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New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna calls them "high quality, highly skilled, high paying, pollution-free jobs." ("Premier Challenged on Job Creation" 1). McKenna was describing the thousands of jobs that have lately been created in New Brunswick by enterprises in the hightech communications, information, and business-service sector setting up shop in the province. McKenna and his government have been particularly successful in persuading national and international companies to set up customer-service centres using toll-free phone numbers. Most of those working in such centres are women. Since 1992, over 4,000 jobs have been created in New Brunswick by more than 30 companies establishing call-centre operations in the province.(1) The largest of them, in terms of job creation, is United Parcel Service (UPS), which has more than 1,000 people working in its customer-service and administrative centres. The smallest, a travel agency's call centre, has created five jobs. Most have located in Moncton, Saint John, or Fredericton, although smaller communities such as Bathurst, Campbellton, and St. Stephen are now also host to call centres. Certainly, there are great differences between the New Brunswick call centres and the Mexican maquiladoras and like industries. Tariffs and duties are not a factor in the communications technology sector in New Brunswick. The maquiladoras are based on light manufacturing, the call centres on communications technology. Such light industries typically require an extreme manual dexterity from workers, while call centres need only competent keyboarders.

The following account should be of interest to students of Communism in Canada, the USA, and other countries where similar historiographical trends prevail. Because of the importance of providing a detailed, properly furnished critique, it is restricted to examination of the first ten years of British Communism. It is divided into four sections. The first provides an overview of existing literature. This is followed by critical examination of the new revisionism's estimation of the literature and a critique of its model of the relationship between the Comintern and the CPGB [Communist Party of Great Britain]. A third section discusses that relationship between 1920 and 1930. A brief conclusion provides an overall assessment. --From authors' introduction

Nous avons analysé le rapport annuel produit en 1999 par l’Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail du Québec et nous avons constaté que, dans les professions et secteurs concernés par les études financées, le pourcentage moyen de femmes est de 15 % (comparé à 45 % de femmes parmi la population au travail). Douze populations étudiées sont équilibrées ou composées en majorité de femmes, et 76 sont composées d’hommes à plus de deux tiers. Le montant moyen accordé aux études sur une population équilibrée ou majoritairement composée de femmes était de 86 339 $ comparativement à 114 480 $ pour les autres. Nous considérons plusieurs hypothèses d’explication de ces différences. Nous concluons que, peu importe la cause, un effort soutenu de recherche ciblée vers les emplois des femmes est essentiel, en plus d’une analyse différenciée en santé au travail.

The article reviews the book, "Nos temps modernes," by Daniel Cohen.

The article reviews the book, "Unafrican Americans: Nineteenth century black nationalists and the civilizing mission," by Tunde Adeleke.

The article reviews the book, "Coercion. Contract, and Free Labor in the Nineteenth Century," by Robert J. Steinfeld.

The article reviews the book, "A Fishery for Modern Times: The State and the Industrialization of the Newfoundland Fishery, 1934-1968," by Miriam Wright.

The article reviews the book, "Demography, state and society: Irish migration to Britain, 1921-1971," by Enda Delaney.

The article reviews the book, "Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation," by Nancy F. Cott.

Modern Irish labour history dates from the mid 1970s, years that saw the foundation of the Irish Labour History Society in 1973 and the launch of its annual journal, Saothar in 1975. While steady progress has since been made, the subject suffers from a popular perception of labour as marginal, a reluctance within the trade union movement to recover its often fractious past, and academic neglect. Ireland was not deeply affected by the “crisis” in labour history in the 1990s. It is likely that the flow of publications will continue. But without full-time practitioners, progress in method and theory will be patchy.

Unions may be viewed as a central institution of capitalist democracies. This paper updates aspects of Porter's work on labour and the labour elite in Canada (1965: Ch. 10-11). Conventional measures indicate that the power of the labour movement in Canada increased after Porter studied it around 1960 but that it has subsequently declined. Support from ideological and state elites seems to have followed a similar rise and decline pattern. Foreign influence has been considerably reduced. The movement remains highly decentralized. In contrast to the situation in 1960, unions are now notably female, white collar and public sector. A partial study of the social characteristics of the labour elite indicates that its ethnic origins have become less British and more French Canadian. The "other ethnic" proportion of the elite has been stable. Virtually no visible minority representation was detected. Given changes in the ethno-racial composition of the population, it would appear that under-representation of the non Charter Group categories has increased significantly over the past four decades. Conversely, female representation in the elite has grown substantially. /// Les syndicats peuvent être considérés comme une institution centrale des démocraties capitalistes. Cet article remet à jour certains aspects des travaux de Porter sur l'élite ouvrière au Canada (1965: chapitres 10-11). Les mesures conventionnelles indiquent que le pouvoir du mouvement ouvrier au Canada s'est accru après les études de Porter aux environs de 1960, mais qu'il a connu un déclin par la suite. Le soutien des élites idéologiques et d'état semble avoir suivi un schéma d'essor et de déclin identique. L'influence de l'étranger s'est considérablement réduite. Le mouvement demeure largement decentralize. En contraste avec la situation de 1960, les syndicats comprennent maintenant une majorité de femmes, de cols blancs et d'employés du secteur public. Une étude partielle des caractéristiques sociales de l'élite ouvrière indique que ses origines ethniques sont devenues moins britanniques et davantage canadiennes-françaises. La proportion d'autres ethnics au sein de l'élite est restée stable. Pratiquernent aucune représentation d'une minorité visible n'a été détectée. Étant donné les changements dans la composition ethno-raciale de la population, il semblerait que la sous-représentation des catégories autres que celles du Groupe de la Charte (c'est-à-dire britannique et français) s'est singulièrement accrue au cours des quatre dernières décennies. Inversement la représentation des femmes au sein de l'élite a augmenté de manière significative.

The article reviews the book, "Democratic equality: What went wrong?," edited by Ed Broadbent.

The introduction discusses the 50th anniversary volume of Labour/Le Travail and explains the journal's ongoing efforts to cover the labour studies field.

This paper commences with a suggestion that “the British Marxists” may well be a more diverse group than has generally been recognized. It concerns itself with the formation of the first British New Left in the1950s. The content of the E.P. Thompson and John Saville edited journal, The New Reasoner is examined, with attention paid to the publication’s internationalism, its use of critical social science, the accent placed on culture, and the stress on organization. To the extent that The New Reasoner failed in its in tended aim of building and sustaining a New Left, the paper closes with some suggestions about the implications of this failure, especially as it related to E.P. Thompson’s historiographical contributions, in which the influence of The Making of the English Working Class (London 1963) loomed large.

The article reviews the book, "The Marshall Decision and Native Rights," by Ken Coates.

Australian labour history remains a vigorous area of intellectual activity. Labour History, the journal of the Australian society, is celebrating its 40th anniversary and publishes a considerable number of articles. Other important sources of Australian labour history such as books, national conference proceedings, and branch publications highlight the links between academic labour historians and the broader community. One important contribution of Labour/Le Travail to Australian labour historiography was the Australian/Canadian comparative labour history project, which gave Australians the confidence to organise national conferences and develop the comparative dimension of labour history.

Each action of a decollectivizing employer - be it in the realm of employment practices, information or relational actions - has both real and symbolic dimensions that may be inclusivist, exclusivist or both. While many attempts at decollectivism are crude, Australia has seen the emergence of a coherent model of sophisticated decollectivist behaviour which has policy implications for many countries. Some analogies can be seen between certain sophisticated strategies of decollectivizing employers and state strategies of Oceania in Orwell's 1984, though there are many limits to such analogies and indeed to the success of decollectivist strategies, due to the contradiction between rhetoric and actions, employees' exposure to other discourses and the potential for union response and renewal.