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Ce mémoire relate l’expérience du Front d’action politique des salariés à Montréal (FRAP) de 1970 à 1974, un parti municipal émanant directement des milieux syndicaux et populaires. Après avoir présenté les grands traits de la conjoncture sociale, économique et politique de la décennie 1960 au Québec, nous analysons les conditions objectives qui ont favorisé l’émergence du FRAP à Montréal (problèmes sociaux, administration municipale autoritaire, logements insalubres, etc.). Le FRAP est fondé en mai 1970 et présente des candidats contre le maire Jean Drapeau aux élections du 25 octobre suivant. La Crise d’octobre et l’imposition de la Loi des mesures de guerre déroutent le FRAP qui ne fait élire aucun candidat. Les mois et années qui suivent, les groupes sociaux s’éloignent du FRÀP et ce dernier a vainement espéré que les organisations syndicales de la région de Montréal concrétisent l’idée qui avait été à l’origine de sa création, à savoir un parti politique propre aux travailleurs et aux travailleuses. Le FRAP met fin à ses activités au début de l’année 1974 quelques mois avant la naissance d’un nouveau parti municipal, le Rassemblement des citoyens de Montréal (RCM).

This thesis is focused on examining the extent of union-nonunion wage inequality in Canada from 1997 to 2004, using data from the Canada Labour Force Survey collected by Statistics Canada. The research is either directly or indirectly guided by two main measures of union-nonunion wage inequality. The first measure is the wage differential , which examines the difference between the union and nonunion wage after controlling for other relevant factors in a regression model; and the second measure is an account of wage dispersion or wage spread, which effectively explains how internally equitable the union-nonunion wage distribution is in relation to the average wage, after controlling for other relevant factors in a regression model. Each chapter tackles a different hypothesis or subject relating to Canadian union-nonunion wage inequality as investigated from the Canada Labour Force Survey Dataset, and is guided by an effort to explore issues or patterns not previously addressed in the extant literature. The initial analyses found that the union-nonunion wage differential across Canada was normally eleven to sixteen percent from 1997 to 2004. The research also examined three advanced topics in Canadian union-nonunion wage inequality. Analyses of the industry, occupational, and demographic trends in Canada over the past eight years showed that there is some evidence to suggest that demographic changes in union density does affect union-nonunion wage inequality, but this relationship is not conclusive. This research also addressed the unusual finding of higher hourly wages among parttime females. This difference was not present after conducting a more rigorous regression analysis within both sectors. However, it was found that the marginal male wage premium could largely be explained by the combined effects of establishment size among males in the union sector, as well as educational attainment among males in the union sector. Further investigation of some unexpected interaction effects of union status and establishment size and union status and job tenure in relation to the wage, revealed that these combined effects still generated comparative over the nonunion group, but only up to a certain level of tenure or establishment size. Finally, an analysis of whether union density has mattered at all in Canada for promoting higher wages, reveals that the general effects of union density on the wage are relevant only within a certain wage range and within certain industries.

This thesis investigates several issues related to the provisions afforded by aspects of the Canadian welfare state to protect the rights of migrant labour participating in the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program. In the introduction and literature review, I provide the background of the program and present the nature of the issues that surround it. I also outline the problems that migrant agricultural workers face while participating in the program. These are mainly due to the few provisions that are extended to this secondary sector labour group, a group of workers that is barely visible to Canadian society. In the main part of the thesis, I analyze the two instruments that allow the entry of these workers into Canada and the different pieces of Canadian legislation that are relevant to protecting legitimate rights of any person who works in this country. More importantly, I also present findings derived from interviews with migrant agricultural workers and key informants from advocacy groups and the labour movement regarding those provisions. Based on their in Sights and on the dual market theory, I scrutinize the position of the Canadian welfare state concerning the legitimate provisions migrant workers should be entitled to and how the globalization context influences that position. I conclude with a series of ideas that, in my opinion, could positively affect this labour group's welfare status.

This research investigates the formation and maintenance of power relations within the organization and everyday practices of work and transnational living, and the social and economic impacts among Mexican migrants and their families participating in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). Through the analysis of the qualitative data collected through ethnographic case studies in Mexico, 350 hours of participant observation, and semi-structured interviews with 25 migrant workers, 5 farmers and 5 representatives from other state and non-state intermediaries, findings have emerged pertaining to three research themes: power, racialization and transnationalism. This research finds that Mexican migrant workers are consistently located in subordinate power positions in the organization and the everyday practices of the SAWP; and governments, employers, and other intermediaries have significant control over migrants' daily lives and their migration parameters. Racialization processes in both the institutional and everyday practices of the SAWP produce, maintain, and legitimize a system of temporary migration characterized by imbalanced power relations and the unequal allocation of resources and rights through the differentiation of the "Mexican migrant worker" with reference to race and ethnicity. Migrant workers and their families actively participate in transnational practices that are integral to seasonal migration, including the family networks that facilitate entry into the program, the "migration work" performed by women, and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This essential "migration work" involves preparing the family for migration and sustaining the transnational family through managing and/or working within family farms and small businesses, receiving and managing international remittance transfers and telephone calling, managing and utilizing remittances for daily living and development, and performing carework. These findings support the "transnationalization of culture" hypothesis, and indicate that a gendered culture of migration is emerging within the SAWP. It is argued that the SAWP is an exemplar of "time-space compression" in action which leads to the exploitation and subordination of "Mexican migrant workers." Temporary migration systems like the SAWP are seen as recursively related to globalization, where foreign labour dependence and remittance economies are created and perpetuated through globalization and a "migration industry" powered by new information and communication technologies.

Ce mémoire porte sur le syndicalisme québécois dans les années 1960 et 1970 alors qu’il traverse une phase de bouleversement et qu’il radicalise son idéologie. Nous nous penchons plus particulièrement sur le cas de la CSN qui affermit sa critique du capitalisme avec la publication de textes d’orientation socialiste tels que Il n'y a plus d’avenir pour le Québec dans le système actuel et Ne comptons que sur nos propres moyens. Parmi les instances de la centrale, il y a les conseils centraux régionaux dont celui de Montréal, le plus imposant en terme d’effectifs (près de 60 000 en 1968). Rassemblant la frange la plus militante de la centrale, il a pour rôle l’éducation et l’action politique des membres. Le Conseil central des syndicats nationaux de Montréal (CCSNM) se trouve au centre de la tourmente sociale et nationale au cours de ces deux décennies alors qu’il est dirigé par la figure imposante et colorée de Michel Chartrand, président de 1968 à 1978. Dans l’historiographie, le Conseil central de Montréal est souvent considéré comme un haut lieu de la radicalisation syndicale. En analysant son discours et ses actions, nous démontrons qu’il prend effectivement des positions radicales et qu’il défend des opinions nationalistes. Malgré le fait qu’il tente de passer à l’action politique et milite pour la création d’un parti de travailleurs, le Conseil se caractérise principalement par son discours contestataire et sa critique acerbe du capitalisme. Nous verrons qu’il développe une position nationaliste indépendante au cours de la période, en se dissociant du projet du Parti québécois, qu’il juge bourgeois. Bien que les relations entre la CSN et le Conseil soient tendues, ce dernier a tout de même un impact important sur la CSN, particulièrement au niveau de la protection de la langue française et sur la position adoptée par la centrale au référendum de 1980. Le Conseil constitue donc un acteur important de la radicalisation de la société québécoise des années 1960 et 1970 en influençant la CSN, le mouvement syndical ainsi que les milieux de gauche à Montréal.

The historiography of the British Columbia Cooperative Federation differs from that of other provincial CCF groups for its lack of attention to the participation of religious reformers in shaping the party's early history. Yet the first CCF House Leader in the province, Reverend Robert Connell, was a fervent believer in the social gospel and in the goals of ecumenism. His attempts to bring "Christian principles" into politics resulted in a battle between reformers and radicals in the party, ultimately resulting in his departure from political life. The div ision of the BC CCF in 1936 as a result of what has become known as the "Connell Affair" created a loss of momentum for the party which lost its status as Official Opposition in the 1937 provincial election. This event presents a unique opportunity to study the interaction of a social gospel inspired Christian reformer with firmly irreligious supporters of Marxism.

This dissertation examines Canada's constitutional question through the lens of the labour movements in both English Canada and Quebec. The existence of two distinct labour movements in Canada has meant that political struggles that have typified national politics are also in evidence in labour politics. The sovereignty-association partnership agreement between the Canadian Labour Congress and the Quebec Federation of Labour provides a good example of the pervasiveness of this dynamic and discourse. The dissertation examines this relationship specifically, and the constitutional politics of labour organizations in English Canada and Quebec, more generally, with a view to explaining how Canada's constitutional questions have been reflected in the politics of organized labour.

[This thesis is] a labour history of Russian Mennonites employed in three Mennonite-owned factories in Manitoba: Friesens Corporation of Altona, Loewen Windows of Steinbach, and Palliser Furniture of Winnipeg. Each of these businesses had a primarily Mennonite workforce at their founding, and eventually became the largest employers in the community in which they were established. This comparative microhistory makes a significant contribution to the literature: though approximately one-quarter of North American Mennonites are working-class, few scholarly works have investigated their experiences. The history of immigration of these Mennonites is important in understanding their adaptation to North American capitalism. Immigrants had common experiences of some aspects of settlement, such as language acquisition and finding employment. Immigrants exhibited a variety of responses to government efforts to promote assimilation, and demonstrated different attitudes toward job security and expectations for their children, in part because of their diverse prior experiences of war, religious conservatism, and prejudice in their country of origin. The result was the development of an increasingly urban and heterogeneous Mennonite community in Manitoba, which perhaps contributed to the failure to develop a strong sense of class consciousness among them. The historical development of Mennonite religious thought in the twentieth century is connected to the geographical shift of North American Mennonites from rural to urban environs. This move necessitated a re-assessment of Mennonite religious beliefs, particularly of their understandings of 'Gelassenheit ', to nonresistance, and 'agape' love. The Christian's responsibility to the world came to be stressed at the expense of traditional values such as submission to the community and separation from the world. Religious belief had a role in restraining the behaviour of both workers and owners, encouraging the former to accept work discipline, and limiting the latter in their conspicuous consumption. In a case study, Barthes' semiological approach is used to demythologize an advertising campaign at Loewen Windows as a means of examining the linkages between religion and capitalism. The role of religion differentiated the operation of paternalism at these businesses from their non-Mennonite counterparts. Though Mennonite workers rarely expressed their views in class-conscious ' language', the 'content' of their remarks, particularly with respect to the labour process and their autonomy, points to the existence of a class division in these factories. The nature of their employment as factory workers affected not only their job mobility and security, the speed of their work, their sleeping patterns and social lives, but also their identity. Class differences between Mennonite employers and employees clearly existed; class consciousness on the part of workers is less evident. With the transformation of Friesens Corporation, Loewen Windows, and Palliser Furniture from small family businesses to large corporations, the relationship between Mennonite workers and their employers was reinterpreted. Employers made use of Mennonite religious motifs to craft a common ethos, but increased ethnic diversity in the workforce at Palliser Furniture, together with objective class differences between workers and owners at all three companies, resulted in some splits in the unity of the Mennonite workplace. The interplay of competing interests nonetheless resulted in redefinitions of ownership rights and their meaning for workers with respect to profit sharing and employee share ownership, as well as several unsuccessful attempts to unionize. The tension between Burkholder's emphasis on social responsibility, as exhibited by labour's demands for economic justice, and Hershberger's insistence on avoidance of confrontation was evident in the struggle of Manitoba Mennonites with their response to labour activism in the 1970s. Pacifism often had been dismissed as passivity in the past; now the adherence to the principle of nonviolence could be seen as an excuse for accepting economic exploitation. Mennonite support for cooperatives and credit unions could have translated into support for labour unions, but in late twentieth-century Manitoba, it did not. Though North American Mennonites' attitudes toward unions may have undergone change during this period, they continued to avoid becoming members. The conclusion explores whether Mennonite involvement in industrial capitalism is (or can ever be) in any way distinct from that of secular participants. Are there theological resources within Mennonitism that can mount an effective challenge to the negative results of global capitalism? This work is a modest attempt to contribute to the debate, both within the Mennonite community and without, regarding the possibilities for social and economic transformation. It is also an attempt to argue for the relevance of the consideration of religion in scholarly discourse in general, and historical study in particular.

An analysis of three poor people's movements in twentieth century Canada serves to wrest the ideas and activist tradition of Canada's poor people from historical obscurity. Between 1932 and 1935, the Communist-inspired Vancouver unemployed councils engaged in direct actions to challenge Depression-era social policy, capital and the police. The arrival of the modern post-war welfare state did not end poverty; however. Vancouver antipoverty activists were circumscribed by society's relative affluence and organizational and sectarian debates within labour councils and the antipoverty movement. Finally, since 1989 the Toronto-based Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) has extended antipoverty activism to include the issues of immigrants, First Nations, women and children. Drawing on theorist Antonio Gramsci and the socialist-anarchist tradition, this thesis posits that direct action and a subsidiarity relationship between activists and their community are essential to the success and longevity of poor people's movements.