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Constitutional reform dominated the Canadian public policy agenda during the 1980s and early portion of the 1990s. As a pressure group operating within a federal system, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) has been unable and unwilling to confront the issue of constitutional reform. The CLC's confederal structure, combined with its political relationship with the New Democratic Party (NDP), has prevented the CLC from acting as a progressive force for positive constitutional change. Ideological and philosophical differences between the Quebec Federation of Labour and the NDP convinced the CLC to remove itself from the patriation debate in the early 1980s. Labour's short-sighted non-involvement in the process of patriating the Constitution eliminated the possibility of having collective rights enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Subsequently, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the right to strike and bargain collectively were not constitutionally protected. The Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords provided organized labour with a renewed opportunity to promote a pro-union, class-based, constitutional rights discourse, but the CLC's internal cleavages over language, region, and identity, once again, proved too powerfiil a force to overcome. The Canadian labour movement's vision of social justice and economic equality has been obstructed by its unwillingness to adequately confront divisive constitutional issues. However, in an era of rights discourse and neo-liberalism, constitutional reform may provide organized labour with the best opportunity to have its voice heard.

The article reviews the book, "A Darwinian Left: Politics, Evolution and Cooperation," by Peter Singer.

In recent years, poverty-level minimum wages have been the focus of considerable debate across the various provincial jurisdictions and at the federal level in Canada. Similar interest has been expressed in the United States as evidenced by many successful campaigns to raise the minimum wage. Some economists argue that raising the minimum wage will kill low wage jobs, hurting the very people it was intended to assist by pricing them out of the job market. Still others, primarily concerned with poverty and inequality, see raising the minimum wage as an important policy tool for eliminating poverty and promoting equality. How can the latter group engage with others so as to raise the minimum wage above the poverty line? How can they ensure that a person or family earn a decent living - what is commonly termed a “living wage”? -- Publisher's description

L’auteur livre quelques réflexions personnelles sur la spécificité de la réponse européenne à la question sociale telle qu’elle se pose aujourd’hui. Davantage qu’une émanation de la politique de l’Union européenne, il voit dans le modèle social européen un patrimoine commun aux peuples de l’Europe en matière d’emploi et de travail. Ce concept traduit une triple réalité : une régulation sociale fondée sur la concertation ; un régime élaboré de protection sociale et l’existence de services publics à finalité sociale, ainsi qu’un interventionnisme actif de l’État en matières industrielle, économique et sociale. Si ce modèle doit faire face à des critiques et à des difficultés, l’évolution semble davantage aller dans le sens de son adaptation que dans celui de sa disparition.

Globalization and Labour in the Asia Pacific Region, edited by Chris Rowley and John Benson, is reviewed.

The Quality of Work: A People-Centred Agenda, by Graham S. Lowe, is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "Colonial Industrialization and Labor in Korea: The Onoda Cement Factory," by Soon-Won Park.

Economic Conditions and Welfare Reform, edited by Sheldon H. Danziger, is reviewed.

Voici une fresque émouvante de la vie des gens attachants qui ont fait au fil des siècles l’histoire touchante de cette petite ville dont le site naturel du " Sault de Montmorency ", comme l’avait baptisé Champlain, est connu de tous. Le syndicaliste Fernand Daoust, qui rédige la préface de cet ouvrage, n’hésite pas à affirmer que " Jean-François Simard, par un remarquable travail de recherche minutieuse et parfois inédite, brosse un saisissant tableau d’une petite société qui souffre, qui peine mais qui rêve aussi tout au long de ses inépuisables générations […] ". Ballottés du monde rural au monde industriel puis postindustriel, les gens de Montmorency ont développé une conscience sociale qui a marqué la lutte des travailleurs québécois. En rappelant les péripéties de ces bouleversements, Jean-François Simard nous convie à un devoir de mémoire, d’attachement et de reconnaissance envers un petit coin attachant du Québec dont le labeur et le sens des responsabilités de ses habitants ont contribué à forger l’identité d’un peuple et à perpétuer ses valeurs d’endurance et de solidarité. L’histoire des femmes et des hommes qui ont vécu à Montmorency fait partie de notre patrimoine collectif et appartient à tout le Québec. Cet ouvrage s’intéresse donc à l’essor puis au déclin d’une petite communauté ouvrière, patrie de Fernand Dumont qui s’en est grandement inspiré pour ses travaux. Cette communauté, dans sa relation au double mouvement d’industrialisation et de désindustrialisation qui a rythmé l’avènement du capitalisme au cours du dernier siècle, a marqué de manière indélébile la quête des ouvriers québécois pour une plus grande justice sociale. --Résumé de l'éditeur

The article reviews the book, "Capital Moves: RCA's 70-Year Quest for Cheap Labor," by Jefferson Cowie.

The article reviews the book, "Prometheus Wired: The Hope for Democracy in the Age of Network Technology," by Darin Burney.

The article reviews and comments on several books, including "The End of Utopia: Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy" by Russell Jacoby, "Whose Millennium? Theirs or Ours?" by Daniel Singer, and "Utopistics, Or Historical Choices of the Twenty-first Century," by Immanuel Wallerstein.

The article reviews the book, "Sharing the Work, Sparing the Planet: Work Time, Consumption, and Ecology," by Anders Hayden.

The article reviews the book, "Making the Amalgamated: Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Baltimore Clothing Industry, 1899-1939," by Jo Ann E. Argersinger.

Discusses the anti-Chinese racism surrounding the No. 1 Mine disaster of 1887, when Chinese miners were unfairly blamed for the tragedy. A sign and plaque were unveiled in 1999 at the disaster's site in Nanaimo, BC, where 53 of the 150 miners killed were Chinese.

Challenging Professions: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Women's Professional Work, edited by Elizabeth Smyth, Sandra Acker, Paula Bourne and Alison Prentice, is reviewed.

In most studies of the automotive industry in Canada, the workforce has been constructed as uniformly white and male. However, a tiny number of Black men have long had a presence in the industry, occupying the dirtiest, most hazardous, and least desirable jobs in the auto foundries of St. Catharines and Windsor, Ontario. This paper attempts to reconstruct the working lives and union involvements of these men. The paper highlights the themes of racialization and gendering within the sphere of capitalist production. In examining multiple oppressions, simultaneously experienced and resisted, the study furthermore demonstrates the ways in which relations of domination are far more complex and historically-contingent than most analyses of industry and "the auto worker" have suggested.

The article reviews the book, "A Young Man's Benefit: The Independent Order of Odd Fellows and Sickness Insurance in the United States and Canada, 1860-1929," by George Emery and J. C. Herbert Emery.

The 1990s in Canada will probably go down as the most stressful decade for public-sector industrial relations since the inception, 25 years earlier, of collective bargaining in the public service. Government debt and defecits became the rationale for downsizing, outsourcing, privatization, layoffs, buyouts, and early retirement packages at both the federal and provincial levels. When workers' bargaining units did not bend to government demands at the negotating table, and when leaders did not blink at the threat of restrictive legislation, then governments of both the right and the left at times found it convenient to legislate rule changes to suit their fiscal or ideological purposes. The contributors to Public-Sector Labour Relations examine in depth the events of recent years in the public service of six jurisdictions―Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, and the federal government. Trends in the other five Canadian provinces are also considered. Only in BC has there been an essentially co-operative labour relations environment, although even in this province, public service employment has dropped considerably. Overall, from 1991 to 1997, provincial civil service employment fell by 15 per cent, while the federal employment reduction was 14 per cent. (From the employment peak in 1993-4, the overall provincial reduction was over 22 per cent.) Although collective bargaining is still alive, a major conclusion of this study is that collective bargaining in the Canadian public sector is not well. The cases reported here demonstrate that governments have adopted the attitude and policy that they may engage in bargaining or suspend it whenever they find that course of action to be convenient. Viewed from a broader international context, as discussed in the concluding chapter, the casual suspension of bargaining by Canadian governments cannot be justified by the norms and agreements that Canada has shared with the international community. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Public-sector labour relations in an era of restraint and restructuring: an overview / Gene Swimmer -- Provincial government restructuring in Nova Scotia: the freezing and thawing of labour relations / Terry H. Wagar -- From softball to hardball: the transition in labour-management relations in the Ontario public service / Joseph B. Rose -- Fiscal restraint, legislated concessions, and labour relations in the Manitoba civil service, 1988-1997 / Paul Phillips and Carolina Stecher -- The logic of union quiescence: the Alberta case / Yonatan Reshef -- Labour relations in the BC public service: blowing in the political wind / Mark Thompson -- Restructuring federal public-sector human resources / Gene Swimmer and Sandra Bach -- Public-employee relations: Canadian developments in perspective / Roy J. Adams.

The article reviews the book, "Of Moses and Marx: Folk Ideology and Folk History in the Jewish Labor Movement.," by David Shuldiner.