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The article reviews the book, "An Environmental History of Canada," by Laurel Sefton MacDowell.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Connecting Canadians: Investigations in Community Informatics," edited by Andrew Clement, Michael Gurstein, Graham Longford, Marita Moll, and Leslie Regan Shade; "Alternative Media in Canada," edited by Kirsten Kozolanka, Patricia Mazepa, and David Skinner; "Public Engagement and Emerging Technologies," edited by Kieran O’Doherty and Edna Einsiedel; and "Networks Of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age," by Manuel Castells.

[Provides] a review of Canadian and international research that affirms the critical role that labour rights and unions play in reducing income inequality, promoting the social well-being of all citizens, and advancing democracy within nations. --Introduction

Book review of: Articuler emploi et famille : le rôle du soutien organisationnel au coeur de trois professions by Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay.

James W. Orr (1936-2009) was one of a number of rank-and-file labour militants in the city of Saint John, New Brunswick who bore witness to, and had some hand in, a number of upheavals in the local labour movement. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood in west Saint John, he came of age at the time of the momentous Canadian Seamen’s Union strike of 1949, which had a permanent impact on his outlook. Leaving school at sixteen to work for the Canadian Pacific Railway, he then joined the navy before going on to become a lifelong union man on the docks. As a member of Local 1764, International Longshoremen’s Association, he helped lead the 1974 strike against the Maritime Employers’ Association. He was one of the organizers of the 1976 Saint John General Strike on 14 October against the federal government’s wage controls. Orr was also a key organizer of the 1979 NO CANDU campaign that closed the port in support of civil rights for workers in Argentina. Within the ILA, he helped open union membership for non-union workers on the docks, an effort that cost him his position as a union officer; however, the influx of new blood rejuvenated the ILA and reoriented it in the direction of social unionism. Local 273 went on to replace the archaic shape-up system with a dispatch system while also struggling against the bureaucracy of the international union and for the autonomy of Canadian locals. The object of this study is to rescue Jimmy, or “the Bear” as he was affectionately called, from what the influential social historian E.J. Hobsbawm describes as “the anonymity of the local militant.” This study relies heavily upon oral history, including two interviews completed before Orr’s death, and his personal papers deposited at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.

This article reviews the book, "Climate@Work," edited by Carla Lipsig-Mummé.

This research explores the relationship between a strategic approach to quality management in Canadian organizations and employee measures of happiness. In particular, it investigates how a strategic approach to quality management impacts on employee satisfaction, engagement, and morale. Understanding the relationships between a strategic approach to quality management and employee measures of happiness helps companies, policy-makers, and academia. Companies can use the conclusions to decide on the value of a quality management system as it relates to employees. The findings provide answers to employees, management, and labour unions that need to understand the impact a strategic approach to quality will have on them. Policy-makers can use the findings to set the agenda for closing Canada’s productivity gap. Knowledge of this research can support policy-maker decisions to simplify the process for implementing a strategic approach to quality, realizing the benefits for participating organizations and employees at those organizations. This research helps academia fill two major gaps in the literature: First, the impact that the implementation of a strategic quality approach has on employee happiness (namely satisfaction, engagement, and morale). The second is the focus on Canadian organizations. There are relatively few studies that investigate a strategic approach to quality that focus on Canadian companies. Much of the research related to strategic quality employs data from American, Asian, Australian, and European organizations whereas this research uses data from exclusively Canadian organizations. This is the only academic research (to the knowledge of the researcher) that uses original Canada Awards for Excellence recipient results to draw conclusions. In this research, organizations with a strategic approach to quality (Canada Awards for Excellence recipients) are compared with similar size organizations with no defined approach to quality (non-winners). A 66-question survey was used with 591 respondents representing 58.68% response rate from 12 Canadian organizations. The participating organizations were a mix of small and medium size organizations ranging in size from 5 employees to 400 employees in both the service and manufacturing sectors. The survey respondents included 315 from Canada Award for Excellence winners and 276 from non-winners. Of the 12 organizations studied, five are Canada Award for Excellence winners and seven of them are non-winners. The research provides evidence that organizations taking a strategic approach to quality have a positive impact on the employees of that organization. The research has found significant connections between an organization’s level of strategic quality and the effect on employees in terms of morale, engagement, and satisfaction. The survey alongside focus group analysis shows that there is a clear relationship between strategic quality and employee measures of happiness. The findings indicate that the impact of implementing quality is positive and results in benefits for both the organization as a whole and the individual employee. Significant differences are noted between Canada Award for Excellence winners and non-winners.

This article reviews the book, "Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life," by James Daschuk.

Critiques the Conservative Party's attack on evidence-based research and the teaching of Canadian history as part of a broader, neoliberal assault on equality, including feminism, environmental protection, and minority rights.

[E]xamines the role and influence of Canadian manufacturers and executives working for the Canadian government, known as the dollar-a-year men, in mobilizing the Canadian economy for war production. Based chiefly on primary source research this thesis examines contracting methods, the bureaucratic structure of the Department of Munitions and Supply, and the degree to which the Department reacted to events. This thesis demonstrates that the dollar-a-year men's strategy for industrial mobilization was initially focused on maximizing production at almost any cost, and only started focusing on cost efficiency in late 1942 and early 1943. It is also demonstrated that the current historiography is lacking and that C.D. Howe played a far different role than the historiography describes.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Foodopoly: The Battle over the Future of Food and Farming in America," by Wenonah Hauter; "Health and Sustainability in the Canadian Food System: Advocacy and Opportunity for Civil Society," edited by Rod MacRae and Elisabeth Abergel; and "Food Sovereignty in Canada: Creating Just and Sustainable Food Systems," edited by Hannah Wittman, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, and Nettie Wiebe.

"Constitutional Labour Rights in Canada: Farm Workers and the Fraser Case," by Fay Faraday, Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker, is reviewed.

Taking a telescopic view of the multifaceted struggles of the workless prior to Black Tuesday challenges the myopic picture of the Great Depression as the sudden, unexpected eruption of unemployment protest. Out of all proportion to their size and political strength, radical unemployment agitators between 1875-1928 proved to be vital protagonists in forcing relief measures, thrusting socialist values into public discourse and inspiring working-class resistance during economic crises and at times when the labour movement was at its weakest. This dissertation examines hundreds of unemployment protests in urban centres across Canada during the 1872-1896 long depression, and the economic slumps of 1907-1909, 1912-1915 and 1921-1926. These protests and the organizations of the workless challenged three distinct but overlapping stages in the evolution of the liberal-capitalist state: producer, progressive, and authoritarian. Although always vulnerable and contingent, the mobilized workless responded with innovation to the evolution of liberal capitalism and, by gravitating towards the developing socialist alternative, gained greater coherence and uniformity as they moved from the local and spontaneous “les Misérables” (1875-1896) to an ad hoc “Organized Mob” (1907-1915) to a militant and sporadically nationally-organized “Unemployed Army” (1919-1935). This study contends that the persistence of a moral economy, the strategies of disruption, and working-class anguish and indignation were key resources for the radical and socialist organizers of the unemployed. Sensitive to the ways in which a culture of whiteness and masculinity often precluded greater solidarity amongst the workless, this dissertation also traces the ways unemployed diaspora socialists, socialist feminists and their allies encouraged a more diverse and inclusive movement. Far from reactionary or apathetic, the mobilized unemployed were every bit as important to the vitality of the left as unions or political parties – their struggles were crucial elements in the development of Canada’s earliest socialist experiments. Similarly, Canadian social policy history is unintelligible without an acknowledgment of the fundamental role that unemployment movements played in wresting concessions from the liberal order and as disruptive agents in the shaping of the welfare state.

D’où vient le syndicalisme ? À quoi répond-il ? Quelles sont ses formes ? De quelle façon agit-il ? Quels sont ses effets ? Quels sont ses défis ? Comment évolue-t-il ? Les 42 textes qui composent cette anthologie proposent diverses réponses à ces interrogations. Les auteurs sélectionnés traitent des aspects les plus significatifs du syndicalisme d’hier, d’aujourd’hui et de demain. Ils représentent neuf disciplines et des positions variées. Le résultat est un foisonnement remarquable d’idées qui pousse à la réflexion, au questionnement et aux remises en cause relativement à ce phénomène qui a des effets multiples sur l’économie, la politique et la société et qui fêtera bientôt ses 200 ans en territoire canadien et québécois. --Résumé de l'éditeur

This article reviews the book, "American Anarchism," by Steve J. Shone.

The Wagner Act Model has formed the basis of Canada's collective bargaining regime since World War II but has come under intense scrutiny in recent years because of legislative weakening of collective bargaining rights, constitutional litigation defending collective bargaining rights and declining union density. This article examines and assesses these developments, arguing that legislatively we have not witnessed a wholesale attack on Wagnerism, but rather a selective weakening of some of its elements. In the courts, it briefly appeared as if the judiciary might constitutionalize meaningful labour rights and impede the erosion of Wagnerism, but recent judicial case law suggests the prospects for this outcome are fading. While the political defence of Wagnerism may be necessary when the alternatives to it are likely worse, holding on to what we've got will not reverse the long-term decline in union density. The article concludes that at present there are no legal solutions to the labour movement's problems and that innovative efforts to represent workers' collective interests outside of formal collective bargaining provide a more promising alternative.

This article reviews the book, "Union Voices: Tactics and Tensions in UK Organizing," by Melanie Simms, Jane Holgate, and Edmund Heery.

The 2008 financial crisis continues to have profound implications for workers worldwide, as governments have embarked on “austerity” programs and employers have confronted organized labor with concessionary demands, placing unions on the defensive. At the same time, populist movements have arisen across North America and Europe as increasing numbers of people grow disenchanted with government action and corporate incompetence. We examine the interplay among what we characterize as “uneven austerity,” union strategic capacities, and rising populism. At the intersection of these processes, we see elements of “populist unionism” as the labor movement confronts both austerity and declining union power. The article develops this concept through an examination of organized labor’s engagement with the Occupy movement in Toronto, Ontario, and the growth of the Christian Labour Association of Canada.

This article examines trends in Canadian human rights history, with a focus on three major themes that have guided the scholarship: challenges to the characterization of Canada as a historically tolerant nation; a study of how, when, and through what mechanisms human rights became an important project for Canadians; and a critical assessment of the historical effectiveness of the human rights movement in promoting equality within Canadian society. In assessing where this vibrant and growing field of study could expand in the future, the article also contextualizes the Canadian historiography in the international literature on the development of the global human rights framework.

"Provides an overview of the complaint and grievance process and librarians' experiences of grievance." -- Editors' introduction.