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This article examines the revitalization of a union federation's capacity to represent young workers. It presents a qualitative study of the role and impact of one of the most developed forms of youth involvement in a union, youth committees. It first analyzes the extent to which these committees helped put the concerns of members under the age of 30 on the union federation's agenda and fostered their participation in its internal life. Second, it examines the ways in which these committees initiated a degree of change in the federation at the institutional level. Overall, our findings indicate that youth committees were able to question existing practices and initiate a degree of union change. However, the disagreements expressed by the young workers tended to remain confined within these parallel structures, thus limiting their potential to change the representative capacity of the federation.

The article reviews the book, "Brève histoire du régime seigneurial," by Benoît Grenier.

Work in the same-day courier sector is a precarious form of employment. Workers in this sector are also treated as self-employed and hired as independent contractors. The relationship with the firm for which they work, however, is hardly distinguishable from an employment relationship. Messengers are among a growing number of workers in Canada who can be labeled as disguised employees. To explore the phenomenon of disguised employment, I use a case study approach informed by critical political economic theory and a purposive approach to labour and employment law to examine work in the same-day courier sector in Toronto with a focus on a subpopulation of workers in this sector: bike messengers. I examine the causes and consequences of self-employment in the same-day courier sector, analyze messengers' work and argue that their employment status entails misclassification. In an increasingly market-mediated society we are witnessing a proliferation of unprotected work relationships with disguised employment being one manifestation of this development. Fortunately, some unions are trying to organize workers in disguised employment relationships. In this dissertation, I also examine an attempt by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to organize workers in Toronto's same-day courier sector. I explore the processes and implications of organizing disguised employees and examine how organizing these workers relates to and can inform the project of union renewal in Canada. Gaining employee status, however, is no guarantee of successful organizing. The same-day courier sector is highly competitive and is dominated by small, decentralized employers. Organizing in such a sector is a formidable task. Under the collective bargaining regime, unions have to organize workers workplace by workplace. However, this is proving to be ineffective in highly competitive sectors dominated by small employers, and organizing efforts will likely only result in limited success. As I argue, unions can develop innovative strategies and tactics to organize workers. However, with the many structural obstacles unions face, these strategies and tactics can often fall short of their goals. To facilitate unionization in the same-day courier sector, the collective bargaining regime needs to be overhauled to mandate, or at least promote, multi-employer bargaining.

The article reviews the book, "Développement des identités, des compétences et des pratiques professionnelles," edited by Anne-Marie Vonthron, Sabine Pohl and Pascale Desrumaux.

Fernand Daoust est surtout connu pour avoir été un dirigeant central de la Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ) pendant vingt-quatre ans. Or, cela est le fruit d'un véritable parcours du combattant dans le mouvement ouvrier. Le syndicaliste est né en 1926 dans des conditions très modestes et élevé dans une famille monoparentale. Sa curiosité, sa soif de connaissance et sa détermination l'ont entraîné bien au-delà des activités auxquelles ses origines le destinaient. Dans cette première partie de sa biographie, qui couvre les années 1926-1964, nous l'accompagnons dans le Montréal de la grande dépression, nous assistons à ses premiers engagements nationalistes pendant la crise de la conscription, à sa découverte des idéologies progressistes et à son entrée dans le mouvement syndical, malgré les dures conditions imposées aux syndicalistes par le régime Duplessis. Nous le voyons découvrir la nécessité de l'action politique et pressentons le futur dirigeant syndical. Accédant aux études universitaires à force de courage et de persévérance, son horizon intellectuel s'élargit. C'est tout naturellement qu'il choisit le syndicalisme pour y développer et approfondir son engagement social et politique. En faisant sienne l'idéologie socialiste, qui inspire les courants les plus dynamiques du syndicalisme québécois, le jeune syndicaliste ne renie cependant pas ses racines. Son socialisme s'incarne dans une nation spécifique, celle du Québec. Il n'était pas d'accord avec une majorité de syndicalistes de gauche de l'époque, qui qualifiaient de rétrogrades les aspirations nationales québécoises. Au contact des idées de gauche, le nationalisme de droite, dans lequel il avait baigné à l'adolescence et auquel il n'avait jamais totalement adhéré, a fait place à un nationalisme progressiste, précurseur de celui qu'allait épouser une proportion grandissante de la population québécoise.

Cet article présente les travaux d’une communauté de chercheurs du Réseau de recherche en santé et en sécurité du travail du Québec (RRSSTQ), créée en 2006, laquelle s’intéresse aux questions d’âges et de rapports sociaux en milieux de travail, en lien avec les conditions de travail et la santé et la sécurité du travail. De disciplines diverses (ergonomie, sociologie, psychosociologie, communication, droit, éducation), cette communauté réalise des recherches à partir d’enquêtes et d’études de terrain s’appuyant sur une approche compréhensive des phénomènes. Cette problématique se situe dans un contexte social singulier marqué, entre autres, par la mondialisation des marchés, une introduction massive des nouvelles technologies, une transformation des formes d’emploi, ainsi qu’un vieillissement de la main-d’oeuvre dans les pays industrialisés. Ces transformations créent des conditions particulières de rétention et d’intégration de la main-d’oeuvre dans les milieux de travail. À partir des données de l’Enquête québécoise sur des conditions de travail, d’emploi et de santé et de sécurité du travail (EQCOTESST), réalisée en 2008, auprès d’un échantillon représentatif de 5 071 répondants, l’objectif de cette étude est de tracer un portrait des conditions de travail en fonction de l’âge des travailleurs au Québec. L’article propose l’interprétation de ce portrait à partir d’un cadre d’analyse s’appuyant sur une approche diachronique des dynamiques âge-travail-santé dans le but de mieux orienter les interventions en milieu de travail.

Extensively revised throughout and including a chapter of new material, Rebel Life chronicles the life of labour organizer, revolutionary, anarchist and labour spy Robert Gosden. Mark Leier's revisions incorporate new information about Gosden's career that has come to light since the first edition was published in 1999. Canada's west coast was rife with upheaval in the second and third decades of the twentieth century. At the centre of the turmoil is Robert Gosden, migrant labourer turned radical activistヨturned police spy. In 1913, he publicly recommends assassinating Premier Richard McBride to resolve theminers' strike. By 1919, he is urging Prime Minister Robert Borden to "disappear" key labour radicals to quelch rising discontent. What happened?Rebel Life plumbs the enigma that was Gosden, but it is much more: an introduction to BC labour history: a trove of rarely seen archival photograph, and sidebars rich with historical arcana; and, with its chapter describing the research that unearthed Gosden's story, Rebel Life is a rich resource for instructors, students, and trade unionists alike.

Temporary foreign workers have been employed – or simply used – throughout history. Their plights have gained some attention across the globe in recent decades. Canada as a major receiving country of these workers and the Philippines as a prolific sending country of workers are selected as case studies to examine whether measures taken internationally, nationally and locally are adequate to protect these workers, especially those in low-skilled occupations. Based on prior research on the workers’ well-being, the answer is no in at least five areas: recruitment, matching of qualifications, abuse, housing, and family separation. Suggestions are made to address these specific areas. In addition, it is argued that, in order to protect the workers, civil society should also be involved and expanded rights should be given to the workers.

The article reviews the book, "In Pursuit of Gold: Chinese American Miners and Merchants in the American West," by Sue Fawn Chung.

This paper explores changes in labour market outcomes between June 2005 and November 2010. It asks if the recovery in labour markets following the 2008 financial crisis favoured men or women. The analysis is based on a unique longitudinal database of individuals in the Toronto-Hamilton labour market. Men were the most likely to have paid employment in the post-financial crisis period, but only at the cost of a significant deterioration in its terms and conditions. The findings suggest that many middle-aged workers were not protected by job seniority or implicit lifetime employment relationships. The findings point to a further decline in the prevalence of the standard employment relationship and the male breadwinner model of employment.

As the title - Safety or Profit? - suggests, health and safety at work needs to be understood in the context of the wider political economy. This book brings together contributions informed by this view from internationally recognized scholars. It reviews the governance of health and safety at work, with special reference to Australia, Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Three main aspects are discussed. The restructuring of the labor market: this is considered with respect to precarious work and to gender issues and their implications for the health and safety of workers. The neoliberal agenda: this is examined with respect to the diminished power of organized labor, decriminalization, and new governance theory, including an examination of how well the health-and-safety-at-work regimes put in place in many industrial societies about forty years ago have fared and how distinctive the recent emphasis on self-regulation in several countries really is. The role of evidence: there is a dearth of evidence-based policy. The book examines how policy on health and safety at work is formulated at both company and state levels. Cases considered include the scant regard paid to evidence by an official inquiry into future strategy in Canada; the lack of evidence-based policy and the reluctance to observe the precautionary principle with respect to work-related cancer in the United Kingdom; and the failure to learn from past mistakes in the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. --Publisher's description

Through the use of a social exclusion framework and analysis of recent data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (2009), a national longitudinal database, this empirical research investigates the mechanisms through which social groups are made and socio-economic outcomes are determined in Canada today. Our objective is to explore and describe the social characteristics and personal attributes that intersect to direct divergent economic realities. To this end, we initially present a brief review of the social exclusion literature, as well as descriptive data on several aspects of age and immigration. This is followed by logistic regressions for five dimensions of economic exclusion, to examine who is made socially excluded in economic terms in Canada. Subsequently, to progress the analysis from a focus on the individual effects of specific social attributes, we calculate the combined odds of two dimensions of economic exclusion (low individual earnings and insecure employment) for eight prototypes of individuals, to highlight the intersecting effects of social dynamics related to age, gender, visible minority status and immigrant status, and to ultimately explore who gets ahead and who falls behind in the Canadian labour market. We conclude with a discussion of policy and research implications.

Climate change is having an increasingly significant impact on work in Canada, and the effect climate change has, and will continue to have, on work concerns many Canadians. However, this fact has not been seriously considered either in academic circles, in the labour movement nor especially by the Canadian government. Climate@Work addresses this deficit by systematically tackling the question of the impact of climate change on work and employment and by analyzing Canada’s conservative silence towards climate change and the Canadian government’s refusal to take it seriously.--Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction. Section 1: Contexts.Changing Patterns in the Literature of Climate Change and Canadian Work: The Research of Academics, Government and Social Actors / Elizabeth Perry -- Climate, Work and Labour: the International Context / Carla Lipsig-Mummé --International Trade Agreements and the Ontario Green Energy Act: Opportunities and Obstacles / Stephen McBride & John Shields. Section 2: Sectors. The Impact of Climate Change on Employment and Skills Requirements in the Construction Industry / John O’Grady -- Climate Change and Labour in the Energy Sector / Marjorie Griffin Cohen & John Calvert -- The Transportation Equipment Industry / John Holmes, with Austin Hracs -- The Forestry Industry / John Holmes -- Tourism, Climate Change and the Missing Worker: Uneven Impacts, Institutions and Response / Steven Tufts -- Climate Change and Work and Employment in the Canadian Postal and Courier Sector / Meg Gingrich, Sarah Ryan & Geoff Bickerton. Includes bibliographical references (pages 177-196).

[D]escribes the international state of play for bringing the world of work into the struggle to green advanced economies, including the EU, Australia, the US, profiling Canada's strategic paralysis. -- Editor's introduction

Defined benefit (DB) pension plans have historically been an import- ant element in Canada's "three pillar" retirement income system. However, recessions in the global and Canadian economies have increased pressures on the funding of DB plans, and highlighted concerns about their sustainability - developments which have prompted governments in Canada to introduce a num- ber of reforms to pension benefit legislation. The authors, counsel to employers and plan sponsors, provide an overview of the existing legislation and the reform process, with particular emphasis on changes to Ontario's regulatory framework for DB plans as it relates to four key areas: plan solvency andfunding, surpluses, partial plan wind-ups, and asset transfers and plan mergers or splits. The paper notes that many if not all of these measures have been well-received by plan sponsors. However, in assessing whether the reforms will have the intended effect of stemming the decline in DB plan participation, the authors question whether the measures taken so far are not "too little, too late," and suggest that more far-reaching, and permanent, steps will be necessary. The paper also reviews and comments on the main features of the legislation recently enacted by the federal government providing for pooled registered pension plans.

This study uses both institutional and individual level data to examine the variation of part-time faculty employment in colleges and universities in the United States. Results support the arguments that higher educational institutions actively adopt contingent work arrangements to manage their resource dependence with constituencies, to save on labour costs, and to maximize academic prestige. Private institutions, on average, have higher levels of part-time faculty than their public counterparts. The proportion of part-time students and the share of institutional revenues derived from tuition and fees are positively associated with part-time faculty employment. Institutions that have limited resource slack and pay high salaries to their full-time faculty members tend to employ a high proportion of part-time faculty.

The article reviews and comments on the books "Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink," by Louis Hyman, "Packaging Pleasure: Holiday Camps in Twentieth-Century Britain," by Sandra Dawson, and "Consumption and Its Consequences," by Daniel Miller.

This book seeks to explain unionization to my generation; to my friends who distrust civil society organizations as much as they distrust government; to my unemployed friends who are living from contract to contract and who would kill for a stable, unionized job; for the workers who have never had the benefit of being represented when facing injustice at work; for the workers who would rather not think of what would happen if they were injured on the job. It’s a reminder to unionized folks that many of the truths that they take for granted are not obvious to others and that the labour movement must change how it reaches out to its members, its communities and to non-unionized workers if it hopes to grow. It’s a call to action for activists to share their stories, debunk the existing right-wing, anti-union rhetoric, re-engage in their communities, and build a movement that can defeat neoliberal policies and their political proponents. --From author's introduction. Contents: 1. What is a union? -- 2. Unions: debunking the lies -- 3. Unions: process and progress -- 4. Labour disputes -- 5. Unions, democracy and challenging government -- 6. Neoliberalism: dividing and conquering Canadians -- 7. Neoliberalism's attack on workers and citizens -- 8. The politics of budgeting, scandals and public sector spending -- 9. Profit hoarding, tax evasion and the crreation of useful crises -- 10. Civil unrest and attacks on citizen freedoms -- 11. Toward new ways of organizing.

Cet article a pour objectif de poser un regard rétrospectif sur les activités scientifiques et les réflexions menées par le regroupement stratégique en transfert de connaissances (RS-TC) afin de dégager des axes de développement sur ce thème en lien avec la santé et sécurité au travail (SST). Afin de dresser ce bilan, nous avons effectué une analyse documentaire à partir de deux sources principales : 1) les activités de type symposiums et tables rondes organisées successivement en 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010 et 2011 et les diverses présentations et publications qui en sont issues et 2) les revues de littérature effectuées sur le transfert des connaissances en SST. Nous présentons d’abord un bref portrait des activités de transfert en SST réalisées par le RS-TC du Réseau de recherche en santé et sécurité du travail (RRSSTQ). Par la suite, nous proposons diverses pistes de réflexion développées à partir des activités menées depuis la création de ce regroupement au sein du RRSSTQ. Par exemple, le piège de restreindre le sens du terme connaissance et de s’y astreindre, le choix d’un intitulé représentatif de la question du transfert au Réseau, la nécessité d’opérer une double articulation individu/organisation, l’importance et la complexité du rôle des relayeurs, la multiplicité des outils de relais, la problématique de l’implantation. Nous terminons sur une piste de réflexion encore inexplorée par la communauté de chercheurs en TC de ce regroupement – les décideurs, auxquels peu d’efforts ont été consacrés – et sur les suites à donner au travail réalisé à ce jour : développer un cadre d’analyse propre à rendre compte des savoirs et savoir-faire développés au Réseau.