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The Brave New World of European Labor: European Trade Unions at the Millennium, by Andrew Martin and George Ross, et al., is reviewed.

This article reviews the book, "Working-Class Experience: The Rise and Reconstitution of Canadian Labour, 1800-1980", by Bryan D. Palmer.

Examines the "coercive assault" (i.e., legislative overrides) on trade union rights in Canada by both federal and provincial governments from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Also discusses labour-related decisions of the Supreme Court, and strategies for union renewal. Includes tables of union membership, strikes and lockouts, back-to-work measures, use of designations, and complaints of violations of union rights filed with the International Labor Organization.

Part 1 is a revised version of From Consent to Coercion, and Part 2 represents a study of new developments since 1984, including the Supreme Court's crucial ruling that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not protect the right to strike. Contents: Preface to second edition -- 1. Introduction: From consent to coercion -- 2. The era of free collective bargaining -- 3. The turn to coercion: permanent exceptionalism -- 4. The right to strike: freedom of association and the Charter -- 5. The Mulroney record: consolidating the era of coercion -- 6. The consolidation of coercion in the provinces -- 7. The labour movement in the new era -- 8. The social contract: labour, the NDP and beyond -- Appendix I. Legislation and orders suspending the right to strike 1950-1993 -- Appendix II. Legislation amending trade union rights 1982-1993.

This paper argues that we are witnessing the end of the era of "free collective bargaining" which began with the federal government's war-time order-in-council PC 1003. The era being closed is one in which the state and capital relied, more than before World War II, on obtaining the consent of workers generally, and unions in particular, to participate as subordinate actors in Canada's capitalist democracy. The era ahead marks a return, albeit in quite different conditions, to the state and capital relying more openly on coercion to secure that subordination. This is not to suggest that coercion was absent from the previous era or that it is about to become the only, or even always the dominant, factor in labour relations. Rather it is argued that there has been a change in the form in which coercion and consent are relating to one another, a change significant enough to demand a new era. In conclusion, we speculate on the character of labour relations in the foreseeable future.

Critiques the British Labour Party's abandonment of its long-standing commitment to "parliamentary socialism" and the electoral platform of the incoming "New Labour" government of Tony Blair. Concludes that new forms of socialist organization are necessary since the path forward does not lie in transforming the Labour Party.

Examines back-to-work legislation and various other measures that federal/provincial governments have used on public sector unions since 1975, as well as related court decisons under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Concludes that greater solidarity is needed to counter the governmental resort to coercion.

From Consent to Coercion examines the increasing assault against trade union rights and freedoms in Canada by federal and provincial governments. Centring the struggles of Canadian unionized workers, this book explores the diminution of the welfare state and the impacts that this erosion has had on broader working-class rights and standards of living. The fourth edition witnesses the passing of an era of free collective bargaining in Canada--an era in which the state and capital relied on obtaining the consent of workers and unions to act as subordinates in Canada's capitalist democracy. It looks at how the last twenty years have marked a return to a more open reliance of the state and capital on coercion--on force and on fear--to secure that subordination. From Consent to Coercion considers this conjuncture in the Canadian political economy amid growing precarity, poverty, and polarization in an otherwise indeterminate period of austerity. This important edition calls attention to the urgent task of rebuilding and renewing socialist politics--of thinking ambitiously and meeting new challenges with unique solutions to the left of social democracy. -- Publisher's description

On November 26, 2018, General Motors announced a number of plant closures in North America, the largest of which was in Oshawa, Ontario. The Oshawa facility, once the largest auto complex on the continent, was to end all its assembly operations by the end of 2019. ...This pamphlet provides background material on Oshawa and joins Green Jobs Oshawa in encouraging workers elsewhere to prepare now for the threats to their jobs and productive capacity that will inevitably come. --From introduction. Contents: Introduction: Realizing ‘Just Transitions’: The Struggle for Plant Conversion at GM Oshawa -- Mission Statement of Green Jobs Oshawa -- Unifor Settlement with GM – Footprint or Toe Tag? / Tony Leah -- GM Oshawa: Lowered Expectations Unexplored Opportunities; The GM Strike and the Historical Convergence of Possibilities / Sam Gindin -- Bringing SNC-Lavalin to Mind During an Uninspiring Federal Election / Leo Panitch -- Take It Over: The Struggle for Green Production in Oshawa / Linda McQuaig -- Green Jobs Oshawa and a Just Transition / Rebecca Keetch -- Why GM’s Oshawa Assembly Line Shutdown is a Black Eye for Unifor’s Jerry Dias / Jennifer Wells -- Appendix: Feasibility Study for the Green Conversion of the GM Oshawa Facility: Possibilities for Sustainable Community Wealth: Summary Overview / Russ Christianson. Contents: Introduction: Realizing ‘Just Transitions’: The Struggle for Plant Conversion at GM Oshawa -- Mission Statement of Green Jobs Oshawa -- Unifor Settlement with GM – Footprint or Toe Tag? / Tony Leah -- GM Oshawa: Lowered Expectations Unexplored Opportunities; The GM Strike and the Historical Convergence of Possibilities / Sam Gindin -- Bringing SNC-Lavalin to Mind During an Uninspiring Federal Election / Leo Panitch -- Take It Over: The Struggle for Green Production in Oshawa / Linda McQuaig -- Green Jobs Oshawa and a Just Transition / Rebecca Keetch -- Why GM’s Oshawa Assembly Line Shutdown is a Black Eye for Unifor’s Jerry Dias / Jennifer Wells -- Appendix: Feasibility Study for the Green Conversion of the GM Oshawa Facility: Possibilities for Sustainable Community Wealth: Summary Overview / Russ Christianson.

The work of Bryan D. Palmer, one of North America’s leading historians, has influenced the fields of labour history, social history, discourse analysis, communist history, and Canadian history, as well as the theoretical frameworks surrounding them. Palmer’s work reveals a life dedicated to dissent and the difficult task of imagining alternatives by understanding the past in all of its contradictions, victories, and failures. Dissenting Traditions gathers Palmer’s contemporaries, students, and sometimes critics to examine and expand on the topics and themes that have defined Palmer’s career, from labour history to Marxism and communist politics. Paying attention to Palmer’s participation in key debates, contributors demonstrate that class analysis, labour history, building institutions, and engaging the public are vital for social change. In this moment of increasing precarity and growing class inequality, Palmer’s politically engaged scholarship offers a useful roadmap for scholars and activists alike and underlines the importance of working-class history. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction / Sean Carleton, Ted McCoy, and Julia Smith -- Part I. Labour. Bryan D. Palmer, Labour historian / Alvin Finkel -- Bryan D. Palmer, social historian / Ted McCoy -- Labour history’s present: An account of Labour/Le Travail under Bryan D. Palmer / Kirk Niergarth. Part 2. Experience, discourse, class. Bryan D. Palmer and E. P. Thompson / Nicholas Rogers -- On polemics and provocations: Bryan D. Palmer vs. liberal anti-Marxists / Chad Pearson -- Bryan Douglas Palmer, Edward Palmer Thompson, John le Carré (and me): Workers, spies, and spying, past and present / Gregory S. Kealey. Part 3. Politics. Palmer’s politics: Discovering the past and the future of class struggle / Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin -- The hippopotamus and the giraffe: Bolshevism, Stalinism, and American and British Communism in the 1920s / John McIlroy and Alan Campbell -- The June days of 2013 in Brazil and the persistence of top-down histories / Sean Purdy -- Old positions/new directions: Strategies for rebuilding Canadian working-class history / Sean Carleton and Julia Smith -- Afterword: Rude awakenings / Bryan D. Palmer -- Selected Works of Bryan D. Palmer -- List of contributors.