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[This book] chronicles one of the most bitter crises in French-English relations in Canada: the bilingual air traffic control conflict which arose in the mid-1970s when francophone controllers and pilots attempted to use French, as well as English, in Quebec aviation. [Summary: Worldcat record]

In 1980...[the author] was approached by Nanaimo's Coal Tyee Society to write a book based on 105 interviews of Vancouver Island coal miners and their families. Nanaimo coal mines had closed 30 years before and the city had been home to some of the most important coal mines in the world, along with the one of largest explosions in history, the 1887 Nanaimo mine explosion. The miners wanted their oral histories preserved. Bowen compiled those oral histories in her first book, Boss Whistle, and later book, Three Dollar Dreams. --From Wikipedia article on Lynne Bowen

In the fall of 1939, more than 600 fishermen and fish handlers in the tiny town of Lockeport, Nova Scotia (pop. 1,400) walked the picket line in front of the town's only employers, Swim Brothers and the Lockeport Company. Both fishplants had locked their doors rather than recognize the Canadian Fishermen's Union as the official bargaining agent. The Fishermen's Union was an affiliate of the Canadian Seamen's Union, which had begun organizing along the shore. For eight weeks, as autumn turned to winter, the men, with their wives and families, held firm. It was a bread-and-butter struggle that made national headlines - one of the first attempts by Nova Scotia fishermen and fish handlers to win union recognition. It was one of the first major tests of N.S. Trade Union Act passed in 1937. This is the story of the Lockeport lockout of 1939. --Introduction

An annotated bibliography of left wing novels about the lives of working people during the 20th century. Includes some collections of poetry, drama and short stories as well as a smattering of non-fictional material such as oral and life histories. Includes over 3,000 titles originally in some 50 languages by circa 1,500 authors from over 90 countries. --Publisher's description

On 18 November 1941, the gold miners of Kirkland lake struck for union recognition. The Kirkland Lake strike was a bitter struggle between the mine operators and their employees and became a national confrontation between the federal government and the labour movement over the issue of collective bargaining. Locally, the dispute was affected by the company-town environment and by the mine operators' paternalistic view of labour relations. Through the difficult winter womenths, the community -- polarized by the events -- tried to deal with both the 'political' and social impact of the conflict. The author's father, Larry Sefton, emerged as one of the local leaders of the strike, which itself was a training ground for many future trade unionists. The strike was waged in the special circumstances of the war economy, and was a microcosm of wartime developments, which produced unprecedented union growth, serious industrial unrest, hostile management response, and generally antagonistic labour/government relations. Professor MacDowell shows that, even though the strike was lost, its eventual effect on labour policy gave the dispute its particular significance. To win the strike, government intervention and the introduction of collective bargaining were necessary, yet the only intervention was by the Ontario Provincial Police, who were ordered to assist the mining companies to operate with strike-breakers. The federal government refused to intervene, in spire of virtually unanimous support for the strike by the Canadian labour movement. MacDowell confludes that the strike succeeded in unifying organized labour behind the demand for collective-bargaining legislation. It highlighted the inadequacy of the government's wartime labour poilcy, and ultimately forced the government to authorize collective bargaining, first for Crown companies and then for all industrial workers. Thus, the Kirkland Lake strike was not only an important wartime dispute affecting policy development, but it also established a special legacy for trade unionists as part of the history of their movement. --Publisher's description

By the time of Confederation Ontario's economic lead over Quebec had been well established. John McCallum shows that the origins of this lead had little to do with the conservatism of the habitants and the church in Quebec, little to do with any anti-industrial bias of the Montreal merchants, and nothing to do with Confederation. Rather the origins lay in the wealth provided by Ontario's superior agricultural land.During much of the first part of the nineteenth century Ontario farmers were more specialized in wheat-growing than the twentieth-century farmers of Saskatchewan, and when the market conditions changed in the 1860s the province was able to use the capital derived from wheat to shift to other lines of production. The Quebec farmers, lacking both the virgin land of Ontario and the growing markets of the northeastern United States, were unable to find profitable substitutes for wheat. As a result, the cash income of the average Ontario farmer was at least triple that of his Quebec counterparts in the years before Confederation, and this enormous difference had profound effects on economic development in other sectors of the economy.In Ontario the growth of towns, transportation facilities, and industry was inextricably linked to the province's strong agricultural base. In Quebec little development occurred outside Montreal and Quebec City. Montreal industrialists did have several advantages; yet Quebec industry could not possibly absorb the province's surplus farm population. Ontario's wheat boom provided the capital which permitted Ontario industry to evolve in the classic fashion; indeed, Ontario wheat may be a rare instance of a staple whose surplus was retained in the producing area.John McCallum's analytical and historical account of economic patterns that persist today makes a solid and original contribution to Canadian economic history. --Publisher's description. Contents: Preface -- Introduction -- The rise and fall of the Ontario wheat staple -- The agricultural crisis in Quebec -- Agricultural transformation in Quebec and Ontario, 1850-70 -- Urban and commercial development until 1850 -- Transportation -- Industrial development, 1850-70 -- A modified staple approach -- Merchants and habitants -- Statistical appendix -- Subject index -- Index of authors cited.

Working Class Experience is a sweeping and sympathetic study of the development of the Canadian working class since 1800. Beginning with a substantial and provocative introduction that discusses the historiography of the Canadian working class, the book goes on to establish a general framework for analysis of what ultimately is a social history of Canada. Dividing the years into seven periods in the evolution of class struggle, it beings each chapter with an assessment of that period's prevailing economic and social context, followed by an examination of the many factors affecting the working class during that period. Written in a colourful and sometimes irreverent style, Working Class Experience focuses on the processes by which working people moved, and were moved, off the land and into the factories and other workplaces during the Industrial and post-Industrial Revolutions in Canada. Drawing on much recent work on contemporary capitalism, Working Class Experience offers a significant explanation of the malaise in current labour and management relations and speculates on its significance for progressive change in Canadian Life. --Description at Goodreads

Why are women still second class citizens at work? Recent years have seen demands by the women's movement for equality in the workplace, and "affirmative action" programs have been set up to achieve this goal. Yet little has really changed. Women still earn less than men, are underrepresented in unions, have less protection in pension plans, and are usually stuck in jobs with little chance of advancement. To understand women's inequality at work, Paul and Erin Phillips trace women's involvement in the paid labour market, and in labour unions, throughout Canadian history. They document the disadvantages that women face today and examine the explanations for the existence of these problems. --Publisher's description