Search

New Zealand is a relatively prosperous OECD member with a tradition of liberal democracy. Fiji remains a developing nation with a large subsistence agriculture sector and one-quarter of its people living in poverty. Its socio-economic difficulties have contributed to four Coups d'Etat since Fiji attained independence in 1970. This comparative study examines these South Pacific neighbours' considerable employment regulatory change amid economic liberalisation framed by neo-liberal market ideology, before focusing on the gendered impacts of this change. A thematic analysis of qualitative survey and documentary evidence reveals a link between regulatory forms and working women's progress, mediated by national and international pressures. The findings inform a model of regulatory approaches that can influence women's relationship with the labour market.

The article reviews the book, "Try to Control Yourself: The Regulation of Public Drinking in Post-Prohibition Ontario, 1927-44," by Dan Malleck,.

La volonté affichée de donner des capacités d’agir aux salariés s’incarne dans le concept d’« habilitation » (empowerment) qui désigne des formes d’initiative et de participation accordées aux salariés, d’amplitude toutefois variable. Dans une perspective critique qui inspire notre travail, l’« habilitation » peut être vue comme une rhétorique managériale destinée à mobiliser la subjectivité des salariés tout en voilant les rapports de domination. En tout état de cause, la formation devrait constituer une ressource susceptible d’accroître le pouvoir d’agir des salariés et être conçue par les directions et perçue par les salariés comme telle. Comment et avec qui conçoit-on une politique de formation en cohérence avec ce projet ? Comment (et dans quelle mesure) cette politique contribue-t-elle effectivement à l’« habilitation » des salariés ? Cet article met la doctrine de l’« habilitation » à l’épreuve de la formation. Le terrain ici mobilisé est une enquête monographique conduite auprès d’une entreprise de l’agro-alimentaire, filiale française d’un groupe américain, qui a érigé l’« habilitation » en doctrine managériale. Saisie au niveau de l’organisation, la politique de formation apparaît congruente avec les autres pratiques mobilisatrices visant l’engagement et la responsabilisation des salariés, mais dans le cadre strict des objectifs stratégiques du groupe. Au niveau individuel, certains salariés, parmi les plus récemment embauchés, jugent leur capacité d’agir renforcée par la politique de formation de l’entreprise. Mais pour la majorité des salariés interrogés, leur rapport à la formation traduit leur désenchantement sur leur pouvoir d’agir dans un environnement où les décisions managériales demeurent opaques et imprévisibles. Le consentement et la coopération des salariés apparaissent fragilisés par ces contradictions.Ainsi, et malgré la situation très privilégiée de l’entreprise étudiée, dans un régime de gouvernance actionnariale où la prégnance des objectifs de rentabilité financière s’impose à tous les salariés et où, en outre, la représentation collective des salariés est faible voire inexistante, la politique d’« habilitation » ne parvient pas à concrétiser ses ambitions. Pour autant, elle n’est pas dépourvue d’effectivité. Au travers de la formation s’expriment les tensions dont l’« habilitation » est porteuse. Elle révèle, dans ce contexte, les promesses non tenues de cette doctrine managériale et questionne son efficacité économique et sociale.

This paper explores what the author sees as two important trends in recent privacy law decisions by Canada's highest courts, and considers the implications of those trends for privacy rights in the workplace. The first trend the author argues, is a clear affirmation that employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the workplace - an expectation that is inherent in an individual's human dignity and autonomy, and that does not need to be expressly bargained or negotiated. As a result, it can no longer be maintained, as some adjudicators did, that there is no juridical basis in the common law on which to ground a right to privacy. The second trend is an increasing recognition of a right to informational privacy (as distinct from a right to bodily or to territorial privacy), understood as an individual's ability to control how information about him or her is communicated to others. As the paper explains, questions about the protection of informational privacy in the employment context have been brought to the fore by the prolhferation of information technology in the workplace, and by the increased blurring of lines between employees' professional and private lives. The author concludes that, going forward, the challenge will be to define more precisely the scope of employees' rights to privacy, particularly in relation to the employer's legitimate operational interests, and to determine appropriate remedial responses in the event of a breach of such rights.

The article reviews the book, "Edible Histories, Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History," edited by Franca Iacovetta, Valerie J. Korinek, and Marlene Epp.

Theory and research surrounding employee voice in organizations have often treated high-involvement work practices (HIWPs) as substitutes for unions. Drawing on recent theoretical developments in the field of industrial relations, specifically the collective voice/institutional response model of union impact and research on HIWPs in organizations, the authors propose that these institutions are better seen as complements whereby greater balance is achieved between efficiency, equity, and voice when HIWPs are implemented in the presence of unions. Based on a national sample of Canadian organizations, they find employees covered by a union experience fewer intensification pressures under higher levels of diffusion of HIWPs such that they work less unpaid overtime, have fewer grievances, and take fewer paid sick days. Job satisfaction is maximized under the combination of unions and HIWPs.

A quarter-century ago, in the Action Travail des Fermmes case, the Supreme Court of Canada gave strong endorsement to the principle that systemic remedies should be widely available in human rights cases to combat entrenched patterns of discrimination, and indicated that such remedies could be expected to be effect- ive in meeting that objective. This paper considers developments in the area of systemic remedies since Action Travail des Fenmes was decided, and concludes that the promise held out by the Supreme Court remains unfulfilled and indeed that the viability of systemic remedies themselves is very much in question. At the federal level, amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act retrenched the tri- bunal's remedial powers, by seemingly inhibiting the imposition of hiring quotas in cases where systemic discrimination in employment had been established In addition, the generation-long saga of the McKinnon case in Ontario laid bare the almost insurmountable challenges of enforcing systemic orders against a recalci- trant respondent, and revealed the limits of the human rights system's institutional capacity. Most recently, in the Moore decision, the Supreme Court has cast doubt even on the availability of systemic remedies, by holding - on the basis of a superficial analysis and contrary to its own long-standing jurisprudence - that only individual remedies should have been ordered in a case which unmistakeably had systemic dimensions. While the decision may reflect the Court's concern that the tribunal decision intruded excessively into the realm of public policy and finance, it provides no meaningfd guidance on how government can be held accountable for its human rights obligations.

Pays tribute to Bettina Bradbury's feminist historiography and how it influenced the author's own work on the household economy of residential prostitution as well as female tavern and inn keepers in 19th century Montreal. Concludes that Bradbury raised the bar for studies of social, economic, cultural, and political history in Canada and Quebec.

The article reviews the book, "Building Sanctuary: The Movement to Support Vietnam War Resisters in Canada, 1965-73," by Jessica Squires.

This article reviews the book, "Rebellion in Black and White: Southern Student Activism in the 1960s," ed. by Robert Cohen and David J. Snyder.

This study seeks to develop a diversity profile of the nursing workforce in Canada and its major cities. Background There is ample evidence of ethnic and linguistic segregation in the Canadian labour market. However, it is unknown if there is equitable representation of visible and linguistic minorities in nursing professions. We cross-tabulated aggregate data from Statistics Canada’s 2006 Census. Analyses examined the distribution of visible and linguistic minorities, including visible minority sub-groups, among health managers, head nurses, registered nurses, licensed nurses and nurse aides for Canada and major cities as well as by gender. In Canada and its major cities, a pyramidal structure was found whereby visible and linguistic minorities, women in particular, were under-represented in managerial positions and over-represented in lower ranking positions. Blacks and Filipinos were generally well represented across nursing professions; however, other visible minority sub-groups lacked representation. Conclusions Diversity initiatives at all levels can play a role in promoting better access to and quality of care for minority populations through the increased cultural and linguistic competence of care providers and organizations. Implications for Nursing Management Efforts to increase diversity in nursing need to be accompanied by commitment and resources to effectively manage diversity within organizations.

Despite their high levels of education, racialized immigrant women in Canada are over-represented in low-paid, low-skill jobs characterized by high risk and precarity. Our project documents the experiences with precarious employment of racialized immigrant women in Toronto. We conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with racialized immigrant women. Participants were recruited through posted flyers, partner agencies, peer researcher networks and snowball sampling. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using NVivo software. The project followed a community-based participatory action research model. Participants faced powerful structural barriers to decent employment and additionally faced barriers associated with household gender relations. Their labour market experiences negatively impacted their physical and mental health as well as that of their families. These problems further constrained women's ability to secure decent employment. Our study makes important contributions in filling the gap on the gendered barriers racialized immigrant women face in the labour market and the gendered impacts of deskilling and precarity on women and their families. We propose labour market reforms and changes in immigration and social policies to enable racialized immigrant women to overcome barriers to decent work.

Announcement of suspension of the publication and a retrospective.

As a result of concerns around declining memberships and the growth of precarious employment in recent years, unions have sought to expand their jurisdictions and organize groups of workers who have typically resisted collective bargaining. Research on union renewal has examined working conditions and workplace structures that may give rise to successful organizing campaigns. In this paper we examine working conditions amongst non-unionized same-day messengers working in Toronto, Canada. The research team conducted 143 semi-structured interviews with bikers, drivers and walkers who work primarily for local courier companies. We find that although same-day couriers are typically treated as ‘independent contractors’, they are dependent on brokers, and precariously employed, with unpredictable income and hours of work. Though this group would benefit substantially from unionization, especially organized on a sector-wide basis, their attitudes and culture combined with the structure of the local industry create substantial impediments to organizing.

The article pays homage to the socialist labour activist Hugh Lukin Robinson (1916-2012), who worked at the United Nations and was research director of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers from 1952-62.

This article reviews the book, "A Contest of Ideas: Capital, Politics, and Labor," by Nelson Lichtenstein.

This article reviews the book, "Social Transformation in Rural Canada: Community, Cultures, and Collective Action," ed. by John R. Parkins and Maureen G. Reed.

"[E]xamines the workload responsibilities of teacher, research and service and the role of collective agreements in ensuring balance." -- Editors' introduction.

This study analyzes the results of a 2010 national survey of Canadian non-managerial employees' membership and interest in worker organizations. This is the first general survey to include associations as well as unions. Profiles of membership and interest in unions and associations are presented, then demographic, organizational and attitudinal factors related to interest in joining these worker organizations are examined. The findings suggest that, in spite of some recent decline in union density, most Canadian non-managerial workers who are interested in collective representation are members of at least one of these organizations. The strongest interest in joining is expressed by those who are highly educated, poorly paid and feel underemployed-even if allowed some workplace "voice". The limited prior focus on unions needs to be expanded to attend to both unions and associations as worker-controlled vehicles of representation, particularly to identify strategic alliances with the growing numbers of professional employees.

Since 1996, the problem of underutilization of immigrant skills in Canada has grown significantly. University-educated immigrants are more numerous, and census analysis shows their access to skilled occupations in the professions and management decline between 1996 and 2006. The decline in access since 2001 coincided with increased program efforts, including foreign credential assessment, bridge training, and others. Policy differences among provinces, or in occupational groups targeted, also have had little impact on aggregate trends. The value (in today’s dollars) of work lost to the Canadian economy grew from about $4.80 billion annually in 1996 to about $11.37 billion in 2006.