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This article reviews the book, "Neoliberal Capitalism and Precarious Work: Ethnographies of Accommodation and Resistance" by Rob Lambert and Andrew Herod.

This article reviews the book, "Le stress au travail, un enjeu de santé," by Patrick Légeron.

This article reviews the book, "The Emerging Industrial Relations of China," edited by William Brown and Chang Kai.

The industrial relations (IR) field in Canada and the United States (US) emerged in the late 1910s-early 1920s and is thus on the cusp of its 100th anniversary. The impetus for the creation of the IR field was growing public alarm in both countries over the escalating level of conflict, violence, and class polarization in employer-employee relations. The two countries established federal-level government investigative committees, the Royal Commission on Industrial Relations (1919) in Canada and the Commission on Industrial Relations (1911-1915) in the US, to travel cross-country, gather evidence, and report their findings and overall evaluation. To commemorate the IR field’s centenary, this paper conducts the same type of cross-national ER evaluation, but with modern methods. First, this exercise requires a formal evaluation instrument, like a physical exam worksheet. Adopted is a modified version of a balanced scorecard. Second, the scorecard’s framework and questions should be theoretically informed. The framework used is a modified version of the diagrammatic model of an IR system presented by Mackenzie King in Industry and Humanity (1918). The third step is to fill in the scorecard with data from individual workplaces, which are obtained for the US from a new nationally-representative survey of 2000+ workplaces, the State of Workplace Employment Relations Survey (SWERS). The fourth step is to aggregate all the diagnostic measures to obtain a summary numerical estimate for each of the companies of its state of ER performance and health. Based on a 1-7 (7 = highest) scale, then converted to F to A grades, we find that the average ER grade given by managers is B+ and by employees C+. The company scores are graphed in a frequency distribution that visually represents, for the first time in the literature, the lowest-to-highest pattern of employment relations performance and health across the US.

This article reviews the book, "History from the Bottom Up and the Inside Out: Ethnicity, Race, and Identity in Working-Class History" by James R. Barrett.

Organizational learning can be a key shared value that perpetuates the family's and the family firm's culture across generations. Imprinting theory helps to explain the impact that lessons learned and transmitted can have on the development of human resources in the family firm. However, the results of imprinting may not necessarily be positive, particularly when imprinting manifests itself in negative processes and expectations. Whereas imprinting and organizational learning are often associated with a “positive halo effect,” they have the potential to result in negative behaviors and deleterious firm-level outcomes. Employing imprinting theory as a framework, we highlight the potential dark side of imprinting within the family firm context and how it can damage human resource efforts and threaten company performance and firm survival. Finally, we suggest how bad habits may be broken and replaced with more effective routines so as to ensure the family firm's continuity and success.

From Vancouver-based writer Chelene Knight, Dear Current Occupant is a creative nonfiction memoir about home and belonging set in the 80s and 90s of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Using a variety of forms including letters, essays and poems, Knight reflects on her childhood through a series of letters addressed to all of the current occupants now living in the twenty different houses she moved in and out of with her mother and brother. From blurry non-chronological memories of trying to fit in with her own family as the only mixed East Indian/Black child, to crystal clear recollections of parental drug use, Knight draws a vivid portrait of memory that still longs for a place and a home. Peering through windows and doors into intimate, remembered spaces now occupied by strangers, Knight writes to them in order to deconstruct her own past. From the rubble of memory she then builds a real place in order to bring herself back home. -- Publisher's description

This research note examines the authors’ graphic history Showdown! Making Modern Unions to build on recent scholarship about the pedagogical use of comics by considering the tools and possibilities this medium opens up to professional historians regarding the treatment of primary sources. We suggest that graphic histories enable strategies for using primary sources that actually enhance and popularize the ways historians can effectively use evidence, particularly in terms of building the critical consciousness of an expanded base of readers. Employing the comics theory concept of closure, we show graphic history to be uniquely situated to allow historians and readers to become actively engaged with and derive meaning from primary sources in a way not possible in other forms of historical writing. Examples from Showdown! are used to show the depth and breadth of these methodological possibilities.

In 2013, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that three sections of the Criminal Code of Canada pertaining to sex work were unconstitutional. In response to this ruling—otherwise known as the Bedford Decision—the Conservative government introduced the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) in 2014. In this paper, I ask: to what extent does the Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act meet its stated goal of addressing the health and safety of those who “engage in prostitution”? In exploring this question, I first trace the legal terrain leading to the PCEPA’s conception. Following this, I show that the PCEPA has failed to address its stated goals in two central ways. First, by co-opting the progressive framing of the Bedford Decision in a way that obscures the situations of violence it seeks to address, and second, by making the most precarious category of sex work even more dangerous through its implementation. In order to render the actual foundations of the PCEPA visible, I draw upon critical race and feminist theory. Through this analysis, I show how gendered and racialized hierarchies regulate violence along and within the sex work spectrum. Overall, this paper argues that the PCEPA has failed to address the health and safety of “those engaged in prostitution,” and instead, has facilitated racialized patterns of gender violence against vulnerable populations.

This artcile reviews "Documentaries: Poems" by Walter Hildebrandt.

The article reviews the book, "On Durban's Docks: Zulu Workers, Rural Households, Global Labor," by Ralph Callebert.

Using data from the 2011 National Household Survey, the present analysis seeks to provide a recent estimate of aboriginal/non-aboriginal earnings disparities for a sample of employees who work full-time, full-year. Wage gaps are estimated and decomposed at the mean for several aboriginal identity groups as well as those living on- and off-reserves. consistent with previous research, the results of the present analysis find earnings disparities are, in general, larger for aboriginal identity respondents (i.e. those who identify themselves as aboriginal persons), as opposed to those who report having aboriginal ancestry, but who do not identify as aboriginal persons. among aboriginal identity groups living off-reserve (First Nations, Métis and Inuit), First Nations experience the largest earnings inequality, followed by Inuit males and Métis. aboriginal identity respondents living on-reserve experience by far the largest earnings disadvantage of all the groups considered in the analysis. the study concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for future research, with an emphasis on the importance of addressing the potential role of discrimination in labour markets.

Objective: To compare occupational health and safety (OHS) vulnerability of recent Canadian immigrants and workers born in Canada. Methods: Recent immigrants (n = 195) were recruited at four settlement agencies in Southern Ontario, and non-immigrants in Ontario (n = 1030) were contacted by phone and email by a third-party survey provider. The questionnaire measured OHS vulnerability using a 27-item measure and collected sociodemographic and workplace information. Responses were used to evaluate one overall and three specific (policy and procedure, awareness, and empowerment) measures of OHS vulnerability. Log-binomial models compared the overall and policy and procedure-, awareness- and empowerment-related vulnerability of recent immigrants to non-immigrant workers. Models were adjusted for demographic and workplace characteristics. Results: New immigrants experience statistically elevated levels of overall (adjusted risk ratio [ARR] = 1.60, 95% CI 1.23-2.07) and empowerment-related vulnerability (ARR = 1.54, 95% CI 1.09-2.17). Compared to workers born in Canada, immigrants also report elevated levels of policy and procedure vulnerability (ARR = 1.37, 95% CI 0.98-1.92), although this estimate did not meet traditional criteria for statistical significance. Conclusions: This study uses a novel multi-dimensional measure to identify how differences in workplace context place recent immigrant workers at increased risk of work-related injury or illness. Recent immigrant workers experience increased risk of OHS vulnerability. In particular, this vulnerability results from exposure to hazards in combination with inadequate levels of empowerment to protect themselves in the workplace. Policy-makers, advocates, and employers should implement strategies that not only build workplaces where occupational hazards are minimized but also ensure immigrant workers are empowered to act on their workplace rights and engaged to improve workplace safety.

The article reviews the book, "The Great Labour Unrest: Rank-and-File Movements and Political Change in the Durham Coalfield," by Lewis H. Mates.

This article reviews the book, "The Life of Ellen Wilkinson, Socialist, Feminist, Internationalist" by Laura Beers.

While expert knowledge is a crucial resource for large science-based companies, management of the specific population of experts remains a sensitive issue for the HRM. In order to recognize and retain these employees, companies traditionally implement a dual ladder—a career management tool that proposes an alternative technical career track to the managerial one, thus allowing recognition of an expert status in the organization. However, multiple studies have demonstrated that the implementation of a dual ladder does not bring the expected results. While previous research has investigated the individual aspirations of experts as possible reasons for their dissatisfaction with this managerial tool, we show the importance of the collective dimension of expertise and claim that the latter is insufficiently supported by HRM practices. Drawing on a case study in a large multinational firm, we explore the consequences of individualized practices on expert work and discuss the role of HRM in dealing with so-called “hero-based” management. The findings show that individualized practices could endanger the learning and innovation capacities of the firm and compromise processes such as decision making and problem solving. It could also jeopardize the continuity of expertise from a long-term perspective as younger generations refuse to align with a “hero-based” culture. Despite such a strategic challenge, HR managers experience difficulties in reinforcing the collective dimension of expertise. This opens up new perspectives for the HRM function that could lead the management of experts towards new horizons by supporting the fragile equilibrium between “agency” and “communion” in expertise processes.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Against Labor: How U.S. Employers Organized to Defeat Union Activism," edited by Rosemary Feurer and Chad Pearson, and "Political Economy of Labor Repression in the United States," by Andrew Kolin.

The article reviews the book, "'We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now': The Global Uprising against Poverty Wages," by Annelise Orleck.

During the 1970s and 1980s, after the Royal Commission on the Status of Women made its far-reaching recommendations, the volunteer Ontario Committee on the Status of Women went head-to-head with the Ontario government of Premier William Davis to fully implement equality for women in Ontario. Areas of concern were in employment, pay and benefits, child care and reproduction rights, education and training, family law, pensions, politics and the civil service, and human rights generally. Members of this committed organization tell the stories of how they came together, how they organized and lobbied for change, how they collaborated with other groups, how the issues changed, and what the work means for women in Ontario today. --Publisher's description. Contents: OSCW song -- Prologue: The view from 1967 -- Equality is a woman's place: the Royal Commission on the Status of Women / Beth Atcheson -- The challenge accepted: the founding of the Ontario Committee on the Status of Women / Lynn McDonald -- Employment and economy: the Fair Employment Practices Committee / Marjorie Griffin Cohen -- Family law, childcare, and reproduction / Beth Atcheson, Wendy Lawrence, Irma Melville, Cathleen Morrison and Lorna Marsden -- Pensions / Wendy Lawrence, Cathleen Morrison, Brigid O'Reilly, and Lorna Marsden -- Education and training / Lorna Marsden -- Survey of OCSW members / Naomi Black --Process and personalities / Lorna Marsden -- Epilogue: The view from 2017 -- In Memory of Lynne Sullivan / Judith Davidson-Palmer -- Appendix 1. RCSW report excerpt: plan of action and list of recommendations -- Appendix 2. RCSW: overview of recommendations by jurisdiction / Beth Atcheson -- Appendix 3. Equal opportunity for women in Ontario: a plan for action (June 1973) excerpt: proposals for change: a summary -- Appendix 4. Who's who, what's what, where and up...a partial chronological guide to the bureaucracy and public sector maze -- Appendix 5. Married women's property rights.

This trailblazing history of early British Columbia focuses on a single year, 1858, the year of the Fraser River gold rush — the third great mass migration of gold seekers after the Californian and Australian rushes in search of a new El Dorado. Marshall’s history becomes an adventure, prospecting the rich pay streaks of British Columbia’s “founding” event and the gold fever that gripped populations all along the Pacific Slope. Marshall unsettles many of our most taken-for-granted assumptions: he shows how foreign miner-militias crossed the 49th parallel, taking the law into their own hands, and conducting extermination campaigns against Indigenous peoples while forcibly claiming the land. Drawing on new evidence, Marshall explores the three principal cultures of the goldfields — those of the fur trade (both Native and the Hudson’s Bay Company), Californian, and British world views. The year 1858 was a year of chaos unlike any other in British Columbia and American Pacific Northwest history. It produced not only violence but the formal inauguration of colonialism, Native reserves and, ultimately, the expansion of Canada to the Pacific Slope. Among the haunting legacies of this rush are the cryptic place names that remain — such as American Creek, Texas Bar, Boston Bar, and New York Bar — while the unresolved question of Indigenous sovereignty continues to claim the land. -- Publisher's website description. Contents: Introduction: Fraser River fever on the Pacific slope of North America -- Prophetic patterns: the search for a new El Dorado -- The fur trade world -- The Californian world -- The British world -- Fortunes foretold: the Fraser River War -- Mapping the new El Dorado -- Inventing Canada from west to east -- Conclusion: "The river bears south."