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The article reviews the book, "Schooling for "Good Rebels": Socialist Education for Children in the United States, 1900-1920," by Kenneth Teitelbaum.

This essay explores relations of gender and class, and the strategies developed by male unionists in defence of masculine craft status in the International Typo- graphical Union (ITU), the International Printing Pressmen's and Assistants' Union (IPP&AU), and the International Brotherhood of Bookbinders (IBB), between 1850 and 1914. The ITU and IPP&AU organized along masculine craft lines and effectively defended their status within the workplace with industrial capitalist incursions and the mechanization of the production process. A crisis to male domination of typesetting occurred with the introduction of machine typesetting in newspaper production during the early 1890s. The ITU succeeded in securing control over the operations of the machines for its predominately male membership. By the mid-19th century the work of press feeder was defined as unskilled work suitable for women and boys. With the introduction of larger and faster presses during the last two decades of the 19th century, the IPP&AU struggled to appropriate the task for masculinity using the male breadwinner ideal. The IBB actively supported the organization of women bindery workers from its inception in 1892, albeit with the intent of protecting the interests of journeymen.

Following capitalism's arrival on the Canadian Prairies, the desire to challenge the existing order grew within a number of sharply divided communities. Immediately following World War I, moderates and radicals alike responded to the grim realities of unemployment, starvation wages, poor working conditions, and unsanitary housing by challenging a contradictory system of social relations in a battle over the meaning of "democracy". It was a golden age of social criticism, as pioneer reformers reached out to the large community audiences. In colleges, in churches, and in a radicalized press, the arrival of reform was heralded as the coming of a new day. Few persons were as outspoken or were able to gain as wide an audience as William Ivens. As a Methodist minister, a Labour Church leader, a working-class intellectual, and eventually as a member of the Manitoba Legislative Assembly, William Ivens challenged the existing order. He represented a tendency in Western Canadian thought throughout the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s. His Labour Church as a working-class institution helped forge a political space in the community. Ivens offered Manitobans a new social order based not on competition, but rather on co-operation. His tendency was the result of passing various elements of Marxism, and Labour Marxist thought through the lens of a non-conformist Christianity and Methodism. The end result was an ethical socialist social philosophy that effectively addressed the social problems of the period. As a spokes-person and as an agitator for social reform, Ivens' ethical socialist outlook achieved a consensus among radical and moderate labourists. His importance as an activist in the community and the type of reforms that he was advocating, make him an important, interesting and worthwhile study in Western Canadian history.

The objectives of the National Round Table on Aboriginal Economic Development and Resources were to stimulate discussion of the economic development challenges facing Aboriginal peoples and to elicit suggestions on how these challenges can best be met. The results of the Round Table were to contribute to the formulation of the Royal Commission’s final recommendations. To bring a broad range of perspectives to the discussion, participants included those knowledgeable in economic development and resources issues and those with expertise in the creation and implementation of economic development initiatives benefitting Aboriginal communities — with a balance in terms of gender, age and Aboriginal identification. Economic development issues are very broad-ranging. To help focus discussion, five issue groups or themes were selected, and participants were asked to consider particular questions relating to each of the themes. Discussion papers were commissioned on each of the themes, and a series of examples or models of individual and community enterprise in economic development were presented. --Objectives, p. 1.

The article reviews the book, "Plaisir d'amour et crainte de Dieu : sexualité et confession au Bas-Canada," by Serge Gagnon.

The article reviews the book, "The union and its members," by Julian Barling, Clive Fullagar, and E. Kevin Kelloway.

The article reviews the book, "L'avènement de la linotype: les cas de Montréal à la fin du XIXe siècle," by Bernard Dansereau.

The work of Boivin (1992) and Meltz (1992) on the issue of industrial relations as a discipline is expanded by exploring the implications of this debate for graduate curricula. The debate over whether industrial relations constitutes a discipline is presented, and then some of the implications of the outcome of this debate for the development of industrial relations teaching units and curriculum content are discussed. The alternative organizational approaches to graduate-level study of industrial relations in Canada and the US are broadly characterized. Some of the factors giving rise to the wide variety of programs observed in both countries are presented. Like Boivin, undergraduate labor studies programs are not considered. Some of the factors influencing changes in program content are considered, and the implications of these for the future study of and instruction in industrial relations are discussed.

A labor shortage in 1922, the promise of a bumper yield in 1923, and increased imperialist sentiment resulted in the recruitment of nearly 12,000 British workers to assist Canadian harvesters with the 1923 prairie wheat crop. Since most of them came from the cities they found the transition to western agriculture difficult and their complaints about the treatment they endured caused considerable damage to Canada's image abroad. Nevertheless, many persevered and returned home after the harvest satisfied. Those who remained to make a new life for themselves had a harder time since they were forced to take farm work at subsistence wages for the winter. Others chose to seek work in their own trades in Canada's cities. Like many, those in Toronto faced unemployment but, with the help of area radicals, the militants among them decided to lead a long march to demand work at reasonable wages from the Mackenzie King government. Despite unrelenting harassment from public officials they remained united and, with the assistance of citizens in the communities along the way, they reached the capital bedraggled but defiant a fortnight later. While their march proved futile in the short term, it was an early example of escalating militancy among the unemployed, both domestic and immigrant, which helped to focus attention on both the plight of unskilled labor in a national economy and on the short-sighted, employer-driven immigration policies.

The article reviews the book, "Corporate Canada: An Historical Outline," by Gerry van Houten.

The article reviews the book, "Gender Conflicts: New Essays in Women's History," edited by Franca Iacovetta and Mariana Valverde.

The results of research on the determinants of unemployment spell durations of individuals experiencing job separations in each year from 1978 to 1980 and from 1982 to 1985 are presented. Accelerated failure time models that incorporate explicit assumptions concerning the functional form of the baseline hazard are estimated for each year, and for a variety of functional forms. Cox's (1972) proportional hazards procedure is also employed. The results obtained are robust to the functional form assumed, but not necessarily to the year of data used. It is found that the average duration of an unemployment spell increased significantly as the economy moved into recession during the early 1980s, and that, for the most part, it decreased during the subsequent recovery. However, even though the aggregate unemployment rate fell between 1984 and 1985, the average duration of an unemployment spell increased. For some demographic groups, economic recovery does little to reduce unemployment spell durations. Most notable in this regard is the change in the relationship between age and spell duration.

This is a local study of steelworkers employed at, or aid off from, Stelco’s Hilton Works in Hamilton, Ontario. This local study has been situated in the context of the global restructuring of capitalism. The authors content that more than ever before the dynamics of the whole world economy limit and shape the actions of its past - a process referred to as “globalizing the local.” Restructuring is taking place in response to global demands. As the global net tighten, local regions and industry have less and less autonomy for independent development. Stelco is best conceived as a sit of the worldwide process of capital accumulation. How has this restructuring impacted on local regions and local worked? This question is the focus of this book, often answered in workers’ and management’s own words. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book "Solidarité inc: Un nouveau syndicalisme créateur d'emplois," by Louis Fournier.

Examines the struggle for equal pay for women in a large office union composed of female clerical and male technical and manual workers. The Office and Technical Employees' Union pursued "equal pay for equal job evaluation" for over thirty years from 1949 to 1981, while the employer, B.C. Electric/Hydro, systematically restructured unequal pay. At the same time, union negotiating practices and priorities also reinforced the gendered hierarchy in the workplace, and equal pay for women remained a sectoral "women's issue" rather than a core general union issue.

During the five decades of the transformation of the policies which regulated the importation and placement of immigrant women into household service work, the policy was variously regulated by internal procedures, policy statement, and operational guidelines. This book examines these changes with a focus on understanding how bureaucracy such as Employment and Immigration Canada contributes, through its mandate, to shaping social relationships in the Canadian labour force and society. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Working Class Experience: Rethinking the History of Canadian Labor, 1800-1991," by Bryan D. Palmer.

The article reviews the book, "Le traité du recours à l'encontre d'un congédiement sans cause juste et suffisante," by Pierre Laporte.

Analyzes through the use of tables the principle characteristics of the 181 strikes that took place in the resource-based economy of northern Ontario between 1900 and 1945. Concludes that the strike frequency reflected the pattern of others in the country during the period, that the strikes nvolved mostly workers in the mining, metal, forestry, and pulp and paper industries, that the core issues were union representation and compensation, and that the employer generally won, especially in mining.