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Affectées par des changements nombreux, les équipes syndicales doivent elles-mêmes se transformer. Comment comprendre leurs cheminements divers dans ces péripéties ? Une comparaison entre des établissements canadiens et européens permet de fonder empiriquement et théoriquement une analyse de ces phénomènes. Les auteurs formulent le concept de « syndicalismes référentiels ». Il articule les principales dimensions à travers lesquelles se dessinent les transformations des acteurs : répertoires d’action, identités collectives, ressources, capacité représentative, capacité stratégique. En retenant les cas de deux établissements, canadien et français, l’article illustre la place respective et les interactions de ces dimensions. Leur hiérarchisation au sein de l’action collective permet de comprendre pourquoi des situations institutionnelles inégales peuvent donner lieu à des évolutions analogues. L’incertitude, les pertes de repère caractérisent une phase paradoxale où les acteurs collectifs ne peuvent échapper aux risques d’une redéfinition.

[C]onsists of an interview conducted by [the author] with Beverley Johnson, a long-time union activist, and her daughter, Marie Clarke Walker, currently an executive vice-president with the Canadian Labour Congress. It documents the historic and ongoing struggle for equity waged by people of colour, and the continuing acute problem of racism in Canada and within unions. --Editor's introduction

The election of William Kolisnyk as alderman for Winnipeg's Ward Three in the fall of 1926 was celebrated as one of the first times that any candidate in North America running under the banner of a Communist Party was elected to public office. Although he was only an alderman for four years, a study of Kolisnyk's political life contributes to the study of communist history in several ways. His term in office was split roughly in half by the introduction of Third Period ideology. As the Communist Party's sole elected representative. at the time, Kolisnyk's political activity demonstrates the practical implications of this dramatic policy shift. While the Third Period radically changed Kolisnyk's politics, several local issues significantly influenced his politics. Ethnicity, both within the Party and in Kolisnyk's constituency, profoundly affected his career. The paper also examines the political issues pursued by communists at the municipal level and the communist community that brought Kolisnyk to office. Therefore, this examination of William Kolisnyk's aldermanic career reveals the importance of international influences as well as the political realities of Winnipeg's communist community, both of which contributed to the political activities of one of Canada's first elected communists.

In Heintz v. Christian Horizons, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal upheld an employment discrimination claim against an evan- gelical Christian organization that operated community living homes for the developmentally disabled, providing services not ony to co-religion- ists but also to the general public. The Tribunal concluded that in light of its activity in the public arena, Christian Horizons did not qualify under Ontario's Human Rights Code as a "special employer" entitled to an exception from the prohibition against discrimination and that, in any event, conformity with afaith-based moral code imposed by the organi- zation on its employees was not a BFOR. The effect of this ruling, the author notes, is that Christian Horizons was precluded from hiring or firing employees for any positions whatsoever based on prohibited grounds (in this case, sexual orientation), nor could the organization impose a moral code on any employee if the code discriminated on such grounds. The author is strongly critical of the Tribunal's decision, argu- ing that it took an unduly narrow approach to the "special employer" exception - one that denies to religious organizations "equal space" with other service providers operating in the public square. He also con- tends that, by rejecting conformity with the organization's moral code as a BFOR, even for managerial or higher ministerial positions, the Tribunal simply acted on a value choice that the right not to be discrim- inated against should trump the right to religious freedom. In the author's view, that value choice is evident in the way the Tribunal delinked the nature of the employment from the employment itself, and adopted a purely "instrumental" (as opposed to "organic ") understand- ing of the complainant's job duties. The author goes on to argue that Professor of Law, University of Manitoba. This paper was prepared on the invi- tation of the Canadian Constitutional Foundation for its Conference on "Race, Religion, Equality and Freedom," held in Toronto in October 2009. My thanks to lain Benson, Craig Jones, and Andrew Lokan for comments, although it should be noted that they do not necessarily agree with what I say in this paper.

Providing his prognosis for the future of a right to strike, in light of the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in B.C. Health, the author argues that the Court will likely recognize constitutional protection for such a right. In his view, based on the scope offreedom of association set out in that decision, as well as the adoption of a "substantial interfer- ence" test, government measures will probably be held to violate s. 2(d) of the Charter if they totally remove the right to strike, or restrict it so severely as to deny access to a meaningful process of collective bargain- ing. However, turning to a consideration of the problems and concerns that would arise from Charter protection for a right to strike, the author suggests that recognition of a broad, open-ended right may open the door to challenges to the numerous restrictions on strike activity found in Canadian labour relations statutes, and embroil the courts in ongoing review of legislative choices on policy issues. Thus, he expects that the Supreme Court will recognize only a limited right to strike - one in which the legislature would be permitted to substitute strikes with some other fair impasse resolution mechanism (such as interest arbitration), in situations where there are policy reasons for withholding the right to strike or for bringing an end to a strike that threatens the public interest.

The article reviews the book, "Regulating Flexibility: The Political Economy of Employment Standards," by Mark P. Thomas.

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,