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The article reviews the book, "A Life in Balance? Reopening the Family-Work Debate," edited by Catherine Krull and Justyna Sempruch.

The article reviews the book. "A Bridge of Ships: Canadian Shipbuilding during the Second World War," by James Pritchard.

The article reviews the book, "Babies for the Nation: The Medicalization of Motherhood in Quebec, 1910-1970," by Denyse Baillargeon, translated by W. Donald Wilson.

“The relation between an employer and an isolated employee or worker is typically a relation between a bearer of power and one who is not a bearer of power. In its inception it is an act of submission, in its operation it is a condition of subordination, however much the submission and the subordination may be concealed by the indispensable figment of the legal mind known as the 'contract of employment'.” Otto Kahn-Freund , Labour and the Law (London: Stevens, 1977) This study examines the legal evolution of the common law of employment contracts in Ontario between the 1890s and the 1970s. It focuses on the changing relationship between notions of property and contract in employment, as visible through the judicial discourse of reported common law cases. I argue that between the 1890s and the end of the 1970s Ontario saw the emergence and consolidation of two different conceptual paradigms for regulating work at common law. The common law of employment contracts was framed and reframed over different eras of the 20th century through what the courts understood of the nature of the exchange between the parties, the property interests involved and the legal tools necessary to manage that exchange. Contrary to the traditional narrative in the field, the courts of Ontario first conceptualized employment as an exchange as of the turn of the 20th century. This first paradigm emerged in tandem with the province’s second industrial revolution, and sought to regulate the discretionary nature of white collar professional work. The second paradigm was entrenched in the 1960s and 1970s. It is over these years that workers in Standard Employment Relationships (SER) first began to bring employment-related claims to the common law courts, a few decades after it emerged as the paradigmatic form of work around which Ontario’s labour market and employment laws were fashioned over the mid-century. The basic premises of the SER, of long-term employment, job security and internal career advancement, fundamentally changed the psychosical and economic terms of employment. But faced with workers’ claims for recognition of these new terms in law, the courts instead chose to entrench a limited legal framework which denied job security as an enforceable contract term.

Workplace representatives (shop stewards) provide insight into union transformations. This article explores the renewed research interest in terms of the representativeness of unionism and of workplace representatives, the complexity of the sites of representation and employer strategies, the search for new references and the centrality of workplace representatives in union renewal strategies.

Improving Organizational Interventions for Stress and Well-being, edited by Caroline Biron, Maria Karanika-Murray and Cary L. Cooper, is reviewed.

An initial observation by the work safety research community of the Quebec Occupational Health and Safety Research Network (QOHSRN) reveals that occupational safety, an aspect affecting all industrial sectors, requires international exchanges to meet the objectives and expand the knowledge gained within the network. This historical review is also meant to show the diversity of the work safety research community goals and the need to develop intersectoral research projects. The growing and essential involvement of student members within the research community ensures a solid future in that regard.

The article reviews the book, "In the Interest of Democracy: The Rise and Fall of the Early Cold War Alliance Between the American Federation of Labor and the Central Intelligence Agency," by Quenby Olmsted Hughes.

The article focuses on the Canadian political party the British Columbia Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (BC/CCF) and how it contributed to a political left-wing social movement for Canada's working class during the 1930s. The author argues that while the BC/CCF had populist beginnings, it was truly a socialist party. He discusses how the BC/CCF impacted Canadian politics during the interwar years, argues that the party created an anti-liberal movement, and explores the BC/CCF's relationship to the Socialist Party of Canada.

In the critical decades following the First World War, the Canadian political landscape was shifting in ways that significantly recast the relationship between big business and government. As public pressures changed the priorities of Canada's political parties, many of Canada's most powerful businessmen struggled to come to terms with a changing world that was less sympathetic to their ideas and interests than before. Dominion of Capital offers a new account of relations between government and business in Canada during a period of transition between the established expectations of the National Policy and the uncertain future of the twentieth century. Don Nerbas tells this fascinating story through close portraits of influential business and political figures of this period - including Howard P. Robinson, Charles Dunning, Sir Edward Beatty, R.S. McLaughlin, and C.D. Howe - that provide insight into how events in different sectors of the economy and regions of the country shaped the political outlook and strategies of the country's business elite. Drawing on business, political, social, and cultural history, Nerbas revises standard accounts of government-business relations in this period and sheds new light on the challenges facing big business in early twentieth-century Canada. --Publisher's description. Contents: Part 1: Big Business from Triumph to Crisis. Provincial Man of Mystery: Howard P. Robinson and the Politics of Capital in New Brunswick -- Charles A. Dunning: A Progressive in Business and Politics -- The Dilemma of Democracy: Sir Edward Beatty, the Railway Question, and National Government. Part 2: Continentalism and the Managerial Ethic. -- Stewardship and Dependency: Sam McLaughlin, General Motors, and the Labour Question -- Engineering Canada: C.D. Howe and Canadian Big Business -- Conclusion -- Après le déluge -- Endnotes.

In the digital games industry women are statistical and cultural outliers. Using a cultural studies lens, this thesis examines the experiences of women game-makers in order to more deeply understand the attitudes of female game-workers, and to ascertain whether work in the male dominated gamed industry can be ‘good work’ for women. When compared to other cultural sectors, female game workers face unique barriers to sustaining careers in this high status industry. Gender stereotypes keep many women from fully participating in games industry culture which in turn discriminates against any worker who does not fit in to the ‘might is right’ mindset. Female game workers are getting mixed signals from an industry that appears to desire gender diversity in order to attract the growing ranks of female gamers, but is resistant to change sexist and discriminatory work practices that continue to alienate women.

Despite differing labour law systems and program structures, temporary migrant agricultural workers under the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program and Australian Seasonal Worker Program often possess minimal security of employment rights and protections, despite potentially lengthy periods of consecutive seasonal service to the same employer. Such lesser rights and protections are partly due to the central role played by continuity of service in determining the length of reasonable notice periods and the strength of unfair dismissal protections and stand-down/recall rights. Although it is often presumed that the temporary duration of the seasonal work visa necessarily severs the legal continuity of the employment relationship, such is not the case. This article argues that security of employment rights and protections can be re-conceptualised to recognise non-continuous seasonal service within the current parameters of a fixed-term work visa. In both Canada and Australia this could be accomplished through contractual or collective agreement terms or through the amendment of labour law legislation. Such reforms would recognise a form of unpaid 'migrant worker leave', whereby the legal continuity of employment would be preserved despite periods of mandatory repatriation, thus allowing accrual of security of employment rights and protections.

The article is an extensive commentary on the history and significance of the mural, "The Destruction of War/Rebuilding the World Through Education," by Fred Ross. The mural was painted in the late 1940s at Fredericton High School in Fredericton, N.B. Removed in the 1950s, it was subsequently lost. A recreated version of the mural was installed at the University of New Brunswick in 2011.

Neo-liberal ideology has attempted to set different groups of workers--employed and unemployed, public and private sector, unionized and non-unionized--in opposition to each other. A successful response will require more than clear philosophical principles. It will require detailed, difficult, and long-term political efforts to construct solidarity. At the same time, that practical political work requires principles. The most effective principles on the basis of which solidarity can be built are those that disclose shared interests. The life-value principles underlying the most significant achievements of the union movement are the best means by which the shared interests of all workers can be disclosed. (English)

Canada’s nursing homes have become increasingly dependent on immigrant health care aides. More than any other ethnic group, Filipino women are over-represented among health care aides in the Canadian health care system. This qualitative study explored the employment experiences of Filipino health care aides in nursing homes from their own perspectives as well as those of policy stakeholders. Fourteen in-depth interviews were conducted with Filipino health care aides and long-term-care policy stakeholders in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The results indicated that migrant social networks act as pathways linking immigrant women with employment opportunities in nursing homes. The composition of the labour force is also shaped by management strategies and labour market accommodations that respond to, and reinforce, these social networks. These findings have implications for workforce planning and the quality of care provision in nursing homes.

The article reviews the book, "Valuing Care Work: Comparative Perspectives," edited by Cecilia Benoit and Helga Hallgrimsdottir.

[Analyzes] the impact of both climate change and climate policy on employment in construction. --Editor's introduction

The North American Free Trade Agreement's side accord – the 1994 North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation – has been portrayed as providing an ineffective, bureaucratic procedure for dealing with labor complaints about infringements of national labor legislation. This paper reviews two decades of experience. It argues that after an initial period of formal activity, which did indeed expose the accord's severe limitations, a new era of intensified international links at grassroots level commenced. Despite its limitations, the accord initiated positive learning processes and intensified exchanges between the trade union movements in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

This article explores the experiences of transnational agricultural migrant workers in Canada's guestworker programs. Examined through a gendered lens, it focuses on migrants' experiences as parents to children whom they must leave behind in their communities of origin when they migrate. Drawing on interview and ethnographic data, this article argues that transnational parents, especially mothers, face a unique set of challenges and barriers as participants in these programs. It explores how the injustices in the immigration-labor regime that migrants confront as racialized, non-citizen farm workers impact parents' ability to focus on their primary motivation to migrate—their children—thereby limiting their ability to fulfill idealized forms of motherhood and fatherhood and hindering their parent-child relationships. It also demonstrates that migrant mothers frequently experience increased feelings of self-doubt, guilt and inadequacy as transnational parents, which, in turn, diminishes the benefits of their migration.

The article reviews the book, "Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman," by Paul Avrich and Karen Avrich.