Labour & Pop Culture: Navigator

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop culture is “Navigator” by the Pogues. This song is about the workers who built the English railway system, often dying in the process. Navigator (often “navvy”) is an unskilled labourer building canals, railways and other public worker

Canada has a similar history. The canal system in central and eastern Canada was mostly built by Irish and French-Canadian labourers. Much of the difficult western stretches of the Canadian Pacific railways were built by Chinese labourers. These projects saw workers die in droves.

Even today, racialized labour remains a key feature of some industries. Approximately 20,000 workers from Mexico and the Caribbean come to Canada to harvest crops (primarily fruit and vegetables in Ontario and BC). They work and live here for up to 8 months, often in very difficult conditions, and then they return to their home countries. A recurring issue affecting migrant farm workers is their treatment by the workers; compensation system.

A recent Toronto Star report revealed that Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board has been slashing injured workers’ benefits by deeming them capable of finding work in Ontario even though they have been returned to their home country (where there are no jobs for them) and barred from re-entry. In this case, the worker was deemed to be employable as a cashier even though he was illiterate and there were no cashier (or other) jobs he can perform near his home in Jamaica.

An appeal panel finally found this process of wage “deeming” (wherein workers are deemed to be employed if they are employable) is an abrogation of the workers’ rights and he is owed nine years in back compensation. This migrant worker is just one of many who have been injured and then put on a plane home, with Canada washing its hands of its obligations.



The canals and the bridges, the embankments and cuts,
They blasted and dug with their sweat and their guts
They never drank water but whiskey by pints
And the shanty towns rang with their songs and their fights.

Navigator, navigator rise up and be strong
The morning is here and there's work to be done.
Take your pick and your shovel and the bold dynamite
For to shift a few tons of this earthly delight
Yes to shift a few tons of this earthly delight.

They died in their hundreds with no sign to mark where
Save the brass in the pocket of the entrepreneur.
By landslide and rockblast they got buried so deep
That in death if not life they'll have peace while they sleep.

Navigator, navigator rise up and be strong
The morning is here and there's work to be done.
Take your pick and your shovel and the bold dynamite
For to shift a few tons of this earthly delight
Yes to shift a few tons of this earthly delight.

Their mark on this land is still seen and still laid
The way for a commerce where vast fortunes were made
The supply of an empire where the sun never set
Which is now deep in darkness, but the railway's there yet.

Navigator, navigator rise up and be strong
The morning is here and there's work to be done.
Take your pick and your shovel and the bold dynamite
For to shift a few tons of this earthly delight
Yes to shift a few tons of this earthly delight.

-- Bob Barnetson