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Analyzes the housing boom, rising inequality, lowering of employment standards, the attack on organized labour and public sector contracts, and the expansion of temporary and/or precarious workers under the the provincial Liberal government of Gordon Campbell (in office, 2001-2011) in British Columbia. Concludes that unions are in a weakened state and that a broader solidarity movement is needed.

The article reviews the book, "Making a Living: Place, Food and Economy in an Inuit Community," by Nicole Gombay.

Interpretations of Aboriginal women's work have shifted over time, but they have been absolutely central to First Nations women's experiences of colonialism. Yet, in both women's history and Aboriginal history, there has been a "mystification" of Indigenous women's labor, because it was often defined as nonproductive or marginal within capitalist economies; wage work was particularly neglected (Littlefield and Knack 1999: 4). Yet, by studying women's labor in its multiple forms (paid, unpaid, voluntary, ceremonial, commodity production), and in multiple contexts (bush, urban, reserve or reservation), we can gain immense insight into how colonialism was structured, experienced, negotiated, and resisted by women at the level of daily life. By perusing past academic writing on Aboriginal women and work, this paper explores some of the intellectual, political, and social influences that have shaped understandings of Aboriginal women's labor in Canada and the United States, asking what insights we have gained, what questions we need to answer, and what contradictions we still face in our research. Arguably, we need a dialogue that crosses disciplines and theoretical approaches, with perspectives and traditions from Aboriginal history, feminist theory, and labor studies informing and challenging each other. There are transnational trends and shared perspectives in Aboriginal women's history that cross the 49th parallel; however, we also need to identify how and why national and regional histories and interpretations diverge. Still, one transnational commonality highlighted in this paper is the close connection between politics and research, between the present and the past: the questions posed by scholars have been stimulated and inspired by Aboriginal thought and organizing, and Aboriginal politics have benefited from scholarly research. Although research may still be difficult and contested terrain in Aboriginal–non-Aboriginal relations (Smith 1999; Biolsi and Zimmerman 1997), there is hope that scholarly dialogue might contribute productively to decolonization. --From Introduction

Pays homage to the union organizer and labor leader, Madeleine Parent.

Building on the tradition of emotional labour and aesthetic labour, this study of fitness workers introduces the concept of "ocularcentric labour" (the worker seeking the adoring gaze of the client as the primary reward). It is a state in which labour's quest for the psycho-social rewards gained from their own body image shapes the employment relationship (both the organization of work and the conditions of employment). We argue that for many fitness workers the goal is to gain access to the positional economy of the fitness centre to promote their celebrity. For this they are willing to trade-off standard conditions of employment, and exchange traditional employment rewards for the more intrinsic psycho-social rewards gained through the exposure of their physical capital to the adoration of their gazing clients. Significantly, with ocularcentric labour the worker becomes both the site of production and consumption.

Assesses labour's approach to electoral reform, making the case that shifting union support for voting system reform has reflected broader strategic considerations about how best to secure progressive public policy changes for unions and the working class in particular historical moments. --Editor's introduction

Explores the labour movement's contemporary engagement with strategic voting campaigns. [The author] argues that this approach has been a failure for labour, as both an instrumental tactic designed to block the election of right-wing parties and a practice which ultimately undermines labour's capacity to develop a political alternative to neo-liberalism. --Editor's introduction

Introduces the book's principal themes and comments on the essays contained therein.

Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews and analysis of relevant primary documents, this article explores the 1996 unionization of full-time academic faculty at Brock University, a public and primarily undergraduate university in southern Ontario, Canada. The case study examines both the impetus for unionization and the strategies employed by the faculty association in support of certification with a view to demonstrating how discourses of professionalism and collegiality can be challenged, subverted, and redeployed by academics intent on organizing, mobilizing, and ultimately winning support for unionization.

The article reviews the book, "One Hundred Years of Social Work: A History of the Profession in English Canada 1900-2000," by Therese Jennissen and Colleen Lundy.

This article provides an overview of current research on older workers with caregiving responsibilities from Canadian perspective. The first section presents relevant demographic and policy trends. The second section outlines impacts of these trends on caregiving employees, communities, employers, businesses and governments. The third section identifies potential policy responses and program solutions that support the needs of older workers with caregiving responsibilities. The article concludes with a recommended plan of action to move forward in addressing the emerging challenges associated with this issue.

The article reviews the book, "The Ashgate Companion to the History of Textile Workers, 1650-2000," edited by Lex Heerma Vam Voss, Els Hiemstra-Kuperus, and Elise Van Nedeveen Meerkert.

The article reviews the book, "The Argentine Folklore Movement: Sugar Elites, Criollo Workers, and the Politics of Cultural Nationalism, 1900-1955," by Oscar Chamosa.

The authors exploit immigrant identifiers in the Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the longitudinal dimension of these data to compare the labor force and job dynamics of immigrants and nativeborn workers. They examine the role of job, as opposed to worker, heterogeneity in driving immigrant wage disparities and investigate how the paths into and out of jobs of varying quality compare between immigrant and native-born workers. They find that the disparity in immigrant job quality, which does not appear to diminish with years since arrival, reflects a combination of relatively low transitions into high-wage jobs and high transitions out of these jobs. The former result appears to be due equally to difficulties obtaining high-wage jobs directly out of unemployment and to using low-wage jobs as stepping-stones. The authors find little or no evidence, however, that immigrant job seekers face barriers to low-wage jobs.

In [exploring] the labour movement's engagement with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, [the author] considers the labour movement's pursuit of legal strategies as a method of advancing its strategic interests. ...[The author] argues that labour's judicial-based strategies have produced mixed results for labour, and that ultimately, granting small protections to unions, courts have simultaneously reinforced legal constraints on workers' ability to to organize, associate and challenge the inqualities inherent in the employment relationship. --From editors' introduction

The article reviews the book, "Rose Henderson: A Woman for the People," by J. Peter Campbell.

The article reviews the book, "Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controllers and the Strike that Changed America," by Joseph A. McCartin.

Explores labour's participation in coalition-building on the issue of the environment. ...[The author] argues that social unionism, as a general union commitment, is not enough, gvien the real material conflicts to sort out between different ways of defining and acting on workers' interest. --Editor's introduction

The article reviews the book, "Human Resource Management in Context: Strategy, Insights and Solutions," 3rd edition, by David Farnham.

The article reviews the book, "Retail Nation: Department Stores and the Making of Modern Canada," by Donica Belisle.