Red flags and red tape

Labour bureaucracy has long been a subject of interest to sociologists and industrial-relations specialists, but it has rarely been examined by labour historians. In Red Flags and Red Tape Mark Leier aims to understand how and why bureaucracy came to dominate an organization that was established to promote greater democracy for the working class. The formative years of the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council, from 1889 to 1910, provide the basis for his study of the interplay between bureaucracy, class, and ideology. Leier sets himself three tasks: to outline the theoretical debates on the labour bureaucracy; to investigate the early history of the VTLC in order to show how and why bureaucratic structures evolve over time; and to examine the ideology and personnel of the labour council in order to understand the complex relationship between bureaucrats of the left and the right and their ideologies.