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On 15 August 1983, 9,500 workers from the Montréal locals of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union went on strike for the first time in 43 years. The strike became known as “la grève de la fierté” and made clear that the women working in the city’s garment factories were taking a stand against the layoffs and closures prompted by industrial restructuring and deindustrialization. However, the strike’s success was limited, revealing the extent to which the structural inequities in the garment industry had calcified along gendered, classed, and ethnic lines. The union executive had grown increasingly distant from its rank-and-file, and it was immigrant women workers who were left to organize against the flurry of closures and the corresponding decline in their working conditions. The campaign leading up to the 1983 strike, organized by the Comité d’action des travailleurs du vêtement, articulated a series of demands for the improvement of workplace health and safety conditions, better benefits, and more representative union leadership. With original archival research and oral history interviews, I argue that the 1983 “grève de la fierté” illustrates how the historically entrenched gendered structure of labour relations shaped the pathways of deindustrialization in Montréal’s garment industry.

The article reviews the book, "The Workers' Opposition in the Russian Communist Party: Documents, 1919–30," edited by Barbara C. Allen.

In late December 2019, a new and emerging coronavirus came out of Wuhan, China. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, widely known as “COVID-19” (WHO, 2022), significantly impacted nearly every aspect of human life on Earth. This study, referred to throughout the thesis as a “project,” examined the intersection of collective bargaining agreements and COVID-19 in unionised environments in the public sector of Canada. --From Executive Summary

The Oshawa 1937 strike against General Motors was a major turning point in Canadian labour history. This thesis explores the factors that led to its success, including the historical background of working class struggle; the economic and political context of the times; prior organizing by Communists; the engagement of rank-and-file GM workers and the remarkable stewards’ body they established; and the support and leadership of the UAW International union. The influence of Communists meant that the strike incorporated many features of what might now be called rank-and-file unionism: industrial unionism, democratic engagement of rank-and-file workers, militancy on the shop floor, building solidarity within the workforce and in the community, international solidarity, and rejecting cooperation with corporations. The contending forces of workers, corporations, and rabidly anti-union governments that clashed in Oshawa in 1937 are largely the same ones we see in the battles going on in North America today. Thus, understanding the factors that led to the success of the Oshawa strikers can provide valuable lessons to those seeking to revive today’s labour movement.

The article reviews the book, "The South: Jim Crow and its Afterlives," by Adolph L. Reed, Jr., with a foreword by Barbara J. Fields.

Although mine closures are an inherent feature of extractive industry, they tend to receive less attention in the literature on deindustrialization than the closures of manufacturing and other heavy industries. Until recently, the settler-colonial context of hinterland mineral development and its impact on northern Indigenous lands and communities in Canada have also remained largely unexplored within this literature. Mineral development is historically associated with the introduction of a colonial-capitalist industrial modernity across Canada’s northern regions. Yet the boom-and-bust nature and ultimate ephemerality of mineral development has meant that resource-extractive regions have also been subject to intensive “cyclonic” periods of closure and deindustrialization. This article examines the experience of deindustrialization on the part of the Inuit community of Arctic Bay, who were largely “left behind” by the closure of Nanisivik, Canada’s first High Arctic mine. Through documentary sources and oral history interviews we illustrate how, for Arctic Bay Inuit who were engaged in the cyclonic economies of Nanisivik’s development and closure, there were myriad dimensions of social loss, displacement, and resentment associated with the failure of this industrial enterprise to deliver promised benefits to Inuit, beyond more commonly understood socioeconomic impacts such as job loss.

The article reviews the book, "1972. Répression et dépossession politique," by Olivier Ducharme.

The aim: to rejuvenate study and understanding of class relations in advanced capitalism. The book is an original synthesis of theorizing about class grounded in the production process, revealing a distinct tripartite class structure of owners, managers and non-managerial workers. Changes since the 1980s are traced and significant increases of non-managerial professional employees and middle managers are documented beyond any prior empirical research. Higher levels of oppositional and revolutionary class consciousness are conceptualized in terms of support for rights of capital and labour, and the extent of their expression in employed labour forces is estimated in terms only previously attempted briefly in the wake of 1960s protest movements. Connections between objective class positions and levels of class consciousness are analyzed in unprecedented depth; the solidary hegemonic consciousness of corporate capitalists, declining pro-capital oppositional consciousness among other employers and upper managers, and the pro-labour oppositional consciousness of pluralities of non-managerial workers (including professional employees) are all documented more fully than in prior studies. Strategic connections between class, class consciousness and issues of poverty and global warming are identified. Contending class forces’ engagement in actions toward an imminent system tipping point are uniquely traced. Main sources of evidence are all the national surveys in G7 and Nordic countries in the 1980s that provide relevant data, and the author’s unique Canadian national surveys in 2004, 2010 and 2016, supplemented by interviews with class leaders. A website encourages further class-based studies of advanced capitalism with similar measures to aid ecological sustainability and economic democracy. --Publisher's description (WorldCat record)

This article is about recent changes in the union strategy of Spanish platform workers. Using a socio-spatial approach to labour processes and disputes, we first describe the context of union organizing: how the business model of delivery platforms has evolved and how it is regulated in Spain. We then analyze the first initiatives to organize couriers in Spain. These initiatives can be classified under the heading of community unionism and have focused on specific spaces of union activism (state regulation and community support). Next, we explore how their newly won employee status has caused couriers to adopt more conventional forms of union organizing and focus on other spaces. Finally, we discuss the main challenges of reconciling union models with the working world of delivery platforms.

Employees living with disabilities often experience negative social attitudes about disability from employers and co-workers in their workplaces, as well as both overt and subtle forms of violence, discrimination, and harassment.... Our findings show that ableism often shows up in the context of employees needing accommodations to best do their job and is also present in the daily experiences of existing as a person living with a disability in a workplace. --From Introduction

Following the industrial crisis of the 1920s and the Great Depression in the 1930s, consecutive provincial governments in Nova Scotia turned their efforts toward state-led economic development. After the election of Robert Stanfield and the Tories in 1956, a wholesale industrial planning model was unveiled. Indeed, Stanfieldian economic policy in Nova Scotia was predicated upon the belief that direct state-led interventionism was necessary to offset regional inequity. State corporate entities, such as Industrial Estates Limited, and renewed interest in a state-driven industrial relations paradigm were central in the province’s efforts to revitalize its flagging economy and offset predicted decline in the Cape Breton coal and steel industries. This article examines the fate of the Clairtone Sound Corporation, one of Nova Scotia’s “new industries” that emerged out of these state-led development efforts. A case study of this Stellarton-based firm reveals how structural processes of deindustrialization produced crisis even within sectors that were completely distinct from the province’s cornerstone industries of coal and steel. This case includes a reflection on the class composition of the modernist state in Nova Scotia and represents a convergence of the historiographical focus on state-led industrial development in the Maritimes and recent literature found within deindustrialization studies.

Introduces the theme of deindustrialization in Canada including history, gender, regions, technology, and resistance Summarizes the various contributions to this special issue of the journal.

The article reviews the book, "The Opportunity Trap: High-Skilled Workers, Indian Families, and the Failures of the Dependent Visa Program," by Pallavi Banerjee.

An organization expects its employees to comply with job standardization to improve its production efficiency, while also expecting them to make suggestions to improve their job performance. Are the two goals compatible? Does job standardization turn employees into active speakers or stifled ones? This study is about how and why job standardization influences employee voice. I use conservation of resources (COR) theory to articulate competing hypotheses and a mediating process for the individual mechanism of employees’ role orientation in their job. In a three-wave panel survey, 232 employees completed questionnaires. The results are consistent with the resource conservation argument of COR theory: job standardization is resource-depleting and tends to narrow the role orientation of employees, who thus focus on resource conservation to fulfill job requirements and are in turn less likely to consume resources and voice suggestions. This study provides a specific, job-related way for managers to keep employee voice from being stifled or ignored. Job standardization should consider the relative importance of employee voice and be classified as discipline-related or job-content-related.

Le développement du travail de plateforme a vu naître, dans différents contextes nationaux, des mobilisations pour défendre les intérêts et faire reconnaître les spécificités de travailleur·es situé·es aux marges des relations industrielles. L’objectif de cet article est d’examiner, suivant une perspective comparative et intersectionnelle, l’accompagnement syndical des mobilisations de chauffeurs VTC et de livreurs de repas en France. À partir d’une enquête qualitative sur des collectifs suivis par la CFDT et la CGT, il met en évidence les défis et les obstacles communs auxquels ces organisations sont aujourd’hui confrontées pour soutenir l’action collective de travailleur·es précaires et racisé·es.

La croissance du travail sur plateforme numérique a perturbé et réorganisé la réglementation sur l’emploi. La littérature a abordé ce sujet sous différents angles, mais souvent de manière fragmentée et sans expliquer clairement pourquoi et comment les conflits sur le plan réglementaire à propos du travail sur plateforme numérique surviennent. En utilisant le cadre de Beckert (2010) pour étudier la manière dont les domaines changent, l’auteur a effectué une revue critique de la littérature sur : 1) les rôles des institutions, des réseaux et des cadres dans la réglementation du travail sur plateforme numérique; 2) le pouvoir de réglementation que ces structures confèrent aux acteurs et aux organisations; et 3) les interrelations possibles entre ces structures. Les résultats démontrent l’existence d’une littérature abondante sur la portée de la réglementation institutionnelle et le pouvoir réglementaire des réseaux, mais beaucoup moins sur le rôle plus large de l’État dans ce domaine et les cadres qui guident les préférences des acteurs en matière de réglementation. Les axes de la recherche à réaliser dans le futur sont abordés.

The expansion of platform work has disrupted and reordered employment regulation. The literature has contributed to this subject from different angles, although often in a fragmented way and without clearly explaining why and how regulatory conflict arises over platform work. Using Beckert's (2010) framework for study of how fields change, the author conducted a critical literature review on: 1) the roles of institutions, networks and frames in regulating platform work; 2) the regulatory power these structures provide to actors and organizations; and 3) the possible interrelationships between these structures. The results show the existence of a substantial literature on the scope of institutional regulation and the regulatory power of networks, but much less on the broader role of the state in this field, and the framing processes that guide the actors’ preferences for regulation. Future lines of research are discussed.

This thematic chapter connects the ever-present “social question” (struggles on remuneration and hours of work, exploitation of wage workers) with the “socio-ecological question”. The “waged jobs vs the environment” trade‐off is a point of tension in the relationship between trade‐unions and green movements. Trade unions need an assurance regarding the jobs that would be lost in a transition away from fossil fuels. However, this chapter questions the myth that working-class people do not care about the environment and health, showing examples in Morocco, Zambia, Italy, Peru, Canada, Colombia, South Africa, Kazakhstan, and Argelia. In mining conflicts, in factories and in plantations, trade unions fought for a long time for the rights of exploited workers in struggles linking grievances on low wages and bad conditions of work with health issues. Much before there was a discussion on Just Transitions, there was a working-class environmentalism on issues of health and safety at work, such as asbestosis.

Despite persistent depictions to the contrary, coercion pervades the modern work experience and, in many significant respects, is underwritten by the power of the state. This article outlines some of the ways in which long-standing interventions by Canadian (and British) states continue to affect workplace relations today. To appreciate the scope of this effect, it is necessary to trespass across a number of disciplinary boundaries to include topics such as immigration, deportation, political policing, the legal foundations of employment law, the continuing influence of the British Poor Laws, and the role of prisons and prison labour in helping to regulate work standards. States acted to support proletarianization in a comprehensive way, but their tendency to favour large-scale, "labour-saving" building projects has often undermined the actual effectiveness of their efforts at social control. These patterns still haunt prison policy, as I will show toward the end of the article in discussing the Toronto South Detention Centre.

Nova Scotians understand economic hardships at both the personal and community levels. This is especially true for the residents of Pictou County. With the eclipse of coal, steel, and heavy manufacturing, successive governments looked to tourism to augment an eroding economic base and to commemorate the working lives of Nova Scotians. This article offers an analysis of the initial decision to construct and maintain the Museum of Industry in a region of the province subjected to sequential phases of deindustrialization. The venture, officially opened to regular attendance in 1995, is the largest facility in the province’s impressive system of 28 regional museums. The creation of the museum, however, was fraught with uncertainty and narrowly avoided financial collapse and plans to disperse the collection of artifacts. The project was subsequently left straddling an uneasy divide between celebrating industrial heritage and tempering controversies of economic and environmental development. Despite Nova Scotia’s proud heritage of worker resistance and union activism, visitors may exit the museum with the ambiguous message that while working lives are often harsh and riven with uncertainty, optimism for the future must prevail. The implication is that the appropriate response is selective anodyne forms of nostalgia, even resignation, but not resentment of the human and environmental costs of deindustrialization.