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The article reviews the book, "Radical Ambition: The New Left in Toronto," by Peter Graham and Ian McKay.

The article reviews the book, "Industrial Relations in Singapore: Practice and Perspective," by Oun Hean Loh.

The article reviews the book, "Les services essentiels au Québec et la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés," by Jean Bernier.

Multinational corporations are undeniably the driving force of globalization and regional economic integration. A convenient institutional framework (Hall and Soskice, 2001) to apply when comparing multinationals from different host countries is the well-travelled road of dividing capitalist economies into coordinated market economies (CMEs) and liberal market economies (LMEs). This article aims to elucidate the tensions between centralized human resources practices and labour union avoidance usually exhibited by multinationals from so-called Liberal Market Economies (LMEs) when they expand into coordinated ones (CMEs). Specifically, it examines the recent acquisition of the German retail giant Galeria Kaufhof by the Canadian multinational Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). The article shows that HBC has settled into an uneasy acceptance of the CME institutions, while its investment motives vacillate between a long-term, market-enlargement strategy and a short- to medium-term one, based on the rapidly increasing real estate value of its downtown flagship stores. The article encourages researchers in IR to retain three principal conclusions for the literature and for further study. First, without predetermining outcomes by looking at host-country or home-country effects alone, institutionalist frameworks do present a convenient backdrop for conceptualizing movements of multinationals across jurisdictions. Secondly, concepts such as bricolage, recombining of institutional elements and institutional entrepreneurship, stemming from the institutional change literature, should routinely figure in one’s analytical toolbox, in any attempt at non-deterministic institutional analysis. Finally, sector-level actors, such as trade unions and employers’ associations, can play an essential role in any successful adaptation of collective bargaining institutions in the context of globalization by developing, maintaining and carefully utilizing their repertoire of strategic capabilities.

The article reviews the book, "Dix concepts pour penser le nouveau monde du travail," edited by Daniel Mercure and Mircea Vultur.

We examine the ways in which two major and related governmental institutions of China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and government controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), exert different effects on the attitudes and behaviour of people toward the environment. Our motivation is to see which institution is more effective in making individuals ‘aware’ of environmental issues, expressing a ‘willingness to pay’ to alleviate the problems, and ultimately to ‘act’ on the issue by altering their behaviour. Based on theories of planned behaviour and social learning, we hypothesize that membership in the CPC as well as in the ACFTU fosters an ‘awareness’ of environmental problems and a ‘willingness to make a sacrifice’ to protect the environment, but that members of the ACFTU are more likely than members of the CPC to act on the issue by altering their behaviour. We test our hypothesis based on a nationally representative sample (n = 3112) from the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). Our results indicate that both the Party and the union have positive effects on ‘awareness’ and ‘willingness to pay’, but the union effect is generally stronger and only it (and not the Party) affects individual behaviour toward protecting the environment. Unions in China are generally regarded as having little or no independent power to organize workers and engage in free collective bargaining. Their role is to foster harmony between workers and employers and to co-opt grassroots actions, wildcat strikes and the growth of independent unions, all in the interest of fostering stability and growth. While this is undoubtedly the case, our results are consistent with an emerging view of a more variegated picture of Chinese trade unions that highlights some more positive elements, in our case, fostering ‘actions’ to improve the environment in China.

The article reviews the book, "Hard Work Conquers All: Building the Finnish Community in Canada," edited by Michel S. Beaulieu, David K. Ratz, and Ronald N. Harpelle.

We are honoured to take over as the editors of RI/IR. Our new responsibility, formally assumed in September 2018, weighs heavily on us. We know that the journal is special. Since 1945, it has carved out a reputation for being at the vanguard in presenting research concerning work, employment and the labour market, as well as for being transcendent in how it delivers its product. RI/IR distinguishes itself from its rivals in the way it brings together professionals from disparate cultural, linguistic and epistemological backgrounds. Much like Canada itself, the journal serves as a reminder that diversity is a strength and that respect for difference, far from being a matter of jaundiced tolerance, is in fact a critical precursor of greatness. Aside from its role as a broad church of ideas, methodologies and ideological orientations, RI/IR has provided a platform for francophone scholars to showcase their work alongside their Anglophone peers. / Nous sommes honorés d’assumer le rôle de directeurs de la revue Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations (RI/IR) et nous mesurons pleinement l’importance de cette nouvelle responsabilité, dont nous sommes formellement investis depuis le mois de septembre 2018. Notre revue est particulière, nous le savons. Depuis 1945, elle s’est forgé une réputation avant-gardiste grâce à la publication de travaux de recherche novateurs sur le travail, l’emploi et le marché du travail, tout en se surpassant dans sa façon de diffuser son produit. RI/IR se démarque de ses concurrents par sa capacité à rassembler des professionnels de diverses origines culturelles, linguistiques et épistémologiques. Tout comme le Canada, la revue rappelle, par son essence même, que la diversité est une force et le respect de la différence, loin d’être une tolérance amère, constitue un précurseur essentiel de la grandeur. Au-delà de son rôle d’incarner un large spectre d’idées, de méthodologies et d’orientations idéologiques, RI/IR offre aux chercheurs francophones une plateforme qui leur permet de présenter leurs travaux à côté de leurs homologues anglophones. --Introduction

The article reviews the book, "Politics of the Pantry: Housewives, Food, and Consumer Protest in Twentieth-Century America," by Emily E. LB. Twarog.

This article examines the efforts to unionize Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) workers in British Columbia, Canada. Through an examination of three key legal cases, Greenway, Sidhu & Sons and Floralia, this article demonstrates the positive role that unionization and collective bargaining can have in improving working conditions and security for migrant agricultural workers in Canada. Specifically, through these cases, this article explores the strategies deployed by unions in organizing and collective bargaining processes to resist the problematic consequences associated with the SAWP’s circularity and system for recalling workers, and how those strategies enhance workers’ job security, rights and voice as workers. Together, these cases demonstrate the potential of labour law to shift conditions and experiences of work for migrants, and to enable workers to negotiate decent work, access rights and improve working conditions. Though focused on Canada’s SAWP, this article bears important implications for migrant agricultural workers in many other jurisdictions, and internationally.

This essay examines the United States Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Janus v AFSCME, Council 31, which concluded that agency shop provisions violate the First Amendment rights of public sector workers who are not union members but receive the fruits of the representation. This decision reversed over 40 years of precedent and imposed “right to work” as a new federal constitutional mandate, fulfilling the dream of anti-union forces since the first Gilded Age. The essay begins with a brief history of the open shop movement and the development of the agency shop as a constitutionally permissible form of union security in the private and public sectors. It then describes how an activist Supreme Court majority undermined the constitutionality of the agency shop, which set the stage for the Janus decision. The essay summarizes the majority and dissenting opinions in Janus, and describes how unions, employers, and some state legislatures are responding to the decision’s immediate impact.

Article 23(4) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states ‘Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.’ This article documents the global legislative history of Article 23(4) trade union rights from its original drafting to interpretation by international labour standards. The history includes debates on the fundamental principles of trade union rights, the decision by ECOSOC to ignore a call to establish a permanent UN Commission on Trade Union Rights, the devolution of authority from the United Nations to the International Labour Organization, how ILO international law experts framed trade union rights as a subset of the freedom of association, and the treatment of labour relations policy, including compulsory union membership, that resulted under international human rights norms. The history is discussed as one that confines standards of policy on labour rights in the global political economy and has particular implications for the discourse on labour rights as human rights.

The article reviews the book, "The Prairie Populist: George Hara Williams and the Untold Story of the CCF," by John F. Conway.

The article reviews the book, "The Economics of Trade Unions: A Study of a Research Field and its Findings," by Hristos Doucouliagos, Richard B. Freeman and Patrice Laroche.

The article reviews the book, "The Communist International, Anti-Imperialism and Racial Equality in British Dominions," by Oleksa Drachewych.

In this article I explore the making of a gendered working-class identity among a sample of male nickel miners in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. Through 26 oral history interviews conducted between January 2015 and July 2018 with current and retired miners (ages 26 to 74), I analyze how the industrial relations framework and social relations of the postwar period shaped – and continue to shape – a masculinized working-class identity. I then examine the ways in which economic restructuring and the partial deindustrialization of Sudbury’s mines have affected workers’ ideas about gender and class. I argue that, amid growing precarious employment in both the mining industry and the regional economy more broadly, the male workers in this study continue to gender their class identities, which limits attempts to build working-class solidarity in a labor market now largely characterized by feminized service sector employment.

The article reviews the book, "On the Road to Global Labour History: A Festschrift for Marcel van der Linden," edited by Karl Heinz Roth.

The article reviews the book, "The Last Suffragist Standing: The Life and Times of Laura Marshall Jamieson," by Veronica Strong-Boag.

The article reviews the book, "Workers and Nationalism: Czech and German Social Democracy in Habsburg Austria 1890–1918," by Jakub S. Beneš.

The legalization of marijuana in Canada is expected to have a significant impact on workplaces, requiring the development or updating of company drug-related policies and procedures. To help employment relations stakeholders with this change, recommendations are made based on an analysis of 93 past arbitration/tribunal/court cases involving marijuana-related policy violations, drawn from the Labour Source database. Issues addressed include language and communication of the work rule, reasonableness of drug tests, standard of proof, duty to accommodate, and mitigating factors. Based on the study of those 93 court cases, some recommendations can be formulated. First, employers need to clearly state their drug-related policies, taking into consideration safety-sensitivity and any substance abuse culture. This may include prohibition of possession, use, and distribution of drugs at the workplace or working under the influence, and the need to report any medical drug use that requires accommodation. Drug tests should only be done when there is a bona fide occupational requirement or where safety is a concern, such as post-incident or when there is reasonable suspicion of drug impairment. Also, it is important to understand that positive drug test results can only show past drug use but not the level of impairment or whether the drug was used while on a work shift. Therefore, to support an offence violation and discipline, corroborating evidence from multiple witnesses and sources are often necessary. Supervisors should be trained to identify the characteristics related to marijuana and drug impairment and the procedures to follow when an incident occurs. Employers must be cognizant of the duty to accommodate medical marijuana users or recreational users who are addicted, under human rights protection for disability. Such accommodation may include work reassignment or a leave of absence. In deciding on a penalty, other than past performance and disciplinary records and personal extenuating circumstances, arbitrators may consider rehabilitation situations to assess the prognosis and viability of the employment relationship. Employers and unions are advised to stay abreast of latest developments in the laws, drug test technologies and medical research related to marijuana use.