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This dissertation honours and pays tribute to Sudbury residents and many others for whom labour strikes played a significant role in shaping their lives. Set in the context of a public history theatrical experiment, this study investigates local and community memories pertaining to Sudbury mining strikes in the postwar period from 1958 through to 2010. Archival research and oral history interviews were conducted on major labour strikes in this era and that research was used to script, rehearse, and stage a theatrical play. Interviews with audience members and performers were also conducted at all stages of the process. This process allows the dissertation to consider the perspectives of both performers and audience members, each enacting their roles as producers and consumers of public history. The dissertation also assesses the value of this form of history making, as it relates to the formation of historical consciousness, both then and now, of individuals within the Sudbury community. This study argues that public history as theatre has the potential to provide an effective and affecting means to nurture critical, reflexive historical consciousness both on and off the stage.

Discusses the role of the Canadian militia and army in crushing strikes, protest, and dissent, as well as the privileged class backgrounds of military officers and their connections to elite clubs and institutions.

Provides a historical assessment of the NDP-labour relationship that became more distanced and defensive in the neoliberal era, especially at the provincial level. Whether there will be a rapprochement in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic remains to be determined. A revised version of the essay published in the first edition (2012).

Canada has one of the highest rates of low-wage work among advanced industrial economies. In a labour market characterized by the ongoing fallout from COVID-19, deepening income inequality, increasingly uncertain job tenure, and steadily diluted union representation, the living wage movement offers a response. Rising Up traces the history and international context of living wage movements across Canada. Contributors to this astute and compassionate collection of essays examine union- and community-based approaches to organizing in marginalized communities, the role of social reproduction, migrant labour, and media (mis)representations, among other key topics. In the 1970s, the balance of political and economic power began to shift in favour of business, as trade unions weakened and governments proved unwilling to check corporate power. By the 2000s, austerity measures had dismantled social services spending, facilitating the growth of precarious, often gendered or racialized low-waged employment. Rapidly increasing wealth and income inequality has followed in the wake of these deteriorating labour market conditions and mounting social disparities.As more and more workers in Canada and elsewhere face permanent low-paid work, Rising Up will stimulate debate about living wages and social inequality, promoting alternatives to a neoliberalized labour market. --Publisher's description

Our empirical analysis is based on Statistics Canada’s worker-firm matched data set, the 2003 Workplace and Employee Survey (WES). The sample size is substantial: about 4,000 workers over the age of 50 and 12,000 between the ages of 25 and 49. Training was a focus of the survey, which offers a wealth of worker-related and firm-related training variables. We found that the mean probability of receiving training was 9.3 percentage points higher for younger workers than for older ones. Almost half of the gap is explained by older workers having fewer training-associated characteristics (personal, employment, workplace, human resource practices and occupation/industry/region), and slightly more than half by them having a lower propensity to receive training, this being the gap that remained after we controlled for differences in training-associated characteristics. Their lower propensity to receive training likely reflects the higher opportunity cost of lost wages during the time spent in training, possible higher psychological costs and lower expected benefits due to their shorter remaining work-life and lower productivity gains from training, as discussed in the literature. The lower propensity of older workers to receive training tended to prevail across 54 different training measures, with notable exceptions discussed in detail. We found that older workers can be trained, but their training should be redesigned in several ways: by making instruction slower and self-paced; by assigning hands-on practical exercises; by providing modular training components to be taken in stages; by familiarizing the trainees with new equipment; and by minimizing required reading and amount of material covered. The concept of “one-size-fits- all” does not apply to the design and implementation of training programs for older workers.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to knowledge of profit-sharing by utilizing a before-and-after analysis of panel data to assess whether the effects of profit-sharing adoption on productivity growth vary, depending on whether a profit-sharing adopter utilizes work teams or not, while controlling for numerous variables that may affect these results within a carefully constructed sample of Canadian establishments. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the moderating role of teamwork in the relationship between profit-sharing and productivity growth. Besides the implications for profit-sharing, ascertaining whether profit-sharing and work teams are complementary practices would have important implications for understanding how to develop more effective work teams, a topic of ongoing interest. We utilized a longitudinal research design to compare within-firm productivity growth during the three-year and five-year periods subsequent to profit-sharing adoption and within-firm productivity growth during the same periods in firms that had not adopted profit-sharing. Overall, our results suggest that use of team-based production plays an important moderating role in the success of employee profit-sharing—at least in terms of workplace productivity growth. Establishments that had adopted profit-sharing showed a substantial and highly significant increase in workplace productivity over both the three-year and five-year periods subsequent to adoption, but only if they had work teams. These findings are in line with the notion that work teams help to mitigate potential shirking behaviour in profit-sharing firms (Freeman, Kruse and Blasi, 2010) and are also in line with the argument that work teams serve as an effective mechanism to help translate the purported motivational and other benefits of profit-sharing into tangible productivity gains (Heywood and Jirjahn, 2009).

The article reviews the book, "The Socialist Challenge Today," by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin.

The article reviews the book, "Grève et paix. Une histoire des lois spéciales au Québec," by Martin Petitclerc and Martin Robert.

The article reviews the book, "The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity," by Eugene McCarraher.

The article reviews the book, "In the Red Corner: The Marxism of José Carlos Mariátegui," by Mike Gonzalez.

In recent years the issue of migrant workers with precarious status has increased in importance in Canada, in large part due to economic and policy changes that have led to greater numbers of migrant workers remaining in the country post permit expiry. This study tracks the employment experiences of low-skilled migrant workers who arrived through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and who remained following their permit expiry. Using a temporal analysis, the study identifies four timepoints that shape the workers’ employment outcomes both pre- and post-expiry. Events at these timepoints create differing employment pathways that, in turn, reveal different aspects of the workers’ precarity.  In addition to pathways, workers’ ability to access informal support networks shape their employment outcomes as workers with precarious status.

Discusses a biographical questionnaire that J.B. McLachlan completed for the Communist International during a visit to the Soviet Union in 1931. In it, the Nova Scotia labour leader briefly responded on his background, education, work and labour activism, political status (including his recruitment to the "Canadian section" of the Communist Party in 1922), and imprisonment in 1923-24. The questionnaire and other related materials came to light as a result of a request made by the author to the Russian State Archives in October 2020.

Argues that COVID-19 has exposed the flawed premise of the migration system, namely that workers are essential yet disposable. Discusses the exploitative forms of precarious migrant labour and organized efforts to counteract them including a union drive in British Columbia (UFCW Local 1518 versus Sidhu & Sons), social movements like the Migrant Rights Network, and the hybrid approaches of the Montreal Immigrant Workers Centre.

This study contributes to the emerging literature on the interplay between safety committees and employee perceptions of organizational safety culture. Creating, managing and maintaining a safety culture in organizations involves significant investment in the establishment of safety committees. The role of such committees in improving safety culture perceptions has remained underexplored in the safety management and organizational literature. This study addresses that gap and focuses on a safety committee within the facilities management operations of a large American academic institution. The objective is to generate understandings of how a committee can influence organizational cultural change and impact employee perceptions of safety. Using Schein’s organizational culture model as a prism, we unpack the employees’ implicit cultural beliefs. Data from over sixty employee interviews revealed that formation of the Safety Committee resulted in unintended consequences in terms of employee perceptions. Employees attributed most safety-related actions to the committee when, in fact, the managers and supervisors had actually carried them out. This overestimation of committee activities and concomitant underestimation of managerial actions by employees was an unintended consequence of establishing a committee. Employees, in fact, collectively attributed all positive changes in the organizational culture to the committee. The committee ultimately influenced the employees’ basic assumptions, such change being, according to Schein, a prerequisite for organizational cultural change. This study, therefore, contributes to the literature by proposing that unintended consequences can operate in three different ways to support organizational change. First, unintended consequences can promote positive outcomes; second, they can reveal a new understanding of committees, which under certain circumstances can act as a proxy for management and encourage positive perceptions of managerial commitment. Lastly, unintended consequences can provide a means to detect and ‘excavate’ hidden, implicit assumptions that drive organizational culture’s deepest layers.

...Ces changements récents entrainent des conséquences assez génériques pour ceux qui pensent et écrivent sur le travail et l’emploi. À travers le monde, les questions urgentes ont toutes une certaine homogénéité. Comment travailler en pratiquant la distanciation sociale ? Comment gérer à distance la main-d’oeuvre ? Qu’advient-il de la productivité si les travailleurs sont dispersés sur des lieux et des horaires différents ? Enfin, dans cette nouvelle réalité, que deviendront la négociation collective et l’asymétrie actuelle entre le capital et le travail ? Voilà autant de questions que nous devons poser et en trouver la réponse. Puis nous devons le faire ensemble, vraiment ensemble, à travers un effort collaboratif mondial. C’est ainsi, je crois, que changera le programme de recherche orthodoxe sur les relations de travail. En tant qu’individus, le défi est d’être en avant de ce qui se passe actuellement et de ne pas s’interroger sur ce qui s’est déjà passé. Voici, donc, ce que la revue entend privilégier : une variété de perspectives sur le plan géographique, une analyse critique, une volonté de tirer des leçons de l’histoire, ainsi qu’une préoccupation constante pour les oubliés et les défavorisés de la nouvelle normalité. Enfin, mon équipe et moi demeureront attachés à une politique de gestion beaucoup plus élargie qui visera l’inclusion et l’adaptation. En gardant ces priorités à l’esprit, je suis fier de présenter les contenus de l’édition 76(3). // These recent lifestyle changes are having somewhat generic consequences for those who think and write about work and employment. The pressing issues throughout the world have a sameness about them. How do jobs get done with social distancing? How are workforces remotely managed? What happens to productivity when workers are geographically dispersed and running on different schedules? Finally, in this new reality, what happens to collective bargaining and the existing capital/labour power asymmetry? We need to ask and answer these questions together—really together—through a collaborative global effort. In this way, I believe, change will come to the orthodox agenda of research on employment relations. As individuals, the challenge is to be ahead of what is happening and not wonder what has happened. Here is what we at the journal are currently emphasizing: geographically diverse perspectives, critical analysis, an emphasis on what history has to teach and an ongoing preoccupation with those who might be left behind and/or disadvantaged by the new normal. Meanwhile, my team and I will continue to be committed to a much broader policy of inclusion and accommodation when it comes to how we manage. It is with these priorities in mind that I am proud to present the content of edition 76(3).

Discusses the distinctive features of labour and politics in Quebec, where the labour movement has had little connection with the NDP. Rather it has worked with the Parti Quebecois and the community sector, as well as participating in provincial roundtables. Since 2000, however, the left in the province has fragmented, as has the PQ's nationalist project, leaving labour in a weakened position. Concludes that the strategic partnerships with the provincial government continue to be of pivotal importance, as is protecting and promoting a strong, autonomous, rights-oriented community sector. A revised version of the essay published in the first edition (2012).

We examine the relationship between union power and redistribution in Canada’s ten provinces between 1986 and 2014. Subnational jurisdictions are thus the focus of research questions that have previously been addressed at the international level. Multilevel models with time-series cross-sectional data are used to estimate the long-term association between union density and redistribution through provincial transfer payments and income taxes. We found that higher union density correlates with considerably more redistribution over the long term but not over the short term. This finding is confirmed by three distinct measures of inequality and poverty reduction, an indication that it is quite robust. The association is significant for the entire study period and for its second half. This finding is consistent with power resource theory in its original form, but not with more recent work in that area or with comparative political economy scholarship, which generally now neglects or downplays the impact of organized labour on social and economic policy outcomes. Our findings suggest a need to re-assess the diminished interest of recent researchers in the political influence of organized labour. It will also interest scholars in other countries where tax and transfer systems are decentralized, and where the impact of organized labour on such measures has been understudied at the subnational level. Additionally, we show that unionized voters in Canada are more favourably disposed than their non-unionized counterparts toward redistribution and toward pro-redistribution political parties. Unions may consequently affect redistribution in part by socializing their members to favour it. This possibility is advanced with preliminary data in this paper. We argue that further scholarly attention is both required and deserved on this subject in Canada and elsewhere.

The article reviews the book, "Ordinary Saints: Women, Work, and Faith in Newfoundland," by Bonnie Morgan.

In this inspiring history of a union, labour historian Andy Hanson delves deep into the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and how it evolved from two deeply divided unions to one of the province’s most united and powerful voices for educators. Today’s teacher is under constant pressure to raise students’ test scores, while the rise of neoliberalism in Canada has systematically stripped our education system of funding and support. But educators have been fighting back with decades of fierce labour action, from a landmark province-wide strike in the 1970s, to record-breaking front-line organizing against the Harris government and the Common Sense Revolution, to present-day picket lines and bargaining tables. Hanson follows the making of elementary teachers in Ontario as a distinct class of white-collar, public-sector workers who awoke in the last quarter of the twentieth century to the power of their collective strength. --Publisher's description

This study aims to shed light on the main determinants of and barriers to union commitment among young workers and, more generally, the relationship young workers have with union life. So far, the relationship between young workers and unionism has been examined mainly in terms of the challenges of access to unionization that confront young workers, a group generally underrepresented in union membership. The more specific issue of union commitment among young workers, once they become unionized, has remained largely underexplored in the literature. Using quantitative and qualitative data from an empirical survey of young unionized workers in the Quebec public service, our study identifies and compares the main factors that explain union commitment among young unionized workers and the theoretical underpinnings. It also seeks to shed light on the barriers to this commitment and identifies the organizational measures that could facilitate union commitment among young workers, based on the perceptions expressed by young union members. Our findings indicate that unions should adopt multidimensional organizational measures to foster union commitment among young workers, with a first step being to increase personalized contact between local union representatives and young members. Such investments at the local level are critical, as shown by our quantitative and qualitative findings. Thus, any reform or measure aimed at encouraging union involvement of young workers should not be limited merely to structural aspects but should also take into account the attitudinal and relational underpinnings of young workers’ commitment to their union. By shifting the focus from youth unionization to young members’ involvement in union bodies, our study will contribute to debate about union representation and the generational renewal of the labour movement’s activist base.