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Canada's federal State Immunity Act, 1985 grants to foreign states a pre- sumptive immunity from actions in the Canadian courts, subject to important exceptions. One such exception is set out in section 5 of that Act, which applies when the proceedings relate to "commercial activity." This paper argues that Canadian courts and tribunals in labour and employment cases have been incon- sistent in their interpretation of the scope of the exception for commercial activity, and thus in the extent to which they have been prepared to uphold foreign states' claims to immunity. Advocating for what is termed the "liberal" approach, as enunciated in the leading case of Re Canada Labour Code, the author discusses the case law to demonstrate the varying degrees to which this approach has been followed. His preference for the liberal approach, which focuses on the roles and responsibilities of the employee, is informed by a comparative analysis of American, European, and Australian legislation and jurisprudence. Ultimately, it is argued that state immunity in employment cases should generally be restricted to two situations: individual employee claims where the employee is a high-rank- ing diplomat, civil servant or military official with the foreign state; and col- lective employee claims brought against a foreign state employer in a highly sensitive location such as a military base, embassy or consulate.

Review of: Les collectivités locales au coeur de l’intégration des immigrants : questions identitaires et stratégies régionales edited by Michèle Vatz Laaroussi, Estelle Bernier and Lucille Guilbert.

The weather on Sept. 7, 1907 was hot and tempers were short. British Columbians had always been sensitive to Asian immigration and had become increasingly fearful over the summer. More Japanese immigrants were coming to B.C. and rumours smouldered of massive labour contracts for the projected Grand Trunk Pacific Railway.Like the citizens of Seattle and San Francisco, the residents of Vancouver had established a bipartisan Asiatic Exclusion League aimed at Japanese, Chinese, and South Asian immigrants in order to protect “White Canada.” The league had widespread support among trade union organizations and churches, and so a parade during the Labour Day weekend was scheduled. The result was a violent riot that drew the world’s attention to Vancouver, to Canadian immigration policy, and to Britain’s 1902 alliance with the Japanese. Historian Julie Gilmour traces the impact of these events on the life and work of future prime minister W.L. Mackenzie King, and on Canada’s relationships with Britain, the United States, China, Japan, and India. King’s involvement with the commissions set up to evaluate the damages incurred during the riots led to his interest in opium suppression and immigration control, and clarified his own sense of Canada’s role in the empire. Trouble on Main Street portrays a nation, and a time, at once relatively recent and shockingly unrecognizable. Over a century later, the links between local pressures, policy, and international events provide insight into current debates on terror, immigration, and Canadian security. -- Publisher's description

This paper examines the relationship between precarious employment, legal status, and racialization. We conceptualize legal status to include the intersections of immigration and citizenship. Using the PEPSO survey data we operationalize three categories of legal status: Canadian born, foreign-born citizens, and foreign-born non-citizens. First we examine whether the character of precarious work varies depending on legal status, and find that it does: Citizenship by birth or naturalization reduces employment precarity across most dimensions and indicators. Next, we ask how legal status intersects with racialization to shape precarious employment. We find that employment precarity is disproportionately high for racialized non-citizens. Becoming a citizen mitigates employment precarity. Time in Canada also reduces precarity, but not for non-citizens. Foreign birth and citizenship acquisition intersect with racialization unevenly: Canadian born racialized groups exhibit higher employment precarity than racialized foreign-born citizens. Our analysis underscores the importance of including legal status in intersectional analyses of social inequality.

This paper examines how employees experience flexible workplace practices (FWPs), such as flex-time, in the context of small firms. Data are taken from a Canadian study on small information technology (IT) firms that employed between four and 21 individuals. A multiple case study of 17 firms is conducted using web-surveys, semi-structured interviews, case study reports, field notes, and HR policy documents. Results show variable experiences based on whether firms were flexible for employees and whether the workplace culture supported the use of FWPs. The findings suggest that similar and different processes occur in the small firms compared to the large companies often studied in the literature.

This thesis looks at the politics of labor market policy in the postwar period in the advanced industrialized democracies. Specifically, the dissertation seeks to explain stark cross-national differences in unemployment benefit systems and employment protection legislation. The theory advanced in this thesis emphasizes significant differences in union organization across the rich democracies. This view, “Varieties of Unionism”, shows how the varying political capacities and policy preferences of labor movements explain most of the cross-national policy differences. In particular, the research points to union movements’ ideological traditions and varying rates of union density, union centralization, and involvement in unemployment benefit administration as crucial explanatory forces. Each feature of union movements captures an important part of why they might choose to advocate on behalf of the unemployed and to their differential ability to have those policy preferences realized, as well as indicating the kinds of preferences they will have for employment protection legislation. In the case of policies directed at the unemployed (or so-called labor market ‘Outsiders’), these insights lead to the construction of an index of “Outsider-oriented Unionism”, which correlates very closely to cross-national variations in unemployment benefit generosity as well as to active labor market policy spending. The thesis also introduces a new fourfold typology of unionism that helps to explain the different combinations of employment protection legislation and ‘Outsider policy’ generosity that exist among the rich democracies, or labor market policy ‘regimes’. The thesis makes this argument with multiple regression analysis of fifteen rich democracies and with detailed historical case studies of Britain, The Netherlands, and Sweden. In making this case, the thesis strongly challenges the explanations of labor market policy put forward by the Varieties of Capitalism literature and Insider-Outsider theory. In addition, the thesis reformulates the traditional Power Resource view by introducing a more rigorous theory of labor movements’ policy preferences and thereby qualifies recent statements that have emphasized partisanship almost alone. Most broadly, the theory challenges the “individualist turn” in recent comparative political economy scholarship and suggests that the field needs to return its gaze far more toward organized interests.

The article reviews the book, "Le Surprésentéisme. Travailler malgré la maladie," by Denis Monneuse.

The State of Working America, by Lawrence Mishel, Josh Bivens, Elise Gould and Heidi Shierholz, is reviewed.

Plutocrats: the Rise and Fall of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, by Chrystia Freeland, is reviewed.

This article reviews the book, "Dominion of Capital: The Politics of Big Business and the Crisis of the Canadian Bourgeoisie, 1914-1947," by Don Nerbas.

I undertake a Rawlsian political economy exercise—namely, one in which economic institutions are judged by how well they match principles in theories of distributive justice. I contend that such an exercise is integrally related to empirical economics because most theories of justice emphasize respect, which, in turn, depends on how wages and employment are actually assigned in an economy. I explore these ideas in relation to the minimum wage. This leads to a different emphasis on what minimum wage–related outcomes need study, and to a claim that minimum wage setting is related to standards of fairness.

The article reviews the book, "Along a River. The First French-Canadian Women," by Jan Noel.

Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World, by Philippe Van Parijs, is reviewed.

Editorial introduction to the articles in the issue. Includes bibliography.

Créer et partager la prospérité. Sortir l'eacute;conomie canadienne de l'impasse, by Diane Bellemare, is reviewed.

This article reviews the book, "From Sugar to Revolution: Women's Visions of Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic," by Myriam J.A. Chancy.

"[P]rovides a comparison and analysis of collective agreements, illustrating their importance in controlling the trajectory of librarians' work." -- Editors' introduction.

This article reviews the book, "Make it a Green Peace! The Rise of Countercultural Environmentalism," by Frank Zelko.

This article reviews the book, "Sunbelt Capitalism: Phoenix and the Transformation of American Politics," by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer.

Discusses Bettina Bradbury's later-career preoccupation with issues of gender, marriage, race, and property in the white-settler societies of the British empire during the 19th century. Also describes Bradbury's influence on the author, who was one of her Ph.D. students and collaborated with her on a publication.