Search

Farmer Brown has a problem. His cows like to type. All day long he hears Click, clack, MOO. Click, clack, MOO. Clickety, clack, MOO. But Farmer Brown's problems REALLY begin when his cows start leaving him notes.... Doreen Cronin's understated text and Betsy Lewin's expressive illustrations make the most of this hilarious situation. Come join the fun as a bunch of literate cows turn Farmer Brown's farm upside down. --Publisher's description

Contracting Masculinity: Gender, Class and Race in a White-Collar Union, 1944-1994, by Gillian Creese, is reviewed.

Cette thèse traite de l'évolution du mouvement ouvrier montréalais de 1918 à 1929. Nous examinons les diverses organisations ouvrières, tant leur structure et leur composition, que les différentes idéologies qui coexistent dans les groupes ouvriers de la région montréalaise. Après avoir retracé les origines de ces organisations, leur évolution au cours de la Première Guerre mondiale, nous analysons leur développement au cours de la décennie qui suit la fin guerre. Nous cherchons, au delà des présupposés et des généralités, à comprendre le processus d'évolution du mouvement ouvrier montréalais. L'analyse de l'évolution des syndicats et des organisations politiques permet de saisir toute la complexité de rapports sociaux et les difficultés pour les travailleurs d'occuper une place significative. Notre analyse décrit aussi la place des diverses composantes nationales présentes dans le mouvement ouvrier montréalais. Nous insistons sur la place des travailleurs francophones et sur le rôle des travailleurs juifs jusqu'ici méconnu. Nous subdivisons cette tranche historique en trois périodes qui recoupent des conjonctures spécifiques. Les années de l'immédiat après-guerre sont marquées par une très forte agitation ouvrière alors que de très nombreux ouvriers et ouvrières se dotent de syndicats et revendiquent de meilleures conditions de vie et de travail. Le syndicalisme international de métier voit sa prédominance contestée par le syndicalisme canadien et le syndicalisme révolutionnaire. À droite de l'échiquier syndical, le syndicalisme catholique s'installe définitivement au Québec et constitue une des caractéristiques majeures du mouvement ouvrier québécois. L'effervescence ouvrière ne débouche pas sur des organisations politiques fortes malgré l'existence d'un parti ouvrier qui obtient quelques gains électoraux alors que les organisations de gauche doivent se réorganiser, victimes notamment de la répression gouvernementale et patronale. La crise, qui s'enclenche dès le milieu de 1920, affecte considérablement des organisations ouvrières lorsque le capitalisme tient à revenir aux situations qui prévalaient avant la guerre. Les organisations syndicales cherchent à résister à cette stratégie mais le nombre de syndicats décroît. Toutefois, cette baisse du membership syndical ne ramène pas le nombre de syndiqués au niveau de 1913 parce que, parmi les syndicats apparus dans la foulée de la révolte ouvrière, de nombreux syndicats résistent efficacement, dont des syndicats canadiens et des syndicats catholiques. La gauche se réorganise autour du Parti communiste canadien, creusant un fossé entre eux et le reste des militants ouvriers. Le Parti ouvrier du Canada entreprend sa lente marginalisation. Au milieu de la décennie, profitant d'une reprise économique, le mouvement ouvrier se relève. Les syndicats se réorganisent, leur membership augmente et leurs revendications deviennent plus offensives montrant ainsi un regain de militantisme. Mais les divisions s'accentuent dans les rangs syndicaux alors que les syndicats canadiens et catholiques contestent de plus en plus le leadership occupé par les syndicats internationaux de métier. Au plan politique, le Parti communiste occupe pratiquement toute la place, les socio-démocrates se voyant relégués à quelques bastions.

Discusses Debouzy's scholarly work, which is notable for its preoccupation with the social history dimensions of international capitalism. Themes include transnational approach to studies of labour migration, Americanization of French universities, American influences on the French New Left, and French and American workers.

The article reviews the book, "The Measure of Democracy: Polling, Market Research and Public Life, 1930-1945," by Daniel J. Robinson.

List of Debouzy's publications, with English translation of titles.

The article reviews by the book, "Handbook of Gender and Work," edited by Gary N. Powell.

The following study examines the NDP and the union vote. The NDP and labour unions have been officially linked since the NDP's formation in 1961. Despite the initial optimism of the NDP-labour link, the change from the CCF to the NDP has resulted in limited electoral success, especially at the federal level. The partnership between labour and the NDP has met with limited electoral fortunes. Although their tendency to vote NDP is higher than that of other groups, the vast majority of union members still vote for other parties. Federal election studies have repeatedly shown that 10 percent of non-union members, 20 percent of union members, and 30 percent of NDP affiliated union members vote for the NDP. The question is why do the remaining 70 to 80 percent of union members fail to vote for the NDP. This study aims to address this problem using survey research. The first chapter reviews the link between the NDP and labour and voting determinants in Canada. The second chapter looks at the research design and methodology of this thesis. Chapter three and four examines the results of the statistical analysis. Finally, chapter five summarizes with a discussion and concluding remarks.

The article reviews the book, "Oil, Wheat, and Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World in Oklahoma, 1905-1930," by Nigel Anthony Sellars.

The article reviews the book, "Organizing Immigrants: The Challenge for Unions in Contemporary California," edited by Ruth Milkman.

The article reviews the book, "The Working Class Majority: America's Best Kept Secret," by Michael Zweig.

Management and union negotiators have the choice of adopting competitive or problem-solving strategies to find acceptable outcomes but they may also have to yield, a process which is less clearly understood. Competing, problem solving and yielding have to be conveyed to those sitting across the bargaining table. Using material from a transcript of an Australian labor-management negotiation, negotiators are seen to rely on simple positional statements rather than argument to convey their compositional statements rather than argument to convey their commitment, while problem-solving activities appear to be squeezed in between other more competitive interactions. Giving ground is done quietly and without much fuss, concessions are muted or foreshadowed rather than made explicitly.

The article reviews the book, "La CSN : 75 ans d'action syndicale et sociale," edited by Yves Bélanger and Robert Comeau.

Being Local Worldwide: ABB and the Challenge of Global Management, edited by Jacques Belanger, Christian Berggren, Torsten Bjorkman and Christoph Kohler, is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "Politics and Public Debt: The Dominion, the Banks, and Alberta's Social Credit," by Robert L. Ascah.

This paper offers and tests a model for national union adoption of information technology (IT). Data come from a mail survey of national unions that were active in the US in 1997. Consistent with the model's predictions and prior research on union innovation, results indicate that rationalization and size are key predictors of IT adoption. Results also suggest a role for decentralization, employer use of information technology, and prior innovation. IT adoption may be one of the most important areas of union innovation in decades, and may have substantial impacts on union outcomes and possibly on the nature of unions. Understanding the nature and causes of IT adoption by unions may provide insight on the changing nature of unions and their roles in the future.

Is there a Canadian labour film? After a century of film production in Canada, the answer is uncertain. Canadian workers do appear in a variety of documentary and feature film productions, but their presence often arises from the incidental processes of documentation and fictionalization. There is also a more purposeful body of work focused on the concerns of labour history, but its promise remains relatively underdeveloped. Although film has become one of the dominant languages of communications at the end of the 20th century, the practice of visual history stands to benefit from closer collaboration between historians and filmmakers.

The article reviews the book, "The Discipline of Teamwork: Participation and Concertive Control," by James R. Barker.

Analyzes Supreme Court of Canada's decisions of the 1980s and 1990s that collective bargaining is a not a fundamental right under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In 1947. Bora Laskin, the doyen of Canadian collective bargaining law, remarked that "Labour relations as a matter for legal study … has outgrown any confinement to a section of the law of torts or to a corner of the criminal law. Similarly, and from another standpoint, it has burst the narrow bounds of master and servant." That standpoint was liberal pluralism, which comprises collective bargaining legislation administered by independent labour boards and a System of grievance arbitration to enforce collective agreements. After World War II, it came to dominate our understanding of labour relations law such that, according to Laskin, reference to "pre-collective bargaining standards is an attempt to re-enter a world that has ceased to exist." But this picture is only partially true. Instead of replacing earlier regimes of industrial legality, industrial pluralism was grafted on to them. Moreover, it only encompassed a narrow, albeit crucial, segment of workers; in the mid-1950s "the typical union member was a relatively settled, semi-skilled male worker within a large industrial corporation." More than 65 per cent of Canadian workers at that time, a large proportion of whom were women and recent immigrants, fell outside the regime. This paper broadens the focus from collective bargaining law to include other forms of the legal regulation of employment relations, such as the common law, minimum standards, and equity legislation. In doing so, it examines the extent to which liberal pluralism regime was implicated in constructing and reinforcing a deeply segmented labour market in Canada. It also probes whether the recent assault on trade union rights may be the trajectory for the reconstruction of a new regime of employment relations.