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The article reviews the book "Justice and Gender: Sex Discrimination and the Law," by Deborah L. Rhode.
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Ganong Bros., a family-owned confectionery factory, is a major employer in a small town in southwestern New Brunswick. Up to the end of the Second World War, the period of this study, the numbers employed in the confectionery industry fluctuated dramatically with the variable seasonal demand for confectionery. At Ganong Bros., less than half the total workforce was employed for more than half the year. Work in the factory was divided along gender lines men made the candy, and women added the finishing touches. About two-thirds of the factory employees were women, most of them young and single. These women could be considered as a reserve army of labour, since many of them worked for a few weeks only, in the busiest season. But when women were not available to fill positions in traditionally female departments, Ganong Bros. management did not consider hiring men instead, even when the women's wages compared favourably to men's. Management decisions about the organization of work in the factory were influenced not only by technical or financial considerations, but by unquestioned assumptions about what work was appropriate to each gender.
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Labour unrest and demands for social reform during and immediately after World War I prompted most provincial governments in Canada to enact limited minimum wage statutes, aplicable only to female wage-earners in specified industries. Minimum wage boards issued separate wage orders for each industry, after consultation with representative employers and employees. The standard for the minimum wage was decent subsistence for a single woman with no dependants and no need to save for sickness, layoffs, or old age. The Ontario Minimum Wage Board, established in 1920, insisted that if a minimum wage was a real minimum, employers did not object to paying it, or to cooperating with the board. To insure employer cooperation, the board provided employers with ample opportunity to present their views, but generally accepted employers' views over those of labour. Minimum wage statutes were justified not on the basis of a wage-earner's right to a fair wage, but on women's special needs as the mothers of the future generation; the Ontario Minimum Wage Board expressed a similar attitude towards women in its administration of the Ontario Act.
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This article investigates the historical dimensions of the labour movement's relationship to the welfare state in Australia and Canada during the 20th century. It assesses existing class and party politics theories of this relationship and by proposing particular historical accounts of the welfare state in a comparative context, it seeks to move beyond the limitations of these theories. The article argues that such approaches focus too narrowly on social security and wage regulation as the key parameters of the welfare state, ignoring major fields of welfare intervention for women, indigenous peoples and war service. In attempting to provide a more comprehensive narrative of the welfare state in a comparative context the article seeks to provide a clearer conception of the distinctive features of settler society welfare states. And by placing the role of the labour movement in this broader history it critically assesses the successes and limitations of the labour movement's engagement with the welfare state.
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- Journal Article (4)