Search

This dissertation examines the seasonal round of St Lucian contract workers who travel to Ontario every year for temporary employment in the Foreign Agricultural Resources Management Service program (FARMS). The study's focus is divided among Ontario growers as employers, St Lucian agricultural workers as employees, residents of a rural town in Southwestern Ontario, and governmental departments that influence the FARMS program in Canada and in St Lucia. The main argument of the dissertation is that labour migration has been an integral part of St Lucian history since emancipation on the island. It is both an economic strategy and a symbol of the freedom emancipation promised. While factors external to the island, such as the need for agricultural labour in Ontario and a long history of connections between Canada and the British West Indies influence where St Lucians travel, the propensity of these men and women to leave the island and return can only be explained in terms of St Lucia's history as a British colony. Within this history, labour migration emerges in conjunction with other strategies of enduring yet resisting the plantation economy that characterized the island for centuries. Although "workin' on the contract" in Canada is used by St Lucians for individual social and economic goals, it derives its meaning from the shared cultural beliefs and values of the island's society.

The article reviews the book, "Histoire de la Coopérative fédérée de Québec. L'industrie de la terre," by Jacques Saint-Pierre.

The recent "renaissance" of industrial homework is attributed to the search for flexible labour in processes of economic restructuring. This paper argues that common-sense ideas about the meaning of work in western capitalist society underpin the use of industrial homework as a flexible strategy for economic efficiency in the context of corporate and state restructuring of the economy. Drawing on an ethnographic study of homework in Southern Ontario, the paper discusses some of the ways in which the meaning of work is ambiguous, situationally specific and continuously redefined in the homework context. It is argued that this is possible because of the awkward location of the homework labour process, occupying as it does space and time usually associated with home and family.

This paper examines the life of Robert Raglan Gosden, 1882-1961. Gosden was an unskilled worker who joined the Industrial Workers of the World and advocated violent revolution. He took part in the Vancouver Island mining strikes of 1912-1914, and was a key player in the 1916 provincial election scandal. By 1919, however, he was an informant for the RCMP. The paper outlines Gosden's career and analyzes the complex way his class experience shaped his construction of masculinity as well as his radical politics and his later activity as a labour spy.

Patrick Lenihan displayed rare courage and unwavering commitment to social justice, from his childhood in revolutionary Ireland through his leading role in the Communist Party of Canada to the formation of the first national union of public employees. Patrick Lenihan: From Irish Rebel to Founder of Canadian Public Sector Unionism chronicles a lifetime of rebellion, protest, and organizing, aganist the backdrop of the major economic, social, and political struggles of this century. Lenihan was constantly watched, repeatedly arrested, and often imprisoned, but he emerged time and again as a leader in the cause of the downtrodden, the working poor, and the unemployed. The On-to-Ottawa Trek, the work camps of the 1930's, the radicalism of the western mine towns, the Cold War -- Pat Lenihan was involved in it all, front and center. Drawn from interviews conducted by Gilbert Levine and written in an unadorned, engaging style, Patrick Lenihan is far more than the story of Canada's most infuential and colorful figures. It makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of western radicalism, Canadian communism, state repression union organizing, and the daily struggles which have shaped 20th-century Canada. --Publisher's description

Pays tribute to the life and work of Stanley Bréhaut Ryerson—a prominent and influential Marxist historian who was also a member of the Communist Party. A photo of Ryerson is included.

The article reviews the book, "The Death of Uncle Joe," by Alison Macleod.

The article reviews the book, "Men at work: Labourers and building craftsmen in the towns of northern England, 1450-1750," by Dbnald Woodward.

The article reviews the book, "The Tenant League of Prince Edward Island, 1864-1867: Leasehold Tenure in the New World," by Ian Ross Robertson.

The article reviews the book, "The Ideology of the Socialist Party of America, 1901-1917," by Anthony V. Esposito.

Compilation of recent English/French publications on Canadian labour history that emphasize the period 1800-1975. Materials pertaining to the post-1975 period may also be included, although more selectively. [See the database, Canadian Labour History, 1976-2009, published at Memorial University of Newfoundland.]

The article reviews the book, "Cultural Marxism in Postwar Britain: History, the New Left, and the Origins of Cultural Studies," by Dennis Dworkin.

The article reviews the book, "The Sky Never Changes: Testimonies from the Guatemalan Labor Movement," by Thomas F. Reed and Karen Brandow.

What are the trends shaping the future of work? How can unions respond in ways that will invigorate the labor movement for the 21st century? A paper addresses these questions by first presenting a critique of the future-of-work literature, followed by a detailed analysis of the best available Canadian evidence of the major forces already exerting pressures for change on workplaces. The shape of tomorrow's workplace is visible today. Unions will continue to play a vital role in Canadian society by adapting their organizing and collective bargaining strategies to the often contradictory economic, labor market, organizational, human resource management, and demographic trends evident today.

Using a comparative case study research design, the thesis examines the similarities and differences in farm wives' work on family owned and operated dairy and potato farms in New Brunswick, Canada. New Brunswick, Canada was selected as the research site because of the opportunity it provided to study two highly contrasting but comparable farm industries. Potato production is an intense and seasonal process, involving the planting, tending and harvesting of a field crop. Dairy farms are all-year operations involving animal husbandry and milk collection on a daily schedule. Potatoes are sold in 'open', uncertain markets; milk is sold in a 'closed' market protected and regulated in the provincial Milk Marketing Board. The differing labour demands, marketing arrangements and other conditions surrounding the production and sale of milk and potatoes made them ideal industries to study the effects of a farm's commodity on farm wives' work. The family, farm and work histories of fourteen farm wives on potato farms and sixteen farm wives on dairy farms were gathered, between November 1995 and September 1996, using an in-depth, open-ended interview format. What the farm sets out to produce effectively establishes its labour requirements, its work rhythms, as well as the marketing and pricing arrangements farm families will face. As a result, the farm's commodity provides the key for understanding the various ways farm wives' become 'incorporated' into their husband's work. Dairy farmers are not engaged in the same work as potato farmers even though both are called farmers and there are similarities in their work. It is not enough to study farm wives' work without ascertaining the particularities of being a dairy farmer's wife or a potato farmer's wife. At the same time both sectors must contend with agricultural restructuring, the cost-price squeeze and the economic uncertainties facing their rural communities. In examining the implications of this case study for future research on farm women's work, the thesis adds we must re-evaluate the spatial locations of work - household, on farm, off farm and community - and analytic dichotomies of work - productive and reproductive, paid and unpaid, direct and indirect - in order to better appreciate how farm wives contribute to family farming and how family farming contributes to farm wives' work.

Until the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) turned to the tactic of Class Against Class in 1928-29, it confined its trade-union work almost wholly to "boring from within" the international craft unions of the American Federation of Labor/Trades and Labour Congress of Canada. Although "the party" played a dominant part in the very limited industrial conflict of the 1920s, its attempt to transform the international unions into organs of class struggle was wholly unsuccessful, in part because its "line" presumed a far higher degree of rank and file combativeness than actually existed, and in part because Canadian "labourists" actively resisted its best efforts. Where the CPC believed that the international unions needed to be "renovated," the internationals themselves disagreed. Socialist Plumbers' official John W. Bruce posed the question "Does the International Labour Movement need Salvaging?" which he then answered - to general labourist approval - by reaffirming the progressive character of craft unionism and its tried and tested, non-revolutionary methods. The party's failure to break through this complacency - and labourists' growing resentment of its attempts to do so - predisposed it to accept the Comintern's "New Line" in 1928.

Ce texte s'appuie sur le fichier longitudinal de l'Enquête sur l'activité 1988-90 de Statistique Canada. Il examine les effets des conditions de la mobilité entre l'emploi à temps complet et l'emploi à temps partiel sur la rémunération future des femmes canadiennes. Les résultats d'est imat ion confi rment les conclusions des études américaines quant à l'effet négatif des interruptions d'emploi et des épisodes d'emploi à temps partiel sur le salaire dans le dernier emploi à temps complet. Mais, plus spécifiquement, ils montrent que les femmes qui subissent une déqualification au moment du passage à temps partiel enregistrent une baisse de salaire dans l'emploi à temps complet le plus récent, de l'ordre de 14 %, comparativement aux salariées qui n'ont pas connu de déqualification. En outre, le «travail à temps réduit réversible», c'est-à-dire les transitions entre temps complet et temps part iel, dans les deux directions, sans changement de profession ou d'employeur, agit positivement sur la rémunération future, contrairement aux situations ou ces transitions impliquent au moins un changement d'emploi.

Commentates on the satirical piece, "To the Dartmouth Station" (1976), and the author's article, "Rough Work and Rugged Men" (1989), both of which were published in the journal, in order to raise questions regarding the historical study of working-class masculinity. Argues for greater use of the analytical lens of sexuality to interrogate the concept of masculinity, including that masculinity is in crisis, and to explore workingmen's gender identities and sexual practices. Considers issues of sexuality and indications of homosexual subcultures in historically male occupations such as seafaring, lumbering and mining. Concludes that the investigation of how men's sexual and gender relations existed in relationship to other forms of power highlights the potential of gay history to both complicate and expand historical understandings of working-class men's gender identities.

The article reviews the book, "Paying for the Piper: Capital and Labour in Britain's Offshore Oil Industry," byCharles Woolfson, John Foster, and Matthias Beck.

In March 1919, over 230 union delegates assembled at the Western Labor Conference in Calgary to chart a radical new direction for wage workers through the creation of a revolutionary industrial union centre, the One Big Union (OBU). This essay argues that the practices of the OBU's radical manhood, their particular sense of what it meant to be a union man, shaped the organization's structure and politics as well as the emergent culture which fostered such widespread working-class radicalism. Drawing upon already existing practices espoused by Canadian labourists and American Wobblies as well as fashioning new ones, OBU men distinguished radical manhood from both the class politics and the masculinities of male bosses and scabs. While the organization of working women was not seen as an important issue at the WLC, the upsurge in women's militancy during the labour revolt prompted OBU supporters to encourage these women to join their male comrades. At times, advocates of the One Big Union posed the questions of women's oppression and emancipation as crucial elements of the union's purpose; their infrequent ideological commitment, however, too often failed to translate into organizational gains for working-class women and the development of feminist practices within the union. In their challenge to the bourgeois order, OBU men created a program that, in the prevailing context of gender relations, meant that the One Big Union would bring about the transformation, but not the eradication, of men's power.