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The article reviews the book, "Global Unions, Local Power: The New Spirit of Transnational Labor Organizing," by Jamie K. McCallum.
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During the Spring of 2012, Québec experienced one of the most important social movements of its contemporary history. The Maple Spring started as a student protest against tuition fee hikes but ended up as a much broader social upheaval against austerity and the authoritarianism of the provincial government. This article investigates the role and position of the labor movement during the Maple Spring. It argues that the events of the Maple Spring demonstrate how the Québec labor movement was put under pressure by the politics of austerity and revealed its internal contradictions. More broadly, this article makes the case for a dialectical approach to understanding the labor movement that takes into consideration its internal diversity and tensions.
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This article reviews the book, "Building Global Labor Solidarity in a Time of Accelerating Globalization," edited by Kim Scipes.
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The conflict between property rights and the right of association creates the case for various policy avenues to ensure that employees have effective access to the right to associate for the purposes of collective bargaining. One such labour policy in Canada is first-contract arbitration. The experience of this policy in Quebec over the last three decades has achieved key objectives: ensuring first agreements for newly unionized workers, developing constructive bargaining relationships and overcoming what can be a major obstacle to an effective right to associate. After reviewing this experience, this article provides an overview of the unionization campaigns resulting in union certifications for the United Food and Commercial Workers Canada in six Wal-Mart facilities in Quebec province over the last six years. It then examines two recent cases of first-contract arbitration for these certifications. In one case, the company summarily closed the department concerned after the first contract was awarded. In the second case, the store remains open, with an operative collective agreement. Absent a policy of first-contract arbitration, it appears unlikely that this would be the case. The evolution of the bargaining relationship beyond the first-contract will provide a key test of the relative efficacy of Canadian policy approaches to ensure the freedom of association.
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The countersummit of the Americas, held in Quebec City in April 2001under the auspices of the Hemispheric Social Alliance (HSA) and in opposition to the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), promised to be a prelude to a new phase in how trade unions handle the issue of globalization. There was hope that trade unions would truly take charge of this issue. In terms of political organization, logistics, and the number ofactive participants, Quebec trade union organizations dominated the event....This article addresses two central questions. First, does the mobilization of Quebec trade unions against neoliberal globalization represent a break, both quantitative and qualitative, in their approach to international trade union relations? Second, what does the Quebec example tell us about the sociohistorical dynamics of international trade union relations in the Americas, and even beyond? We have attempted to investigate thoroughly how relations between trade unions have been conducted internationally before and after April 2001. For the most part, this study was undertaken at the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003, with some updates made in 2004. --From introduction
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- Journal Article (6)