Search

The technique of permitting unions to derogations from core employment standards has been increasingly advocated as a means of making labour law more flexible while still protecting workers since the union is considered to bring countervailing power in support of workers' preferences. The new British Columbia Employment Standards Act contains a broad union derogation provision. Industrial relations experts have commented that employment standards that permit the opting out of statutory employee protections in this way invites corrupt arrangements between employers and employer-dominated unions. Using the new BC statute as a case study, the assumption that requiring the union's consent to derogation from core standards ensures that the derogation reflects workers' preferences is tested using two sources of empirical data: collective agreements entered into by an employer friendly union (the Christian Labour Association of Canada); and collective agreements in which the union had neither the opportunity nor the strength to prevent derogation.

From a case-study based on an analysis model, which takes into account four levels of explanation (personal, interpersonal, group and organizational), and includes the study of the interactions between these different levels, this report puts forward six observations: (1) the importance of performing the analysis on several levels, (2) the existence within harassment situations of two types of process (victimizing and conflictual), (3) the fact that these processes can co-exist at different levels of analysis, (4) the existence of interactions between processes, (5) the variability of a situation across time, and (6) the necessity of distinguishing two categories of influence involved in contextual processes. From these conclusions, the authors develop a new analysis model, which is process-based, integrative and dynamic.

The article briefly reviews "Battling the Plantation Mentality: Memphis and the Black Freedom Struggle," by Laurie B. Green, "A Fair Day's Wage for a Fair Day's Work? Sweated Labour and the Origins of Minimum Wage Legislation in Britain," by Sheila Blackburn, "Between Growth and Security: Swedish Social Democracy From a Strong Society to a Third Way," by Jenny Anderson, "Development, Democracy, and Welfare States: Latin America, East Asia, and Eastern Europe," by Stephen Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman, "Voices from the Ships: Australia’s Seafarers and their Union," by Diane Kirkby, "Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa," by Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass, "Feeding the World: An Economic History of Agriculture, 1800–2000," by Giovanni Federico, and "Reforming Early Retirement in Europe, Japan and the USA," by Bernhard Ebbinghaus.

The article reviews the book, "Creating a Failed State: The U.S. and Canada in Afghanistan," by John W. Warnock.

Cet article examine les modalités d’entrée dans l’âge adulte de deux cohortes de jeunes québécois, nés entre 1942 et 1951 (génération lyrique) et entre 1962-71 (génération X). Examinant l’effet net de la précarisation du marché du travail à partir des données rétrospectives de l’Enquête sociale générale de 2001, il tente plus spécifiquement de savoir jusqu’à quel point les mutations économiques des années 1980-90 permettent d’expliquer le phénomène d’allongement de la jeunesse et de la désynchronisation des parcours de vie. L’analyse montre qu’en définitive, la précarisation de l’emploi semble assez peu liée à ces mutations des parcours de vie, celles-ci semblant davantage s’expliquer par des transformations de nature non-économique tels que l’allongement des études et le changement de valeurs.

Cet article examine les modalités d'entrée dans l'âge adulte de deux cohortes de jeunes québécois, nés entre 1942 et 1951 (génération lyrique) et entre 1962-71 (génération X). Examinant l'effet net de la précarisation du marché du travail à partir des données rétrospectives de l'Enquête sociale générale de 2001, il tente plus spécifiquement de savoir jusqu'à quel point les mutations économiques des années 1980-90 permettent d'expliquer le phénomène d'allongement de la jeunesse et de la désynchronisation des parcours de vie. L'analyse montre qu'en définitive, la précarisation de l'emploi semble assez peu liée à ces mutations des parcours de vie. Ces mutations s'expliqueraient en fait davantage par des transformations de nature non-économique telles que l'allongement des études et l'assouplissement de certaines contraintes normatives au sein de la société québécoise.

The changing nature of the membership demographics within unions, along with declining union density and myriad other challenges, have made it mandatory for unions to change their traditional ways of doing things. In particular, because the porportion of female and minority group members within unions has grown considerably since the 1970s, equitable membership representation has become an issue of significant concern. The object of this chapter is to develop a general conceptual model of how to advance equity within unions.

Provides a synopsis of the volume, the impetus for which began with the 2005 workshop “Advancing the Equity Agenda Inside Unions and at the Bargaining Table,” sponsored by the Centre for Research on Work and Society at York University.

Trade unions in Canada are losing their traditional support base, and membership numbers could sink to US levels unless unions recapture their power. Unions, Equity, and the Path to Renewal brings together a distinguished group of union activists and equity scholars who trace how traditional union cultures, practices, and structures have eroded solidarity and activism and created an equity deficit in Canadian unions. Informed by a feminist vision of unions as instruments of social justice, the contributors argue that equity within unions is not simply one possible path to union renewal – it is the only way to reposition organized labour as a central institution in workers’ lives. --Publisher's description

[E]xamines what types of issues unions should pursue in an effort to mobilize what is, at present, a largely a complacent or indifferent union membership. ...[The author] argues convincingly that the future survival of the labour movement lies with improving the lot of the most disadvantaged. --Editor's introduction

[The authors] link union revitalization to the presence of separate spaces where women can identity and articulate their needs, create feminist politics, and develop the will and ability to contest existing power structures within unions. They offer three examples of how union feminists in Canada, the United States, and Australia have created such spaces in unlikely places and by so doing have secured workplace rights and economic and social justice for women. --Editor's introduction

The article reviews the book, "A Hard Rain Fell: SDS and Why It Failed," by David Barner.

The article reviews the book, "Unruly Masses: The Other Side of Fin-de-Siècle Vienna," by Wolfgang Maderthaner and Lutz Musner,

[F]ocuses on the legal regime that regulates the entry and exit of low-skilled temporary foreign workers and these workers' rights and terms and conditions of employment while in Canada. ...We are also interested in beginning to explore the impact of this program in relation to the Canadian labor market. In order to understand the distinctive features and effects of the low-skilled temporary foreign workers program, we situate the low-skilled TFWP in the context of the emergence and development of Canada's general TFWP.

As a result of decreased funding from the state, universities rely more and more on user fees, that is, tuition, to cover operation costs. According to Tyler Shipley, this situation has led to a “factory model of education” in which the focus of administrators is to pump as many undergraduates through the system as possible. Classes that once held fifty students now hold 150, those that once held 150 now hold 500. To accommodate this mass influx of students, universities are left scrambling to find cost-efficient means to get these students through the system, which more than often means expanding graduate programs in order to build a workforce (that is, teaching assistants and sessionals) that can teach classes, mark papers, and mediate distance education courses at a fraction of the price it would cost to pay a tenured professor.

Employment Research and State Traditions: A Comparative History of Britain, Germany and the US, by Carola M. Frege, is reviewed.

Globalizing Care Economies and Migrant Workers: Explorations in Global Care Chains, by Nicola Yeates, is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "Lady Landlords of Prince Edward Island," by Rusty Bittermann and Margaret McCallum.