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This study considers the travel patterns, practices and conditions that shape how migrant farmworkers circulate in rural southwestern Ontario. While migrants in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) do not exercise occupational mobility and are housed in employer-provided accommodations, they are otherwise legally entitled to circulate freely in Canada. In practical terms, however, most experience significant mobility barriers. The study investigates the mechanisms by which migrant farmworkers are confined and immobilized to farm spaces on systemic levels, contributing to a vein of research on the immobilities that pervade everyday life for transnational, low-wage labour migrants. I show how localized mobility controls placed around migrants as well as inadequate transportation create a “mobility fix” for farm operators and state actors. Technologies of confinement that immobilize migrant farmworkers are justified through racial and sexual ideologies about migrants being a threatening presence in rural Canada, while permitting high levels of value to be extracted from migrants’ labour. The dissertation is organized as three empirical journal articles which are preceded by a chapter on research methods. In the first article I document how a purported problem with transient farm labour migration to Ontario from Quebec and Atlantic Canada was constructed in the 1960’s and 1970’s. In response, the Canadian government devised the SAWP as an institutional mechanism to undercut transnational migrants’ constitutional and practical mobility rights, rights that transients harnessed. This chapter reveals how enacting controls around migrants’ local mobilities has been crucial to the “making” of migrant agricultural workforces in Canada. In the second article I identify how systemic immobilities for SAWP workers are enacted by Canadian family farm operators. I show how Canadian family farms benefit from high levels of personal and intimate interaction with SAWP employees. I identify how operators impose high limitations and constraints as to when, where, and how migrants can travel beyond formal work hours. Finally, the third article examines how migrants have forged bicycling geographies in rural places and how migrant bicyclists are perceived in Canadian communities. Migrants are more vulnerable as bicyclists, do not bike out of choice, and have become subjects of bike safety education. I argue that racial and economic forms of exploitation as well as socio-spatial exclusions inflect actually existing bicycling geographies.

This article reviews the book, "From Left to Right: Maternalism and Women's Political Activism in Postwar Canada," by Brian Thorn.

[This book] opens with a former prisoner's story of reintegration employment experiences. Next, relying on a combination of research interviews, quantitative data, and literature, contributors present an international comparative review of Canada's evolving criminal record legislation; the promotive features of employment; the complex constraints and stigma former prisoners encounter as they seek employment; and the individual and societal benefits of assisting former prisoners attain "gainful" employment. A main theme throughout is the interrelationship between employment and other central conditions necessary for safety and sustenance. [The] book offers suggestions for criminal record policy amendments and new reintegration practices that would assist individuals in the search for employment. Using the evidence and research findings of practitioners and scholars in social work, criminology and law, psychology, and other related fields, the contributors concentrate on strategies that will reduce the stigma of having been in prison; foster supportive relationships between social and legal agencies and prisons and parole systems; and encourage individually tailored resources and training following release of individuals. --Publisher's description. Contents: Section I – The Employment–Re-entry Enigma/Dilemma. Work after prison: one man's transition / James Young [pseudonym] -- Employment and desistance from crime / Kemi S. Anazodo, Christopher Chan, and Rose Ricciardelli -- Employment and criminal offenders with mental illness / Krystle Martin. Section II – Criminal Histories, Employment Prospects, and Moving Forward. Job search, suspended: changes to Canada's Pardon Program and the impact of finding employment / Samantha McAleese -- Vulnerabilities and barriers in post-release employment reintegration as indicated by parolees / Rose Ricciadelli and Taylor Mooney. Section III - Employment reintegration programming: supportive strategies and related outcomes. Is criminal history at the time of employment predictive of job performance? : A comparison of disciplinary actions and terminations in a sample of production workers / Mark G. Harmon, Laura J. Hickman, Alexandra M. Arneson, and Ashley M. Hansen -- Transforming rehabilitation: a critical evaluation of barriers encountered by an offender rehabilitation program for South Asian/Muslim offenders within the new probation service model / Christine Victoria Hough -- Promoting employment opportunities through mentorship for gang-involved youth reintegrating into the community / Adrienne M.F. Peters -- Barriers to community reintegration: the benefits of client-centred case management and pre-employment skills training / Ashley Brown. Section IV - The employment reintegration of unique populations. "Between a rock and a hard place": how being a "convict" hinders finding work in the neo-liberal, late-capitalist economy / Dale C. Spencer -- Does the "wrongful" part of wrongful conviction make a difference in the job market? / Kimberley A. Clow -- Conclusion. Employment reintegration / Rose Ricciardelli and Adrienne M.F. Peters.

The article reviews the book, "Drawn to Change: Graphic Histories of Working-Class Struggle," edited by the Graphic History Collective .

Ce livre propose une analyse historique des discours féministes sur le travail ménager et des débats entourant sa reconnaissance, à travers trois avenues : la socialisation, le salaire au travail ménager et les réformes gouvernementales. Rendre visible un travail qui ne l'est pas et réinscrire au sein des luttes féministes les enjeux liés à la reproduction sociale, tel est le but de cet ouvrage documenté et rigoureux. --Description de l'éditeur

This article reviews the book, "Reverend Addie Wyatt: Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender, and Racial Equality," by Marcia Walker-McWilliams.

Canada's labour laws do not adequately protect non-union forms of concerted action - a problematic gap in the legislation, given the increase in alternative models of collective organizing. This article proposes the adoption in Canada of broader protections similar to those found in the United States, where section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act extends protection to concerted action by employees regardless of whether they are unionized or even seeking to unionize. Beginning with a comparison of the current legislative schemes in the two countries, the authors argue that because the limitations to concerted action in Canadian labour law are similar to those in the U.S., the proposal is unlikely to disturb settled law beyond its intent. The positive impacts of adopting section 7-like protection in Canada are canvassed, which include encouraging stronger employee "voice," allowing for increased realization of the constitutional guar- antee of freedom of association, and enabling experimentation with non-union forms of collective representation. These changes would help to balance work- place power dynamics, and allow workers more flexibility in choosing how to advocate for themselves.

Quebec has established special "exemption regimes" to govern the labour relations of two groups of precarious workers: home-based care workers and farm workers. Those regimes give the workers in question limited rights of rep- resentation and collective bargaining but otherwise exclude them from the gen- eral scheme of labour relations set out in the Labour Code. This paper reviews the history of efforts to unionize home care and farm workers in Quebec as well as the ensuing constitutional litigation, which in each case forms the immediate background to the creation of the exemption regime. In the case of home-based care workers, the regime gives workers certain associative rights, including the right to conclude "group agreements" with the responsible Minister respecting terms and conditions of employment, while maintaining an irrebuttable pre- sumption that the workers are self-employed. The author notes that although the unions representing various groups of home-based care workers have made some important gains, the constitutionality of individual elements of the scheme (e.g. restrictions on the permissible scope of bargaining) is open to question and is currently the subject of a challenge in the courts. With respect to farm workers in Quebec - mostly migrants - the applicable legislation gives employees' associations only minimal rights to make representations to the employer, and to discuss those representations with the employer in good faith. In the author's view, the scheme is highly unlikely to permit a meaningful process of collective bargaining, and is therefore also vulnerable to Charter challenge, particularly in the face of the Supreme Court of Canada's 2015 labour trilogy. Ultimately, the author argues, the piecemeal proliferation of exemption regimes is no answer to the emergence of precarious work, and a fundamental reconsideration of the principles of collective representation is necessary.

This article reviews the book, "Black Labor, White Sugar: Caribbean Braceros and their Struggle for Power in the Cuban Sugar Industry," by Philip A. Howard.

Les syndicats internationaux prennent de l'expansion dans l'industrie de la construction au Québec, entre 1887 et 1930, et en viennent à dominer le paysage syndical. Ces années sont aussi celles où les syndicats parviennent parfois à faire passer les relations de travail de rapport brut avec les employeurs à la négociation et à la signature de contrats collectifs de travail.</p><p>Comme dans le reste de l'Amérique du Nord, les syndicats internationaux de la construction apportent un modèle de relations de travail qui comporte des différences par rapport à celui qui domine dans l'industrie manufacturière. Comme les syndicats dans ces industries, ceux de la construction désirent parvenir à un contrôle partagé de leur milieu de travail en imposant ou en négociant des contrats précisant l'échelle des salaires, les heures de travail, le rôle des agents syndicaux et l'arbitrage des conflits. Mais ils attachent une importance primordiale à l'obtention de l'atelier syndical fermé et à la mise sur pied de bureaux de placement. Il faut dire que la fluidité des lieux de travail et l'instabilité des emplois font en sorte que les ouvriers de la construction, plus que les autres travailleurs, vivent dans l'insécurité. La stratégie utilisée par les syndicats pour pallier à cette insécurité et améliorer les conditions de travail consiste à regrouper la grande majorité des ouvriers d'un métier dans une ville donnée et à obtenir l'atelier syndical fermé sur les chantiers. Ils y greffent les bureaux de placement pour leurs membres, ce qui rend l'appartenance syndicale attrayante, car elle devient source de travail pour les syndiqués. Elle représente aussi une forme de gestion paritaire de la demande de main-d'oeuvre et pour les syndicats, un certain contrôle de l'offre de travail. Pendant la période étudiée, la syndicalisation des ouvriers de la construction leur vaut des avantages significatifs en termes de salaires, d'heures de travail et de règles régissant l'organisation du travail. À Montréal, les briqueteurs et charpentiers-menuisiers doublent leur salaire réel de 1901 à 1930 et voient leur semaine de travail réduite de 60 à 44 heures pour certains d'entre eux.

This article reviews the book, "If We Can Win Here: The New Front Lines of the Labor Movement," by Fran Quigley.

This article uses a case study of a highly publicized 1970 controversy over Canadian Pacific Air Lines’ flight attendant uniforms—specifically, a switch from mini to midi skirt—as a case study in business-labor relations concerning the regulation of women workers’ bodily appearance. Using company and union records and employing a historical, materialist, and feminist analysis, we trace how notions of aesthetic and emotional labor changed over time in relation to the political economy, gender ideologies, and the agency of workers themselves. The flight attendants’ reluctance to challenge the airline’s sexist advertising indicated how both accommodation and resistance were intertwined in complex ways in the workplace. Their acceptance of more “thigh in the sky” had much to do with a highly regulated and disciplined workplace, an entrenched division of labor on the airplane, and gendered notions of beauty and glamour in the industry, including women’s strategic use of beauty on the job to their own advantage.

This article reviews the book, "Kill it to save it – An Autopsy of Capitalism’s Triumph over Democracy," by Corey Dolgon.

This article uses campaign finance data to trace the changing landscape of party-union relations in Ontario. In an analysis of six provincial elections that took place between 1995 and 2014, the authors demonstrate that significant segments of the province's labour movement have abandoned exclusive electoral alliances with the New Democratic Party in favour of multi-partisan strategic voting campaigns designed to block the election of Progressive Conservative candidates.

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, Canadian unions have scored a number of important Supreme Court victories, securing constitutional rights to picket, bargain collectively, and strike. Unions in Court documents the evolution of the Canadian labour movement’s engagement with the Charter, demonstrating how and why labour’s long-standing distrust of the legal system has given way to a controversial, Charter-based legal strategy. This book’s in-depth examination of constitutional labour rights will have critical implications for labour movements as well as activists in other fields. --Publisher's description.

This article reviews the book, "Migration, Precarity and Global Governance – Challenges and Opportunities for Labour," edited by Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Ronaldo Munck, Branka Likic-Brboric and Anders Neergaard.

This thesis is an attempt to provide a critical history of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) during the Popular Front era, roughly November 1935 to September 1939. This study contains a detailed examination of the various stages of the Popular Front in Canada (the united front, the height of the Popular Front, and the Democratic front), with special attention paid to the CPC’s activities in: the youth movement, the labour movement, the unemployed movement, the peace movement, and the anti-fascist movement. From this I conclude that the implementation of the Popular Front, the transformation of the CPC from a revolutionary party to a bourgeois party, was not a smooth process, but instead was punctuated and resisted by elements within the CPC in what can be considered a process of class struggle internal to the CPC itself.

The Hunters' Lodge was a secretive, grassroots American social movement that arose during the Patriot War in support of the Canadian Rebellions of 1837–38. However, despite the large number of participants, we know little about those who took part. This article decentres the military narratives that dominate the existing historiography by providing a collective cultural biography (or prosopography) of the Lodge's leadership elected in September 1838 at a Patriot Congress in Cleveland. An examination of the life trajectories of these men indicates their shared prewar participation in three related social movements: freethought, free banking, and Freemasonry. A closer cultural examination of the development and intersection of these movements reveals common ties within the Hunters' Lodge to Owenite utopian socialism as it moved from its communitarian phase to its involvement with an emerging American labour movement. These ties would place the Patriot War participants at the far left of the Democratic Party and in opposition to the concentration of land, wealth, and political power in the developing evangelical-antimasonic-Whig alliance in the aftermath of the financial panic of 1837.

Seafaring remains one of the most adventurous yet dangerous forms of work. Compared to shore-based industrial workers, seafarers suffer a risk of fatality that is up to 11 times higher. Workplace fatality is proved to be harmful to the social, financial and health conditions of surviving families. Although there has been an increase in attention given to the improvement of seafarers’ health and working conditions at sea, the effects of death at sea on surviving families has remained neglected by both researchers and policymakers.Drawing on in-depth interviews conducted with eight surviving family members in 2013 and 2014, this study investigates seafarers’ surviving families’ experiences of raising death compensation claims in China, which has the world’s largest population of seafarers. The work-related fatalities occurred between 2005 and 2013. At the time of the study, 2.4 years had elapsed on average since the deaths took place. All research participants reported considerable difficulties in communicating with crewing agencies and contacting ship owners when making compensation claims.This study shows that surviving families are in a vulnerable position when in conflict with companies. It also reveals that weak state prevention forces surviving families to defend their rights through protests. The absence of regulation over organizations involved in foreign-related employment relationships exacerbates the economic loss and mental harm suffered by surviving families following the occurrence of workplace fatalities. Furthermore, current legal and administrative procedures are unable to restore justice and provide therapeutic help for surviving families. Consequently, surviving families have suffered considerable financial loss and additional psychological harm in claim processes.

Some years ago, both Ontario and British Columbia amended their employment standards legislation to require employees in unionized workplaces to adjudicate their employment standards claims through their collective agree- ments. Unions at the time objected to the downloading of costs of public rights enforcement onto grievance arbitration - rightly, in the author's view, because grievance arbitration is designed to resolve disputes arising from private law generated by collective bargaining, not to enforce individual rights conferred by public law. By placing employment standards claims within the exclusive juris- diction of arbitrators, the amendments made those statutory rights part of the "bundle" that is subject to the compromises and tradeoffs inherent in collective agreement dispute resolution. The author acknowledges that there are compel- ling reasons to consolidate the adjudication of workplace disputes, including the potential for duplicative litigation, and the fact that private and public rights are closely intertwined in the modern workplace. What is needed, she suggests, is a custom-designed public tribunal, along the lines of a "labour court," with plenary jurisdiction to enforce both public and private rights, operating on prin- ciples that recognize society's interest in access to justice and equality before the law. She calls for further research to determine the impact of blending public and private rights enforcement systems on collective bargaining as an institution and on the welfare of unionized employees.