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Describes Parent's contributions to the Canadian women's movement from 1970 to 2000, including the "equal pay for work of equal value" campaign and the defence of the rights of immigrant and Indigenous women.

Homage to Parent's work in defence of immigrant and minority women in Quebec in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Labour organizer John St. Amand describes his mentorship by Madeleine Parent and his work in Nova Scotia to build Canadian unions.

The systemic reproduction of migrant domestics as non-citizens within the countries where they work and reside renders them in a meaningful sense stateless, as far as access to state protection of their rights is concerned. This is despite the formal retention of legal citizenship status accorded by their home country, and, often, the legal entry as non-citizen migrant workers in the host country. In previous chapters, we have identified how the construction of non-citizenship is central to maintaining the vulnerability of foreign domestic workers in Canada. In this chapter, we consider the lived experiences of domestic workers themselves, based largely on a survey of foreign domestic workers living in Toronto. This chapter offers a comparative analysis of the experiences of two groups of women of colour, those of West Indian and Filipino origin, working in the homes of upper-middle- and upper-class Canadian families resident in Toronto, Ontario in the mid-1990s.

[Excerpt] In this chapter we seek to answer the following questions: Why has it been so difficult for unions to turn the organizing efforts and initiatives of the last six years into any significant gains in union density? Why have a small number of unions been able to make major gains through organizing? And most importantly, which organizing strategies will be most effective in reversing the tide of the labor movement's organizing decline? What our findings will show is that while the political, legal, and economic climate for organizing continues to deteriorate, and private sector employers continue to mount aggressive opposition to organizing efforts, some unions are winning. Our findings also show that the unions that are most successful at organizing run fundamentally different campaigns, in both quality and intensity, than those that are less successful, and that those differences hold true across a wide range of organizing environments, company characteristics, bargaining unit demographics, and employer campaign variables.

Master and servant has a paradoxical history in Canada. There was a great deal of penal legislation. ...Indeed, new legislation to punish workers for disobedience and desertion was enacted after 1875, the year of final repeal in Britain, and even after the Canadian Parliament's own Breaches of Contract Act two years later. But compared with Britain and the other white dominions, let alone other parts of the empire, enforcement was sporadic, convictions relatively few, and punishments rarely harsh. It is easy enough to construct an explanation for inconsiderable enforcement out of the structure of the economy and the characteristics of the labour force, but these at the same time cannot account for the variety and persistence of penal legislation. The answer seems to lie as much in the symbolic as the instrumental uses of employment law in this part of the empire. --Introduction

Draws on survey data collected in Canada, Britain and Japan in an attempt to assess the claim that lean production represents a positive change in the employment relationship in the automobile industry. Concludes that despite the rhetoric of consensual participation, the difficult working environment created by the regime relies on significant degrees of imposition to keep the assembly lines running, which negatively impacts on employees' working lives.

Detailed assessment of the mixed record of the Canadian labour movement over the past decade. Concludes that union renewal lies in the balance between union education and democracy, and engagement with workplace restructuring.

Discusses way and means to rejuvenate union democracy and education, with references to the Canadian labour movement.

Analyzes how, in the late 1980s, industrial unions such as the Canadian Auto Workers adapted successfully to the growth of the service sector and the changing composition of the workforce. Concludes that problems of internal union structure and identity, as well as jurisdictional disputes between unions, are still not resolved.

Describes the varying patterns of union governance and membership since 1945 in the five primarily English-speaking countries of Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the US. Discusses union efforts at renewal in the 1990s as a result of declining membership and waning political influence.

Analyzes Supreme Court of Canada's decisions of the 1980s and 1990s that collective bargaining is a not a fundamental right under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Describes the extensive surveillance of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) by the RCMP and CSIS in the later 20th century, and CUPW's efforts under the Access to Information Act and through the courts to obtain documentation of the spying. Also discusses the Canadian Labour Congress resolution of 1996 that called for the disbandment of CSIS.

Despite the great economic advantage of capitalism - that it is an efficient system of production and distribution - capitalist societies struggle with its by-products of poverty, exclusion, corruption, and environmental destruction. The essays in "Ethics and Capitalism" address the question of ensuring ethical and just societies within a capitalist system without sacrificing productivity. The introductory essay is a guide to the issues in the emerging field of ethics and capitalism, and refers to recent contributions from several disciplines. The collection as a whole evaluates the morality of capitalism by looking at its foundation in property theory, its relationship to democracy, the problems of corruption and globalization, as well as the impact of capitalism on non-European cultures and the environment. Contributors consider various ideological and cultural biases that affect our understanding of capitalism. It is the aim of the collection to defend the practical merits of capitalism while raising concerns about its ethical problems. In conclusion, the volume considers the possibility of a mitigated form of capitalism that would ensure economic efficiency and productivity while avoiding ethical pitfalls. --Publisher's description

Documents the RCMP's monitoring of the women's auxiliaries of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers in northeastern Ontario in the Cold War era.

The history of British Columbia is a history of class struggle. From the time of the fur trade to the present, working people and their battles to make a better world have transofrmed the politics, economics, laws, and workplaces of the province. This bibliography will make this history more accessible to trade unionists, students, and the general public. ...The bibliography was compiled by graduate students of Simon Fraser University's History Department: Dennis Pilon, Todd McCallum, Andy Parnaby, and David Sandquist. --Introduction

Until the 1960s, racism was a fairly blatant aspect of Canadian society. Racism played an obvious role in shaping individual attitudes, state policies and institutional arrangements in the economy, the political system and civil society. But to what extent does racism continue to inform and structure how our institutions operate today, what is the social meaning of race in contemporary Canadian society, and what is the most effective way to combat racism in all its forms? The chapters in this book seek answers to these important questions. They analyze, in different ways, the conditions that give rise to racism in various forms, the extent to which racism permeates the way certain social institutions operate, how groups of people have organized against racism, and the ways that racism is linked to class, gender and ethnicity. They also try to provide readers with some conceptual tools and empirical evidence as a basis for discussion and debate about the meaning of race, racism, racialization and social inequality in contemporary Canada. This book may disappoint those looking for simple answers and those who are looking for the final word on whether Canada is indeed a racist society. The contributors do not fully agree on the significance of race and racism in contemporary Canada. Some see race and racism as a fundamental organizing principle of our society and of certain institutional spheres; others see racism as more situational, subtle and muted in its forms and consequences; others point to the racialization of certain aspects of Canadian society but do not necessarily see this as being equivalent to racism; and still others argue that allegations of racism in certain institutional spheres tend to be overplayed at the expense of class and gender differences. --Publisher's description

The working conditions of workers who are paid to perform domestic chores by the families in whose homes they live and work have proved to be remarkably resistant to legal regulation. The nature of this resil-ience is both ideological and material. While the logic of formal legal equality has accommodated demands by live-in domestic workers for the gradual extension of protective labour legislation to their work, this extension has been partial and ineffective. --Introduction`

This case study of union women organizing for day care in Ontario analyses the emergence of a women's movement within labour. It provides a social history of women's organizing efforts in the Ontario labour movement, tracing political mobilization of support for universally accessible, publicly funded child care. In addition, day care sheds light on recent developments in two Canadian social movements: the labour movement and the women's movement. Developments in each of these areas have facilitated gains made by both. The active campaign of trade union women for women's equality in the unions has been integrally connected to the contemporary women's movement. While the growth of feminism established a foundation for the struggles of working-class women in unions around gender issues such as day care, a growing number of working women joined unions in the last decade to organize against the domination of the labour movement by men. --Introduction