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Review of: Un parti sous influence: le Parti communiste suisse, une section du Komintern 1931 à 1939 by Brigitte Studer.

Readers of [this journal] may well have experienced a number of disorienting sensations: watching media coverage of a political event or demonstration one attended which completely distorts what one observed, or reading reviews of one's own book and finding it unrecognizable. Reading Joan Sangster's "Beyond Dichotomies" had a bit ofthe same effect. Canadian women's history, and its relationship to the emerging field of gender history, as we have studied it, taught it, and written it is - from Sangster's presentation - barely recognizable. We suppose we are among the members of the "younger, more hip generation" (counterposed, presumably, to the sober socialist feminist), whose "consumer choice" Sangster decries. And so we welcome the opportunity to tell our version of the story. --Author's introduction

The Fort Wellington Hospital Register contains the case histories of 278 soldiers treated by military physicians in an 1840s British garrison. A computer-assisted analysis of the register provides information about illnesses suffered and the treatments prescribed, and allows for an examination of both soldiers and their doctors as workers. The soldiers were often ill because of the working conditions associated with soldiering, and their doctors were sometimes aware of the causal connection. This study leads to the epistemological suggestion that the disease labels used by the physicians were influenced by their working relationships with their solider-patients and their superiors in the military setting.

Cape Breton, the site of major strikes during the 1920s, remained a hotbed of political radicalism and trade union militancy for many years. In the 1930s the Communist Party had considerable influence, and most of the coal miners joined the Amalgamated Mine Workers of Nova Scotia, a CP-led breakaway from the United Mine Workers of America. Ideological opposition to the columnists was spearheaded by the Catholic-inspired Antigonish Co-operative Movement, but this did not prevent the communist leader, J. B. McLachlan, from getting substantial votes in elections. The change of communist policy to the "united front" weakened the party's influence, although communists and the officers of the re-united miners' union were able to help the Sydney steelworkers finally establish a union, and to successfully press the provincial government to pass the 1937 Trade Union Act. Left and right in Cape Breton were also able to work together during the 1937 provincial election. The unity line of the communists, along with the impact of the Antigonish movement on Catholic voters, prepared the way for the UMW affiliation to the CCF in 1938, and during the CCFers won the local seats in both the federal and provincial legislatures. However, the CCF could never win elections elsewhere in the Maritimes, and the move of CCF policies to the right in the post-war years only served to gradually undermine its support in Cape Breton. In the UMW the dissatisfaction of the miners with their bureaucratic officers brought about the 1941 slowdown, one of the most costly wartime industrial disputes, and productivity fell. The union policies advocated by the CCF (and the CP during the war), helped end opposition to the mechanization of the mines. Following defeat in the 1947 strike, the miners had to accept modernization on the company's terms, although this meant the loss of jobs. The steelworkers' union won a national strike in 1946, but thereafter was unable to hold wage rates for Sydney at a level equal to those paid in Ontario steel plants. The militancy and radicalism of the miners and steelworkers of earlier years had almost completely disappeared by 1950. Dramatic anti-communist episodes in both the steelworkers' and miners' unions in the 1949-50 period marked the triumph of union bureaucrats and Cold War politicians over radicalism in Cape Breton.

Cet article vise à appréhender la réalité québécoise en matière d'évolution des modes de rémunération et des structures de salaire négociés par les syndicats et les employeurs en mettant en évidence les changements qui se sont produits dans les conventions collectives depuis 1980.

Reports on the annual conference of the International Labor Organization in Geneva in June 1993, at which over 130 countries attended with each sending delegations of labour, business and government officials. Takes note of the air of uncertainty that surrounded the proceedings in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse and the capitalist shift of investment to the global south. Provides a snapshot of the discussion with an edited synopsis of interviews with a number of conference attendees, with the exception of the Canadian Autoworkers' Sam Gindin who was interviewed in June 1994 following the signing of NAFTA. Themes explored include the global economy, policy dilemmas facing the ILO, transnational strategies and the labour movement, and intellectual activists and labour history. The interviewees included Philip Bowyer, James Burge, Hans Engelberts, Dan Galeen, Sam Gindin, Charles Gray, Philip Jennings, Denis MacShane, Herbert Maier, and Charles Spring.

The article reviews the book "A Marriage of Convenience: Business and Social Work in Toronto 1918-1957," by Gale Wills.

Most people believe that the early pioneer homesteaders, the Selkirk settlers, were Manitoba's first farmers. However, several centuries before the arrival of the Selkirk settlers, the land was already being worked by Aboriginal or First Nations peoples in various parts of Manitoba. The presentation of Manitoba's history has not generally shown Native peoples as farmers; instead, they have been portrayed as nomadic wanderers who resisted the efforts of well-intentioned Europeans who tried to induce them to take up farming and become "civilized". In Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy, Sarah Carter (1993) has documented in detail how representatives from Indian Affairs first introduced farming to Aboriginal groups, usually at the request of the Native peoples after they had been relocated to reserves, and then proceeded to set up a series of rules which made farming on the reserves an activity destined to fail. There is, however, well documented evidence for Postcontact maize (corn) horticulture in Manitoba prior to the movement of Aboriginal peoples to reserves. Moodie and Kaye (1969) discuss some of the early accounts of corn growing in Manitoba. They state that the first mention of Native corn horticulture north of the Middle Missouri is made by Henry Schoolcraft in 1805, when he observed the Netley Creek Natives growing corn and potatoes. Later, in 1821, these same people were reputed to have provided the Selkirk settlers with seed. Moodie and Kaye (1969) also report that the Netley Creek Odawas were well aware of the practice of maize growing but did not grow it themselves until they were given the seed in 1805. Following this, garden plots were placed in strategic provisioning locations and, by the 1850's, they had added beans and even melons to their inventory. The practice of gardening quickly caught on with other Woodland Native groups spurred by the demand for provisions by traders This example from the fur trade period is the most frequently cited example of the earliest known Native farming in Manitoba. But what of the Precontact period, the vast period of time prior to the fur trade and homestead eras? For information from this period we must turn to the archaeological record and to early historic observations on Native peoples to the south, particularly in the area around the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in what is now the Dakotas and Minnesota. Archaeologists have documented a long tradition of plant domestication and crop harvesting among the Aboriginal people of North, Central and South America. Corn, one of our own modern staples, was first domesticated in the highlands of Mexico approximately 7000 years ago. This highly adaptable plant was rapidly bred to produce a wide variety of strains which were eventually grown throughout much of Central and North America. Other domesticated crops include a variety of beans and gourds, tobacco, sunflowers, potatoes and numerous indigenous seedy plants such as chenopodium and amaranth. In fact, one of the ironies of modern farming is the effort that is currently invested in eradicating "weeds," many of which were either domesticated or heavily utilized by Precontact Aboriginal groups and are particularly well-suited to colonizing recently disturbed land. --Introduction

The article reviews the book, "Success While Others Fail: Social Movement Unionism and the Public Workplace," by Paul Johnston.

A century of women's work history in Australia and Canada reveals both similarities and contrasts. Women workers in both countries have faced persistent occupational segregation and lower pay, justified by the "family wage" ideal of a male breadwinner and the accompanying perception of women's paid labour as secondary, less skilled and transient. While Canada's female labour force has historically demonstrated a significant proportion of immigrants from countries other than England, Australia's female labour force contained fewer immigrants but revealed a visible minority of Aboriginals who have demonstrated labour militancy in several well-known disputes in this century. Perhaps the most striking differences between the two countries, however, relate to the extent of the Australian state's involvement in wage tribunals and in the compulsory arbitration system, both of which have given women improved wages and "a floor of protection." By contrast, state intervention in Canada was minimal until well into the 20th century when minimum wage laws were passed during and after World War I. Despite these differences there are areas of similarity, particularly in this century as women workers tended to mobilize at roughly the same time, not only in unions and work places but also in neighbourhoods, ethnic communities, rural areas and to some extent in labour and left wing political groups. Modern feminist movements in both countries have waged some successful campaigns to change not only government views and agendas, but also those of trade unions. Thus, while Australian women have perhaps been more successful at "playing the state" depending on the government in power, both groups of women are increasingly faced with the challenge of government retreat from egalitarian policies under the onslaught of a right-wing, corporatist agenda.

This essay investigates the formal and informal educational pursuits of the labour movements and working-class communities of Australia and Canada. It suggests that worker education in the two countries was conducted by similar institutions, notably by branches of England's Workers Educational Association (WEA) but within very different cultural contexts. By juxtaposing these two national cases we demonstrate that labour's reliance on such community-wide institutions was mediated by the relationship between the labour movements and informal networks of working class interaction, on the one hand, and the body politic, on the other. Australia's prominent labour movement and strong tradition of public working class interaction enabled community-wide educational activities to be challenged. In Canada, by contrast, the collaborative nature of adult education and the "tools courses" taught by unions represented a different consensus about the nature of class identity and the place of unions in national politics.

The article reviews the book "Northern Protest: Martin Luther King Jr., Chicago, and the Civil Rights Movement," by James R. Ralph.

The article reviews the book "Revolutionary Marxism and Social Reality in the Twentieth Century," by Ernest Mandel.

The article reviews the book, "Le droit du travail : théories et pratiques," 3rd edition, by Rodrigue Blouin.

The article reviews and comments on the book, "Theater of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture," Volume I, by Raphael Samuel.

This article investigates the historical dimensions of the labour movement's relationship to the welfare state in Australia and Canada during the 20th century. It assesses existing class and party politics theories of this relationship and by proposing particular historical accounts of the welfare state in a comparative context, it seeks to move beyond the limitations of these theories. The article argues that such approaches focus too narrowly on social security and wage regulation as the key parameters of the welfare state, ignoring major fields of welfare intervention for women, indigenous peoples and war service. In attempting to provide a more comprehensive narrative of the welfare state in a comparative context the article seeks to provide a clearer conception of the distinctive features of settler society welfare states. And by placing the role of the labour movement in this broader history it critically assesses the successes and limitations of the labour movement's engagement with the welfare state.