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The article reviews the book, "Lesbian Motherhood: An Exploration of Canadian Lesbian Families," by Fiona Nelson.

The article reviews and comments on the film, "Land and Freedom" (1995), directed by Ken Loach, with screenplay by Jim Allen. Concludes that this portrayal of the Spanish Civil War - in which idealistic volunteers including the central character - a young, unemployed, working-class communist from Liverpool - are betrayed by the Stalinists - deserves "five red stars" as cinema, history, and politics.

The article reviews the book, "Le stratège du XXIe siècle : vers une organisation apprenante," by Pierre Dionne and Jean Roger.

The article reviews the book, "Nouvelles formes d'organisation du travail," edited Michel Grant, Paul R. Bélanger and Benoît Lévesque,

Dave Bidini, rhythm guitarist with the Rheostatics, knows all too well what the life of a rock band in Canada involves: storied arenas one tour and bars wallpapered with photos of forgotten bands the next. Zit-speckled fans begging for a guitar pick and angry drunks chucking twenty-sixers and pint glasses. Opulent tour buses riding through apocalyptic snowstorms and cramped vans that reek of dope and beer. Brilliant performances and heart-sinking break-ups. Bidini has played all across the country many times, in venues as far flung and unalike as Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and the Royal Albert Hotel in Winnipeg. In 1996, when the Rheostatics opened for the Tragically Hip on their Trouble at the Henhouse tour, Bindini kept a diary. In On a Cold Road he weaves his colourful tales about that tour with revealing and hilarious anecdotes from the pioneers of Canadian rock - including BTO, Goddo, the Stampeders, Max Webster, Crowbar, the Guess Who, Triumph, Trooper, Bruce Cockburn, Gale Garnett, and Tommy Chong - whom Bindini later interviewed in an effort to compare their experiences with his. The result is an original, vivid, and unforgettable picture of what is has meant, for the last forty years, to be a rock musician in Canada. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Technology, Globalisation and Economic Performance," edited by Daniele Archibugi and Jonathan Mitchie.

Le présent article analyse l’efficacité de la procédure de règlement de 1 148 griefs dans neuf municipalités et huit hôtels de la région de Montréal pendant la période d’application de leurs deux dernières conventions collectives. Un bon climat de relations industrielles entre les parties et l’amélioration de ce climat d’une convention collective à l’autre diminuent de façon significative le délai nécessaire pour régler un grief sans que le règlement se fasse à une étape antérieure de la procédure. L’expérience du chef de service accélère le règlement du grief alors que l’expérience du délégué syndical le ralentit. Par contre, certaines caractéristiques de l’emploi, notamment le statut et le quart de travail, influencent à la fois le délai et l’étape du règlement. L’effet sur l’efficacité de la procédure de règlement des griefs d’autres caractéristiques comme l’origine ethnique du plaignant, le type et l’objet du grief sont aussi examinés.

Critiques the trade-and-investment agenda of the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation summit held in Vancouver in November 1997.

Une recherche récente réalisée par John T. Dunlop et David Weil montre que les entreprises du vêtement sont peu nombreuses à avoir réussi à implanter l’organisation modulaire de travail et que pour y arriver, elles adoptent une stratégie d’ensemble comprenant trois étapes importantes. Comme les exigences de la variante la plus poussée de cette nouvelle forme d’organisation du travail sont élevées, cet article propose d’introduire une étape préparatoire supplémentaire dans le processus pour en augmenter la diffusiion.

Describes the business records of the Ford Motor Company of Canada that were deposited at the University of Windsor Archives in fall 1997, and their value for research on labour and work history.

The article reviews the book, "CLR James: A Political Biography," by Kent Worcester.

In the 1920s and early 1930s the Industrial Workers of the World were a force to be reckoned with among Finnish bushworkers in northern Ontario. Although the Lumber Workers Industrial Union no. 120, affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World, was smaller than its rival, the Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada, affiliated with the Communist Party, the Wobbly union played a major role in bushworker strikes in the mid-1920s and early 1930s. Committed to anti-authoritarianism, decentralization, and rank-and-file initiative, Finnish Wobbly bushworkers were part of an ethnic-based working-class culture in which the economic struggles of the bushworkers were made possible by the tireless work of Finnish Wobbly women, who were the backbone of Wobbly social, cultural, and organizational life in urban centres like Port Arthur. In a 20th century dominated by bureaucracy, legality, and state-directed social programs, the Finnish Wobblies of northern Ontario leave a legacy of dedication to self-education and self-activity in an age so often identified with the demise of the Wobblies and the victory of mass culture.

The article reviews the book, "Organizing to Win: New Research on Union Strategies," edited by Kate Bronfenbrenner, Sheldon Friedman, Richard W. Hurd, Rudolph A. Oswald and Ronald L. Seeber.

Since the early 1980s, the worldwide expansion of product and capital markets has been cited as one of the singlemost significant factors driving the transformation of economic and social relations, both in industrialized countries as well as in the developing countries. Much of this process of economic transformation has been generated as a result of the conjunction of a set of changes in several mutually reinforcing, yet endogenous, factors. Policy makers could once meaningfully refer to an industrial relations system as being defined primarily at the level of a national or sub-national government jurisdiction. While researchers and policy makers still refer to the notion of an industrial relations system, the process of internationalization has clearly begun to erode the relevance of this concept at least in the sense of its traditional meaning.

The article reviews the book, "After Lean Production: Evolving Employment Practices in the World Auto Industry," edited by Thomas A. Kochran, Russell D. Lansbury and John Paul MacDuffie.

The following excerpt is taken from a public lecture given by Marjorie Griffen Cohen, Professor of Economics and Chair of Women's Studies at Simon Fraser University (SFU), entitled "Economic Fundamentalism and its Threat to Democracy."The address, part of the 1998 President's Lecture series at SFU, examined the ascendency of neoliberalism — "economic fundamentalism"— in the post-World War II period and its impact on the political, economic, and social institutions that "supported the ideas of equality and democracy in industrialized countries." In this passage, Cohen sketches a "political approach" to countering the erosion of the welfare state and what she calls the "marketization" of social and economic life. --Editor's introduction

By the early 20th century, the changes taking place in western industrial capitalist nations prompted an adaptive shift in the socioeconomic delineation of human bodies, and in scientific theories about how they worked and how they could be put to work. Just as the rising social sciences borrowed from medicine to convey images of social malaise, medicine increasingly appropriated an industrial vocabulary to conceptualize bodily health. Depicted variously as a machine, a motor, a factory in itself, the human body absorbed industrial symbolism. Modem industry demanded an intensification of labour that made bodily efficiency paramount. The corresponding definition of health also shifted, from emphasis on physical endurance, which could be secured by simple replacement of outworn workers, to optimum labour efficiency, which had to be actively instilled in all workers, present and future. Scientific management programs were easily integrated with regulatory medical notions concerning the human body and human nature, as science, medicine and technology combined forces to promote a machine ethic that equated modernity, progress, efficiency, and national health. This paper considers the relationship between changing conceptualizations of the human body, developing medical influence and state regulation of health, and attempts to "Taylorize" the labour process in early 20th century Canada.

The article reviews the book, "Forging Business-Labour Partnerships : The Emergence of Sector Councils in Canada," edited by Morley Gunderson and Andrew Sharpe.

The article reviews the book, "Formations of Class & Gender," by Beverley Skeggs.

The article reviews the book, "Unions and Workplace Reorganization," edited by Bruce Nissen.