The Limits of Labour

W.J.C. Cherwinski is a professor of history at Memorial University of
Newfoundland and the co-author of Lectures in Canadian Labour and
Working-Class History.

The Limits of Labouraffirms the truism that organized labour is like
organized Christianity in its ability to divide itself into a seemingly
infinite number of subsections based on personalities and dogma.

The book’s first three chapters concentrate on the expansive,
prosperous period between 1883 and the depression of 1913 to demonstrate
that workers in Calgary gradually developed a sense of class in their
response to the city’s rapidly emerging industrial capitalism.
However, the divisions along ethnic, cultural, and gender lines blurred
class distinctions, which in turn limited the local labour movement’s
ability to act in concert, especially at the political level.

The second half of the book follows the movement’s development to the
onset of the Great Depression in 1929. During this period, the city’s
movement experienced high rates of unemployment and reductions in wages,
resulting from competition from newcomers and opposition from employers.
The attempts of organized workers to build bridges to other groups did
not result in a broad base of support for labour or labour’s political
ambitions. The unhappy consequence was that when real difficulties
emerged in the 1930s, labour was unable to respond effectively and thus
was permanently weakened. These proved to be the limits of labour.

The Limits of Labour is usually accessible, given its subject matter.
It is also a useful corrective to the image of Calgary as solely an
agricultural service centre with little to offer in the way of
progressive thought.