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The editor reflects on the 75th anniversary of the journal.

Looking back over half a century of bargaining by university faculty and librarians, it is clear that not all academics have seen the same benefits. Is the Ontario Labour Relations Act to blame and how can the scales be rebalanced? --Editor's note

In 2001, CCPA-Manitoba published a report titled The Minimum Wage and a Tipping Wage: A Survey of People Who Work At or Near the Minimum Wage in Manitoba. Researchers gathered data from 70 workers making minimum wage. The report concluded that minimum wage was insufficient to provide workers with anything more than a ‘subsistence wage’ and did not reflect the cost of living. This current research represents an update of the 2001 study and concludes that little has changed for minimum wage workers in Manitoba. This project utilizes both quantitative and qualitative data to explore the challenges of working for, and living on, minimum wage. Forty-two workers in Winnipeg and Brandon were interviewed to gain a better understanding of their experiences, challenges, and hopes for the future.

The Subjectivities and Politics of Occupational Risk links restructuring in three industries to shifts in risk subjectivities and politics, both within workplaces and within the safety management and regulative spheres, often leading to conflict and changes in law, political discourses and management approaches. The state and corporate governance emphasis on worker participation and worker rights, internal responsibility, and self-regulative technologies are understood as corporate and state efforts to reconstruct control and responsibility for Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) risks within the context of a globalized neoliberal economy. Part 1 presents a conceptual framework for understanding the subjective bases of worker responses to health and safety hazards using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and the sociology of risk concepts of trust and uncertainty. Part 2 demonstrates the restructuring arguments using three different industry case studies of multiple mines, farms and auto parts plants. The final chapter draws out the implications of the evidence and theory for social change and presents several recommendations for a more worker-centred politics of health and safety.The book will appeal to social scientists interested in health and safety, work, employment relations and labour law, as well as worker advocates and activists. --Publisher's description. Contents: 1. Introduction and Research MethodsPart 1: Risk Subjectivities and Practices2. Identifying Hazards and Judging Risk3. Taking Risks or Taking a Stand: Interests, Power and IdentityPart 2: Case Studies of Health and Safety in Hard Rock Mining, Family Farming and Auto Parts Manufacturing 4. Transforming the Mining Labour Process: Transforming Risk and its Social Construction5. Reconstructing Miner Consent: Management Objectives and Strategies6. The Transformation and Fragmentation of Canadian Agriculture7. Health and Safety in Farming8. The Transformation of Production and Health and Safety in Auto Parts Manufacturing.9. Participation and Control in a Non-Union Auto Parts Firm10. Conclusion and Implications for Change.

Prior to entering Canadian workplaces, immigrants generally expect strong legislative protections based on Canada’s global reputation for equity and equality as reported by Hardwick and Mansfield (Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99(2), 383-405, 2009). However, after exposure to poor working conditions, employment standards (ES) violations, and challenges with filing claims for recompense, immigrant workers’ perceptions of work in Canada often diminish significantly. Although scholars have explored Canadian immigrants’ experiences with unemployment and poor working conditions, little research has uncovered the effects of these experiences on their shifting perceptions of Canada and their overall experience of adjusting to a new life in Canada. Our narrative data, collected in Ontario, Canada, reveals (1) the exploitation of immigrant workers’ perceived limited access to and knowledge of workplace rights and (2) limited access to employment opportunities and protections for immigrant workers. These two factors lead to workers’ diminishing perceptions of Canada as they navigate poor working conditions on the precarity track according to Goldring and Landolt (Goldring and Landolt 2013). This analysis offers insight into the everyday experiences of immigrant workers and the impacts of precarious employment on perceptions of Canada.

The article reviews the book, "Change and Continuity: Canadian Political Economy in the New Millennium," edited by Thomas, Mark P., Leah F. Vosko, Carlo Fanelli, and Olena Lyubchenko.

The article reviews the book, "They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada," by Cecil Foster.

In The Canadian Labour Movement, historian Craig Heron and political scientist Charles Smith tell the story of Canada's workers from the midnineteenth century through to today, painting a vivid picture of key developments, such as the birth of craft unionism, the breakthroughs of the fifties and sixties, and the setbacks of the early twenty-first century. The fourth edition of this book has been completely updated with a substantial new chapter that covers the period from the great recession of 2008 through to 2020. In this chapter, Smith describes the fallout of the financial crisis, how Stephen Harper's government restricted labour rights, the rise of the "gig economy" and precarious work, and the continued de-industrialization in the private sector. These pressures contributed to fracturing the movement, as when Unifor, the largest private sector union, split from the Canadian Labour Congress, the established "house of labour." Through it all, rank-and-file union members have fought for better conditions for all workers, including through campaigns like the fight for a $15 minimum wage. --Publisher's description

The Ontario Network of Injured Workers’ Groups in Canada is leading a multiyear campaign called Workers’ Comp is a Right to reform the provincial workers’ injury compensation system and to fight back against regressive changes made to the system over several decades. At their Annual General Meeting in Toronto held in June 2019, delegates voted unanimously to make this submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a part of the regular supervisory process under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The subject is income deeming “phantom jobs” to injured worker claimants with income replacement benefits. The document illustrates how Canadian injured worker groups have activated a human rights lens and references international labor and human rights standards concerning social insurance and income replacement benefits for work-related injury and illness.

Cet article s’intéresse à l’Organization United for Respect at Walmart, l’une des initiatives nationales les plus ambitieuses en matière d’organisation de la main-d’oeuvre aux États-Unis au cours de la dernière décennie. S’appuyant sur une enquête qualitative menée autour du travail d’organisation des employés lors d’actions et de mobilisations de OUR Walmart (OWM) de 2013 à 2018, il revient sur les transformations de la campagne d’organisation des inorganisés (organizing) du géant de la grande distribution. À partir d’une approche diachronique des dimensions pratiques et rhétoriques d’OWM, nous verrons que l’effort d’organisation lancé par le grand syndicat des travailleurs de l’alimentation et du commerce UFCW, puis sa poursuite de manière indépendante après 2014, ont conduit OWM à opérer un virage numérique. Cet article montre, plus spécifiquement, que le lancement d’OWM dans le cadre d’une campagne syndicale visant le distributeur Walmart et son existence en tant qu’association indépendante depuis se caractérisent par deux approches de l’organisation des inorganisés. Au terme d’une revue de littérature portant sur les enjeux de cette stratégie, sur les caractéristiques de la campagne et la méthodologie adoptée, l’article examine comment OWM est passée d’une approche de l’organisation des inorganisés par un grand syndicat des services à une campagne beaucoup plus modeste en effectifs et en ressources financières. Liant innovations numériques et participation active des salariés, le virage technologique et réticulaire entamé par OWM souligne ainsi une opportunité de rendre visibles les inégalités raciales et de genre, tout en favorisant la coconstruction d’une solidarité professionnelle à grande échelle dans une entreprise et un secteur auparavant jugés hors d’atteinte et qui aujourd’hui, se trouvent particulièrement exposés en matière de risques en santé et sécurité au travail.

Cette thèse retrace l’itinéraire collectif d’un groupe de militants communistes libertaires de langue française pendant l’entre-deux-guerres à Montréal rassemblés autour d’Albert Saint-Martin (1865-1947). Figure importante du mouvement ouvrier au Québec, l’itinéraire politique de Saint-Martin est multiforme : on le retrouve associé au Parti socialiste du Canada, à la One Big Union, au Parti socialiste (communiste), à la Ligue des sanstravail, à l’Association révolutionnaire Spartakus, à l’Université ouvrière, à l’Association humanitaire, à la Ligue du Réveil féminin et à de nombreuses coopératives de consommation et de production. Saint-Martin est entouré de camarades provenant de divers horizons politiques. Notre thèse nous a permis d’identifier plus de 300 individus ayant pris part à des activités militantes à ses côtés. À travers l’analyse croisée de leurs parcours individuels, nous cherchons à mieux comprendre les modalités de leur engagement collectif avant, pendant et après la Première Guerre mondiale, leur représentation de la société idéale et les moyens d’y parvenir, la nature et la diversité de leurs liens de sociabilité, les territoires où se déploient leurs réseaux, la fréquence et les thèmes de leurs réunions de même que les symboles et les rituels qui y sont rattachés. Nous faisons l’hypothèse que celles et ceux qui participent aux activités de ce milieu partagent une même culture révolutionnaire articulée autour des notions de communisme, d’anticapitalisme, d’anticléricalisme et d’internationalisme, débouchant sur une critique des institutions autoritaires : l'État, l’Église catholique, la propriété privée, l’armée, le mariage, etc. Les stratégies d’émancipation individuelle et collective mises de l’avant par ces militants et ces militantes reposent sur l’éducation et l'action directe. C’est cet ensemble de principes théoriques, stratégiques et tactiques que nous regroupons sous le terme de communisme libertaire.

This dissertation examines prisoner-worker organizing in Canada by considering three case studies in detail: first, the successful unionization of an experimental privately managed abattoir at the Guelph Correctional Centre, a provincial jail in Ontario, in 1977; second, efforts by federal prisoners to unionize, with a particular focus on the efforts by the Prisoners Union Committee in 1975 and the Canadian Prisoners Labour Confederation, between 2010-2015, and; third, the nation-wide federal prison strike in response to prisoner wage cuts in 2013. Through these cases, this study examines the similarities and differences between prisoner-workers and their non-incarcerated counterparts, and considers the methods and motivations of prisoner organizers, as well as the substantial legal and organizational barriers that Canadian prisoners face in their organizing efforts. Working prisoners are one of many groups who labour on the margins of society and the economy, and who have been largely overlooked or dismissed by both scholars of work and labour and the labour movement. This study seeks to expand conventional definitions of who is a workerand what constitutes the working classby demonstrating ways that prisoners have asserted their rights as workers and the legitimacy of their organizations and struggles. Through these struggles, which have been conceptualized not only as economic, but also as political struggles, prisoners have contested their state of privation and laid claim to new sets of rights. At their most successful, the organizing efforts of working prisoners have resulted in not only improvements to their working lives, but also expanded rights and freedoms in relation to their incarceration.

Building more equitable and diverse universities is vital, but it can be challenging. By integrating equity into their bargaining process and prioritizing it in their negoations, the faculty, librarians, and professional staff at the Northern ontario School of Medicine have make remarkable progress on these issues. --Editor's note

The Miners' Archive [founded on the impetus of mine workers in 2000] remains little known outside Bolivia. Yet the story of its creation is part of the legacy of struggle and sacrifice by Bolivia's predominantly Indigneous working people and a vital contribution to collective memory by and for the working class, and for historians the world over. --From author's conclusion.

The article reviews the book, "Work: What is Political Economy," by Bruce Pietrykowski.

Pays homage to the life and work of the Canadian social historian, Michael Cross (1938-2019). Includes two photos.

The article reviews the book, "Making the Best of It: Women and Girls of Canada and Newfoundland During the Second World War," edited by Sarah Glassford and Amy Shaw,

This Master’s thesis examines tradeswomen’s experiences of and responses to gendered harassment at camp-based work in resource extraction industries in western Canada. This study predominantly features women working in the Alberta oil sands industry. Gendered harassment at work has been identified as a major issue in recent years (Curtis et al., 2018; Denissen, 2010; Wade & Jones, 2019) and this study aims to better understand tradeswomen’s day-to-day experiences of harassment in work camps. I utilize constructivist grounded theory methodology and critical feminist geography as the theoretical framework for the project. I find that tradeswomen employ a wide range of affective, material, and social strategies to manage harassment. I introduce two concepts, “just go to work” (JGTW) and “me vs. other girls,” to illuminate these strategies for self-preservation in the masculine occupational culture of work. This is labour that tradeswomen must perform in addition to their demanding work duties and schedules. JGTW demonstrates how gendered harassment is embedded into the masculinist culture of work of the trades. This study begins to address this gap in scholarly literature to capture the shifting cultural context of the oil sands industry and identifies new areas for future research.

Work, Industry, and Canadian Society provides a sociological introduction to the history, nature, organization, and management of work in Canada. The eighth edition expands and adds new coverage on the biggest work challenges faced now and in the future, such as Canada’s aging and increasingly diverse workforce, the work experiences of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, the rise of the app-based “gig” economy, and how technology will continue to impact future jobs and work organization. The new edition continues to incorporate recent empirical findings, review new and ongoing theoretical and policy debates, and provide a more international perspective. As the world of work continues to change rapidly, all trends and statistics have been updated. These authors are well regarded for their teaching and research, and their years of experience are evident in this comprehensive volume on the past, present, and future of work in Canada. --Publisher's description. Contents: Historical perspectives on work -- Contemporary debates and issues -- Canadian employment trends -- Good jobs, bad jobs, no jobs -- Labour markets: opportunities and inequality -- Gender and paid employment -- Household, family, and caring work -- Organizing and managing work -- In search of new managerial paradigms -- Conflict and control in workplace -- Unions and industrial relations -- Alternative approaches to organizing work -- Work values and work orientations -- Job satisfaction, alienation, and work-related stress.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Amplify: Graphic Narratives of Feminist Resistance," by Norah Bowman and Meg Braem, art by Dominique Hui; "Direct Action Gets the Goods: A Graphic History of the Strike in Canada," by Graphic History Collective with Althea Balmes, Gord Hill, Orion Keresztesi, and David Lester; "1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike," by Graphic History Collective and David Lester; and "Christie Pitts," by Jamie Michaels and Doug Fedrau.