Your search

The article reviews and comments on "Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s and 60s: A Memoir," volumes 1 and 2, by Ernest Tate.

This study explores employers ’ anti-union strategies in the Niagara Peninsula from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s in order to enhance our understanding of the nature of relations between labour and capital during the period generally described as that of the postwar compromise. Relying on such unexplored archival collections as the papers of the St. Catharines firm, Ontario Editorial Bureau, as well as the collections of the Archives of Ontario and Library and Archives Canada, the study focuses on four main union-avoidance strategies: the establishment of company-dominated unions, anti-union public relations campaigns, corporate welfarism, and company relocation. By illustrating the depth and endurance of Niagara employers’ opposition to unions during the period of supposed compromise between employers, workers and the state the study demonstrates that there was greater continuity than we have supposed between management views of workers’ rights during the period of the postwar compromise and the neoliberalism that characterized subsequent decades.

Documents how discrimination against minorities during WWII was much more prevalent than the selective portrayal in the television series, "Bomb Girls."

This thesis examines workers' experiences of control and agency at the micro-political level of the dormitory/workplace in the context of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). I ask: 1) How are individual migrant workers responding to workplace and (im)migration policies and practices that aim to produce a flexible and compliant workforce; and 2) what forms of creative research strategies are best suited to documenting and examining the private, largely hidden lives of migrant farm workers? The thesis sheds light on the daily forms of resilience, opposition and survival among an entrenched, yet largely hidden workforce on the margins of Canada's labour market. I conducted my fieldwork in the town of Leamington, Ontario, a well-established hub of Canada's greenhouse industry, and as such a significant terminus for SAWP workers. In order to fully engage workers in the research process, I incorporated a qualitative, embodied, active and participatory approach to research grounded in life history, personal narrative, and drama-based methods. Through my interactions with workers I explore in detail how colonial attitudes operate alongside Canada's official policy of multiculturalism in the context of migration and employment among `low-skilled' guest workers. Throughout the thesis I examine workers' stories through the conceptual lenses of worker agency, workplace relations and worker emancipation. My research reveals that in tightly controlled and surveilled workplace environments workers learn to be intensely competitive and to distrust each other as a means of survival, resulting in a deep sense of isolation among workers, thus stifling potential opportunities for building group solidarity. However, I found that workers' participation in non-work related activities during leisure hours produced small breaches in the accepted norms of control, offering potentially rich opportunities for critical reflection and dialogue. I argue that an analysis of complex and even contradictory worker subjectivities that are developed and performed in everyday life among Canada's SAWP workers offers a more nuanced understanding of worker solidarities, collective social movements and the potential for labour education at the margins of Canada's labour market.

The article reviews the book, "What Unions No Longer Do," by Jake Rosenfeld.

The article reviews the book, "The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left," by Landon R.Y. Storrs.

Une grande administration publique a souhaité comprendre l’incidence de son pilotage par la performance sur les conditions de vie au travail, notamment grâce à l’utilisation d’indicateurs. D’après la littérature, il n’existe pas une forme de performance, mais différentes performances dont les critères d’évaluation sont sélectionnés en fonction de la stratégie adoptée par l’organisation. L’application du pilotage par la performance dépend du choix des outils de mesure. Entre direction et agents, les cadres de proximité traduisent les objectifs de performance en missions concrètes. La façon de piloter les services pour atteindre les objectifs a des impacts sur la qualité du service produit, sur la qualité de vie au travail et le ressenti des conditions de travail. Une étude qualitative à partir de 36 entretiens centrés sur l’activité a été menée auprès d’agents, de cadres de proximité dans différents types de service, et de cadres intermédiaires. Ces résultats ont ensuite été croisés aux débats dans des groupes de travail «Métiers» et «Management-local». Les personnes interrogées ne remettent pas en cause l’utilisation d’indicateurs pour mesurer l’activité. Une culture du chiffre oriente même l’activité en priorisant certaines tâches au détriment d’un travail gris non mesuré. Néanmoins, il n’existe pas de perception commune de la performance au sein de cette administration, ce qui implique différents usages d’indicateurs. La recherche de la performance par l’administration via un pilotage par indicateurs a entraîné des phénomènes d’intensification du travail et d’évolution des métiers. Des pratiques induites afin de s’adapter aux conditions de travail se sont développées, celles-ci sont à la source d’écarts entre performance mesurée par les indicateurs et performance réelle des services. Ces stratégies de contournement sont un facteur dégradant les conditions de vie au travail, avec notamment un sentiment de non qualité du service rendu à l’usager et une perte de sens du métier. Les cadres de proximité, responsables de service, concilient tous ces paramètres afin de faire en sorte que les équipes puissent effectuer leur travail dans les meilleures conditions possibles.

This dissertation explored the relationship between individual-level value differences and workplace attitudes. Using data from a sample of Canadian workers whose co-workers were currently using flexible work arrangements, the relationship between allocentrism and workers' job satisfaction and organizational commitment was explored. A workplace-allocentrism scale was developed and validated. The scale showed adequate validity and reliability and thus was used in the main study. The Co-Worker Model was developed and tested on a sample of adults in Canada who work in organizations where flexible work arrangements are used. Data were collected from an online research panel and then tested using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that allocentric value orientations were positively related to reported organizational commitment, mediated by job satisfaction. This study sheds light on the importance of understanding individual-level value differences when examining the effectiveness and/or ineffectiveness of organizational policies and practices.

During a time of significant demographic, geographic, and social transition, many women in early nineteenth-century Montreal turned to prostitution and brothel-keeping to feed, clothe, protect, and house themselves and their families. Beyond Brutal Passions is a close study of the women who were accused of marketing sex, their economic and social susceptibilities, and the strategies they employed to resist authority and assert their own agency. Referencing newspapers, parish registers, census returns, coroners' reports, city directories, documents of Catholic and Protestant institutions, police books, and court records, Mary Anne Poutanen reveals how these women confronted limited alternatives and how they fought against established authority in the pursuit of their livelihoods. She details these women's lives not only as prostitutes but also as wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters who reconstructed the bonds of kinship and solidarity. An insightful history of prostitution, Beyond Brutal Passions explores the complicated relationships between women accused of prostitution and the society in which they lived and worked. A social history exploring the intersections between those accused of prostitution, their neighbours, families, clients, and criminal justice. --Publisher's summary (WorldCat record)

This article reviews the book, "The Search for a Socialist El Dorado: Finnish Immigration to Soviet Karelia from the United States and Canada in the 1930s," by Alexey Golubev and Irina Takala.

Two linked Toronto strikes of street railway employees in 1886 are used to explore contrasting patterns of behaviour or “contentious performances” in Victorian city streets. Strikers led by the Knights of Labor exercised self-discipline when picketing so as to gain the support of the community and defeat the ironclad contract imposed by their anti-union employer. At a moment of working-class mobilization amid industrialization, these employees of a modern, mass-transportation firm deployed “emergent” union tactics. Positioning themselves as breadwinners and as citizens asserting their right to join a union, they deployed a choreographed masculinity encouraged by Knights leaders who strategized to win the disputes. By contrast, large crowds composed overwhelmingly of working-class men and boys demonstrated their disapproval of the street railway company and its anti-labour policy in unruly actions detailed in lively press accounts. The crowds’ transgressive actions point to a “residual” pattern of protest and spontaneous expressions of masculinity derived from boyhoods spent in the streets. Moreover, at times these crowds engaged in playful behaviour and brought into the streets more people drawn by the fun, thus adding momentum to the strikers’ campaign and helping to prompt the repressive measures taken by law enforcement.

The article reviews the book, "An American in London: Whistler and the Thames," by Margaret F. MacDonald and Patricia de Montfort.

There has been a long-time debate over whether issues conclusively decided at labour arbitration should be subject to a subsequent proceeding before a human rights tribunal. The author examines Supreme Court of Canada decisions dealing with re-litigation of issues before multiple decision-makers, and demonstrates how they are interpreted by the human rights tribunal. This paper identifies principles from cases before other decision-makers that can be applied to the problem of shared jurisdiction between labour arbitration and human rights.

This article reviews the book, "Cleaning Up: How Hospital Outsourcing is Hurting Workers and Endangering Patients," by Dan Zuberi.

The story of the Bell Canada union drive and the phone operator strike that brought sweeping reform to women’s workplace rights. In the 1970s, Bell Canada was Canada’s largest corporation. It employed thousands of people, including a large number of women who worked as operators and endured very poor pay and working conditions. Joan Roberts, a former operator, tells the story of how she and a group of dedicated labour organizers helped to initiate a campaign to unionize Bell Canada’s operators. From the point of view of the workers and the organizers, Roberts tells an important story in Canada’s labour history. The unionization of Bell Canada’s operators was a huge victory for Canada’s working women. The victory at Bell established new standards for women in other so-called “pink-collar” jobs. --Publisher's description

The crucible of North American neo-liberal transformation is heating up, but its outcome is far from clear. [This book] examines the clash between the corporate offensive and the forces of resistance from both a pan-continental and a class struggle perspective. This book also illustrates the ways in which the capitalist classes in Canada, Mexico and the United States used free trade agreements to consolidate their agendas and organize themselves continentally. The failure of traditional labour responses to stop the continental offensive being waged by big business has led workers and unions to explore new strategies of struggle and organization, pointing to the beginnings of a continental labour movement across North America. The battle for the future of North America has begun. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction: The Crucible of North American Transformation -- Part 1.The big business offensive: Continental integration and the class offensive from above -- The North American corporate offensive: The United States -- The North American corporate offensive: Canada -- The North American corporate offensive: Mexico -- The North American corporate offensive: NAFTA -- Part 2. The two binationalisms: Immigrants, workers and unions. Mexican immigration and the U.S. labour market -- Continental integration from below: The history of transnational labour markets and labour movements in North America. Part 3. Workers and unions: Responses and continental integration from below. Fighting back: Workers, unions, and continental solidarity -- Fighting back: The Mexican spark? -- Fighting back: The seeds of worker continentalism -- Epilogue: Rising from the ashes of NAFTA.

The article reviews the book, "Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in Distress," by Steve Early.

Substantially revised and updated for a new generation of labour studies students, this third edition of Building a Better World offers a comprehensive introductory overview of Canada's labour movement. The book includes an analysis of why workers form unions; assesses their organization and democratic potential; examines issues related to collective bargaining, grievances and strike activity; charts the historical development of labour unions; and describes the gains unions have achieved for their members and all working people. -- Publisher's description. Contents: What is a union? (pages 1-5) -- Understanding unions (pages 6-18) -- Early union struggles in Canada (pages 19-45) -- From Keynesianism to neoliberalism: Union breakthroughs and challenges (pages 46-70) -- Unions in the workplace (pages 71-91) -- Unions and political action (pages 92-111) -- How do unions work? (pages 112-137) -- What difference do unions make? (pages 128-143) -- Who belongs to unions? Who doesn't and why? (pages 144-163) -- The future of unions: Decline or renewal? (pages 164-189) -- References (pages 190-204) - Index (pages 206-216).

This paper examines the specific circumstances of contract employment within Sudbury Canada’s mining industry. We attribute this degradation to a shift from direct employment with a major mining company to a concomitant erosion of collective bargaining language and a precarious contract-based relationship. We contend that subcontracting the hiring of employees to a third party skirts provisions of both Federal and Provincial labour legislation which governs and limits the employer’s power (in the case of Ontario this includes the ‘closed shop’ provisions in the Rand Formula, discussed in detail below), and denies fair union representation to what would otherwise be an organized cadre of mining employees, duly employed by the primary employer of record. --From introduction

Notre article évalue la croissance des salaires réels des travailleurs au Canada du début du 20e siècle jusqu’à 2013, en considérant à la fois les salaires des travailleurs syndiqués et non syndiqués. Cette évolution est mise en relation avec la hausse de la productivité du travail afin de vérifier la théorie de l’économiste Robert Solow voulant que la croissance des salaires réels progresse au même rythme que la productivité du travail. Nous relevons l’évolution des salaires en trois temps selon les modes dominants de régulation des relations de travail : 1900-1939, 1940-1979 et 1980-2013. La première phase, celle du libéralisme, est marquée par la négociation individuelle des conditions de travail et l’amorce de la syndicalisation. La deuxième se situe dans la mouvance keynésienne et est caractérisée par le militantisme syndical et l’aide de l’État. La troisième, qui s’inscrit dans l’affirmation du néolibéralisme, voit le recul du syndicalisme et de l’appui apporté par les gouvernements. De notre analyse, il ressort que trois importants facteurs influencent la détermination des salaires : 1-la croissance économique ; 2-l’action de l’État ; et 3- le militantisme syndical. Notre recherche montre que les salaires réels moyens des travailleurs au Canada n’ont guère augmenté au-delà de l’inflation depuis les trois dernières décennies malgré un accroissement de la productivité du travail. Ce quasi-gel du pouvoir d’achat des travailleurs est notamment attribuable à des transformations du marché du travail, à l’érosion du rapport de force des salariés dans les entreprises et aux valeurs néolibérales qui s’imposent auprès des gouvernements. En revanche, les années antérieures se présentent sous un tout autre jour puisque les salariés profitent de la croissance économique et de la hausse de la productivité du travail. Depuis la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, leur pouvoir d’achat fait plus que doubler, en même temps qu’ils peuvent bénéficier d’une réduction de leurs heures de travail et de nombreux autres avantages sociaux. Cet avancement est le résultat de la forte croissance économique, de la hausse du taux de syndicalisation et de politiques gouvernementales keynésiennes axées sur la stimulation de la consommation. De 1901 à 1940, les salariés profitèrent également du développement industriel, même si les rapports qui déterminent l’embauche et les conditions de travail sont surtout de nature individuelle basés sur les lois du marché. Au cours de cette période, l’action de l’État demeure marginale, mais des syndicats réussissent à imposer la négociation collective.