A political and economic analysis of the history of working people inAlberta.

Working People in Alberta traces the history of labour inAlberta from the period of First Nations occupation to the present.Drawing on over two hundred interviews with labour leaders, activists,and ordinary working people, as well as on archival records, the volumegives voice to the people who have toiled in Alberta over thecenturies. In so doing, it seeks to counter the view of Alberta as aone-class, one-party, one-ideology province, in which distinctionsbetween those who work and those who own are irrelevant. Workers fromacross the generations tell another tale, of an ongoing collectivestruggle to improve their economic and social circumstances in the faceof a dominant, exploitative elite. Their stories are set within asequential analysis of provincial politics and economics, supplementedby chapters on women and the labour movement and on minority workers ofcolour and their quest for social justice.