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What are the trends shaping the future of work? How can unions respond in ways that will invigorate the labor movement for the 21st century? A paper addresses these questions by first presenting a critique of the future-of-work literature, followed by a detailed analysis of the best available Canadian evidence of the major forces already exerting pressures for change on workplaces. The shape of tomorrow's workplace is visible today. Unions will continue to play a vital role in Canadian society by adapting their organizing and collective bargaining strategies to the often contradictory economic, labor market, organizational, human resource management, and demographic trends evident today.

The article reviews the book, "Just Another Car Factory: Lean Production and its Discontents. Rinehart," by James Rinehart, Christopher Huxley, and David Robertson.

This article reviews the book, "White Collar Workers in Transition: The Boom Years 1940-1970," by Mark McColloch.

This paper critically re-examines the clerical proletarianization thesis from the perspective of the feminization of the early-twentieth-century Canadian office. The paper argues that the segmentation of the office work force along gender lines explains many of the changes in wages and working conditions erroneously interpreted by the proletarianization thesis as signs of the clerks' declining class position. More specifically, the expansion and rationalization of the office during the "administrative revolution," roughly from 1900 to 1930, depressed clerical earnings through the recruitment of cheap female labour into new routine jobs. Male clerks, while not significantly better off economically than skilled manual workers, moved up into the expanding ranks of management. Even within the female clerical sector there is little evidence of sweeping work degradation, given considerable variation in work and market conditions across industries, within and among firms, and among clerical tasks.

This article reviews the books, "Industrial Democracy in Western Europe: A North American Perspective," by John Crispo, and "The Canadian Industrial Relations System," by John Crispo.

This paper investigates the origins and development of unions in the Canadian banking industry since 1976. The historically low level of unionization in banking, coupled with its largely female workforce, makes bank unionization a significant development on the Canadian industrial relations scene.

This article reviews the book, "From Home to Office: U.S. Women at Work, 1870-1930," by Elyce J. Rotella.

This article reviews the book, "Women for Hire: A Study of the Female Office Worker," by Fiona McNally.

This paper attempts to go beyond individual-level explanations of attitudes towards unions by exploring the impact of-community. It is argued that factors operating at the aggregate level of the community help shape local industrial relations. A review of industrial relations literature documents that community constitutes a latent but nonetheless important variable.

A study examines the relationship between stressful working conditions, social support at work, employee distress, and union members' (dis)satisfaction with their union. It might be assumed that under stressful working conditions, unionized workers would turn to their union to seek better working conditions and would have a positive orientation toward their union. However, it is also possible that stressful working conditions and distressed, alienated employees will become dissatisfied not only with their job but also with their union. The data for the study come from a survey of unionized postal workers employed by Canada Post Corporation in Edmonton in 1983.

Work, Industry and Canadian Society brings to light the social ramifications of work. With a focus on the Canadian workplace, the author team examines how individual, societal, national, and global issues shape this central human activity. In this seventh edition, the text draws upon the growing literature on work and employment, organizations, and management approaches to incorporate recent empirical findings, review new and ongoing theoretical and policy debates, and provide a more international perspective. The authors use their years of experience in research and teaching to compose this comprehensive volume on the past, present and future of work in Canada. --Publisher's description

Work, Industry, and Canadian Society provides a sociological introduction to the history, nature, organization, and management of work in Canada. The eighth edition expands and adds new coverage on the biggest work challenges faced now and in the future, such as Canada’s aging and increasingly diverse workforce, the work experiences of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, the rise of the app-based “gig” economy, and how technology will continue to impact future jobs and work organization. The new edition continues to incorporate recent empirical findings, review new and ongoing theoretical and policy debates, and provide a more international perspective. As the world of work continues to change rapidly, all trends and statistics have been updated. These authors are well regarded for their teaching and research, and their years of experience are evident in this comprehensive volume on the past, present, and future of work in Canada. --Publisher's description. Contents: Historical perspectives on work -- Contemporary debates and issues -- Canadian employment trends -- Good jobs, bad jobs, no jobs -- Labour markets: opportunities and inequality -- Gender and paid employment -- Household, family, and caring work -- Organizing and managing work -- In search of new managerial paradigms -- Conflict and control in workplace -- Unions and industrial relations -- Alternative approaches to organizing work -- Work values and work orientations -- Job satisfaction, alienation, and work-related stress.

Every day millions of Canadians go out to work. They labour in factories, offices, restaurants, and retail stores, on ships, and deep in mines. And every day millions of other Canadians, mostly women, begin work in their homes, performing the many tasks that ensure the well-being of their families and ultimately, the reproduction of the paid labour force. Yet, for all its undoubted importance, there has been remarkably little systematic research into the past and present dynamics of the world of work in Canada. The essays in this volume enhance our understanding of Canadians on the job. Focusing on specific industries and kinds of work, from logging and longshoring to restaurant work and the needle trades, the contributors consider such issues as job skill, mass production, and the transformation of resource industries. They raise questions about how particular jobs are structured and changed over time, the role of workers' resistance and trade unions in shaping the lives of workers, and the impact of technology. Together these essays clarify a fundamental characteristic shared by all labour processes: they are shaped and conditioned by the social, economic, and political struggles of labour and capital both inside and outside the workplace. They argue that technological change, as well as all the transformations in the workplace, must become a social process that we all control. --Publisher's description. Contents: On the job in Canada / Craig Heron and Robert Storey (pages 3-46) -- Dimensions of paternalism: Discipline and culture in Canadian railway operations in the 1850s / Paul Craven and Tom Traves (pages 47-74) -- Work control, the labour process, and nineteen-century Canadian printers / Gregory S. Kealey (pages 75-101) -- Contested terrain: workers' control in the Cape Breton coal mines in the 1920s / David Frank (pages 102-123) -- Keeping house in God's country: Canadian women at work in the home  / Veronica Strong-Boag (pages 124-151) -- Skill and gender in the Canadian clothing industry, 1890-1940 / Mercedes Steedman (pages 152-176) -- Mechanization, feminization, and managerial control in the early twentieth-century Canadian office / Graham S. Lowe (pages 177-209) -- Work and struggle in the Canadian steel industry, 1900-1950 / Craig Heron and Robert Storey (pages 210-244) -- Logging pulpwood in Northern Ontario / Ian Radforth (pages 245-280) -- On the waterfront: longshoring in Canada / John Bellamy Foster (pages 281-308) -- Life in a fast-food factory / Ester Reiter (pages 309-326) -- Autoworkers on the firing line / Don Wells (pages 327-352).