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Union members (n = 187) completed surveys assessing five affective measures (organizational commitment, job satisfaction, work climate satisfaction, management satisfaction, and union commitment) following a five-month long strike. Paired t-tests (using retrospective questions where participants assessed pre and post-strike affect on a single survey) found that the strike had a negative impact on worker reactions to both their management group and their union across all five measures. The significance of this study is that the negative effects of strikes can, and do, carry over into the workplace in terms of worker affect towards their union and employer. From a theoretical perspective, these findings are consistent with the IR systems' concept of a feedback loop and suggest that future strike research and theories should be expanded to examine issues related to worker reaction.

Cette étude analyse le taux de pénétration des nouvelles formes d’organisation du travail (NFOT) ainsi que leurs déterminants. Pour ce faire, les perspectives contingente et institutionnelle ont été mises à profit afin de caractériser les facteurs explicatifs des NFOT dans 252 entreprises québécoises. Les résultats de cette étude sont concluants : la perspective contingente explique mieux la présence des NFOT lorsque le taux de pénétration de ces pratiques est élevé, alors que la perspective institutionnelle s’avère dominante lorsque ce taux est faible. Concrètement, les résultats suggèrent que la stratégie d’affaires, la gestion participative, le type de culture et la qualité totale, caractérisant la perspective contingente, sont les facteurs déterminants d’une pénétration élevée des NFOT, alors que le secteur d’activités, la concurrence à l’international et la structure de gouvernance, caractérisant la perspective institutionnelle, expliquent mieux la présence des NFOT lorsque celles-ci sont implantées superficiellement., This study deals with new forms of work organization (NFWO). Whereas, in the past, this subject has been approached by many authors from the perspective of the impact of innovative practices on business performance (Arthur, 1994; Handel and Gittleman, 2004; Handel and Levine, 2004), this study rather sets out to study the diffusion and the determinants linked to work organization. Consequently, we can ask the following question: what differentiates firms having implemented new forms of work organization (NFWO)? To answer this question, two perspectives will be used: the institutional perspective and the contingent perspective. On the one hand, according to the institutional perspective, businesses could be tempted to imitate competitors and/or to follow the enthusiasm which increasingly, many industries show for NFWO (Dirsmith, Fogarty and Gupta, 2000). They might equally be compelled to adopt NFWO due to surrounding coercive forces. According to this approach, the choice would thus be rather the result of sectoral imitation (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) limited or encouraged by the different groups of actors in the business. On the other hand, according to the contingency theory, businesses should be bound to their internal structure as well as to their policies and human resource management practices on their business strategies and their internal strategies. The choice to adopt or to implement NFOW would stem, from this perspective, from a rational and strategic choice (Dunphy and Bryant, 1996). Thus, businesses opting for participative management and having initiated a quality management approach would be more inclined to adopt new forms of work organization oriented towards autonomy and, conversely, those having adopted autocratic management and mass production without concern for quality would be less attracted by these practices (Dean and Bowen, 1994; Handel and Levine, 2004). The results of this study show that 27% of establishments surveyed chose to implement NFOW substantially, which is comparable to the results obtained by Osterman (1994a, 2000). Also, although we did not test for the presence of complete practice systems, it appears that few businesses chose to thoroughly implement several practices linked to work organization. To this end, we observe that autonomous work teams are less implemented than are the other selected practices. Our results suggest that the contingent perspective and mainly internal strategies better account for the presence of NFOW than does the institutional perspective. Concretely, we found that the presence of a leadership strategy by costs, of participative management, of a quality management approach, and a market culture based on performance are all linked to the presence of NFOW when the degree of penetration for these practices is considered. However, on the institutional perspective side, the sector to which the business belongs, the competitive pressure to which businesses are exposed, the governing mechanism and their level of growth are linked to the presence of NFOW only when these are superficially implemented. In conclusion, certain businesses implement NFOW in a way so as to be coherent with their strategies and values, while others seem rather to follow the style of the day, without achieving true change as concerns their work organization method., Este estudio analiza la tasa de penetración de las nuevas formas de organización del trabajo (NFOT) así que sus determinantes. Para ello hemos utilizado las perspectivas contingente e institucional para caracterizar los factores explicativos de las NFOT en 252 empresas quebequenses. Los resultados de este estudio son concluyentes: la perspectiva contingente explica mejor la presencia de NFOT cuando la tasa de penetración de dichas prácticas es elevada, mientras que la perspectiva institucional se revela dominante cuando esa tasa es baja. Concretamente, los resultados sugieren que la estrategia empresarial, la gestión participativa, el tipo de cultura y la calidad total, que caracterizan la perspectiva contingente, son los factores determinantes de una penetración elevada de NFOT, mientras que el sector de actividad, la concurrencia en el campo internacional y la estructura de gobernanza, que caracterizan la perspectiva institucional, explican mejor la presencia de NFOT cuando estas son implantas superficialmente.

The Realities of Work: Experiencing Work and Employment in Contemporary Society, third edition, by Mike Noon and Paul Blyton, is reviewed.

Changing Contours of Work: Jobs and Opportunities in the New Economy, by Stephen Sweet and Peter Meiksins, is reviewed.

Assesses workforce changes in Sudbury, Ontario, notably in the public sector, and the role of unions in confronting the Progressive Conservative provincial government of Mike Harris in the 1990s.

Using Canadian national data from the Workplace and Employee Survey (WES), this study aims to identify predictors of participation in voluntary vocational training for female and male managers, respectively. Results show a higher rate of participation for female managers and a differential effect of predictors by gender. For men, schooling is the sole human capital variable significantly linked to the probability of participating in voluntary vocational training. For women, the probability of participating in voluntary vocational training varies by age, organizational tenure and schooling. Results also indicate that both participation in mandatory training and family responsibilities are significantly and negatively linked to participation in voluntary training for female managers but not for male managers.

The article reviews the book, "La contractualisation de la relation de travail," by Christian Bessy.

The 1880s were turbulent years in the Dominion. Under the auspices of the National Policy, Canada was in the midst of a social and political ‘transformation.’ The social and cultural aspects of this transformation became a source of public debate as the ‘Labour Question’ and the relations between labour and capital reached a high mark of political and economic significance. Waves of strikes and the emergence of large international labour organizations challenged many liberal Victorian ideas about a strictly limited state. Many looked upon the federal government as responsible not only for economic growth, but also for protection from the more pressing problems of industrial life. The Royal Commission on the Relations of Capital and Labour is a testament to not only the turbulent economic relations in late-Victorian Canada, but the emergence of the Canadian state’s active role in social relations. Its very title envisioned a dual role for the Canadian state: to “promote the material, social, intellectual and moral prosperity” of labouring men and women, and to improve and develop “the productive industries of the Dominion so as to advance and improve the trade and commerce of Canada.” However, this thesis argues that the Labour Commission was more subtly designed to enhance the prestige of the Canadian state and install Ottawa as an authority on, and mediator of, industrial relations in Canada. Attention to the formation, activities, and impact of the Labour Commission suggests that, rather than an exercise in addressing a mounting social polarization between “labour” and “capital,” the Commission lends insight into the emergence of a Canadian middle class. It was a carefully-constructed exercise in the assertion of middle-class cultural hegemony whereby such values and understandings as respectability, morality, manliness, worth and expertise were naturalized. In the process, the tension between labour and capital was diminished and in its place were developed visions of social reciprocity and mutual interest. It is in this way that the Labour Commission was an exercise in ‘commissioning consent:’ it placed oppositional voices and wrenching exposés about industrial life in a framework that worked to quell rather than stimulate far-reaching critiques of the established order. The Commission’s formation, methodology and language functioned like an industrial exhibition rather than a pointed social investigation. The evidence presents a thriving economy that had grown exponentially under a wise and paternal government. It also presented a vision of the Dominion whereby the disturbances that occurred between labour and capital could be handled within a conventional language of liberal politics. In addition, social and intellectual elites were fully ensconced in the formation and legitimization of these social and moral understandings. Because it was up to the state to select who would speak for labour and capital, the Commission’s message was not one of class polarization. Thus, exploring who became ‘labour’ and who ‘capital,’ and what sorts of things they said to each other, sheds light on to the emergent strategies of the Canadian state as it sought to understand and influence civil society. The Commission is an indication, even anticipation, of a more activist and energetic state.

The article reviews the book, :Les intermittents du spectacle. Sociologie d’une exception," by Pierre-Michel Menger.

Like Wayson Choy and David Bezmozgis before him, Anthony De Sa captures, in stories brimming with life, the innocent dreams and bitter disappointments of the immigrant experience. At the heart of this collection of intimately linked stories is the relationship between a father and his son. A young fisherman washes up nearly dead on the shores of Newfoundland. It is Manuel Rebelo who has tried to escape the suffocating smallness of his Portuguese village and the crushing weight of his mother’s expectations to build a future for himself in a terra nova. Manuel struggles to shed the traditions of a village frozen in time and to silence the brutal voice of Maria Theresa da Conceicao Rebelo, but embracing the promise of his adopted land is not as simple as he had hoped. Manuel’s son, Antonio, is born into Toronto’s little Portugal, a world of colourful houses and labyrinthine back alleys. In the Rebelo home the Church looms large, men and women inhabit sharply divided space, pigs are slaughtered in the garage, and a family lives in the shadow cast by a father’s failures. Most days Antonio and his friends take to their bikes, pushing the boundaries of their neighbourhood street by street, but when they finally break through to the city beyond they confront dangers of a new sort. With fantastic detail, larger-than-life characters and passionate empathy, Anthony De Sa invites readers into the lives of the Rebelos and finds there both the promise and the disappointment inherent in the choices made by the father and the expectations placed on the son. --Publisher's description

Precarious employment refers to forms of work characterized by limited job security, few employment benefits, lack of control over the labour process and low-wages. Restaurant work demonstrates a range of precarious forms of employment and reveals the complexity of issues that such jobs raise in the context of the regulation of the local labour market. This thesis analyses the nature of precarious employment in the restaurant industry in Kingston, Ontario. In particular, it seeks to understand how precarious employment is shaped by the structure and dynamics of the local labour market. The research highlights the role played by labour mobility, in shaping workers’ experiences of precarious work. Labour mobility refers to the movement of workers between different jobs and between different worksites within a structured local labour market as they seek to better their economic situation and generate a sustainable income for themselves. Through a discussion of labour mobility, this thesis seeks to contribute to a new lens through which the impacts of a precarious and flexible labour market can be better understood as they shape the lives of workers themselves. The objective of this study is to better understand the factors which shape the lived realities of precarious restaurant workers in one specific local labour market. The empirical analysis draws on data collected by Statistics Canada and interviews conducted with both employers and employees in local restaurants to analyze the structure of the local labour market and the nature of precarious employment. The research demonstrates that the restaurant industry in Kingston is comprised of three distinct submarkets, each of which appears to operate largely independently of one another. Interviews were conducted with employees and employers in the submarket located in downtown Kingston. Within this submarket the combined processes of labour market segmentation and labour mobility has a significant impact on workers experiences of precarious employment. By understanding the complex interaction of these two features within the labour market, we can begin to conceive of ways to address the issues associated with the precariously employed in the low-wage service industry.

1 Le 11 septembre 2007, Rodrigue Blouin, professeur au Département des relations industrielles de l’Université Laval, décédait subitement. Sa famille perdait un mari et un père aimés, la revue RI/IR, un collaborateur constant et indéfectible, le Département des relations industrielles perdait un collègue inestimable, les étudiantes et étudiants, un enseignant passionné, le monde du travail perdait un collaborateur de haut niveau apprécié par tous et toutes et beaucoup perdaient un ami irremplaçable. Les témoignages reçus de partout au Québec, du Canada et de l’Europe révèlent l’attachement que collègues et amis témoignaient à Rodrigue et mettent en lumière son influence importante comme référent dans le monde du travail. // On Sep 11, 2007, Rodrigue Blouin, Professor in the Department of Industrial Relations of Universite Laval, died suddenly. The tributes received from all corners of Quebec, Canada and Europe are an eloquent testimonial to the attachment to Rodrigue felt by his colleagues and friends and to his important influence as a model in the world of labor relations. He was impassioned by the subjects that he taught, highly organized, disciplined and always available to his students. After being accustomed to seeing a colleague like Rodrigue every day, everyone is left with a deep sense of emptiness because his presence touched them in many ways and at many levels.

Every year in Canada and the U.S., the share of higher education faculty who teach off the tenure track grows. One might expect that faculty unionization would limit this process, but the data examined here indicate that this is not so. While Canadian universities are significantly more unionized than their U.S. counterparts, they rely at least as heavily on contingent faculty. Similarly, U.S. states with high levels of unionization do not exhibit lower levels of casualization. Union strategies that institutionalize divisions between tenure-track and non-tenure-track, and/or between part-time and full-time faculty, probably play a role in this outcome. They can and should also play a pivotal role in reversing these trends if they develop the political will to do so.

L’objectif de cet article est d’évaluer, sur la base de la théorie de l’échange social, dans quelle mesure le soutien et la confiance envers le supérieur et l’organisation permettent d’expliquer l’influence de chacune des dimensions associées au leadership transformationnel, transactionnel et laisser-faire sur l’engagement affectif des employés. De nombreuses études montrent que ces différentes formes de leadership ont un impact important sur plusieurs attitudes et comportements des employés, mais encore très peu de chercheurs se sont intéressés aux processus par lesquels les leaders produisent de tels effets. À cet effet, nos résultats font ressortir que la confiance et le soutien constituent des mécanismes cruciaux pour expliquer l’effet du leadership sur l’engagement organisationnel des employés., Over the last few years, the transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership theory has attracted the attention of many researchers (Judge and Piccolo, 2004; Lowe and Gardner, 2000, Yammarino et al., 2005). Furthermore, numerous studies (Bycio, Hackett and Allen, 1995; Dumdum, Lowe and Avolio, 2002; Rafferty and Griffin, 2004; Yammarino, Spangler and Dubinsky, 1998) have shown that these three forms of leadership have a significant impact on several employee attitudes and behaviours, including affective organizational commitment, which is characterized by an individual’s emotional attachment to his company (Meyer and Allen, 1997). Nevertheless, there are still very few researchers taking an interest in the processes through which leaders can produce such effects (Bass and Riggio, 2006; Bono and Judge, 2003; Yukl, 2006). Only a few authors have tackled this problem, particularly by identifying empowerment (Avolio et al., 2004) and fairness (Pillai, Schriesheim and Williams, 1999) as mechanisms explaining the relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ affective commitment. We intend to build on these recent results in improving the understanding of this dynamic. Based on the social exchange theory (Blau, 1964), this research is aimed at exploring how supervisors can strengthen their employees’ affective commitment. More specifically, we will assess the extent to which support and trust can account for the influence of each of the dimensions associated with transformational, transactional and laissez-faire leadership has on commitment. These dimensions are: charisma, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, contingent reward, active management by exception, and passive avoidance. One of the primary contributions of this article resides in the fact that currently, there are still very few empirical research projects that have focussed on the effects of these dimensions on other variables, and that such research has only concentrated on the influence of global forms of leadership, and almost exclusively on the transformational form. However, recent works have indeed highlighted the importance of using specific dimensions rather than these three major forms of leadership since the later provide an imperfect and oversimplified image of all the leaders’ behaviours and potential (Antonakis, Avolio and Sivasubramaniam, 2003). In addition to filling a gap at this level, the second significant contribution of this project lies in the fact that, to our knowledge, no study has as yet validated the role of support as an intermediate mechanism lying between leadership and affective commitment. In concrete terms, we are first proposing that the charisma, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration and contingent reward dimensions are positively related to employees’ perceived supervisor support and trust in their supervisor, whereas the active management by exception and passive avoidance dimensions are negatively related to those same two variables. Secondly, we are proposing that employees’ perceived organizational support and trust in their organization act as mediating variables between perceived supervisor support and trust in their supervisor and affective commitment, respectively. This research, which was conducted in the spring of 2004 among all the employees (excluding physicians) of a Quebec hospital center, allowed the collection of 568 questionnaires, representing a 46% response rate; 80% of the subjects in the sample were women, whose average age was 43, and who had been working in the organization for 12 years, on average. To test our hypotheses, confirmatory factorial analyses and structural equations were conducted, while controlling for gender and employment status (full time vs. part time). The results of the study indicate that only the charisma dimension seems to lead employees to trust their supervisor. This observation is particularly interesting for researchers with an interest in interpersonal trust since other studies have arrived at similar conclusions (Gillespie and Mann, 2004). However, our results indicate that charisma and contingent reward are positively related to perceived supervisor support whereas active management by exception is negatively associated to it. This observation is particularly important in that it provides responses to the theoretical arguments which were paving the way for such a possibility (Yammarino and Bass, 1990; Jung and Avolio, 2000). Lastly, this research shows that the constructs of perceived supervisor support and perceived organizational support constitute an important explanatory mechanism in the relationship between leadership and affective commitment. Trust in the organization also contributes to explaining the dynamic existing between leadership and commitment; however, it is not significantly influenced by trust in the supervisor. Our results open up several avenues of further research. Although our analyses have identified support and trust as intermediate mechanisms between leadership and commitment, other mediators could still account for this relationship. In addition to exploring this avenue, future research could simultaneously analyze the intermediate variables that have been identified to date in the literature (e.g., support, trust, fairness, empowerment) with respect to commitment, but also to other consequences which are often related to transformational and transactional leadership (e.g., satisfaction, mobilization, performance), in order to better understand their relative importance. Finally, this study has certain limitations, including the difficulty in generalizing results (sample composed of a single organization), the possible inflation of the strength of certain relationships (common variance bias) and the impossibility of inferring the causality of the observed relationships (cross-sectional design)., El objetivo de este artículo es de evaluar, sobre la base de la teoría del intercambio social, en qué medida el apoyo y la confianza hacia el superior y la organización permiten de explicar la influencia sobre el compromiso afectivo de los empleados de cada una de las dimensiones asociadas al liderazgo transformacional, transaccional y de “laisser-faire”. Numerosos estudios muestran que estas diferentes formas de liderazgo tienen un impacto importante sobre varias actitudes y comportamientos de los empleados, pero son pocos los investigadores que se interesan a los procesos por los cuales los líderes producen tales efectos. A este propósito, nuestros resultados resaltan que la confianza y el apoyo constituyen mecanismos cruciales para explicar el efecto del liderazgo sobre el compromiso organizacional de los empleados.

The article reviews the book, "Innovations sociales dans le travail et l’emploi : recherches empiriques et perspectives théoriques," edited by Paul-André Lapointe and Guy Bellemare.

Rethinking Work: Time, Space and Discourse, edited by Mark Hearn and Grant Michelson, is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "Shakespeare in the Worlds of Communism and Socialism," edited by Irena R. Makaryk and Joseph G. Price.

The article reviews the book, "Daring to Care: American Nursing and Second-Wave Feminism," by Susan Gelfand Malka.

The article reviews the book, "The Manly Modern: Masculinity in Postwar Canada," by Christopher Dummitt.

A new study of farm work in BC reveals systematic violations of employment standards and health and safety regulations, poor and often dangerous working conditions, and dismal enforcement by government agencies. The study’s authors propose comprehensive policy changes that would ensure farmworkers — most of whom are immigrants and temporary migrants — are no longer relegated to second-class status. “Farmworkers are at the mercy of a complex and confusing system that exploits, threatens and silences them while putting their lives in danger,” says study co-author Arlene McLaren, Professor Emerita of Sociology at Simon Fraser University. The study draws from numerous sources, including interviews with key informants in government and the farm industry, interviews with 53 Indo-Canadian immigrant and Mexican migrant farmworkers, a survey 87 Mexican migrant farmworkers, and a review of better practices in other jurisdictions. The study is part of the Economic Security Project, a joint initiative of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Simon Fraser University. --Publisher's description