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The paper argues that Walter Reuther was affiliated with the US Communist Party in the mid to late 1930s. At the time, Reuther was a vice president of the United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America; he went on to become UAW president from 1946 till his death in 1970. The author discusses a previously unknown archival document that summarized the February 1939 Detroit meeting attended by Communist state, national and trade union leaders, including Reuther. The author calls for a reassessment of the scholarly literature on the historical UAW and Reuther.

This report compares work organization and workload at three [Ontario] developmental service agencies in order to identify factors that precipitate and contribute to injuries, stress and health problems in the social services. The restructuring of services in this sector has resulted in reduced funding and therefore workloads and health risks associated with overwork and burnout appear to have increased dramatically in all three sites studied. Restructuring has also exposed workers and clients to higher levels of stress and violence. This study also uncovered serious incidents of workplace bullying and traumatic work cultures. While workplace bullying certainly predates restructuring, some studies show that it is a phenomena that has seen rapid growth within the context of restructured public sector and non profit workplaces. Given the serious under funding of this sector it may appear that there is little that can be done to improve health and safety in the short term. However, this report recommends several measures including an immediate increase in government funding, the incorporation of worker’s knowledge into how work is to be organized and planned, guarantees to part-time workers of enough hours of work to support themselves, an end to the use of split shifts, a cap on overtime and subsequent hiring additional fulltime staff in order to ensure workplace stability and the introduction of immediate, assertive, transparent measures to improve workplace morale and eradicate traumatic workplace cultures. --Executive Summary

The article reviews the book, "Montreal of yesterday: Jewish life in Montreal 1900-1920," by Israel Medres; translated from Yiddish by Vivian Felsen.

Culture of Misfortune: An Interpretive History of Textile Unionism in the United States, by Clete Daniel, is reviewed.

This article uses time-series data from two aluminium plants from Canada and the U.K. to analyze the social relations of productivity. The eventual turn to teamwork reflected, not hard evidence that productivity change had dried up, but a belief that they were the next step towards further improvement. By considering the structure of social relations over time in each smelter, this paper contributes to ongoing debates on the complex connections between productivity growth and organizational innovation. On the basis of direct observation and interviews, the article also reveals some of the social dynamics generating productivity growth and describes the development of idiosyncratic competencies. It stresses how the development of teamwork was historically in line with the productive ethos that had developed over time under continuous process technology.

Against all odds, the miners of Bienfait, Saskatchewan, attempted, in 1931, to change their miserable situation by organizing a union. Exploring the social consequences of capitalist restructuring during the Great Depression, Stephen Endicott focuses on the miners' tumultuous thirty-day strike. Their bid to gain union recognition with the aid of the Workers' Unity League of Canada ultimately failed, and Endicott's in-depth examination of the key factors and players attempts to explain why this was the case and why a similar union drive a decade later succeeded." "Based on a large number of both oral and written primary resources, Bienfait offers a new interpretation of the role of corporations, governments, courts, and the police in the events surrounding the strike. In the process, Endicott demonstrates how a militant union leadership helped the workers gain the strength and unity of purpose to challenge the powers of wealth and deep-seated prejudice. Bienfait opens a new chapter in the history of Canadian labour relations that reveals much about Canadian and Canadian society during the Depression. --Publisher's description

As global politics realized a fundamental realignment with the end of the Second World War, the Canadian state desired the formation ofa national consensus over its newly developed Cold War policies. It set about this task through the use of anti-communist rhetoric to facilitate a repressive and intolerant atmosphere where dissent of state policies could be identified as subversive and dangerous. In promulgating this Cold War ideology, Ottawa was wary of the illiberal approach that characterized American McCarthyism. Rather, Ottawa adopted a strategy of "privatizing" its anti-communism through the use of extra-state actors. By "farming" out its repressive activities, Ottawa could portray itself as a neutral defender of liberal values, while at the same time facilitating a climate of repression that would further its policy aims. Attendant to this, the extra-state actors used this state facilitated framework in order to advance their own interests and agendas. This strategy was starkly illustrated by the USWA raids against IUMMSW Local 598 in 1962. The interests of the state, the Catholic Church, CLC, and USWA coalesced around the elimination of Mine Mill local 598 as a representative of miners in northern Ontario. The Catholic Church sought the elimination of a progressive secularizing force in the Sudbury community that threatened the Church's institutional reproduction. For Steel, the acquisition of over 17,000 dues-paying members and the elimination ofIUMMSW as a competitor in the membership rich northern Ontario mining communities. While the state prospered from the virulent anti-communist environment and the elimination of a potentially militant union from control over the largest source of nickel in the non-Communist world. Thus the boundaries demarcating the state from civil society are less clear than some would have us believe. The USWA/Mine Mill events illustrate the nuance in the relationship between the state and private actors in the mobilization of ideological hegemony.

By distinguishing between Canadien and Acadien workers, on the one hand, and Canada workers, on the other, this essay examines some of the cognitive implications of L/LT’s epistemological commitment to a Canada-centered interpretation of labour history, particularly with respect to francophone working-class minorities. It argues that this labour history journal is representative of how emphasis on Canada-based workers and labour yields its own definition of class experience, a geopolitical definition that does not necessarily correspond to the ethnically-grounded “national” aspirations and struggles of French-Canadian and Acadian workers.

The paper reviews the book, "1939: L 'Alliance de la dernière chance," by Michael Carley, published in English as "The Alliance That Never War."

The article reviews the book, "J. B. McLachlan: A Biography," by David Frank.

The article reviews and comments on severa; books, "Engendering the State: Family, Work, and Welfare in Canada," by Nancy Christie; "The Wages of Sickness: The Politics of Health Insurance in Progressive America, by Beatrix Hoffman; Aux origines sociales de l'État-providence: Familles québécoises, obligation scolaire et allocations familiales, 1940-1955," by Dominique Marshall; and "Poverty Knowledge: Social Science, Social Policy, and the Poor in Twentieth-Century U.S. History," by Alice O'Connor.

In the last two decades, Brazilian unionism and the left have experienced an unprecedented development, posing for the first time in history, a real challenge to the ruling classes. The effects of this new political reality on labour history took a while to be felt, but in recent years a whole new historiography has emerged, leading to the constitution of the Mundos do Trabalho (Worlds of Labour) work group, an official branch of the National History Association.

The article reviews the book, "Disposable people: New slavery in the global economy," by Kevin Bales.

The article reviews the book, "Employment dispute resolution and worker rights in the changing workplace," edited by Adrienne E. Eaton and Jeffrey H. Keefe.

The article reviews the book, "American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century," by Gary Gerstle.

The legal approach in Canada towards the regulation of trade union democracy has sought to balance individual member's rights with respect for the autonomy of unions. While the United States and England have heavily legislated the areas of internal trade union affairs, Canada has enacted relatively few laws in this area. Rather, unions in Canada have enjoyed considerable legal freedom to develop their own democratic practices and culture. The irony of this approach is that it is the Canadian courts, rather than the more experienced and liberal labour relations boards, that are the final legal arbiters over most internal union matters. However, this is slowly changing. Several provinces have recently enacted modest changes that direct their labour boards to hear complaints from union members respecting the fairness of internal hearings. In the absence of extensive statutory regulation, union constitutions and the democratic traditions behind them become significant legal documents

The article reviews the book, "Trade unions and democratization in South Africa, 1985-1987," edited by Glenn Adler and Eddie Webster.

Toronto's Cabbagetown in the Depression...North America's largest Anglo-Saxon slum. Ken Tilling leaves school to face the bleak prospects of the dirty thirties-where do you go, what do you do, how do you make a life for yourself when all the world offers in unemployment, poverty and uncertainty?"As a social document, Cabbagetown is as important and revealing as either The Tin Flute or The Grapes of Wrath. Stern realism has also projected upon the pages of a whole gallery of types, lifelike and convincing. He is well fitted to hold the mirror up to human nature." Globe and Mail.Cabbagetown was first published in an abbreviated paperback edition in 1950 and was published in its entirety in 1968. This, the first quality paperback edition, contains the full unexpurgated text of Cabbagetown. --Publisher's description

Remember Kirkland Lake: The Gold Miners' Strike of 1941-42, revised edition by Laurel Sefton MacDowell, is reviewed.