Unit Plan

Learning from Labour

12

Lesson Overview

Lesson #Lesson title/Description

1

The Rights and Responsibilities of Workers and Employers

This lesson examines the rights/responsibilities of workers and employers in Canada. Students will make predictions of 
how these have changed throughout history.

2

Every Day is Labour Day! 

Students will select and explore one of three aspects of ‘Labour’ which positively impact our society yet are taken for 
granted: Labour Day and the labour movement, current Employment Standards and Health and Safety Regulations 
in Ontario and Organized Labour. Students will make connections as to how unions have impacted past and present 
society. 

3

The Labour Day Critical Design Challenge

Students will be challenged to design a revitalized Labour Day celebration, making specific reference to the history and 
efforts of workers and the labour movement.

4

Child Labour

Students will formulate questions from encounters with images of Canadian child labour at the turn of the 20th 
century and identify the factors that were due to the rise of the Industrial Revolution.

5

Human Rights as Workers Rights

Students will study the relationship between human rights and workers’ rights by analyzing the events of the 1872 
Toronto Printers Strike and comparing contemporary standards of human rights to the rights of working people in the 
19

th

 century.

6

Immigration and the Racialization of Work

Students will examine ways in which the prevailing societalracist view of immigrants from non-British backgrounds 
affected both their living and working conditions during the pre- and post-Confederation era.

7

Immigration and Ruralization: Urban vs. Rural

Students will develop an understanding of the importance of labour and immigration in urban settings vs.. rural 
settings at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century in Canada. This lesson examines the human 
geography of Canada and how and where resources are used (i.e., the cyclical nature of urban/rural work).

8

Women and Labour

Students will examine a variety of historical texts in order to dramatize the experiences, struggles and triumphs of 
Canadian women workers.

9

What’s next for the Labour Movement?:  
Examining Union Websites to Determine Next Steps

Students will review their learning from the unit and make connections to the labour movement today. Students 
will also make predictions about which rights the next labour movement will fight for.