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This paper explores the history of Ontario’s labour laws as they relate to agricultural workers, examines the way these laws have been interpreted by the judiciary, provides an overview of the most recent case affirming the right of agricultural workers to bargain, and analyzes the likely effects of the Court of Appeal’s recent decision. In so doing, it provides commentary on the relationship between the labour movement, human rights and the legal system more generally, and provides specific commentary on this situation as applies to agricultural workers in Ontario.
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Labour rights are increasingly being constructed as human rights. While this construction is gaining popularity, there is still considerable opposition to it. Recently, the debate has made its way to the pages of Just Labour. Building upon a pragmatic approach utilized by feminist legal scholars, the present article seeks to continue this important dialogue and offers an alternative that combines elements of both rights-based pluralism and critical legal scholarship. It contends that the labour movement ought to employ a multi-faceted strategy to protect and promote the rights of working people. Such a strategy recognizes the limitations of rights-discourse, but also recognizes its potential benefits. The paper argues that the labour movement cannot rely solely on rights-discourse to protect its interests but that it should also not be dismissed out of hand. Thus, the construction of labour rights as human rights can be only part of the labour movement's broader fight back strategy.
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The article reviews the book, "Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions: Public Recognition of Sexual Diversity in Canada and the United States," by David Rayside.
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In most advanced capitalist societies, the feminist challenge to labour unions began well over twenty-five years ago. This essay examines the history of the ambivalent relationship between women and unions and assesses the difference feminism has made in terms of the structure, practices and overall vision of unions' role and goals. Has feminism helped to renew union movements across the capitalist world and moved them at all towards socialism? The answer to this is complex and involves assessing both the different strands of feminist influence and the way these were interwoven with the attack on unions and working people that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Examines the legal dispute that occurred during the Stelco restructuring that occurred between 2004 and 2006, in which labour law was trumped by corporate law. The union ultimately emerged victorious because it made no concessions despite the series of legal defeats.
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Global Unions, Global Business: Global Union Federations and International Business, by Richard Croucher and Elizabeth Cotton, is reviewed.
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Using a proprietary dataset containing personnel records on over 22,000 full-time, non-unionized employees from a large Canadian firm with nationwide operations from 1996 to 2000, this paper explores the incidence of promotion for women and racial minorities. The findings show that women and racial minorities are less likely than their white male counterparts to be promoted. For both white women and minority women, the disadvantage is most severe at the lower rungs of the organizational hierarchy, lending support to the "sticky floor" hypothesis. Significant promotion disadvantages occur for white women, visible minority women, and visible minority men at the middle ranks of the organization, and visible minority men continue to experience a promotion disadvantage at the highest organizational levels.
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Do low strike rates suggest that the ‘age of strikes’ has come to an end? Have we reached a time when unions can and should give up the right to strike as a weapon more suited to the ‘old’ economy, or ‘old’ unions who are themselves better suited for the industrial than the post-industrial age? Or should unions continue to defend the right to strike and if so why? This research note explores some answers to these questions that underline the critical importance of defending the right to strike. --From introduction
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The article reviews the book, "GRH et genre : les défis de l’égalité hommes-femmes," edited by Annie Cornet, Jacqueline Laufer and Sophia Belghiti-Mahut.
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This paper examines whether flexible work schedules in Canada are created by employers for business reasons or to assist their workers achieve work-life balance. We focus on long workweek, flextime, compressed workweek, variable workweek length and/or variable workweek schedule. Statistics Canada's 2003 Workplace and Employee Survey data linking employee microdata to workplace (i.e.. employer) microdata are used in the analysis. Results show that more than half of the workers covered in this data have at least one of the five specified types of flexible work schedules. Employment status, unionized work, occupation, and sector are factors consistently associated with flexible work schedules. Personal characteristics such as marital status, dependent children, and childcare use are not significantly associated with flexible work schedules, and females are less likely to have a flexible work schedule than are males. Overall, results suggest that flexible work schedules are created for business reasons rather than individual worker interests.
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The article reviews several books including "Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt," by Ching Kwan Lee, "Creating Market Socialism: How Ordinary People Are Shaping Class and Status in China," by Carolyn L. Hsu and "Revolution, Resistance, and Reform in Village China," by Edward Friedman, Paul G. Pickowicz and Mark Selden.