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This article examines the interest representation of European Employers’ Organizations (EEOs) in the European Union (EU). Previous literature in employment relations focused on employer activity in social dialogue, while literature in political science focused on political representation and how business associations lobby EU political institutions. Going beyond this dualism in the literature, this article suggests that gaining a full understanding of the interest representation of European Employers Organizations requires analyzing interactions between the political and social dialogue arenas. We argue that EEOs gain legitimacy through participating in social dialogue to facilitate their primary focus of political interest representation. Strategic and institutional perspectives on legitimacy provide insights into how EEOs respond to challenges and manage their environment within the EU to pursue their interests.

The article reviews the book, "The Real Living Wage: Civil Regulation and the Employment Relationship," by Edmund Heery, Deborah Hann, and David Nash

Le concept de marque employeur (ME) suppose de communiquer une promesse d’emploi unique et désirable afin d’attirer puis fidéliser. La consistance de la ME dans le temps (perçue par les candidats puis vécue par les salariés) conditionnerait la fidélité. Pourtant, de récents travaux démontrent que la ME n’est pas consistante dans le temps, sans que cela n’affecte négativement la fidélité. La recherche demeure relativement aveugle aux facteurs expliquant cette évolution et ses effets, soit ce qui se joue durant l’expérience du collaborateur (EMX). Le concept d’EMX, élusif et peu stabilisé, souffre d’un manque de clarté théorique et de modalités d’investigations pratiques. Cette étude étudie ainsi des récits expérientiels de 40 informants sur une année de contrat, afin de contribuer à une meilleure compréhension et appréhension pratique de l’EMX et d’en apprécier les effets sur la ME et la fidélité. Les résultats permettent de valider quatre propriétés structurantes de l’EMX, clarifiant le concept et guidant son investigation : interactionnelle, enracinée, indéfinie et source d’apprentissage. Cette dernière propriété semble jouer un rôle crucial dans l’évolution des perceptions de la ME observées, et expliquer leurs effets sur la fidélité.

Thousands of children and youth across the country took to the streets for two weeks in spring 1947 to protest a three-cent increase in the price of chocolate bars. The protest initially generated enthusiastic press coverage and had widespread popular support, but when the National Federation of Labor Youth (nfly), the Communist Party's youth organization, announced its support, anti-communists in the press and the community red-baited the protesters. The campaign quickly lost momentum, which anti-communists attributed to the presence of Communists but was more likely due to their own red-baiting attacks in the press. Some of these protests were spontaneous reactions to a 40 per cent increase in the price of candy bars, while others were led or inspired by nfly. Either way, the countrywide mobilization of thousands of children and youth marks a turning point in the history of Canada's left. Erupting in tandem with a nationwide strike of industrial workers and protests of activist consumers demanding greater economic security and a more responsive state, the children's chocolate bar protest provides a window on this critical moment in the class struggle. The attacks on this popular protest at the moment that the long run of community-based militancy was about to be demonized, delegitimated, and silenced by red-baiting marks a significant milestone in Canada's Cold War. In addition to adding the youngsters' challenge to capital and the state to the history of the popular left, the event contributes to the growing literature on children and youth engaged in political protest, while their creative protest strategies offer a youthful dimension to the study of performance activism.

This book deals with the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act and the Public Service Act, the statutes that primarily govern unionized and non-unionized employment and labour relations in the Ontario Public Service and Crown Agencies. This updated edition provides a full review of all sections, and all judicial and arbitral consideration, of both acts. It also discusses the unique treatment of the Crown and its employees in the Public Sector Labour Relations Transition Act and the Employment Standards Act. -- Publisher's description

The benefits of employment in resource extraction figure prominently in state rationales for resource extraction. However, in Canada, the site of study, while the worker is a key figure in rationales for extraction, this same worker disappears in state attention to extractive/mine closure. The paper's focus on Indigenous mining labour is driven by a community–university research partnership with Dene communities in the Northwest Territories facing forthcoming closure of diamond mines on their land. Approaching mine closure as a juncture that can both reproduce or resist the settler extractive economy, we argue that the Canadian state responses to the labour implications of mine closure, and its lack of coherence, express the settler-colonial tension between the reproduction of the (Canadian) settler state and its requisite labour force, and the social reproduction of Indigenous communities.

Ce texte s’inscrit dans une perspective critique où, à la lumière des différentes évolutions et changements, le moment semble opportun pour appeler à un réexamen ou à un renouveau de la gestion des ressources humaines (Delbridge et Keenoy, 2010 ; Hallée, Taskin et Vincent, 2018). La Critical Human Resource Management est une posture qui remet en cause le discours managérial dominant et qui valorise les voix exclues de la réflexion en GRH (Delbridge et Keenoy, 2010). Ces préoccupations sont liées à une tradition de critique humaniste, notamment l’injustice sociale et la remise en question des systèmes sociaux et économiques que des entreprises servent et reproduisent (Adler, Forbes et Willmott, 2007). Les enjeux liés au genre, à l’inégalité, à la gouvernance, au pouvoir et à la domination font partie du questionnement (ibid., Lee Ashcraft, 2009). Nous avons mobilisé la théorie de critique de la justice sociale de Fraser où des enjeux de citoyenneté, de reconnaissance, de redistribution et de participation y sont notamment discutés (Fraser, 1989). Ces concepts, que nous associons à des pratiques de GRH, ont fait l’objet d’une recherche à partir d’emplois du care qui sont à prédominance féminine. L’un des problèmes fondamentaux de la dévalorisation du travail « dit » féminin repose sur l’idée que les activités professionnelles similaires aux divers types de travaux à domicile sont naturelles chez la femme et donc, issues de dispositions biologiques plutôt que de compétences acquises (Kymlicka, 1999). Nos résultats montrent que les disparités de traitement pour les emplois du care pourraient s’assimiler, dans les faits, à une exclusion déguisée, malgré des discours contraires. Les titulaires des emplois du care ne participent pas suffisamment à l’interaction sociale sur un même pied d’égalité, considérant les obstacles institutionnalisés formels et informels liés à la reconnaissance, à la redistribution et à la participation.

The article reviews the book, "Le Québec en mouvements : Continuité et renouvellement des pratiques militantes," by Pascale Dufour, Laurence Bherer, and Geneviève Pagé.

The evidence presented in this report runs counter to arguments that card-check and anti-scab legislation give excessive power to workers over employers. Rather, card-check certification and a replacement worker ban are fundamental to upholding workers rights within Canada’s labour relations system. The right to join a union and the right to strike are two foundational aspects of Canadian labour relations. Testimonials from workers in this report make clear that mandatory votes suppress workers’ freedom to join a union without coercion from anti-union employers. --Website summary

The Progressive Labour Agenda is intended to provide Manitoba policy makers with a set of clear policy measures to improve the conditions of work for Manitobans while promoting overall well-being in our province. These policy measures respond directly to issues in labour and employment such as the proliferation of low-wage work, gaps in employment standards and health and safety enforcement, declining private sector union coverage, and inequities experienced by women and migrant workers, among other issues. The policy options outlined in the Progressive Labour Agenda cover three major themes: 1) ensure access to unions and fair collective bargaining; 2) modernize labour legislation to close gaps in employment standards and improve conditions for non-unionized workers; and 3) improve workplace health and safety. These are ideas that are well supported by public policy research and that are actionable at the provincial level. --Website description

Indigenous doulas in Canada carry added responsibilities as they juggle with cultural and societal expectations to appropriately support their communities and extended relations. They not only face socioeconomic challenges as a result of doula care being excluded from the universal healthcare system, but also deal with the affective costs of caregiving. Through an Indigenous-centred intersectional lens, the idea of Indigenous doula work as exploitative labour is examined under four key areas: (1) the historical role of doulas in Indigenous communities; (2) colonial policies and processes that devalued Indigenous women; (3) colonial policies and processes that devalued birth workers, and; (4) challenges that Indigenous doulas face today. This study aims to provide context to the challenges faced by Indigenous doulas working within the dominant, Western medical system and confines of capitalism. The study concludes that the policies and processes that derived from these systems have led to the hardships imposed on Indigenous doulas, which reveal a need for policy solutions that recognize the value of Indigenous doulas in the healthcare system.

This dissertation establishes that work injury and injured workers are relatively neglected in Critical Disability Studies (CDS). A further observation is that CDS tends to avoid a class analysis of disability politics in favour of identitarian approaches. This research focuses on income security. Through a Marxist critical policy historiography, I compare workers’ compensation benefits and state-sponsored benefits for disabled people whose disabilities originated outside of the workplace in Ontario. I argue that the workers’ compensation program is superior to the state-sponsored program because of the class location and politics of the respective groups of people with disabilities seeking income security. The discussion also highlights some of the reasons for the missing injured worker in CDS. Specifically, injured workers experience disability as a loss worthy of compensation rather than a positive identity. Further, rather than viewing prevention measures as the erasure of disabled people, injured workers support the prevention of disability through occupational health and safety laws and workplace practices. By focusing on the political economy of each program, the historical narrative suggests that disability benefit programs in Ontario were developed less by moral suasion and more because of their role in capital accumulation. Although the argument holds for the early history of the two programs in their early history. the negative impact of neoliberalism on both workers’ compensation and the current benefits program in Ontario (the Ontario Disability Support Program) has created a convergence of interests between permanently impaired injured workers and other disabled people, underscoring the importance of including injured workers’ perspectives in CDS.

The article reviews the book, "Solidarity Beyond Bars: Unionizing Prison Labour," by Jordan House and Asaf Rashid.

We generally take for granted that everyone has the right to a say—and certainly a vote—in what our governments do. But in the workplaces that rule many of our waking hours, these democratic rights are largely absent. In a time of extreme inequality, deteriorating social cohesion and reduced trust in our institutions, why shouldn’t workers have more control over the firms they work in? Enabling employees to take more ownership and control in their working lives is a promising antidote. With advocacy from a broad coalition of supporters—including many business owners—the federal government has tabled legislation to create a new Employee Ownership Trust legal structure that makes it easier for business owners to sell firms to their employees. However, to tap the full potential of employee ownership, a much broader suite of policies is needed. This report examines what an ambitious public policy agenda would look like to unleash the promise of democratic employee ownership in Canada. --Website description

The article reviews the book, "El Golpe: US Labor, the CIA, and the Coup at Ford in Mexico," by Rob McKenzie and Patrick Dunne.

The article reviews the book, "A Field in Flux: Sixty Years of Industrial Relations," by Robert B. McKersie.

Annie Buller makes for an interesting case study of Canada’s World War II security state and how it functioned vis-à-vis the Communist Party of Canada and its allies. Her experiences speak to gender, party history, and broader elements of political policing, community responses, and confinement experiences. Like her life, her wartime encounters with the Canadian security state were concurrently like and different from those of other criminalized female and male activists at the time about whom we know more. Among the apprehended and incarcerated, female or male, Buller was somewhat of an anomaly and warrants special attention. Buller’s particular situation helps to shed light on lesser-understood elements of the Communist wartime carceral experience, including the lack of trust officials had in these processes at times to accomplish the intended repression and important details about efforts to free those incarcerated. Ultimately, Buller’s case and the movement to liberate her and the other incarcerated members of the party illustrate the power of grassroots activism in challenging oppressive systems.

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.

This paper explores the perceptions and future imaginaries of a group of union members in Manitoba, Canada, concerning climate change, energy transition, and the roles of unions and workers in climate politics. Based on interviews with 30 rank and file workers carried out through the winter of 2020, the results suggest some starting points for a more active engagement between the labour movement and climate politics—an engagement that is central to climate justice, and that becomes more vital every moment as workers both participate through their waged labour in the production of ecological crisis, and stand to suffer intensely from both climate change and from elite-led energy transitions.

Embargoed until: 2025-11-29 This thesis explores Canada’s regulatory response to modern slavery in global supply chains. It investigates the factors which influenced Canada to enact transparency modern slavery legislation. It also analyzes Canada’s strategy of utilizing multiple soft and hard law governance and regulatory techniques to strengthen its response to modern slavery. Using a theoretical framework which combines global governance and regulation literature with literature regarding the national institutionalization of global norms, this thesis examines how international actors that comprise the global anti-slavery network disseminate anti-slavery and corporate accountability norms. These norms are subsequently filtered through a country’s domestic political economy, and are translated into either transparency or mandatory human rights due diligence (MHRDD) legislation. The qualitative methods used in this thesis were documentary analysis and key informant interviews. Key informant interviews in conjunction with an analysis of relevant reports and parliamentary debates provided insight into the influences behind Canada’s enactment of various governance and regulatory techniques. Doctrinal legal analysis, and an assessment of the various techniques implemented in Canada, revealed the effectiveness of the individual techniques and how they interacted with each other. This thesis found that Canada adopted a transparency law due to a combination of: (1) International norm diffusion via an epistemic, global anti-slavery network; and (2) Canada’s unique domestic political economy. Features of Canada’s domestic political economy, including its affiliation as part of the Anglosphere, and its powerful mining industry, ultimately determined the enactment of transparency legislation. The thesis also found that Canada’s use of multiple, increasingly hard law governance and regulatory techniques is currently ineffective as these techniques do not complement each other, and actually weaken Canada’s regulatory response to modern slavery. Consequently, labour standards have not improved for supply chain workers. This thesis posits that Canada should prioritize centering and empowering workers to protect their own rights.