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The article reviews the book, "Organizing the Unemployed: Community and Union Activists in the Industrial Heartland," by James J. Lorence.

The article reviews the book, "Power at Odds: The 1922 National Railroad Shopmen's Strike, by Colin J. Davis.

This study presents the first empirical evidence of the impact of unions on benefits and total compensation in Canada. It also provides new evidence on the union wage impact and union wage differentials for a wide range of selected groups in the labor market. Using micro data from the Canadian General Social Survey of 1989, the results show that the union impact is to increase total compensation by 12.4%, compared to an impact of 10.4% on wages. Even though the union impact on total compensation is 2% greater than the impact on wages, given that benefits comprise only about 6% of total compensation in this sample, the percentage impact of unions on benefits is estimated to be 45.5%. This latter estimate implies a very substantial impact on unions on benefits in Canada, as large or larger than those reported in the US.

Until well into the 20th century, Newfoundland and Labrador's primary economic activity was in the fisheries. Most of the workforce was in the inshore cod fishery, a small-boat operation in which family enterprises caught, split, salted and dried the fish to produce a finished product that was traded to a merchant. Fishers were not wage workers but commodity producers, like farmers. Even in the Labrador and Grand Banks fisheries and the annual seal hunt, the workers were treated as independent contractors, paying for their own gear and supplies and receiving shares rather than wages. --Introduction

The article reviews the book, "Recast Dreams: Class and Gender Consciousness in Steeltown," edited by D.W. Livingstone and J. Marshall Mangan.

The article reviews and comments extensively on the iconic recording, "The Anthology of American Folk Music and Working-Class Music," reissued with additional notes by Smithsonian Folkways in 1997. The original recordings were made by Harry Smith between 1927 and 1932; the anthology was first assembled and issued in 1952 by Ralph Rinzler. The author concludes that while the collection is an amazing and insightful document of its time, it is also representative of a particular American cultural and political mythology. The conclusion also briefly discusses why there is no comparable Canadian anthology.

The article reviews the book, "A Thousand Blunders: The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and Northern British Columbia," by Frank Leonard.

The article reviews the book, "Misères du présent, richesse du possible," by André Gorz.

The article reviews the book, "Whittaker Chambers: A Biography," by Sam Tanenhaus.

The article reviews the book, "Workers Against Lenin: Labour Protest and the Bolshevik Dictatorship," by Jonathan Aves.

The article reviews the book, "From the Knights of Labor to the New World Order: Essays on Labor and Culture," by Paul Buhle.

The objectives of this paper are: 1. to determine whether layoffs disproportionately affect members of employment equity designated groups, and 2. to assess the importance of seniority in any adverse impacts. The hypothesis is that seniority is an important criterion for layoffs and that designated group members tend to have less seniority and would therefore be disproportionately affected by layoffs. If this is correct, then layoffs may constitute systemic discrimination since there is a reasonable alternative policy in the form of reduced hours through worksharing, which would affect all groups similarly. Tests confirmed that the probability of a layoff was higher for designated group members. The role of the seniority system in this relationship, however, was contrary to the hypothesis since the relationship between the probability of a layoff and designated group status was weaker at unionized workplaces than at nonuion workplaces. It is concluded that the case for worksharing is strengthened by its potential to reduce the systemic discrimination against designated groups which results from the use of layoffs.

The article reviews the book, "The Business of Power: Hydroelectricity in Southeastern British Columbia 1897-1997," by Jeremy Mouat.

In the debates about the relationship between labor flexibility and employment security, the actual strategies managers employ under different policy regimes tends to be overlooked. The nature of deployment strategies that managers employ for their retained labor force in production plants in Canada and Sweden in 3 industrial sectors - steel, pulp and paper and telecommunications - is examined. While Canadian managers have greater access to external markets and make greater use of layoff-recall strategies and overtime than their Swedish counterparts, deployment strategies within plants tend to require more formal negotiations, especially within unionized plants. Swedish managers can carry out changes in labor deployment in a more informal manner, particularly with respect to job responsibilities and new skills training. Swedish managers face more difficulties than their Canadian counterparts in altering quantities of labor.

The drafting of Canada's industrial standards legislation and its consequences in the clothing industry are examined. In particular, it is argued that the legislation formalized the subordination of specific sectors of workers in the clothing shops. Although the traditional unions made some efforts to organize women, the presence of women in the union bureaucracy was limited. Because of this, the move away from shop-floor unionism towards industry-wide collective bargaining ensured that women had, at best, a peripheral position in union decision making. When the men in the industry sat down to negotiate the legal framework for their trade, most of the political maneuvering went on in a domain exclusive of women. In the negotiations for the legislation in Ontario and Quebec's clothing industry, men reaffirmed the gendered nature of the work in the trade through legal language enshrined in the industrial standards schedules set for the industry.

The article reviews the book, "Ready-to-Wear and Ready-to-Work: A Century of Industry and Immigrants in Paris and New York," by Nancy L. Green.

The article reviews the book, "The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968," by Kevin Boyle.

This article explores mid-19th century masculinity, through examination of the writings and lived experience of New Brunswick tannery worker Martin Butler. What being a man meant, in this historical context, was rooted in the contingencies and determinants of the North American sole leather tanning industry, and can be located as well in the discourses Martin Butler constructed about his and other men's experiences. Rural, working-class men, it is argued, were, in part, the shapers of their own class-specific and rurally-contingent male identifies, although the processes by which these identities were formulated and negotiated are neither easily catalogued nor tidily analyzed.

The article reviews the book, "The Conundrum of Class: Public Discourse on the Social Order in America," by Martin J. Burke.

The article reviews and comments on Rick Halpern's "Down on the Killing Floor: Black and White Workers in Chicago's Packinghouses, 1904-54" (1997) and "Unionizing the Jungles: Labor and Community in the Twentieth-Century Meatpacking Industry" (1997) edited by Shelton Stromquist and Marvin Bergman.