This course explores the economies of rich countries like Canada from the perspective of working people. It follows them to labour markets, into the production process and to markets for consumer goods. The course also explores economic policies and international economic relations. Working people encounter company owners and managers in all of the aforementioned markets and institutions. The course shows the conflict of interest between these two different groups of people and concludes with a unit on the prospect of labour movements.
LBST/GLST/HIST 335: Global Labour History, a course that will have you follow workers and workers movements throughout the history of global capitalism, as well as provide you with the theoretical tools needed to understand changing conditions of work, and different strategies used by workers to improve their conditions. The course uses the cotton and rubber industries as examples to highlight the diverse worlds of work, beginning in cotton and rubber plantations and culminating in global production networks—with cotton driving 19th century capitalism, and rubber as a key component of automobile manufacturing, the leading industry of the 20th century.