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During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, racism, in the form of white supremacy, shaped relations between whites and Chinese British Columbians. In resisting and accommodating to white supremacy, the Chinese were active participants, along with the members of the dominant society, in shaping these relations. White supremacy was consequently a dynamic system, one whose many parts were continually in flux, and whose central constructs—notions of "race" and British Columbia as "a White Man's province"—were largely political in nature. The thesis argues that white supremacy, as both ideology and organization, was deeply imbedded in British Columbia society. Exclusion based on "race" was incorporated into government institutions as they were remade at Confederation in an effort to enhance the power of white male property-owners. By the early twentieth century, ideological constructs of "the Chinaman" and "the Oriental" were used as foils in the creation of identities as "whites" and as "Canadians." The official public school curriculum transmitted these notions, while schools themselves organized supremacy in practice by imposing racial segregation on many Chinese students. In reaction, the Chinese created their own institutions and ideologies. While these institutions often had continuities with the culture of South China, the place of origin of most B.C. Chinese, they were primarily adaptations to the conditions of British Columbia, including the realities of racism. Chinese language schools played an especially important role in helping to create a Chinese merchant public separate from the dominant society. This public was at once the consequence of exclusion and the greatest community resource in resisting white supremacy. The study concludes by questioning the workability of contemporary anti-racist strategies which treat racism as a marginal phenomenon, or as merely a set of mistaken ideas. Instead, it suggests that such strategies must recognize that racism is one of the major structures of Canadian society.

The article reviews the book< Are Activiation Policies Converging in Europe? The European Employment Strategy for Young People," edited by Amparo Serrano Pascual.

The article reviews the book, "Caring For/Caring About: Women, Home Care and Unpaid Caregiving," edited by Karen R. Grant et al.

The article reviews the book, "Eugene A. Forsey: An Intellectual Biography," by Frank Milligan.

The article reviews and comments on "Incoherent Empire" by Michael Mann, "Contours of Descent: US Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity" by Robert Pollin, and "Tyranny in America: Capitalism and National Decay" by Neal Wood.

This paper examines whether there has been improvement in benefits coverage for non-standard workers since the Wallace Report in 1983. This study uses Statistics Canada's Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) 1999 data. Results show significant differences in the receipt of benefits among non-standard workers, suggesting heterogeneity within this group of workers in terms of benefits coverage. Regular part-time and temporary full-time workers receive fewer benefits than regular full-time workers. Temporary part-time workers have significantly less likelihood of receiving benefits than the other three groups of workers. Overall, results show that since the Wallace Report findings, there has been little improvement in benefits coverage for non-standard workers, and they continue to be relatively disadvantaged in comparison to regular full-time workers.

The article reviews the book, "The Voice of Southern Labor: Radio, Music, and Textile Strikes, 1929-1934," by Vincent J. Roscigno and William F. Danaher.

Graduate student unions are beginning to attract attention in Canada and the United States. In Canada, unionization on campuses is especially important for organized labour, as union density has dropped below 30 percent for the first time in five decades. Graduate student unionization is also important in the wider context of precarious employment in North America. Despite the decline in overall union density, graduate student unions have continued to grow in the past decade. However, there is a paucity of scholarly research in this area. In this article, we trace the historical origins of graduate student unions in Canada, discuss relevant legal concerns, analyze pertinent collective bargaining and strike issues, and suggest avenues for future research.

[D]ocuments the application of pro-active pay equity legislation to the private sector of the Canadian province of Ontario in the early 1990s. We report substantial lapses in compliance among smaller firms where the majority of men and women work. We also find that the pay equity law had no effect on aggregate wages in female jobs or on the gender wage gap. This experience provides unique perspectives on (1) the tensions between the workings of a decentralized labour market and the principles of comparable worth and (2) the obstacles to its extension to the private sector.

Two conceptions of the right to bargain collectively have influenced its protection in international law. In international labor law, the right historically has been conceived of as one of several workers' rights that protect domestic rights of workers from international competition. In international human rights law, the right is conceived of as a human right that protects a universal feature of what it means to be a human being. This paper examines the status of the right in both fields in light of economic globalization and transnational flexible production. Instead of a weakening of the right at the international level, both fields reveal a trend toward its enhanced protection. Economic globalization and transnational flexible production are also changing the normative relationship between international human rights law and international labor law. They have sparked a third conception of labor rights as international rights - as instruments that possess the potential to vest the international legal order with a measure of normative legitimacy by attending to state and non-state action that international law otherwise authorizes in the name of economic globalization or flexible production. Armed with this new conception, international labor law is realigning its relationship to international human rights law around a shared task of mitigating the distributional consequences of globalization and transnational flexible production - a task in which the right to bargain collectively performs a critical function.

In both Canada and Australia, a modern rights movement dedicated to the preservation of individual rights irrespective of creed, class, beliefs, race or ethnicity emerged in the 1930s. One of the central themes in the early years of both movements was the treatment of communists and organised labour amid concerns over state abuse of freedoms of speech, association and due process. The Australian Council for Civil Liberties and the Canadian Civil Liberties Union were founded in the 1930s to counter increasing tendencies of the state to suppress political rights, most often directed against the radical left. However, divisions within the political left, most notably between social democrats and communists, as well as weaknesses in the legal system created significant obstacles to the civil liberties movement in both countries. The following article explores the key themes in the early Australian and Canadian civil liberties movement by comparing two separate national social movements operating within a similar legal, political and social context. Debates over the Communist Party Dissolution Bill (1950) and subsequent referendum (1951) in Australia and the espionage commission (1946) in Canada represented high profile post-war debates on civil liberties issues in both countries, arising out of attempts by the federal government to suppress communism.

The evolving "knowledge-based" economy is widely believed to affect the labour market outcomes of highly educated workers. However, there are conflicting arguments regarding the needs of the new economy, and there is little evidence available in the research literature to determine whether the labour market outcomes of various postsecondary graduates have changed among graduates of recent cohorts. Drawing on the 1982, 1986, 1990, and 1995 National Graduates Surveys, this paper builds on previous research by comparing the earnings and employment outcomes of graduates of various levels of postsecondary schooling (i.e. trades, college, and university) and fields of study over a 13-year period. The analyses suggest that the labour market experiences of postsecondary graduates of the various programs have remained relatively stable over the period investigated.

A voice on the left - that was the impulse for the Winnipeg Citizen. Then the real world intruded. --Introduction

English/French abstracts of articles published in v. 53, Spring 2004.

English/French abstracts of articles published in v. 54, Fall 2004.

The book, "International and comparative employment relations: Globalization and the Developed Market Economies," edited by Greg J. Bambier, Russell D. Lansbury, and Nick Wailes, is reviewed.

The book, "Labor Standards in the United States and Canada," by Richard N. Block and R. Oliver Clarke, is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "The New Dialectic and Marx's Capital," by Christopher J. Arthur.

This article analyses the differences in the post-war study of employment relations in the UK and France, examining both the orientations of the main literatures, and more recent developments in response to the changes of recent years. Through a comparison of the literature, the article seeks to analyse the implicit assumptions behind research in the field. The predominant means of investigating employment relations in both countries are seen to have been over-fixed on normative assumptions drawn from the specific circumstances of the post-war industrial relations climates of the two countries. This provides a partial explanation for the emergence of new normative frameworks, including that of Human Resource Management, particularly in the UK It is argued that in order for a move away from an explicitly managerial agenda to occur, researchers into industrial relations, particularly in English-speaking countries, must integrate their arguments within a greater awareness of wider societal change

In the turbulent 1960s Canadians debated foreign control of the Canadian economy and Canada’s relations with the United States. The Canadian section of the United Auto Workers (UAW) also struggled with these questions as it faced a number of government policies designed to bolster the auto industry and solve balance of payments difficulties, culminating in the 1965 Canada-United States Auto motive Products Trade Agreement (auto pact). The auto pact rationalized the Canadian Big Three (General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) production into their parent corporations and by 1970 the Canadian industry was fully integrated into a continental system of North American automobile manufacturing. The Canadian UAW played an ineffectual role in shaping this transformation, one which rekindled and exacerbated conflict within the membership and between militant locals and the union’s leadership. Nonetheless, by the end of the decade, the union had become a strong advocate of the new continental auto regime, a reflection of the increased employment and production resulting from the changes. The essay explains the issues the union faced in this period and some of the long-term consequences which the continentalization of the auto industry had on the union.