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The article reviews and comments on "The Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border" by David Bacon, "Juggernaut Politics: Understanding Predatory Globalization" by Jacques B . Gelinas, "Labour and Globalisation: Results and Prospects" edited by Ronaldo Munck, and "System in Crisis: The Dynamics of Free Market Capitalism" by James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer.

The notebook opens with "Representations of a Radical Historian," a review of "You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train," a documentary on Howard Zinn by Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller (78 minutes, colour, (Brooklyn 2004)). In the second part, entitled "System Failure: The Breakdown of the Post-War Settlement and the Politics of Labour in Our Time," Bryan D. Palmer presents a revised version of an "educational and agitational address" given to the Alberta Federation of Labour's membership forum on 7 May 2004 in the aftermath of the British Columbia hospital and long-term care workers' strike.

This essay will initiate an assessment of the literature that actually seeks to explain the economic relationships between Natives and Whites. This review is not a detailed empirical study of a particular aspect of Native economic history or a demonstration of the immediate relevance of economic history. Instead, the present-day need for an accessible account, summary and analysis of the existing economic history literature and a critical evaluation of this disparate body of work will be addressed by this essay. By summarizing and reviewing this disparate literature, a rough chronology of Native economic history can trace major changes. Innovative studies using interesting data sources and methods will be highlighted. The examination of economic history before 1870 will focus on the fur trade to consider exchange relations, racial stratification, credit, and resource management problems. The period following 1870 will consider how the social overhead of the fur trade became a government responsibility. --From Introduction

The article reviews the book, "The Accidental Republic: Crippled Workingmen, Destitute Widows, and the Remaking of American Law," by John Fabian Witt.

Booze: A Distilled History, by Craig Heron, is reviewed.

Work and Labour in Canada: Critical Issues, by Andrew Jackson, is reviewed.

A biography of communist Joseph Baruch Salsberg is presented. He was born in 1902 in Lagov, Poland and had immigrated to Canada in 1913 with his parents. In his 30-year career in the Labor-Progressive Party of Canada (LPP), he and several Jewish radicals propagated the notion that communism results in a better world and provides solution to several problems including the Jewish question. According to Salsberg, antisemitism is prevalent in the Soviet Union.

The article reviews the book, "Waterfront Revolts: New York and London Dockworkers, 1946-61," by Colin J. Davis.

Medical laboratory technology is currently the third largest health profession in Canada but those who work in it remain largely invisible, both to the public and in the literature. In Labour in the Laboratory Peter Twohig examines the origins of the laboratory workforce in the Maritime provinces and rethinks the broader history of the twentieth-century Canadian hospital. --Publisher's description.

In October 1932, Ottawa finally accepted responsibility for the single, homeless unemployed roaming the country in search of work and established a national system of camps under the auspices of the Department of National Defense (DND). The men were fed, clothed, sheltered and paid 20¢ per day in exchange for their labour on various make-work projects. Although the scheme was universally applauded at the beginning, it did not take long for the camps to become the focus of disillusionment and discontent, especially since Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett seemed to place greater importance on where the men were, as opposed to what they were doing. In April 1935, hundreds of disgruntled men walked out of DND relief camps throughout British Columbia and descended on Vancouver in a bold attempt to reverse their dead-end lives and secure some meaningful employment. But no level of government wanted to help the men - least of all the federal government, which believed that the Communist Party of Canada had orchestrated the protest. Eventually, the relief camp strikers decided to go to Ottawa and present their grievances directly to the Prime Minister. --Introduction

In this paper, the Job Demand-Control (JDC) model is used to predict depression and work-to-family conflict for married lawyers working full-time. The objectives of this paper are: (1) to determine whether the JDC model applies to work-to-family conflict; (2) to incorporate domain-specific job demand and job control variables; and (3) to examine a wider array of different forms of social support. First, the JDC model also helps explain work-to-family conflict. Second, domain-specificity does not appear key to documenting the buffering effects for job control. Third, spouse's support of one's career has the strongest main effect on both depression and work-to-family conflict, whereas coworker support functions as a moderator of lawyers' job demands and has both buffering and amplifying effects. This paper closes by discussing the possible conditions under which members of support systems may transfer or exacerbate stress effects rather than alleviate them.

A comprehensive history of working people in Saskatchewan, from the mid-1800s to the present, in a handsome coffee-table format, including numerous historical photos of the personalities and events that bring it to life. This book is created for the working people that it celebrates. In a plain-spoken and engaging narrative style, it captures the events and the personalities that shaped the working people of Saskatchewan, and the life of the province that those workers built. Jim Warren tells the fascinating tale of jobs, working conditions, and the attempts to effect meaningful changes in the condition of workers' lives. Starting with the Fur Trade period, and moving through the arrival of the railroad brotherhoods, the emergence of the craft unions, two world wars, modernization, and into the present age, Working in Saskatchewan shows the evolution of the work force, and the relationship between that work force and both private and public sector employers. The book wraps up with a short chapter on the imagined future of labour in the province, in the voices of a series of speakers ranging from former Premier Allan Blakeney to ordinary workers on the floor of a recent SFL convention. Working in Saskatchewan also includes a number of features that will make it even more useful for private study or school work. Two comprehensive indexes detail the chief characters who played a role in the development of the labour movement, and a list of events and important topics. A series of informational appendices present statistical information relating to the Saskatchewan labour force - size of the organized and unorganized labour force, number of women in the work force, etc. There will also be a helpful glossary of the acronyms and abbreviations that characterize written or oral discussions about labour, and a "genealogy of labour" which charts the rise and growth of certain unions and their transformation into, or absorption by, others. --Publisher's description

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, racism, in the form of white supremacy, shaped relations between whites and Chinese British Columbians. In resisting and accommodating to white supremacy, the Chinese were active participants, along with the members of the dominant society, in shaping these relations. White supremacy was consequently a dynamic system, one whose many parts were continually in flux, and whose central constructs—notions of "race" and British Columbia as "a White Man's province"—were largely political in nature. The thesis argues that white supremacy, as both ideology and organization, was deeply imbedded in British Columbia society. Exclusion based on "race" was incorporated into government institutions as they were remade at Confederation in an effort to enhance the power of white male property-owners. By the early twentieth century, ideological constructs of "the Chinaman" and "the Oriental" were used as foils in the creation of identities as "whites" and as "Canadians." The official public school curriculum transmitted these notions, while schools themselves organized supremacy in practice by imposing racial segregation on many Chinese students. In reaction, the Chinese created their own institutions and ideologies. While these institutions often had continuities with the culture of South China, the place of origin of most B.C. Chinese, they were primarily adaptations to the conditions of British Columbia, including the realities of racism. Chinese language schools played an especially important role in helping to create a Chinese merchant public separate from the dominant society. This public was at once the consequence of exclusion and the greatest community resource in resisting white supremacy. The study concludes by questioning the workability of contemporary anti-racist strategies which treat racism as a marginal phenomenon, or as merely a set of mistaken ideas. Instead, it suggests that such strategies must recognize that racism is one of the major structures of Canadian society.

The article reviews the book< Are Activiation Policies Converging in Europe? The European Employment Strategy for Young People," edited by Amparo Serrano Pascual.

The article reviews the book, "Caring For/Caring About: Women, Home Care and Unpaid Caregiving," edited by Karen R. Grant et al.

The article reviews the book, "Eugene A. Forsey: An Intellectual Biography," by Frank Milligan.

The article reviews and comments on "Incoherent Empire" by Michael Mann, "Contours of Descent: US Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity" by Robert Pollin, and "Tyranny in America: Capitalism and National Decay" by Neal Wood.

This paper examines whether there has been improvement in benefits coverage for non-standard workers since the Wallace Report in 1983. This study uses Statistics Canada's Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) 1999 data. Results show significant differences in the receipt of benefits among non-standard workers, suggesting heterogeneity within this group of workers in terms of benefits coverage. Regular part-time and temporary full-time workers receive fewer benefits than regular full-time workers. Temporary part-time workers have significantly less likelihood of receiving benefits than the other three groups of workers. Overall, results show that since the Wallace Report findings, there has been little improvement in benefits coverage for non-standard workers, and they continue to be relatively disadvantaged in comparison to regular full-time workers.

The article reviews the book, "The Voice of Southern Labor: Radio, Music, and Textile Strikes, 1929-1934," by Vincent J. Roscigno and William F. Danaher.

Graduate student unions are beginning to attract attention in Canada and the United States. In Canada, unionization on campuses is especially important for organized labour, as union density has dropped below 30 percent for the first time in five decades. Graduate student unionization is also important in the wider context of precarious employment in North America. Despite the decline in overall union density, graduate student unions have continued to grow in the past decade. However, there is a paucity of scholarly research in this area. In this article, we trace the historical origins of graduate student unions in Canada, discuss relevant legal concerns, analyze pertinent collective bargaining and strike issues, and suggest avenues for future research.