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Worker representatives were formally recognised as agents in regulating workplace health and safety in most Canadian jurisdictions in the late 1970s. This was one component of the transition to an Internal Responsibility System that included mandated Joint Health and Safety Committees, right to know regulations, and the right to refuse dangerous work. Very little has changed in this regulatory framework in the ensuing three decades. The effectiveness of these regulations in improving health and safety was contentious in the 1970s and continues to be debated. Earlier work by Lewchuk et al. (1996) argued that the labour-management environment of individual workplaces influenced the effectiveness of worker representatives and Joint Health and Safety Committees. In particular, the framework was more effective where labour was organised and where management had accepted a philosophy of co-management of the health and safety function. The Canadian economy has experienced significant reorganisation since the 1970s. Canadian companies in general face more intense competition because of trade deals entered into in the 1980s and 1990s. Exports represent a much larger share of GNP. Union density has fallen and changes in legislation make it more difficult to organise workers. Non-standard employment, self-employment and other forms of less permanent employment have all grown in relative importance. This chapter presents new evidence on how these changes are undermining the effectiveness of the Internal Responsibility System in Canada, with a particular focus on workers in precarious employment relationships. Data is drawn from a recent population survey of non-student workers in Ontario conducted by the authors. -- Publisher's description. Contents: pt. 1. National arrangements for workers' representation: case studies from Europe and Australia. Worker representation on health and safety in the UK -- problems with the preferred model and beyond -- The Australian framework for worker participation in occupational health and safety -- Health and safety committees in France: an empirical analysis -- Characteristics, activities and perceptions of Spanish safety representatives -- An afterword on European Union policy and practice -- pt. 2. Challenges and strategies for worker representation in the modern world of work -- Precarious employment and the internal responsibility system: some Canadian experiences -- Employee 'voice' and working environment in the new member states: translating policy into practice in the Baltic States -- Health and safety representation in small firms: a Swedish success that is threatened by political and labour market changes -- Trade union strategies to support representation on health and safety in Australia and the UK: integration or isolation? -- Worker representation and health and safety: reflections on the past, present and future. Includes bibliographical references and index.

This chapter reviews anticolonialist thought in relation to issues of organized labor, learning processes, and the emergent idea of “community unionism.” It explores the interlocking nature of relations of social class, gender, and race with special attention to Canada. This review is applied to issues related to current research on hotel worker organizing in Toronto (Canada), and suggestions on progressive forms of trade unionism are discussed. --Author's abstract

Discusses the evolution of the Mennonite approach to labour relations in Manitoba with reference to an unsuccessful unionization drive at Palliser Furniture in Winnipeg in the 1990s.

[D]raws on the [the author's] experiences in the Canadian Labour Congress and the Ontario labour movement to elaborate on the causes and consequenes of the limited progress made in advancing equity for racialized people within the labour movement. --Editor's introduction

[P]resents statistics documenting the changing face of Canada's labour force, which is projected to become more feminized, more racialized, and more Aboriginal. ...[The author] warns that many of the most underprivileged workers are already turning to worker advocacy centres for help, rather than unions, because of unions' continuing failure to respond to their needs. --Editor's introduction

If a city is its people, and its people are what they eat, then shouldn’t food play a larger role in our dialogue about how and where we live? The food of a metropolis is essential to its character. Native plants, proximity to farmland, the locations of supermarkets, immigration, the role chefs can and should play in society – how a city nourishes itself makes a statement about the kind of city it is.With a cornucopia of essays on comestibles, The Edible City considers how one city eats. It includes dishes on peaches and poverty, on processing plants and public gardens, on rats and bees and bad restaurant service, on schnitzel and school lunches. There are incisive studies of food-security policy, of feeding the needy and of waste, and a happy tale about a hardy fig tree.Together they form a saucy picture of how Toronto – and, by extension, every city – sustains itself, from growing basilon balconies to four-star restaurants. Dig into The Edible City and get the whole story, from field to fork. --Publisher's description

...Nowhere in Canada was the trade union movement very strong as employers and governments practiced labour relations behind the barrel of a gun, but in what today constitutes the city of Thunder Bay, it was even weaker than elsewhere. Indeed, until 1902, organized labour was practically non-existent. It was not until Harry Bryan came to the Lakehead in that year that organizational activity began in earnest in a number of trades, although others had organized some workers, like the railway men, during the previous decade. Bryan exemplified an era that would see the creation of a vibrant and diverse socialist culture in the region.1 As a union man he could count his success by the number of unions chartered - as many, some claim, as 22; however, the number is in dispute. Because of his striking achievement, his former associates often referred to him as the father of the labour movement in Thunder Bay. --From authors' introduction

Assesses workforce changes in Sudbury, Ontario, notably in the public sector, and the role of unions in confronting the Progressive Conservative provincial government of Mike Harris in the 1990s.

Mine Mill Local 598/Canadian Autoworkers union president Rick Grylls discusses the strikes at Falconbridge in Sudbury, Ontario, in 2000-2001 and 2004.

Analyzes from a legal and political perspective important events in Sudbury, including the punitive treatment of the poor (the Kimberly Rogers case) and the resort to strikebreakers and injunctions in the 2001-2002 Falconbridge Strike. Concludes that such events are the outcome of the neo-conservative policies of the provincial government of Mike Harris.

Analyzes Sudbury as a hinterland of resource extraction, including the response of unions. Provides new policy strategies for labour and an assessment of the community's future prospects.

Chronicles the contested election of Dave Patterson as president of Local 6500, the 1978 Inco strike, and the intra-union turmoil that followed that resulted in a more conservative leadership.

One of the first women to be hired as a miner by Inco in Sudbury, Ontario, in 1974, Mulroy recounts her experiences of the company, the work place, and the union.

Chronicles the conflicted labour relations, strikes, and ownership changes at the daily newspaper, The Sudbury Star, during the period 1996-2006.

This interdisciplinary volume offers a powerful critique of how social structures and relations as well as ideologies shape workplaces, labour markets, and households in contemporary Canada. Contributors dissect recent transformations in work and expose the uncertainty, insecurity, and instability that increasingly characterize both paid and unpaid work. Using a progressive approach to political economy, contributors propose alternative policies and practices that might secure more decent livelihoods for workers and their families. Contributors include Hugh Armstrong (Carleton), Pat Armstrong (York), Wallace Clement (Carleton), June Corman (Brock), Gillian Creese (British Columbia), Alice de Wolff (Independent Researcher), Ann Duffy (Brock), Andy King (United Steelworkers of America), Kate Laxer (York), Belinda Leach (Guelph), Wayne Lewchuk (McMaster), David W. Livingstone (OISE), Meg Luxton (York), Norene Pupo (York), Antonie Scholtz (OISE), Vivian Shalla (Guelph), Janet Siltanen (Carleton), Leah F. Vosko (York), Rosemary Warskett (Carleton), and Charlotte Yates (McMaster).

Recent demographic projections based on Statistics Canada data indicate that persons designated as belonging to a visible minority group will comprise 20 per cent of the Canadian population by 2017. In Canada's major cities, the proportion of persons classified as visible minority is expected to exceed 50 per cent. What is race, and how should racism be studied sociologically? What differences exist in patterns of structural incorporation within and among ethno-racial groups in Canada? What factors influence upward social mobility? Are Canadian institutions capable of meeting the needs of the country's increasingly diverse ethno-racial population? These are some of the questions that this volume addresses. This collection of original articles identifies future research directions for racism in Canada based on important changes taking place in the country. It also offers the basis for a more complete understanding of racism and social change in Canada.

Assesses the state of the union movement in Canada. Concludes that progress in the past decade has been hampered by internal competition, resistance by many in the movement to new, more militant forms of action, and a lack of vision to offer workers in the struggle to resist employers and governments.

[E]xamines the degree to which unionization, a key indicator of control over the labour process...limits precarious employment among workers. it also explores, how, and in what ways, union coverage mitigates precarious employment for workers in distinct social locations....Although unionization mitigates precariousness for some workers, [the authors] contend that inequalities based on race still prevail. --From editor's introductory chapter, p. 38.

[P]ortrays precarious employment in the increasingly privatized Canadian health-care industry. In the face of dramatic restructing in this industry, [the authors] reveal that a growing number of women health-care workers, especially those performing what is deemed to be "ancillary work," are subject to conditions of work that make not only ancillary health-care workers but patients too at greater risk of ill-health. --From editor's introductory chapter (p. 35).