Working Towards Equity: Disability Rights Activism and Employment in Late Twentieth-Century Canada

In Working towards Equity, Dustin Galer argues that paid work significantly shaped the experience of disability during the late twentieth century. Using a critical analysis of disability in archival records, personal collections, government publications and a series of interviews, Galer demonstrates how demands for greater access among disabled people for paid employment stimulated the development of a new discourse of disability in Canada. Family advocates helped people living in institutions move out into the community as rehabilitation professionals played an increasingly critical role in the lives of working-age adults with disabilities. Meanwhile, civil rights activists crafted a new consumer-led vision of social and economic integration. Employment was, and remains, a central component in disabled peoples' efforts to become productive, autonomous and financially secure members of Canadian society. Working towards Equity offers new in-depth analysis on rights activism as it relates to employment, sheltered workshops, deinstitutionalization and labour markets in the contemporary context in Canada.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Illustrations Introduction 1. Disability Activism, Work and Identity 2. Family Advocacy and the Struggle for Economic Integration 3. Rehabilitation, Awareness Campaigns, and the Pursuit of Employability 4. "A Voice of Our Own": Disability Rights Activism and Struggle to Work 5. Sheltered Workshops and the Evolution of Disability Advocacy 6. Employers and the Ideological (Re)Construction of the Workplace 7. Rise and Decline of the Activist Canadian State 8. Labour Organizations, Disability Rights, and the Limitations of Social Unionism in Canada Conclusion Bibliography Notes Appendix I: Abbreviations Appendix II: Profile of Interview Participants

About the Author :
Dustin Galer received his PhD in history from the University of Toronto. He is the founder of MyHistorian (www.myhistorian.ca) where he works as a personal historian.

Review :
"This is an ambitious and largely successful book. It deserves a wide readership because of its potential to expand the historiography about work, rights and rights movements, and policy (federal and provincial) – in the style of the new disability history – by bringing a disability analysis to bear on these topics." - Jason Ellis, University of British Columbia (H-Net Reviews) "The strength of Working towards Equity is the rich narrative the author weaves. Detail surrounding the intricacies and complex relationships among the various disability voices is provided, ensuring that this volume will be well cited for years to come. Even better is the fact that it is grounded in the employment experiences of thirty disabled people over a period of forty years." - Mario Levesque, Mount Allison University ( BC Studies)