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The principal elements of just cause protection for unionized workers in the context of industrial discipline can be summed up in what the author refers to as the 'four Rs": reasons, reinstatement, equitable relief and representation. While the scope and meaning of just cause came to be fully developed in the arbitral jurisprudence of the 1960s and 1970s, several of its core aspects are of considerably older provenance. This paper throws light on a little-known chapter in the development of the "common law of the shop" by reporting on the results of primary research into mostly unreported arbitration awards in disci- pline cases, conducted under the auspices of the Ontario Department of Labour in the wartime and immediate post-war periods. Although they did not set out to create a systematic jurisprudence, the arbitrators in those early cases clearly anticipated the established model of corrective and industrial discipline: they gave effect to a requirement for reasons; reinstated employees found innocent of allegations of wrongdoing and awarded compensation; articulated a need for prior warnings and a culminating incident; "made the punishment fit the crime" by substituting lesser penalties and taking into account mitigating factors such as length of service; and afforded a measure of protection to union officials against reprisal while emphasizing their responsibility for securing compliance with grievance procedures. Ultimately, the author argues, the early arbitrators saw their role chiefly as the cultivation of workplace harmony and avoidance of work stoppages, seeking to reconcile industrial unionism with industrial peace.

The article reviews the book, "Good, Reliable, White Men: Railroad Brotherhoods, 1877-1917," by Paul Michael Taillon.

The article reviews the book, "The Modern Grievance Procedure in the United States," by David Lewin and Richard B. Peterson.

The article reviews the book, "A Generation of Boomers: The Pattern of Railroad Labour Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America," by Shelton Stromquist.

Trade unions were not criminal conspiracies in Canadian law prior to the passage of the Trade Unions Act. In a series of trials between 1854 and 1872 the Toronto criminal courts consistently failed to convict workers on evidence that would have warranted conviction had combinations to raise wages or lessen hours been considered to be criminal conspiracies. Analysis of the English case-law reveals a lack of judicial consensus that such combinations were criminal conspiracies, and in any event all such statements of law were merely obiter dicta. While such trade union purposes as raising wages could serve as evidence of combination, there was no criminal conspiracy in the absence of specific crimes.

This article reviews the book, "Entering the Eighties: Canada in Crisis," by R. Kenneth Carty and W. Peter Ward, eds.

This article reviews the book, "Toward a Marxist Theory of Nationalism," by Horace B. Davis.

This article reviews the books, "Mackenzie King: Widening the Debate," edited by John English and J.O. Stubbs, and "Capital and Labour: Partners?," by Victor Levant.

Critiques Reg Whitaker's article, "Corporatism, Liberalism and Mackenzie King," published in Labour/Le Travail no. 2 (1977), in particular Whitaker's treatment of King's intellectual background and his work in labour relations prior to World War I. Revised version of a paper presented by the author at the York University conference,"Political Thought in English Canada" (1978).

For twenty years, labour and working-class history has emphasized the struggle for workplace control between skilled craftsmen and factory owners in Ontario's major industrial cities. This preoccupation not only has left the great majority of the province's working people in the shadows of history, but has isolated labour history from such other 'new histories' as women's history, ethnic history, and the history of mobility. This collaborative volume argues for a more nuanced account of the diversity of working people's experience in the nineteenth century. It presents detailed studies of a broad range of occupations and institutions that figured prominently in workers' lives. These include the more common jobs - farm labour, housework, lumbering - and the more pervasive institutions - the church, the law, the family - as well as new accounts of industrial labour in small-town factories and on the railways. The themes explored include class formation, the nature and meaning of work, labour relations, and the character of economic and social change in nineteenth-century Ontario. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction / Paul Craven (pages 3-12) -- Rural labour / Terry Crowley (pages 13-104) -- Labour and the law / Jeremy Webber (pages 105-203) -- The Shantymen / Ian Radforth (pages 204-277) -- Religion, leisure, and working-class identity / Lynne Marks (pages 278-334) -- Labour and management on the Great Western Railway / Paul Craven (pages 335-411) -- The home as workplace / Bettina Bradbury (pages 412-478) -- Factory workers (pages 479-589) - Picture credits (page 595) -- Index (pages 597-622).

This article reviews the book, "Strikes. Dispute Procedures, and Arbitration: Essays on Labor Law," by William B. Gould !V.

This book is an insightful and detailed analysis of Canadian labour relations policy at the beginning of the 20th century, and of the formulation of distinctive features which still characterize it today. The development and reception of this policy are explained as a product of ideological and economic forces. These include the impact of international unionism on the Canadian working class, the emergence of scientific management in business ideology, and the special role of the state in economic development and the mediation of class relationships. The ideas and career of Mackenzie King, including his 'new liberalism,' and his activities in regard to the Department of Labour are examined, revealing how he moulded Canada's official position in the relations between capital and labour. With a focus on King's intellectual qualities in an international context, the author brings out another dimension, portraying him as Canada's first practising social scientist. The book examines implementation of policy through an analysis of the work of the Department of Labour through detailed case studies of government interventions in industrial disputes. The initial acceptance of the labour relations policy by the labour movement is explained and its repudiation in 1911 is examined against a background of setbacks which reflected its practical limits as much as its philosophical orientation. The result is a study which moves beyond a particular concern with labour policy to illuminate the contours of Canadian life in a crucial period of national development. --Publisher's description

Master and servant has a paradoxical history in Canada. There was a great deal of penal legislation. ...Indeed, new legislation to punish workers for disobedience and desertion was enacted after 1875, the year of final repeal in Britain, and even after the Canadian Parliament's own Breaches of Contract Act two years later. But compared with Britain and the other white dominions, let alone other parts of the empire, enforcement was sporadic, convictions relatively few, and punishments rarely harsh. It is easy enough to construct an explanation for inconsiderable enforcement out of the structure of the economy and the characteristics of the labour force, but these at the same time cannot account for the variety and persistence of penal legislation. The answer seems to lie as much in the symbolic as the instrumental uses of employment law in this part of the empire. --Introduction

Sets out the parameters of a jointly authored study to be published on the complexities and implications of the law of master and servant in England and the British Empire. Argues that the concept and provision of employment legislation can be determined through individual contract and through penal sanctions that continue to affect employment law. Analysis of the law from the 17th century to the 20th centuries shows the varying legislation developed into a distinctive jurisdiction that was enforced by magistrates, both formally and informally. Discusses the methodology and process involved in the study, including the building of a database of all relevant statutes. Note: The book was subsequently published as "Masters, Servants, and Magistrates in Britain and the Empire, 1562-1955." edited by Douglas Hay and Paul Craven, North Carolina Press, 2005.

This book presents a picture of Canada's labour movement in the mid-seventies - its structure, its leaders, and aims.Two parallel themes run through Canada's Unions: the surge in labour militancy led by teachers, hospital workers, federal government workers and other public employees in response to the pressure of rising inflation; and the rise of nationalism and the increasing independence of the Canadian union movement during the 1970s. Canada's Union offers an unparalleled, immediate portrait of the state of the Canadian labour movement during a crucial decade of its existence. --Publisher's description (Google Books)

Every day millions of Canadians go out to work. They labour in factories, offices, restaurants, and retail stores, on ships, and deep in mines. And every day millions of other Canadians, mostly women, begin work in their homes, performing the many tasks that ensure the well-being of their families and ultimately, the reproduction of the paid labour force. Yet, for all its undoubted importance, there has been remarkably little systematic research into the past and present dynamics of the world of work in Canada. The essays in this volume enhance our understanding of Canadians on the job. Focusing on specific industries and kinds of work, from logging and longshoring to restaurant work and the needle trades, the contributors consider such issues as job skill, mass production, and the transformation of resource industries. They raise questions about how particular jobs are structured and changed over time, the role of workers' resistance and trade unions in shaping the lives of workers, and the impact of technology. Together these essays clarify a fundamental characteristic shared by all labour processes: they are shaped and conditioned by the social, economic, and political struggles of labour and capital both inside and outside the workplace. They argue that technological change, as well as all the transformations in the workplace, must become a social process that we all control. --Publisher's description. Contents: On the job in Canada / Craig Heron and Robert Storey (pages 3-46) -- Dimensions of paternalism: Discipline and culture in Canadian railway operations in the 1850s / Paul Craven and Tom Traves (pages 47-74) -- Work control, the labour process, and nineteen-century Canadian printers / Gregory S. Kealey (pages 75-101) -- Contested terrain: workers' control in the Cape Breton coal mines in the 1920s / David Frank (pages 102-123) -- Keeping house in God's country: Canadian women at work in the home  / Veronica Strong-Boag (pages 124-151) -- Skill and gender in the Canadian clothing industry, 1890-1940 / Mercedes Steedman (pages 152-176) -- Mechanization, feminization, and managerial control in the early twentieth-century Canadian office / Graham S. Lowe (pages 177-209) -- Work and struggle in the Canadian steel industry, 1900-1950 / Craig Heron and Robert Storey (pages 210-244) -- Logging pulpwood in Northern Ontario / Ian Radforth (pages 245-280) -- On the waterfront: longshoring in Canada / John Bellamy Foster (pages 281-308) -- Life in a fast-food factory / Ester Reiter (pages 309-326) -- Autoworkers on the firing line / Don Wells (pages 327-352).