Working People

Working People Synopsis

From the dock workers of Saint John in 1812 to teenage "crews" at McDonald's today, Canada's trade union movement has a long, exciting history. Working People tells the story of the men and women in the labour movement in Canada and their struggle for security, dignity, and influence in our society. Desmond Morton highlights the great events of labour history - the 1902 meeting that enabled international unions to dominate Canadian unionism for seventy years, the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, and an obscure 1944 order-in-council that became the labour's charter of rights and freedoms.

He describes the romantic idealism of the Knights of Labor in the 1880s and looks at "new model" unions that used their members' dues and savings to fight powerful employers. Working People explores the clash between idealists, who fought for socialism, industrial democracy, and equality for women and men, and the realists who wrestled with the human realities of self-interest, prejudice, and fear. Morton tells us about Canadians who deserve to be better known - Phillips Thompson, Helena Gutteridge, Lynn Williams, Huguette Plamondon, Mabel Marlowe, Madeleine Parent, and a hundred others whose struggle to reconcile idealism and reality shaped Canada more than they could ever know.