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The United Nations declared 1975 International Women's Year for the purpose of promoting equality of men and women.... Canada alloted funds for projects aimed at achieving these objectives and many projects were undertaken across the country. The Central Council of Women's Auxiliaries to the United Fishermen & Allied Workers' Union at its annual convention in 1975 undertook to write a history highlighting women's contribution to the trade union movement in British Columbia. Finally, here is that book. Working people in BC have a proud history: a history that accalims the struggles for a better life, a better job and a better community. In 1975, we set out to record the history of the women of British Columbia who struggled for human rights and women's equality and who helped build our trade unions. We interviewed and recorded a wonderful group of women and men. And we appreciated all their stories. [This book] shares those stories. --Publisher's description

Work and Employment in a Globalized Era: An Asia-Pacific Focus edited by Yaw A. Debrah and Ian G. Smith, is reviewed.

The article reviews "Building a Better World: An Introduction to Trade Unionism in Canada," by Errol Black and Jim Silver.

Consulted to Death, by Doug Smith, is reviewed.

"Heal Thyself:" Managing Health Care Reform, by Pat Armstrong, Hugh Armstrong, Ivy Bourgeault, Jacqueline Choiniere, Eric Mykhalovskiy and Jerry P. White, is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "What workers want," by Richard B. Freeman and Joel Rogers.

Reviewed: Island Timber: A Social History of the Comox Logging Company, Vancouver Island. Mackie, Richard Somerset.

The article reviews the book, "C. Wright Mills: Letters and Autobiographical Writings," edited by Kathryn Mills with Pamela Mills.

Provincial government pay equity policies require the negotiation of pay equity in unionized workplaces. The methodology is complex and unions have to be knowledgeable and committed to rectifying discriminatory wages. According to the literature, Canadian unions have shown varied levels of effectiveness regarding their pursuit of women's equality, and it is explored how well these unions represent women's interests during pay equity bargaining. Based on case studies of the Ontario public service and health care in Newfoundland, it is concluded that the most effective unions supplemented their conventional negotiating techniques with gender analysis and pay equity expertise. These tools were developed primarily through negotiators' formal links with internal equality structures and their knowledge of equality policies, together with women's networking inside and outside the labor movement.

As public anxiety over access to education increases, public-sector workers are directly able to perceive the extent to which exclusion, rather than public- access, now characterizes post-secondary education in an era of privatization. This paper will address some of the recent experiences of university workers who are members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). Here we shall identify three issues facing workers in the sector including: i) the privatization of universities through government policy shifts, ii) the employer-led reorganization of work, and iii) university workers’ campaigns to resist and transform these conditions. For public sector workers, decreasing access to social programs, under funding and the intensification of work are very clearly linked. As the restructured state brings public services more fully into the market and increasingly under the direct control of a global capitalist class, democratic rights are eroded. Still, this privatization dynamic is not uni-directional. Public sector workers and their community allies have been part of the history of state restructuring through their conscious acts of resistance, collective bargaining strategies, militancy and coalition-building.

Place, Space and the New Labour Internationalisms, edited by Peter Waterman and Jane Wills, is reviewed.

For some 20 years now, it has been common to refer to a crisis of trade unionism. What the future holds for labor movements-or indeed, whether they still have a future-seems increasingly uncertain. For many critics (academic observers as well as trade unionists themselves), unions in most countries appear as victims of external forces outside their control, and often also of their own conservative inertia. In this article, I explore, schematically and with incautious generalizations, the pathways from path to present to future. An important focus is the choices to be made in terms of who unions represent, what interests they emphasize, how they are constituted as organizations, and how they mobilize resources for action.

Jacobs has brought together the work of a number of progressive feminist writers, who theorize gender, race, diversity research, the social construction of women and work, ethnicity and class. The essays in this reader are focused on issues relating to gender equality in workspaces in society. The editor has gathered essays from well-known and established social scientists. Among them are Pat and Hugh Armstrong, Himani Bannerji, Christine Bruckert and Tania Das Gupta. The result is a stimulating collection that focuses on health-care workers, teachers, strippers, wage-less workers and women who are hidden from view. The collection explores the construction of gender, the selection of careers and the differential in work conditions and wages. --Publisher's description. Contents: Theorizing women's work: feminist methodology / Pat Armstrong and Hugh Armstrong -- The paradox of diversity: the construction of a multicultural Canada and "women of colour" / Himani Bannerji -- Qualitative research to identify racialist discourse: towards equity in nursing curricula / Rebecca Hagey and Robert W. MacKay -- Teaching against the grain: contradictions and possibilities / Roxana Ng -- Racism in nursing / Tania Das Gupta -- Toward anti-racism in social work in the Canadian context / Usha George -- The world of the professional stripper / Chris Bruckert -- Gender inequality and medical education / Jo-Anne Kirk -- Benevolent patriarchy: the foreign domestic movement, 1980-1990 / Patricia Daenzer -- The new wageless worker: volunteering and market-guided health care reform / Elizabeth Esteves -- "Who else would do it?": female family caregivers in Canada / Kristin Blakely -- Marginal women: examining the barriers of age, race and ethnicity / Robynne Beugebauer -- Creating understanding from research: staff nurses' views on collegiality / Merle Jacobs -- Antiracism advocacy in the climate of corporatization / Rebecca Hagey, Jane Turrittin, Evelyn Brody -- Undertaking advocacy / Merle Jacobs.

Les relations industrielles (RI) influencent-elles la performance des organisations ? Des données financières de même que des données traitant d’une douzaine de pratiques RI et du climat RI ont été colligées dans 241 caisses populaires faisant partie du Mouvement Desjardins au Québec afin d’estimer l’effet des RI sur trois dimensions de la performance. Les résultats sont à l’effet que lorsque l’influence des autres déterminants est tenue constante, les pratiques RI et le climat RI ont un impact significatif sur la performance organisationnelle, en particulier sur la productivité et les coûts de main-d’oeuvre.

The article reviews the book, "Cowboys, Gentlemen, and Cattle Thieves: Ranching on the Western Frontier," by Warren M. Elofson.

The article reviews the book, "Race, Class, and Power in the Alabama Coalfields, 1908-21," by Brian Kelly.

The Brave New World of Work by Ulrich Beck is reviewed.

From Tellers to Sellers: Changing Employment Relations in Banks, edited by Marino Regini, Jim Kitay, and Martin Baethge, is reviewed.

On October 26, 2000 approximately 2200 members of Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Local 3903 went on strike united under the slogan "Strike To Win". Seventy-eight days later CUPE 3903 celebrated a victory with profound implications for the post-secondary educational system and broader labour movement. The significance of the strike victory, however, lies not merely in what was attained in concrete terms, but also in the way the strike was carried out. Drawing upon the principles, practice and strategies of democracy, solidarity, and militancy, we struggled for change in ways which developed and expanded our capacities for self-activity and self-organization. In the process we gained a better understanding not only of the world around us but of our abilities to change that world, expanding the horizons of what we thought was possible.