Labouring the Canadian Millennium Writings on Work and Workers, History and Historiography

As Canadian workers, the labour movement, and scholars confront a new millennium, new opportunities and new challenges loom large. This volume, which mirrors Labour/Le Travail Volume 46, commissions a number of articles addressing themes that will be of consequence as we enter the 21st century. The articles that appear in this collection are authored by some of the more prominent social scientists working in the field of labour-related studies, among them Desmond Morton, Ian McKay, Joan Sangster, Cynthia Comacchio, David Frank, and Jacques Rouillard. Their writing appears in the book, grouped in a series of thematic sections: institutions and ideas; gender, sexuality and family; Quebec and the national question; culture; and workers and the state. Topics such as Canadian socialism, pivotal events such as the 1949 Asbestos strike, and important cultural undertakings, such as working-class representations on film and video, are addressed. Historiographical controversies and debates associated with the relations of women’s and working-class histories or different generational styles associated with the presentation of labour’s past are surveyed. This is an issue all interested in Canadian society and its development will not want to miss.

Table of Contents

1. Contributors
2. Editor’s Introduction: “Labour Confronts the Millennium”
3. INSTITUTIONS & IDEAS
   1. Some Millennial Reflections on the State of Canadian Labour History
      Desmond Morton
   2. Industrial Relations at the Millennium: Beyond Employment?
      Anthony Giles
   3. For a New Kind of History: A Reconnaissance of 100 Years of Canadian Socialism
      Ian McKay
4. GENDER, FAMILY & SEX
   1. Feminism and the Making o f Canadian Working-Class History: Exploring the Past, Present and Future
      Joan Sangster
   2. “The History of Us”: Social Science, History, and the Relations of Family in Canada
      Cynthia Comacchio
   3. Bumping and Grinding On the Line: Making Nudity Pay
      Becki L. Ross
5. LAW, INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, AND THE STATE
   1. Pluralism or Fragmentation?: The Twentieth-Century Employment Law Regime in Canada
      Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker
   2. La grève de l’amiante de 1949 et le projet de réforme de l’entreprise. Comment le patronat a défendu son droit de gérance
      Jacques Rouillard
6. THE NATIONAL QUESTION
   1. Political Economy and the Canadian Working Class: Marxism or Nationalist Reformism?
      Murray E.G. Smith
   2. “Rapprocher les lieux du pouvoir”: The Quebec Labour Movement and Quebec Sovereigntism, 1960-2000
      Ralph P. Güntzel
7. CULTURES
   1. Labour/Left Memorabilia, 1880-1980: A Photographic Representation
      Karl Beveridge
   2. Short Takes: The Canadian Worker on Film
      David Frank
   3. Canadian Universities, Academic Freedom, Labour, and the Left
      Michiel Horn
8. Abstracts

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