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This volume presents the inaugural issue and articles from The Woman Worker, the official newspaper of the Canadian Federation of Women's Labor Leagues, during its 1926 to 1929 run. Edited by prominent Communist Party of Canada leader Florence Custance, The Woman Worker's objective was to "champion the Protection of Womanhood, and the cause of the Workers generally." In this collection, Hobbs and Sangster have provided an introductory chapter examining the evolution The Woman Worker, its editor Florence Custance, the Communist-led Women's Labor Leagues, and, more generally, the socio-economic and political context of the mid to late 1920s. Each chapter includes an introduction and suggestions for further reading. Chapters include women and wage work, protective legislation, feminism and social reform, peace and war, women and the sex trade, marriage, the family and domestic labour, and the local Women's Labor Leagues at work. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "The Polish Coal Miners' Union and the German Labor Movement in the Ruhr, 1902-1934: National and Social Solidarity," by John J. Kulczycki.

At the time of its publication in 1930, The Fur Trade in Canada challenged and inspired scholars, historians, and economists. Now, almost seventy years later, Harold Innis's fundamental reinterpretation of Canadian history continues to exert a magnetic influence. Innis has long been regarded as one of Canada's foremost historians, and in The Fur Trade in Canada he presents several histories in one: social history through the clash between colonial and aboriginal cultures; economic history in the development of the West as a result of Eastern colonial and European needs; and transportation history in the case of the displacement of the canoe by the York boat. Political history appears in Innis's examination of the nature of French-British rivalry and the American Revolution; and business history is represented in his detailed account of the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Companies and the industry that played so vital a role in the expansion of Canada. In his introduction to this new edition, Arthur J. Ray argues that The Fur Trade in Canada is the most definitive economic history and geography of the country ever produced. Innis's revolutionary conclusion - that Canada was created because of its geography, not in spite of it - is a captivating idea but also an enigmatic proposition in light of the powerful decentralizing forces that threaten the nation today. Ray presents the history of the book and concludes that "Innis's great book remains essential reading for the study of Canada. --Publisher's description. Includes bibliographical references (p. [421]-441) and index.

L'auteur cherche ici à établir un parallèle entre l'évolution du contexte affaires des organisations et le renouvellement de la fonction formation et développement de la main-d’œuvre. L'un des principaux défis des intervenants en ce domaine réside alors dans la capacité de ceux-ci à mobiliser des stratégies d'apprentissage qui favorisent la synergie entre les savoirs tacites et explicites facilitant ainsi la création de nouveaux savoirs collectifs qui sont à la base de l'innovation diffuse.

The article reviews the book, "Capturing Women: The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canada's Prairie West," by Sarah Carter.

The article reviews the book, "Who Supports the Family? Gender and Breadwinning in Dual-Earner Marriages," by Jean L. Potuchek.

The article reviews and comments on several books: Kristi Anderson's "After Suffrage: Women and Partisan and Electoral Politics before the New Deal" (1996), Suzanne Marilley's "Woman Suffrage and the Origins of Liberal Feminism in the United States, 1820-1920" (1996), and Susan Marshall's "Splintered Sisterhood, Gender and Class in the Campaign against Woman Suffrage" (1997).

As the labor movement refocuses its commitment to organizing, it is turning increasingly toward organizing in communities of color. We know from quantitative research that workers of color are more likely to organize and are concentrated in low-wage industries that are more sus ceptible to organizing. Despite major victories such as Justice for Janitors in Los Angeles and a string of victories by UNITE in the South, unions have much to learn about organizing in communities of color. This article is an in-depth analysis of UNITE's victory among predominantly El Salvadoran workers at the Richmark plant in Everett, Massachusetts. It is based on interviews with union staff, community activists, and workers at the Richmark plant. Given its unusual circumstances, Richmark is in many ways not a model for organizing. Yet there are important lessons to be learned from the Richmark victory that extend beyond this Everett- based plant and inform organizing in communities of color. First, UNITE did not just enter the El Salvadoran community for this campaign but already had a presence in the community. Second, UNITE organizers recognized and nurtured the rank-and-file leadership that emerged. And, finally, the organizers and staff at UNITE were flexible, adapting both to the situation and to the workers at Richmark. While schooled in a specific model of organizing, they were able to look beyond those models and emerged victorious.

The article revews and comments on "The Undeclared War: Class Conflict in the Age of Cyber Capitalism," by James Laxer, and "Postmodern Management: The Emerging Partnership Between Employees and Stockholders," by William McDonald Wallace.

The article reviews the book, "Stratégies de résistance et travail des femmes," edited by Angelo Soares.

The article reviews the book, "The Origins of Capitalism," by Ellen Meiksins Wood.

The article reviews the book, "Technology and Gender Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China," by Francesca Bray.

The Great Depression of the 1930s was the culmination of severe contradictions building within a maturing capitalist world economy, and has been credited, in conjunction with the Second World War, for structuring the post-war compromise around a national welfare state, full employment, Keynesian fiscal policy, demand management, and the expansion of trade union rights. Despite the importance of this decade in Canadian history, and the highly developed literature on the Roosevelt administration and the American New Deal, few writers have attempted to probe the finer contours of the Great Depression in Canada. This thesis is broadly structured around the threat of social disorder which state officials and social workers perceived to be rooted in the economic malaise of the decade. Attempts to manage the poor through municipal welfare schemes and efforts to regulate the family through newly developed “socialized tribunals” were paired with a campaign to contain juvenile delinquency and structure the leisure time of working-class adolescents. The order that social workers sought to impose on the working-class family and child was materially related to struggles to bring order to the economy. The ideological retreat from laissez-faire capitalism by business and the state coalesced with a burgeoning and militant union movement that propelled the state towards active intervention in the economic, social, moral, and political relations of capital and labor. Pushed in part by an escalation in strike-related violence, the state tentatively embarked on a program of economic control through the Industrial Standards Act, opened legal space for union activities, and attempted to introduce the first minimum wage for male workers. The thesis explores the role of unions, representing both men and women, skilled and unskilled, in structuring the re-organization of capitalism in Toronto's transportation, construction, and service industries, yet draws upon the paradigm of state-centered regulatory regimes which emerged in the state's treatment of the unemployed, the family, and youth. Policies designed to contain 'chiseling' employers, wayward youth, and cheating husbands all faltered because the state was unwilling or incapable of stepping too heavily into the private sphere or interfering with the prerogatives of private property. The resulting half-measures produced a set of contradictions inherent in initiatives designed to accommodate both labor and capital and generated intense struggles against the 'sweatshop,' while bringing the twin issues of the family wage and relief-subsidized competition to the forefront of political and economic mobilization. The largely ineffectual attempts to bring order to political, economic and social life witnessed the emergence of a nascent regulatory state, tied to significant pockets of organized capital, and contingently supported by organized labor. This particular constellation of social forces not only attained a degree of ideological prominence during the depression, but was of profound importance in shaping the second-half of the twentieth century.

The article reviews the book, "Le guide Québec inc. 1997. Profil des 500 plus grandes entreprises au Québec," by Jean Auclair, Pierre Auger and Raymond Boisvert.

The article reviews the book, "Fonction formation," by Jacques Sayer.

Research has begun to increasingly document Native peoples' participation in wage employment in Canada. Despite an acknowledgement of native participation in wage labour, little is known of the role of the state in mobilizing Native workers for Canadian industry. Using the case of Native migration to the southern Alberta sugar-beet industry in the 1950s and 1960s, this paper analyzes the role of the state in the mobilization of the native workers for employment. We show that the various levels of the state, acting through federal/provincial manpower committees and the Indian Affairs Branch of the federal government, used a variety of paternalistic and coercive measures to help farmers in southern Alberta recruit and retain Native workers. One of the main measures used by the federal and provincial governments to coerce Native people into migration was to cut off social assistance benefits to those Native people deemed to be employable.

Quality improvement (QI) and downsizing have been 2 popular initiatives to enhance firm competitiveness. When used together, the relationship between them is neither simple nor straightforward. Although there have been many separate studies of QI and downsizing, there is a paucity of empirical work on the relationship between them and their organizational implications. A study is presented that seeks to fill this lacuna by shedding light on: 1. how employees respond to these initiatives when combined, 2. their compatibility, and 3. ways to alleviate the negative effects of one initiative on the other.

Examines the work regimen at Fraser Companies pulp and paper mill in Edmundston, New Brunswick, from 1947-74 to verify the thesis of Marxist political economist Harvey Braverman on the deskilling and degradation of work in the 20th century. Discusses ownership, administrative and technological changes as well as company-union relations. Twenty francophone longtime workers were interviewed. Concludes that although many jobs were eliminated, deskilling is a complex issue.

The article reviews the book, "Un siècle d'histoire industrielle : Belgique, Luxembourg, Pays-Bas, industrialisation et sociétés, 1873-1973," by René Leboutte, Jean Puissant, and Denis Scuto.

The article reviews the book, "Why Unions Matter," by Michael D. Yates.