Your search

The article reviews the book, "Just the Usual Work: The Social Worlds of Ida Martin, Working-Class Diarist," by Michael Boudreau and Bonnie Huskins.

...In this paper, we aim to contribute to the scholarly literatures and related policy debates on LGBTQ+ work and life that [the Toronto-based LGBTQ+ advocacy organization] Egale highlights, and to bring these debates into economic geography and queer and trans geographies, fields which have heretofore only minimally examined sexual orientation and gender identity and/in the workplace.

With the assistance of a Committee of experts, McMaster University partnered with the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) to develop the Caregiver Inclusive and Accommodating Organizations Standard (B701-17). The Standard provides workplace guidelines to better accommodate carer-workers through building carer-friendly workplace programs. A qualitative ex ante evaluation was undertaken to determine stakeholders’ (n=17) views regarding the significance and potential uptake of the Standard. This involved seeking feedback from stakeholders in various types of organizations across Canada, after they had read the draft Standard. Following transcription, interviews were thematically analyzed, resulting in four themes: (1) necessity; (2) impact of employer size; (3) motivators for implementation, and (4) use as an educational tool. Although initially in its early stages, the Standard now provides a key tool to improve accommodations for carer-workers.

Discusses Orenstein's painting, "Mine Mill Local 598," that was reproduced on the cover of Labour/Le Travail, no. 93 (Spring 2024). Included are colour reproductions of the panels of the 39-foot-long mural, which Orenstein painted during a 1956 residence in Sudbury. The painting was thought to be no longer extant because of a 2008 fire, but in fact it is still held in the Sudbury local's collection.

The article reviews the book, "Fight Like Hell: The Untold Story of American Labor," by Kim Kelly.

This article explores the impact of union endorsements on the voting intentions of union members in Canada. Through a survey of union members, the study reveals that while union endorsements generally do not significantly influence voting behaviour, satisfaction with one’s union enhances the likelihood of supporting union-endorsed candidates in federal, provincial, and local elections. This correlation underscores that having strongly supported unions in the workplace helps to build strong unions in the political arena with improved capacity to deliver union members’ votes. The findings also provide a basis for further research on the potential electoral significance of union endorsements.

Return to work (RTW) after injury requires strong stakeholder coordination. Seafaring work is associated with high injury rates, but seafarers’ RTW is understudied. As federally regulated workers, Canadian seafarers are protected by the Canadian Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability. Following a work-related injury or illness, seafarers are eligible for provincial workers’ compensation benefits and RTW; however, RTW is also subject to federal regulations, including the requirement to have a valid marine medical certificate (MMC). This complex regulatory landscape may negatively influence seafarer RTW. Drawing upon a sociolegal study, we find that MMC-related human rights complaints against the federal government highlight the legal challenges seafarers face in the RTW process. Interview findings suggest that to ensure a valid MMC and employment eligibility, injured seafarers might avoid filing compensation claims or RTW before recovery. We recommend the federal-provincial agencies adopt more efficient coordination policies to support seafarers’ RTW.

This article critically assesses the systems that structure unpaid care work for people with intellectual disabilities, with a focus on the role of siblings. We provide a preliminary analysis of this current trend in unpaid care work in the province of Ontario, Canada, addressing practices that are a) built upon a devaluation of people with intellectual disabilities, and that b) deny them choice in who provides them care. We combine existing evidence with relevant survey data to assess the risks associated with what we characterize as coercive care, as well as the many tensions that arise between self-advocacy and family-led advocacy initiatives. We interrogate the assumption that the role of siblings, and women in particular, is to take over unpaid care roles from parents. We also suggest how the current socioeconomic context of many individuals and families can limit opportunities for adopting potential solutions and propose practical avenues for future research. Throughout our analysis, we centre questions of agency and self-direction, pointing to the clash of values and inequitable outcomes that makes dominant support arrangements untenable. We conclude by drawing an ideal scenario of the publicly funded supports and services to which people with intellectual disabilities should be entitled and outline the many implications attached to this proposed model.

The evolution of the protection of collective bargaining rights in Canada has been marked by a tension between freedom of association (section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “the Charter”) and equality (section 15(1) of the Charter). In most cases before the Supreme Court of Canada (“the SCC”), the SCC has examined both rights separately. More recently, the SCC has treated equality as a value (rather than a right), using the value of equality to inform its interpretation of freedom of association. Both these approaches (the “Siloed Approach” and the “Charter Values” approach) fail to fully examine how equality and freedom of association exist bidirectionally. This article uses a 2008 case from the Quebec Superior Court as a case study of how equality can inform our understanding of association and how association can remedy inequality.

The article reviews the book, "Blue Collar Empire: The Untold Story of US Labor’s Global Anticommunist Crusade, by Jeff Schuhrke.

Introduces and reproduces the "Red Haggis" comic strip that ran in 1934 in the Young Worker, the weekly publication of the Young Communist League of Canada. The strip's hero, Red Haggis, is depicted as a pugnacious amalgam of Popeye and "the hard man" of the Scottish working-class tradition. The artist - signed as "Crawford" in the strip - has not been definitively identified.

This article explores the challenges facing injured migrant farm workers in the workers’ compensation system in Canada's province of Ontario, with a focus on their fight for return to work justice. Told from the perspective of one of the lawyers who represented the workers, it highlights a recent victory achieved by 4 workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program in defending their rights to workers’ compensation support. The workers’ compensation tribunal decided that the workers’ compensation board must evaluate these workers’ ability to return to work, access retraining, and receive compensation based on their labor markets in Jamaica—instead of based on fictional job prospects in Ontario. The tribunal also called out the need to consider systemic anti-Black racism in workers’ compensation law and policy. The article analyzes how this legal victory could reshape workers’ compensation policy in Ontario for injured migrant farm workers. It also discusses the implications of the win for injured workers in other temporary work programs and precarious employment sectors.

Analyzes the state of trade unionism in France with particular reference to union participation during the political crisis surrounding the pensions movement of 2023 and the formation of a left-wing popular front during the 2024 national election. Concludes that unions must break free from the narrow, industrial relations focus (called "démocratie social") that has predominated over the past 30 years, and that political unionism and the broader representation of work should be the strategic objectives. The text is an address originally given by the author at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies, Université du Québec à Montréal, on June 19, 2024.

Drawing on the framework of racial capitalism, this paper highlights two distinct but related dynamics of racial differentiation in relation to Amazon in Greater Toronto Area (GTA): at the level of the region’s broader political economy and within Amazon’s warehouses. I outline the ways in which the e-commerce giant both exploits and (re)makes the racialized geography of the GTA. Amazon’s capitalization on neoliberal austerity and corporate welfare perpetuates class and racialized inequalities. These processes adversely affect these suburban localities and negatively impact employment in both quantitative and qualitative ways. In this context, I argue that Amazon’s success has been, in no small part, due to its exploitation of Canada’s racially stratified labour market. Within the warehouse, the notion that digital Taylorism produces an undifferentiated workforce and a uniform labour process is interrogated. Instead, workers’ own accounts point to the ways digital technologies enable management to generate racial/ethnic differentiation and further squeeze value from workers. By situating Amazon within this specific socio-historical and political economic context, I demonstrate that the GTA offers a case study through which to examine the racial dynamics of digital capitalism and show that racialized and gendered social relations inflect the uneven experiences of algorithmic management.

We investigated the role of cultural intelligence (CQ) among immigrant workers (IWs) in their professional success within Quebec organizations. Professional success was assessed at two stages of a worker’s career: an intermediate (organizational socialization: OS) and an ultimate stage (objective career success: OCS). Data from a purposive sample of 103 IWs show that CQ predicts OS, but neither CQ nor OS predicts OCS, except for IWs from Global North countries. Thus, intermediate success depends on the immigrant’s personal ability to integrate into the organization’s culture, but this ability will increase objective career success only if the immigrant is from the Global North, and not from the Global South. These findings challenge the hypothesis that socio-economic integration depends on the immigrant’s personal ability to adapt. Finally, we discuss structural factors that may affect the CQ/OCS relationship.

Job security has always been a paramount concern for the trade union movement. This article explores the ways that unions used collective bargaining to gain a measure of job security for their members in the face of deindustrialization as unionized factories in North America began to close in large numbers after the 1970s. These new measures included advance notice, severance pay, plant closing moratoria, restrictions placed on plant movements, transfer rights, and expanding the scope of collective ‘social’ bargaining to cover training and adjustment. In some sectors, such as automotive, collective bargaining has also been extended into areas normally left to management. The price was often high. Eventually some unions, notably the Canadian Auto Workers (established 1985; part of Unifor after 2013), prioritized winning new capital investments and product lines for unionized plants in their negotiations, though often at the cost of jobs, wage freezes or reductions, and other concessions. By focusing upon auto sector deindustrialization in Canada since the 1980s, we draw lessons from more recent union bargaining strategies, and how they constitute an important element of worker responses to industrial job loss and manufacturing closure.

The article reviews the book, "The Happiness of the British Working Class," by Jamie L. Bronstein.

The article reviews the book, "Distant Stage: Quebec, Brazil, and the Making of Canada's Cultural Diplomacy," by Eric Fillion.

With the advancement of science and technology and the improvement of social attitudes and mentalities, many Canadian women nowadays hold professions that have always been held exclusively by men. They have been able to integrate educational training, academic programs, and professional careers that have always been “masculine”, such as engineering, architecture, accounting, finance, military, trades, construction, and law enforcement, to name a few. Women in Canada have successfully performed and integrated these “masculine” professions. However, this integration was only a one-way street in many circumstances, not appreciated or accepted by men who considered it an invasion of their professional property and territory. Therefore, it unfortunately opens the door to bullying, discrimination, intimidation, and even sexual harassment. Sexual harassment of women in the workplace has always been persistent, especially in male-dominated industries. Not only does it harm women’s health, advancement, and career, but it also harms the organizations and their reputations. This research will investigate the impacts of sexual harassment on the overall health of women working in male-dominated industries in Canada.

The article reviews and comments on two books by John Kelly: "Contemporary Trotskyism: Parties, Sects and Social Movements in Britain" and "The Twilight of World Trotskyism."