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A leading textbook in industrial relations at the university level, this book is valuable both as a primary and as a supplementary text for students of industrial relations, sociology, labour studies, economics and management programs. The book contains highly accessible coverage of conventional topic areas, including the history of industrial relations, contemporary employer practices, labour unions, labour law, collective bargaining, and contract administration. Yet it also includes coverage of broader economic and social issues relevant to the study of labour and employment relations in both the union and non-union sectors. Readers are thus able not only to develop a strong practical knowledge of Canadian industrial relations, but also to ground this knowledge in a deeper understanding of these relations and the broader issues and debates that surround them. This latest edition incorporates up-to-date statistics relevant to the study of industrial relations (e.g., strike activity, union membership, income inequality) as well as recent developments in the literature. It also streamlines the previous edition. The chapters on management practices and the effects of high performance practices have been merged and edited down, as have the chapters on contemporary developments and contemporary alternatives. --Publisher's description. Contents: Foundations: concepts, issues, and debates -- The broader debate: three theses on the nature and development of industrial relations, the economy, and society -- Understanding labour-management relations -- Work and industrial relations in historical perspective -- Contemporary management practices -- Understanding and explaining management -- Labour unions as institutions -- Labour unions as organizations -- The role of the state -- Understanding the state -- Labour law: the regulation of labour-management relations -- Collective bargaining: structure, process, and outcomes -- Strikes and dispute resolution -- The grievance and grievance arbitration processes -- The collective agreement: content and issues -- Contemporary problems, challenges, and alternatives. Includes bibliographical references (p. [431]-452) and index.

A comment is presented of Richard P. Chaykowski and George A. Slotsve's "Government Administered Workplace Surveys and Industrial Relations in Canada" (2002). Their article comments on Godard's 2001 article, "New Dawn or Bad Moon Rising? Large Scale Government Administered Workplace Surveys and the Future of Canadian IR Research."

This article discusses the potential advantages of large scale, government administered workplace surveys and the limitations of these surveys in the past. It then reviews and 1995 AWIRS, the 1998 WERS, and the 1999 WES in accordance with how well they appear to have succeeded in overcoming these limitations, and, more generally, with their implications for the conduct of industrial relations research. It is argued that the 1995 AWIRS does not appreciably overcome the limitations of previous surveys.

The ideologies of Canadian industrial relations (IR) scholars are analyzed. At the descriptive level, it would appear that a considerable majority of the scholars, perhaps as high as 70%, adhere to beliefs consistent with either a liberal-reformist or a radical ideology, even though there is widespread support for many of the arguments associated with the "new cooperativism." It would also appear that, whatever the content of ideology, its structure remains by and large one-dimensional. The findings also suggest that scholars who report that they specialize in IR or are affiliated primarily with an IR school tend to be more left-wing than their counterparts in economics and management. This would appear to reflect an ideological partitioning of the field among different schools. In turn, ideology would appear to have important implications for the pedagogy of scholars and the orientation they are likely to convey to future decision makers.

In the study of industrial relations (IR), a growing preoccupation with managerial strategies has been accompanied by 2 related developments: 1. a growing integration of the human resources management (HRM) literature into the study of IR, and 2. a movement away from the deterministic approach characterizing much IR research in the 1970s. These developments suggest a normative shift. Two assumptions seem to underly this shift. A critique of these assumptions is developed, arguing that underlying sources of conflict inherent to work organizations and employment relations limit the effectiveness of progressive policies and practices and that the extent to which these policies and practices are economically rational and hence likely to be adopted varies in accordance with firm and industry-level structural variables. Survey data collected in 1980-1981 from 100 unionized firms in Canada are used to explore the effectiveness of and structural variation on progressive managerial practices.

This paper adopts a critical sociological approach to analyze how labor law shaped a 23-day strike at a western Canadian university in the fall of 1995. A chronology of the strike is provided, followed by a brief analysis of how both economic and sociological models contribute to understanding the rationale of the strike. The implications of specific labor laws for this rationale are discussed, with an extension of the critical legal studies tradition by an establishment of how legal biases against unions shape strike activity.

The article reviews the book, "New Forms of Work Organization--Can Europe Realise its Potential?," by EPOC Research Group.

This paper addresses: (1) the extent to which changes appear to have occurred in managerial strategies and labour and employment relations in Canadian firms, and (2) the role of the state relative to anonymous economic forces in accounting for Canadian developments. The general findings are that, while there have been a number of significant changes, these have been more moderate than expected by ‘transformation’ theory; furthermore, the Canadian case is consistent with the argument that state actions play a major role relative to more anonymous economic ‘forces’ in accounting for developments in labour and employment relations. It also suggests an alternative model to that typically assumed by transformation theory, one in which state policies and economic conditions are considered to be important not only for their direct effects on employer policies, but also for their indirect effects, through their implications for worker expectations and union militancy. Although these conclusions are tentative and call for more systematic, comparative research, they are consistent with arguments by Burawoy and others that state actions can serve as an important source of labour regulation at the level of the firm.

Despite the fact that the American Wagner model is the foundation of labour law in both Canada and the United States, that law has evolved in different ways in the two countries. The author argues that this can be accounted for by adopting a historical-institutionalist perspective, which explains differences by looking at formative historical conditions and the institutional norms and traditions to which they gave rise. The conditions and norms the author identifies in each country lead him to conclude that the Canadian and American Wagner models are driven by different underlying rationales: the American version is predominantly concerned with economic gain and limited state interference, whereas the Canadian version seeks to maintain order and stability through the exercise of state control. For the time being, Canada's version has proved more effective at sustaining higher levels of union density. The paper then asks what these differences might tell us about the future of labour law and unionization in Canada. The author argues that Wagnerism in Canada has been a double-edged sword. While it has given unions greater institutional security, that same security has discouraged labour leaders from pursuing meaningful reforms to avoid union decline. The author also observes that there has been an erosion of the distinct institutional norms and traditions that have historically prevailed in Canada, brought on by an ideological shift towards neo-liberalism and globalization. From a historical-institutionalist perspective, however, policies that deviate too far from a nation's historical trajectory are unlikely to survive for long.

American labour law is broken. As many as 60 percent of American workers would like to have a union, yet only 12 percent actually do. This is largely due to systematic employer interference, often in violation of existing laws. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), currently before Congress, contains provisions to rectify this problem. Canada's experience with similar provisions can be helpful in evaluating the arguments surrounding this act. It suggests that the reforms proposed in EFCA can be expected to safeguard rather than deny employees' free choices. They will not alter the balance of power in collective bargaining, but only help to ensure that workers can exercise their basic right to meaningful representation at work and, potentially, to win gains that could help to reduce inequality and return America to prosperity.