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This article reports on a recent survey of Canadian automotive component manufacturing plant managers that focused on issues related to innovation and the influence of public policy on plant-level competitive strategies and performance. Three questions are addressed: (a) Do public policies inhibit or contribute to plant success, (b) does the experience of Canadian-owned plants differ from that of foreign-owned plants, and (c) does the experience of small- and medium-sized plants differ from that of large plants? The analysis is first situated within the context of the industry and recent Canadian automotive and manufacturing policy and concludes with the implications of our findings for public policy development.

During the 1980s, Canada's automotive manufacturing assembly landscape changed when five new manufacturers from outside of North America made large-scale investments. The industry shifted from one focused on US-owned corporations to one with a much more international orientation. Because of the success Canada enjoyed in attracting foreign automotive investment, one might conclude that those engaged in the process did so with a coherent plan and that the period was marked by one success after another. The reality, however, is that several misses also occurred. Layering archival sources and interviews with secondary sources, this article contributes to the history of the economic development of Canada's automotive industry. Through this, important lessons for policy-makers are offered: The process of goal and policy congruence is demonstrated; one sees how dominant personalities can override governance mechanisms, even in large corporations; and one observes the capacity of exogenous factors to affect the best-laid plans.

All three global automakers currently manufacturing vehicles in Australia have announced their total shutdown of operations there by 2017. This shutdown has sparked some fears that Canadian auto manufacturing may follow a similar trajectory. This article reviews the factors contributing to the closures in Australia and considers key structural, economic, and policy differences between the Australian and Canadian cases. The Canadian industry enjoys several structural advantages compared with Australia, chief among them its large and bilateral trade relationship with the United States. These advantages suggest that the Canadian industry has a better prognosis.

English/French abstracts of articles in the Fall 2017 issue.

List of contributors to the current issue.

List of contributors to volume 80.

Mission statement: The Toronto Workers History Project (TWHP) is a large group of workers, unionists, professors, students, artists, teachers, librarians, educators, researchers, community activists, and retirees dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the history of working people in Toronto. We are committed to bringing to light the experiences of working people and their contributions as individuals and collectively to the building of this city, in the home, in the paid workplace, and in the community. We want to highlight the vitality and creativity of working-class cultures in the history of Toronto. We are determined to include the full diversity of working-class experience, including women, indigenous people, racialized people, people with disabilities, and gays, lesbians, and trans people. We embrace the histories of people from all parts of the world. We aim to make these stories available through a variety of media for audiences of all ages and backgrounds. We want to educate the people of Toronto and beyond, but also to inspire activists in social-justice and labour movements with the lessons from the past for the struggles to change the world today.

The article reviews the book, "Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization," by Branko Milanovic.

This article reviews the book, "Canada Since 1960, a People's History: A Left Perspective on 50 Years of Politics, Economics, and Culture," edited by Cy Gonick.

The nature of work has undergone tremendous change in recent decades, and these changes have been well documented and widely debated. Similarly, the adequacy of regulation and institutions of work to operate in the face of these transformations has been questioned. Much attention has been devoted to the condition of this decline. Work and workplaces have been reorganized (in one memorable phrase, "fissured"),' increased intermediation in the traditional employment relationship has made it more difficult to identify the "real employer," and fewer "employees" exist, as precarious work and contracting-out of work has grown. These workers are more difficult to organize, and labour and employment relations regulatory schemes have failed to respond robustly or effectively to these changed conditions. Equal attention has been paid to the causes of the decline in union density: the "globalization of production" through technological and communications innovations, the offshoring of work (even work previously thought to be impervious to this trend), the expansion of the financial sector and the proliferation of its meth- ods and values into the productive or "real" economy (a process called financialization), the privatization of formerly public goods and services, and the reorganization of firms to (re)focus on "core competencies" and contract out peripheral functions. Even if all of these possible causes were overcome, workers' attitudes toward traditional organizations such as unions and even toward workers' identities as such have also changed profoundly, and organizing worker voice and collective bargaining has become more challenging.

Harry Arthurs, professor emeritus at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto and former president of York University, is one of the most widely respected scholars, educators, and policy makers in the world today. His enormous academic and institutional productivity has extended to administrative and labour law, legal pluralism and legal theory, legal education and institutional reform. This collection brings together essays, thought pieces, reminiscences and commentaries written in honour of Arthurs from scholars and colleagues from around the world whose work and thinking has been shaped by Arthurs' contributions over the years. --Publisher's description. Contents: Part 1. The pluralization, decentralization, and transnationalization of labour law. The singular pluralism of Harry Arthurs / Brian Langille -- A Yankee gets schooled in King Arthurs's court: Canadian labour law as a cautionary tale / Cynthia Estlund -- The once and future industrial citizen / Gregor Murray -- A tale of two Harrys: the life and demise of industrial pluralism in Canada / Eric Tucker. Part 2. Labour law's precarious infrastructures. Defining labour standards: Harry Arthurs's beau risque / Gilles Trudeau -- Formality and informality in the law of work / Kerry Rittich -- Mapping labour law with, within, and without the state / Mark Freedland -- Part 3. Legal ordering's narrow ledge. Dancing with Dicey : a tentative embrace of judicial review / David Dyzenhaus -- Administrative justice in Arthurs's court / Lorne Sossin -- Investor rights and the judicial denial of neo-liberal constitutionalism / David Schneiderman. Part 4. The tree of knowledge - The axe of power. "Imagination, determination and passion": a heroic agenda or legal education / Robert W. Gordon -- The state of legal scholarship and graduate legal education in Canada / Liora Salter -- "Globalization" as framing concept: some implications for legal education / William Twining. Part 5. Citizens and markets.  Workplace law without the state? / Kevin Banks -- Reform in small steps : the case of the dependent contractor / Guy Davidov -- Labour markets should be judged innocent until proven guilty / Morley Gunderson. Part 6. The frontier of labour law's uncertain future. Labour law and the political economy of inequality / Michael Lynk -- "A new thing: shall ye not know it?": on living metaphors in transnational labour law / Adelle Blackett -- Inequality, gender violence, human rights / Sally Engle Merry -- Labour law and its "last" generation / David Doorey and Ruth Dukes -- The daunting challenge: economic justice for subordinated groups / Katherine V.W. Stone. Part 7. Milestones, imperfect foresight, and formative beginnings: The making of a legal realist. Harry Arthurs : the law student years / Martin Friedland -- Confronting the dragon of globalization: Harry, St George, and me / David M. Trubek -- Reading landscape and power / Bruno Caruso -- An authoritative bibliography of Harry Arthurs’s academic and other writings.

L’article propose une grille de lecture des transformations de la relation d’emploi dans le cadre de la globalisation des marchés à partir de la notion de « zone grise d’emploi » (ZGE). Cette notion, forgée à l’origine par le juriste A. Supiot, pour désigner une convergence de situation entre l’« état de subordination » des salariés et des travailleurs indépendants est reprise et discutée dans le cadre élargi d’une « relation d’emploi avec tiers ». Ce cas de figure renvoie à un contexte d’internationalisation de la production où la relation employé-employeur ne se résume pas à une relation de face à face, mais dépend d’un ensemble de parties prenantes impliquées dans les conditions qui président à son organisation et sa gestion. L’article propose une définition de la ZGE qui ne se limite pas à souligner un défaut d’institutionnalisation dans la règle de droit, mais considère que tout « écart à la norme » est devenu la règle et non plus l’exception. La ZGE est définie comme « espace public » entendu comme un espace de délibération où les jeux d’intérêt et les relations de pouvoir se coordonnent ou se confrontent pour la constitution d’un ordre de régulation hybride, public et privé, formel et informel. L’intérêt de cette notion est de porter un autre regard sur les transformations de la relation d’emploi. En prenant la firme Uber comme exemple, l’article montre que l’on ne peut réduire la question de l’emploi des chauffeurs prestataires au paradigme juridique standard qui limiterait le débat entre choisir le statut de travailleur indépendant ou celui de salarié. La diversité, mais aussi la fragilité des jugements prononcés par les tribunaux, leurs caractères partiels et toujours provisoires, laissent deviner que la situation socio-professionnelle des chauffeurs, si elle relève de l’« indécidable » au plan du droit, ne peut être comprise sans prendre en considération l’action des États, des territoires et de la société civile dans le jeu de la régulation.

Meaningful work has been defined as work that is personally enriching and that makes a positive contribution. There is increasing interest in how organizations can harness the meaningfulness of work to enhance productivity and performance. We explain how organizations seek to manage the meaningfulness employees experience through strategies focused on job design, leadership, HRM and culture. Employees can respond positively to employers' strategies aimed at raising their level of experienced meaningfulness when they are felt to be authentic. However, when meaningfulness is lacking, or employees perceive that the employer is seeking to manipulate their meaningfulness for performative intent, then the response of employees can be to engage in “existential labor” strategies with the potential for harmful consequences for individuals and organizations. We develop a Model of Existential Labor, drawing out a set of propositions for future research endeavors, and outline the implications for HRM practitioners.

In order to compete in increasingly tight quasi-markets generated by government cutbacks and contracting-out, management in nonprofit agencies have argued that wages and benefits must be reduced or jobs and services will be cut. These arguments have motivated some of the female-majority workers to join and/or organize unions and undertake strike action. Focusing on two case studies exploring restructuring in the highly gendered nonprofit social services in two liberal welfare states (Scotland and Canada), this article explores shifts in industrial relations at the agency level, as well as workforce resistance and union activism. Through the analysis of gendered unpaid work and gendered forms of social and union solidarity, this article extends feminist political economy and mobilization theory. It also suggests convergences at several layers of practice and policy, including private and nonprofit industrial relations cultures, managerialism and the underfunding of contracted-out government services.

Unpaid work has long been used in nonprofit/voluntary social services to extend paid work. Drawing on three case studies of nonprofit social services in Canada, this article argues that due to austerity policies, the conditions for ‘pure’ gift relationships in unpaid social service work are increasingly rare. Instead, employers have found various ways to ‘fill the gaps’ in funding through the extraction of unpaid work in various forms. Precarious workers are highly vulnerable to expectations that they will ‘volunteer’ at their places of employment, while expectations that students will undertake unpaid internships is increasing the norm for degree completion and procurement of employment, and full-time workers often use unpaid work as a form of resistance. This article contributes to theory by advancing a spectrum of unpaid nonprofit social service work as compelled and coerced to varying degrees in the context of austerity policies and funding cutbacks., Unpaid work has long been used in nonprofit/voluntary social services to extend paid work. Drawing on three case studies of nonprofit social services in Canada, this article argues that due to austerity policies, the conditions for ‘pure’ gift relationships in unpaid social service work are increasingly rare. Instead, employers have found various ways to ‘fill the gaps’ in funding through the extraction of unpaid work in various forms. Precarious workers are highly vulnerable to expectations that they will ‘volunteer’ at their places of employment, while expectations that students will undertake unpaid internships is increasing the norm for degree completion and procurement of employment, and full-time workers often use unpaid work as a form of resistance. This article contributes to theory by advancing a spectrum of unpaid nonprofit social service work as compelled and coerced to varying degrees in the context of austerity policies and funding cutbacks.

This article reviews the book, "Deported: Immigrant Policing, Disposable Labor, and Global Capitalism," by Tanya Maria Golash-Boza.

"The Mill - Fifty Years of Pulp and Protest explores the power that a single industry can wield. For fifty years, the pulp mill near Pictou in northern Nova Scotia has buoyed the local economy and found support from governments at all levels. But it has also pulped millions of acres of forests, spewed millions of tonnes of noxious emissions into the air, consumed quadrillions of litres of fresh water and then pumped them out again as toxic effluent into nearby Boat Harbour, and eventually into the Northumberland Strait. From the day it began operation in 1967, the mill has fomented protest and created deep divisions and tensions in northern Nova Scotia. This story is about people whose livelihoods depend on the pulp mill and who are willing to live with the "smell of money." It's about people whose well-being, health, homes, water, air, and businesses have been harmed by the mill's emissions and effluent. It's about the heartache such divisions cause and about people who, for the sake of peace, keep their thoughts about the mill to themselves. But it's also about hope, giving voice to those who led the successive groups that have protested and campaigned for a cleaner mill - First Nations, fishers, doctors, local councillors, tourism operators, artists and musicians, teachers and woodlot owners. Their personal stories are interwoven into a historical arc that traces the mill's origins and the persistent environmental and social problems it causes to this day. Baxter weaves a rich tapestry of storytelling, relevant to everyone who is concerned about how we can start to renegotiate the relationship between economy, jobs, and profits on one hand, and human well-being, health, and the environment on the other. The Mill tells a local story with global relevance and appeal."--

À partir d’une recherche qualitative auprès de 48 ex-militants syndicaux ayant eu plus de 80% de leur temps de travail pour leur syndicat, de 10 directeurs des Ressources humaines et de trois organisations syndicales, une organisation patronale et un cabinet d’accompagnement, cet article questionne la reconversion des militants syndicaux en dehors de la sphère syndicale. En s’appuyant sur le contexte français et la littérature existante sur la reconversion des militants syndicaux, nos travaux soulignent les stratégies mises en place par les ex-militants afin d’assurer leur employabilité militante externe.Ces stratégies sont influencées par la perception qu’ils ont de leur employabilité. Plusieurs facteurs externes et individuels affectent cette perception. Les facteurs individuels sont le capital social perçu, la nature du départ (subi ou volontaire), le niveau de poste précèdent et le niveau atteint dans l’organisation syndicale. Ces facteurs individuels n’expliquent pas tout. D’autres facteurs externes, tels la stigmatisation dont peut faire l’objet le militant à cause de son engagement syndical, le lien contractuel et l’accompagnement du syndicat, expliquent la perception que le militant a de son employabilité. Celle-ci entraine soit une non mobilisation du capital social, soit une mobilisation offensive du capital social. Dans ce dernier cas, l’ex-permanent peut subir une phase d’observation de la part de l’entreprise d’accueil.En s’intéressant à la reconversion syndicale, cette recherche constitue un renversement de positionnement par rapport aux nombreux travaux analysant la carrière syndicale. Le capital social des militants n’est plus pensé au sein de l’organisation syndicale, mais en dehors de celle-ci, et il permet de proposer le concept d’employabilité militante externe, à savoir la capacité d’un ex-militant syndical d’obtenir un travail et de se maintenir en emploi en dehors du syndicat grâce à la mobilisation de son capital social. // Title in English: Ensuring external activist employability by mobilizing social capital : the case of ex-full time unionists after a professional transition outside of their unions. Based on qualitative research involving 48 former unionists who worked for more than 80% of their time for the union, 10 human resource directors and three union organizations, one employers’ organization and one outplacement company specialized in this type of transition, this article considers the transition of ex-activists to work outside the trade union sphere. Based on the French context and the existing literature on the transition of trade union activists, our work highlights the strategies mobilized by ex-unionists to ensure their external activist employability.These strategies are influenced by their perceived employability. Several external and individual factors impact this perception. Individual factors include : perceived social capital, the nature of the departure (suffered or voluntary), the level of post preceding the transition and the level in the trade union organization. However, these individual factors do not explain everything. Other external factors, such as the stigmatization of the activist linked to his union work, the contractual relationship, and the support of the union explain the unionist’s perceived employability. This leads either to a non-mobilization of social capital or to an offensive mobilization of social capital. In this latter case, the former employee could be placed under observation by the host company.By looking at the transitions of unionists, this research is a reversal of the position taken in many studies analyzing the unionist’s career. The social capital of activists is no longer defined within the trade union organization, but outside of it. This allows us to put forward the concept of external activist employability as the capacity of a unionist to obtain and maintain a job outside the union sphere through the mobilization of social capital.

In the twenty years since Quebec introduced its family policy in 1997, with the objective of supporting the parents of young children, the province has implemented a number of measures aimed at promoting work-life balance which are in many respects more generous than those elsewhere in Canada. However, while enhancing rights to maternity, parental and paternity leave upon the arrival of a child, Quebec has done little to address conflicts between work and family life after a parent's return to work, especially conflicts resulting from routine, daily obligations towards children, the elderly, or other family mem- bers. This paper examines the adequacy of existing legal mechanisms available to Quebec workers under human rights and employment standards legislation for reducing work-family conflict. In this regard, the author notes that 'family status" or 'family situation" has not been recognized as a prohibited ground of discrimination under Quebec's Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and the province's courts have consistently resisted expanding the scope of the pro- hibited ground of "civil status" to include parental obligations in the employ- ment context. Furthermore, while the Labour Standards Act provides for various short- and long-term leaves of absence for family responsibilities, the legislation imposes restrictive conditions on entitlement, e.g. the obligation in question must generally be "extraordinary" in nature, and the employee must prove that she took steps to find an alternative solution before seeking leave. Overall, Quebec law has preserved management's prerogative to determine the organization and scheduling of work, maintaining a conception of the "ideal" or "normative" worker as one who has no family responsibilities. Ultimately, the author argues, meaningful reform must take aim at the crux of the matter - employees' ability to control their working time.

In the early twentieth-century, the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) initially hesitated to discuss the politics of reproduction as a means of easing material inequity for women and men of the working class. Nevertheless, over five decades, this topic appeared often in the CPCs official and unofficial publications, illustrating a sustained interest in the taboo subject. My thesis draws upon archival materials, communist and mainstream newspapers, and medical periodicals to survey contemporary opinions of birth control, abortion, eugenics, juvenile delinquency, venereal disease, and state medicine. Using the lens of left-politics, these topics are contextualized with reference to the extant literature on the histories of politics, sex, reproduction, labour, and medicine in Canada and beyond. Far from being confined to a few secretive individuals, the militant left engaged a dense network of activists who took stock of the social as well as physical reproduction of the nation. Often their interests appeared indistinguishable from the mainstream, and occasionally overlapped with those of their right-leaning opponents. The CPC unfailingly argued for an understanding of sex and reproduction that reflected its Marxist worldview. Some multi-generational discussions were so durable that they would outlast and outgrow the militant left to emerge within the rhetoric of a multitude of Canadian liberation groups by the late sixties and early seventies. I argue that investigation of the politics underwriting the ideas of the CPC and its ideology of a healthy, socialized body politic, elucidates complexities in the formation of mainstream Canadian approaches to sex, reproduction, and health.