canadian week 2

three types of industry

primary: exttraction of raw materials

Secondary: manufacturing of consumer goods, production

Service: financial services, trade, transportation, management of secondary industries, education, public service

conditions an industry needs for survival

1. large, stable market: somewhere to sell things

2. fuel: coal, oil, steam, hydro - something to give factories power and run them

3. workers: people to work and tend to the machines

cost of living montreal, 1900-1910

weekly income needed to cover necessities: $11.23

Weekly income of families that did not have a significant numbers of female and child workers: $7.78

does not account for 25 cents per day needed to take care of chidlren

changes to farms

modernization and mechanization of agriculture, commercial rather than subsistence. goes from being a way of life to a business

the “home children”

80,000 British children sent to Canada between the 1860s and 1920s in order to help witht the rural labour crisis because more canadians were living and working in urban areas (rural depopulation). often from impoerished families that needed the money they were making in canada, were provided schooling and shelter; but some were abused, and lost connections to their families

artisanal production

lost when labour became a commodity and industrial revolution was underway:

• molders, glassblowers, shoemakers, coopers, bakers, tailors, etc

• high level of control over processes, skilled in a specific trade

• faily dominated, limited amount of help and additional workers

apprenticeship

• legally binding arrangement between a skilled master and an apprentice, where the apprentice learns a trade from the master while they live with the master for 3-10 years, or until the apprentice is 21 years of age

• 5-6 days a week, 10/11 hours a day

• provided with a skilled trade, lodging, and food in exchange for labour, also taight aout decency and tradition, what to do and what not to do as a professional

• gone with workers being seen as “hands” rather than people, familial relationship is over - no such thing as a skilled worker

Pacific Coast industrial Salmon Canneries

• big industry, dominated by Indigenous people because the canneries were often in Indigenous areas

• mobile workforce, seasonal rounds

• 1871-1966: 221 individual cannery sites

• even thought it was in remote areas, still an example of the industrial revolution changing the way that people worked

• gendered and ethnic division of labour: certain people did certain jobs, occupational organization based on a persons race or gender

urbanization

1867: 18% of the Canadian population lives in urban centres.

1921: 47% of Canadians living in urban centres

• class stratification: working class areas of town, categorized by slums, workers living in concentrated areas close to factories

• middle class also identifyinf themselves y their work: education, finance, etc.

1872 Trade Unions Act

trade unions no longer an illegal cospiracy, made legal to form unions, skilled labourers were the first to organize, not all together, by trade

Knights of Labour 1881 ish

labour organization group that wanted to unite all workers rather than workers of specific trades

Advocated for general rights like 9 hour days and a livable wage, concernd for mental and physical wellbeing of workers

machinery should make life easier for the worker, lighten load

American Federation of Labour and Gomperism

many unions together, but were only representative of skilled workers, did not represent factory workers

control over pace of work, output, undo loss of control that artisans experienced

were not trying to change the system like the knights were, but were just trying to help craftemen based on trade

international unions: economic power like strikes and boycotts

Industrial Workers of the World, “Wobblies”

wanted to make sweeping changes to teh canadian political system in favour of workers

• radical and wide reaching

• all kinds of workers, casual labourers, itinerant workers, not exclusionary

• socialist basis, seemed too radical after WW1, banned

why unions were unsuccessful

• picketing anf strikes were illegal - very little protection

• employers could just fire all workers to break a union, because workers were replaceable

• government was on the side of the employer