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Among the recent measures undertaken in Canada to adapt the public sector to the 'new economy' in order to maintain or enhance economic competitiveness on an international level has been the adoption of new technologies and e-government, affecting both labour processes and service delivery. All three levels of government – municipal, provincial, and federal – have adopted 'virtual service techniques'. This paper examines telemediated processes and new work arrangements in the public sector and raises questions regarding the impact on workers and their trade unions, working conditions, service delivery, and social citizenship.

The article reviews the book, "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism," by Robert A. Pape.

The Canadian labour movement has undergone several fundamental changes in response to demands for greater inclusion and representation by women, visible and sexual minorities, and people with disabilities. Equity, Diversity, and Canadian Labour explores the specific challenges put to outmoded conceptions of labour, charting the effort made towards establishing a more inclusive vision of labour in Canada. The study concludes that the Canadian labour movement has seen a fair amount of progress in this regard, though it still faces persistent impediments to equity and suffers from an uneven responsiveness within and across diversity issues. This collection of original essays brings together contributors from a variety of backgrounds womens studies, political science, sociology, industrial relations, and the labour movement itself. They provide detailed analyses of significant changes in union policies, practices, and cultures as viewed through different disciplinary lenses. With reference to gender, race, disability, and sexuality, the volume assesses the status of labour diversity in Canada and suggests what still needs to be done to advance the equity project. --Publisher's description. --Publisher's description. Contents: Looking back: A brief history of everything / Julie White -- Bargaining against the past: Fair pay, union practice, and the gender pay gap / Anne Forrest -- Union response to pay equity: A cautionary tale / Judy Haiven -- Labour's collective bargaining records on women's and family issues / Karen Bentham -- We are family: Labour responds to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender workers / Gerald Hunt and Jonathan Eaton -- Broadening the labour movement's disability agenda / David Rayside and Fraser Valentine -- Racism and the labour movement / Tania Das Gupta -- Equity, diversity, and Canadian labour: A comparative perspective / David Rayside. Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-282).

The article reviews the book, "Development NGOs and Labor Unions: Terms of Engagement," edited by Deborah Eade and Alan Leather.

The article reviews the book, "Partisanship, Globalization, and Canadian Labour Market Policy: Four Provinces in Comparative Perspective," by Rodney Haddow and Thomas Klassen.

The article reviews and comments on the book "Labor, Free and Slave: Workingmen and the Anti-Slavery Movement in the United States," by Bernard Mandel, with introduction by Brian Kelly.

The article reviews and comments on several books including "Violent London: 200 Years of Riots, Rebels an Revolts," by Clive Bloom, "Down and Out in 18th-Century London," by Tim Hitchcock, and "The London Mob: Violence and Disorder in 18th-Century England," by Robert Shoemaker.

[D]escribes the labour and employment law governing employees of Parliament, employees of government agencies, members of the RCMP, and most direct employees of the government (excluding members of the Canadian armed forces, judges, and employees of Crown corporations). Specifically, the book deals with the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Public Service Employment Act. It also provides the leading cases and, where appropriate, a representative sample of decisions to explain or provide examples of particular points. The legal regime of the federal public service has undergone significant change in the past three years, and no other book addresses these significant changes. Part I of this book provides an overview of federal public service labour and employment law. Part II considers the normal labour law topics as they apply to direct employees of the government and employees of government agencies. Essentially, Part II of this book is about Part I of the Public Service Labour Relations Act. Part III concerns the terms and conditions of employment for both unionized and non-unionized employees — essentially, Part II of the Public Service Labour Relations Act. Part IV involves the legal regulation of the employment relationship in the federal public service — namely, the process for appointment to and within the federal public service. Part V of considers Crown servants — specifically RCMP members and parliamentary employees — who are not considered federal public servants for the purposes of the Public Service Labour Relations Act. Part VI considers the legal regulation of superannuation (pensions) for Crown servants and the role that courts play in the regulation of federal public service labour and employment law. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Differences that Matter, Social Policy and the Working Poor in the United States and Canada," by Dan Zuberi.

In academic and activist debates about union renewal, the replacement of business unionism with social unionism is seen as central to the labour movement's short- and long-term survival. Social unionism, generally understood to involve both engagement with social justice struggles beyond the workplace and methods of union activity beyond the collective bargaining process, is claimed to increase the labour movement's organizing capacity, bargaining power, and social and political weight. However, despite its increased importance, social unionism's various meanings, strategies, and implications remain relatively unexamined, and very different approaches are often lumped together. Using concepts from social movement theory, this paper proposes an analytical framework for systematically comparing different concrete manifestations of social unionism. In particular, social unionist initiatives vary according to 1) the ethos or collective action frame used to rationalize union activity; 2) the repertoire or strategic means used to act on that ethos; and 3) the internal organizational practices and power relations which shape who is involved in defining and carrying out union goals and initiatives. I argue that whether social unionist projects are able to reach immediate instrumental goals as well as generate renewed working class / movement capacity is shaped by both the mix of frame, repertoire and organizational practice as well as the relationship between these three. The paper therefore asserts that the category "social unionism" must be more nuanced, and calls for a more explicitly comparative and multi-methodological approach to reveal such complexity.

The article reviews the book,"'If the Workers Took a Notion': The Right to Strike and American Political Development," by Josiah Bartlett Lambert.

Policing in Vancouver was transformed by the labour unrest of the interwar period, culminating in a campaign carried out by a new civic regime that assumed power in response to a general strike threat. Complicating the process was that police workers were considered unreliable for policing labour disputes, especially since they unionized under the threat of a general strike in 1918. The challenge of “constituting authority” was therefore to render the police a reliable instrument against working class unrest. This study traces the development of policing through the postwar spate of waterfront strikes to the 1930s anticommunist campaign that carried the struggle into the political arena. Even as police power was being consolidated in the municipal police institution, rank and file police were undermined by tactics long used against other workers, namely labour spies and police specials. Like other workers, police resisted, modifying the process of change as a result.

The article reviews the book, "Fighting From Home: The Second World War in Verdun, Quebec," by Serge Durflinger.

The article reviews the book, "Leviathans : Multinational Corporations and the New Global History," edited by Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. and Bruce Mazlish.

The article reviews the book, "States of Nature: Conserving Canada's Wildlife in the 20th Century," by Tina Loo.

The article reviews the book, "Partisanship, Globalization, and Canadian Labour Market Policy: Four Provinces in Comparative Perspective," by Rodney Haddow and Thomas Klassen.

The Political Future of Social Security in Aging Societies, by Vincenzo Galasso, is reviewed.

This article surveys positions on constitutional reform of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) from a historical perspective. In addition to analyzing how Canada’s largest labour organization has approached issues of national unity, federalism, and constitutional reform, the article underscores how Canadian constitutional struggles were reflected within the labour movement by focusing on how constitutional politics affected the relationship between the CLC and its Québec affiliate, the (Québec Federation of Labour) FTQ. Specifically, the article traces the gradual eclipse of the CLC’s preference for centralization and the emergence of sovereignty-association as a political position which the CLC has both externalized politically and internalized organizationally.

The article considers the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and the Québec Federation of Labour (FTQ) during the tenure of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Discusses CLC and FTQ approaches to the Meech Lake Accord, as well as organized labour's response to the Charlottetown Accord. Explores how the longstanding party-union relationship deranged the trade union movement's weak constitutional perspective.

This article examines the relationship of the Canadian Labour Congress with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms from the initial stages of the Charter's development, in the 1980-81 Special Committee on the Canadian Constitution, to its present status as powerful legal instrument and national symbol.