Search

Homage to Parent's work in defence of immigrant and minority women in Quebec in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Citizenship in work is a continuous process of sustaining and fighting for just social rights. The argument here is that currently a major impediment to this democratic process at work is the practical and ideological imposition of economic liberal policy, conceived for and by dominant class interests. This article discusses the idea of citizenship, its antithesis economic liberalism and its synthesis Keynesianism and the welfare state. Then it asks what these and other ideas bring to the debate about citizenship and work in a global society?

The article reviews the book, "New Jersey Dreaming: Capital, Culture, and the Class of '58. Ortner, Sherry B.

Dave Kashtan, who was born in 1912, reminisces about his life and times in as a young Communist activist in Montreal in the late 1920s and 1930s, during which he visited the Soviet Union and was also jailed for a year for allegedly seditious remarks made at a public meeting in Montreal. Published posthumously, Kashtan's memoir (entitled "Living in One's Time") is introduced and edited by Kirk Niergarth.

In Global Game, Local Arena, geographer Glen Norcliffe explores how powerful forces of global economic integration have played out in Corner Brook and interprets the town's creation as a company town in the colonial era, its slow transformation into a public municipality, and the phase of vigorous restructuring launched in 1984 to raise the paper mill's performance in response to increased global competition. Restructuring introduced lean production, and in turn this impacted on workers' families, and on the larger community. Through extensive interviews with former and present mill workers and their families, and by examining written records — newspaper accounts, legislative acts, earlier published sources — the author sheds valuable light on how the process of globalization has played out in one small but typical local arena. Since 1984 Corner Brook has experienced large-scale out-migration of younger adults, and a rapid aging of the population. Community resistance to this process has been mostly subtle, taking the form of a reconnection to the population's local roots in outports and the woods. --Publisher's description

Globalization has been accompanied by a decline in unionization; however, while globalization presents extremely serious challenges to unions, globalization does not necessarily result in weakened unions. It is important for unions to identify and utilize ways to increase and leverage union power that are responsive to the pressures of globalization. Companies frequently introduce training during restructuring efforts aimed at remaining competitive in a global environment. This paper describes a joint union-management training program which offers an example of a pro-active union approach to joint training initiatives. The training took place in early 2004 in a typical paper mill in central Wisconsin. While the training was designed and undertaken in response to various competitive pressures, the content of the training was primarily determined by employee focus groups. The training design is examined against criteria for successful union involvement in joint ventures. The paper argues that, while joint ventures typically address management's production concerns at the expense of labor, a pro-active union can work to ensure that benefits also accrue to the union. Recent literature on union power in a globalized economy suggests that this training model could be used in other industries to enhance union knowledge and power.

The article discusses communism in Canada. The study of communism is stated to have generated less new work and little controversy. Issues concerning bureaucratism of Comintern, Stalinization and transformation of the Left in 1920s are explored by comparing the political histories of Maurice Spector and James P. Cannon. In late 1928, Spector and Cannon abandoned Stalinism and embraced Trotskyism. The efforts made by Spector and Cannon to keep alive the revolutionary potential of Bolshevism highlights the importance of the subjective realm in the construction of a left opposition.

Le travail atypique se caractérise par d’importantes disparités de traitements entre les personnes effectuant, au sein d’une même entreprise, des tâches semblables mais ayant des statuts d’emploi différents. Le présent article tente d’établir si le statut d’emploi peut être considéré comme un élément constitutif de la condition sociale au sens de l’article 10 de la Charte des droits et libertés de la personne. Pour ce faire, nous analyserons l’évolution jurisprudentielle de la notion de condition sociale en nous penchant tant sur l’interprétation des tribunaux de droit commun que sur celle du Tribunal des droits de la personne, nous identifierons les éléments objectifs et subjectifs du travail précaire et nous questionnerons l’interprétation de la notion de condition sociale proposée par la Commission des droits de la personne.

The article reviews the book, "Making Men, Making Class: The YMCA and Workingmen, 1877-1920," by Thomas Winter.

Pendant quinze ans, Jean-Claude Parrot a occupé le poste de président du Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses des postes, et pendant plus de dix-huit ans, il en a été le négociateur en chef. Au cours de toutes ces années, le leadership de Jean-Claude Parrot a fait de ce syndicat un des plus militants et des plus démocratiques au Canada. Quand Pierre Elliott Trudeau a décidé de transformer le service postal en société de la Couronne, c’est Parrot qui était à la barre. C’est lui également qui a supervisé la fusion des divers syndicats des postiers en un seul grand syndicat. Jean-Claude Parrot raconte ici son histoire, mais en même temps celle de la formation d’une grande union syndicale. Il raconte également comment la démocratie syndicale s’est construite – comment les membres de la base ont pu s’imposer dans tout le mécanisme de prise de décisions. Ce livre nous permet de suivre la carrière de l’un des plus grands dirigeants syndicaux du Canada, de le voir engagé dans son combat pour donner une voix aux travailleurs. Dans ce combat, Parrot a souvent placé son engagement syndical avant sa vie privée, et il a préféré faire de la prison plutôt que de sacrifier ses principes. À travers le récit de Jean-Claude Parrot, nous voyons la démocratie en marche, nous voyons le combat d’un homme pour défendre la cause des travailleurs et des syndicats. Traduit de l'anglais (Canada) par Claire Laberge --Description de l'éditeur

Jean-Claude Parrot was National President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers for fifteen years and its chief negotiator for eighteen. During that time he provided the leadership which built what became Canada’s most militant and democratic union. When Pierre Trudeau decided to make the post office a crown corporation Parrot was there to guide the transition. He was also there to oversee the merger of the various postal unions into “one union for all.” As well as Jean-Claude Parrot’s story, this is also the story of the formation of a union. It is a story of how union democracy was built–of how the grassroots union membership became an integral part of decision making in the union. In the pages of this book you will follow the life of one of Canada’s greatest union leaders as he fought to give the workers a voice. In the course of the struggle Parrot often put his union work and commitments before his own personal life and spent time in prison rather than sacrifice his principles and the cause of the workers in the union. Through Parrot’s recounting of these years we learn about how the struggle was waged, how democracy was built and how a union leadership worked tirelessly in the service of the union membership. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses: Debt, Prison, Workfare," by Vijay Prashad.

While there is a strong logic favouring co-operation, it faces a central problem: the "free rider" or "cheat." Collectives find ways of promoting norms of solidarity and seek regulation to prevent free riding. Around two-fifths of Australian employees covered by collective agreements are free-riding non-members. Evidence suggests that the recent growth of free riding reflects institutional changes and not the decline of co-operative values and the ascendancy of individualism. The Canadian solution to the cheating problem, which is the Rand formula, inspired Australian unions to introduce (excessive) "agency fees" into collective agreements. These were eventually stopped by the state. Alternative models include "social obligation fees" - provisions for employees covered by the agreement to make a contribution to a voluntary organization of their choice.

This paper examines the implementation of a model of systematic individualisation of the employment relationship by a large multinational corporation in Australia, operating with the support of a pro-corporate state, and the nature and effects of resistance. Principally through interviews with affected workers, we show how the symbolic and the real effects of employment practices, relational practices and informational practices were all aimed at removing freedom of association and replacing it with uncontested, union-free managerial control. We consider how workers and their families were affected by these strategies and how they and their union responded. // Cet article examine la mise en place d'un modèle systématique d'individualisation de la relation d'emploi par une grande multinationale australienne, cela avec le support d'un gouvernement partialement favorable au patronat. La nature et l'impact de la résistance des travailleurs syndiqués sont également mis à jour. Nous montrons, principalement à l'appui des témoignages des travailleurs en cause, comment les effets réels ou symboliques des pratiques d'emploi, ceux des pratiques relationnelles et informationnelles ont été utilisés de concert pour dénier la liberté d'association et la remplacer par un contrôle gestionnaire incontestable et exempt de présence syndicale. Nous relatons comment les travailleurs et leurs familles ont souffert de ces stratégies patronales et comment leur syndicat a rétorqué.

The article reviews the book, "La face cachée de l’organisation : groupes, cliques et clans," by Luc Brunet and André Savoie.

This thesis traces the transformations in state, class, and politics in British North America from 1760-1860, and how these facilitated the emergence of wider economic change. Building on recent studies in political economy, Marxist and economic history, as well as historical sociology, it employs a class power model of historical change to explain how and why colonial Canada's political economy developed. The argument also draws upon comparative political economy to highlight how different class structures and different forms of political institutionalization shaped political economic regimes and long-run forms of economic growth. The case study analysis of British North America within a wider comparative context demonstrates that class interests, institutions, and policy making were critical to state building and changes in state-society relations, above all to state 'autonomy' and class 'embeddedness'. Agrarians and commercial classes struggled over economic benefits and the reins of political power. But how these classes forged coalitions and how their conflicts were institutionalized within the state determined whether or not new productive dynamics emerged. By the mid-19th century, with greater autonomy, colonial governments across the North American colonies designed institutions, laws, and policies to improve taxation, build infrastructures, enhance the rule of law, and extend the contractual equalities necessary to commercialize the economy. With greater class embeddedness, broader class coalitions of agrarians and merchants actively reshaped agrarian property and agricultural labour to conform to the structures of a market economy, and enacted new market law to allow for the expansion of free labour markets, trade, commerce, and small manufacturing. Looked at comparatively, the thesis claims, 19th century colonial British North America emerged as a 'Liberal Settler' society, led by a diverse coalition of agrarians and merchants. Despite its many state and class particularities, this crystallization of settlers, merchants, and Imperial market-directed politics made colonial Canada a variant of Britain's own liberal political economy, and very similar to other growing settler countries such as the United States. Exploring the connections between state, class, and politics, the thesis concludes, can tell us much about why and how these distinct historical patterns emerged, and why 19th century political economies changed in ways that fostered the development of capitalism.

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, symbolically ending the Cold War, few imagined that the resulting shockwaves that toppled the Soviet Union would also reach a perpetually dark and quiet microfilm reading room on the third floor of Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa. But this is what occurred. The disintegration of the Communist order in Russia loosened rigid Soviet control of state archives and made available to Western researchers material which had been inaccessible for the length of the Cold War. This included tens of thousands of documents pertaining to the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War—foreign volunteers, including roughly 1,600 Canadians, who had been recruited and sent to Spain by the Communist International to fight a fascist rebellion lead by General Francisco Franco. ...In 1993 and 1994, George Bolotenko, an archivist at Library and Archives Canada, visited the Centre for the Preservation and Study of Records of Contemporary History in Moscow, also known as the Comintern Archives, to purchase microfilmed copies of some 10,000 pages of documents on Canadians in the International Brigades. Although the impact of this material on historical scholarship has thus far been light, it has the potential to irrevocably change scholarship on Canadians in the Spanish Civil War. --Author's introduction

Walking the Union Walk: Stories from CEP’s First Ten Years, by Jamie Swift, is reviewed.

While the relationships between intellectual research and political commitment, and indeed political engagement, have been identified amongst social, labour, and Marxist historians, such as the Communist Party of Great Britain’s Historians’ Group, there are few, if any, examinations of the rhetorical and communications process by which such public intellectual activity is made: i.e., the “how” of political interventions. This paper addresses this important area in examining the means by which [Eric] Hobsbawm was able to intervene effectively in public debates, having a direct impact on the Labour Party’s future trajectory. Hobsbawm exercised considerable influence in the highly public political infighting within the Labour Party [i.e., Old Left and New Labour], even though he was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and he was able to effect changes through his contributions to debates which affected both political parties simultaneously. --From author's introduction

The article reviews the book, "The Red Man's on the Warpath: The Image of the "Indian" and the Second World War," by R. Scott Sheffield.