Your search

This case study focuses on the United Nurses of Alberta, the union representing registered nurses in the province of Alberta, Canada; this explores United Nurses of Alberta's communication strategies. Drawing on the collective action frames previously identified in United Nurses of Alberta's social media and newsletters from 2010 to 2015, which frames nurses as unique healthcare providers and advocates, this study leverages insights from 23 interviews conducted with the United Nurses of Alberta staff, highly involved members, and general members from 2016 to 2017. The article explores the motivations and tensions around the framing of nurses and the union. The findings indicate that the United Nurses of Alberta could enhance its communications by better aligning with members’ current struggles through various collective action frame bridging and extensions. The research also suggests the potential benefits of United Nurses of Alberta shifting away from collective action frames rooted in self-sacrifice. Furthermore, this case study provides recommendations for communication strategies that could strengthen member engagement and involvement within their unions.

The article reviews the book, "Enduring Work: Experiences with Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program," by Catherine E. Connelly.

The construction industry accounts for 18 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. There is extensive evidence that this can be reduced significantly by implementing aggressive net zero building practices. However, the way the industry is organized impedes this achievement because it fails to promote the development of a broadly based, highly qualified, climate-literate workforce. Successful low carbon construction requires enhancement of workers’ knowledge, skills, and competencies because it requires much higher energy performance standards than traditional construction practice. Yet the industry remains wedded to the current system of low-bid, low-quality construction to cut costs. The organization of much construction work reflects a Taylorist approach, with extensive piecework and subcontracting that relies heavily on precarious, unskilled, and semi-skilled workers. Most employers avoid investing in trades training, leaving it to governments, unions, and individual workers to fund workforce development. Committed to a deregulated market with minimal government interference in their profit-making activities, many contractors oppose tougher building and energy regulations while lobbying against higher labour standards, occupational certification requirements, and union organizing. To meet their net zero targets, governments must recognize that market forces are inadequate to create the well-trained, highly skilled workforce needed. Major policy interventions are required to force industry to make the necessary changes in vocational education and training (vet) and employment practices – changes designed to upskill the construction workforce and give workers and unions a greater voice in shaping climate-informed building practice.

The article reviews the book, "Nii Ndahlohke: Boys' and Girls' Work at Mount Elgin Industrial School, 1890–1915," by Mary Jane Logan McCallum.

The article reviews the book, "Scoundrels and Shirkers: Capitalism and Poverty in Britain," by Jim Silver.

The article reviews the book, "Constructing the Family: Marriage and Work in Nineteenth-Century English Law," by Luke Taylor.

The article reviews the book, "Le capital algorithmique : accumulation, pouvoir et résistance à l’ère de l’intelligence artificielle," by Jonathan Durand Folco and Jonathan Martineau.

The article reviews the book, "Le droit du travail en sociologie," by Vincent-Arnaud Chappe and Jean-Philippe Tonneau.

This article is concerned with the historical evolution of the mining industry in Canada since 1859. The focus is directed on changes that occurred in the industry and allows for the identification of four distinct mining regimes. These regimes are defined using the Regulation Theory, which connects conditions of production, technical progress, financial structures, and social relations. The identification of regimes gives a portrait of continuity and change in the industry. Continuity is present in the active role of the state, the legal framework based on Free Mining Principle and persistent speculation in the industry. Change is illustrated in price cycle, labour share and technological innovation. Interestingly, through time, price cycles have very different outcomes in financial and real economic terms. The most recent upswing in the late 1990s resulted in a punctual increase of financial assets but no significant increase in employment. Through this discussion, it becomes evident that the mechanisms underlying continuity and change have implications on the nature of state intervention and on the distribution of power between the corporate and regional actors like the workers and indigenous communities.

The article reviews the book, "Where are the Workers? Labor's Stories at Museums and Historic Sites," edited by Robert Forrant and Mary Anne Trasciatti.

Objective indicators, such as minority hiring rates or number of complaints, often fail to fully represent actual discrimination in hiring processes, particularly against racial and ethnic minorities (McGonagle et al., 2016). Despite legal efforts in Quebec to increase employment of minorities, their ongoing underrepresentation points to the need to examine discrimination in terms of perceived experiences. In line with Anderson (2011), we investigated perceived discrimination in hiring (PDH), its predictors and its effect on the intention to file a discrimination complaint, rather than solely considering actual complaints. Using a quasi-experimental design, we simulated a fictitious hiring process with 361 students from French-speaking Canadian universities. First, we confirmed the three dimensions of the recently developed PDH scale: differential treatment; breach of psychological contract; and non-competency-based assessment (Haeck-Pelletier, 2022). Second, using structural equation modelling (SEM), we found mediation effects: PDH scores were higher across all dimensions when a candidate belonged to a minority group, received a negative hiring decision or did not receive feedback on test results. However, only differential treatment predicted a candidate’s intention to file a complaint. In addition to this first empirical test of Anderson’s model, the results suggest that organizations should address perceptions of unfair treatment due to minority group membership by identifying and modifying the practices that contribute to them. The eventual outcome would be a more representative workforce.

The article reviews the book, "Popular Radicalism and the Unemployed in Chicago during the Great Depression," by Chris Wright.

Dans la foulée de l’expérience de télétravail obligatoire vécue pendant la pandémie de COVID-19 et pour tirer profit à la fois des avantages du télétravail et du travail en présence, de nombreuses organisations ont récemment embrassé le travail hybride. La fonction publique québécoise s’est engagée dans cette voie, en déployant une politique-cadre en matière de télétravail qui régule le nombre de jours de télétravail hebdomadaires. La récence du déploiement à large échelle de cette modalité d’organisation du travail appelle à mieux comprendre ses effets sur la réponse attitudinale du personnel. Prenant appui sur le modèle d’acceptation de la technologie et sur la théorie du signal, cet article vise à examiner la réponse perceptuelle et attitudinale du personnel au travail hybride. À partir de données quantitatives et qualitatives collectées en octobre 2022 auprès du personnel professionnel de la fonction publique et parapublique (n = 3 904), les résultats montrent l’effet positif de l’agréabilité perçue et de l’utilité perçue d’une journée de travail en présence sur la satisfaction à l’égard du travail hybride. La satisfaction à l’endroit du travail hybride influence positivement l’adéquation personne/organisation. L’adéquation personne/organisation exerce un effet positif sur l’engagement organisationnel ainsi que sur la satisfaction au travail. Elle joue un rôle médiateur dans la relation entre la satisfaction envers l’expérience de travail hybride et l’engagement organisationnel, ainsi qu’entre la satisfaction envers l’expérience de travail hybride et la satisfaction au travail. Les résultats qualitatifs témoignent de l’absence de valeur ajoutée des jours de travail en présence, d’une insatisfaction à l’égard du manque de flexibilité et d’une perception positive à l’égard des avantages du télétravail. Ces résultats ajoutent aux connaissances empiriques quant à l’appréciation de l’adéquation personne/organisation dans un contexte de travail hybride. Ils contribuent aux connaissances managériales en soulignant l’importance de considérer les attentes et les valeurs du personnel dans le déploiement des pratiques et politiques organisationnelles.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to renewed discussion of decent work for people at the margins of the labour market. This article explores public policy on platform workers across three liberal market economies, namely the United Kingdom, Canada and Ireland, taking the pandemic as a focal point. Liberal market economies are generally difficult environments for unions, and we examine the nature of union political pressure on the state to enhance protections for platform workers and the extent to which policy has changed in each state. We find uneven levels of such union pressure, with the most limited attention afforded by Irish unions. In the United Kingdom, the unions did exert some influence through strategic litigation, creating a policy problem for the government. More progressive policies are evident in Canada, where the government recognises that platform workers’ precarious position has undesirable consequences for the state.

The article reviews the book, "Regards croisés sur la grève d'Amoco à Hawkesbury, une histoire ouvrière de l'Ontario français," by Andréane Gagnon.

There have never been more favourable conditions for drawing Indigenous workers into the unionized building trades. The construction industry needs to replenish and diversify its overwhelmingly white, male, and aging workforce to meet skilled labour demands in the next few decades, when major civil infrastructure, mining, and green energy developments are expected to occur in northern Indigenous territories. These projects will be mandated by impact benefit agreements to employ a significant number of Indigenous workers who will first need to be trained. At the same time, Indigenous peoples are the fastest-growing population in Canada and have shown a propensity for pursuing trades education. In recent years, Ontario's largest building trade unions have taken significant steps to recruit, train, and employ northern Indigenous workers, including in Nunavut. In collaboration with various stakeholders, the unions' efforts are starting to show positive results. But are their methods and goals informed by decolonization, reconciliation, and Indigenization? This article reflects on this question while examining the case of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 793, which has been a leader among building trades unions when it comes to establishing relationships with Indigenous partners, training Indigenous workers, and contributing to their economic self-determination.

Governments in Canada are increasingly using multiple tools to advance their political agenda at the expense of free collective bargaining in the public sector. Legislative intervention has long been a strategy to curtail bargaining rights (Evans et al., 2023). Recently, governments have turned to non-legislative means to influence bargaining outcomes. This article is about the use of a coordination office, a decidedly non-legislative tactic, and how, over two rounds of negotiations, it transformed public-sector bargaining in Alberta. Bargaining has been further transformed by enactment of a legal requirement to keep the government’s mandates secret, the outcome being increased frustration among union representatives and potential damage to long-term relationships. Together, these measures have provided the government with a powerful means of influence, which, if successful, could spread to other jurisdictions.

Tribute to the life and work of the union activist and social historian, Raymond Léger, who was also a member of Labour/Le Travail's editorial board.

The article reviews the book, "The Things of Life: Materiality in Late Soviet Russia," by Alexey Golubev.

Based on an analysis of judgments on the motion for issuance of an injunction order against strike pickets rendered by the Quebec Superior Court between 2002 and 2023, this article shows that it has been extremely rare for judges to note serious acts of violence, such as beatings, injuries and dangerous acts of vandalism. On the other hand, a threatening look, the appearance or risk of any nuisance can always be qualified by the Court as intimidation, a threat, violence, a wrongful act, irreparable harm, and can justify limiting the right to picket in its simplest form of expression. We then defend the hypothesis that these orders granted in an almost mechanical manner are totally disproportionate, that they sanction workers in an indiscriminate and preventive manner, to the point of undermining the very essence of the right to picket, and this, in violation of the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly of workers recognized by the Supreme Court.