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[This book] details the Canadian Left's promotion of colonial policies and nationalist myths. Yves Engler...outlines the NDP's and labour unions' role in confusing Canadians. From Korea to Libya, Canada's major left-wing political party has backed unjust wars; Canadian unions supported the creation of NATO, the Korean War, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the coup in Haiti. Left, Right also shows how prominent Left commentators concede a great deal to the dominant ideology. Whether it's Linda McQuaig turning Lester Pearson into an anti-US peacenik, Stephen Lewis praising Canada's role in Africa, or others mindlessly demanding more so-called peacekeeping, Left intellectuals regularly undermine the building of a just foreign policy. Left nationalist ideology, both Canadian and Quebecois, has warped the foreign policy discussion; viewing their country as a semi-colony struggling for its independence has blinded progressives to a long history of supporting empire and advancing corporate interests abroad. Even many victims of Canadian colonialism among indigenous communities have succumbed to the siren song of supporting imperialism. Finally, Left, Right suggests some ways to get the Left working for an ecologically sound, peace-promoting, non-exploitative foreign policy that does no harm and treats others the way we wish to be treated. --Publisher's description

This thesis examined the experiences of contract academic staff (CAS) regarding their use of work-life balance programs (WLBPs). As precarious employees, CAS are subject to work conditions that put them in a bind between surviving as precarious workers and meeting the demands of their work and family lives. As such, a clearer picture of how such highly-skilled professionals utilize WLBPs to achieve WLB is required. Adopting the phenomenology qualitative research approach, I used NVivo to analyze the data obtained from in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with ten research participants. Four themes emerged: precarious work, support and performance, gendered aspects of academia, and precarious workers’ use of WLBPs. Results showed that male and female CAS adopted similar WLBPs as boundary management strategies to integrate and/or separate their work and family obligations. The limitations and implications of the research for theory and practice were discussed and recommendations were made for future research.

The aim of this study is to examine the empirical question of how the provision of work-life benefits is associated with wages, promotions, and job satisfaction. This is an important question for industrial relations scholars and one that, as yet, has no definitive answer. In order to answer this question, we employ both economic theory and methods. Specifically, the economic theories being tested are the compensating wage differentials theory and the efficiency wage theory. To test the efficacy of each theory, we use econometric techniques using longitudinal data from the most recent Workplace and Employee Survey of Canada. We use regression to unpack the effects of work-life benefits on various employment outcomes and employ instrumental variables to mitigate against reverse causality. We find broad support for the efficiency wage theory. Alternatively stated, we find that increases in benefits are not associated with decreases in wages and other employment outcomes. If bundled correctly, work-life benefits are positively associated with increased wages, a greater number of promotions, enhanced employee morale in the form of job satisfaction, and improved employee retention. These results suggest that the provision of work-life benefits is not a zero-sum game for employers and employees. On the contrary, it appears that both parties to the employment relationship can benefit from work-life benefits.

At a meeting of the Farmworkers’ Organizing Committee (FWOC) on 6 April 1980, the FWOC officially became the Canadian Farmworkers’ Union (CFU) with the goal of providing better legal protection, immigration services, and overall improved safety standards for South Asian farm workers in the Lower Mainland. The CFU was unable to reach financial autonomy on their own and with a perpetual shortage of dues and heavy reliance on outside support, the CFU affiliated with the larger Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) in 1981. The CFU’s community unionism was unique and suited for their members’ needs but complicated their relationship with the CLC’s vision of a labour movement dominated by business unionism. This thesis demonstrates the CFU’s importance to Canadian labour historiography and provides valuable lessons for those who want to organize in an increasingly neo-liberal dominant society.

The article reviews the book, "Radical Ambition: The New Left in Toronto," by Peter Graham and Ian McKay.

The article reviews the book, "Industrial Relations in Singapore: Practice and Perspective," by Oun Hean Loh.

The article reviews the book, "Les services essentiels au Québec et la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés," by Jean Bernier.

A historical work of non-fiction that chronicles the little-known stories of black railway porters-the so-called "Pullmen" of the Canadian rail lines. The actions and spirit of these men helped define Canada as a nation in surprising ways, effecting race relations, human rights, North American multiculturalism, community building, the shape and structure of unions, and the nature of travel and business across the US and Canada. Drawing on the stories and legends of several of these influential early black Canadians, this book narrates the history of a very visible, but rarely considered, aspect of black life in railway-age Canada. These porters, who fought against the idea of Canada as White Man's Country, open only to immigrants from Europe, fought for and won a Canada that would provide opportunities for all its citizens. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction -- Leaving the station: Stan Grizzle's legacy of social change -- The railways are always hiring: working in white man's country -- "Did you ring, Sir?": Modern luxury and black labour -- The coloured commonwealth: reckoning with ah racist past -- "I know nothing about that": Legislating the colour line -- The ending of empire: Reimagining immigration -- Pressuring parliament: a new kind of Canadian citizenship -- A Creolized country: the black British of the West Indies -- Permanent residence: social identity and the state -- Demerits and deadheading: the rail companies' unreasonable demands -- An uphill battle: Pushing for policy changes -- Fair consideration: The porters gain new ground -- The porters' final fight: A multicultural country -- Beyond the rails: The battle for black identity -- Conclusion: A multicultural brotherhood fulfilling a dream -- Afterword: Appreciating the legacy -- Endnotes -- Index.

Recognized on the first day of May every year, International Workers’ Day, or May Day, commemorates the struggles of workers around the world through the labour movements and the political left. Although established in Canada since the beginning of the 20th century, this day is not deemed a statutory holiday, as opposed to Labour Day, celebrated on the first Monday in September.

Precarious employment is often experienced as contract work, involuntary part-time work, low wage work, and self-employment. There is a well-developed body of literature pointing to negative health, economic, and social impacts related to precarious employment in urban centres, while little consideration has been given to the particularities that may make a rural precarious employment experience different. The goal of this exploratory research project is to understand the experience of being precariously employed in rural Ontario. Nineteen unstructured individual interviews with rural Ontarians experiencing rural precarious employment were conducted. The phenomenon of rural precarious employment was distinguished by five themes (financial, health, self-view, social, and system) emergent through phenomenology. The phenomenon encompassed experiences of poverty, decreased health, negative self-views, social struggles, and marginalization from support public systems. Unpacking precarious employment in rural Ontario from the experience of workers has significance for both rural scholars and policy makers. Rural scholars benefit from a better understanding of precarious employment as an experience in rural areas, and the addition of lived rural experiences to the precarious employment literature advances the understanding of urban bias in scholarship. This research provides provincial policy makers the opportunity to craft rural focused employment policy and better understand how services can support rural precarious employees.

Multinational corporations are undeniably the driving force of globalization and regional economic integration. A convenient institutional framework (Hall and Soskice, 2001) to apply when comparing multinationals from different host countries is the well-travelled road of dividing capitalist economies into coordinated market economies (CMEs) and liberal market economies (LMEs). This article aims to elucidate the tensions between centralized human resources practices and labour union avoidance usually exhibited by multinationals from so-called Liberal Market Economies (LMEs) when they expand into coordinated ones (CMEs). Specifically, it examines the recent acquisition of the German retail giant Galeria Kaufhof by the Canadian multinational Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). The article shows that HBC has settled into an uneasy acceptance of the CME institutions, while its investment motives vacillate between a long-term, market-enlargement strategy and a short- to medium-term one, based on the rapidly increasing real estate value of its downtown flagship stores. The article encourages researchers in IR to retain three principal conclusions for the literature and for further study. First, without predetermining outcomes by looking at host-country or home-country effects alone, institutionalist frameworks do present a convenient backdrop for conceptualizing movements of multinationals across jurisdictions. Secondly, concepts such as bricolage, recombining of institutional elements and institutional entrepreneurship, stemming from the institutional change literature, should routinely figure in one’s analytical toolbox, in any attempt at non-deterministic institutional analysis. Finally, sector-level actors, such as trade unions and employers’ associations, can play an essential role in any successful adaptation of collective bargaining institutions in the context of globalization by developing, maintaining and carefully utilizing their repertoire of strategic capabilities.

The article reviews the book, "Dix concepts pour penser le nouveau monde du travail," edited by Daniel Mercure and Mircea Vultur.

We examine the ways in which two major and related governmental institutions of China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and government controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), exert different effects on the attitudes and behaviour of people toward the environment. Our motivation is to see which institution is more effective in making individuals ‘aware’ of environmental issues, expressing a ‘willingness to pay’ to alleviate the problems, and ultimately to ‘act’ on the issue by altering their behaviour. Based on theories of planned behaviour and social learning, we hypothesize that membership in the CPC as well as in the ACFTU fosters an ‘awareness’ of environmental problems and a ‘willingness to make a sacrifice’ to protect the environment, but that members of the ACFTU are more likely than members of the CPC to act on the issue by altering their behaviour. We test our hypothesis based on a nationally representative sample (n = 3112) from the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). Our results indicate that both the Party and the union have positive effects on ‘awareness’ and ‘willingness to pay’, but the union effect is generally stronger and only it (and not the Party) affects individual behaviour toward protecting the environment. Unions in China are generally regarded as having little or no independent power to organize workers and engage in free collective bargaining. Their role is to foster harmony between workers and employers and to co-opt grassroots actions, wildcat strikes and the growth of independent unions, all in the interest of fostering stability and growth. While this is undoubtedly the case, our results are consistent with an emerging view of a more variegated picture of Chinese trade unions that highlights some more positive elements, in our case, fostering ‘actions’ to improve the environment in China.

This book, the first of 2 volumes, presents the history of law in what is now Canada, from the first European contacts with northern North America in the very early sixteenth century to immediately before Confederation. Divided into four parts, the book first looks at the roots of Canada’s three legal traditions, Indigenous, French and English, in North America, France and England. Part 2 examines the period down to 1701 and the signing of the treaty known as the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701, during which New France was established. Part 3 deals with the eighteenth century – Anglo-French conflict, New France until 1760, the establishment and growth of English colonies of settlement, and, throughout, relations with indigenous peoples and governance of indigenous nations. Part 4 is devoted to the British North American period, after 1815. Indigenous people are central of the narrative throughout, including after 1815 when their influence waned as their land base was largely lost in central and eastern Canada. Included in Part 4 are the Red River settlement and early British Columbia. Although the background to this history are the well-known major political, military, social and economic transformations of this part of North America, the book is principally a legal history set against and integrated with that background. Court systems, the judiciary, the legal professions, are dealt with in every period and for each of the legal traditions, and the areas of law covered include criminal, family, constitutional, commercial, land, succession, and civil and criminal procedure. This volume combines the remarkable flowering of scholarship on Canadian legal history, so much of it fostered and published by the Osgoode Society over 35 years, and much new research. --Publisher's description

This thesis examines three Ontario strikes during the 1970s: the Dare Foods, Ltd. strike in Kitchener, Ontario, 1972-1973; the Puretex Knitting Company strike in Toronto, 1978-1979; and the Inco strike in Sudbury, 1978-1979. These strikes highlight gender issues in the Canadian food production, textile, and mining industries in the 1970s, industries that were all markedly different in size and purpose, yet equally oppressive towards working women for different reasons, largely based on the regional character of each city the strikes took place in. In Kitchener, the women's movement worked closely with the Dare union local and the left to mobilize against the company and grappled with the difficulties of framing women's inequality within the labour movement. At Puretex, immigrant women workers were subject to electronic surveillance as a form of worker control, and a left-wing nationalist union needed to look outside of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) for allies in strike action. At Inco, an autonomous women's group formed separate from the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) but struggled to overcome a negative perception of women's labour activism in Sudbury. Ultimately, these strikes garnered a wide variety of support from working women and feminist groups, who often built or had pre-existing relationships with Canadian and American trade unions as well as the left-wing milieu of the 1970s. This thesis uses these strikes as case studies to argue that despite the complicated and at times uneven relationship between feminism, labour, and the left in the 1970s, feminist and left-wing strike support was crucial in sustaining rank-and-file militancy throughout the decade and stimulating activist careers for women in the feminist movement, in unions, and on the left.

The article reviews the book, "Hard Work Conquers All: Building the Finnish Community in Canada," edited by Michel S. Beaulieu, David K. Ratz, and Ronald N. Harpelle.

We are honoured to take over as the editors of RI/IR. Our new responsibility, formally assumed in September 2018, weighs heavily on us. We know that the journal is special. Since 1945, it has carved out a reputation for being at the vanguard in presenting research concerning work, employment and the labour market, as well as for being transcendent in how it delivers its product. RI/IR distinguishes itself from its rivals in the way it brings together professionals from disparate cultural, linguistic and epistemological backgrounds. Much like Canada itself, the journal serves as a reminder that diversity is a strength and that respect for difference, far from being a matter of jaundiced tolerance, is in fact a critical precursor of greatness. Aside from its role as a broad church of ideas, methodologies and ideological orientations, RI/IR has provided a platform for francophone scholars to showcase their work alongside their Anglophone peers. / Nous sommes honorés d’assumer le rôle de directeurs de la revue Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations (RI/IR) et nous mesurons pleinement l’importance de cette nouvelle responsabilité, dont nous sommes formellement investis depuis le mois de septembre 2018. Notre revue est particulière, nous le savons. Depuis 1945, elle s’est forgé une réputation avant-gardiste grâce à la publication de travaux de recherche novateurs sur le travail, l’emploi et le marché du travail, tout en se surpassant dans sa façon de diffuser son produit. RI/IR se démarque de ses concurrents par sa capacité à rassembler des professionnels de diverses origines culturelles, linguistiques et épistémologiques. Tout comme le Canada, la revue rappelle, par son essence même, que la diversité est une force et le respect de la différence, loin d’être une tolérance amère, constitue un précurseur essentiel de la grandeur. Au-delà de son rôle d’incarner un large spectre d’idées, de méthodologies et d’orientations idéologiques, RI/IR offre aux chercheurs francophones une plateforme qui leur permet de présenter leurs travaux à côté de leurs homologues anglophones. --Introduction

Art has always played a significant role in the history of the labour movement. Songs, stories, poems, pamphlets, and comics, have inspired workers to take action against greedy bosses and helped shape ideas of a more equal world. They also help fan the flames of discontent. Radical social change doesn't come without radical art. It would be impossible to think about labour unrest without its iconic songs like "Solidarity Forever" or its cartoons like Ernest Riebe's creation, Mr. Block. In this vein, The Graphic History Collective has created an illustrated chronicle of the strike-the organized withdrawal of labour power-in Canada. For centuries, workers in Canada-Indigenous and non-Indigenous, union and non-union, men and women-have used the strike as a powerful tool, not just for better wages, but also for growing working-class power. This lively comic book will inspire new generations to learn more about labour and working-class history and the power of solidarity. --Publisher's description

In May and June 1919, more than 30,000 workers walked off the job in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They struck for a variety of reasons-higher wages, collective bargaining rights, and more power for working people. The strikers made national and international headlines, and they inspired workers to mount sympathy strikes in many other Canadian cities. Although the strike lasted for six weeks, it ultimately ended in defeat. The strike was violently crushed by police, in collusion with state officials and Winnipeg's business elites. One hundred years later, the Winnipeg General Strike remains one of the most significant events in Canadian history. This comic book revisits the strike to introduce new generations to its many lessons, including the power of class struggle and solidarity and the brutal tactics that governments and bosses use to crush workers' movements. The Winnipeg General Strike is a stark reminder that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common, and the state is not afraid to bloody its hands to protect the interests of capital. In response, working people must rely on each other and work together to create a new, more just world in the shell of the old. --Publisher's description,     Contents: Preface: Revisiting the workers' revolt by the Graphic history collective -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: The Winnipeg general strike at 100 by James Naylor -- 1919: A graphic history of the Winnipeg general strike by the Graphic History Collective and David Lester -- The art of labour history: Notes on drawing 1919 by David Lester -- The character of class struggle in Winnipeg: A photo-essay -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Contributors.

In Bureaucratic Manoeuvres, John Grundy examines profound transformations in the governance of unemployment in Canada. While policy makers previously approached unemployment as a social and economic problem to be addressed through macroeconomic policies, recent labour market policy reforms have placed much more emphasis on the supposedly deficient employability of the unemployed themselves, a troubling shift that deserves close, critical attention. Tracing a behind-the-scenes history of public employment services in Canada, Bureaucratic Manoeuvres shows just how difficult it has been for administrators and frontline staff to govern unemployment as a problem of individual employability. Drawing on untapped government records, it sheds much-needed light on internal bureaucratic struggles over the direction of labour market policy in Canada and makes a key contribution to Canadian political science, economics, public administration, and sociology.