Your search

This article examines the decline in unionization that has occurred in the United States over the past half century, focusing on the role that employer opposition to unions has played, together with relatively weak labor law. It compares the U.S. experience and labor law regime to those of Canada. It finds that, compared to their Canadian counterparts, U.S. workers have much more difficulty in exercising their right to freely join and form unions and participate in collective bargaining, in large part due to ill-restrained employer opposition.

Contrasts the administrative structure of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which has undermined its effectiveness, with that of Union of Postal Workers, which in the mid-1960s transformed into a democratic, militant bargaining agent for its workers. Concludes that both unions are in a weakened state, and that only through a broader coalition of forces can the neoliberal agenda of the federal government be fought.

The article reviews the book, "Love the Questions: University Education and Enlightenment," by Ian Angus.

The article reviews the book, "The Bonds of Debt: Borrowing Against the Common Good," by Richard Dienst.

To show how formal and informal jobs are not always discrete, this paper uncovers how many formal employees in the European Union are paid two wages by their formal employers, an official declared salary and an additional undeclared wage, thus allowing employers to evade their full social insurance and tax liabilities. Analyzing a 2007 Eurobarometer survey involving 26,659 face-to-face interviews in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU-27), one in 18 formal employees are found to engage in such quasi-formal employment, receiving on average one-quarter of their gross salary on an undeclared basis. Multi-level logistic regression analysis reveals that quasi-formal employment is significantly more prevalent in East-Central Europe, in smaller businesses and the construction sector, and amongst men, younger persons and the lower paid. The paper then briefly reviews what might be done to tackle this illegitimate wage practice.

Policymakers, politicians, and media outlets have declared an obesity epidemic. In doing so, they have named a variety of villains, including fast food. Despite the framing of fast food as being a leading contributor to weight gain and obesity, we have yet to understand the impact that fast food has on those who work with it every day. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand the food choices, BMIs, and self perceived weights of the food service worker population. Using Pierre Bourdieu‘s concepts of habitus and field, I investigate the role of the workplace and external cultural influences, such as the family, in navigating an obseogenic workplace environment that is centered on selling highly caloric food to the Canadian public in a quick and cost effective manner. The first stage of this research addresses the question: Are food service workers more likely to be overweight or obese and perceive themselves as being overweight compared to the general population? In order to do this, I analyzed secondary survey data from the Canadian Community Health Survey cycle 5.1 (2009-2010). I used logistic regression techniques to construct models that analyze the likelihood of having high BMIs and high self perceived weights in both the food service worker and general Canadian populations. In addition to this, I sought to understand the food choices that contribute to weight gain in fast food workers. To do this, I conducted forty semi-structured qualitative interviews with workers from a variety of fast food chains. The results of my research disprove my original hypothesis that food service workers are more likely to be overweight or obese because of their frequent exposure to fast food. Instead, I found that they are less likely to be overweight or obese than the general Canadian population. Additionally, they are also less likely to perceive themselves as being overweight or obese. Through the qualitative interviews, I found that these individuals participate in a process of regulation where they monitor their food intake at work. Additionally, I found that their consumption patterns stemmed from habitus generated through cultural exposures in other areas of their lives. Pierre Bourdieu (1984) argues that we develop habitus through meaningful cultural exposure. We use our habitus, or engrained dispositions, to navigate hierarchical spaces or fields. Through this research, I found that workers viewed their jobs as being temporary and their cultural consumption patterns did not seem to change from their exposures to their workplaces. The majority were part time students, working in this industry to pay for living expenses and tuition. For the most part, they were raised in middle class homes where their mothers prepared food for their families from scratch on a daily basis. Fast food was viewed as a special treat and not an item to consume on a regular basis. I conclude that the meaningful exposures we have to food and cultural norms throughout life are more important in determining our food choices than our exposure to fast food restaurants.

The primary question for investigation throughout this research is how the environmental knowledges of settler-colonists and their descendants have been formed through processes of work and dwelling in place. This dissertation results from over a year of fieldwork in an aging community where retired loggers, semi-retired fishermen, and retired exurban migrants are actively renegotiating the meanings of local places and natures as the local economy shifts from a base in logging and fishing to one in recreational and retirement real estate development. Through archival research, life history interviews and participant-observation with loggers, fishermen, exurban retirees and other long-term residents I explored the complications and contradictions inherent in learning to value nature through processes of transforming and intervening in ecological processes for economic ends. Writing against hard social constructivism I examine the ways in which the life cycles of fish and fish populations, the contingencies of weather, topography and currents, and, the physical form of the land are active elements in the formation of labour and settlement patterns in coastal British Columbia. As a contribution to the underdeveloped field of first world political ecology this work maps environmental knowledges and values developed in tense complicity with regimes of natural resource management and accumulation by dispossession. Central to this process is how people become agents of the commodification of nature and place in their everyday lives and work, and, how private property has become naturalized as a prerequisite to "protecting" self, nature, and community from precarity in the era of late capitalism. This dissertation tracks the various ways, both historically and in the present, that settlers and their descendants on the BC Coast have attempted to simultaneously make a living and make a home of an occupied place-the imperialist nostalgia and (neo)liberal white guilt endemic to the process.

The latest information in Industrial Relations and Human Resources, from the CIRHR Library at the University of Toronto. Stories from the tumblr are collected weekly in PWR: work&labour news&research, which is published from September to June. --Publisher's description.

Women have the right to a workplace free from sexual harassment under Canadian provincial and federal human rights legislation. Canadian labour laws incorporate the right to a grievance procedure including binding arbitration where arbitrators must interpret and apply human rights legislation. This paper analyzes co-worker sexual harassment cases in order to assess how well arbitrations protect the right of unionized women to a harassment free workplace. Results indicate that women complainants were often subjected to aggressive gendered cross-examinations and the application of gendered jurisprudence that largely ignored the impact of gendered power relations in the workplace. The conclusion is that women's experiences in arbitrations are likely a deterrent to filing formal complaints, effectively undermining rather than protecting their rights.

The stunning decline of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler over the past decade has rendered the once 'Big Three' US automakers a vulnerable 'Detroit Three'. In their attempts to return to profitability, the Detroit Three have undertaken a series of 'turnarounds' aimed at renewing their competitive edge. Through this corporate restructuring agenda, 250,000 assembly jobs in North America have been lost, upwards of 50 auto plants have been closed, wages and benefits for new hires have been cut substantially and once strong, independent auto unions have been thoroughly overwhelmed. Permanent restructuring, then, represents a crisis strategy on the part of the corporate elite to continually intensify the demands placed on labour in the hopes of creating new conditions for capital accumulation. Working within labour geography, this paper documents the 'regional race to the bottom' in the North American auto industry while reminding labour geographers that capitalist restructuring is a powerful constraint on labour agency.

English/French abstracts of articles in the Spring 2012 issue.

English/French abstracts of articles in the Fall 2012 issue.

Labour and Employment Law: Cases, Materials and Commentary, 8th edition, compiled by the Labour Law Casebook Group, is reviewed.

The author reflects upon the upcoming merger between the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers (CEP) union as of the Fall 2012. Particular focus is given to the consolidated union's relationship with Canadian politics, including with the Liberal Party's Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.

The article reviews the book, "The Ordinary People of Essex: Environment, Culture, and Economy on the Frontier of Upper Canada," by John Clarke.

The article reviews the book, "Mutations de la société, mutations des entreprises," by Michelle Bergadaà.

Details the decline of the steel industry in Hamilton, Ontario, over the past 30 years, including various labour disputes, cuts to the workforce, and changes in ownership. Concludes that a national strategy is required to resuscitate the industry.

The article reviews the book, "Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship, and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment," by Leah F. Vosko.