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The article reviews the book, "The Global Politics of Poverty in Canada: Development Programs and Democracy, 1964-1979," by Will Langford.

Du point de vue théorique, l’article examine le rapport à l’identité professionnelle dans des contextes de mutations de la filière nucléaire, ce qui requiert un regard rétrospectif sur ces transformations. Par ailleurs, il contribue à la connaissance empirique de la filière uranifère qui est restée pendant de longues années un secteur marqué du sceau du secret militaire. Cet article, qui s’appuie sur une enquête auprès de deux générations de mineurs de l’uranium de l’ouest de la France et l’étude d’archives, analyse l’évolution des identités professionnelles des mineurs d’uranium depuis l’après-guerre jusqu’à la fermeture des mines dans les années 1990. En effet, l’histoire des mines d’uranium n’est pas linéaire et la « mise en intrigue » (Ricoeur, 1983) du passé s’est faite tardivement autour des déchets laissés par l’exploitation, mais en omettant le travail à proprement parler de la mine. Depuis les témoignages d’époque qui présentent l’exploration puis l’exploitation sur le mode du développement économique, en passant par la fermeture puis l’oubli des mines, jusqu’à la prise en compte récente des risques inhérents, l’histoire se révèle plurielle et fragmentée (Brunet, 2004). Ce problème de linéarité repose en partie sur les discontinuités induites à la fois par l’oubli et le travail de mémoire partiel, fait très récemment. À partir de la question de la genèse des identités des mineurs, cet article montre, depuis l’exploration en 1945 jusqu’à la fermeture des mines en 1990, l’évolution de trois éléments structurants de l’identité professionnelle : le contexte institutionnel, le rapport au travail et la nature des relations professionnelles. Si le cas de mineurs d’uranium pose avec force la question du maintien d’une identité dans des contextes de transformation de la filière nucléaire, il met en perspective le rôle des contextes institutionnels sur la nature des relations professionnelles.

Members of the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) played a prominent role in the labour revolt of 1919, the One Big Union, and the Winnipeg General Strike. The “failure” of all three has led labour historians to focus on the inability of the party to connect with Canadian workers, an inability fuelled by dogmatism, “impossibilism,” and the exclusion of women and workers of colour. This article turns this approach on its head, pointing out that these events have been unequalled in Canadian history, and seeks to explain why this should be so. It challenges the perception of the party as being wed to evolutionary thinking that caused its members to wait around for the revolution to happen. Instead, it reveals the powerful influence of the dialectical method developed by G. W. F. Hegel; its focus on human action was the philosophical underpinning of the spc’s relentless attack on the wage system and the capitalist system’s commodification of labour power. Far from being “metaphysical” or “otherworldly,” the SPC’s insistence that workers must gain control of the product of their own labour spoke directly to them, including women and workers of colour. In the creation of the One Big Union, in the solidarity of the Winnipeg General Strike, and in the promise of the labour revolt of 1919, we find the legacy of a party committed to workers rising up.

Issue: Judicial rulings, continued decline in unionization, new types of work arrangements, employer efforts to boost retention and performance and new approaches to enforcement are shining the spotlight on the ability of workers to join together to express their views and have a say in decisions affecting their working conditions. To what extent are there gaps in opportunities for collective voice for non-unionized workers in the federally regulated private sector (FRPS)? How could they be addressed?

The article reviews the book, "Disrupting Deportability: Transnational Workers Organize," by Leah Vosko.

The work of Bryan D. Palmer, one of North America’s leading historians, has influenced the fields of labour history, social history, discourse analysis, communist history, and Canadian history, as well as the theoretical frameworks surrounding them. Palmer’s work reveals a life dedicated to dissent and the difficult task of imagining alternatives by understanding the past in all of its contradictions, victories, and failures. Dissenting Traditions gathers Palmer’s contemporaries, students, and sometimes critics to examine and expand on the topics and themes that have defined Palmer’s career, from labour history to Marxism and communist politics. Paying attention to Palmer’s participation in key debates, contributors demonstrate that class analysis, labour history, building institutions, and engaging the public are vital for social change. In this moment of increasing precarity and growing class inequality, Palmer’s politically engaged scholarship offers a useful roadmap for scholars and activists alike and underlines the importance of working-class history. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction / Sean Carleton, Ted McCoy, and Julia Smith -- Part I. Labour. Bryan D. Palmer, Labour historian / Alvin Finkel -- Bryan D. Palmer, social historian / Ted McCoy -- Labour history’s present: An account of Labour/Le Travail under Bryan D. Palmer / Kirk Niergarth. Part 2. Experience, discourse, class. Bryan D. Palmer and E. P. Thompson / Nicholas Rogers -- On polemics and provocations: Bryan D. Palmer vs. liberal anti-Marxists / Chad Pearson -- Bryan Douglas Palmer, Edward Palmer Thompson, John le Carré (and me): Workers, spies, and spying, past and present / Gregory S. Kealey. Part 3. Politics. Palmer’s politics: Discovering the past and the future of class struggle / Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin -- The hippopotamus and the giraffe: Bolshevism, Stalinism, and American and British Communism in the 1920s / John McIlroy and Alan Campbell -- The June days of 2013 in Brazil and the persistence of top-down histories / Sean Purdy -- Old positions/new directions: Strategies for rebuilding Canadian working-class history / Sean Carleton and Julia Smith -- Afterword: Rude awakenings / Bryan D. Palmer -- Selected Works of Bryan D. Palmer -- List of contributors.

This report...examines the need for paid sick leave in Nova Scotia and what it should look like. Authored by a team of researchers at Acadia University, the report underlines that for paid sick leave to be effective, it must be universal, paid, adequate, permanent, accessible and employer-provided. It recommends that employers be legislated to provide 10 paid days per year to allow workers time to access preventative health services or to recover from common illnesses. Prior to the pandemic, only 46% of Nova Scotia workers had paid sick leave provided by their employers. A total of 69% of workers who earn $25,000 do not have access to paid sick leave. The data also shows that younger workers and those with high school education or less have the least access. Only 28% of those who work in seasonal, term or on-call jobs have access to paid sick leave. This report also reviews temporary sick leave policies from federal, provincial, and territorial jurisdictions in Canada to demonstrate how they must be improved.

À l’époque de l’industrialisation, le monde du travail est d’une grande brutalité. Peu de lois protègent les ouvrier.ère.s. C’est dans ce contexte qu’est fondé en 1921 le tout premier syndicat québécois non associé à un syndicat américain, la Confédération des travailleurs catholiques du Canada (CTCC), maintenant connu sous le nom de Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN). À l’occasion du 100e anniversaire de l’organisation, Savoir média revisite cette époque marquante de l’histoire du Québec avec la présentation du documentaire Les unions, qu’ossa donne ?, produit et réalisé par Hélène Choquette, avec la narration de Anne-Marie Cadieux. Au-delà des syndicats, le film met de l’avant les nombreux changements sociaux apportés par ces revendications ouvrières. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "America’s Other Automakers: A History of the Foreign-Owned Automotive Sector in the United States," by Timothy Minchin.

The article reviews the book, "The Class Politics of Law: Essays Inspired by Harry Glasbeek," edited by Eric Tucker and Judy Fudge.

The article reviews the book, "The Two-Hundred-Million Pound Strike : The 2003 British Airways Walkout," by Ed Blissett.

Ce travail cherche à appréhender les déterminants de la résilience du personnel soignant dans le contexte de la crise sanitaire Covid-19. Son but est d’accéder à une compréhension profonde des motifs, des forces et des processus à l’oeuvre dans la dynamique complexe de la résilience.

Hamilton’s industrial age is over. In the steel capital of Canada, there are no more skies lit red by foundries at sunset, no more traffic jams at shift change. Instead, an urban renaissance is taking shape. But who wins and who loses in the city’s not-too-distant future? Is it possible to lift a downtrodden, post-industrial city out of poverty in a way that benefits people across the social spectrum, not just a wealthy elite? In Shift Change, author Stephen Dale sets up “the Hammer” as a battlefield, a laboratory, a chessboard. As investors cash in on a real estate gold rush and the all-too-familiar wheels of gentrification begin to turn, there’s still a rare opportunity for both old-guard and newcomer Hamiltonians to come together and write a different story--one in which Steeltown becomes an economically diverse and inclusive urban centre for all. What plays out in these pages and at this very moment is a real-time case study that will capture the attention and the imagination of anyone interested in equitable redevelopment, housing activism, and social justice in the North American city. -- Publisher's description

One of the world’s largest sellers of footwear, the Bata Company of Zlín, Moravia has a remarkable history that touches on crucial aspects of what made the world modern. In the twilight of the Habsburg Empire, the company Americanized its production model while also trying to Americanize its workforce. It promised a technocratic form of governance in the chaos of postwar Czechoslovakia, and during the Roaring Twenties, it became synonymous with rationalization across Europe and thus a flashpoint for a continent-wide debate. While other companies contracted in response to the Great Depression, Bata did the opposite, becoming the first shoe company to unlock the potential of globalization.As Bata expanded worldwide, it became an example of corporate national indifference, where company personnel were trained to be able to slip into and out of national identifications with ease. Such indifference, however, was seriously challenged by the geopolitical crisis of the 1930s, and by the cusp of the Second World War, Bata management had turned nationalist, even fascist.In the Kingdom of Shoes unravels the way the Bata project swept away tradition and enmeshed the lives of thousands of people around the world in the industrial production of shoes. Using a rich array of archival materials from two continents, the book answers how Bata’s rise to the world’s largest producer of shoes challenged the nation-state, democracy, and Americanization. -- Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Les pathologies au travail," by Élisabeth Grebot.

Discusses the role of the Canadian militia and army in crushing strikes, protest, and dissent, as well as the privileged class backgrounds of military officers and their connections to elite clubs and institutions.

Provides a historical assessment of the NDP-labour relationship that became more distanced and defensive in the neoliberal era, especially at the provincial level. Whether there will be a rapprochement in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic remains to be determined. A revised version of the essay published in the first edition (2012).

Canada has one of the highest rates of low-wage work among advanced industrial economies. In a labour market characterized by the ongoing fallout from COVID-19, deepening income inequality, increasingly uncertain job tenure, and steadily diluted union representation, the living wage movement offers a response. Rising Up traces the history and international context of living wage movements across Canada. Contributors to this astute and compassionate collection of essays examine union- and community-based approaches to organizing in marginalized communities, the role of social reproduction, migrant labour, and media (mis)representations, among other key topics. In the 1970s, the balance of political and economic power began to shift in favour of business, as trade unions weakened and governments proved unwilling to check corporate power. By the 2000s, austerity measures had dismantled social services spending, facilitating the growth of precarious, often gendered or racialized low-waged employment. Rapidly increasing wealth and income inequality has followed in the wake of these deteriorating labour market conditions and mounting social disparities.As more and more workers in Canada and elsewhere face permanent low-paid work, Rising Up will stimulate debate about living wages and social inequality, promoting alternatives to a neoliberalized labour market. --Publisher's description. Contents: Resisting Low-Wage Work: The Struggle for Living Wages / Bryan Evans, Carlo Fanelli, and Tom McDowell -- The Comparative Political Economy of Low Wages / Stephen McBride, Sorin Mitrea, and Mohammad Ferdosi -- Labour Justice: Assessing the Politics of the American Labour Movement / Biko Koenig and Deva Woodly -- Media (Mis)Representations and the Living Wage Movement / Carlo Fanelli and A.J. Wilson -- The Emergence of the Living Wage Movement in Canada's Northern Territories / Kendall Hammond -- Getting by but Dreaming of Normal: Low-Wage Employment, Living in Toronto, and the Crisis of Social Reproduction / Meg Luxton and Patricia McDermott -- The Living Wage and the Extremely Precarious: The Case of "Illegalized" Migrant Workers / Charity-Ann Hannan, John Shields, and Harald Bauder -- Working for a Living, Not Living for Work: Living Wages in the Maritimes / Mary-Dan Johnston and Christine Saulnier -- The BC Living Wage for Families Campaign: A Decade of Building / Catherine Ludgate -- Challenging the Small Business Ideology in Saskatchewan's Living Wage Debate / Andrew Stevens -- The Living Wage Campaign in Hamilton: Assessing the Voluntary Approach / David Goutor -- Why Business-Led Living Wage Campaigns Fail: The Case of Calgary, Alberta, 1999-2009 / Carol-Anne Hudson -- The Low-Wage Economy in the Age of Neoliberalism: What Can Be Done? / Tom McDowell, Sune Sandbeck, and Bryan Evans.

Our empirical analysis is based on Statistics Canada’s worker-firm matched data set, the 2003 Workplace and Employee Survey (WES). The sample size is substantial: about 4,000 workers over the age of 50 and 12,000 between the ages of 25 and 49. Training was a focus of the survey, which offers a wealth of worker-related and firm-related training variables. We found that the mean probability of receiving training was 9.3 percentage points higher for younger workers than for older ones. Almost half of the gap is explained by older workers having fewer training-associated characteristics (personal, employment, workplace, human resource practices and occupation/industry/region), and slightly more than half by them having a lower propensity to receive training, this being the gap that remained after we controlled for differences in training-associated characteristics. Their lower propensity to receive training likely reflects the higher opportunity cost of lost wages during the time spent in training, possible higher psychological costs and lower expected benefits due to their shorter remaining work-life and lower productivity gains from training, as discussed in the literature. The lower propensity of older workers to receive training tended to prevail across 54 different training measures, with notable exceptions discussed in detail. We found that older workers can be trained, but their training should be redesigned in several ways: by making instruction slower and self-paced; by assigning hands-on practical exercises; by providing modular training components to be taken in stages; by familiarizing the trainees with new equipment; and by minimizing required reading and amount of material covered. The concept of “one-size-fits- all” does not apply to the design and implementation of training programs for older workers.