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When the "Kirkland Lake gals of 1941" begin to share their story with a present-day audience, a siren sounds and they soon find themselves pulled right back into the fateful winter of 1941-42. There, they gather again at the mine-head, waiting for word on the men trapped underground, as their fear and rage builds. When the husband of one of the women is badly injured, their desire to help her quickly leads them into a much larger campaign to help all the families they can. Before long, they've become the heart and soul of a large-scale union-organizing drive that is fuelled by their sheer will - and sometimes giddy enthusiasm - but that is also put to the test by their own inexperience, a bitter strike, and the brutal force of the powers-that-be. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Research Handbook of Employment Relations in Sport," edited by Michael Barry, James Skinner and Terry Engelberg.

The inside story of how two important Canadian unions decided to create a new kind of union with new ways of fighting for worker's rights In the fall of 2011 the leaders of two of the biggest Canadian unions, Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW) President Ken Lewenza and Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) President Dave Coles, found common ground. The labour movement was in crisis. They faced hostile governments, union busting corporations, and declining membership. Something drastic needed to be done. Fred Wilson was an insider in the process by which the leaders of these two large organizations found a way to create a new kind of union, one that was more democratic, more inclusive, and more powerful. Two years later, a new union with a new name was founded. From its inception, Unifor has been a source of optimism and inspiration that a fairer, more secure future can be won for working people, and that unions can adapt to changing times and remain a relevant voice for workplace and social justice. This book describes how this came about. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Just Watch Us: RCMP Surveillance of the Women's Liberation Movement in Cold War Canada," by Christabelle Sethna and Steve Hewitt.

An index-based approach to indicate the outcome of Occupational Health and Safety management has been commonly used in the implementation of the International Safety Management Code and the operation of Occupational Health and Safety management systems in the international shipping industry. Although the index-based approach is asserted to be a convenient way to measure and quantify the outcome of Occupational Health and Safety management, it is not justified in the wider literature and further empirical research is suggested by various authors. The aim of this study is to explore the role of an index-based approach in managing Occupational Health and Safety in the shipping industry. This article investigates the effectiveness of indicators in Occupational Health and Safety management in two Chinese chemical shipping companies. A qualitative approach is applied to examine the views of seafarers on safety reporting practice. The study reveals that, although the need for reporting is understood by most of the crew members, the reporting practice is significantly affected by different factors such as the crew’s concerns for their own interests, Chinese cultural factors and management’s dominant power over the crew’s performance evaluation. The findings suggest that there is a significant gap between what is required by the rules and what really occurs in terms of safety reporting practice. The study highlights the emerging problems of using Occupational Health and Safety indicators as benchmark for measuring the outcome of Occupational Health and Safety management in Chinese shipping. The conclusion is drawn in a Chinese context, and although the findings may not be similar to other industries or the shipping industry in other countries, they provide valuable indications for re-thinking and re-shaping maritime regulatory strategies.

The article reviews the book, "Informal Workers and Collective Action: A Global Perspective," edited by Adrienne E. Eaton, Susan J. Schurman and Martha A. Chen.

The article reviews the book, "Precarious Lives: Job Insecurity and Well-Being in Rich Democracies," by Arne L. Kalleberg.

The article reviews the book, "We Still Demand! Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles," edited by Patrizia Gentile, Gary Kinsman, and L. Pauline Rankin.

The article reviews the book, "England's Great Transformation: Law, Labour, and the Industrial Revolution," by Marc Steinberg.

The article reviews the book, "Be Wise! Be Healthy! Morality and Citizenship in Canadian Public Health Campaigns," by Catherine Carstairs, Bethany Philpott, and Sara Wilmshurst.

The article reviews the book, "The Great Cowboy Strike: Bullets, Ballots, and Class Conflicts in the American West," by Mark Lause.

The article reviews the book, "Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century," by Matilda Rabinowitz.

The article reviews the book, "Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South," by Keri Leigh Merritt.

The article reviews the book, "For Class and Country: The Patriotic Left and the First World War," by David Smith.

Discusses the PEPSO report, "Getting Left Behind."

The Ontario labour movement is in deep crisis, and has been staggering since the end of the 1990s. Given the labour movement’s historic role in leading and supporting progressive change, its current disorientation should be a matter of alarm to its members of course, but also to anyone concerned with countering the insatiable greed and social destructiveness of capitalism. --Introduction

On February 6, 2018, the Minister of Labour appointed us as a Labour Relations Code Review Panel with a broad mandate to review the B.C. Labour Relations Code, RSBC 1996, c 244 (the “Code”) and to provide recommendations for any amendments or updates to the Code. The terms of reference directed us to consult with the community, consider labour law developments in other Canadian jurisdictions and to: "….assess each issue canvassed from the perspective of how to “ensure workplaces support a growing, sustainable economy with fair laws for workers and business” and promote certainty as well as harmonious and stable labour/management relations. The conceptual and structural framework for the Code was established 45 years ago and there have been significant changes in the B.C. workforce, workplaces and economy in theintervening decades. --Introduction

Using International Social Survey Program data, we explore the relationship between economic context and attitudes with respect to the distribution of incomes in 20 modern societies, including Canada. Our findings demonstrate that economic inequality has an enduring influence on attitudes. Consistent with the economic self-interest thesis, preferences for equality are strongest among those in working-class occu- pations. Moreover, independent of one’s own social class, one’s father’s social class has a similar enduring impact on attitudes later in life. These relationships are relatively similar across the 20 societies we explore. Still, significant differences in attitudes can be explained by national economic context. We find a strong positive relationship between national-level inequality and opinions on how much inequality there ought to be in the income distribution. In contrast to previous research, however, our findings suggest that national-level economic prosperity and equality of opportunity have little influence on public opinion.

The theory and practice of community unionism has been central to discussions of alt-labor, union renewal, and revitalization, particularly in relation to union praxis at the urban or local scale. This comparative case study explores two labor-community campaigns to defend public child care services in the context of neoliberal austerity in urban/suburban space. While labor-community coalitions are a necessary—if not sufficient—condition for success, in urban/suburban contexts in which community allies are weak and municipal administrations hostile, public-sector unions must continue to play a leading role in campaigns despite the risk of being cast as defenders of sectional interests rather than of the public good. In such contexts, union involvement in community organizing is a necessary precursor to successful labor-community campaigns.

We use simulation methods and a detailed tax calculator to analyze the likely effects of two recent pro- posals aimed at reforming the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP): the federal proposal, eventually implemented throughout Canada, and the Quebec government’s December 2016 proposal. Accounting for education- adjusted life expectancy, earnings variability over the course of a career, and their interactions with the tax code and retirement income system, we find that internal rates of return (IRRs) for new QPP contribu- tions are similar under both reforms for individuals with lifetime average annual earnings of more than $40,000. Both reforms yield substantial IRRs for low-income individuals. Although the Quebec proposal offers higher IRRs for individuals earning less than $40,000, the federal proposal yields greater present value benefits for these same individuals. We show that if new QPP benefits were exempted from the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) clawback, and provided that the working income tax benefit and GIS were not enhanced, the two reforms would yield similar IRRs for individuals with average earnings of more than $15,000. The QPP reform would thus better focus on the middle-income earners originally targeted by reform advocates.