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The most important primary document from the Winnipeg General Strike now back in print with a new introduction on the occasion of the strike's 100th anniversary On May 15, 1919 workers from across Winnipeg, ranging from metal workers to telephone operators, united to spark the largest worker revolt in Canadian history. Even the Winnipeg police voted to join the strike, although they remained on duty at the request of the strike committee in order to prevent martial law. Approximately 30,000 workers walked off the job over the next six weeks, and the city was overtaken by lively demonstrations and marches in what the media, the city's leaders, and the federal government called a "Bolshevik uprising." The clash ended violently when RCMP on horseback charged and shot into a crowd of striking workers resulting in deaths, beatings, and arrests. The strike was called off and workers returned to their jobs without having earned the rights to higher wages and collective bargaining. Following the strike, union leaders published this account of the events leading up to and during the strike. Their volume is the most significant primary source describing the workers' experience of the strike. This book offers the full document in its original format along with an introduction to the 1974 edition by labour historian and activist Norman Penner. His essay has had a major impact on later research. This volume also includes a new introduction by historian Christo Aivalis discussing how the lessons learned in 1919 remain relevant today. Also included in this book are the key documentary photographs of strike events, including a minute-by-minute sequence showing the final RCMP fatal assault on the strikers. --Publisher's description. Contents: Chronology of main events of the Winnipeg general strike -- The Winnipeg general sympathetic strike May-June 1919 prepared by the Defence Committee, Winnipeg, 1920 -- The Heenan disclosures -- Address of Peter Heenan to the House of Commons, June 2, 1926 -- Excerpts from W.A. Pritchard's address to the jury, March 23-24, 1920.

Adelle Blackett tells the story behind the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention No. 189, and its accompanying Recommendation No. 201 which in 2011 created the first comprehensive international standards to extend fundamental protections and rights to the millions of domestic workers laboring in other peoples' homes throughout the world. As the principal legal architect, Blackett is able to take us behind the scenes to show us how Convention No. 189 transgresses the everyday law of the household workplace to embrace domestic workers' human rights claim to be both workers like any other, and workers like no other. In doing so, she discusses the importance of understanding historical forms of invisibility, recognizes the influence of the domestic workers themselves, and weaves in poignant experiences, infusing the discussion of laws and standards with intimate examples and sophisticated analyses. Looking to the future, she ponders how international institutions such as the ILO will address labor market informality alongside national and regional law reform. Regardless of what comes next, Everyday Transgressions establishes that domestic workers' victory is a victory for the ILO and for all those who struggle for an inclusive, transnational vision of labor law, rooted in social justice. --Publisher's description

The third instalment in Jim Blanchard's popular history of early Winnipeg, 'A Diminished Roar' presents a city in the midst of enormous change. Once the fastest growing city in Canada, by 1920 Winnipeg was losing its dominant position in western Canada. As the decade began, Winnipeggers were reeling from the chaos of the Great War and the influenza pandemic. But it was the divisions exposed by the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike which left the deepest marks. As Winnipeg wrestled with its changing fortunes, its citizens looked for new ways to imagine the city's future and identity. Beginning with the opening of the magnificent new provincial legislature building in 1920, A Diminished Roar guides readers through this decade of political and social turmoil. At City Hall, two very different politicians dominated the scene. Winnipeg's first Labour mayor, S.J. Farmer, pushed for more public services. His rival, Ralph Webb, would act as the city's chief 'booster' as mayor, encouraging U.S. tourists with the promise of 'snowballs and highballs.' Meanwhile, promoters tried to rekindle the city's spirits with plans for new public projects, such as a grand boulevard through the middle of the city, a new amusement park, and the start of professional horse racing. In the midst of the Jazz Age, Winnipeg's teenagers grappled with 'problems of the heart, ' and social groups like the Gyro Club organized masked balls for the city's elite. --Publisher's description

The Embassy of Italy, the Consulate General of Italy in Toronto and Villa Charities join together with authors Paola Breda and Marino Toppan to present a ground-breaking new history of the Italian-Canadian immigration experience, finally including the previously untold story of the thousands of Italian Fallen Workers who died building this beautiful country — a story that’s destined to become a new piece of Canadian History. Compiled after decades of research by Toppan, this epic new volume includes countless contributions from across the country, from scholars of Italian-Canadian history and the families of the fallen themselves. This ground breaking new book includes profiles of those in the Italian community in Canada who triumphed with incredible successes, those who died in tragic circumstances, as well as in-depth studies on immigration patterns, labour history, socio-adaptive patterns, labour action, strife and hardships experienced, and many more themes in the Italian-Canadian identity. It even coins a new phrase: Canadianità! --Publicity release, May 23, 2019

Revealing how Canada's first Prime Minister used a policy of starvation against Indigenous people to clear the way for settlement, the multiple award-winning Clearing the Plains sparked widespread debate about genocide in Canada. In arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics—the politics of ethnocide—played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of Indigenous people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald’s "National Dream. " It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day. This new edition of Clearing the Plains has a foreword by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Elizabeth Fenn, an opening by Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, and explanations of the book’s influence by leading Canadian historians. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Indigenous Health, Environment, and Disease before Europeans -- The Early Fur Trade : Territorial Dislocation and Disease -- Early Competition and the Extension of Trade and Disease, 1740-82 -- Despair and Death during the Fur Trade Wars, 1783-1821 -- Expansion of Settlement and Erosion of Health during the HBC Monopoly, 1821-69 -- Canada, the Northwest, and the Treaty Period, 1869-76 -- Treaties, Famine, and Epidemic Transition on the Plains, 1877-82 -- Dominion Administration of Relief, 1883-85 -- The Nadir of Indigenous Health, 1886-91.

A historical work of non-fiction that chronicles the little-known stories of black railway porters-the so-called "Pullmen" of the Canadian rail lines. The actions and spirit of these men helped define Canada as a nation in surprising ways, effecting race relations, human rights, North American multiculturalism, community building, the shape and structure of unions, and the nature of travel and business across the US and Canada. Drawing on the stories and legends of several of these influential early black Canadians, this book narrates the history of a very visible, but rarely considered, aspect of black life in railway-age Canada. These porters, who fought against the idea of Canada as White Man's Country, open only to immigrants from Europe, fought for and won a Canada that would provide opportunities for all its citizens. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction -- Leaving the station: Stan Grizzle's legacy of social change -- The railways are always hiring: working in white man's country -- "Did you ring, Sir?": Modern luxury and black labour -- The coloured commonwealth: reckoning with ah racist past -- "I know nothing about that": Legislating the colour line -- The ending of empire: Reimagining immigration -- Pressuring parliament: a new kind of Canadian citizenship -- A Creolized country: the black British of the West Indies -- Permanent residence: social identity and the state -- Demerits and deadheading: the rail companies' unreasonable demands -- An uphill battle: Pushing for policy changes -- Fair consideration: The porters gain new ground -- The porters' final fight: A multicultural country -- Beyond the rails: The battle for black identity -- Conclusion: A multicultural brotherhood fulfilling a dream -- Afterword: Appreciating the legacy -- Endnotes -- Index.

Art has always played a significant role in the history of the labour movement. Songs, stories, poems, pamphlets, and comics, have inspired workers to take action against greedy bosses and helped shape ideas of a more equal world. They also help fan the flames of discontent. Radical social change doesn't come without radical art. It would be impossible to think about labour unrest without its iconic songs like "Solidarity Forever" or its cartoons like Ernest Riebe's creation, Mr. Block. In this vein, The Graphic History Collective has created an illustrated chronicle of the strike-the organized withdrawal of labour power-in Canada. For centuries, workers in Canada-Indigenous and non-Indigenous, union and non-union, men and women-have used the strike as a powerful tool, not just for better wages, but also for growing working-class power. This lively comic book will inspire new generations to learn more about labour and working-class history and the power of solidarity. --Publisher's description

In May and June 1919, more than 30,000 workers walked off the job in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They struck for a variety of reasons-higher wages, collective bargaining rights, and more power for working people. The strikers made national and international headlines, and they inspired workers to mount sympathy strikes in many other Canadian cities. Although the strike lasted for six weeks, it ultimately ended in defeat. The strike was violently crushed by police, in collusion with state officials and Winnipeg's business elites. One hundred years later, the Winnipeg General Strike remains one of the most significant events in Canadian history. This comic book revisits the strike to introduce new generations to its many lessons, including the power of class struggle and solidarity and the brutal tactics that governments and bosses use to crush workers' movements. The Winnipeg General Strike is a stark reminder that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common, and the state is not afraid to bloody its hands to protect the interests of capital. In response, working people must rely on each other and work together to create a new, more just world in the shell of the old. --Publisher's description,     Contents: Preface: Revisiting the workers' revolt by the Graphic history collective -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: The Winnipeg general strike at 100 by James Naylor -- 1919: A graphic history of the Winnipeg general strike by the Graphic History Collective and David Lester -- The art of labour history: Notes on drawing 1919 by David Lester -- The character of class struggle in Winnipeg: A photo-essay -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Contributors.

In Bureaucratic Manoeuvres, John Grundy examines profound transformations in the governance of unemployment in Canada. While policy makers previously approached unemployment as a social and economic problem to be addressed through macroeconomic policies, recent labour market policy reforms have placed much more emphasis on the supposedly deficient employability of the unemployed themselves, a troubling shift that deserves close, critical attention. Tracing a behind-the-scenes history of public employment services in Canada, Bureaucratic Manoeuvres shows just how difficult it has been for administrators and frontline staff to govern unemployment as a problem of individual employability. Drawing on untapped government records, it sheds much-needed light on internal bureaucratic struggles over the direction of labour market policy in Canada and makes a key contribution to Canadian political science, economics, public administration, and sociology.

Although the health of the trade union movement may rest on its ability to include women in membership and leadership, little attention has been paid to women-only labour education. This original collection contains vibrant example of labour education events and the women involved who develop, implement, research, evaluate and facilitate at them. All the contributors speak from first-hand experience with women-only programs in unions across Canada, the United States and the world. They identify the methods used in pursuit of learner empowerment and transformation, and frankly discuss the outcomes. These real-life examples offer practical guidance and inspiration for all who create and support activist learning within unions and other social-justice organizations. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Facilitation training for union women: The Saskatchewan experience / Adriane Paavo & Barb Thomas -- Feminism and transformation: The prairie school for union women / Cindy Hanson & Adriane Paavo -- Union women on Turtle Island: A conversation / Sandra Ahenekew and Yvone Hotzak, interviewed by Cindy Hanson -- Confronting limits, pushing boundaries: LGBTQ education and cctivism / Donna Smith -- The wall: Reflections on a workshop methodology / Bev Burke & Suzanne Doerge -- The Regina V. Polk Women’s Labour Leadership Conference: Whole body, whole-life struggle / Helena Worthen -- WILD in Massachusetts: Leadership development for a changing labor movement / Tess Ewing, Dale Melcher & Susan Winning -- Leaders for tomorrow: Promoting diverse leadership in ETFO / Carol Zavitz -- Women breaking barriers: Using education to develop women’s leadership inside Canada’s largest union / Morna Ballantyne & Jane Stinson -- Critical love letter to the PSUW / Adriane Paavo & Cindy Hanson.

Although Canadian womens history is now nearly forty years old, no volume exists that reflects explicitly upon the fields evolution and assesses its historiographical context. This retrospective is not merely summative; the essays in this collection are analytical engagements with the current state of the field, which draw on its rich past to generate new knowledge and propose innovative avenues for inquiry. The dual purposes of this collection are to contemplate the fields past and to contribute productively to its future. These thirteen original essays are written by scholars at all career stages. The diversity of these authors perspectives illustrates the contributions that Canadian scholarship has had in international dialogues about womens and gender history and that it continues to be a vibrant area of research. The collection includes chapters about the principal sub-fields in Canadian womens and gender history, including specialized chapters on Québecois, Indigenous, Black, and immigrant womens histories, religious history, labour history, war and society, history of sexuality, the history of reproductive labour and reproductive justice, two essays on the history of feminism that, taken together, cover the period from 1850 to the present, and a thematic essay on the colonial period. --Publisher's description

The mining industry continues to be at the forefront of colonial dispossession around the world. It controls information about its intrinsic costs and benefits, propagates myths about its contribution to the economy, shapes government policy and regulation, and deals ruthlessly with its opponents. Brimming with case studies, anecdotes, resources, and illustrations, Unearthing Justice exposes the mining process and its externalized impacts on the environment, Indigenous Peoples, communities, workers, and governments. But, most importantly, the book shows how people are fighting back. Whether it is to stop a mine before it starts, to get an abandoned mine cleaned up, to change laws and policy, or to mount a campaign to influence investors, Unearthing Justice is an essential handbook for anyone trying to protect the places and people they love.-- Publisher's description

Debut collection of poetry from Thomas Leduc, City of Greater Sudbury's past Poet Laureate and the fourth generation of a mining family. Stagflower captures a city struggling to grow beyond its past and become more than just a mining town, while reflecting the internal human conflict to be more than family history, more than a past. --Publisher's description. "At one time, this city / had a single plan / for every young man; / a straight, well-worn path / from their front doors / to an open rock face / at the end of a mine shaft. / A path chiselled out of stone, / a path paved in nickel. / Every young man / wanted his millwright ticket, / studied the ticking of gears, / the composition of rock; / had the culture of mining / drilled into him. / Plans were passed down / from lunch pail / to lunch pail. / Fathers and sons dug the same holes / fought the same fights. / How many boys / has this rock hardened / into men." -- Chiselled Out of Stone, poem by Thomas Leduc. Table of contents: Birthmark -- Rite of passage -- Buffalo souls -- The taste of sulfur -- Slagflower.

In May 1919, 30,000 Winnipeg workers walked away from their jobs, shutting down large factories, forcing businesses to close and bringing major industries to a halt. Mounted police and hired security, at the behest of the ruling class, violently ended the protest after six weeks. Two men were killed. What started as trade union revolt, the Winnipeg General Strike became a mass protest and was branded as a revolution. In Magnificent Fight, Dennis Lewycky lays out the history of this iconic event, which remains the biggest and longest strike in Canadian history. He analyzes the social, political and economic conditions leading up to the strike. He also illustrates the effects the strike had on workers, unions and all three levels of government in the following decades. Far from a simple retelling of the General Strike, Magnificent Fight speaks to the power of workers' solidarity and social organization. And Lewycky reveals the length the capitalist class and the state went to in protecting the status quo. By retelling the story of the Strike through the eyes of those who witnessed it, Lewycky's account is both educational and entertaining. --Publisher's description

In Canada’s liberal dream, the law extends its benefits to everyone. But the law also determines who is included in that “everyone.” Migrant workers, long welcomed in Canada for their labour, are often excluded from both workplace protections and basic social benefits such as health care, income assistance, and education due to their lack of permanent status. Enforcing Exclusion recasts what migration status means to both the state and to non-citizens. Through interviews with migrants and their advocates, Sarah Marsden shows that migrants face enforcement through law, policy, and practice, affecting their ability to address adverse working conditions and their interactions with institutions such as hospitals, schools, and employment standards boards. Canadian immigration laws create a status hierarchy; those at the bottom experience markedly different access to the protections and benefits of law. This book documents the impact of Canada’s system of migration enforcement on people’s lives and questions the adequacy of human-rights-based responses in addressing its exclusionary effects. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction -- The Creation and Growth of Precarious Migration in Canada: “Illegal” Migration and the Liberal State -- Status, Deportability, and Illegality in Daily Life -- Working Conditions and Barriers to Substantive Remedies -- Exclusion from the Social State: Health, Education, and Income Security -- Multi-Sited Enforcement: Maintaining Subordinate Membership -- Rights and Membership: Toward Inclusion? -- Postscript -- Appendix A: Migrant Participant Profiles -- Appendix B: Sample Interview Script.

Ten-year-old Cassie lives with her working-class family in 1919 Winnipeg. The Great War and Spanish Influenza have taken their toll, and workers in the city are frustrated with low wages and long hours. When they orchestrate a general strike, Cassie--bright, determined and very bored at school--desperately wants to help. She begins volunteering for the strike committee as a papergirl, distributing the strike bulletin at Portage and Main, and from her corner, she sees the strike take shape. Threatened and taunted by upper-class kids, and getting hungrier by the day, Cassie soon realizes that the strike isn't just a lark--it's a risky and brave movement. With her impoverished best friend, Mary, volunteering in the nearby Labour Café, and Cassie's police officer brother in the strike committee's inner circle, Cassie becomes increasingly furious about the conditions that led workers to strike. When an enormous but peaceful demonstration turns into a violent assault on Bloody Saturday, Cassie is changed forever. Lively and engaging, this novel is a celebration of solidarity, justice and one brave papergirl. -- Publisher's description

Au cours des dernières décennies, de nombreux changements économiques, politiques et culturels ont bouleversé la nature du travail, la manière de l’organiser ainsi que la relation d’emploi. Ces transformations nécessitent de revoir, de critiquer et d’actualiser les principaux concepts à partir desquels la sociologie analyse le monde du travail. Dans cet ouvrage, les concepts revisités sont les suivants : salariat, précarité, informalité, conflit, contrôle et organisation du travail, qualification et compétence, rapport au travail, parcours professionnel, insertion professionnelle, temporalités. Chacun des concepts retenus est analysé selon une perspective critique, qui consiste à remettre en question les assises théoriques et empiriques de ceux-ci, et une perspective analytique, qui vise à arrimer ces concepts fondamentaux aux nouvelles réalités du monde du travail. --Publisher's description

In 2012, journalist Hugo Meunier went undercover as a Walmart employee for three months in St. Leonard, Quebec, just north of Montreal. In great detail, Meunier charts the daily life of an impoverished Walmart worker, referring to his shifts at the box store giant as “somewhere between the army and Walt Disney.” Each shift began with a daily chant before bowing to customer demands and the constant pressure to sell. Meanwhile Meunier and his fellow workers could not afford to shop anywhere else but Walmart, further indenturing them to the multi-billion-dollar corporation. Beyond his time on the shop floor, Meunier documents the extraordinary efforts that Walmart exerts to block unionization campaigns, including their 2005 decision to close their outlet in Jonquiere, QC, where the United Food and Commercial Workers union had successfully gained certification rights. A decade later he charts the Supreme Court of Canada ruling that exposed the dubious legal ground on which Walmart stood in invoking closure and throwing workers out on the street. In Walmart: Diary of an Associate, Meunier reveals the truths behind Walmart’s low prices. It will make you think twice before shopping there. --Publisher's description

In this edited collection, Leslie Nichols weaves together the contributions of accomplished and diverse scholars to offer an expansive and critical analysis of women’s work in Canada. Students will use an intersectional approach to explore issues of gender, class, race, immigrant status, disability, sexual orientation, Indigeneity, age, and ethnicity in relation to employment. Drawing from case studies and extensive research, the text’s eighteen chapters consider Canadian industries across a broad spectrum, including political, academic, sport, sex trade, retail, and entrepreneurial work. Working Women in Canada is a relevant and in-depth look into the past, present, and future of women’s responsibilities and professions in Canada. Undergraduate and graduate students in gender studies, labour studies, and sociology courses will benefit from this thorough and intersectional approach to the study of women’s labour. Features include tables, case studies, a glossary of key terms, and chapter introductions and conclusions to assist with student comprehension encourages further learning by concluding each chapter with discussion questions, a list of additional key readings, and an extensive reference list provides a broad portrait of women’s work in Canada with contributions from over 20 scholars. --Publisher's description. Contents: Women, work, and intersectionality: An introduction */* Leslie Nichols -- Unions are definitely good for women—but that’s not the whole story / Anne Forrest -- Women’s occupational health and safety / Katherine Lippel and Stephanie Premji -- Unemployed and underemployed women in Canada / Leslie Nichols -- Immigrant women’s work: Paid and unpaid labour in the neoliberal economy / Leslie Nichols, Vappu Tyyskä, and Pramila Aggarwal -- “Not just a job”: Disability, work, and gender / Esther Ignagni -- Young women: Navigating the education-employment divide / Leslie Nichols -- Childcare: Working in early childhood education and care in Canada / Susan Prentice -- Minoritized faculty in Canada’s universities and colleges: Gender, power, and academic work / Sandra Acker and Linda Muzzin -- Black women’s small businesses as historical spaces of resistance / Melanie Knight -- Black women in Canadian university sports / Danielle Gabay -- The public women of Canada: Women in elected office / Jocelyne Praud, Alexa Lewis, and Jarod Sicotte -- Women, aesthetic labour, and retail work: A case study of independent fashion retailers in Toronto / Deborah Leslie and Taylor Brydges -- From the woman’s page to the digital age: Women in journalism / Andrea Hunter -- Equity shifts in firefighting: Challenging gendered and racialized work / Susan Braedley -- Women in manufacturing: Challenges in a neoliberal context / June Corman -- The nonprofit sector: Women’s path to leadership / Agnes Meinhard and Mary Foster -- Understanding the work in sex work: Canadian contexts / Kara Gillies, Elene Lam, Tuulia Law, Rai Reece, Andrea Sterling, and Emily van der Meulen.