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Weekend Video: The 1965 postal workers wildcat strike

5/17/2014

In 1965, postal workers across Canada and Quebec launched their historic wildcat strike. They forced the federal government to extend the right to strike and bargain collectively to the public sector. They also had to take on their professional organization whose leaders opposed the strike and the desire of workers to establish a democratic union that fought for the interests of workers.

Here is Memory & Muscle, the story of that strike packed with postal workers retelling their stories and great archival footage of what really happened.

Further reading
For a good introduction to Canada’s wildcat strike wave of the mid/late 1960s, check out “Wildcat workers: The unruly face of class struggle“, a chapter in Bryan Palmer’s book “Canada’s 1960s“. Also be sure to check out Jean-Claude Parrot’s autobiography “My Union, My Life” published by Fernwood. For more research, you can find Stuart Jamieson’s government studies of the wildcat wave in “Times of Trouble” published in 1968 and “Industrial Relations in Canada” (1973). These last two are harder to find and will probably require a visit to a university library.

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By admin

Categories // Canada Post, CUPW, Weekend Video, wildcat

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