1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt

Kealey, Gregory S.

doi:10.2307/25140399

Cited by 19 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…John Thompson (1985) has pointed to the disastrous impact of these years on the Canadian economy and Irving Abella (1974) has testified to their negative impact on the trade union movement. Parallel processes occurred in both Sweden and the United States in the aftermath of World War I and the cli max of the global labour insurgency that peaked in the years 1919-1921(Kealey, 1984. Differences arose in the latter half of this decade when the Swedish trade union movement managed to reverse the decline, while in North America stagnation or hemorrhage continued to be the rule.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Class consciousness and national contexts: Canada, Sweden and the United States in historical perspective

Johnston

Baer

1993

Canadian Review of Sociology

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Dans cette communication, les auteurs examinent les différences, sur le plan de la conscience de classe, entre trois démocraties occidentales, soit le Canada, la Suède et les États‐Unis. Leur principale conclusion est celle‐ci: le degré d'identification des travailleurs avec la classe ouvrière, la conscience des conflits de classe et la capacité d'envisager une autre forme d'organisation sociale sont sensiblement plus grands en Suède qu'en Amérique du Nord. Une telle conclusion ne risque guère de surprendre les spécialistes de la sociologie comparée des systèmes politiques, mais elle a le mérite de poser la question des origines des différences observées. Les auteurs y répondent en les faisant remonter surtout à l'après‐guerre et aux différences qui ont caractérisé les conflits sociaux de la Grande Dépression. Pour eux, les dénouements respectifs de ces conflits sociaux se sont répercutés sur la distribution du pouvoir politique et le sentiment de puissance collective au sein de la classe ouvrière, qui ont à leur tour profondément influé sur la consolidation et l'extension de la conscience de classe. This paper explores the variation in class consciousness in three Western democracies: Canada, Sweden and the United States. Its main empirical finding is that Swedish levels of working class identification, conflict consciousness and capacity to envisage an alternative form of social organization are considerably higher than their North American counterparts. While this finding is not surprising to comparative political sociologists, it does provide an occasion for an argument that the differences were basically established in the postwar period and are the product of the different outcomes of the social conflict that surrounded the Great Depression. In its reduced form, our argument is that outcomes of social conflict have had an impact on the distribution of social power and the working classes' sense of collective efficacy which, in turn, have profoundly influenced the consolidation and extension of class consciousness.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Class consciousness and national contexts: Canada, Sweden and the United States in historical perspective

Johnston

Baer

1993

Canadian Review of Sociology

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“…De plus en plus de travailleurs et de travailleuses expriment leur désaccord face au conservatisme des dirigeants syndicaux, de même que leur attitude ambivalente face à la conscription 37 . D'importants débats agitent le Conseil des métiers et du travail du Canada (CMTC), le pendant canadien de la Fédération américaine du travail (FAT).…”

Section: « We Are Here For the Obu ! »unclassified

Censure et surveillance de la presse socialiste au Québec (1918-1920) : le cas du journal Labor et de son éditeur Isidore Boltuck

Houle-Courcelles

2016

Bulletin d'Histoire Politique

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“…The employment relationship in Canada and the United States (US) became increasingly dysfunctional and conflict-prone from the early 1870s to the end of World War I, symbolized by general strikes in both Winnipeg and Seattle in 1919 (Kealey, 1984;Adams, 1966). The field of industrial relations (IR) was born in the 1910s to study and understand the dynamics of the employment relationship and methods by which conflict can be reduced, harmony increased, and democratic capitalism stabilized.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the State of the Employment Relationship: A Balanced Scorecard Approach Built on Mackenzie King’s Model of an Industrial Relations System

Kaufman

Barry

Gómez

et al. 2019

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The industrial relations (IR) field in Canada and the United States (US) emerged in the late 1910s-early 1920s and is thus on the cusp of its 100th anniversary. The impetus for the creation of the IR field was growing public alarm in both countries over the escalating level of conflict, violence, and class polarization in employer-employee relations. The two countries established federal-level government investigative committees, theRoyal Commission on Industrial Relations(1919) in Canada and theCommission on Industrial Relations(1911-1915) in the US, to travel cross-country, gather evidence, and report their findings and overall evaluation.To commemorate the IR field’s centenary, this paper conducts the same type of cross-national ER evaluation, but with modern methods. First, this exercise requires a formal evaluation instrument, like a physical exam worksheet. Adopted is a modified version of a balanced scorecard. Second, the scorecard’s framework and questions should be theoretically informed. The framework used is a modified version of the diagrammatic model of an IR system presented by Mackenzie King inIndustry and Humanity(1918). The third step is to fill in the scorecard with data from individual workplaces, which are obtained for the US from a new nationally-representative survey of 2000+ workplaces, theState of Workplace Employment Relations Survey(SWERS). The fourth step is to aggregate all the diagnostic measures to obtain a summary numerical estimate for each of the companies of its state of ER performance and health.Based on a 1-7 (7 = highest) scale, then converted to F to A grades, we find that the average ER grade given by managers is B+ and by employees C+. The company scores are graphed in a frequency distribution that visually represents, for the first time in the literature, the lowest-to-highest pattern of employment relations performance and health across the US.

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1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt

Cited by 19 publications

References 0 publications

Class consciousness and national contexts: Canada, Sweden and the United States in historical perspective

Class consciousness and national contexts: Canada, Sweden and the United States in historical perspective

Censure et surveillance de la presse socialiste au Québec (1918-1920) : le cas du journal Labor et de son éditeur Isidore Boltuck

Evaluating the State of the Employment Relationship: A Balanced Scorecard Approach Built on Mackenzie King’s Model of an Industrial Relations System

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