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2016 Heritage Toronto Book Award — Nominated
The story of the Bell Canada union drive and the phone operator strike that brought sweeping reform to women’s workplace rights.
In the 1970s, Bell Canada was Canada’s largest corporation. It employed thousands of people, including a large number of women who worked as operators and endured very poor pay and working conditions. Joan Roberts, a former operator, tells the story of how she and a group of dedicated labour organizers helped to initiate a campaign to unionize Bell Canada’s operators.
From the point of view of the workers and the organizers, Roberts tells an important story in Canada’s labour history. The unionization of Bell Canada’s operators was a huge victory for Canada’s working women. The victory at Bell established new standards for women in other so-called “pink-collar” jobs.
Roberts is the ideal person to tell this story...Cracked was hard to put down.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1 Bell Canada: The Company
Chapter 2 The Occupation of Telephone Operator
Chapter 3 Co-opting Organized Resistance: Company Unionism in Action
Chapter 4 Setting the Stage
Chapter 5 The Pre-Campaign
Chapter 6 The CWC Card-Signing Campaign
Chapter 7 The CUC Defence
Chapter 8 The Wait
Chapter 9 The Second Card-Signing Campaign and the Vote
Chapter 10 Collective Bargaining and Early Job Action
Chapter 11 Strike
Chapter 12 Outside Support Makes the Difference
Chapter 13 After the Strike
Chapter 14 Wrapping Up and Thinking about the Future
Image Credits
Notes
Bibliography
Index