Canada’s unions are recognizing June 8 as Collective Bargaining Rights Day by celebrating the labour movement’s long and proud history of winning important gains at the bargaining table, a legacy that improves the economic realities for all Canadian workers and their families. “Collective bargaining allows working people to take part in fundamental decisions affecting their lives and, through collective action,…

On December 1, 1911, The American Magazine published a poem with the title “Bread and Roses” for the very first time. Over the next few years, it would become an anthem of the trade union movement, linked to the struggle for social justice and equality. Now a favourite anthem of the labour movement around the world, James Oppenheim was inspired to write…

On September 29, 1931, coal miners from nearby Bienfait gathered with their families, along with several hundred other miners and their families, to parade through the streets of Estevan in order to draw attention to their strike. The RCMP confronted them, attempting to block and break up the procession, then opened fire on the crowd. Three miners were killed and…

“In the dark days prior to and during the Great Depression of the thirties there appeared on the Canadian scene a young woman whose fiery spirit and love of humanity carried her to the forefront of the struggles of the men and women who were striving to find a way out of the darkness of poverty, unenlightenment, and despair.” **…