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For more than fifty years, Jamaican farm workers have been seasonally employed in Canada under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). In Canada, these workers live and work in conditions that make them vulnerable to various health issues, including poor mental health. This ethnographic study investigated Jamaican SAWP workers’ mental health experiences in Southern Ontario. Several common factors that engender psychological distress among Jamaican workers, ranging from mild to extreme suffering, were uncovered and organised into five themes: (1) family, (2) work environments and SAWP relations, (3) living conditions and isolation, (4) racism and social exclusion, and (5) illness and injury. I found that Jamaican workers predominantly use the term ‘stress’ to articulate distress, and they associate experiences of suffering with historic plantation slavery. Analysis of workers’ stress discourses revealed their experiences of psychological distress are structured by the conditions of the SAWP and their social marginalisation in Ontario. This article presents and discusses these findings in the context of SAWP power dynamics and concludes with policy recommendations aimed at improving the mental health of all SAWP workers. In foregrounding the experiences of Jamaican workers, this study addresses the dearth of research on the health and wellbeing of Caribbean SAWP workers.

This article examines the history and relationship between organizing library workers and creating spaces for critical conversations among those in the field that have occurred in Edmonton since 2010. The reflective piece begins with a short history of the rise of the Edmonton Chapter of the Progressive Librarians Guild (PLG). Despite PLG’s early successes, PLG Edmonton disaffiliated from the broader PLG organization in 2016, and its successor organization, the Information Workers Collective (IWC), ultimately and rapidly failed as an organization. However, an ongoing space for critical conversation was facilitated the emergence of the local Politics of Libraries (PoL) conference largely organized by student volunteers. The article concludes by reflecting on the limits of organizing beyond Edmonton.

Critiques Bryan Palmer's essay, "The Past is Before Us," published in the same issue. The paper was originally presented as a set of comments at the conference, Challenging Labour conference/Le défi du travail, Mount Royal University, Calgary, October 2022. Author hagwil hayetsk is also known as Charles Menzies.

Most academic librarians working in the postsecondary sector in Canada and the United States today hold faculty status appointments and are represented by their campus faculty association (i.e., they are unionized). In some settings, librarians and archivists are included in the same collective bargaining unit as teaching and research faculty, while in others, information workers have their own bargaining unit. Still yet, there are campuses where librarians are not recognized as academic staff, and as such, they must actively advocate to win the rights and recognition that most of their peers who are employed at other college and university campuses in North America enjoy. This advocacy work takes place at both the individual and collective levels. The following case study explores the experiences of one Canadian and one American academic librarian who each offer their own, distinct perspectives of having held faculty status librarian appointments with permanence (i.e., tenure or continuing appointment) as well as appointments as academic library administrators, roles where librarians typically relinquish, formally and informally, their active membership in and representation by the faculty association and/or collective bargaining unit. Reflections shared will include: perspectives gained on collective action, having directly participated in labour action (e.g., a librarian and archivist strike) and collective labour advocacy work in the North American context; considerations for leaving, be it temporarily or permanently, a tenured librarian appointment for a library administrative post outside of the union (e.g., improved individual compensation, striving to improve individual and collective working conditions for librarians from within the leadership ranks) and the costs of doing so (e.g., relinquishing faculty status and its associated rights and responsibilities, including academic freedom and a workload that formally recognizes research and service work); and finally, the knowledge gained and insight gleaned after having returned to the privileged position of a faculty status librarian appointment with permanence. Arising out of this case study, strategies will be offered to help academic librarians resist corporate practices that erode their individual and collective autonomy and employment stability, and which are misaligned with academic librarians’ core professional values. The experiences of these two librarians, who have each engaged in advocacy work from both within and outside of the collective bargaining unit, will be explored in relation to the wider context of collective action, unionisation, and the overall employment conditions of information workers in Canada and the United States.

The article reviews the book, "Théories féministes voyageuses. Internationalisme et coalitions depuis les luttes latinoaméricaines," by Mara Montanaro.

Although counterintuitive for many academics and lay people alike, the Canadian environmental movement has long included significant engagement from organized labour. More surprising, perhaps, the most dedicated labour environmentalists came from unions representing workers in the auto, steel, mining, chemical, and oil industries. This was certainly the case in Alberta during the 1970s. There, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (ocaw) used their outsized influence within the Alberta Federation of Labour (afl) to conjoin growing concern about occupational health and safety with developing awareness about air and water pollution beyond the workplace. Drawing on fonds at the University of Calgary Glenbow Archives, Provincial Archives of Alberta, and Library and Archives Canada, this article chronicles and assesses efforts by ocaw officials within the afl to introduce and sustain a labour environmentalist agenda. It also makes an argument for historians interested in the origins and evolution of the Canadian environmental movement to pay closer attention to organized labour.

The article reviews the book, "L’Économie institutionnelle. Sa place dans l’économie politique," 2 volumes of John Rogers Commons, critical edition by Jean-Jacques Gislain and Bruno Théret.

In response to Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 10 (SDGs), organizations are collaborating with unions to integrate sustainability into their strategies by adopting socially responsible HR practices for social equity and equality. In this study, grounded in social justice ideology, we explore the antecedents, decisions and outcomes of sustainable HRM practices that promote workplace equity and equality with union support. We used a framework-based systematic literature review (SLR) method, guided by the antecedents-decisions-outcomes (ADO) framework of Paul et al. (2023), and followed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocols to ensure comprehensive and transparent reporting. Using the ADO framework, we identified organizational culture and values, stakeholder engagement, union trends, legal framework and regulations, collective agreements and company size as “antecedents.” “Decisions” encompassed inclusive recruitment and hiring practices, equal pay and compensation initiatives, diversity and inclusion training, flexible work arrangements and mechanisms for conflict resolution and grievance handling. “Outcomes” included improved employee well-being, enhanced productivity and performance, greater support for diversity and inclusion and a positive impact on employee health and safety. Each of the explored practices corresponded to one of three types of social justice. We suggest several avenues for future research by identifying critical gaps in theory and practice.

The article reviews the book, "Questioning the Entrepreneurial State: Status-Quo, Pitfalls, and the Need for Credible Innovation Policy," by Karl Wennberg and Christian Sandström.

The article reviews the book, "The Corporation and the Twentieth Century: The History of American Business Enterprise," by Richard N. Langlois

The article reviews the book, "After Populism: The Agrarian Left on the Northern Plains, 1900-1960," by William C. Pratt.

The article reviews the book, "Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America," by Margot Canaday.

Dans un contexte de déclin continu des taux de syndicalisation aussi bien dans les pays développés que dans les pays en développement, l’organizing model – « politiques actives de syndicalisation » ou « syndicalisme axé sur le recrutement » − est apparu au coeur de la littérature sur la revitalisation syndicale comme la stratégie la plus adéquate pour contrer la baisse des effectifs syndicaux. Devant un tel constat, et pour la première fois au Cameroun, cet article examine la relation entre l’organizing model et le recrutement des adhérents à partir des données d’une enquête par questionnaire menée auprès de 187 responsables syndicaux. Les résultats des estimations du modèle probit ordonné généralisé montrent que l’utilisation de l’organizing model par les responsables syndicaux n’a pas eu d’effet significatif sur l’évolution du nombre total de membres ainsi que sur l’évolution du nombre de nouveaux membres entre 2019 et 2021. Ces résultats, bien que conditionnés par la taille de l’échantillon et la mesure de l’organizing model, n’apportent aucun soutien aux partisans de cette stratégie de revitalisation syndicale qui la considèrent comme la plus adéquate pour recruter et retenir les adhérents. Dès lors, et afin d’obtenir les résultats escomptés, il est de l’intérêt des responsables syndicaux enquêtés de renforcer leurs méthodes d’organisation et de recrutement des adhérents et de considérer l’organizing model comme un outil qui doit être appris, systématisé et pratiqué de manière routinière.

Quebec jurisprudence in civil matters constitutes a valuable source for the history of work and employment. It reveals a vast range of conflicts experienced among workers during the transition to industrial capitalism and the way in which the judicial system proceeded to regulate such conflicts. Working with 128 reported cases, the author examines the fate of lawsuits filed by – or against – ordinary workers, factory workers, day labourers and carters, workers directly affected by the levy of surplus value generated by physical labor and through the free play of power relations in the economic world. Six categories of disputes mark this jurisprudence: divisions established by law among manual labour (notably under the legislation on masters and servants); failure to pay wages; the difficult implementation of worker privileges; challenges to employer discipline; the imposition of damages during work; and, finally, the hazards of seizures carried out against workers. Many indicators betray the incapacity of bringing together civil law and civil justice, as instruments of social regulation, in order to take precautions against the profound fragility of wage-earning status in the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.

Precarious Employment (PE) is characterized by job, income, and benefit insecurities. Studies surrounding PE and well-being have been predominantly quantitative, leaving a gap in rich descriptions of employment experiences. We recruited a sample of 40 adults aged 25-55 who were involved in PE during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic or lost employment due to the pandemic. Semi-structured interviews were administered. Employment and income insecurities were common and had negative impacts on the well-being of participants and their families. Uncertainty about future employment prospects and job and income loss resulted in chronic distress. Other insecurities—access to benefits, violation of worker rights, worker safety—was also reported as impacting well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic deepened insecurities, hardships, and distress among workers with PE conditions. Given the myriad insecurities experienced by those engaged in PE, the focus of precarious work research should also include working conditions, violation of worker rights, and managerial domination.

The article reviews the book, "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times: Living the British Empire in Jamaica, 1756," by Sheryllynne Heggerty.

In December 2021, the Ontario government passed into law Bill 88, the Working for Workers Act, 2022. Among other developments, the Working for Workers Act, 2022 introduced the Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, 2022, establishing a number of rights for platform workers. This Article is a brief, non-exhaustive evaluation of the provisions of the Act, with particular emphasis on how it impacts the salient issues associated with the regulation of platform work. The article concludes that, notwithstanding its limitations, the Act is a major step in the right direction towards effective regulation of the working conditions for platform workers.

As discourse on transnational labor migration continues to highlight the influence of structures on the experiences and existence of caregivers, Canada’s economic immigration and status regularization programs are not excluded from the discussions. Particularly, the Canada (Live-in) Caregiver Program (henceforth LCP) introduced in 1992 has gained attention from popular and scholarly cycles despite being the only economic immigration program that guarantees permanent residency status to applicants after fulfilling the mandatory program requirements. Drawing from 19 empirical studies, this systematic literature review discussed some emerging themes from the LCP. From the studies reviewed, it was found that both current and former caregivers continue to bear the direct brunt of caregiving given their positionality as mostly racialized women from low-income countries. Moreover, among the range of issues discussed, homelessness, food insecurity, and the deteriorating health conditions of care workers are some pressing issues that need urgent scholarly and policy attention. These findings underscore the need for periodic reassessments of the LCP to understand the intersectionality of current and emerging issues—as the program has greater potential to meet rising care needs in Canada, but only if the living conditions of caregivers are addressed.

L’analyse des besoins est une étape considérée comme cruciale lors de la planification d’une formation. Il existe diverses méthodes pour identifier les besoins, sans qu’il y ait d’études pour les comparer au regard des informations obtenues et des coûts associés. C’est dans cette perspective qu’un projet a été réalisé dans le secteur des télécommunications pour vérifier l’apport de différentes méthodes de collecte de données dans un contexte de prévention des accidents lors du transport et de la manipulation d’échelles par des techniciens. Les méthodes comparées sont les rencontres individuelles avec des acteurs de la SST et de la formation (n : 13), les groupes de discussion avec des techniciens (3 groupes, n : 28), l’administration d’un questionnaire en ligne auprès de techniciens et l’analyse de l’activité de travail de cinq techniciens. Cette dernière méthode est souvent ignorée en formation en raison des coûts associés à sa réalisation. Une analyse comparative des méthodes a été effectuée relativement à la nature des informations obtenues. Les résultats montrent que les entrevues avec les acteurs en SST permettent de bien cerner la problématique à l’origine de la demande de formation. Les rencontres de groupe ainsi que le questionnaire ont surtout permis d’identifier les besoins de formation perçus et d’obtenir des informations sur les facteurs qui entrainent des difficultés dans le travail. Quant à l’analyse de l’activité de travail, elle est la méthode qui a fourni une plus grande compréhension du travail à réaliser et des facteurs sur lesquels il faudrait agir pour prévenir les accidents de travail. Elle a aussi mené à l’identification de situations de travail « critiques » et à la mise en mots de savoirs développés avec l’expérience qui pourraient être intégrés à la formation pour favoriser le transfert des apprentissages et la prévention.

Responds to hagwil hayetsk/Charles Menzie's paper, "Capitalism and Colonialism," published in the same issue.