The Eaton Drive: The Campaign to Organize Canada's Largest Department Store 1948 to 1952

by Sufrin, Eileen

• ISBN13: 9781550051902
• ISBN10: 1550051903
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-11-19
• Publisher: Midpoint Trade Books Inc

Summary

#x1C;Sufrin has written this book with an eye to assisting retail workers who wish to organize in the future. She takes the campaign step-by-step and does not hesitate to point out mistakes she feels the union leaders made. In assessing why enough Eaton#x19;s workers did not vote for the union to make it a reality, she demonstrates changes in Ontario#x19;s labor laws today that would have helped the union#x19;s cause.#x1D; London Free Press, July 3, 1982. #x1C;The Eaton Drive is an epic story, recorded with compassion by Eileen Taliman Sufrin, who headed the drive. But it was an extraordinary community effort which involved not only people like Lynn Williams, who has gone on to become International Secretary of the United Steelworkers of America, but George Luscombe, Hugh Webster, Olive (Richardson) Chester, Marty Levinson, and scores who have made their name in many walks of Ontario life. Not only were hundreds of trade union locals involved, but literally thousands of individuals who carried the mundane load of leaflet distribution at all hours through all kinds of weather for four years. #x1C;For the general reader, this volume is therefore a readable slice of the social, as well as the trade union, history of the day. But for trade unionists, and working people in general, it is both an inspiration and an organizational handbook, depicting both the nature and the proportions of the challenge facing them.#x1D; Toronto Star, June 20, 1982