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The Wagner Act Model has formed the basis of Canada's collective bargaining regime since World War II but has come under intense scrutiny in recent years because of legislative weakening of collective bargaining rights, constitutional litigation defending collective bargaining rights and declining union density. This article examines and assesses these developments, arguing that legislatively we have not witnessed a wholesale attack on Wagnerism, but rather a selective weakening of some of its elements. In the courts, it briefly appeared as if the judiciary might constitutionalize meaningful labour rights and impede the erosion of Wagnerism, but recent judicial case law suggests the prospects for this outcome are fading. While the political defence of Wagnerism may be necessary when the alternatives to it are likely worse, holding on to what we've got will not reverse the long-term decline in union density. The article concludes that at present there are no legal solutions to the labour movement's problems and that innovative efforts to represent workers' collective interests outside of formal collective bargaining provide a more promising alternative.

This article reviews the book, "Union Voices: Tactics and Tensions in UK Organizing," by Melanie Simms, Jane Holgate, and Edmund Heery.

The 2008 financial crisis continues to have profound implications for workers worldwide, as governments have embarked on “austerity” programs and employers have confronted organized labor with concessionary demands, placing unions on the defensive. At the same time, populist movements have arisen across North America and Europe as increasing numbers of people grow disenchanted with government action and corporate incompetence. We examine the interplay among what we characterize as “uneven austerity,” union strategic capacities, and rising populism. At the intersection of these processes, we see elements of “populist unionism” as the labor movement confronts both austerity and declining union power. The article develops this concept through an examination of organized labor’s engagement with the Occupy movement in Toronto, Ontario, and the growth of the Christian Labour Association of Canada.

This article examines trends in Canadian human rights history, with a focus on three major themes that have guided the scholarship: challenges to the characterization of Canada as a historically tolerant nation; a study of how, when, and through what mechanisms human rights became an important project for Canadians; and a critical assessment of the historical effectiveness of the human rights movement in promoting equality within Canadian society. In assessing where this vibrant and growing field of study could expand in the future, the article also contextualizes the Canadian historiography in the international literature on the development of the global human rights framework.

"Provides an overview of the complaint and grievance process and librarians' experiences of grievance." -- Editors' introduction.

The Portuguese Revolution , the process popularly known as the "Carnation Revolution” that lasted from 25 April 1974 to 25 November 1975, took place against a backdrop of military humiliation in defeat by peasant guerilla movements in the Portuguese colonies of Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique. However, an analysis of four distinct types of social conflicts - strikes; demonstrations; occupations of factories, other workplaces, and public services; and occupations of vacant houses - suggests that class struggle within Portugal was the essential dynamic of the Revolution. Revolution came to Portugal through an active workers’ movement against fascism within the context of a global economic crisis. Working people had decided it was time for democratic change.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Images du travail, travail des images" edited by Jean-Paul Géhin et Hélène Stevens, and "Le travail, entre droit et cinéma," edited by Magalie Flores-Lonjou.

This article reviews the book, "Eyes on Labor: News Photography and America's Working Class," by Carol Quirke.

The organization of contemporary labour markets has radically altered the nature of work and its embodied or bodily performance. Changes from standard, permanent jobs to non-standard or precarious work arrangements have increasingly become the normative template for many workers, including persons with disabilities. Drawing on findings from 13 qualitative interviews associated with ‘Project EDGE,’ Episodic Disabilities in the Global Economy, I describe how Canadian workers with “episodic” or fluctuating disabilities experience and negotiate barriers to work within precarious work environments in Toronto, Ontario. Implications that consider the episodic dimension of disability for workforce participation and employment policy are considered.

This article delves into the nexus between workers' conversions of troubled firms in Argentina into worker cooperatives (empreseas recuperadas por sus trabajadores, or ERTs), the processes of learning new cooperative skills and values through struggle, and the subsequent transformations of communities. To do so, the study deploys research findings from workplace ethnographies and in-depth interviews at four ERT case studies. The article shows how transformations of employees to self-managed workers; troubled firms into worker cooperatives; and the social, cultural, and economic revitalization of communities catalyzed by ERTs are rooted simultaneously in inter-cooperative and intra-cooperative informal learning dynamics. A theoretical framework combining class-struggle analysis and workplace and social action learning approaches helps clarify how this informal "learning in struggle" ultimately makes ERTs transformative learning organizations for workers, organizations, and communities.

Temporary migrant work is a central feature of labour markets in many host states, and an increasing cause of concern for its potential impacts on workers’ rights and protections. In Canada, as elsewhere, policymakers utilise it as a regulatory device to lower labour standards. In this context, workers labouring transnationally are turning to unions for assistance. Yet they are confronting obstacles to securing access to their labour rights through representation. This article analyses one example involving a group of temporary migrant agricultural workers engaged seasonally on a British Columbian (BC) farm under Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) seeking union representation. It considers the question, confronting courts and tribunals in host states across the OECD, of meaningful access to collective bargaining for temporary migrant workers. Focussing on how the BC Labour Relations Board determines an appropriate bargaining unit, the inquiry demonstrates that temporary migrant workers are ill-served by mechanisms aimed at promoting collective bargaining. Although the union involved in the case secured a certification, the outcome was tenuous unionisation. The resulting collective agreement contained provisions augmenting workers’ job security by facilitating their circular movement between the sending and host state. However, the structure of the SAWP, which reinforces workers’ deportability, together with the limits of the prevailing regime of collective bargaining in BC, modelled on the US Wagner Act, contributed to a certification that was weakly institutionalised and underscored labour law’s subsidiarity to legal frameworks governing work across borders.

[E]xplores the complex ways in which temporariness is being institutionalized as a condition of life for a growing number of people worldwide. The collection emphasizes contemporary developments, but also provides historical context on nation-state membership as the fundamental means for accessing rights in an era of expanding temporariness - in recognition of why pathways to permanence remain so compelling. Through empirical and theoretical analysis, contributors explore various dimensions of temporariness, especially as it relates to the legal status of migrants and refugees, to the spread of precarious employment, and to limitations on social rights. While the focus is on Canada, a number of chapters investigate and contrast developments in Canada with those in Europe as well as Australia and the United States. Together, these essays reveal changing and enduring temporariness at local, regional, national, transnational, and global levels, and in different domains, such as health care, language programs, and security. The question at the heart of this collection is whether temporariness can be liberated from current constraints. While not denying the desirability of permanence for migrants and labourers, "Liberating Temporariness?" presents alternative possibilities of security and liberation. --Publisher's description, Contents: Introduction: Liberating Temporariness? Imagining Alternatives to Permanence as a Pathway for Social Inclusion  / Robert Latham, Leah F. Vosko, Valerie Preston, and Melisa Bretón. Part 1: Security, Temporary Status, and Rights. Rethinking Canadian Citizenship: The Politics of Social Exclusion in the Age of Security and Suppression / Yasmeen Abu-Laban -- Permanent Patriots and Temporary Predators? Post-9/11 Institutionalization of the Arab/Orientalized “Other” in the United States and the Contributions of Arendt and Said / Abigail B. Bakan -- Indefinitely Pending: Security Certificates and Permanent Temporariness / Mike Larsen. Part 2: International Organizations and Transnational Dynamics of Temporary Work. Managed Migration and the Temporary Labour Fix / Christina Gabriel -- Institutionalizing Temporary Labour Migration in Europe: Creating an “In-between”’ Migration Status / Tesseltje de Lange and Sarah van Walsu -- The Permanence of Temporary Labour Mobility: Migrant Worker Programs across Australia, Canada, and New Zealand / Emily Gilbert. Part 3: Temporary Status, Social Welfare, and Marginalization. Brain Circulation or Precarious Labour? Conceptualizing Temporariness in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service / Parvati Raghuram -- Language Training and Labour Market Integration for Newcomers to Canada / Eve Haque -- Resituating Temporariness as the Precarity and Conditionality of Non-citizenship / Luin Goldring -- Constructing and “Liberating” Temporariness in the Canadian Non-profit Sector: Neoliberalism and Non-profit Service Providers / John Shields. Part 4: (Re)Framing Temporariness. Mexican Migrant Transnationalism and Imaginaries of Temporary/Permanent Belonging / Marianne H. Marchand -- Temporariness: Other than Permanence, and in the Lives of People - Always… / Deepa Rajkumar -- Temporal Orders, Re-collective Justice, and the Making of Untimely States / Robert Latham.

Employment standards (ES) are legislated standards that set minimum terms and conditions of employment in areas such as wages, working time, vacations and leaves, and termination and severance. In Canada, the majority of workers rely on ES for basic regulatory protection; however, a significant ‘enforcement gap’ exists. In the province of Ontario, this enforcement gap has been exacerbated in recent years due to the deregulation of ES through inadequate funding, workplace restructuring, legislative reforms that place greater emphasis on individualized complaints processes and voluntary compliance, and a formal separation of unions from ES enforcement. The implications of these developments are that, increasingly, those in precarious jobs, many of whom lack union representation, are left with insufficient regulatory protection from employer non-compliance, further heightening their insecurity. Taking the province of Ontario as our focus, in this article we critically examine alternative proposals for ES enforcement, placing our attention on those that enhance the involvement of unions in addressing ES violations. Through this analysis, we suggest that augmenting unions’ supportive roles in ES enforcement holds the potential to enhance unions’ regulatory function and offers a possible means to support the ongoing efforts of other workers’ organizations to improve employer compliance with ES.

The article reviews and comments extensively on the book, "Revolutionary Teamsters: The Minneapolis Teamsters Strikes of 1934," by Bryan D. Palmer.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Academic Motherhood in a Post-Second Wave Context: Challenges, Strategies, and Possibilities," edited by D. Lynn O’Brien Hallstein and Andrea O’Reilly; and "Academic Careers and the Gender Gap," by Maureen Baker.

Argues that Prime Minister Stephen Harper's exercise of political power falls outside of parliamentary and constitutional norms, such as the repeated use of omnibus bills, prerogation of Parliament, and closure of debates.

Accelerating flows of remittances are dwarfing global development aid. This study deepens our understanding of remittance impacts on the families of workers who come to Canada annually for several months under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Interviews with SAWP workers, their spouses, adult children and teachers in Mexico deepen our understanding of the impacts of these remittances. They demonstrate that the remittances are often literally a lifeline to transnational family survival, allowing them to pay for basic needs such as shelter, food, and medical care. Yet, at the same time, the remittances do not allow most of these workers and their families to escape deep poverty and significant precarity, including new forms of precarity generated by the SAWP. Instead, SAWP remittances help reduce poverty, at least temporarily, to more moderate levels while precarious poverty expands through global neoliberal underdevelopment.

"[U]ses autoethnography to convey the experience of librarians participating in faculty associations, providing a compelling narrative of the impact on the participants and the communities they represent." -- Editors' introduction.

Argues that there is an underlying narrative incoherence in the Conservative government of Stephen Harper's use of history for partisan ends. Examines the government's reaction to traditional liberal interpretations of Canadian history and national identity.

This article reviews the book, "Detroit's Cold War: The Origins of Postwar Conservatism," by Colleen Doody.