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The article reviews the book "Working on Screen: Representations of the Working Class in Canadian Cinema," edited by Malek Khouri and Darrell Varga.

As an exploration of the childhood memories of working-class Ukrainians who grew up in Depression-era boarding houses (or houses with a few boarders) in Sudbury, Ontario, this paper treats the oral histories as the subject, not merely the method, of analysis and highlights, in particular, the gendered differences that emerge in the narratives of the men and women interviewed for this project. Moreover, this article argues that even within a politically polarized immigrant group such as the Ukrainians, where left/right, progressive/ nationalist, and secular/religious splits were so pronounced, and thus central to shaping the histories and historiographies of both camps, it was the influence of dominant gender roles rather than politics, religion, or ideology that most directly informed the differing memories of experience that men and women had of growing up Ukrainian and working class in Sudbury. In particular, this article focuses on informants' recollections regarding three areas of activity that were part of everyday boarding house life: children's relationships with male boarders, their domestic chores, and leisure activities.

Health sector reform of the 1990s affected most health care workers in Ontario and in other provinces. As a result of organizational changes, many workers experienced work intensification. This paper examines the associations between work intensification, stress and job satisfaction focusing on nurses in three teaching hospitals in Ontario. Data come from our 2002 survey of 949 nurses who worked in their employing hospital since the early 1990s when the health sector reform era began. Results show that nurses feel their work has intensified since the health sector reform of the 1990s, and work intensification contributed to increased stress and decreased job satisfaction. Results provide empirical support to the literature which suggests that work intensification has an adverse effect on workers’ health and well-being, and work attitudes.

Cet article propose une analyse des conduites d’investissement de travailleurs et travailleuses dans les différents domaines de leur existence. S’inspirant de l’approche du parcours de vie (life course), il s’appuie sur une enquête qualitative conduite au Québec auprès de 78 salariés âgés de 45 ans et plus, en situation d’emploi atypique depuis au moins trois ans. Les résultats mettent d’abord en évidence le large éventail des conduites observées. Ils montrent aussi la diversité des rapports à l’âge et à l’avenir professionnel des sujets. La prise en compte de ce regard subjectif porté par les travailleurs sur leur étape de vie et leur situation professionnelle s’avère éclairante pour interpréter la diversité des conduites d’investissement observées. Dans une perspective complémentaire, l’article examine dans quelle mesure ces différentes conduites sont statistiquement associées à quelques variables sociobiographiques et de situation professionnelle.

This article examines some of the strategies and success of the UNITE HERE! union in its ongoing Hotel Workers Rising: Lifting One Another Above the Poverty Line campaign in the United States and Canada. This unique campaign has generated national attention in both the United States and Canada about issues facing hotel workers, including how changes in corporate policies aimed at pleasing the consumer - such as the shift to 'heavenly' beds - has had deleterious consequences for Room Attendants in terms of back injuries from lifting heavier mattresses. How successful has the UNITE HERE! been so far in terms of securing new contracts? What about in terms of organizing urban, suburban, and rural hotel employees? What barriers do unions face when organizing hotel workers? What does comparing union density rates in the hotel sector across cities reveal? After beginning to address some of these questions, this article concludes by providing some policy recommendations.

An indigenous woman and former employee with the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) recently confided her frustration with the apathetic approach to collective organizing amongst her co-workers. When asking her colleagues why they did not want a union to represent them, a frequent reply was that it was “not our way.” In other words, organizing to protect workers’ rights is “un-indigenous.” That these views have taken root among employees is indicative of the seductive sway that fixed notions of tradition hold on indigenous people. Many of us fear being accused of what the Plains Cree refer to as moniyakaso; that is, “acting or behaving as a white person.” This article explores these themes in the context of the highly publicized establishment and eventual elimination of a labour union at the Northern Lights Casino in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. --Introduction

The strike started 15 May 1919 with the young women working at the telephone system leading the way. By the end of the second day, 35,000 Winnipeg workers, a majority of them unorganized, had left their jobs in an unprecedented demonstration of solidarity in support of fair treatment, dignity and justice for all working people.

This essay examines Aboriginal longshoremen, most of whom belonged to the Squamish First Nation, on Burrard Inlet, British Columbia, from 1863 to 1939. Beginning with a consideration of the Squamish adaptation to wage labour in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, this essay analyses the ways in which Aboriginal workers negotiated the daily demands of waterfront work. Their encounter with the work process, labour politics, welfare capitalism, and class conflict are studied in depth. Despite intense competition from non-Aboriginal workers for limited job opportunities, Aboriginal longshoremen worked on Burrard inlet for a long period of time; in addition to the daily demands of waterfront work, this essay also explores the strategies that Squamish dockers adopted to protect their positions on the waterfront. Often mentioned in the scholarly literature, but never studied in a systematic way, the 'Indian'waterfront provides a window into the importance of waged work to Aboriginal people on Burrard Inlet and the sophisticated ways that the Squamish responded to Canadian colonialism and capitalism.

English/French abstracts of articles in published in the Spring 2006 edition of the journal.

[The author] reports on his research into the failure of Canadian governments to protect and promote the collective bargaining rights of both unionized and non-unionized workers in this country. Far from honouring their solemn commitments to the UN’s International Labour Organization, our governments have blatantly and repeatedly violated them. Their many strike-breaking actions and arbitrarily imposed contract settlements have been condemned by the ILO, which has cited Canada as one of the world’s worst violators of basic labour rights. In exposing the appalling anti-labour record of our federal and provincial governments, Adams includes his exchange of correspondence with Canada’s labour ministries on their dismal labour-law policies. --Publisher's summary Contents: Why collective bargaining is a human right -- Industrial democracy achieved in Europe, thwarted in Canada -- Exclusive-agent certification, quagmire on the road to industrial democracy? -- Alternatives to exclusive-agent certification -- Why unions rely on certification -- How Canadian practice legitimizes employer opposition in collective bargaining -- Constitutional, non-statutory collective representation: the SASSEA and McMaster examples -- Recent developments and their implications for labour policy -- What our governments ought to be doing -- What our governments are actually doing --The union response -- The NUPGE/UFCW campaign. Includes bibliographical references (pages 147-152);

Janitors in Canada increasingly suffer from what I call here “sweatshop citizenship”, which is a combination of disintegrating workplace rights and eroding social citizenship rights. This condition has been institutionalized by neoliberal state policies which have undermined the welfare state and the assumptions of citizenship which it embodied. Through an exploration of how sweatshop citizenship is being instituted in Ontario and British Columbia, I consider the difficulties which contemporary industrial practices in the cleaning industry and anti-union legislation are presenting janitors, together with the possibility for their resisting such conditions.

The article reviews the book, "The Price of Poverty: Money, Work and Culture in the Mexican American Barrio," by Daniel Dohan.

[E]xamines the degree to which unionization, a key indicator of control over the labour process...limits precarious employment among workers. it also explores, how, and in what ways, union coverage mitigates precarious employment for workers in distinct social locations....Although unionization mitigates precariousness for some workers, [the authors] contend that inequalities based on race still prevail. --From editor's introductory chapter, p. 38.

The article reviews the book, "Mainstreaming Informal Employment and Gender in Poverty Reduction: A Handbook for Policy-Makers and Other Stakeholders," by Martha Alter Chen, Joann Vanek and Marilyn Carr.

The article reviews the book, "NHS plc: The Privatisation of Our Health Care," by Allyson Pollock, Collins Leys, David Price, David Rowland and Shamini Gnani.

[P]ortrays precarious employment in the increasingly privatized Canadian health-care industry. In the face of dramatic restructing in this industry, [the authors] reveal that a growing number of women health-care workers, especially those performing what is deemed to be "ancillary work," are subject to conditions of work that make not only ancillary health-care workers but patients too at greater risk of ill-health. --From editor's introductory chapter (p. 35).

Little is actually known about women's occupational health, let alone how men and women may experience similar jobs and health risks differently. Drawing on data from a larger study of social service workers, this article examines four areas where gender is pivotal to the new ways of organizing caring labour, including the expansion of unpaid work and the use of personal resources to subsidize agency resources; gender-neutral violence; gender-specific violence and the juggling of home and work responsibilities. Collective assumptions and expectations about how men and women should perform care work result in men's partial insulation from the more intense forms of exploitation, stress and violence. This article looks at health risks, not merely as compensable occupational health concerns, but as avoidable products of forms of work organization that draw on notions of the endlessly stretchable capacity of women to provide care work in any context, including a context of violence. Indeed, the logic of women's elastic caring appear crucial to the survival of some agencies and the gender order in these workplaces.

The article reviews the book, "Pension Power: Unions, Pension Funds, and Social Investment in Canada," by Isla Carmichael.

The article reviews the book, "Sustainability and the Civil Commons: Rural Communities in the Era of Globalization," by Jennifer Sumner.

Un modèle d’analyse a été construit pour rendre compte de l’influence du contexte de l’établissement sur l’issue d’interventions de prévention en santé et en sécurité du travail. Il a été constitué à partir d’une étude de cas en profondeur de sept interventions réalisées par des conseillers externes. L’étude examine l’influence du degré de développement des activités en prévention avant l’intervention, qui apparaît lui-même fortement lié aux caractéristiques structurelles des établissements. Une typologie des modes de régulation sociale de la santé et de la sécurité observés au sein des milieux de travail est présentée ; ces régulations jouent également un rôle dans la mise en oeuvre des mesures préventives. L’étude met en évidence l’apport des interventions externes à la prévention en santé et en sécurité du travail, et de leur collaboration soutenue avec les milieux de travail, au cours d’interventions successives.