Unit 8
Labour’s Challenges, 1970s to 1990s

This unit explores developments in Canadian labour history from the 1970s to 2000. These decades were times of difficulty and change for many workers in Canada. Collective bargaining and striking became more difficult and unemployment rose. Women joined unions in record numbers and some began to form bonds of solidarity with workers in other countries. Issues of citizenship and nation remained central to workers’ struggles during these years. Migrant labourers in Canada continued to enjoy fewer rights than permanent Canadian residents. Canadian auto workers rejected the American-dominated auto unions and formed their own union, and in Quebec, unionists began supporting both the Parti Québécois (the provincial separatist party) and the Bloc Quebecois (the federal separatist party).

Objectives

After completing Unit 8, you should be able to

1. explain why Canadian industrial relations in the 1970s and 1980s moved from consent to coercion.
2. discuss the significance of gender and race in Canada’s Non-Immigrant Employment Authorization Program.
3. describe the formation of the Canadian Auto Workers.
4. analyze the relationship between unionism and sovereignty in the Quebec labour movement between 1960 and the 1990s.
5. describe trends in the unionization of women workers during the 1980s and 1990s.
6. discuss the importance of international solidarity in Canada’s contemporary labour movement.