Your search

This article reviews the book, "Organizational Behavior," by Robert P. Vecchio.

The article reviews the book "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750," by Marcus Rediker.

The article reviews the book, "The Legal Structure of Collective Bargaining in Education," by Kenneth H. Ostrander.

The article reviews the book, "The Road to Revolution in Spain: The Coal Miners of Asturias, 1860-1934," by Adrian Shubert.

The article reviews the book "Feminism and Political Economy. Women Work, Women's Struggles," edited by Heather Jon Maroney and Meg Luxton.

While attracting a growing research attention, the wage determination process has largely been studied from an economic perspective. This study, in contrast, adopts a combined, economic and structural approach in an attempt to account for wage gains and concessions. This paper asks, which determinants, other than economic factors, may impact the outcomes of wage settlements? Given their economic and political environments, what are the choices available to parties pursuing the maximization of wage settlements? A logit analysis of 405 agreements filed with Alberta Labour, in 1987, shows that structural variables bear important impacts on the likelihood of wage negotiations to result in wage increases. This, in turn, carries important implications for union and management wage bargaining tactics which are also discussed.

The article reviews several books, including "The New Populism: The Politics of Empowerment," edited by Harry C. Boyte and Frank Riessman, "Citizen Action and the New American Populism," by Harry C. Boyte, Heather Booth and Steve Max, and "Beyond Revolution," by Daniel A. Foss and Ralph Larkin.

The article reviews the book, "Worker Participation and the Politics of Reform," edited by Carmen Siriarmi.

One of the most important books to come out of Quebec, Thirty Acres (Trente arpents) traces the course of one man’s life as he enters into the age-old rhythms of the land and of the seasons. At the same time, it is a novel on a grand social scale, spanning and documenting the tumultuous half-century in which a new, industrial urban society crowded out Quebec’s traditional rural one. Winner of the Governor General’s Award and numerous other national and international literary prizes, Thirty Acres is a universal story of birth and death, renewal and reversal, ascent and decline, and a masterpiece of irony and realism. --Publisher's description

This thesis is a comparative study of the changing work experience and relations of two groups of Canadian postal employees in St. John's, Newfoundland. Two related factors are identified as underwriting these changes: technological based reorganization of work and the demand of a conservative state for a move to a private sector model of operations. The latter factor includes the requirement for a deficit free, and even profit-generating, operation at Canada Post Corporation and the divestment of public ownership. Underlying this empirical analysis is a theoretical interest in the labour process, technology and the managerial problem of control. -- I argue in this thesis that among inside postal workers, members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, technological change and the bureaucratic reorganization of work which has surrounded it has undermined their ability to resist management incursions on the shop floor. The subsequent shift in the frontier of control has enabled management to implement a number of productivity and efficiency measures, which from the workers' point of view, has had a major negative effect on their work experience and relations. Moreover, the recent move toward privatization and the generation of more flexible, casual labour further undermines the ability of workers to defend themselves. -- While inside workers have had a continuous history of conflict over the degradation of work through technological change, letter carriers have experienced a relatively stable, institutionalized relationship with management during the past 15 years. This relationship, in contrast to the inside workers', may be characterized as "consent" based. However, with growing pressure on management to solve the economic "crisis" at Canada Post, the status quo between letter carriers and management is eroding and an ultimately antagonistic set of interests is being revealed. -- The data from this comparative study lead to the conclusion that recent interest in the notion of consent within the labour process literature has definite theoretical and empirical limits which become apparent in examining production relations in periods of economic instability. On the other hand, the question of control of labour and technologicl change cannot be addressed in formulistic, determinist fashion. Rather, the unique organizational and historical characteristics of "each" labour process must be understood in its own context.

This study analyzes the concept of alienated labour in the practice of street prostitution in Canada's prairie region and explores the relationship between profit-making relations in street prostitution and the exploitation of street prostitutes in this region. It begins with a brief introduction to the themes of social control that dominate within the Sociology of Prostitution and a discussion of the sources and limitations of data employed. The basic proposition that is drawn from this discussion is that the exploitation of street prostitutes is secured in the organization of the labour process of street prostitution. The review of relevant literature is organized around the basic themes of supply, demand and profit.. This organizational scheme allows the evaluation and critique of the loose application of economic concepts to the causal analysis of prostitution. It concludes with the finding that prostitution is the expression of a profit-making relation and establishes a basis for the analysis of the appropriation of labour within profit-making relations. In light of the focus on the regulation of working activity in economic organization, Marx's theory and method of historical materialism is identified as a fruitful conceptual framework for the analysis of this relation. The discussion of subjective interpretations of Marx's theory of alienation is followed by a detailed discussion of the ontological continuity and epistemological focusing of Marx's intellectual outlook. This leads into an explication of Marx's theory of alienation. A detailed description of the street prostitution commodity market and the street prostitution industry is constructed around the producer's relation to the product and activity of labour in the circulation and production of commodified intimacy. This is followed by a specific analysis of the concept of alienated labour as it is expressed in the social relations of production of the street prostitution industry. The conclusion that is reached is that two forms of alienated labour can be identified within the street prostitution industry in the Canadian prairie region. As free agents, the working activity of prostitutes is subject to regulation by the market and overall structure of the street prostitution industry, and the appropriation of labour is expressed in circulation. As bonded labour the working activity of prostitutes is subject to regulation by the social relations of production that are established between male owners and female workers. As such, the appropriation of labour is accomplished through relations of dependency and domination that are expressed in the production of commodified intimacy and the exploitation of the prostitute is stripped of any appearance of freedom.

The article reviews the book, "Power and Culture: Essays on the American Working Class," by Herbert G. Gutman, edited by Ira Berlin.

The article reviews the book "Disaffected Patriots: London Supporters of Revolutionary America 1769-1782," by John Sainsbury.

The article reviews the book, "Labour People: Leaders and Lieutenants, Hardie to Kinnock," by Kenneth O. Morgan.

Basé sur une documentation en partie inédite, voici l'histoire du syndicalisme québécois depuis le début du XIXe siècle jusqu'en 1985, histoire qui évolue sensiblement au même rythme que celle des autres mouvements syndicaux en Amérique du Nord. --Publisher's description

The Tin Flute, Gabrielle Roy’s first novel, is a classic of Canadian fiction. Imbued with Roy’s unique brand of compassion and compelling understanding, this moving story focuses on a family in the Saint-Henri slums of Montreal, its struggles to overcome poverty and ignorance, and its search for love. An affecting story of familial tenderness, sacrifice, and survival during the Second World War, The Tin Flute won both the Governor General’s Award and the Prix Fémina of France. The novel was made into a critically acclaimed motion picture in 1983. --Publisher's description

"We are not strong enough to assimilate races so alien from us in their habits … We are afraid they will swamp our civilization as such." – Nanaimo Free Press, 1914. This book examines how British Columbians changed their attitudes towards Asian immigrants from one of toleration in colonial times to vigorous hostility by the turn of the century and describes how politicians responded to popular cries to halt Asian immigration and restrict Asian activities in the province. White workingmen objected to Asian sojourning habits, to their low living standards and wages, and to their competition for jobs in specific industries. Because employers and politicians initially supported Asian immigrants, early manifestations of antipathy often appeared just as another dispute between capital and labour. But as their number increased, complaints about Asians became widespread, and racial characteristics became the nucleus of such terms as a “white man’s province” – a “catch phrase” which, as Roy notes, “covered a wide variety of fears and transcended particular economic interests.” The Chinese were the chief targets of hostility in the nineteenth century; by the twentieth, the Japanese, more economically ambitious and backed by a powerful mother country, appeared more threatening. After Asian disenfranchisement in the 1870s, provincial politicians, freed from worry about the Asian vote, fueled and exploited public prejudices. The Asian question also became a rallying cry for provincial rights when Ottawa disallowed anti-Asian legislation. Although federal leaders such as John A. Macdonald and Wilfrid Laurier shared a desire to keep Canada a “white man's country,” they followed a policy of restraint in view of imperial concerns. The belief that whites should be superior, as Roy points out, was then common throughout the Western world. Many of the arguments used in British Columbia were influenced by anti-Asian sentiments and legislation emanating from California, and from Australia and other British colonies. Drawing on almost every newspaper and magazine report published in the province before 1914, and on government records and private manuscripts, Roy has produced a revealing historical account of the complex basis of racism in British Columbia and of the contribution made to the province in these early years by its Chinese and Japanese residents. --Publisher's description

Qui est syndiqué-ε aujourd'hui au Québec? Après une revue des principauxchangements survenus dans le marché du travail depuis 1975, changements qui serésument en trois traits: la féminisation, la précarisation et la tertiairisation, l'articletrace le portrait des charactéristiques internes de la population syndiquée. L'article compare ensuite les syndiqués avec non-syndiquées et la maind'oeuvre potentielle, quant à l'âge, au sexe, au niveau de scolarité, au secteurd'activité, au statut d'emploi, et au salaire moyen. Il conclut que la population syndiquée se distingue par rapport à son âge moyen relativement élevé, sa surreprésenttion relative des hommes, sa relative sécurité d'emploi, son salaire relativement élevé, et sa concentration sectorielle. Enfin, il tente de mettre en lumière l'impact des nouveaux paramètres démographiques sur le difficile repositionnement stratégique en voie de se cristalliser au sein du mouvement syndical québécois.

The authors examine the role of the State in industrial relations in Canada. They address themselves particularly to the questions in which circumstances and to what extent the State should intervene.

The article reviews the book, "My Life As a Newfoundland Union Organizer: The Memoirs of Cyril W. Strong. 1912-1987," by Cyril W. Strong, edited by Gregory S. Kealey.