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This collection of documents gives a picture of the life of the workingman in the nineteenth century - his conditions of work, his housing, diet, health, and recreations, the way he viewed his problems, and was viewed as a problem by the upper classes, and his gradually developing an interest in unionism. The sources are mostly contemporary accounts, drawn from books, newspapers, and evidence supplied to the Royal Commission on the Relations of Labour and Capital. The documents are livelly, often amusing, always very revealing of the life of the ordinary people. -- Publisher's description. Partial contents note: Introduction (pages 1-7) -- On farm and frontier (pages 8-70) -- Work (pages 71-135) -- Working-class life (pages 136-182) -- The workingman and social institutions (pages 183-231) -- Organizing the workingman (pages 232-312) -- Bibliographical note (pages 313-316).

Women's work has been fundamental to Canada's development - whether that work has involved serving the wealthy, struggling to maintain her own family, tending the ill, teaching, or producing profits for the owner of a garment factor through sweated labour. ...Women at Work attempts to explore the reality of Canadian women's experiences, and proposes the framework which begins to answer why the double exploitation of women as mothers and workers has persisted to the present day. --Publisher's description

A life history of a working class woman from the socialist milieu of WWI Berlin, accounts of that world and of emigration to and life in the resource frontier of western Canada from the 1930s to 1970. An underground classic of Canadian and immigrant history which ran through four printings in original. --Author's description

A complete history of painting in Canada, from the art of the native peoples right up to the 1970's. This outstanding work explodes many myths about Canadian and Quebecois art. In easy to understand language, it explains the effect on Canadian painting of the French, British , and U.S. imperialist regimes that have ruled Canada. This book shows how art has been part of the fight against that domination. --Publisher's description

In 1967 the United Fisherman and Allied Workers Union established a history project to collect historical materials with a view to preparing a comprehensive history of trade union organization in the British Columbia fishing industry. This outline story, the joint work of staff members of The Fisherman, past and present, is the first publication.

On February 18, 1949 the asbestos industry went on strike at Asbestos, Quebec. During four and a half months, 5,000 miners faced the united forces of the mining companies and the Duplessis government in what turned out to be a bitter, hard-fought confrontation. The strikers received widespread support and sympathy in Quebec. In a dramatic break from tradition, the Catholic church came out strongly their side. The Duplessis government, however, put on a massive show of police power and used mass arrests and widespread beatings to intimidate the workers. Many Quebec intellectuals were active on the strikers' side. Their involvement led to the writing of this book, originally published in 1956. Contributors, including Fernand Dumont, Gérard Pelletier, Gérard Dion, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau, trace the history of the strike and analyze its causes and consequences. Like the strike itself, this book is a landmark. It marks the beginning of a new, critical traditioin of writing on Quebec history and society, and it is a major contribution to the history of the Quebec labour movement. This translation of the original 1956 edition makes the complet text of this important book available to English-speaking readers for the first time. --Publisher's description. Contents: Foreword / Frank R. Scott -- Preface / Jean-Charles Falardeau -- The province of Quebec at the time of the strike / Pierre Elliott Trudeau (pages 1-82) -- Financial history of the asbestos industry / Jean Gérin-Lajoie (pages 83-106) -- History of the trade union movement in the asbestos industry / Fernand Dumont (pages 107-142 )-- History of the strike at Asbestos / Gilles Beausoleil (pages 143-182) -- History of the negotiations (pages 183-204) -- The church and the conflict in the asbestos industry / Gérard Dion (pages 205-226) -- The strike and our judicial system / Charles A. Lussier (pages 227-238) -- The strike and the press / Gérard Pelletier (pages 239-274) -- Six years later / Maurice Sauvé (pages 275-298) -- The strike and the labour movement / Réginald Boisvert (pages 299-332) -- Epilogue / Pierre Elliott Trudeau (pages 333-352) -- Appendix 1: Bibliographical notice (pages 353-354) -- Appendix 2: The Custos report (pages 355-356) -- Appendix 3: Opinions on the police brutalities and extracts from a judgment of the superior court (pages 367-370) -- Appendix 4: The Rocque trial: A case of judicial oversimplification / J.P. Geoffroy (pages 371-376) -- Appendix 5: A reader's guide to The Asbestos Strike / James Boake (pages 377-382).

Illustrated history of the Steelworkers that celebrates the principles of union organizing, service, and the volunteer. Preface by Lynn R. Williams, International President.

This is neither a history of the Canadian Congress of Labour nor of the CIO in Canada, but rather a study of the interaction of the two. Two basic conflicts - one internal, the other external - pervaded this relationship: the internal struggle of both organizations to rid themselves of their Communist-dominated affiliates, and the external battle of the Congress, and to a lesser etent of its CIO affiliates, to achieve and defend their autonomy in the face of the aggressive incursions of the American unions to the south. A corollary to this latter conflict was the desperate struggle of the Congress to maintain its authority over its international affiliates. These two themes - the internal threat from the Communists and the external threat from the Americans - dominate the entire history of the Congress from its creation in 1940. Besides these two issues, all others seem insigificant. ...This study is based largely on the files of the Canadian Labour Congress and its affiliates. Interviews have filled in whatever information was not available in this voluminous correspondence. --From author's preface

Contents: Pt. 1. Manuscripts. Pt. 2. Newspapers. Pt. 3. Pamphlets. Pt. 4. Government documents -- Addenda -- Index.

First published in 1957, [this book] has established itself as one of the best brief surveys on the subject available today. Many of the features of the original book have been retained in this second edition: its conciseness, its clarity of style, and its analysis of Canadian labour relations in the wider North American context. In the complex and dynamic field of of industrial relations in Canada, many important developments have occurred since 1957. Even in such a slow-moving area as labour disputes legislation and pollicy, provincial and federal governments have passed a considerable amount of new legislation since 1957. In his extensive revision, Professor Jamieson deals with these developments. This new edition also places increased emphasis on problem areas in labour relations, for example, the labour scene in Quebec, the incidence of industrial conflict and strikes, and the influence of American-dominated unions in Canada. For this edition Professor Jamieson has provided a revised and enlarged bibliography which should serve as excellent guide to the increasing range of literature now available in the field of industrial relations. --Publisher's description

In the 1880s Canadians began to cope with the meaning of their emerging industrial society. During that decade the federal government first investigated industrial conditions and provincial governments passed Canada's first factory legislation. The same period saw the resurgence of an articulate and angry labor movement protesting against the excesses of modern industry. Through the Royal Commission on the Relations of Labor and Capital we can perhaps gain our best insight into the everyday world of workers and capitalists in late nineteenth-century Canada. The commission gathered evidence in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick and talked to thousands of workers, businessmen, and other concerned citizens. This edited version of its investigation includes much of the best testimony; it describes working class living conditions, the emergence of organized labor, and the attitudes of businessmen to industrial capitalism. The testimony takes us with the commissioners on their tour of New Brunswick cotton mills, Capre Breton coal pits, Ontario shops and foundries, and Quebec City wharves; it explores as well the darkest corners of Montreal cigar factories. Industrialists discuss profits, markets, sources of raw material, and problems with labor. But what is perhaps more important, the working people themselves are also heard, men and women who in most historical records appear as little more than cold statistics. The warmth and humanity of these Canadians reflecting on their lives and on the society around them bring the commission documents to life. Aging craftsmen, ten-year-old saw-mill hands, girls from the spindles and looms, describe their workplaces, wages, hours, and aspects of their lives away from the job. These almost unique interviews allow us to enter their intellectual and cultural world – to learn of their past and present and of some of their hopes and aspirations. The Labor Commission reports and testimony are essential for an understanding of the Canadian working class as it was being transformed by the new techniques of industrial production. --Publisher's description

Year by year the trade union movement assumes new significance. [This book] records labour's progress through about 130 years of Canadian history. During these years there were thousands of strikes, negotiations, organizing campaigns, legislative and political struggles. Many of the outstanding events are described here. One of the important features of this book is its outline of how Canadian unions came to form connections with United States unions - the origins, status, and significance of International Unions in Canada. The writer has sought to give an account of trade union evolution as a whole from the period 1827-1959. In addition he has outlined certain continuing spheres of Labour's effort, such as organization of the unorganized, the fight for better conditions, legislative and political action, peace and Canadian independence. -- Publisher's description

Table of contents: Introduction -- Chronology of the Vancouver Strike and the On to Ottawa Trek, 1935. Part 1: Recollections of the On to Ottawa Trek. A Note on Editing, part 1. Prelude to Struggle -- The Origin of the Family -- The Slave Camps -- Strike -- The Trek. Part 2: Documents Related to the Vancouver Strike and the on to Ottawa Trek. A Note on Editing, part 2. The Report of the Macdonald Commission -- The Vancouver Relief Camp Strike -- The On to Ottawa Trek -- The Interview Between the Delegation of Strikers and the Prime Minister and His Cabinet, June 22, 1935 -- Continuing Documents on the Trek -- The Regina Riot -- Debate in the House of Commons . Footnotes for Part 1. Suggestions for Further Reading.

This job very much needed doing, and Dr. Masters has done it in a scholarly, judicial, yet forthright manner. The hysteria engendered by the Winnipeg general strike of 1919, heightened by the singularly unenlightened form that government intervention took, continues to trail clouds of distortion and bitterness. By careful analysis of facts, circumstances, and personalities of the strike leaders, Dr. Masters has cleared away the haze and given us a historical record of the utmost value. --review, Canadian Forum (on paperback book's back cover)