Your search

As Canada's most industrialised province, Ontario served as the regional centre of the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, an organisation which embodied a late nineteenth-century working-class vision of an alternative to the developing industrial-capitalist society. The Order opposed the exploitation of labor, and cultivated working-class unity by providing an institutional and cultural rallying point for North American workers. By 1886 thousands of industrial workers had enrolled within the ranks of Ontario's local and district assemblies. This book examines the rise and fall of the Order, providing case studies of its experience in Toronto and Hamilton and chronicling its impact across the province. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction. Part 1. Overview: The working class and industrial capitalist development in Ontario to 1890 -- 'Warp, woof, and web': the structure of the Knights of Labor in Ontario. Part 2. The Local Setting: Toronto and the organization of all workers -- Hamilton and the home club. Part 3. The Wider Experience: Taking the Bad with the Good -- 'Unscrupulous rascals and the most infamous damn liars and tricksters at large': the underside of the Knights of Labor -- The order in politics: the challenge of 1883-1887 -- 'Politicians in the order': the conflicts of decline, 1887-1894 -- 'Spread the light': forging a culture -- The people's strike: class conflict and the Knights of Labor. Part 4. Conclusion: Accomplishment and failure -- Appendix -- Notes -- Selected bibliography -- Index.

Originally published as a monograph in the International encyclopedia of labour law and industrial relations; Includes bibliographical references (page 52) and index

This book, published in 1979, was the first book about sexual harassment to be published in Canada, and the second in North America. Quotation from the inside flap: If you thought women have finally become more accepted as real people with readier access to the conclaves of corporate power, read this book - you'll think again. Using statistical studies, interviews with executives and personnel managers, case studies, historical records, and court cases, Constance Backhouse and Leah Cohen show how pervasive sexual harassment is in the workplace. The authors provide us with a balanced and incisive understanding of what goes on. They also recommend ways to combat sexual harassment. Since this subject has till now been unexplored, avoided, and rife with myths and misinformation, this book is all the more important to our society. -- Author's website

Here is a hard-hitting look at Canada's wealthiest and most powerful mining company - the International Nickel Company of Canada. "Hardrock Mining" is the first in-depth study of both Inco Limited and the Canadian mining industry as a whole, an incisive look at both the effects of the technological revolution on a corporation and an industry which affects the lives of millions of Canadians. Respected sociologist Wallace Clement has interviewed hundreds of working men and women, and utilized unprecedented access to all facets of Inco's operations to build a fascinating and colourful portrait of a corporate giant. Clement documents the effect of the unions on the workers' welfare, the strikes and layoffs that are a fixture in the mining industry, and the effects of technological changes on health, safety, and the demand for specific skills. --Publisher's description

The introduction to the memorable collection of photographs of Hamilton workers, All That Our Hands Have Done...announced: "Labour history is a new field. It demands new methods, new sources, new questions and new, mutual relations between researchers and their subjects." --From David Sobel, "Remembering Wayne Roberts, 1944-2021," Labour/Le travail, 87 (Spring 2021) 15.

First published in 1981, H. Clare Pentland's Labour and Capital in Canada, 1650-1860 is a seminal work that analyzes the shaping of the Canadian working class and the evolution of capitalism in Canada. Pentland's work focuses on the relationship between the availability and nature of labour and the development of industry. From that idea flows an absorbing account that explores patterns of labour, patterns of immigration and the growth of industry. Pentland writes of the massive influx of immigrants to Canada in the 1800s--taciturn highland Scots who eked out a meagre living on subsistence farms; shrewd lowlanders who formed the basis of an emerging business class; skilled English artisans who brought their trades and their politics to the new land; Americans who took to farming; and Irish who came in droves, fleeing the poverty and savagery of an Ireland under the heel of Britain. Labour and Capital in Canada is a classic study of the peoples who built Canada in the first two centuries of European occupation. --Publisher's description. Edited, with an introduction by Paul Phillips. Contents: Slavery in Canada -- The Pre-Industrial Pattern: Personal Labour Relations -- Canada's Labour Force: Population Growth and Migration -- Population Growth and Migration: The Irish -- The Transformation of Canada's Economic Structure -- The Transformation of Canadians.

Poetry.

Biography.

La Confédération des syndicats nationaux, qui s'est appelée jusqu'en 1960 la Confédération des travailleurs catholiques du Canada (CTCC), et sans conteste l'une des institutions les plus importantes du Québec. Depuis sa fondation en 1921, elle a joué un rôle de tout premier plan, s'affirment à la fois comme un des mouvements organisés des travailleurs et travailleuses et un des principaux agent de transformation sociale. Au cours de son histoire, la CSN s'est toujours distinguée par sa volonté de réformer et profondeur la régime économique et d'instaurer une société plus juste, respecteuse de la dignité des travailleurs. Publié à l'occasion du 60e anniversaire de la CSN, ce livre ne se veut cependant pas une histoire officielle. Il a été écrit par une spécialiste de l'histoire des travailleurs et il s'adresse à ceux et celles qui s'intéressemt à cet aspect fondamental, pourtant encore largement méconnu de l'histoire du Québec. Sommaire de l'éditeur

The selection of topics for this Encyclopedia has not always been easy, especially as some topics coincide with the present, and obscure with their familiarity the context of the past. Yet we have learned from our research for this work that unless the present be recorded in print now it has less chance of being known in the future. In addition to the thousands of topics compiled by the Editor in Chief, Mr. Smallwood, the topics presented here have been selected from those suggested by many people and from nearly one hundred and fifty source books of Newfoundland society and history. Sometimes the work of choosing the best and most accurate sources has been as difficult as choosing the topics; history is an account of what has been recorded to have happened. This being so, we have attempted to corroborate and otherwise verify such records, and, where this is impossible, to present and identify conflicting statements... Robert D.W. Pitt --Website description

Here is the populist anthology that touches the heart of North American life, a collection that achieves in poetry what Stud Terkel's Working did in prose. Its wide appeal is obvious. Included are 200 selections by 90 Canadian and American writers, from foundry workers and short-order cooks to the likes of Joyce Carol Oates, Patrick Lane, Pier Giorgio di Cicco and Wayman himself. --Publisher's description

Ce conflit impliquant surtout des travailleurs irlandais dura plusieurs mois; il fut marqué par des émeutes sanglantes qui firent au moins six morts. Le rappel des événements est suivi des témoignages recueillis par les commissaires chargés de l'enquête et du rapport officiel rédigé par ces derniers. Cette façon de procéder de l'auteur permet de porter un jugement éclairé sur la condition ouvrière au Québec au siècle dernier. --Description de l'éditeur

This book is an insightful and detailed analysis of Canadian labour relations policy at the beginning of the 20th century, and of the formulation of distinctive features which still characterize it today. The development and reception of this policy are explained as a product of ideological and economic forces. These include the impact of international unionism on the Canadian working class, the emergence of scientific management in business ideology, and the special role of the state in economic development and the mediation of class relationships. The ideas and career of Mackenzie King, including his 'new liberalism,' and his activities in regard to the Department of Labour are examined, revealing how he moulded Canada's official position in the relations between capital and labour. With a focus on King's intellectual qualities in an international context, the author brings out another dimension, portraying him as Canada's first practising social scientist. The book examines implementation of policy through an analysis of the work of the Department of Labour through detailed case studies of government interventions in industrial disputes. The initial acceptance of the labour relations policy by the labour movement is explained and its repudiation in 1911 is examined against a background of setbacks which reflected its practical limits as much as its philosophical orientation. The result is a study which moves beyond a particular concern with labour policy to illuminate the contours of Canadian life in a crucial period of national development. --Publisher's description

This is a bibliography of sources for research into the history of women workers and their activity as trade unionists in British Columbia. It spans an eighteen-year period, from 1930 to 1948. During these years dramatic changes occurred in the position of women within production as well as in strategies and strengths of the organized labour movement. --Introduction

[This book] is written in a way consistent with some of the fundamental concerns of Marxism. The contributions are from individuals who, according to conventional classifications, can be described as anthropologists, historians, political economists, and sociologists. ...Although the articles are grouped under the headings class, state, ideology and change, the concerns of many span more than one of these categories. In addition, the articles deal with matters of fundamental concern to Canadians: the question of unequal exchanges among regions, Canadian and Quebec nationalism, the ideological mechanisms that support the unequal treatment of women, deindustrialization, and so on. A final section of the book focuses on indigenous Canadian political economy tradition and Marxism. --Editor's preface

Fernand Harvey a réaménagé en profondeur le recueil de textes publié en 1973 sous le titre Aspects historiques du mouvement ouvrier au Québec. L'approche adoptée est plus thématique que chronologique. Sans prétendre être une histoire complète du mouvement ouvrier, cet ouvrage ne couvre pas moins les différentes périodes de cette histoire et aborde des thèmes essentiels à la compréhension de l'évolution historique de ce mouvement. --Publisher's description (Google Books)

Toronto's Industrial Revolution of the 1850s and 1860s transformed the city's economy and created a distinct working class. This book examines the workers' role in the transition to industrial capitalism and traces the emergence of a strong trade union movement in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Immigrant workers were already organized along ethnic lines and vol­untary societies like the Orange Order played an informal but active part in the broad pattern of social change. Artisan groups were more directly instrumental in developing strategies to cope with the new pressures of industrial capitalism. In the period covered by this book Toronto's moul­ders and printers maintained and even strengthened the traditions of work­ers' control in the shop. The shoemakers and coopers were less successful, but the lessons of their defeats made them important early members of the Knights of Labor in the 1880s.The Knights of Labor gave new direction to labour organization. Ttiey recruited all workers regardless of skill, sex, creed, or race, and spear­headed the direct involvement of Toronto workers in electoral politics. The final chapters of the book trace the tortured path of working class politics from the early activities of the Orange Order to the emergence of a vibrant minority socialist tradition. Between I867 and I892 Toronto workers established a strong institu­tional base for the new struggles between craft unionism and monopoly capitalism in the early twentieth century and Kealey's detailed study of its development adds a new and important dimension to our understanding of Canadian labour history. -- Publisher's description.

Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, this book describes the work women do in their homes, caring for children and partners, and maintaining the house. It shows how their lives are shaped by domestic responsibilities and challenges the ways in which their work is neither recognized nor valued. Arguing that the work they do is socially necessary and central to the economy, it calls for a transformation of current social and economic relations. -- Publisher's description (2009 reprint).

First published in 1980, Rick Salutin's biography captures Kent Rowley's unforgettable personality and details his life struggle: an epic tale in which one man's life intersects with all the major issues of his time. Kent Rowley's remarkable odyssey through Canadian history began with a Montreal high school strike. In the depths of the Depression he organized office workers. He was interned under the War Measures Act in 1940, emerging from jail to take on Premier Maurice Duplessis and the textile giants of Quebec alongside Madeleine Parent, a brilliant and influential union organizer. He survived fifteen years in the wilderness during the Cold War; and his stubborn opposition to international unions culminated in the founding, in 1968, of the Confederation of Canadian Unions dedicated to fight for independent Canadian trade unionism. Kent Rowley is a brilliant examination of the career of one of the great figures of Canadian labour history. --Publisher's description

The writers came together in the fall of 1977 to carry forward the discussion of domestic labour that began with such a promise in the late 1960s. In so doing, we hoped to develop the Marxist theory of women's oppression that is essential in the struggle for women's liberation. --From Editor's introduction