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The article reviews the book, "Fighting over Fidel: The New York Intellectuals and the Cuban Revolution," by Rafael Rojas.

Contrary to conceptions of the rural workforce as inherently conservative, tobacco workers and small farmers in Depression-era Ontario frequently organized to protest their socioeconomic conditions and to demand a fairer deal from employers and tobacco companies. Led by Hungarian immigrants, but with significant involvement from other groups, working people in the Tobacco Belt built an "infrastructure of dissent," a constellation of formal organizations and informal networks that allowed for the development of radical ideas and provided a platform from which to launch oppositional efforts, both coordinated and spontaneous. Two key moments of 1930s protest are focused on in this article. In 1937, a dramatic growers' movement saw over 1,000 small farmers, with the support of workers, band together to demand higher prices from the tobacco companies for their crops. In 1939, the local forces of working-class opposition were joined by a massive influx of job-seeking "transients," who brought with them the politics of the Depression-era unemployed, establishing the conditions for what would become the greatest moment of tobacco worker resistance in the decade. In both campaigns, efforts were made to unite workers and small growers, but the evidence suggests that growers benefitted more from these collaborations than did workers.

This article reviews the book, "A Vanished Ideology: Essays on the Jewish Communist Movement in the English-Speaking World in the Twentieth Century," edited by Matthew B. Hoffman and Henry F. Srebrnik.

The article reviews the book, "Radical Theatrics: Put-ons, Politics and the Sixties," by Craig J. Peariso.

This article reviews the book, "Civic Labors: Scholar Activism and Working-Class Studies," edited by Dennis Deslippe, Eric Fure-Slocum, and John W. McKerley.

In the employment context in Ontario, jurisdiction over human rights claims is now shared between the Human Rights Tribunal, the courts, and labour arbitra- tors. This paper compares human rights damages awarded by statutory tribunals, civil courts, and labour arbitrators in Ontario with a view to identifying trends and to understanding whether remedial outcomes are likely to vary depending on the litigant's choice of forum. After reviewing the statutory basis for the awarding of human rights damages, and the criteria which adjudicators have developed in quantifying the appropriate amount of compensation, the author turns to a detailed analysis of cases in which such damages were ordered by statutory tribunals, arbi- trators, and judges. The author finds that while decision-makers apply largely the same remedial principles in assessing damages, historically, the amount of monet- ary awards have varied considerably across fora. The author suggests, however, that the Ontario Court of Appeal's recent decision in Strudwick, explicitly adopt- ing the remedial principles articulated by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and making a substantial award of damages, may promote greater consistency and predictability in the assessment of human rights damages.

The article reviews the book, "The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild," by Miranda J. Banks.

Background: How the media frames and presents a subject influences how society sees and responds to that issue. Analysis: This study uses frame analysis to examine how Canadian English language newspapers portrayed workplace injuries between 2009 and 2014. Three frames emerge: Under Investigation, Human Tragedy, and Before the Courts. There is also a meta-frame casting injuries and fatalities as isolated events happening to “others” with no cause, thus the public ought not be concerned about workplace safety. Conclusion and implications: The article concludes that media frames obscure issues of cause and fault, thereby denying workers a full understanding of why injuries happen in the workplace. These frames serve the interests of employers by obfuscating the employer’s role in creating workplace injury and death.

In 2007, the Alberta government and the Alberta construction industry developed a ten-year strategy to increase the participation of women, youth, Indigenous peoples, and immigrants in construction occupations. At the same time, construction employers began turning to temporary foreign workers (tfws) as an alternative labour supply, and the number of tfws working in Alberta construction jumped dramatically. This article examines the labour market effects of the influx of tfws on employment rates of other marginalized groups in construction occupations. Alberta is a valuable case study because it employed greater numbers of tfws in construction between 2003 and 2013 than any other province. Drawing upon labour market segmentation theory, this study finds that the proportion of traditionally underrepresented workers in construction occupations was essentially unchanged over the study period. These groups of workers experienced higher-than-average employment volitility and remain a secondary source of labour supply. This study also finds that tfws have become a new, hyperflexible source of secondary labour. The article discusses possible explanations for the findings and evaluates the effectiveness of the government's ten-year strategy.

The paper examines the experience of C.B. Wade (1906–1982), a chartered accountant and university instructor who was recruited to work for organized labour during the period of transition from wartime mobilization to postwar reconstruction at the end of the Second World War. In hiring Wade in 1944, District 26 of the United Mine Workers of America became one of the first Canadian unions to employ a research director to help address the challenges of the new age of industrial legality and advance their social democratic agenda. The paper discusses Wade's background, including his involvement in the Workers' Educational Association, and documents his contributions to the work of the coal miners' union, including the efforts to promote public ownership of the industry. In addition, the paper discusses Wade's unpublished history of the union, a manuscript that has had a long life as an underground classic. While the negotiation of the postwar compromises between labour, capital and the state gave union staff such as Wade an increasingly central role in labour relations, this was not a stable context, and the paper also considers the deepening Cold War conditions that led to the end of his employment in 1950. In the context of labour and working-class history, Wade can be associated with a relatively small cohort of politically engaged intellectuals who made lasting contributions to the research capacity of unions and to the field of labour studies.

This article reviews the book, "Daunting Enterprise of the Law: Essays in Honour of Harry W. Arthurs," edited by Simon Archer, Daniel Drache and Peer Zumbansen.

Les rapports entre travail et temps se sont profondément transformés ces vingt dernières années. cet article s’intéresse à l’un des aspects de ces transformations, à savoir le débordement de plus en plus fréquent du travail sur le temps personnel, en particulier chez les cadres en France. Il vise plus spécifiquement à répondre à deux questions. tout d’abord, quelle est l’ampleur de ce phénomène chez les cadres français ? Deuxièmement, quels sont ses déterminants ? En utilisant des données quantitatives colligées auprès de plus de mille cadres par un syndicat, notre recherche permet de mieux cerner le phénomène du débordement du travail sur le temps personnel. Finalement, les variables liées aux caractéristiques du travail et à l’utilisation des technologies ont une incidence beaucoup plus significative sur le débordement du travail que les variables sociodémographiques testées.

Policies for the southern Ontario automotive cluster support multiple collaborative research projects designed for the application of enabling technologies. However, these initiatives cater to a small percentage of highly innovative automotive suppliers and exclude much of the traditional manufacturing base. This stands in contrast to automotive clusters in Detroit, MI; the West Midlands, United Kingdom; and Baden-Württemberg, Germany, where applied research collaborations target the entire supply chain. With respect to policy implications, we argue that new forms of industrial coordination emerging in competitor regions may offer critical policy lessons for Ontario on how to stem the erosion of innovation capabilities in its automotive supply base.

This article reviews the book, "The Filth of Progress: Immigrants, Americans, and the Building of Canals and Railroads in the West," by Ryan Dearinger.

This article focuses on the campaigns of national Canadian unions and other labour organizations against the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta). Changes in the strategic orientation of these unions and labour organizations are traced from the period following the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement and contextualized in post–Cold War trends in North American labour more broadly. These developments are viewed through the lens of scale shift and political process models of social movement theory. Though some transnational links were developed before nafta was implemented, these linkages were expanded following the agreement's passage. Additionally, these organizations took advantage of political opportunities originating from the new structures of nafta itself. Canadian unions and associated anti-free-trade coalitions worked alongside their regional counterparts to construct alternatives to neoliberalism and build consensus. Following the failure of domestic political opportunities to prevent the passage of nafta, some Canadian unions and labour organizations used emerging international political opportunities to deepen collaborations with their counterparts in countries experiencing trade liberalization.

The article reviews the book, "Empty Promises: Why Workplace Pension Law Doesn’t Deliver Pensions," by Elizabeth J. Shilton.

Domestic and caregiving work have been part of the Canadian fabric since our colonial founding and have long represented one of the most easily accessible routes for migration open to women. Until very recently the Live-In Caregiver Program (LCP) operated as the primary program in Canada facilitating this labour migration. While the LCP has been replaced by the Caregiver Program (CP), it has yet to be determined how these changes will impact migrant caregivers. We suggest that many lessons can be drawn from our knowledge of migrant caregivers’ experiences under the LCP that can help us understand the dynamics of new immigration policies. Using the global care chain framework, we consider here whether Canada’s caregiver migration policy demonstrates a concern for the wellbeing of migrant caregivers as workers, as family members and as citizens. Our analysis suggests that the CP does not adequately address the concerns raised through the global care chain critique. Rather, the CP continues and deepens the trend of using immigration policy to hold people in substandard employment, with very little care for migrant caregivers whether in terms oftheir labour rights, their family relationships or their sense of belonging and citizenship.

The article reviews the book, "Free Spirits: Spiritualism, Republicanism, and Radicalism in the Civil War Era," by Mark A. Lause.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are injured in the course of service are treated inequitably on two levels: first, during their military careers, by the operation of a statutory exemption that enables the CAF to sidestep the duty to accommodate disabilities, including widespread mental injuries such as PTSD; and second, following their medical release from service, by the failure to provide adequate compensation. Under the Canadian Human Rights Act, the duty to accommodate is expressly made subject to the principle of "uni- versality of service," whereby CAF members "must at all times and under any circumstances perform any functions that they may be required to perform." Universality (or the "soldier first" rule) thus provides the CAF with an auto- matic bona fide occupational requirement (BFOR) defence to discrimination claims, and permits the CAF to engage in prima facie discriminatory conduct without having to prove that it accommodated a member to the point of undue hardship. The author argues that universality cannot be justified as reasonably necessary to achieve operational objectives, having regard to staffing require- ments and level of risk, and to the fact that the CAF routinely ignores its own risk tolerance mandate by granting medical waivers. Compensation for CAF members post-release is currently provided through the New Veterans Charter. The benefits scheme created by the NVC is, in the author's view, seriously flawed: it is less generous than the predecessor legislation, excessively complex, raises unfair evidentiary burdens, and fails to ensure timely resolution of claims. The author concludes by exploring opportunities for reform, and proposes that a "presumptive" burden of proof be implemented for claimants with PTSD, similar to that which has recently been adopted in several provinces for first responders under workers' compensation legislation.

This article reviews the book, "Empire of Timber: Labor Unions and the Pacific Northwest Forests," by Erik Loomis.