Labour in Pop Culture
These workers famously labour under extremely suspicious employment conditions for an eccentric chocolatier.
Who are the Oompa Loompas?
This university saw one of the longest academic strikes in Canadian history, involving TAs, RAs, and contract faculty.
What is York University?
In 1919, this prairie city experienced a six-week general strike that terrified the Canadian state.
What is Winnipeg?
This Canadian grocery CEO blamed inflation on workers while pocketing record profits.
Who is Galen Weston Jr.?
This union represents over 700,000 workers, making it the largest in Canada.
What is CUPE?
This film shows literal Minions doing unpaid, unsafe, unregulated factory work for a bald millionaire who pays them in bananas.
What is Despicable Me?
This 1965 strike by public servants forced the federal government to recognize collective bargaining rights for public employees.
What is the postal workers’ strike?
This 1912 textile strike in Massachusetts was led largely by immigrant women and became iconic for the slogan “Bread and Roses.”
What is the Lawrence Textile Strike?
This e-commerce giant is notorious for union busting, worker surveillance, and impossible productivity quotas.
What is Amazon?
This labour federation is Canada’s national umbrella for unions, representing millions.
What is the Canadian Labour Congress?
These tiny magical beings perform entirely unpaid labour at a famous wizarding school; sparking a small, often mocked, liberation movement.
Who are the Hogwarts House-Elves?
In 1972, this province’s “Common Front” shut down most of the public sector in a massive coordinated strike.
What is Quebec?
This 1871 revolutionary government lasted only 72 days but became a global symbol of working-class self-rule.
What is the Paris Commune?
This company paid private detectives to infiltrate unions and violently break strikes in the 19th and 20th century.
What are the Pinkertons?
This union represents transit workers across major Canadian cities.
What is the Amalgamated Transit Union?
This animated film about insects ends with an uprising against the grasshopper elite, making it one of Pixar’s most communist films.
What is A Bug’s Life?
This 1935 march of unemployed workers from Vancouver to Ottawa ended violently in Regina.
What is the On-to-Ottawa Trek?
This 1973 Chilean strike, funded in part by the CIA, paralyzed the economy and helped destabilize the Allende government.
What is the Chilean Truckers’ Strike?
This US corporation was caught using a “union-avoidance consultant” that charged $3,200 per hour.
What is Starbucks?
This union representing steelworkers is known for the 1946 Windsor Ford strike that won the Rand Formula.
What is United Steelworkers union?
This long-running TV tyrant is one of pop culture’s most infamous bosses, known for cutting benefits, ignoring safety laws, blocking unions, and literally releasing the hounds on employees.
Who is Mr. Burns?
This courier company became the first major gig-style delivery service in Canada to have a group of couriers win the right to unionize in 2022. (And then immediately pulled out of Canada.)
What is Foodora?
This failed but iconic 1831 uprising in England saw agricultural labourers burn threshing machines.
What is the Swing Riots?
This billionaire media mogul uses his chain of newspapers to push anti-union editorials while cutting newsroom jobs.
Who is Conrad Black?
This union was founded after Winnipeg telephone operators walked off the job in 1918.
What is the Winnipeg Telephone Operators’ Union?