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In an environment of global economic competition, corporations and the state have focused their strategies of competitive adjustment on labour flexibility and deregulation and reductions in social expenditures. In many countries, these policies led to the abandonment of full employment and increases in precarious or non-regulated employment. This article analyzes the main political and institutional elements of labour within Canada and Brazil, as well as recent changes in their employment regimes and labour market structures. Key research findings show us that greater labour market flexibility in both countries resulted in a reduction of labour rights that has contributed to the precariousness of work, increasing inequality in Canada, and higher levels of underemployment and poverty in Brazil.

The article reviews the book, "Prévenir et gérer les plaintes de harcèlement au travail," by Groupe d’aide et d’information sur le harcèlement sexuel au travail.,

The article reviews the book, "Trafficking Subjects: The Politics of Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America," by Mark Simpson.

How are national and international labour laws responding to the challenge of globalization as it re-shapes the workplaces of the world? This collection of essays by leading legal scholars and lawyers from Europe and the Americas was first published in 2006. It addresses the implications of globalization for the legal regulation of the workplace. It examines the role of international labour standards and the contribution of the International Labour Organization, and assesses the success of the European experiment with continental employment standards. It explores the prospects for hemispheric co-operation on labour standards in the Americas, and deals with the impact of international labour standards on the rights of women and migrant workers. As the nature and organization of work around the world is being decisively transformed, new regional and international institutions are emerging that may provide the platform for new labour standards, and for protecting existing ones. --Publisher's description

Case study based on multi-year ethnography of the efforts of a group of workers organizing with Toronto Organizing for Fair Employment (TOFFE), now the Workers' Action Centre of toronto, an active community partner in the Community University Research Alliance on Contingent Work. [The authors] attempt to conceptualize community unionism by locating the efforts of TOFFE in relation to two intersecting continua - a continuum of location that includes constitituency, site, and issue-based organizing, and a continuum of process, defined by hierarchical organizations at one pole, and particpatory organizations at the other pole. --From editor's introductory chapter, p. 39.

The article reviews the book, "Key Issues in Women's Work: Female Diversity and the Polarisation of Women's Employment," second edition, by Catherine Hakim.

The article reviews the book, "Varieties of Unionism, Strategies for Union revitalization in a Globalizing Economy," edited by Carola M. Frege and John Kelly.

The article reviews the book, "Hometown Horizons: Local Responses to Canada's Great War," by Robert Rutherdale.

[The author] is concerned with the way the mainstream labour movement has historically treated non-white workers in precarious employment and the role of history in shaping contemporary practices. Das Gupta's offers a qualitative analysis of the perceptions and experiences of labour activists of colour and of alternative advocacy strategies for building more inclusive resistance movements. --From editor's introductory chapter, p. 38.

The article reviews the book, "Black Workers' Struggle for Equality in Birmingham," by Horace Huntley and David Montgomery.

[C]onsiders the effects of contracting-out of public employment services for employment place workers, on the one hand, and, on the other, the workers seeking employment whom they serve. In so doing, [the author] reveals a range of important connections, from linkages at the policy level between changing immigration policy and the provision of employment supports at the provincial level, to connections, by way of a common attachment to precarious employment, between community workers, working largely in serial fixed-term temporary contracts contingent on public funding, and their clients. --From editor's introductory chapter, p. 37.

Editorial introduction to the issue.

The article reviews the book, "Fight or Pay: Soldiers' Families in the Great War," by Diamond Morton.

Discusses the historic strike in which three miners were killed. Describes the strike's origins, how workers organized, the bloody confrontation with the police, and the subsequent settlement.

This paper examines the recent arrival of neutrality agreements in Canada. These are agreements between unions and employers that define the conditions under which union organizing will take place at facilities controlled by the employer. The history of neutrality agreements in the U.S. is reviewed, as is the emergence of these agreements in Canada. Neutrality agreements are a model of private ordering that operate without direct guidance from the state, yet their form and application are influenced by state law. The author examines neutrality agreements from the perspective of decentred regulatory theory, in which regulation is used by the state to steer the private creation of norms that are consistent with state policy. Using Ontario's labour laws as an example, the author explores the role of law in the emergence, form, and likely contribution of neutrality agreements to Canadian industrial relations.

The article introduces eight documents on reporting of the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 by the Toronto Daily Star's William Plewman. Also included are transcripts of 1972 interviews with Plewman's brother, Charles, who was also in Winnipeg at the time, as well as with William Plewman's son, Richard. Broadly sympathetic to labour issues, the Star's coverage of the strike was considered the most comprehensive and impartial.

This thesis is focused on examining the extent of union-nonunion wage inequality in Canada from 1997 to 2004, using data from the Canada Labour Force Survey collected by Statistics Canada. The research is either directly or indirectly guided by two main measures of union-nonunion wage inequality. The first measure is the wage differential , which examines the difference between the union and nonunion wage after controlling for other relevant factors in a regression model; and the second measure is an account of wage dispersion or wage spread, which effectively explains how internally equitable the union-nonunion wage distribution is in relation to the average wage, after controlling for other relevant factors in a regression model. Each chapter tackles a different hypothesis or subject relating to Canadian union-nonunion wage inequality as investigated from the Canada Labour Force Survey Dataset, and is guided by an effort to explore issues or patterns not previously addressed in the extant literature. The initial analyses found that the union-nonunion wage differential across Canada was normally eleven to sixteen percent from 1997 to 2004. The research also examined three advanced topics in Canadian union-nonunion wage inequality. Analyses of the industry, occupational, and demographic trends in Canada over the past eight years showed that there is some evidence to suggest that demographic changes in union density does affect union-nonunion wage inequality, but this relationship is not conclusive. This research also addressed the unusual finding of higher hourly wages among parttime females. This difference was not present after conducting a more rigorous regression analysis within both sectors. However, it was found that the marginal male wage premium could largely be explained by the combined effects of establishment size among males in the union sector, as well as educational attainment among males in the union sector. Further investigation of some unexpected interaction effects of union status and establishment size and union status and job tenure in relation to the wage, revealed that these combined effects still generated comparative over the nonunion group, but only up to a certain level of tenure or establishment size. Finally, an analysis of whether union density has mattered at all in Canada for promoting higher wages, reveals that the general effects of union density on the wage are relevant only within a certain wage range and within certain industries.

Unions in the current environment are facing renewed pressures to demonstrate internal democracy and accountability. In this context, the Public Review Board (PRB) of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) deserves attention. The PRB is a unique institution within the Canadian labour movement: a body outside the union which has the power to make final and binding decisions on issues raised by union members. This paper considers the contribution of the PRB as a support for democratic renewal. The evolution ofthe PRB, from its origin in 1950s America to its current Canadian embodiment, is described. The decisions of the PRB over its two-decade history in Canada are analyzed and assessed. While recognizing the lasting influence of the narrow, procedural vision charted by the PRB early in its history, the author concludes that the CAW's PRB is an innovation that merits wider recognition.