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Against the background of the global demographic shift towards an aging workforce and its impacts on the labour market and the economy in industrialized societies, this dissertation pinpoints six salient challenges for future litigation and policy-making in the area of labour and employment discrimination law. These include the global tendency towards abolishing mandatory retirement and increasing the eligibility age for pension benefits; legislative age-based distinctions; cost as a justification for age discrimination; performance appraisals of senior workers; and the duty to accommodate senior workers. At the core of each challenge lies a normative question regarding our conception of senior workers’ right to age equality, its importance and relative weight compared with other rights and interests. The aim of this dissertation is therefore to critically review the current understanding of this right and its moral and economic underpinning. Most notably, the dissertation contends that the prevailing conception of equality assessment (the Complete Lives Approach to equality), according to which equality should be assessed based on a comparison of the total share of resources obtained by individuals over a lifetime, has substantial implications for age discrimination discourse. As it uncovers the numerous difficulties with the complete lives approach, the dissertation develops an alternative: the Dignified Lives Approach to equality, according to which an individual should be treated with equal concern and respect, at any particular time and regardless of any comparison. The dissertation then articulates five essential principles founded in Dworkin’s notion of equal concern and respect: the principle of individual assessment, the principle of equal influence, the principle of sufficiency, the principle of social inclusion, and the principle of autonomy. When one of these principles is not respected at any particular time, a wrong is done, and the right to equality is violated. Next, the dissertation elucidates when and why unequal treatment of senior workers based on age does not respect each of these five principles and therefore constitutes unjust age discrimination. It demonstrates that senior workers’ right to age equality is a fundamental human right. Finally, it examines the above-mentioned challenges through the lens of the new Dignified Lives approach.

The article reviews the book, "Gender and the Contours of Precarious Employment," edited by Leah F. Vosko, Martha MacDonald and Iain Campbell.

Globalization, Flexibilization and Working Conditions in Asia and the Pacific, edited by Sangheon Lee and Francois Eyraud, is reviewed.

No Small Change: Pension Funds and Corporate Engagement, by Tessa Hebb, is reviewed.

The Effects of Mass Immigration on Canadian Living Standards and Society, edited by Herbert Grubel, is reviewed.

Drawing on data collected as part of a larger study of the experience of restructuring in the nonprofit (voluntary) social services in Canada and Australia, this article explores the responses to four overlapping interview questions regarding what drew nonprofit social service workers to the sector, what were the positive and negative aspects of working in the sector, and, if given the power, what is the one thing they would change. Responses to these questions highlight the way social service workers wish they could work, factors that impede this work, decrease worker autonomy and increase management control over their labour process. These new findings will be compared to findings from an earlier study of restructuring in the public and nonprofit Canadian social services, highlighting the way that changes in the labour process suppress or facilitate the empowerment of workers, including their capacity to dream of a better future.

Drawing on comparative, qualitative data, this article explores unionization in the Canadian and Australian nonprofit social services. The article shows that the growth of unionization in this sector in Canada had little to do with deliberate strategies for union renewal. Instead, union growth and activism rose organically from the values orientation of the predominantly female workforce and the curtailment of workplace opportunities for social justice struggles. The Australian example reflects the conflux of legal contexts, political parties, managerial approaches, and the servicing model of unionism. The article concludes with a discussion of possibilities for those seeking to revitalize the union movement.

During the era of neoliberalism, the nonprofit services sector has simultaneously been a site of (a) promarket restructuring and collective and individual resistance and (b) alternative forms of service delivery. Drawing on data collected as part of an ethnographic study in the Canadian nonprofit social services sector, this article explores the impacts of some of restructuring on professional, quasi-professional, and managerial employees in eight unionized, nonprofit social services. The data show that the adoption of social unionism has permitted some nonprofit social service workers to initiate new processes through which to have a voice in far-reaching social issues, sometimes in coalition with management and/or clients. The findings of this study point to the irrepressibility of the participatory spirit and its capacity to seek new forms and practices despite the stretched and restructured conditions of today’s nonprofit social services sector.

Worker Representation and Workplace Health and Safety, by David Walters and Theo Nichols, is reviewed.

In 2002, approximately two-thirds of school teachers in the Canadian province of Alberta went on strike. Drawing on media, government and union documents, this case study reveals some contours of the political economy of labor relations in education that are normally hidden from view. Among these features are that the state can react to worker resistance by legally pressuring trade unions and justifying this action as in the public interest. This justification seeks to divide the working class and pit segments of it against each other. The state may also seek to limit discussion and settlements to monetary matters to avoid constraining its ability to manage the workplace or the educational system. This analysis provides a basis for developing a broader theory of the political economy of labor relations in education. It also provides trade unionists in education with information useful in formulating a strike strategy.

The Canadian province of Alberta does not effectively enforce its child labour laws. This non-enforcement interacts with the working-alone regulations in Alberta´s Occupational Health and Safety Act to deny workers under age 15 meaningful solo work protection. As a result, children and adolescents are exposed to the hazards adults face while working alone as well as hazards unique to children and adolescents working alone. This suggests that failing to enforce child labour laws has both obvious and subtle effects. The subtle effects are difficult to identify and remediate, in part because of the initial regulatory failure is politically difficult to acknowledge.

This study further develops our understanding of the employment experiences of children (ages 9-11) and adolescents (ages 12-14) in the Canadian province of Alberta, with particular attention to illegal employment and the effectiveness of complaint-based regulation. Survey data demonstrates there is a significant degree of illegal employment among children and adolescents. Interview data suggests that complaint-driven regulation of child labour is ineffective because parents, children and adolescents cannot identify violations and do not take action to trigger state enforcement.

Labour relations scholar Bob Barnetson sheds light on the faulty system of workplace injury compensation, highlighting the way some employers create dangerous work environments yet invest billions of dollars into compensation and treatment.

The article reviews the book, "An Independent Foreign Policy for Canada? Challenges and Choices for the Future," edited by Brian Bow and Patrick Lennox.

Aussi bien le Canada que le Québec ont connu durant les deux dernières décennies une croissance des flux migratoires afin de faire face notamment au vieillissement de la population active et à la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre. Depuis les accords Gagnon-Tremblay-McDougall, le Québec a adopté une politique d’immigration économique où la plupart des personnes sélectionnées ont un profil jeune, un niveau de qualification élevé et parlent le français ou l’anglais. Malgré la hausse du nombre d’immigrants, on observe une intégration professionnelle plus difficile pour les nouveaux arrivants. Plusieurs études et rapports gouvernementaux associent les difficultés d’intégration socioprofessionnelle principalement aux barrières linguistiques, à la non-reconnaissance des acquis et des compétences, aux pratiques discriminatoires et au manque de réseaux sociaux. Ces études évoquent souvent l’importance pour les nouveaux arrivants d’avoir une information pertinente les aidant à intégrer le plus rapidement possible le marché du travail en adéquation avec leurs attentes. L’objectif de cet article est alors d’asseoir une réflexion sur la nature, le rôle et l’impact des flux informationnels véhiculés par les différents réseaux sociaux sur l’intégration socioprofessionnelle des nouveaux arrivants. L’article tente de répondre à un certain nombre de questions : Quelles informations sont indispensables au succès de l’intégration socioprofessionnelle ? Quels sont les facteurs qui peuvent accentuer les lacunes informationnelles ? Comment les flux informationnels véhiculés par ces différents réseaux influencent-ils le processus d’intégration socioprofessionnelle des immigrants ? Pour tenter de répondre à ces questions, nous décrivons d’abord les principales difficultés rencontrées par les nouveaux arrivants au Québec. Ensuite, nous analysons les flux informationnels qui orientent le processus d’intégration sociale et professionnelle des immigrants et repensons le rôle que jouent les réseaux sociaux dans la diffusion des informations. En conclusion, nous suggérons des pistes de recherche en matière de politiques publiques d’immigration et d’intégration.

The article reviews the book, "Organisation pathogène du travail et maintien durable en emploi : une question antinomique ?," edited by Marie-France Maranda and Geneviève Fournier.

David Bennett is the retired National Director of Health, Safety and Environment of the Canadian Labour Congress and the Book Review Editor of the journal New Solutions. Northern Exposures is the result of thirty years of work in the labor movement on workplace health and safety and environmental protection. In the 1990s, the author had a central responsibility in moving the Canadian Labour Congress from its established work in health and safety into environmental protection, a story detailed in Northern Exposures. The book is a collection of published articles and reviews, linked by a new Introduction that shows the development of the thinking and actions of the Canadian labor movement in areas that were in constant flux. --Publisher's description. Contents: The right to know about chemical hazards in Canada,1982-2006 -- Labour and the environment at the Canadian Labour Congress: the story of the convergence -- Occupational health: a discipline out of focus -- Pesticide reduction: a case study from Canada -- The Canadian Labour Congress' pollution prevention strategy -- Prevention and transition -- Cancer battles and the sleep of reason policy and science need not be related: review -- Book about cancer: pragmatic purpose, profound analysis: reviews -- The secret history of the war on cancer: review -- Industrial materials: a guidebook for the future: review -- 'Natural capitalism's' bold theory: review -- Beware ISO -- ISO and the WTO: a report to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions' Working Party on Health, Safety, and Environment -- Health and safety management systems: liability or asset?

The last quarter of the nineteenth century is often referred to as the “Golden Age” of railroad building. More track was laid in this period in North America than in any other period. The building of railroads was considered synonymous with nation building and economic progress. Railway workers were the single largest occupational group in the period and among the first workers to be employed by large-scale, corporately owned and bureaucratically managed organizations. While there is a rich historiography regarding the institutional and everyday lives of railway workers and the corporations that employed them, the unit of analysis has been primarily bounded by the nation. These national narratives leave out the north-south connections created by railroads that cut across geo-political boundaries and thus dramatically increasing the flows of people, goods and services between nations on the North American continent. Does the story change if viewed from a continental rather than national perspective? Railroad Crossings tells the story of the people and places along the route of the Grand Trunk Railroad of Canada between Montreal, Quebec and Portland, Maine and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (and later of the Southern Pacific) between Benson, Arizona and Guaymas, Sonora. The study first takes a comparative view of the cross-border railroad development followed by a consideration of emerging patterns and practices that suggest a broader continental continuity. The evidence demonstrates that this broader continental continuity flows from the application of a certain “railroad logic” or the impact of the essence of railroad operations that for reasons of safety and efficiency required the broad standardization of operating procedures that in many ways rendered place irrelevant.

La croissance économique future a besoin d’un taux d’emploi plus important des travailleurs de plus de 55 ans. Par rapport à cette problématique grandissante, il est important d’identifier les solutions préconisées par les travailleurs âgés pour favoriser le maintien dans l’emploi. Ainsi, les travailleurs âgés de trois entreprises ont été interrogés à ce sujet. Ce travail avait pour objectif d’identifier les solutions privilégiées par les travailleurs, parmi celles proposées par la littérature et celles que les travailleurs proposent de manière spontanée. Nous avons également tenté de déterminer si les solutions sont différentes en fonction de la catégorie socio-professionnelle, du temps de travail et du type d’horaire. Finalement cette étude a permis de cibler les actions à mettre en place : actions concernant la discrimination, les conditions de travail, le temps de travail et le développement professionnel. Elle a permis surtout de constater que les actions relatives à la lutte contre la discrimination sont davantage demandées par les ouvriers, les travailleurs à temps partiel et à horaire variable. Dans ce sens, il semble pertinent de considérer les demandes des ouvriers différemment des demandes des cadres. Ces derniers cherchant davantage des possibilités de développement, tandis que les ouvriers cherchent plus une amélioration des conditions de travail.

The article reviews the book, "Teachers and Reform: Chicago Public Education, 1929-1970," by John F. Lyons.