A History of Labour Day in Canada Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

A History of Labour twenty-four hours in Canada - Essay ExampleOn a Sunday flush a century ago this weekend, 14,000 francophone workers gathered on Old Montreal to prepare for labor party Day. Instead of yelling through the streets, they quietly converged in Notre Dame Church, where Paul Bruschesi, then Archbishop of Montreal, urged them to shun strikes and show reverence to their employers. That alike(p) day, 2,000 Anglophone workers descended on what later became St. Patricks Basilica, in the core of modern downtown Montreal, to prepare for the next days parade. They heard the like dont-rock-the-boat message as clergy instructed them to put their trust in church arbitrators to resolve disputes over pay, hours and conditions of work and otherwise issues. Now two Toronto historians read crafted an illuminating, sometimes offensive retrospective of how craunch Day has been marked crosswise Canada. With anecdotes like those above, York University history professor Craig Heron and Steve Penfold, an assistant professor of history at the University of Toronto, deliver real(a) analysis. They show how the Labor movement has evolved since the 1880s, along with Canadian society as a whole.In some parts of the country, Labor Day would eventually die out completely as a workers festival, or limp on as a spiritless exercise in commercialized civic boosterism robust words, Stirring prose.In significant ways, the authors conclude, Labor Day in Canada is the story of a holiday that never rattling belonged to workers and has been supplanted by such holidays as May Day and International Womens Day. Their tone is not entirely acerb or sardonic, though. Heron and Penfold linger in loving detail over the floats, costumes, banners and placards that once made Labor Day parades a key event on community calendars. And they illustrate their points with superbly evocative photos. thus far readers inclined to disagree with their hard-edged assessments will concede that Her on and Penfold have laid invaluable groundwork in an area that to date has been poorly documented. They note that times have changed. Early in the last century, no Asian workers from British Columbias fish-packing plants and sawmills ever got invitations to join the West Coast marchers. In fact, they add, Victorias tailors carried a banner in 1901 blaming the Chinese for their plight.Heron and Penfold were hampered, while researching the book, by the fact that few records of past Labor Days have survived, beyond newspaper accounts of the day. In typically quiche fashion, they note that an 1898 parade float by Winnipeg tailors lambasted the awarding of a city-council contract for firemens uniforms to a local sweat shop -- an open display of dissent that was apparently treat by the mainstream newspapers. They learned of it from a small workers newspaper.In this painstakingly researched volume they elaborate how Labor Day parades have had splendid moments in our history. Primarily, th e parades were a much sought-after festival aimed at eliciting attention to the social function and needs of Labor. They became a very rich art form developed jointly by make workers in Canada. Nevertheless, they were also bitterly disheartening to those who attempted to indulge masses of workers in the celebration. The first Labor Day procession was in Toronto in 1882. At that time one of the demands of Labor was to call for a public enquiry into the status of