ActiveHistory.ca recently featured the Family Leave Project in their podcast, History Slam.
The episode feautres host Sean Graham interviewing WHM board member, Arthur Carkner and Carleton University professor, Rosemary Warskett, both of whom sat on the Q&A panel during the family leave documentary launch in October. It's a great interview that discusses this history of Family Leave and the labour movement in Canada during the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
History Slam. Episode Eleven - ''A Struggle to Remember: Fighting for our Families'' (posted December 12, 2012, approx. 55 mins).
Click Here to Listen Now
You can also download the podcast on iTunes.
We have all heard the term "Company Town" which were mostly mill and mining communities where the company owned the housing, the store, the hospitals, the schools and the utilities; a town where the workers felt that the company controlled every aspect of their lives 24/7.
Well, have you ever heard of a Union Town?
There once was a union town in Port Union, Newfoundland (the only Union Town in North America according to the locals), which the CBC recently featured in a radio documentary "We are leaving Mr. Coaker" that aired on the January 29th broadcast of the Sunday Edition.
The documentary tells the history of this unique community.
While Port Union may appear to be a typical fishing outport, it was founded in 1916 by, and for, members of the Fisherman's Protective Union and their fiery leader William Ford Coaker. Port Union's life blood has been its fish plant and unionized workforce, however recent corporate ownership, a hurricane, dwindling fish stock and the pressures of the global economy have caused the plant to shut its doors, leaving the community with a questionable future.
Why don't Canadians know more about this worker-owned community, now a national historic site? What lessons from the past can future generations of Canadians learn?
To view the documentary visit:
http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/documentaries/2012/01/29/we-are-leaving-mr-coaker/
To learn more about the History of Port Union visit:
http://www.historicportunion.ca/en/index.html
For a biography of William Ford Coaker visit:
http://web.ncf.ca/an650/teach99/wrt/nfld/coaker.htm
