if You're In My Way I'm Walking by Thom Workman, Paperback | Indigo Chapters

If you?re in my way I?m walking. This arrogant statement by former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien on the occasion of his physical altercation with a protester on Parliament Hill in the mid-1990s symbolizes the spirit of the relentless drive of capital to re-write the historical compromise reached with working people after World War II. This early post-war compromise - sometimes referred to as the Fordist Compact - was associated with improving wages and rising living standards for working people. But in recent decades those achievements of the working class are being deliberately rolled back. Workman surveys many features of this experience: changing public perceptions of working life, the deregu-lation of labour law, the decline in unionization rates, the eclipse of union militancy, the stagnation of real wages, the disproportionate absorption of women into the low-wage sphere and the dismantling of social policy. He demonstrates the unravelling of the post-war compact and its replacement with a far more ex-ploitative relationship between capital and labour. He also points to the decline of the Canadian left and its inability to counter the capitalist onslaught effectively. Nevertheless, there are reasons to be hopeful. Work-man calls for a rebuilding of the left through the restoration of left culture. To do this he says that the left must """"quit politics,"""" work to promote the collective memory of working-class achievements, create venues to listen to working people in today?s economy, reject nationalism outright and encourage the labour movement to exploit its disruptive capacity. This revitalized left will form the basis of a deepening social critique, the po-litical lessons of which will prove to be invaluable for working people in the long run. | if You're In My Way I'm Walking by Thom Workman, Paperback | Indigo Chapters