student in anthropology, Donna Young. They situate Lefty politically and historically and locate Lefty's work in current debates about workers' control. --Publisher's description

They came north like a storm surge of humanity, those wartime workers driven by the forces of World War II. Men and women, black and white, civilian and military, they outnumbered and effectively overwhelmed the largely Native population of Canada's northwest. Under harsh and unfamiliar conditions, they built what the war effort needed - airfields, roads, pipelines. Then, like a storm tide when the winds have passed, they receded from the North, leaving both the terrain and themselves forever changed. --Publisher's description

[E]xplores the human dimensions of plant relocation, sordid corporate practices, and ultimately, the corrosive cultural effects of corporate boosterism. A vivid, hard-hitting expose of big business in a small Ontario community. --Publisher's description

Between 1868-1924, 80,000 British children, most of them under fourteen, came to Canada to be apprenticed as labourers and domestic servents. Joy Parr's study of these children, first published in 1980, became a significant resource for courses in women's history, family history, immigration history, and labour history. Out of print for several years, Labouring Children now has a substantial new introduction in which the author examines the historiography of the history of childhood, particularly in the light of recent literature on sexuality and the post-structuralist critique. She also considers recent popular historical views of children and their relationship to professional history. Out of print for several years, Labouring Children now has a substantial new introduction in which the author examines the historiography of the history of childhood, particularly in the light of recent literature on sexuality and the post-structuralist critique.

How did an association formed in 1911 for self-help and social purposes become one of the largest and strongest unions in Ontario? [This book] is the story of that transformation: a history of the evolution of government in Canada's largest province, and of the working women and men who built the Ontario Public Services Employees Union. Analysis and anecdotes are woven into a tale of workers coping with a paternalistic employer, repressive laws and internal battles. Their story is an important part of the province's labour and political heritage. --Publisher's description