Capital and Labour in the British Columbia Forest Industry, 1934-74
Description
The history of British Columbia’s economy in the twentieth century is inextricably bound to the development of the forest industry. In this comprehensive study, Gordon Hak approaches the forest industry from the perspectives of workers and employers, examining the two institutions that structured the relationship during the Fordist era: the companies and the unions. He relates daily routines of production and profit-making to broader forces of unionism, business ideology, ecological protest, technological change, and corporate concentration. The struggle of the small-business sector to survive in the face of corporate growth, the history of the industry on the Coast and in the Interior, the transformations in capital-labour relations during the period, government forest policy, and the forest industry’s encounter with the emerging environmental movement are all considered in this eloquent analysis.
Reviews
This is a very well-written book that makes important scholarly contributions to a number of disciplines … It uses a rich variety of sources and methods to combine economic history with cultural, political, labour, and social history in ways that will challenge and inspire all BC and Canadian historians.
- Mark Leier, Professor of History and Director of the Centre for Labour Studies at Simon Fraser University