"...Canadian academics seem to have shied away from writing about the violent
aspects of our history. Very few of our historians have chosen to write about our labour
movement. For this reason, Canadians are appallingly ignorant of their labour past."
-From Irving Abella's introduction
On Strike focuses on six important - but largely unknown - strikes where Canadian
workers fought the combined forces of capital and government for basic union rights and for
decent wages and working conditions.
The strikes described - the Winnipeg 1919 general strike, Estevan 1931, Stratford 1933,
Oshawa 1937, the Ford Windsor strike of 1945, and Asbestos 1949 - were all major events in
Canadian labour and political history.
They demonstrate the strength of the labour movement, and they show the willingness of
governments to use police, troops, intimidation and violence in attempts to break strikes and
crush unions.