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The authors use the 1999 North American Academic Study Survey to examine attitudes of American and Canadian faculty and administrators towards faculty unions and collective bargaining. Comparative and statistical analyses of the survey data show the effect of cultural, institutional, political, positional, socio-economic, and academic factors on support for collective bargaining and faculty unionism in American and Canadian universities. Analysis of the survey data shows that US-Canada differences generally outweigh positional differences among professors and administrators. Such factors as political ideology, experience with faculty bargaining, administrators' opposition, institutional quality, income, gender, and academic discipline, are found to be significant determinants of the attitudes towards faculty unions and collective bargaining.

The Great Recession has left in its wake an expected “age of austerity” where deficits accumulated to stave off economic collapse, are being addressed through steep cuts to government spending, with profound implications for social services and public sector employment. In an earlier era of austerity, eleven mass strikes and enormous demonstrations swept through the major cities of Ontario. This Days of Action movement – which has real relevance for the current period – began in the fall of 1995, continued through all of 1996 and 1997, and came to an end in 1998. This article, part of a larger research project, focuses on the movement’s origins. Two themes shape the overall project: the relation between social movements “outside” the workplace and union struggles themselves; and the relationship between the energetic inexperience of newly‐active union members, and the pessimistic institutional experience embodied in a quite developed layer of full‐time union officials. It is the former – the dialectic between social movements and trade unions in the Days of Action, that will be the focus of this article.

The article reviews the book, "Losing Control: Canada’s Social Conservatives in the Age of Rights," by Tom Warner.

The article reviews the book, "Zapatistas: Rebellion From the Grassroots," by Alex Khasnabish, part of the "Rebel" book series.

In Along the No. 20 Line, Rolf Knight takes the reader on a tour through working-class East Vancouver of a century ago. Knight's "through-line" is literally a line: the old No. 20 streetcar route that ran between downtown Vancouver and the present-day neighbourhood of the Pacific National Exhibition. From 1892 to 1949, when it was shut down and replaced by the No. 20 Granville / Victoria Drive bus, the No. 20 streetcar carried thousands of Vancouverites back and forth between their East Van homes and their jobs on the docks, and in the mills, factories, and workshops along the No. 20 line. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Respectable Citizens: Gender, Family, and Unemployment in Ontario's Great Depression," by Lara Campbell.

This article considers the significance of indigenous economic systems in contemporary society. It argues that indigenous economic systems have to be taken into account much more systematically than thus far in considerations of indigenous governance. The article contends that indigenous economic systems need to play a more central role in envisioning and shaping meaningful, comprehensive, and sustainable systems of contemporary indigenous self-governance. If indigenous economies are not taken into account, there is a serious danger of losing the very identities that constitute indigenous peoples. ...The article consists of three sections. The first section discusses definitions and contemporary significance of subsistence and indigenous economies. It questions the prevailing narrow, economistic analyses and interpretations of subsistence. Although economic development projects such as resource extraction may improve fiscal independence and strengthen the economic base of indigenous communities, they also present serious threats to indigenous economies.The second section examines the relationship between subsistence and wage labor, particularly from the perspective of women. It also considers the “war on subsistence” waged by the development and modernization theories, which continue to contribute to views of subsistence as “primitive” and “pre-modern.” The third section takes a closer look at the often glossed over roles of indigenous women in subsistence activities. It questions the conventional binary economic roles of man-the-hunter versus woman-the-gatherer and argues for a broader lens when assessing economic roles and divisions of labor along gendered lines. The article concludes with an examination of indigenous economic systems and the concept of the social economy as a foundation for contemporary indigenous governance. --From Introduction

Healing Together : The Labor-Management Partnership at Kaiser Permanente, by Thomas A. Kochan, Adrienne E. Eaton, Robert B. McKersie, and Paul S. Adler, is reviewed.

Cette étude examine le cas du Mouvement Desjardins dans le secteur financier au Québec. À partir d’un sondage téléphonique auprès de 576 employées syndiquées du Mouvement Desjardins, les principaux résultats de cette recherche quantitative font valoir une plus grande remise en question du syndicalisme par les professionnelles, les personnes développant de faibles sociabilités au travail et celles qui sont insatisfaites de leur salaire. En contrepartie, les conditions de travail défavorables et les actions syndicales proactives et démocratiques renforcent l’adhésion syndicale des femmes.Le cadre de la recherche sollicite quatre approches théoriques afin de dégager les principaux éléments du rapport d’emploi pouvant affecter l’adhésion syndicale. Tout en considérant les approches matérialiste et instrumentale, le principal apport théorique de cet article prescrit une jonction entre les nouvelles identités professionnelles des femmes, sources d’effritement du syndicalisme, et les actions syndicales, sources de renforcement du syndicalisme.En s’insérant dans les débats actuels sur l’avenir du syndicalisme, cet article se penche sur le rapport identitaire des femmes syndiquées à l’égard du syndicalisme. En abordant la crise du syndicalisme par la difficulté de représenter la main-d’oeuvre professionnelle dans le secteur des services, cette étude vise à saisir l’arrimage entre les nouvelles identités professionnelles des femmes et l’adhésion syndicale.

The article reviews the book, "Travail et citoyenneté : quel avenir ?," edited by Michel Coutu and Gregor Murray.

Cet article contribue au renouvellement de la réflexion sur la citoyenneté au travail en s’appuyant sur la théorie de la citoyenneté sociale de Linda Bosniak pour étudier deux groupes de travailleurs (concepteurs de jeux vidéo et artistes interprètes) incombant à une même figure emblématique du travail contemporain, soit le travail du savoir très qualifié, mobile et organisé sous la forme de projets. À l’heure où le travail du savoir prend de plus en plus d’importance dans les économies développées, il importe de prendre acte de ce qu’il occupe une position très différente de la dépendance économique du citoyen industriel dont la compétence est substituable. À la différence de la division industrielle entre la conception et l’exécution, le travail y mobilise la personne entière du travailleur plutôt que sa seule force de travail, dans un processus créatif d’innovation sur un marché très compétitif où l’apport créateur du travailleur est un atout déterminant. Les auteures y étudient l’état contemporain de la représentation des intérêts chez des travailleurs du savoir et de leur participation à la régulation de leur travail, à la fois localement et à l’échelle sociale, à l’aide de deux études de cas où des travailleurs très qualifiés transitent constamment entre des projets à courte durée déterminée plutôt que de jouir d’une relation d’emploi stable à long terme. Confrontés à des problèmes et à des enjeux collectifs, ces travailleurs déploient des moyens originaux de participer à la régulation de leur travail, hors du syndicalisme. La discussion met finalement en évidence l’émergence non seulement de nouveaux modes de représentation mais d’un nouveau citoyen au travail, à la recherche de droits et d’avantages différents du citoyen industriel de l’ère fordiste et ceci, dans un espace plus large que celui de l’entreprise.

The article reviews the book, "The Dirt: Industrial Disease and Conflict at St. Lawrence, Newfoundland," by Rick Rennie.

From the end of the Second World War to the early 1980s, the North American norm was that men had full-time jobs, earned a "family wage," and expected to stay with the same employer for life. In households with children, most women were unpaid caregivers. This situation began to change in the mid-1970s as two-earner households became commonplace, with women entering employment through temporary and part-time jobs. Since the 1980s, less permanent precarious employment has increasingly become the norm for all workers. Working Without Commitments offers a new understanding of the social and health impacts of this change in the modern workplace, where outsourcing, limited term contracts, and the elimination of pensions and health benefits have become the new standard. Using information from interviews and surveys with workers in less permanent employment, the authors show how precarious employment affects the health of workers, labour productivity, and the sustainability of the traditional family model. --Publisher's description. Contents: Working without commitments: employment relationships and health -- A short history of the employment relationship: control, effort, and support -- Working without commitments and the characteristics of the employment relationship -- Gender, race, and the characteristics of the employment relationship -- The employment strain model and the health effects of less permanent employment -- The blurred lines between precariousness and permanence -- Sustainable, less permanent employment -- "On a path" to employment security? -- Unsustainable, less permanent employment -- Creating commitments in less permanent employment: policy reforms to address rising insecurity.

The article reviews the book, "The Empire Within: Postcolonial Thought and Political Activism in Sixties Montreal," by Sean Mills.

The American trade union movement constitutes a social democratic bloc within U.S. politics. Often successful in expanding the welfare state, American unions have almost always failed to win legislation advancing their institutional strength and political legitimacy. This has been particularly true during the prosperous postwar era (1947-1979) when a depoliticalized form of collective bargaining stood at the centre of the U.S. system of industrial accommodation and conflict. But today that system is ineffectual, forcing the trade unions to return to a system of state-centred, corporatist bargaining reminiscent of that which sustained the unions during the era of the late New Deal and World War II. But this 21~ century system is a weak and tenuous version of corporatism, largely and dangerously confined to local government and those industries dependent on the state for revenue and regulation.

In the 1980s, following decades of booming business, the global steel industry went into a precipitous decline, which necessitated significant restructuring. Management demanded workers' increased participation in evermore temporary and insecure labour. Engaging the workers at the flagship Stelco plant in Hamilton, the authors document new management strategies and the responses of unionized workforces to them. These investigations provide valuable insights into the dramatic changes occurring within the Canadian steel industry. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Managing the Canadian Mosaic in Wartime: Shaping Citizenship Policy, 1939-1945," by Ivana Caccia.

The article reviews the book, "A Woman of Valour: The Biography of Marie-Louise Bouchard Labelle," by Claire Trépanier, with translation by Louise Matha.

The article reviews the book, "The Technological Imperative in Canada: An Intellectual History," by R. Douglas Francis.