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Plant shutdowns in Canada and the United States from 1969 to 1984 led to an ongoing and ravaging industrial decline of the Great Lakes Region. This book offers a comparative regional analysis of the economic and cultural devastation caused by the shutdowns, and provides an insightful examination of how mill and factory workers on both sides of the border made sense of their own displacement. The history of deindustrialization rendered in cultural terms reveals the importance of community and national identifications in how North Americans responded to the problem. Based on the plant shutdown stories told by over 130 industrial workers, and drawing on extensive archival and published sources, and songs and poetry from the time period covered, Steve High explores the central issues in the history and contemporary politics of plant closings. In so doing, this study poses new questions about group identification and solidarity in the face of often dramatic industrial transformation. --Publisher's description

The town of Ladysmith was one of the most important coal-mining communities on Vancouver Island during the early twentieth century. The Ladysmith miners had a reputation for radicalism and militancy and engaged in bitter struggles for union recognition and economic justice, most notably the Great Strike of 1912-14. This strike, one of the longest and most violent labour disputes in Canadian history, marked a watershed in the history of the town and the coal industry. --Publisher's description

Reports on the various presentations made by academics and union activists at the day-long conference, including by Madelaine Parent.

This essay examines the changing character of public sector work in the Canadian federal public service context. It is based on an empirical examination of various forms of contractual relations currently operative within the Canadian state and on a comparative approach of other western liberal state reform initiatives. We argue that contract governance is an ongoing process involving distinct interrelations between the public and private sectors. In this context, we identify various forms of contract governance and flexibility schemes that have been enfolded and refolded into the conventional structures of governance, and unfolded into a liminal space between the state and civil society through the establishment of nonstandard work and the creation of alternative service delivery programmes. (English)

Born out of the industrial and political struggles of organized labour at the end of the First World War, the BC CCF was a product of organizational and ideological conflict in the 1910s and 1920s. This study explores the shift of BC socialism towards industrial action, which culminated in the One Big Union and the sympathetic strikes of 1919. It then examines the emergence of anti-Communism on the Left, shaped by the experience of political unity and disunity during the 1920s. These two factors fundamentally influenced the ideology and strategy adopted by the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in British Columbia. The ideological and tactical divisions of the 1930s were contested during the 1910s and 1920s. The collapse of the One Big Union, combined with deteriorating relations with the Communist Party, shifted BC socialists away from industrial militancy and toward parliamentary forms of struggle.

Drawing from Nicholson and Johns (1985) typology of absence culture (N = 460 from 43 work groups), we found that greater similarity in union membership status between co-workers was associated with a lowering of a member's absence culture, as was a more harmonious union-management (UM) climate. In addition, greater similarity in union membership was related to a lowered absence culture when the UM climate was perceived to be positive. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings for understanding the social context in which the absence culture of union members is engendered are discussed.

Reviews the book "Helping Working Families: The Earned Income Tax Credit," by Saul D. Hoffman and Laurence S. Seidman.

Educating for Changing Unions, by Bev Burke, Jo Jo Geronimo, D'Arcy Martin , Barb Thomas and Carol Wall, is reviewed.

In the winter of 1918-1919, a pandemic of influenza crossed the globe, killing as many as 50 million people. This dissertation is a local study of influenza in Winnipeg, Canada. It dissects the social responses to the disease from four different perspectives: that of the public health and medical authorities; middle class Anglo-Canadian women volunteers who provided nursing care and material relief to the city's poorer influenza victims; working class and immigrant families; and organized labour. The dissertation argues that the influenza epidemic, coming on the heels of the devastating Great War, and arriving in the midst of class, ethnic, and gender conflicts, played a role in deepening the social cleavages of Winnipeg society in the period, particularly those of class and ethnicity. Class and ethnic tension was not the inevitable outcome of the epidemic. Rather, it was the result of the social inequality of the disease's impact--working families represented a disproportionately high number of influenza's victims--and the failure of public authorities to mount a compassionate and cooperative community effort to fight the disease. The volunteerism of middle class Anglo-Canadian women, too, failed to build the bonds of community. Labour believed that the state response to influenza was a betrayal of principles of justice and public good. Workers' families bore the brunt of public closures and layoffs. A spirit of mutualism sustained families and neighbourhoods through the disease, and contributed to the mobilizing successes of the workers' movement in 1918-1919. The trauma of the epidemic suggested the fragility of the social order, and workers' capacity to build an alternative society. Their vision of social transformation included the creation of the "springs of health": a living wage, quality housing, and equal access to a democratic medical system. Many working families, nevertheless, found it difficult to recover from the loss of spouses and children. Their stories suggest that influenza had a long-term impact upon the evolution of post-war Canada that we are only just beginning to understand.

The article reviews the book, "A Promise and a Way of Life: White Antiracist Activism," by Becky Thompson.

The article reviews the book, "Talking About Identity: Encounters in Race, Ethnicity and Language," edited by Carl James and Adrienne Shadd.

The article reviews the book, "Fighting for the Union Label: The Women's Garment Industry and the ILGWU in Pennsylvania," by Kenneth Wolensky, Nicole Wolensky and Robert Wolensky.

The article reviews the book "Comrades and Partners: The Shared Lives of Grace Hutchins and Anna Rochester," by Janet Lee.

The article reviews the book, "Blood, Sweat, and Cheers: Sport and the Making of Modern Canada," by Colin D. Howell.

The article reviews the book, "Portuguese Women in Toronto: Gender, Immigration, and Nationalism," by Wenona Giles.

The article reviews the book "Mirrors of Stone: Fragments From the Porcupine Frontier," by Charlie Angus and Louie Palu.

Detailed assessment of the mixed record of the Canadian labour movement over the past decade. Concludes that union renewal lies in the balance between union education and democracy, and engagement with workplace restructuring.

This journal is the official journal for the Labor and Working-Class History Association. The labor question—who will do the work and under what economic and political terms?—beckons today with renewed global urgency. As a site for both historical research and commentary, Labor hopes to provide scaffolding for understanding the roots of our current dilemmas. Although the tradition from which the journal derives its energy has focused primarily on social movements and institutions based on industrial labor, Labor intends to give equal attention to other labor systems and social contexts (agricultural work, slavery, unpaid and domestic labor, informal sector, the professions, etc.). Its focus begins on the US experience but extends to developments across the “American” hemisphere and to other transnational comparisons that shed light on the American experience.

The article reviews the book "Divided Minds: Intellectuals and the Civil Rights Movement," by Carol Polsgrove.