Search

Ce texte questionne la thèse aujourd'hui dominante d'une tendance à la requalification du travail. Il resitue d'abord le débat théorique entre la thèse de la déqualification et celle de la requalification du travail en montrant comment toutes deux présentent le même problème à savoir une vision linéaire et uniforme de l'évolution des qualifications. Il démontre ensuite qu'actuellement, la question ne se pose plus tant en termes d'évolution qu'en termes de rupture par rapport au modèle taylorien/fordien d'organisation du travail et appelle donc un changement de paradigme. Sur cette base, l'auteure reprend des données d'études de cas effectuées sur une quinzaine d'années dans le secteur tertiaire pour se demander si se met en place un nouveau modèle de qualification/formation. Les données récentes permettent de voir un nouveau modèle en train d'émerger dans certains secteurs. Ce modèle met de l'avant une organisation basée sur la polyvalence des emplois faisant appel à de nouveaux savoirs et donnant une importance certaine à la formation. Pourtant, ce modèle n'est pas synonyme d'une requalification générale dans ces secteurs où se dessinent plutôt des mouvements opposés de déqualification/requalification qui s'appliquent différemment aux personnels en place. En conclusion, l'auteure appelle à sortir de l'entreprise pour analyser les restructurations actuelles du travail à la lumière des mutations tout aussi importantes du marché de l'emploi qui ont nom l'exclusion et la précarisation.

Dans ce texte, l'auteure se demande si les pratiques récentes des entreprises québécoises dans le domaine de la formation de la main-d’œuvre sont de nature à développer les compétences de cette même main-d’œuvre. Pour répondre à cette question, elle examine les innovations de formation des entreprises en se demandant si elles vont dans le sens d'une formation continue de la main-d’œuvre. L'examen porte d'abord sur la dynamique des innovations de formation au sein de l'entreprise, ensuite sur les liens qu'elles entretiennent avec l'organisation du travail, sur les relations qu'elles induisent entre l'école et l'entreprise et, finalement, sur l'inscription de ces formations dans le temps. Si l'auteure conclut à un changement significatif des pratiques de formation des entreprises, elle note pourtant que celles-ci sont encore trop axées sur les objectifs productivistes de l'entreprise et s'inscrivent trop peu souvent dans le sens d'une formation « continue » de la main-d’œuvre.

Finally, a book that documents the rich history of labour arts in Ontario. Making Our Mark presents over 100 projects, showcasing the vibrant banners, photos, plays and lyrics that form the heart and soul of the labour movement. Diverse examples spring from the Artist in the Workplace Program, the Mayworks Festivals, independent labour arts projects, and exhibitions organized the Ontario Workers Arts and Heritage Centre. Making Our Mark celebrates the songs of Arlene Mantle and Charlie Angus, photos by First Nations ironworkers, and dance performances by Tom Brouillette and the Boilermakers, to name a few.... Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "The Workers' Revolt in Canada, 1917-1925," edited by Craig Heron.

Cette étude présente les principaux résultats d'une recherche menée au Québec auprès de huit syndicats locaux des secteurs de la métallurgie et du papier affiliés à la CSN, qui ont négocié des ententes de participation syndicale à la gestion de l'organisation du travail au début des années 1990. La recherche a porté sur les contextes, les processus et les résultats de la coopération patronale-syndicale dans chacun des cas étudiés au cours de la période 1990 à 1997. L'analyse révèle d'abord que ces ententes, conclues pour la plupart dans un contexte de réduction des emplois, aménagent des modalités de participation formelle des syndicats à la gestion de l'organisation du travail. Les principaux changements intervenus concernent l'élargissement des tâches, le décloisonnement des métiers et le travail en équipe. Ces changements se sont accompagnés dans tous les cas de modifications aux règles conventionnelles de gestion des emplois et d'un allongement de la durée des conventions collectives. L'analyse longitudinale met en évidence un recul ou un plafonnement de la participation syndicale dans la majorité des cas après quelques années d'expérimentation. Les principaux facteurs associés au déclin de la participation syndicale sont l'imposition unilatérale par l'employeur de changements organisationnels et la perception de la part des salariés d'un partage inéquitable des gains découlant de la réorganisation du travail.

The article reviews the book, "Selling Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930-1940," by Jane S. Becker.

The article reviews the book, "The Representation Gap: Change and Reform in the British and American Workplace," by Brian Towers.

The article reviews the book, "Women Teachers and Feminist Politics 1900-39," by Alison Oram.

The article reviews the book, "The Yankee International: Marxism and the American Reform Tradition, 1848-1876," by Timothy Messer-Kruse.

A sense of determinism about the emergence of capitalism and the ruthless over-exploitation of nature in European colonial expansion pervades much of North American environmental and ecological history. The attempts of 19th-century Newfoundland fishing people to regulate access to common-property marine resources suggests that some European settlers were also capable of non-capitalist forms of ecological management. Fishers protested against the introduction of new fishing technology in response to localized exhaustion of cod stocks. Some of these protests involved the destruction of newer equipment, while others were anonymous assaults on the equipment's owners. The protests represented attempts to forestall the depletion of marine resources by the further capitalization of the fishery. By the late 1840s the demands for conservation measures became more organized politically under the leadership of mercantile agent Willam Kelson. Although he was conservative and paternalistic, Kelson's criticism of the unrestrained employment of technology in the fishing industry had radical implications. Kelson supported the desire to preserve a customary and equitable right of access to fish for present and future generations. The preservation of equitable access may been seen as an ecological norm of a moral economy that ran counter to the individualistic and accumulative values of a nascent local capitalist political economy.

Little historical work has been done in Canada on public drinking in general and public drinking after prohibition in particular. For British Columbia this neglect is a real oversight because hotel saloons were transformed into hotel beer parlours after prohibition. The first parlours opened in Vancouver in 1925, and, like saloons, they catered to a working-class clientele. Parlours held sway until 1954 when a new Government Liquor Act provided for additional venues of public drinking. One did not have to sit long in a Vancouver parlour to realize that more than alcohol consumption was being regulated. Parlours also regulated class, gender and sexuality, and race.

A tribute to the most important people in government. The most important people in government are not the prime minister, premiers, and senior bureaucrats but the people who work in government field offices across the country, providing service to Canadians. The first book to focus exclusively on the role of field-level public servants in Canada, Service in the Field examines the work they do and the relationship between field and head offices. As governments attempt to focus more on service delivery, it has become apparent that little is known about the people who actually provide the services. Barbara Wake Carroll and David Siegel discuss structural issues and analyse the various administrative reforms developed in the last few years. They highlight field officers' perceptions of the problems in the system and suggest ways to improve field office-head office relations and the operation of field offices generally. The authors' analysis is based on more than two hundred interviews with federal and provincial civil servants in all ten provinces, in the smallest hamlets and largest cities across Canada. Using extensive quotations from these interviews, the authors allow public servants to tell their own stories and, in so doing, provide examples of the application of systematic qualitative research to Canadian political science. --Publisher's description, Contents: Who Are These People and What Do They Do? -- Research Described -- "How We Do Things around Here" -- Service to the Public -- Workplace Environment -- Two Solitudes or One Big Happy Family? Dealing with Head Office -- Administrative Reform: How It Plays in the Field -- Bureaucrats Are People Too -- Where Do We Go from Here? Implications for Implementation and Management Theory.

The article reviews the book, "No Car, No Radio, No Liquor Permit": The Moral Regulation of Single Mothers in Ontario, 1920-1997, by Margaret Little.

The article reviews the book, "Taking on Goliath: The Emergence of a New Left Party and the Struggle for Democracy in Mexico," by Kathleen Bruhn.

The article reviews the book, "Workers' Control in Latin America, 1930-1979," edited by Jonathan C. Brown.

Le système québécois de formation professionnelle a connu des transformations importantes au cours des années 90. La nouvelle articulation institutionnelle de ce système a été traversée par diverses influences politiques et économiques, dont une caractéristique majeure est la participation soutenue des principaux acteurs des relations industrielles. Nous proposons ici une analyse de ce que nous nommons la modernisation du système de formation professionnelle au Québec en retraçant les orientations de départ et leur logique sous-jacente, en identifiant les influences extérieures permettant de spécifier l’expérience québécoise et en concluant sur les principaux enjeux qui confrontent les acteurs.

The article reviews the book, "Réduction du temps de travail: mode d'emploi," by Jean-Pierre Mongrand.

The article reviews the book, "Labor Market Regimes and Patterns of Flexibility: A Sweden-Canada Comparison," by Axel Van Den Berg, Bengt Furaker and Leif Johansson.

This paper reports on a remarkable partnership between Saskatoon Chemicals and a local of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union. The partnership emerged after years of bitter relations and, on the basis of great union strength, progressed to involve continuous, interest-based bargaining and an extensive, jointly determined work redesign process. Both parties achieved significant benefits from the high performance partnership before the high performance work system was developed. Evidence also shows that continuous bargaining can work. Divisions within the union over its appropriate role and accountability helped to prevent co-optation, and ultimately led to a return to a more traditional labor-management relationship. The case raises important questions for unions, regarding industrial democracy in a rapidly changing work context.

The history of labour in Canada is most often understood to mean – and presented as – the history of blue-collar workers, especially men. And it is a story of union solidarity to gain wages, rights, and the like from employers. In Contracting Masculinity, Gillian Creese examines in depth the white-collar office workers union at BC Hydro, and shows how collective bargaining involves the negotiation of gender, class, and race. Over the first 50 years of the office union's existence male and female members were approximately equal in number. Yet equality has ended there. Women are concentrated at the lower rungs of the job hierarchy, while men start higher up the ladder and enjoy more job mobility; men's office work has been redefined as a wide range of 'technical' jobs, while women's work has been concentrated in a narrow range of 'clerical' positions. As well, for decades Canadian Aboriginals and people of colour were not employed by BC Hydro, which has resulted in a racialized-gendered workplace. What is the role of workers and their trade unions in constructing male and female work, a process that is often seen as the outcome solely of management decisions? How is this process of gendering also racialized, so that women and men of different race and ethnicity are differentiallv privileged at work? How do males in a white-collar union create and maintain their own image of masculinity in the face of a feminized occupation and a more militant male blue-collar union housed within the same corporation? What impact does the gender composition of union leadership have on collective bargaining? How do traditions of union solidarity affect attempts to bargain for greater equity in the office? These are the central questions that Contracting Masculinity seeks to answer in this in-depth look at a Canadian union. --Publisher's description