History of Canadian Labor - Essay Example

 History of Canadian Labor Laboring class or working class has always been a subject of socio-political interest. Here through our reading of three articles namely “The honest Workingman and Worker’s Control: The Experience of Toronto Skilled Workers’, 1860-1892”, “Joe Beef of Montreal: Working-Class culture and the Tavern, 1869-1889”, and “After the Fur Trade: The Aboriginal Laboring Class of British Columbia 1849-1890” we look at what the writer’s have to say about Canadian laboring class. While giving details of each article we shall compare their subject and come to a conclusion about the Canadian laboring class. The first article, “The honest Workingman and Worker’s Control: The Experience of Toronto Skilled Workers’, 1860-1892”, by Gregory S. Kealey, is an attempt to identify the trends of trade unions during the nineteenth century. The author discusses “Coopers International Union, Ontario No. 3, which played an important role in the Nine Hour Movement and the establishment of the Toronto Trades Assembly; the extensively studied International Typographical Union No. 91; and the Iron Mot-ders International Union No. 28, employed in Toronto's heavily capitalized stove, machinery, and agricultural implements industry” (Kealey). What the author tries to suggest is that the working class was an organized association of trade unions, which had a disciplined way of working, and earnings were fairly decided. The second article, “Joe Beef of Montreal: Working-Class culture and the Tavern, 1869-1889”, by Peter DeLottinville, is a different account of working class in Montreal. The author chooses to represent the working class through a dominant tavern owned by Charles McKiernan, popularly known as ‘Joe Beef’. The book presents a rather different account of the hardships of working class, which were not mentioned in the previous article. Since the article mentions a period that is almost the same as the earlier article, no mention of trade unions is a surprise. Rather the working class is a beer-drinking, rowdy class that finds the middle class suspicious and though there is mention of organized strikes, but the centre of the subject is Joe Beef’s Canteen, which provided the sole entertainment enjoyed by the working class. The author has more to say about Joe Beef than the working class. However, at the same time he has introduced the conditions of working class through a tavern and a man, who the working class people hailed him as their “champion” (DeLottinville). The third article, “After the Fur Trade: The Aboriginal Laboring Class of British Columbia 1849-1890”, by J Lutz, is an attempt to understand the conditions of aboriginals who worked as laborers in British Columbia. He mentions about the worse conditions faced by aboriginal laborers, what he says is that in general term, aboriginal laborers were not faring as well as the other laboring classes were. The labor force was far lower than that for the non-aboriginal population. He introduces us to views that were held by European people about aboriginal laborers. He says that Europeans thought that in spite of doing the labor, the aboriginals were no good when it came to investing and spending, which in turn was the reason for their lower status in the society. Through our reading of the three articles, we can say that in spite of having the same basic subject of working class, the three articles show different approach to the subject. A working class is not just a group of individuals belonging to lower strata of society; instead, even the working class involves people from different societies. Thus, in spite of a similar struggle for more wages and other similar causes, their ideologies and their way of implementing what they want is rather different, which in turn differentiates people in the working class as well. Hence, since the articles also deal with different working classes and different subjects, if we generalize the subject, we cannot say that the articles make the same point or indicate a very different point. Doing that would be difficult since they are in a broader sense indicating the working class as one but when we read the articles in detail, we find significant differences in their situations. From the articles, it is seen that though Peter DeLottinville chooses to suggest that the working class was a drinking class, which was so because they did not have enough money to follow other methods of entertainment. “The culture represented by Joe Beef was certainly different than that of the skilled tradesmen of Montreal. Only with difficulty can one imagine an experienced typographer making regular trips to the Canteen to see the bears. Though rough and respectable cultures interacted, they were clearly separate. The culture surrounding the casual labourers grew out of a physically demanding life of marginal economic benefit, obtained through the common exertion of labour. In these respects, Joe Beefs world was closer to the world of Peter Aylen and the Shiners of the Ottawa Valley than to the typographers in the offices of the Montreal Witness, or the cotton mill workers of Hochelaga” (DeLottinville). On the other hand, this is not what G. S. Kealey has to say. “Skilled workers in the nineteenth century exercised far more power than we have previously realized. Well on into the industrial period craftsmen through their trade unions played important roles in community affairs, in the world of politics and especially on the job. In Toronto work places, craftsmen employed their monopoly on skill and experience to dictate terms to their employers in a wide array of areas which, in modem parlance, gave to these late nineteenth century craftsmen a high degree of workers' control of production” (Kealey). Thus, we see that the articles are different views by three different writers. It is more important to mention here that the different views stem from their viewing of different aspects of the life of a working class man. The articles are a good source to understand how the working class functioned in the nineteenth century. However, if one sits down with the single aim to compare the three articles, not just the reader ends up confused about what exactly is working class culture but also undermines the essentiality of the mentioned articles. It is essential to keep in mind, as mentioned before, that the working class is not a single body. One can safely conclude that the three articles provide an important insight to the working class culture. The three articles are a success in that they do what they mention in their topics. What I mean by that is that instead of involving different aspects of the subject, they chose to stick to the main subject and in doing so, prevented the disaster of a mixing every aspect and not being able to conclude about a single aspect. References DeLottinville, Peter. "Joe Beef of Montreal: Working Class Culture and the Tavern, 1869-1889." Canadian Working Class History: 190-214. Kealey, Gregory S. “The Honest Workingman and Workers’ Control: The Experience of Toronto Skilled Workers, 1860-1892.” Canadian Working Class History: 112-142. Lutz, John. "After the Fur Trade: The Aboriginal Labouring Class of British Columbia, 1849-1890." Journal of the Canadian Historical Association/Revue de la Société historique du Canada 3 (1992): 235-239. Read More