Search

The Gouzenko Affair is referred to as the event that started the Cold War. This article draws on recently declassified documents that shed new light on Britain's role in this affair, particularly that of the Foreign Office and the British High Commissioner to Canada. The documents reveal how the British had a major part in directing the response to Igor Gouzenko's defection in 1945. This event revealed the need for increased counterespionage security, but it also became a spectacle that directed the public's attention away from the British connection: specifically, the role of Alan Nunn May, a British nuclear scientist who had provided the Soviets with classified information. Instead, the public's interest was centred on Soviet spies, communism as a subversive force, and the brewing Soviet-US conflict. These newly declassified sources demonstrate how it was the British intelligence services and the British government that went to great lengths to help focus the public's attention in this direction. They took great pains to direct Canadian policymaking, which included working to discourage Canada's prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King from handling the affair privately with the Soviet ambassador, and were likely behind the infamous press leak to US reporter Drew Pearson that forced King to call a Royal Commission and publicize the affair. With the help of the British government and intelligence services, the Cold War began.

During periods of intense conflict, either at home or abroad, governments enact emergency powers in order to exercise greater control over the society that they govern. The expectation though is that once the conflict is over, these emergency powers will be lifted. An Exceptional Law showcases how the emergency law used to repress labour activism during the First World War became normalized with the creation of Section 98 of the Criminal Code, following the Winnipeg General Strike. Dennis G. Molinaro argues that the institutionalization of emergency law became intricately tied to constructing a national identity. Following a mass deportation campaign in the 1930s, Section 98 was repealed in 1936 and contributed to the formation of Canada's first civil rights movement. Portions of it were used during the October Crisis and recently in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2015. Building on the theoretical framework of Agamben, Molinaro advances our understanding of security as ideology and reveals the intricate and codependent relationship between state-formation, the construction of liberal society, and exclusionary practices. --Publisher's description. Contents: For the protection of people and state -- Defining suspects -- The trial -- Citizens of the world -- Outlaws -- Judgement.

The article reviews the book, "Security/Capital: A General Theory of Pacification," by George S. Rigakos.

This paper evaluates the potential of the framework of reasonable accom- modation under Canadian human rights legislation to respond adequately to the workplace discrimination claims of minorities, particularly racialized Muslim women. Developing the premise that religious freedom and gender equality are not mutually exclusive, the author considers the legislative and judicial context of multiculturalism in Canada, as exemplified by the R. v. NS case (dealing with whether a witness in legal proceedings may wear a niqab while testifying) and by certain legislative initiatives (such as the federal Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act and the Quebec Charter of Values) that reflect a climate of growing xenophobia and islamophobia and that reinforce the "otherness" of minority racialized women under the pretext of secularism and gender equality. The paper then examines more closely the existing legal framework for rea- sonable accommodation in the workplace, arguing that the rigorous standard adopted by the Supreme Court in Meiorin was weakened and devalued in subse- quent decisions such as McGill and Hydro-Qu6bec. Ultimately, the author con- tends, state multiculturalism should be challenged and reconceptualized through the prism of critical multiculturalism, in order to move away from a simplistic emphasis on cultural difference and to address the underlying systemic issues of racism and discrimination. Furthermore, she argues, the notion of reasonable accommodation should be reformulated to shift the focus away from accommo- dation of minority women as tolerated exceptions to the norm, and towards the achievement of substantive equality through structural change.

This article reviews the book, "Working Through the Past: Labor and Authoritarian Legacies in Comparative Perspective," edited by Teri L. Caraway, Maria Lorena Cook, and Stephen Crowley.

Though rare in Canada, community benefits agreements (cbas) are now commonly being negotiated by labour-community coalitions in American cities. cbas require "urban revitalization" projects to provide living wages, affordable housing, and access to jobs for marginalized residents. Surprisingly little has been written about cbas within the labour studies literature, and most critiques of cbas correspond with private developments. This case study draws on three years of participatory, action-based fieldwork with a labour-community coalition, called the Toronto Community Benefits Network (hereafter, the Network). Formed in 2013, the Network tried to negotiate the first-ever cba with the Ontario government, linked to the $6.6 billion Eglinton Crosstown Light Rail Transit project in Toronto. The Network won discursive support for cbas from provincial policymakers, but demands for employment equity were met with only an ineffective workplace-development approach. I explain and evaluate the Network's "insider strategy" in relation to political vulnerabilities of the government of Ontario; the Network's efforts to mobilize resources and gain union support; and the changing labour-relations regime governing infrastructure projects in Toronto. I argue that while cbas open a new terrain of struggle for marginalized groups and unions to assert a right to the city, these struggles are being coopted by governments and used as political cover for deepening neoliberal governance.

This paper focuses on safety on multi-employer worksites in high-risk industries. Relevant industries are those that utilize flexible labour arrangements and specialization, such as construction, mining and petroleum production, and that traditionally have been high-risk due to hazards in the physical work environment and the occurrence of unsafe work processes and practices. These industries also share common characteristics in matters of overall work environments, multi-employer worksites (including subcontracting chains), as well as tasks performed by contractors, making it relevant to explore and clarify the situation regarding the safety of the affected groups. A comprehensive review is performed of 43 peer-reviewed research articles published up until early 2015, with a main focus on international studies covering safety issues on multi-employer worksites in construction and industrial work settings such as mining, petroleum production and manufacturing.The results show that previous research has focused on a number of key issues that may be divided into three broad categories: 1- contract work characteristics; 2- structural/organizational factors and conditions; 3- cultural conditions. Much of the focus is on structure and organization, for example, how multi-employer arrangements can lead to breakdowns in communication and overall disorganization effects in relation to safety. There is, however, a need for further studies on the nature of these structural and organizational factors and conditions, such as focused studies on the consequences of power asymmetry for the ability of contractors to adhere to safety laws and regulations. Furthermore, we argue that the development towards blurred organizational boundaries in these networks due to extensive outsourcing and long-term contracts may be a worthwhile avenue for future research into safety on multi-employer worksites. // Cet article se concentre sur les mesures de sécurité dans les chantiers multi- employeurs d’industries à hauts risques. Les industries concernées sont celles qui font appel à l’organisation du travail flexible et à la spécialisation, telles que la construction, l’activité minière et l’industrie pétrolière, et qui sont traditionnellement reconnues comme comportant des risques élevés à la santé à cause des dangers inhérents à l’environnement physique du travail et à l’existence de pratiques et de processus de travail non sécuritaires. Ces industries ont aussi en commun certaines caractéristiques en matière d’environnement de travail général dans des milieux de travail multi-employeurs (incluant des chaînes de sous-contractants), de même qu’en matière d’activités exercées par les entrepreneurs, justifiant ainsi le besoin d’explorer et de clarifier la situation en regard de la sécurité au travail des groupes affectés. Pour ce faire, nous avons mené un examen approfondi de 43 articles de recherches évalués par des pairs et publiés jusqu’au début avril 2015, avec une attention particulière envers les études internationales couvrant les questions de sécurité au travail dans des milieux multi-employeurs dans la construction et dans des secteurs industriels, telles l’activité minière, la production pétrolière et l’activité manufacturière.Les résultats indiquent que ces recherches ont jusqu’ici identifié un certain nombre d’enjeux-clés qui peuvent être regroupés en trois grandes catégories : 1- les caractéristiques du contrat de travail; 2- les conditions et les facteurs structurels et organisationnels; 3- les conditions culturelles. L’attention principale porte sur les dimensions structurelles et organisationnelles, à savoir comment les dispositions multi-employeurs peuvent conduire à des ruptures dans la communication et à des effets de désorganisation générale en matière de sécurité au travail. Il y a, également, un besoin de poursuivre les études sur la nature de ces facteurs et de ces conditions structurelles et organisationnelles, notamment la réalisation d’études portant sur les conséquences de l’asymétrie de pouvoir et sur la capacité des entrepreneurs d’adhérer aux règlementations et aux lois en matière de sécurité au travail. De plus, nous soutenons que la croissance de frontières organisationnelles floues dans ces réseaux, en raison de l’existence d’une importante sous-traitance et de contrats à long terme, devrait se révéler une avenue prometteuse pour les futures recherches sur la sécurité au travail dans des milieux multi-employeurs.

This thesis explores the relationship between Newfoundland’s Irish Catholics and the largely English-Protestant backed Fishermen’s Protective Union (FPU) in the early twentieth century. The rise of the FPU ushered in a new era of class politics. But fishermen were divided in their support for the union; Irish-Catholic fishermen have long been seen as at the periphery—or entirely outside—of the FPU’s fold. Appeals to ethno-religious unity among Irish Catholics contributed to their ambivalence about or opposition to the union. Yet, many Irish Catholics chose to support the FPU. In fact, the historical record shows Irish Catholics demonstrating a range of attitudes towards the union: some joined and remained, some joined and then left, and others rejected the union altogether. Far from being beholden to the whims of clerics, political elites, or the structural dictates of the economy and of region, Irish-Catholic fishermen made their own decisions about membership. Nevertheless, the pressures of class and ethno-religious solidarities mediated their decisions to engage with the union. This thesis uses a combination of newspaper sources, church correspondence, oral histories, censuses, and election data to unearth the history of Irish Catholics’ complex relationship with the FPU, and argues that this relationship is an example of the entanglements of ethnicity and class in pre-Confederation Newfoundland.

Cet article s'intéresse à la façon dont les discours en circulation au Québec parlent de la pauvreté urbaine dans un contexte de prospérité. Il met en lumière la coexistence, pendant les années qui suivent la Seconde Guerre mondiale, d'une vision « individualisante » de la pauvreté avec une conception plus « socialisante » assimilant ce phénomène à une injustice. Il soutient aussi qu'un changement de paradigme s'effectue dans les années 1960 et 1970, la pauvreté commençant à être appréhendée en lien avec la société de consommation en voie de consolidation. Dans ce contexte, la pauvreté qui perdure en dépit de mesures prises pour l'enrayer dérange de plus en plus et en vient à être assimilée à un phénomène social dont l'injustice est exacerbée par les valeurs de la consommation de masse et la prospérité ambiante qui le rendent d'autant plus inacceptable.

This dissertation explores the effects of lack of citizenship on the wages of low-skilled Non-Permanent Residents (NPRs) in Canada—a category that includes temporary foreign workers, refugee claimants, and people with temporary resident visas on humanitarian grounds. The dissertation uses the 2006 census and quantitative methods (cross-tabulation and regression analysis) to evaluate wage differences between low-skilled workers without citizenship and low-skilled workers with citizenship or permanent resident status. Differences are calculated at the industry sector level and occupation level. The analysis further considers a set of intrinsic characteristics of low-skilled workers (including sex, level of education, official language ability and country of birth) and their occupations (provincial location, rural/urban setting). Empirically, this dissertation confirms that there is a penalty attached to lack of citizenship for low-skilled workers. In absolute terms, low-skilled NPRs earn low wages. In relative terms, these NPRs earn less than both the Canadian-born and immigrants low-skilled workers employed in the same occupations. Among low-skilled NPRs themselves, the Canadian labour market exhibits a hierarchy of wages and labour experiences on the lines of workers' country of birth, province of residence, and rural/urban place of work. Among low–skilled workers born in the same country, wages improve when either citizenship or the rights attached to permanent residence are acquired. From a policy perspective, the dissertation identifies the policy origins and drivers of low wages among low-skilled non-citizens. The thesis makes the case for the relevance of quantitative outcomes analyzed through a critical social lens. From a theoretical perspective too, the dissertation also shows how the state as a biased broker (towards capital) facilitates the implementation of non-citizenship as a means to accessing cheap labour.

This paper provides evidence of the impact of three important and general policies shaping the degree of labor market rigidity on the labor share: welfare expenditures, government ex- penditures on active labor market programs, and passive labor market measures. It analyses the impact of regulation, such as the intensity of employment protection, and evaluates whether trade unions and minimum wage institutions play a role in the relationship between all measures and the labor share. The labor income share has experienced a declining trend since the mid- 1970s in most advanced economies, and the existing literature found little if no correlation of this decline to general labor market characteristics. However, the present paper finds that some in- stitutions are correlated to the downward trend, depending on the welfare system adopted, and that welfare and employment protection counteract the decline. Moreover, many countries saw an upsurge in their labor share after the burst of the financial crisis. Evidence of whether the effect of the policies weakened or reinforced the labor share after 2007 is reported.

This article examines the efforts of feminist unions to organize childcare workers in 1970s Vancouver, British Columbia, and highlights the entrenched opposition to union organizing by women considered to be “just babysitters.” These workers’ efforts challenged the “love-versus-money” divide that hampered women’s organizing efforts in the care sector. Vancouver childcare workers, working in alliance with parents, insisted on the public importance of their traditionally private work. In doing so, they connected their fight for better working conditions with the fight for universal childcare. They linked women’s struggles in the workplace to calls for the redistribution of society’s caregiving responsibilities away from families and the market and toward the state. Government intransigence prevented meaningful childcare policy reform, but workers’ efforts highlighted a key moment in Vancouver’s feminist and labor history when the fair treatment of care workers was linked to the liberation of all women.

This article reviews "Labor’s Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working-Class Family in America," by Andrew J. Cherlin, "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis," by J.D. Vance, "Fighting for Total Person Unionism: Harold Gibbons, Ernest Calloway, and Working-Class Citizenship," by Robert Bussel, "Conservative Counterrevolution: Challenging Liberalism in 1950s Milwaukee," by Tula A. Connell, and "Reframing Randolph: Labor, Black Freedom, and the Legacies of A. Philip Randolph," edited by Andrew E. Kersten and Clarence Lang.

This article reviews the book, "Health and Safety in Canadian Workplaces," by Jason Foster and Bob Barnetson.

This article reviews the book, "Dialogue social, relations du travail et syndicalisme : perspectives historiques et internationales," edited by Paul-André Lapointe,

Thiis article reviews the book, "Quand travailler enferme dans la pauvreté et la précarité : travailleuses et travailleurs pauvres au Québec et dans le monde," by Carole Yerochewski.

Higher-education systems in Canada and the United Kingdom share much in common, but there are important differences that faculty on both sides of the Atlantic should appreciate. The UK experience can wake Canadian academics up to the urgency of resisting university corporatization and to the opportunities for resistance that remain.

Taverns and inns were centres of neighbourhood life, places for travellers seeking meals, drink, and accommodation and commercial and domestic spaces where keepers and their families earned a living and that they called home. Women figured largely in public houses as patrons, servants, family members, and publicans in their own right. The article focuses on a sample of 90 female publicans who held tavern licences from 1840 to 1860, arguing that keeping these establishments afforded them distinct levels of economic independence and power. It considers broadly those characteristics that constituted ideal female keepers in mid-nineteenth-century Montreal and how they maintained a respectable status precisely at a moment when alcohol consumption and associated licensed and unlicensed commercial sites were coming increasing under scrutiny by temperance advocates, authorities of the criminal justice system, and elites. To retain their licences, female keepers had to negotiate the landmines of respectability by following licensing regulations, maintaining a reputable demeanour, and regulating the public house’s culture and clientele.

This article reviews the book, "In Love and Struggle: The Revolutionary Lives of James and Grace Lee Boggs," by Stephen M. Ward.

Precarious employment is on the rise in Canada, increasing by nearly 50% in the last two decades. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which it can impact upon geographical mobility. Employment-related geographical mobility refers to mobility to, from and between workplaces, as well as mobility as part of work. We report on a qualitative study conducted among 27 immigrant men and women in Toronto that investigates the relationship between precarious employment and daily commutes while exploring the ways in which gender, class and migration structure this relationship.Interview data reveal that participants were largely unable to work where they lived or live where they worked. Their precarious jobs were characterized by conditions that resulted in long, complex, unfamiliar, unsafe and expensive commutes. These commuting difficulties, in turn, resulted in participants having to refuse or quit jobs, including desirable jobs, or being unable to engage in labour market strategies that could improve their employment conditions (e.g. taking courses, volunteering, etc.). Participants’ commuting difficulties were amplified by the delays, infrequency, unavailability and high cost of public transportation. These dynamics disproportionately and/or differentially impacted certain groups of workers. Precarious work has led to workers having to absorb an ever-growing share of the costs associated with their employment, underscored in our study as time, effort and money spent travelling to and from work. We discuss the forces that underlie the spatial patterning of work and workers in Toronto, namely the growing income gap and the increased polarization among neighbourhoods that has resulted in low-income immigrants increasingly moving from the centre to the edges of the city. We propose policy recommendations for public transportation, employment, housing and child care that can help alleviate some of the difficulties described. // L’emploi précaire poursuit sa croissance au Canada, augmentant de près de 50% au cours des deux dernières décennies. Toutefois, nous connaissons mal les mécanismes par lesquels cette forme d’organisation du travail peut influer sur la mobilité géographique des travailleurs. La mobilité géographique liée à l’emploi renvoie ici aux divers déplacements que doivent effectuer les travailleurs depuis et entre les lieux de travail, ainsi que les déplacements intrinsèques à l’exercice de l’emploi lui-même. Les résultats qui suivent proviennent d’une étude qualitative effectuée auprès de 27 hommes et femmes immigrants vivant à Toronto, étude qui s’est attardée à la relation entre l’emploi précaire et les déplacements quotidiens qui y sont rattachés, tout en explorant les façons par lesquelles le genre, la classe sociale et la migration structurent cette relation.Les données en provenance des entrevues indiquent que les participants étaient généralement incapables de travailler près de leur lieu de résidence, ou encore d’habiter près de leur lieu de travail. Leurs emplois précaires se caractérisaient par des conditions qui donnaient lieu à des déplacements quotidiens longs, complexes, peu familiers, dangereux et coûteux. En retour, les difficultés liées aux déplacements quotidiens faisaient en sorte que les participants devaient souvent refuser ou quitter des emplois, parfois intéressants, ou s’avéraient incapables de s’investir dans des stratégies qui auraient pu leur permettre d’améliorer leurs conditions de travail (par exemple, suivre des cours, faire du bénévolat, etc.). De plus, les difficultés vécues par les participants se trouvaient amplifiées par les délais, la rareté, l’indisponibilité et les coûts élevés des transports en commun. Ces dynamiques à l’oeuvre affectaient de manières différentes et/ou disproportionnées certains groupes de travailleurs.L’emploi précaire pousse les travailleurs à absorber une part toujours plus importante des coûts associés à leur emploi. L’étude met clairement en relief ces coûts tels le temps, l’effort et l’argent dépensés à voyager vers et depuis le lieu travail. Nous traitons ensuite des facteurs qui sous-tendent la répartition spatiale des emplois des travailleurs à Toronto, notamment l’écart grandissant des inégalités de revenus et l’accroissement de la polarisation des quartiers, phénomènes qui ont entraîné le déplacement des immigrants à faible revenu du centre vers les limites de la ville. Nous proposons des recommandations concernant le transport en commun, l’emploi, le logement et les services de garde à l’enfance susceptibles de contribuer à atténuer certaines des difficultés décrites.