Your search

The article reviews the book, "The World's Strongest Trade Unions: The Scandinavian Labor Movement," by Walter Galenson.

The article reviews the book, "For Home, Country, and Race: Constructing Gender, Class, and Englishness in the Elementary School, 1880-1914," by Stephen Heathorn.

Hard Work: The Making of Labor History, by Melvyn Dubofsky, is reviewed.

The study of he working class and commitment to its causes is central to what this journal is about. Three men who made significant contributions to working class life over the course of the last century, but whose personal efforts, sadly and to our collective loss, came to an end in the year 2000, merit our attention. Marcel Pepin, a vibrant voice in the modern history of Quebec's union movement and former leader of the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CNTU/CSN), died 6 March 2000. ...On 15 June 2000 another advocate of Canadian workers, especially those incarcerated in homelessness and poverty, Norman N. Feltes, died. ...Jack Scott was a revolutionary of the 20th century who had hope for the 21st. He no doubt understood, however, that others would be making history in the new millennium, and his contributions had already been made. He died as the century closed, on 30 December 2000.

The article pays homage to the life and work of Jack Scott.

The article reviews the book, "A Candle For Durruti," by Al Grierson.

In 1923, after nearly three decades of class conflict on the Vancouver waterfront, the Shipping Federation of British Columbia, an umbrella organization of shipping, stevedoring, and warehousing interests, undertook a far-reaching agenda of welfare capitalism. Drawing on wider currents of progressive reform which were cresting in the interwar period, and inspired by the example set by its counterpart in Seattle, the Shipping Federation created new joint political structures, adopted a range of paternalist initiatives, and decasualized the waterfront workplace. From its vantage point, this was a "good citizens" policy, and it was designed to: build bridges across the class divide, gain greater control of the work process, stave off the intervention of unions and the state, and, in the end, mould a more efficient and compliant waterfront workforce. The creation and implementation of this reform agenda, the ways in which white and aboriginal waterfront workers negotiated the politics of paternalism and labour market reform, and the long-term ramifications of this dynamic are at the core of this thesis. -- Welfare capitalism shaped patterns of life and labour on the waterfront significant ways: informal ways of regulating the workplace atrophied; labourism was revived; and some waterfront workers acquired a reasonable standard of living. The trade-off at work, here, was this: only those employees who divested themselves of more radical political sensibilities, and adhered to waterfront employers' broader vision of an efficient, decasualized workplace, could hope to secure a living wage and fulfill their obligations as breadwinners, husbands, and citizens. For aboriginal longshoremen, most of whom were from the Squamish First Nation, this bargain was especially difficult to negotiate for it came freighted with the additional challenges associated with being "Indian" in a white society. Unlike their white counterparts who passed muster, they were marginalized from the waterfront during this time as decasualization's new time-work discipline conflicted with their more traditional sensibilities and ongoing need to work at a variety of tasks to ensure material and cultural survival. -- Straddling labour history, aboriginal history, and the burgeoning literature on law and society, this thesis rejects conventional interpretations of welfare capitalism that conceptualize it as either a failed experiment in industrial democracy, or a drag on the emergence of the welfare state. In doing so, it re-positions welfare capitalism in the context of the wider return to normalcy following the Great War, and the powerful reform impulses that took aim at family, citizen, and nation. Rather than forestalling the welfare state, this citizen-worker complex--which manufactured a new sense of entitlement amongst white waterfront workers--was part of a broader cultural shift that would, after the trials of the Great Depression and challenge posed by the Communist Party of Canada, eventually underwrite the state's very expansion. On a broad level, then, this analysis illustrates how the prevailing liberal-capitalist order was successfully rehabilitated after the Great War and 1919, and how, in the long-term, it successfully contained, by consent and coercion, those forces which were antithetical to the prevailing economic and political status quo.

The article reviews the book, "Populism," by Paul Taggart.

The nineteenth century in Montreal was a formative era in the development of modern labour relations. In particular, from 1830 to 1845 the contractual nature of master-servant relations became increasingly apparent, and resort to the local courts as a mechanism for resolving master-servant disputes became commonplace. Master-servant law was comprised of sometimes-competing sources such as notarial contracts and oral agreements, provincial statutes, and municipal bylaws, as well as common law principles and judicial discretion. Other complexities resulted from the discord between the relevant laws governing such relations within the city of Montreal and beyond its limits. Through analysis of primary sources, the author examines the nature and extent of servants rights in the judicial district of Montreal during this period. He devotes particular attention to both the constituent elements of master-servant relations and the most common types of disputes. He begins with an overview of the various forms of nineteenth century labour relations in the Montreal area. Next, he undertakes to elucidate the legal nature of these relations, the roles performed by notaries, and the use of indentures to record the reciprocal contractual obligations of masters and servants. He also considers the differences in master-servant law in the two principal areas of the judicial district of Montreal. Specifically, he considers the types of suits brought within the city of Montreal and beyond its limits and the impact of the different governing laws on their chances of success. Ultimately, servants, through the courts were generally able to protect their rights by bringing suits against their masters for various forms of misconduct.

The article reviews the books, "A World Without War: How US Feminists and Pacifiîts Resisted World War I," by Frances H. Early, and "Women Against the Good War: Conscientious Objection and Gender on the American Home Front. 1941-1947," by Rachel Waitner Goossen.

Working Capital: The Power of Labor's Pensions, edited by Archon Fung, Tessa Hebb, and Joel Rogers, is reviewed.

This study has 2 objectives: 1. to understand the extent of social investment among union-based pension funds as well as labor-sponsored investment funds in Canada, and 2. to understand the factors that affect social investment strategies among such funds. The data indicate that pension funds in Canada have minimal social investment. There is somewhat higher social investment among labor-sponsored investment funds, and particularly labor-sponsored investment funds with genuine union membership. The study also explores factors related to social investment by funds.

[The article focuses] on a particular conflict in South Africa — the strike this past winter of several thousand Volkswagen workers in Uitenhage, outside of Port Elizabeth, a region known as "the Detroit of South Africa" — and [places] it within the context of a worsening material situation for most South Africans and growing political contusion and tension within the ruling "Triple Alliance" of the African National Congress (ANC), the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), and the South African Communist Party (SACP). At this moment, there is an intensifying struggle over privatization and restructuring, a pending battle between pubhc employees and the ANC-run state; and growing enmity between COSATU and the ANC, driven by dissent within COSATU affiliates, over these issues of privatization, the pay of public employees, and a call for the revisions of labour laws in place since 1994, These particular conflicts and the overall situation rest, of course, on South Africa's location within the global economy and the different ways that internal forces are responding to it. In examining these internal forces we can learn more about not only the challenges of economic globalization but also the prospects for challenging it. --From author's introduction

Managing the Multinational: An International Study of Control Mechanisms, by Anne-Wil Kathie Harzing, is reviewed.

In 1933, an American entrepreneur offered the people of St. Lawrence, a small town on the south coast of Newfoundland, the prospect of escaping rampant unemployment and meager public relief by starting a mine to extract the area's vast deposits of fluorspar, which is used in the manufacture of steel, aluminum, and various chemical products. Coming in the context of the Great Depression and the collapse of the fishing industry, the mining industry was eagerly embraced by residents of St. Lawrence and surrounding communities. Several mines were subsequently established, by both the original American company, the St. Lawrence Corporation of Newfoundland, and later by the Aluminum Company of Canada (Alcan). The fragile prosperity that accompanied the industry from the 1930s until closure of the last Alcan mine in 1978, however, exacted a heavy price. Many St. Lawrence workers lost their lives to industrial diseases caused by dust and radiation in the mines. -- This thesis explores the history of industry, labour, and health and safety at the St. Lawrence mines. This study focuses on the struggle by workers and their union for recognition of workplace hazards, improved working conditions, and adequate compensation for industrial disease victims and their families. The thesis argues that, rather than being passive victims of an unavoidable tragedy, workers at St. Lawrence were aware of the adverse health impacts of their work from the very early years of mining, and fought constantly over several decades to have their concerns addressed. Furthermore, the thesis argues that the disaster which ultimately unfolded at St. Lawrence was primarily the result of industry and government authorities ignoring or downplaying legitimate concerns and thereby shirking their moral and legal responsibilities.

Managing Competitive Crisis: Strategic Choice and the Reform of Workrules, by Martyn Wright, is reviewed.

The Tyranny of Work examines the institution of work from the perspective of alienated labour, a perspective that many conventional approaches to the subject have ignored or misrepresented. Completely updated to reflect current trends in the labour force and research in the field of labour studies, The Tyranny of Work begins with a thorough discussion of work as a social problem and the sources of alienation. The book then examines the development of industrial capitalism in Canada, the white-collar and blue-collar worlds, and, finally, solutions to the problem of alienated labour. All statistics and data have been updated to reflect the most current research. Information from the 2001 Census has been integrated throughout the text. The Tyranny of Work examines the institution of work from the perspective of alienated labour, a perspective that many conventional approaches to the subject have ignored or misrepresented. --Publisher's description, 5th edition (2005).Contents: 1. Work as a social problem -- 2. Alienation and its sources -- 3. Alienation and the development of industrial capitalism in Canada -- 4. Post-industrial society and white-collar worlds -- 5. Blue-collar crime -- 6. Restructuring organizations and work -- 7. Solutions to alienated labour. Includes bibliographical references (pages 218-245) and index;

The article pays homage to Marcel Pepin for his lifetime of service and commitment to the labour movement.

The article reviews the book, "Women on the Defensive: Living through Conservative Times." by Sylvia Bashevkin.

This paper consider the potential for union revival in Canada and the US. Although unions have devoted considerably energy and resources to new initiatives, the overall evidence leads to generally pessimistic conclusions. The level and direction of union density rates indicates the 2 labor movements lack the institutional frameworks and public policies to achieve sustained revival. Significant gains in union membership and density levels will require nothing less than a paradigm shift in the industrial relations systems - a broadening of the scope and depth of membership recruitment, workplace representation and political activities.