Search

URANIUM MINERS IN ELLIOT LAKE went on a wildcat strike in 1974 to protest their occupational health concerns on the job after a spike in cancer cases. They learned that the provincial government had known of the poor working conditions causing their illnesses, but had not informed them of the dangers or acted to improve their situation. As a result of union and political pressure, the Ontario government created the Ham Commission to investigate and make recommendations. Its hearings revealed the industry's scandalous conditions, and its report eventually resulted in the Ontario Health and Safety (OHS) Act in Ontario. It did not cover the miners until 1984, so they worked through their internal health and safety committees to gain improvements in the work environment. Others have discussed this situation in relation to the emergence of the OHS and environmental movements. This paper discusses the events in terms of the mine owners' attitudes towards their employees, the industry's relationship to governments, and the impact of the uranium mining industry (part of the nuclear industry) on the local community and environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IN AUGUST 1964, the souther Ontario local 523 of the United Electrical and Radio Machine Workers led some 450 female auto-parts workers onto the picket-line. A year later, the same union local led over 1,200 male steelworkers in a strike against the Steel Company of Canada. In both cases, Italian immigrants joined with their non-Italian co-workers in a show of class solidarity. Italian men framed their decision to strike in terms of a manly duty as the family's decision maker and breadwinner; Italian women assumed the role of aggressive labour militant with relative equanimity, while the more outwardly militant Italian men expressed considerable personal uncertainty and fear even while they engaged in a public display of cross-ethnic class solidary. The paper explores how gender, class and ethnicity interact to influence the dynamics of labour militancy in the two strikes, though it also gives due consideration to the structural factors that helped to determine the outcome of both strikes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article from the book "Labour/Le Travail," the author replies to Martin Glaberman's criticism of his paper "Strikes and Class Consciousness" in the Fall 1994 issue. The author recognizes a perspective on the question of class consciousness provided by Glaberman. He sees affinity between the conceptions of class consciousness introduced by Glaberman and Georg Lukács. He also stresses his opinion on the Canadian socialist movement's need for the contributions of activist workers.

AT THE TURN of the century, the legislative, administrative, and judicial branches of the Canadian state responded to the labour conflicts associated with the second industrial revolution by simultaneously expanding both their coercive and their facilitative roles. This paper examines one aspect of this development, the rise of the labour injunction, through a study of a series of strikes conducted chiefly by metal workers in south central Ontario between 1900 and 1914. In addition to retrieving the largely forgotten genealogy of a body of law that continues to play an important role in regulating and containing trade union activity, the study contributes insights into debates raging among labour historians regarding the role and significance of state institutions and public discourse in determining the trajectory and fate of organized labour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During World War II, the government of Canada sought to prevent strikes primarily through the use of "compulsory conciliation:" in specified industries, strikes and lockouts were prohibited until a government-sponsored hoard had investigated the dispute and delivered its report. This paper examines the operation of that regime during the war years. It highlights the tension between two alternative views of the boards' function (adjudication and mediation), indicates how the government manipulated the conciliation process in order to prevent or delay strikes, discusses briefly the reasons invoked by boards in their judgemental and demonstrates the frustration arising from the government's reluctance to prescribe clear norms of industrial conduct. In the turbulent wartime economy, compulsory conciliation failed to achieve the level of industrial peace demanded of it. Eventually, mandatory wage controls and a labour code modeled on the American Wagner Act were adopted, restricting the scope of the conciliation regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]