Your search

Are “major junior” hockey players amateur athletes honing their skills with a view to playing professional hockey, or employees working in for-profit businesses? This question lies at the heart of the ongoing class actions involving the Canadian Hockey League (“CHL”) and its member leagues and teams (the “CHL Litigation”). --From introduction

The article reviews the book, "Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission," by Herb Childress.

Analyzes the historical and legal framework of restrictive labour laws that constrain the right to strike. Argues that, although the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutional freedom to strike in 2015, the impact of the SCC ruling should be assessed within this broader context.

This chapter compares the historical development and use of criminal law at work in the United Kingdom and in Ontario, Canada. Specifically, it considers the use of the criminal law both in the master and servant regime as an instrument for disciplining the workforce and in factory legislation for protecting workers from unhealthy and unsafe working conditions, including exceedingly long hours work. Master and servant legislation that criminalized servant breaches of contract originated in the United Kingdom where it was widely used in the nineteenth century to discipline industrial workers. These laws were partially replicated in Ontario, where it had shallower roots and was used less aggressively. At the same time as the use of criminal law to enforce master and servant law was contested, legislatures in the United Kingdom and Ontario enacted protective factory acts limiting the length of the working day. However, these factory acts did not treat employer violations crimes; instead, they were treated as lesser ‘regulatory’ offences for which employers were rarely prosecuted.

Most people tend to join mainstream trade unions for instrumental motives and not so much for ideological reasons. This instrumentalism, together with the passivity of most union members, endangers members’ union loyalty and their willingness to act collectively. One possible way to de-emphasize the traditional model of service-oriented unionism and strengthen union commitment is to involve members in small union tasks. By partially assigning day-to-day union work to lay members, it is believed that over-stretched union representatives will be able to assign more time to implementing union policies of strategic importance. The article examines to what extent new union members are willing to voluntarily engage in union tasks inspired by organizing unionism. To test this empirically, an e-survey was conducted among first-time members of a Belgian union. Predominantly young, the respondents had been members of the union for maximum of seven years. Belgium is an interesting case for exploring how member-union ties can be boosted, as it is a quintessential example of a country with a high union density characterized by instrumental and passive membership. Following the deletion of cases with missing data, 518 observations are available for analysis. The dependent variable measures the organizing-oriented activism intent based on union tasks reflecting one-on-one organizing tactics for reaching out to potential members. A critical mass of 41.3% new members is (greatly) interested in at least one task. The regression results show that two variables derived from the planned behaviour theory significantly influence organizing-based union tasks: the pro-union context and behavioural self-control, with the latter in particular a very strong antecedent. Apart from the finding that a larger membership base is interested in performing organizing-oriented tasks, the results also, support a developmental view on union activism, i.e. a step-by-step approach to stimulating union activism via introducing various levels of union participation.

The nature of employment is changing: low wage jobs are increasingly common, fewer workers belong to unions, and workplaces are being transformed through the growth of contracting-out, franchising, and extended supply chains. Closing the Enforcement Gap offers a comprehensive analysis of the enforcement of employment standards in Ontario. Adopting mixed methods, this work includes qualitative research involving in-depth interviews with workers, community advocates, and enforcement officials; extensive archival research excavating decades of ministerial records; and analysis of a previously untapped source of administrative data collected by Ontario’s Ministry of Labour. The authors reveal and trace the roots of a deepening "enforcement gap" that pervades nearly all aspects of the regime, demonstrating that the province’s Employment Standards Act (ESA) fails too many workers who rely on the floor of minimum conditions it was devised to provide. Arguably, there is nothing inevitable about the enforcement gap in Ontario or for that matter elsewhere. Through contributions from leading employment standards enforcement scholars in the US, the UK, and Australia, as well as Quebec, Closing the Enforcement Gap surveys innovative enforcement models that are emerging in a variety of jurisdictions and sets out a bold vision for strengthening employment standards enforcement. -- Publisher's description.

Many women who lived through the Second World War believed it heralded new status and opportunities, but scholars have argued that very little changed. How can these interpretations be reconciled? Making the Best of It examines the ways in which gender and other identities intersected to shape the experiences of female Canadians and Newfoundlanders during the war. The contributors to this thoughtful collection consider mainstream and minority populations, girls and women, and different parts of Canada and Newfoundland. They reassess topics such as women's presence in the military and in munitions factories, and tackle entirely new subjects such as wartime girlhood in Quebec. Collectively, these essays broaden the scope of what we know about the changes the war wrought, and draw on diverse methodologies to address wider debates about memory, historiography, and feminism. Making the Best of It offers new insights into the impact of the Second World War and lays the foundation for a better understanding of the dramatic alterations that occurred in the lives of women and girls in Canada after the 1940s. -- Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Moved by the State: Forced Relocation and Making a Good Life in Post War Canada," by Tina Loo.

This paper seeks to explore the history of miners’ struggles to represent their interests in health and safety in coalmines in a range of countries in the period between 1870 and 1925. It has two objectives, the first objective being to examine these struggles both in terms of what determined them and how effective they were. The second objective is to assess the significance of these struggles for current understandings of representative participation in Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). Starting with late 19th century Australia, the research method involved search, retrieval and analysis of historical sources including newspaper accounts, recorded testimony to Commissions of Inquiry into mining incidents and disasters, records of the debates of the legislature on relevant regulatory reforms and records of trade union meetings, as well as the accounts of contemporary observers and published analysis. Extending its inquiry to other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Belgium, the methods used for these countries were less focused on newspaper accounts and more reliant on the analysis of published historical records of national and international trade union congresses, and those of the legislatures of these countries, as well as theses and accounts in the research literature. In combination, these sources corroborate one another and provide rich qualitative data, the analysis of which has achieved both research objectives. As well as filling an important gap in the literature on the development of worker involvement in OHS, this paper shows that coalminers’ struggles and strategies for workers to have a say in their health and safety, and the contexts that shaped them are both instructive and important in understanding current experiences.

Comme toutes les grandes villes occidentales, Montréal fourmille de taxis qui parcourent les rues, font la navette entre l'aéroport et le centre-ville, attendent près des stations de métro, des hôpitaux et des grands hôtels. Trains, tramways, autobus, métros et vélos de Montréal ont eu droit à leur histoire, mais pas les taxis. Le monde du taxi est pourtant un sujet riche et complexe, un carrefour où se rencontrent plusieurs spécialisations de l'histoire : urbaine, politique, économique, sans oublier le travail et l'immigration. Depuis sa voiture, le chauffeur ou la chauffeuse est témoin des rapports tendus entre le travailleur et l'État, la ville et les citoyens, les quartiers excentrés et le centre-ville, le peuple et les élites. Il est aussi témoin des luttes entre la majorité francophone et les minorités culturelles, des mutations technologiques et de l'essor du transport en commun. Le monde du taxi, c'est aussi et surtout des travailleurs qui forment une catégorie sociale unique et qui pratiquent un métier rempli de paradoxes. Au fil de son enquête, faite de recherches sur l'industrie et d'entretiens avec ses acteurs, Jean-Philippe Warren en est venu à la conclusion que le chauffeur de taxi est la dernière incarnation du cowboy : libre de ses mouvements, de son emploi du temps, mais prisonnier de quantité de facteurs. Il peut arrêter de travailler quand il veut et travaille sans cesse. Il a toujours de l'argent dans ses poches, mais est pauvre. Il veut que l'État intervienne pour le protéger, mais exècre les régulations. Il pratique un métier monotone, mais rempli d'imprévus. Il est à la fois entouré de monde et seul. S'ajoutant à la diversité ethnique des membres de la profession, ces paradoxes créent une sous-culture absolument fascinante où se jouent des luttes de pouvoir économique et de contrôle territorial. Une sous-culture tout aussi difficile à intégrer qu'à quitter. En utilisant les ressources combinées de l'histoire et des sciences sociales, en mêlant l'examen des archives et l'enquête de terrain, cette première histoire du taxi à Montréal débouche sur un portrait inédit de la ville. Elle se veut aussi une contribution à la compréhension d'un monde qui cultive les extrêmes et qui, s'il veut se transformer pour le mieux, pour le bien-être de ses travailleurs, de leurs familles et des usagers, doit s'appuyer sur des données tangibles et une histoire critique. --Publisher's description

Universities play a vital role in society and the principles of academic freedom, tenure, equity, and institutional autonomy are foundational to their success. How are these principles defended and strengthened? Through collective bargaining. --Editor's note

The article reviews the book, "Imperial Standard: Imperial Oil, Exxon, and the Canadian Oil Industry from 1880," by Graham D. Taylor.

Poor peoples organizing can be effective even in periods of neoliberal retrenchment. This dissertation examines ruling relations and the social relations of struggle from the standpoint of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With political activist ethnography as my central theoretical framework and methodological approach, I conducted field research, interviews and textual analysis of City and organizational documents. Focusing on OCAPs homelessness campaigns, I examine the social relations of struggle in three campaigns in Toronto: a campaign to stop the criminalization of homeless people in a public park by private security, a campaign to increase access to a social assistance benefit for people in emergency housing need, and a campaign to increase the number and improve the conditions of emergency shelter beds. My research demonstrates the active and ongoing research and theorization that anti-poverty activists engage in as well as the practices of delegitimization, excluding critique, testimonial injustice and epistemic violence that ruling relations engage in to counter activist research and theory. Some of this research and theory has regarded both Housing First policy and philosophy and Torontos emergency shelter system which OCAP, homeless people and other advocates have been decrying as unjust and inept for years. This dissertation explicates some of the ways that the City works to delegitimize its challengers and demonstrates the validity of many of the longstanding critiques of the ruling regime. While the City of Toronto has worked to contain homelessness organizing in Toronto, and deployed numerous demobilization tactics to do so, each campaign was fully or partially successful. Full or partial victories were secured by anti-poverty activists through the use (or threat) of direct action tactics.

Poor peoples organizing can be effective even in periods of neoliberal retrenchment. This dissertation examines ruling relations and the social relations of struggle from the standpoint of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With political activist ethnography as my central theoretical framework and methodological approach, I conducted field research, interviews and textual analysis of City and organizational documents. Focusing on OCAPs homelessness campaigns, I examine the social relations of struggle in three campaigns in Toronto: a campaign to stop the criminalization of homeless people in a public park by private security, a campaign to increase access to a social assistance benefit for people in emergency housing need, and a campaign to increase the number and improve the conditions of emergency shelter beds. My research demonstrates the active and ongoing research and theorization that anti-poverty activists engage in as well as the practices of delegitimization, excluding critique, testimonial injustice and epistemic violence that ruling relations engage in to counter activist research and theory. Some of this research and theory has regarded both Housing First policy and philosophy and Torontos emergency shelter system which OCAP, homeless people and other advocates have been decrying as unjust and inept for years. This dissertation explicates some of the ways that the City works to delegitimize its challengers and demonstrates the validity of many of the longstanding critiques of the ruling regime. While the City of Toronto has worked to contain homelessness organizing in Toronto, and deployed numerous demobilization tactics to do so, each campaign was fully or partially successful. Full or partial victories were secured by anti-poverty activists through the use (or threat) of direct action tactics.

The article reviews the book, "A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution," by Toby Green.

In the early years of the Great Depression, the American Socialist Party (sp) attracted left-wing youth and intellectuals at the same time that it faced the challenges of distinguishing itself from the Democratic Party of Franklin D. Roosevelt. By 1936, as its right-wing historic leadership (the “Old Guard”) left the sp and many of the more left-wing members of the sp had decamped, the party dwindled to a shell of its former strength. This article examines the internal struggles within the sp between the Old Guard and the left-wing “Militant” groupings and analyzes how the groups to the left of the sp reacted, particularly the pro-Moscow Communist Party and the supporters of Trotsky and Bukharin who were organized into two smaller groups, the Communist Party (Opposition) and Workers Party.