Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An examination of the history of labor, primarily in English Canada, during the 19th and 20th centuries. The evolution of trade unions and labor-political movements will be examined together with the impact of industrialization, the rise of mass production, changing patterns of immigration and other contexts of working-class culture and material life. Special attention will be paid to British Columbia as a case study. Historically the course examines 'working class history' as a particular way of studying the past. What is the concept of 'the working class'?

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Unless you're one of the idle rich, you'll spend much of your life working, and for most of us, that means working for someone else.

There are better jobs and worse jobs, but on the job, we are told what to do and how to do it. Inside the workplace, democracy and equality are replaced with authority and hierarchy, and the quality of our life is shaped by wages and salaries set by the boss.

We're told this is natural, that there is no alternative. We're told that nobody ever said life was fair and we’re lucky to have a job. But people have always fought back to make working conditions better, to make life fair, to win more control over our lives. We've done it through individual acts, such as booking off sick when we’re not ill, and we've done it through collective action, such as protest, joining unions, voting, and daring to dream of what might be.

In this course, we'll explore the history of work and workers in Canada to see how past struggles have shaped the present and how contemporary struggles will shape your future. With an emphasis on British Columbia, we'll consider how people have come together to resist—and why they often failed to. We'll examine large concepts—capital, labour, the state—and individual lives.

We're not going to write the usual exams and essays. We’ll do historical research to create learning materials such as popular articles, teaching units, web pages, interactive tools, posters, even film. You'll draw on your own experience, interests, and skills to explain broad concepts and particular events.

We'll do much of this work in our seminar, and we'll use lectures, films, music, graphic novels, and other materials to explore this history and how to present it to different audiences. The aim is to produce innovative and useful tools for people interested in understanding—and changing—work and the workplace.

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: