Popular theater has significant, although largely overlooked, potential as a tool for unions to raise members’ political consciousness and strengthen their relationship to the union movement. Activist theater validates workers’ own knowledge, builds workers’ solidarity and self-confidence, and fosters an activist culture. It can also raise gender consciousness within unions. It has particular value for unions attempting to organize precarious workplaces such as call centers, where workers are especially vulnerable and often unfamiliar with unions and union culture. The experience of one group of workers demonstrates how popular theater can be integrated into the labor movement’s repertoire of strategies for building solidarity and revitalizing unions.
BeveridgeKarlJohnstonJude. Making Our Mark: Labour Arts and Heritage in Ontario. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1999.
5.
BoalAugusto. Legislative Theatre: Using Performance to Make Politics. Translated by JacksonAdrian. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.
6.
BourdieuPierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Translated by NiceRichard. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.
7.
BriskinLindaMcDermottPatricia, eds. Women Challenging Unions: Feminism, Democracy and Militancy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993.
8.
BurkeBevGeronimoJojoMartinD’ArcyThomasBarbWallCarol. Education for Changing Unions. Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 2001.
9.
ButterwickShaunaSelmanJam. “Deep Listening in a Feminist Popular Theatre Project: Upsetting the Position of Audience in Participatory Education.” Adult Education Quarterly54, no. 1 (2003): 7-22.
10.
CamfieldDavid.Canadian Labour in Crisis: Reinventing the Workers’ Movement. Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2011.
11.
Cohen-CruzJan. 1994. “Mainstream or Margin? US Activist Performance and Theater of the Oppressed.” In Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism, edited by SchutzmanM.Cohen-CruzJ., 110-23. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
DelpLindaOutman-KramerMiranda, “Organizing Public Sector Workers in Puerto Rico: An Interview with José La Luz and Annette González.” In Teaching for Change: Popular Education and the Labor Movement, edited by DelpLindaOutman-KramerMirandaSchurmanSusan J.WongKent. UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, 2002: 26-35.
14.
DelpLindaOutman-KramerMirandaSchurmanSusan J.WongKent, eds. Teaching for Change: Popular Education and the Labor Movement. UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education, 2002.
15.
FoleyJanice R.PatriciaL. Baker, eds. Unions, Equity and the Path to Renewal. Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press, 2009.
16.
ForrestAnne. “Connecting Women with Unions: What are the Issues?” Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations56, no. 4 (2001): 647-75.
17.
ForrestAnne. “Bargaining for Economic Equity: A Path to Union Renewal, Then and Now.” In Unions, Equity and the Path to Renewal, edited by. FoleyJanice R.BakerPatricia L., 97-118. Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press, 2009.
GuardJulieGarcia-OrgalesJorgeSteedmanMercedesMartinD’Arcy. “Organizing Call Centres: The Steelworkers’ Experience.” In Paths to Union Renewal: Canadian Experiences, edited by KumarPradeepSchenkChristopher, 277-92. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2006.
20.
GuardJulieSteedmanMercedesGarcia-OrgalesJorge. “Organizing the Electronic Sweatshop: Rank-and-file Participation in Canada’s Steel Union.” Labor: Studies in Working Class History of the Americas 4, no. 3 (2007): 9-31.
HeronCraig. “The Labour Historian and Public History.” Labour/le travail45 (2000): 171-97.
23.
JasperJames M.The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
24.
KainerJan. “Gendering Union Renewal: Women’s Contributions to Labour Movement Revitalization.” In Unions, Equity and the Path to Renewal, edited by FoleyJanice R.BakerPatricia L., 15-38. Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press, 2009.
25.
KumarPradeepSchenkChristopher, eds. Paths to Union Renewal: Canadian Experiences. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press/Garamond Press/CCPA, 2006.
26.
LongRichardPattinsonGlenn. “Introduction.” In Class Work. Carole Condé and Karl Beveridge, Communications and Electrical Workers of Canada, 1990.
27.
MartinD’Arcy. Thinking Union: Activism and Education in Canada’s Labour Movement. Toronto: Between the Lines, 1995.
YatesCharlotte A. B. “Expanding Labour’s Horizons: Union Organizing and Strategic Change in Canada.” Just Labour1 (2002): 31-40. http://www.yorku.ca/julabour/
35.
YatesCharlotte A. B. “Women Are Key to Union Renewal: Lessons from the Canadian Labour Movement.” In Paths to Union Renewal: Canadian Experiences, edited by KumarPradeepSchenkChris, 103-12. Toronto: Broadview and Garamond Press.
