Labour / Le Travail
Issue 92 (2023)

Minutes / Procès-verbal

Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Committee
on Labour History

8 June 2023
Convened virtually from locations across Turtle Island

The meeting was called to order: 3:08 pm edt with Kassandra Luciuk as Chair.

Attendees: Kassandra Luciuk, Mikhail Bjorge, Denyse Baillargeon, Greg Kealey, Linda Kealey, Joan Sangster, Ron Verzuh, Kathy Killoh, Jason Russell, Kirk Niergarth, Julia Smith, David Camfield, and Andrea Samoil

1. Adoption of Agenda

It was moved by Greg Kealey, seconded by Denyse Baillargeon, that the agenda be adopted as presented.

Carried unanimously.

2. Adoption of Minutes of 2022 Annual Meeting

It was moved by Joan Sangster, seconded by Kirk Niergarth, that the Minutes of the 2022 Annual Meeting be adopted.

Carried unanimously.

3. President’s Report

Kassandra Luciuk delivered the President’s report.

Challenging Labour Conference, October 2022 in Calgary: Thanks once more to the organizing committee. A sshrc Connection Grant was used to support the travel and expenses of graduate students, post-docs, and precarious employed attendees. The Executive voted to establish a lecture series to continue the momentum generated by the conference.

Grants: The Executive implemented long-discussed grants: a Graduate Student Thesis Research Award and a Small Grants Award. Information and applications can be found on the cclh.ca website, thanks to Kirk Niergarth. Two thesis research grants were approved this year for Nicholas Fast and Tyler Wentzell, both at U of T. Attendees were asked to encourage applicants to submit for both grants.

cha 2023: The cclh sponsored a panel on documenting and preserving radical labour art, with Julia Smith, Sean Carleton, and Bryan Palmer, with Kirk Niergarth moderating. People are encouraged to propose panels for cclh to sponsor for Congress 2024.

Prize winners:

The cclh article prize was awarded to Cameron Willis for “‘If You Want Anything, You Have to Fight for It’: Prisoner Strikes at Kingston Penitentiary, 1932–1935,” Labour/Le Travail 89 (Spring 2022): 89–145; with an honourable mention to L. K. Bertram for “The Other Little House: The Brothel as a Colonial Institution on the Canadian Prairies, 1880–93,” Journal of Social History 56 no. 1 (2022): 58–88.

The Forsey graduate prize was awarded to Benoit Marsan, « ‘L’heure des pétitions est passée, il faut des actes’: les sans-travail et la protestation au Québec durent l’entre-deux-guerres (1919–1939), » thèse de doctorat. Université du Québec à Montréal, 2021.

The Forsey undergraduate prize was awarded to Katharine Richter, for “The Criminalization of Unemployment Strikes in Depression-Era Nova Scotia, 1931–1936,” Honours thesis, Dalhousie University, 2022.

The President once more urged everyone to encourage submissions for all the prizes.

It was moved by Kirk Niergarth, seconded by Julia Smith, that the President’s Report be adopted.

Carried unanimously.

4. Treasurer’s Report

Greg Kealey delivered the Treasurer’s Report.

Thanks once more to Kathy Killoh and her staff at Athabasca University Press and Renee Audet-Martel at unb for their help with the finances. Overall, cclh is in healthy shape financially. The additional cost of the website, social media employee, and prizes are easily sustainable without drawing on investments.

Revenue was consistent, namely: sshrc grant; electronic format revenues through aggregators (sustainability always a question); subscriptions to the journal; and interest revenue from laddered gics, with more coming due in August.

Major expenditures this year were for the Calgary conference and publishing the edited collection of Kingsley’s writings (edited by Ben Isitt and Ravi Malhotra) through aup.

Joan Sangster raised the question of the social media employee and the bareness of the cclh website. Gabrielle has been regularly updating on Facebook and Twitter. Kirk Niergarth confirmed the newswire function on the website is functional again, emphasized that it should be for content that cclh generates itself, including prize winners and blurbs about upcoming l/lt articles. Julia Smith suggested that it might be appropriate to amend the constitution to make one of the two vps responsible for the website and liaising with the social media employee.

Joan Sangster and Julia Smith will follow up with the clc about possibly funding the Forsey awards. Some collaboration with the clc’s 70th anniversary coming up is possible.

It was moved by Charles Smith, seconded by Kirk Niergarth that the Treasurer’s Report be adopted.

Carried unanimously.

5. Labour/Le Travail Editors’ Report

Kirk Niergarth and Charles Smith delivered the Editors’ Report.

Charles Smith commented on the overall high quality and good numbers of submissions, though unfortunately still averaging only one francophone submission per issue. The Spring issue is out, Fall’s issue is full, and Spring 2024 is more than half full. From the editors’ perspective further cclh conferences are a good use of cclh resources, as the 2022 conference generated good content for the journal. From the cawls side, members see the journal as their own, too. An ongoing question is the future of printed copies of the journal.

Kirk Niergarth noted the 2022 conference generated roundtables for the journal. He noted it currently takes about a year from initial submission to publication.

It was moved by Charles Smith, seconded by Greg Kealey that the Editors’ Report be adopted.

Carried unanimously.

6. 2022 Challenging Labour Conference Report and l/lt Lecture Series

Kirk Niergarth delivered the report.

Thanks to the generous support of the cclh, the University of Manitoba, and Mount Royal University each contributing $10,000, there is $13,000 remaining from the funds raised for the 2022 Conference. The money will be used for a l/lt sponsored lecture series across Canada, with the goal of presentations of original research or write-ups of events for the journal, and to keep the connections from the 2022 conference alive. Kathy Killoh suggests in future such money could be used for the publication costs for articles that come out of conferences.

Montréal is planning a day-long event with community activists and scholars. Calgary is planning a talk in March about Calgary’s Sleeping Car Porters and antiracist organization and activism. McMaster and York are both proposing events. Vancouver is planning for an event with sfu’s labour studies program for October.

Greg Kealey stressed the need for promotional material at the events related to l/lt. Jason Russell suggested a conference on the history of the clc in light of their upcoming anniversary might generate materials for a special edition of l/lt. Charles Smith stated the editor’s priority for 2026 is a substantive issue around the 50th anniversary of l/lt.

7. New Business

a) Scheduling of 2024 agm

Deferred for further discussion by the Executive.

b) Volunteers for 2024 Prize Committees: Julia Smith, Charles Smith, Kirk Niergarth, Linda Kealey.

c) 2025 Conference

Location to be decided by organizing committee in consultation with people to take lead locally. Initial discussion was for Montréal or Vancouver. Major considerations are affordability of travel and accommodation, and conflicting conferences in 2025 in October, including the major history conference in Québec that month, a political history conference scheduled for fall 2025, and the potential for organizer fatigue given cha 2024 is in Montréal.

Charles Smith suggested the possibility of a joint cawls/cclh conference.

Initial organizing committee formed: Joan Sangster, Julia Smith, Kassandra Luciuk, Andrea Samoil.

8. Elections

Kassandra Luciuk announced that pursuant to the cclh By-laws the following position was open on the Executive:

Second Vice-President

Kassandra Luciuk declared nominations open for the position of Second Vice-President. Jason Russell nominated Mikhail Bjorge, who accepted the nomination. Kassandra Luciuk called three times for further nominations. There being none, Mikhail Bjorge was acclaimed as Second Vice-President.

9. Announcements

Linda Kealey announced the cha is looking for 600–800-word articles on the history of the strike, due 1 July.

David Camfield welcomed Adam King starting in labour studies at the University of Manitoba.

Ron Verzuh noted the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association has revitalized its website, and he has been asked by the BC Historical Federation to guest edit an edition on labour history.

Mikhail Bjorge congratulated Kassandra Luciuk for winning the Canadian Committee on Migration, Ethnicity and Transnationalism Article Prize for “‘They Will Crack Heads When the Communist Line is Expounded’: Anti-Communist Violence in Cold War Canada,” Labour/Le Travail 90 (Fall 2022): 149–78.

10. Adjournment

It was moved by Mikhail Bjorge, seconded by Charles Smith that the meeting adjourn.

Carried unanimously.

The Chair declared the meeting adjourned at 4:38 pm edt.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.52975/llt.2023v92.0031.

Copyright © 2023 by the Canadian Committee on Labour History. All rights reserved.
Tous droits réservés, © « le Comité canadien sur l’histoire du travail », 2023.