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The article reviews the book, "The Case for Economic Democracy," by Andrew Cumbers.

Examines the federal state's interventions in collective bargaining, including the use of back-to-work legislation, during the 1970s and 80s under the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau.

Using Statistics Canada’s 2011-2016 Labor Force Surveys, this paper examines the spatial dimensions of precarious forms of employment (PFE) in Canada. We first compare different PFEs across a range of geographies including national, provincial, census metropolitan areas and urban/rural areas. The results show that different PFEs exhibited distinct spatial patterns across space and scale. Second, using logistic regression models, results show that patterns in PFEs were reinforced by factors such as immigration status, gender, age, education, and income. These models further confirm that spatial variations in PFEs were robust even when controlling for socio-demographic and socio-economic effects. Taken together, these marked spatial patterns advances our understanding of the spatial divisions of precariousness in Canada.

In a 2013 exhibition publication titled It’s the Political Economy, Stupid!, John Roberts made the observation that “Over the last ten years we have become witness to an extraordinary assimilation of art theory and practice into the categories of labor and production.” Whereas once art claimed for itself a critical capacity in relation to the larger system of capitalist domination by its status as a putatively ‘autonomous’ sphere of production from which it leveraged its difference and critique, today it is largely acknowledged that there is no longer any such ‘outside’ to be aspired to. If, in the recent past, the immaterial, informational, creative, experiential, and affective elements of conceptual art were seen as potential resistant forces, in our current climate, where these forms of labor have become the dominant mode of production for the capitalist economy, these potentialities are now being widely questioned. With these developments in mind, this dissertation consists of a series of integrated articles that focus on the increasingly diffuse and interconnected circuits of global exchange and labor as they interact with specific sites and interventions of contemporary artistic production. In this, they coalesce around a general binding inquiry: does artistic labor today have the capacity to function as a critique of the (transforming) mechanisms of control and exploitation characteristic of capitalism in the twenty-first century? And if not, what does that entail about the continued political viability, and persisting social functions of contemporary artworks? Drawing on autonomist Marxist thought, the sociology of work and labor, performance studies, and critical readings on the relationship between artistic labor and recent forms of capitalist production, the chapters are organized around exhibitions and artworks which represent, critique, or (re)produce the conditions of production in late capitalism, while situating these within a global economy characterized by an uneven network of productive relations. In so doing, they trace the trajectory of labor relations and production practices as they have transformed over the last half decade through artworks and exhibitions that engage specific emblematic sites of production—the factory, the prison, and the museum (or amalgams of these spaces), and attempts to tease out places where reflection on the relationship between ‘artistic’ and ‘non-artistic’ labor in each may lead to clarity regarding the socio-political efficacy of contemporary art in an increasingly saturated and complex economic infrastructure.

The article reviews the book, "Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism," byAndrew Feffer.

his article examines rank-and-file organizing in Windsor’s automobile factories during the 1970s. In particular, I look at the history of two organizations: Workers’ Unity and the New Tendency’s Auto Worker Group. I demonstrate how these groups were part of the North American New Left’s broader turn toward Marxism and the working class that contributed to the emergence of radical rank-and-file movements that challenged both management and bureaucratized trade union leaders. In Windsor, New Left auto workers embraced forms of autonomist Marxist politics concerned primarily with working-class self-activity at the point of production, and these activists formed connections with influential theorists and organizations in Detroit and Italy. Putting these intellectual exchanges into action, the rank-and-file organizations in Windsor used direct action in an attempt to improve working conditions and develop a radical culture of democracy on the shop floor. Although these groups were relatively short lived, their history tells us much about the trajectory of the New Left in Canada and the ways that former student activists grappled with the radical potential of 1970s working-class militancy.

It is generally accepted that employment regulation offers mechanisms to generate orderly economic growth as well as provide for the protection of workers. Both these efficiency and equity arguments particularly pertain to developing country contexts. The evolution and impact of employment law and industrial relations institutions in large developing countries is of growing interest to western scholars, but small developing countries have been ignored. This lack of research inhibits understanding of the political economy of employment regulation in developing country contexts. This article explores developments in labour regulation in three small developing countries in the South Pacific—Nauru, Tonga, and Papua New Guinea—that have been impacted by globalization and international labour regulation in different ways. The comparative research adopts a stakeholder analysis approach based on programs of qualitative interviews and documentary analysis. The paper identifies a number of structural and agency constraints on the development and effective implementation of employment regulatory systems that primarily reflect political factors. These include disorganized employment relations, under-developed civil society institutions, concentration of power networks, the under-resourcing and compartmentalization of state institutions and a broader context of political change and instability. These factors, which are related to country size as well as stage of development, subvert the introduction, implementation and review of employment regulation even where efficiency and equity arguments may be accepted by policymakers. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications and need for future research.

From 1943 to 1980, some underground gold and uranium workers in Ontario, Canada were required to inhale aluminum dust for silicosis prevention. Workers were exposed to the dust for up to 30 min daily. This study explored the perceived organizational impact on workers exposed to the aluminum dust treatment in Northeastern Ontario. This qualitative descriptive study included 16 respondents who participated in individual semi-structured interviews. All respondents were Northeastern Ontario workers who were exposed to aluminum dust treatment for at least 1 year. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically. Themes that emerged were: 1) confidence and trust in companies, 2) lack of participants' and heath care providers' knowledge, and 3) need for compensation and formal apology. Workers' perceived that their long term health was impacted by exposure. The results will be used to help workers, companies, and unions address workplace exposures. The latest information about McIntyre powder will enhance the knowledge about the impact of the exposure.

Facing a global health pandemic and an uncooperative administration, the King's University College Faculty Association decided it was time to unionize. Now they're stronger than ever. --Editor's note

In the mid-1990s, the province of Ontario instituted a new model of “managed competition” to govern a significant portion of home care services delivery. The new model, based on competitive bidding for the delivery of home care services, deepened reliance on private and increasingly for-profit “service provider organizations.” In time, the outcomes of the transition to managed competition – particularly increased employment precarity and turnover – grew increasingly salient and became captured in prior literature. However, a series of subsequent responses to these outcomes also began to emerge, ostensibly aimed at improving work and employment conditions in this sector. This article provides a historical analysis of various responses to the heightened employment precarity wrought by the managed competition regime in Ontario home care, with a focus on personal support workers (psws) insofar as they have historically tended to experience the most precarious conditions among the primary home care occupations. The analysis suggests that the core institutional arrangement of fissured work and organizational relations, coupled with a hyperdecentralized bargaining structure, was a key constraint and mediating factor. The most dramatic policy measure aimed at employment precarity, the 2014 psw Wage Enhancement Initiative, constituted a major, ad hoc overriding of this structure that had until then delivered wage restraint so successfully that it challenged the government’s own health human resources objectives. This reliance on such an extraordinary ad hoc instrument, without addressing the core institutional structure, severely restricts the degree of improvement in psw employment outcomes capable of being produced by collective bargaining in Ontario home care.

Ce mémoire de maîtrise traite du rapport qu’entretiennent les grandes entreprises minières avec les collectivités locales, dans un contexte nordique. À partir du cas québécois de l’exploitation du minerai de fer, nous tentons d’apporter un éclairage nouveau à l’idée communément admise selon laquelle l’implantation, sur des territoires enclavés, de grands projets extractifs, constitue un vecteur de développement régional important. La démarche d’économie politique proposée prend pour objet les modes de gestion des ressources humaines et financières privilégiés dans le secteur minier de la Côte-Nord. Les données recueillies dans le cadre d’une analyse documentaire et d’une série d’entretiens semi-dirigés, menés à l’hiver 2019, convergent vers la thèse suivante : la diminution des retombées économiques constatée dans cette région est attribuable à la déterritorialisation de l’organisation contemporaine du travail dans les mines ainsi qu’à l’émergence de stratégies de restructuration épousant la dynamique du cycle de commodités.

The article reviews the book, "Améliorer la gestion du changement dans les organisations," edited by Martin Lauzier and Nathalie Lemieux.

The article reviews the book, "Petit traité de management pour les habitants d’Essos, de Westeros et d’ailleurs," by Marine Agogué, Stéphane Deschaintre, and Cyrille Sardais.

The article reviews the book, "Masters and Servants: The Hudson’s Bay Company and Its North American Workforce, 1668-1786," by Scott P. Stephen.

This literature review presents an overview of the existing academic research on workers’ experiences of sexual harassment in order to better understand the factors influencing workers’ responses to these forms of harassment. We focus on the understudied intersection of precarious work and sexual harassment to address and investigate the higher rates of unwanted sexual attention reported by workers engaged in precarious work. --From Introduction

En marge du modèle dominant de monopole de l’association majoritaire dans les rapports collectifs du travail, le pluralisme syndical s’est exprimé de longue date au Québec et nécessite un aménagement normatif approprié. Le présent article vise à identifier les enjeux d’un tel aménagement à partir d’une étude comparative de trois cas, soit : 1- la participation des associations accréditées aux comités d’équité salariale; 2- le traitement des plaintes relatives au maintien de l’équité salariale dans des entreprises où plus d’une association accréditée représente des salariés; et, 3- la participation des associations syndicales à la négociation des conventions collectives sectorielles de l’industrie québécoise de la construction. L’analyse des solutions retenues par le législateur dans ces trois cas permet de mettre au jour une tension entre efficacité et participation des salariés, ainsi que de discuter des conséquences de celles-ci pour la démocratie au travail.

The COVID-19 pandemic has made the holes in our social safety net and the failures in our social infrastructure painfully obvious. A horrific example of these failures is the impact of the pandemic in long-term care (LTC) homes. This paper provides a cost estimate for adequately funded caregiving in Ontario long-term care homes, showing that it would cost about $1.8 billion to increase care levels and equalize wage rates across the sector in this fiscal year. This equates to just over 1% of overall provincial program spending in Ontario.

The article reviews the book, "Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics," by Eric Blanc.

The article reviews the book, "Prairie Fairies: A History of Queer Communities and People in Western Canada, 1930–1985," by Valerie Korinek .

Discusses back-to-work legislation, including the definition of essential services, with respect to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Supreme Court of Canada's 2015 decision that upheld the right to strike. Concludes that back-to-work legislation will continue to be the Canadian state's go-to option, although recent case law also supports "meaningful" alternative dispute resolutions.