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The conceptual mastery of the work process and its improvement in the pulp and paper industry has been studied in several mills. Development programs based on systematic analysis and modeling of the work process have been used to improve the work process and the workers' conceptual mastery of it. The participants in the programs have made dozens or even hundreds of concrete proposals to improve the actual work processes and their conceptual mastery of the work process has increased. The results also suggest that conceptual mastery of the work process can be a source of positive well-being. This connection can happen during the development process showing that knowledge of the work process is really valued in the organization.

Intellectuel du mouvement ouvrier, Gustave Francq (1871-1952) a suivi une carrière hors de l’ordinaire. Il a occupé une place dans les hautes sphères décisionnelles du mouvement syndical nord-américain pendant plus de quarante ans. Sa contribution à la mise sur pied de la Fédération provinciale du travail du Québec fait de lui un précurseur de la Fédération des travailleurs et des travailleuses du Québec (FTQ). À ce sujet, soulignons qu’il est le fondateur du journal Le Monde ouvrier, aujourd’hui l’organe officiel de la FTQ. --Résumé de l'éditeur

The article reviews the book, "The Woman Worker, 1926-1929," edited by Mararet Hobbs and Joan Sangster.

The paper examines the impact of lean production on indicators of the quality of life at work in the automotive industry and finds that it varies across companies and to a lesser extent between countries. The paper explains this by arguing that lean production seeks to impose new employment standards. This is a contested process where management's capacity to shift to new standards and labour's ability to protect its interests vary across workplaces.

The article reviews the book, "Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia, 1900-50," by Mary-Ellen Kelm.

The article reviews and comments on Constance Backhouse's "Colour-Coded Law: A Legal History of Racism in Canada 1900-1950," Sidney L. Harring's "The White Man's Law: Native People in Nineteenth-Century Canadian Jurisprudence,", and James W. St. G. Walker's "'Race,' Rights and the Law in the Supreme Court of Canada."

The article provides background and publishes a selection of Daniel Spencer Gilman's letters to family members written from the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts to family members in the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada between 1840 and 1849. The letters provide insight into the meaning of class and gender in Lowell, where the workforce was mostly female. They also indicate that the migration from Lower Canada to the New England mills began earlier than previously suggested.

One of the real litmus tests for the state of our democracy is to examine how we treat the most marginalized. An increasingly demonized and marginalized group in Canadian society is poor single mothers. This article will study the changes to Ontario welfare policy since the election of Premier Mike Harris and the Progressive Conservatives in 1995.

Cet article présente les résultats d’un sondage conduit auprès de préventionnistes représentant l’employeur (n = 111) et de préventionnistes représentant les travailleurs (n = 134) afin de mieux comprendre leurs rôles et leurs fonctions respectives au sein des entreprises. Après une revue de littérature faisant le point sur les dernières connaissances concernant le métier de préventionniste, nous élaborons un cadre théorique permettant deconceptualiser le travail de ces derniers. Les analyses du sondage permettent de faire état des principales caractéristiques du contexte de travail des préventionnistes. Nous décrivons ensuite leurs différents profils permettant de catégoriser leur travail en fonction de trois dimensions (organisationnelle, humaine et technique) et de deux niveaux d’intervention (stratégique et opérationnel).

Compilation of recent English/French publications on Canadian labour history that emphasize the period 1800-1975. Materials pertaining to the post-1975 period may also be included, although more selectively. See the database, Canadian Labour History, 1976-2009, published at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

The article reviews the book, "Islands of Truth: The Imperial Fashioning of Vancouver Island," by Daniel W. Clayton.

In a sample of 427 employees in a large, unionized public utility company, the incentive effects of a final-earnings pension plan on employees' commitment to the organization are examined. Two types of organizational commitment, affective and continuance commitment were measured using scales described by Meyer and Allen (1997). Evidence is found that higher accruals under the pension plan increased continuance commitment but reduced affective commitment. Organizational commitment was also found to vary by job satisfaction, specific training, seniority, wage premia, and the perceived effectiveness of alternative dispute resolution methods. Implications for pension theory, research, and policy are discussed.

Studies of the diffusion of new workplace technologies and management practice often fail to account for differences in state labor regulation. This article examines the role of the state in seeking to regulate the introduction of an American system of computerized work monitoring in the Australian grocery warehouse industry. While the establishment of a government inquiry into the technology offered the potential for significant constraints upon management control, over time the state's role shifted to a more accommodating stance that endorsed management's right to use the new technology. The reasons underlying the state's ultimate support for the technology are explored, as are the broader implications for national variations in the global diffusion of new workplace technologies.

There is a widespread claim that the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s was middle-class and that its politics of reforming the state reflected the concerns of middle-class women. This paper challenges that claim, arguing instead that the development of the women's movement created an environment in which a union-based, working-class feminism became an important political factor. Working-class and socialist-feminist activists developed a strong feminist presence in the labour movement and a significant working-class orientation in the women's movement that both continue to influence the current women's movement.

[D]escribes the experiences of daily life for predominantly white, working class women and men during the period of "economic restructuring" begun in the 1980s. Luxton and Corman show how the shift from a pattern where women were full-time housewives and men were income earners, to one where women are increasingly income earners as well, is altering the experience of everyday life Based on a case study conducted from 1980 to 1996, of households where one person was employed at Stelco's manufacturing plant in Hamilton, Ontario, the book examines how working class families make a living by combining paid employment and unpaid domestic labour. During this period of government cutbacks the loss of secure employment for men (as the steel plant cut its labour force by about two-thirds), combined with women's increasing participation in the labour force, resulted in lower standards of living, reduced income, and the imposition of more unpaid work on family households. [The book] examines how growing insecurities undermined class politics while increasing gender, racial, and ethnic tensions. By focusing on the daily coping strategies of white working class women and men, the book shows the human face of changing gender, race, and class politics in Canada. --Publisher's description.

The article reviews the book, "Creating Historical Memory: English-Canadian Women and the Work of History," edited by Beverly Boutilier and Alison Prentice.

[This book] tells the story of one of the most important industrial disputes in Canadian labour history. This strike united the Canadian labour movement around the demand for collective bargaining legislation, which it won in 1944 and which remains central to our industrial relations system. The book provides a comprehensive analysis of all the factors in this dramatic dispute. At the community level, a social history approach examines the local living and working conditions of the miners and their families, the role of the women in the dispute, and the ethnic makeup of the workforce. -- Publisher's description

J.L. Cohen, one of the first specialists in labour law and an architect of the Canadian industrial relations system, was a formidable advocate in the 1930s and 1940s on behalf of working people. A 'radical lawyer' in the tradition of the great American counsel Clarence Darrow or contemporary advocate Thomas Berger who represent the less powerful and seek to reform society and to protect civil liberties, Cohen was also a 'labour intellectual' in Canada, similar to those supporting Roosevelt's New Deal in the United States. He wrote Collective Bargaining in Canada, served on the National War Labour Board, and advised the Ontario government about policy issues such as mothers' allowances, unemployment insurance legislation, and labour law..

Cet article rapporte les résultats d’une étude de perceptions des interventions en santé au travail dans le contexte des petites entreprises, une réalité qui a jusqu’ici été peu étudiée malgré l’importance de ce type d’entreprise au plans économique et de la santé publique. La méthode a consisté à interroger les travailleurs et les employeurs d’un échantillon raisonné de huit entreprises québécoises de moins de 50 employés, ainsi que les professionnels de la santé chargés d’intervenir dans ces milieux. L’analyse des données permet d’identifier plusieurs aspects problématiques du processus actuel d’intervention en santé au travail dans le contexte de cette catégorie d’entreprise. La portée pratique des résultats est développée en une série de propositions qui visent à renouveler le modèle actuel d’intervention en santé au travail.

The importance of religion to social and labour radicalism in English Canada has been identified by several scholars, but few labour historians have built on these insights. Some scholars who study labour or socialist leaders at least briefly assess the impact of their subject’s religious background or their relationship to social gospel, while a few historians of working-class ethnic communities explore religion as a facet of their subjects’ lives. Discussion of religion, however, is usually a small part of a larger project. On this theme, Lynne Marks replies to Bryan Palmer’s critique of her book, "Revivals and Roller Rinks: Religion, Leisure and Identity in Late Nineteenth-Century Small-Town Ontario."