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the article reviews and comments on two books: Edith L. Burley's "Servants of the Honourable Company: Work, Discipline and Conflict in the Hudson's Bay Company, 1770-1879" and Richard Somerset Mackie's "Trading Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific, 1793-1843."

The article reviews the book, "Culture et gestion en Algérie," by Daniel Mercure, Baya Harricane, Smaïl Seghir et André Steenhaut.

The article reviews the book, "Femmes, Santé et Professions: Histoire des diététistes et des physiothérapeutes au Québec et en Ontario, 1930-1980: L'affirmation d'un statut professionnel," by Nadia Fahmy-Eid et al.

The article reviews the book, "Modern Manors: Welfare Capitalism Since the New Deal," by Sanford M. Jacoby.

To identify penalty standards in use for sexual harassment in unionized workforces, 54 arbitrations of grievances against penalties assigned for sexual harassment in Canada between 1985-1995 were examined. The standard penalty for sexual harassment involving sexual assault or language and touching is termination. The standard penalty for sexual harassment involving touching (without language) and language (without touching) is suspension. Standard penalties are varied under a number of conditions. Management can use these standards as guidelines for assigning penalties. Unions will find the standards useful for judging the fairness of the penalty assigned.

The article reviews the book, "Development and Social Change, A Global Perspective," by Philip McMichael.

Using data collected from a survey of union organizers, employer behavior during certification campaigns in Canada is examined. The extent and impact of opposition practices used by Quebec and Ontario employers during the late 1980s and early 1990s is investigated. It is found that prevalence of opposition tactics is not pronounced in either Quebec or Ontario. Nevertheless, these tactics are effective in reducing the level of union support in certification campaigns, if not the probability of certification. Most tactics examined appear to decrease the proportion of employees supporting the union, while captive audience speeches have a consistent negative and significant effect on certification probability.

In most African countries, structural adjustment programs constituted the context of industrial relations conflicts during the 1980s because they had a negative effect on social and working conditions. A study discusses African labor's responses to its deteriorating conditions, and to states' attempts to limit labor's demands. It concludes that structural adjustment programs were implemented in all African countries despite labor's resistance. The degree of implementation depended on governments' repressive capabilities, workers' traditions of striving for independent organizations, and on unions' perceptions of the issue and their responsibilities under prolonged economic crises.

The article reviews "Travail, espaces et professions," published in Cahiers du GEDISST, no. 19.

La mondialisation de l'économie pose une menace nouvelle sur le droit du travail. Cette menace se manifeste tant à l'endroit des mécanismes juridiques dont l'effectivité est conditionnée par les limites territoriales nationales qu'à l'égard de l'équilibre des pouvoirs qui est recherché entre les acteurs sociaux dans l'élaboration des règles juridiques. Analysant l'évolution des institutions canadiennes et québécoises de droit du travail et puisant dans l'expérience européenne et française, cet article démontre que le droit du travail n'est pas sans moyen pour réagir et s'adapter à un environnement plus mondialisé. Cette adaptation, tant sur le plan juridique, national, qu'international, est toutefois tributaire d'une volonté politique de la favoriser et de la capacité de l'acteur syndical de l'induire et de la soutenir. C'est là que la mondialisation de l'économie risque de produire ses effets les plus pervers.

The article reviews the book, "Safety First: Technology, Labor, and Business in the Building of American Work Safety, 1870-1939," by Mark Aldrich.

Discusses "The Westray Story" (Report of the Westray Mine Public Inquiry, Justice K. Peter Richard, Commissioner, 1997) that made scathing findings regarding the operation of the short-lived mine and the government's failure to regulate it properly.

The article reviews the book, "The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit: Walter Reuther and the Fate of American Labor," by Nelson Lichtenstein.

The article reviews the book, "Renewing Our Days: Montreal Jews in the Twentieth Century," edited by Ira Robinson and Mervin Butofsky.

The article review and comments on Elizabeth Varon's "We Mean to be Counted: White Women and Politics in Antebellum Virginia" (1998) and Lora Romero's "Home Fronts: Domesticity and its Critics in the Antebellum United States" (1997).

The article reviews the book, "Droits en synergie sur le travail : éléments de droits international et comparé du travail," by Jean-Michel Servais.

This dissertation examines the history and evolution of the employment relationship associated with the contemporary temporary help industry in Canada from the late nineteenth to the late twentieth century. Using gender as a central lens of analysis, it explores how, and to what extent, this employment relationship is becoming a nom for a more diverse group of workers in the Canadian labour market. In so doing, the dissertation develops the following argument: with the shift away from the standard employment relationship since the early 1970s and the coincident nse of the temporary employment relationship -- two developments indicative of the ferninization of employment -- workers situated at the expanding margins of the labour market are increasingly treated like commodities. A growing body of scholarship argues that the nature of employment is changing, citing the spread of non-standard forms of employment and women's rising and/or consistently high labour force participation rates as evidence of this claim. This dissertation confirms that important changes are indeed taking place in the labour market but it argues that the tenor and direction of these changes oniy corne into Full view when they are examined in light of continuity as well as change. To this end, it probes the shape of dualism in the Canadian labour market historically, paying particularly attention to its gendered and racialized character, through a case study of the temporary employment relationship. The dissertation begins by providing a conceptual map for understanding and interpreting contemporary employment trends that engages in three broader theoretical inquiries: the investigation of labour power's peculiar commodity statu under capitalism; the exploration of the rise and decline of the standard employment relationship as a normative mode1 of employment; and the examination of the gendered character of prevailing employment trends. Following this overview, the body of the dissertation traces the history of the temporary employment relationship in Canada, examining how its three core actors -- the temporary heip agency, the customer and the worker -- have adapted to shifting employment trends and gendered employment noms and negotiated developments at the regdatory level over the course of the twentieth century. In probing the evolution of the temporary employment relationship, it devotes special emphasis to examining the role and fùnction of early precursors to the modem temporary help agency (e-g., private employment agents such as general labour agents and so-called padrones), its immediate forerunners (Le., the 'classic' temporary help agency of the 1950s) and its most recent manifestation (Le., the employment and staffing service). AIthough the dissertation focuses on the Canadian context, it also traces developments at the international and supra-national level throughout the twentieth century, developrnents that have often mirrored, frequently affected, and occasionally even prefigured trends in Canada. Interdisciplinary in its focus, the dissertation approaches the evolution of the temporary employment relationship from a range of angles, building on scholarship fiom the fields of Law, History, Political Econorny, Sociology and Industriai Relations. The research methodoIogies used include: archivaVhistorica1 research; field observation; interviews with temporary help workers, agency managers and customers as well as government officials, representatives from organized labour and industry leaders; and analysis of industry, government and legal documentation at the municipal, provincial, national and supra-national levels.

Regulatory responses to the spread of non-standard forms of employment in North America and Europe are examined, particularly those measures directed at the temporary employment relationship associated with the temporary help services industry. Through an analysis of international labor conventions, country-specific regulations and supranational initiatives, it is demonstrated that countries party to the NAFTA and the European Community both endorse strategies aimed at numerical flexibility yet they take divergent regulatory approaches in response to the growth of temporary employment. While North American countries opt for non-regulation, the European Community is attempting to establish basic protections for workers engaged in temporary employment.

The article reviews the book, "Telecommunications: Restructuring Work and Employment Relations Worldwide," edited by Harry C. Katz.