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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.

The article reviews the book, "Schools of Democracy: A Political History of the American Labor Movement," by Clayton Sinyai.

Geographers debate the value of telecommunications-mediated jobs (or 'eWork') for the economies of smaller, deindustrialised and rural areas. Against the backdrop of globalisation, various regions across Canada are courting knowledge-sector business development. Sudbury, a medium-sized northern Ontario city, has invested heavily in telecommunications infrastructure and touted its assets and resources to potential employers in order to help its ailing economy. Since the late 1990s, Sudbury has attracted some ten new call centres, with a combined labour force numbering about 4,000. In this article, we use Sudbury as a case study to consider the overall effects of eWork on a local labour force and a regional economy. From the combined perspectives of employers, unions, municipal planners, local economic development officials, and academic researchers, we assess the net impact of these new economy jobs.

The article reviews the book, "Written in the Flesh: A History of Desire," by Edward Shorter.

This interdisciplinary volume offers a powerful critique of how social structures and relations as well as ideologies shape workplaces, labour markets, and households in contemporary Canada. Contributors dissect recent transformations in work and expose the uncertainty, insecurity, and instability that increasingly characterize both paid and unpaid work. Using a progressive approach to political economy, contributors propose alternative policies and practices that might secure more decent livelihoods for workers and their families. -- Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Insurgency Online: Web Activism and Global Conflict," by Michael Y. Dartnell.

The aim of this article is to offer an in-depth analysis of the different legal aspects of international framework agreements (IFAs) negotiated between multinational companies and global union federations. Using examples from different agreements, the article shows the potential added value IFAs have in contributing to an effective social regulation within international groups and global supply chains that are today regulated insufficiently by national, European and international labour law standards. It also analyses the impact of the international negotiation process of the IFAs and the powers of the signatory parties on the legally binding character of these texts. To conclude, the article discusses the potential added value of an optional legal framework for IFAs.

The article reviews the book, "Bananera: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America," by Dana Frank.

The contribution of work in the occurrence of mental health problems prompts us to question the conditions which favour a successful return to work. The goals of this study are to describe the profile of workers who have been absent due to a mental health problem and to compare those who returned to those who did not, and those for whom there was resolution or non resolution of their health problem. This study among public sector employees was cross-sectional. Data was collected using mailed questionnaires and analyses were performed for 1850 respondents. The results show a significant difference between those who were back at work and those who were not, based on the cause they reported for their absence from work. Improved working conditions accompanying return to work may be a major determinant of health recovery and successful return to work, and ensure job retention.

The article reviews the book, "A History of Migration From Germany to Canada 1850-1939," by Jonathan Wagner.

Global market conditions have led to large corporate bankruptcies in recent years, particularly in the steel sector. Bankruptcy restructuring under the u.s. Chapter 11 or Canadian Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act [CCAA] places employee pensions at risk. In response to concessionary restructuring, the U.s. arm of the United Steelworkers [USW] intervened in several steel sector bankruptcies, developing restructuring solutions that led to partial or near-complete restoration of pensions and collective agreements. In Canada, during Stelco's troubled bankruptcy process between 2004 and 2006, Steelworker locals employed this interventionist method to prevent pension and collective agreement concessions. Scholars, such as Frost and Bacon, implicitly provide a rationale for union intervention into bankruptcy restructuring. They argue that union intervention in general corporate restructuring allows workers a greater voice in the process, leads to optimal results, and prevents union irrelevance. Frost outlines several criteria for maximizing union success during restructuring: the strength of union intra-organizational and external ties; the responsiveness of the union leadership towards the interests of the membership; and the ability of the union to access information and participate at all levels of the process. Many of Frost's recommendations were critical to the success of the USW locals at Stelco in achieving their bargaining and restructuring goals. Unlike in the more cooperative restructuring examples studied by Frost and Bacon, however, Stelco's Canadian locals employed a very assertive stance, since management exhibited initial hostility to union intervention. The union also found it necessary to enlist the help of government. While union intervention in bankruptcies remains a controversial process, it is one possible solution for troubled manufacturing unions, represents an overall USW push towards greater involvement in management, and may even lead towards an exit for labour from the discarded "post-war compromise."

The article reviews the book, "The Struggle against Wage Controls: The Saint John Story, 1975-1976, by George Vair.

The article reviews the book, "Punk Rockers' Revolution: A Pedagogy of Race, Class and Gender," by Curry Malott and Milagros Peña.