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When work is 'boundless' and 'seamless' where and how do workers' lives intersect with the space-time continuum of place-based communities? Who and what are they accountable to? Telemediation is fragmenting work across increasingly complex, transnational networks. Workers in these networks must negotiate through a multitude of temporal, contractual and trans-cultural milieus. This paper traces the trajectory of the work experience using case studies of telemediated work relationships in various points in the global supply chain and analyses the implications of telemediated spaces for the quality of workers' lives. Drawing on an analysis of case studies conducted by the EMERGENCE Canada project, this paper argues that telemediated work represents a shift in the scale at which many aspects of daily life unfold, and that some of the assumptions upon which workers' lives are governed must be reconsidered.

The history of British Columbia’s economy in the twentieth century is inextricably bound to the development of the forest industry. In this comprehensive study, Gordon Hak approaches the forest industry from the perspectives of workers and employers, examining the two main sets of institutions that structured the relationship during the Fordist era: the companies and the unions. Drawing on theories of the labour process, Fordism, and discursive subjectivity, Hak relates daily routines of production and profit-making to broader forces of unionism, business ideology, ecological protest, technological change, and corporate concentration. The struggle of the small-business sector to survive in the face of corporate growth, the history of the industry on the Coast and in the Interior, the transformations in capital-labour relations during the period, government forest policy, and the forest industry’s encounter with the emerging environmental movement are all considered in this eloquent analysis. With its critical historical perspective, Capital and Labour in the British Columbia Forest Industry will be essential reading for anyone interested in the business, natural resource, political, social, and labour history of the province. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Securing Borders: Detention and Deportation in Canada," by Anna Pratt.

Through an analysis of qualitative, ethnographic data, I locate the narratives of nine Mexican women married to migrants within the context of capitalist globalization, state policies, and local gender ideologies. In doing so, advocate for a theoretical approach to migration which combines elements of structural theories of migration and network theoretical approaches. These women's narratives position them at the juncture of capitalism and other social relations, and show them to be active agents in migration. Not only is their labour critical to the maintenance of migration patterns and the capitalist relations into which migrants and non-migrants are incorporated, but women's labour is also imbued with social meanings.

The widespread use of outsourcing in the service industry has major consequences for the employment relationship. In particular, outsourcing diminishes absolute employer control of firm operations. This article focuses on this new relationship through a study of the occupational health and safety requirements established in connection with the outsourcing of public bus transport in Denmark.

The article reviews the book, "Saints, Sinners and Soldiers: Canada's Second World War," by Jeffrey A. Keshen.

The article reviews the book, "Fragile Alliances: Labor and Politics in Evansville, Indiana 1919-1955," by Samuel W. White.

This paper focuses on the experiences of children and youth who were born into the Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA) during the 1920s and 1930s. It examines the priorities of the movement's parents and male leaders and their efforts to implement activities that would serve to politicize and impart a strong sense of Ukrainianness in youngsters. It also considers the ways in which young people themselves contributed to the shape of the movement. Children and youth, because of their particular positions at specific intersections of class, ethnicity, age, and gender, experienced the ULFTA in ways that were distinct from their parents. Because of the ULFTA's emphasis on Ukrainian culture, their childhoods were also significantly different from other socialist children. The movement's emphasis on Marxist-Leninism and the class struggle also divided these children from their non-socialist Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian peers. By applying an intersectional perspective to the interwar Ukrainian left, this paper also seeks to broaden our understanding of the movement's connection with the Communist Party of Canada (CPC). The ULFTA and the CPC enjoyed a consistently difficult relationship through much of this period, particularly where Ukrainian cultural expression was concerned. An examination of youngsters' activities illustrates some of the many ways in which the ULFTA leaders and rank-and-file members (including the young people themselves) resisted the CPC's attempts to control the ULFTA and its resources.

The article focuses on the activism of Jewish leader Noah London against Stalinism in Soviet Union. While working as the labor editor of the Communist Party of the United States' (CPUSA) Yiddish daily newspaper called "Freiheit," London had participated in the socialist-communist civil war within the garment industry which profoundly affect the labor movement in the U.S. He was the founding national secretary of the CPUSA Jewish Workers Federation.

The article looks at the reason for the decline in union densities in Japan and the U.S. Union density is defined as the number of workers who are members of unions. According to the article, the drop in the U.S. started in 1953 while it began in Japan in 1975. The author claims that the reason for this decline is because of business unionism, which is a situation when the union leadership agrees to terms acceptable to business and has no interest in democratic participation in decision-making by the workers.

The article reviews the book, "Artificial Ice: Hockey, Culture and Commerce," edited by David Whitson and Richard Gruneau.

The article reviews the book, "Global Cinderellas: Migrant Domestics and Newly Rich Employers in Taiwan," by Pei-Chia Lan.

Labour Relations and Health Reform: A Comparative Study of Five Jurisdictions, by Kurt Wetzel, is reviewed.

On 23 June 1919, 5000 workers affiliated with Victoria's Metal Trades Council downed tools in sympathy with Winnipeg workers and as a protest against what they called 'Star Chamber' methods of repression against the working- class leadership. While much has been written on the Winnipeg General Strike and 1919 Canadian labour revolt, the Victoria General Strike is revealing as a contested expression of working-class solidarity, an illustration of the unresolved tension between craft and industrial unionism and different labour leaderships in the west-coast city. Much of British Columbia labour had embraced the One Big Union and its socialist leadership by the spring of 1919, but Victoria's organized workers wavered on the question of striking in sympathy with Winnipeg's working class. While the shipyards were a locus of militancy, influential groups of workers, AFL rather than OBU in orientation, opposed a general strike and undermined the mood of solidarity. Local conditions in different economic sectors shaped the working-class response to the Winnipeg General Strike. This tension provides fresh insight into the development of class consciousness and industrial militancy at the end World War I, breaking new ground in the historiography of Canada's postwar labour revolt.

In April 2004, the Hospital Employees' Union (HEU) waged an illegal strike that mobilized sections of British Columbia's working class to the brink of a general sympathetic strike. Influenced by BC's class-polarized political culture and HEU's distinct history, the 2004 strike represents a key moment of working-class resistance to neoliberal privatization. HEU was targeted by the BC Liberal government because it represented a bastion of militant, independent unionism in a jurisdiction that appeared overripe (from the neoliberal standpoint) for a curtailment of worker rights and a retrenchment of public-sector employment. HEU also represented a direct barrier, in the language of its collective agreements and collective power of its membership, to the privatization of health services and dismantling of Medicare. The militant agency of HEU members, combined with anger generated by a constellation of social-service cutbacks, inspired rank-and-file workers and several unions to defy collective agreements and embrace sympathetic strike action. This revealed differentiation in the strategy and tactics of BC's labor leadership, and enduring sources of solidarity in labor's ranks.

The article reviews the book, "The Embedded Corporation: Corporate Governance and Employment Relations in Japan and the United States," by Sanford M. Jacoby.

The article reviews the book, "Sex Traffic: Prostitution, Crime and Exploitation," by Paola Monzini.

This multidisciplinary volume brings together scholars and activists to examine expressions of racism in contemporary policy areas, including education, labour, immigration, media, and urban planning. While anti-racist struggles during the twentieth century were largely pitched against overt forms of racism (e.g., pogroms, genocide, segregation, apartheid, and 'ethnic cleansing'), it has become increasingly apparent that there are other, less visible, forms of racism. These subtler incarnations are of special interest to the contributors. The intent of Race, Racialization, and Antiracism in Canada and Beyond is to probe systemic forms of racism, as well as to suggest strategies for addressing them. The collection is organized by themes pertinent to political and social expressions of racism in Canada and the wider world, such as the state and its mediation of race, education and the perpetuation of racist marginalization, and the role of the media. The contributors argue that, in order to effectively combat racism, various methodological approaches are required, approaches that are reflective of the diversity of the world we seek to understand. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction / Audrey Kobayashi and Genevieve Fuji Johnson -- Negotiating school: marginalized students' participation in their education process / Carl E. James -- Multicultural education: teacher candidates speak out / Donatille Mujawamariya -- The sky didn't fall: organizing to combat racism in the workplace -- the case of the alliance for employment equity / Abigail B. Bakan and Audrey Kobayashi -- Employment conditions of racial minorities in Canada: how bad is the problem of discrimination? / Mohammed A. Al-Waqfi and Harish C. Jain -- Immigrant women's activism: the past thirty-five years / Tania Das Gupta -- Critical discourse analysis: a powerful but flawed tool? / Frances Henry and Carol Tator -- Special plus and special negative: the conflict between perceptions and applications of 'special status' in Canada / Howard Ramos -- Who belongs? Expoloring race and racialization in Canada / Leanne Taylor, Carl E. James, and Roger Saul -- The racialization of space: producng surrey / Gurpreet Singh Johal -- Raceless states / David Theo Goldberg -- Multi-identifications and transformations: reaching beyond racial and ethnic reductionisms / Philomena Essed.

This article analyzes the complex employment position of temporary workers within organizations and on the labour market. Temporary employment is usually considered secondary to permanent employment. In recent years, the European Union and the Dutch government have attempted to change this situation by formulating several directives and labour laws. In this paper, we use institutional theory to discuss the institutional foundations and influences that shape the employment and labour-market conditions of temporary workers. The analysis shows that the core issues regarding temporary employment conditions include conflicting (legitimate) interests, socially constructed norms that favour permanent workers, and an uneven distribution of power. Our analysis further shows that institutional forces generate a structural justification for the disadvantaged position of temporary workers.

The article reviews the book, "Self-Employed Workers Organize: Law, Policy and Unions," by Cynthia J. Cranford, Judy Fudge, Eric Tucker and Leah F. Vosko.