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The article reviews the book and CD, "Working-Class Heroes: A History of Struggle in Song," edited by Mat Callahan and Yvonne Moore.

The decline in the prevalence of the Standard Employment Relationship in Canada has created challenges for Canadian unions. This article reviews the available estimates of the prevalence of precarious employment and gig work in Canada. Using data from the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario (PEPSO) research group it evaluates both the success of unions in organising workers in precarious employment and bargaining for them. The last section reviews recent union strategies to organise workers in precarious employment with a focus on the subset of precarious employment referred to as gig work. Organising gig workers presents unique challenges for unions as many are deemed by their employers as independent contractors and as a result not covered by existing Canadian labour legislation and hence not eligible for union membership. The paper concludes by arguing that organising precarious workers is a work in progress, whose ultimate outcome remains uncertain.

The article reviews the book, "Fellow Travellers: Communist Trade Unionism and Industrial Relations on the French Railways, 1914-1939," by Thomas Beaumont.

This article discusses the sector-wide organization of contractual archaeologists in Québec, beginning with the formation of a workers’ committee and leading subsequently to union accreditation. We theorize the difficulty of organizing these “precarious professionals” and suggest that self-organization outside of an industrial relations framework may be required to overcome barriers to their unionization. Deliberation, norm setting, and informal parlays with employers lead to clarifying class distinctions that professional identification often occludes, while self-organization increases worker confidence in collective action.

The article reviews the book, "The University and Social Justice: Struggles Across the Globe," edited by Aziz Choudry and Salim Vally.

The article reviews the book, "Les relations industrielles en questions," edited by Patrice Jalette.

/Toute personne qui observe le monde du travail et de l’emploi comprendra que ce volume est mis sous presse à un moment d’incertitude et d’anxiété. En 2020, nous sommes entrés dans une longue période de confinement et d’isolement, la COVID-19 ayant généré plusieurs crises. Comme c’est le cas pour les véritables catastrophes, cette ère de malaise a eu un point de départ bien défini (début de mars 2020), mais elle est maintenant entrée dans une phase qui, malgré le déploiement actuel des vaccins, semble être présente pour une durée indéterminée....//This edition goes to press at a time of uncertainty and anxiety for the majority of those who have a stake in the world of work and employment. In 2020, people on all populated continents entered a protracted period of lockdown and isolation in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. As is characteristic of genuine catastrophes, this era of malaise had a defined commencement point (early March 2020) but has now entered a phase where, despite the current roll-out of vaccines, looks like being present for an indeterminate long-haul....

The article reviews the book, "Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History," by Kurt Andersen.

The article reviews the book, "How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom," by Matt Ridley.

The article reviews the book, "Management Studies in Crisis: Fraud, Deception and Meaningless Research," by Dennis Tourish.

This study examines discrimination in the workplace in Canada and explores the intersection of marginalized groups. It uses data from the General Social Survey 2016, which collected information from 19,609 non-institutionalized individuals. Results show that 17 percent of the job applicants and 9 percent of the workers felt discriminated against in the workplace during the 12 months before the survey. Data analysis indicates that a person’s identification with two marginalized groups increases the chances of discrimination and augments it further with three marginalized identities. However, the incremental effect of four or more marginalized groups is difficult to examine with this dataset due to the depleting sample size with the inclusion of every new group. Results from the logistic regression illustrate that the intersection of two, three, or four selected disadvantaged groups increases workplace discrimination significantly, thus supporting the theory of intersectionality. However, this perspective does not work for some combinations of marginalized groups.

The article reviews the book, "Punishing Poverty: How Bail and Pretrial Detention Fuel Inequalities in the Criminal Justice System," by Christine Scott-Hayward and Henry F. Fradella.

Notre article porte sur les intensités et la fragilisation des collectifs de travail et offre une synthèse de la littérature concernant le travail et ses intensités, en particulier dans le milieu aérien. Prenant le cas du personnel navigant commercial (PNC) dans le milieu aérien, nous nous appuyons sur la théorie des demandes-ressources du travail et de l’organisation capacitante pour analyser les perceptions de ces travailleurs concernant les demandes physiques, psychosociales et organisationnelles du travail, ainsi que les ressources de même type, notamment à la suite de l’autorisation d’une réduction d’effectif par le ministère des Transports sur bon nombre de porteurs canadiens en juillet 2015. Nous portons une attention particulière aux demandes du travail constituant une contrainte, ce qui est rarement pris en compte dans les études sur l’intensification du travail. À l’aide du construit de caravanes de ressources et d’organisation capacitante, nous nous demandons si les collectifs de travail PNC sont en mesure d’accomplir leur mission collective de maintien de la sécurité et de service auprès du public. Nous avons pour cela mené 41 entrevues semi-dirigées auprès d’agents de bord et de directeurs de vol volontaires provenant de deux compagnies aériennes canadiennes. Nous avons procédé à une analyse de contenu qualitative faisant émerger les thèmes principaux de manière inductive et analysant les demandes et les ressources physiques, psychosociales et organisationnelles du travail. Nos résultats documentent de façon originale comment une augmentation notable des intensités contraignantes du travail perturbe les collectifs de travail, en particulier le rôle pivot du directeur de vol, contribuant à la recherche émergente au sujet de la fragilisation des processus de travail. De nombreux aspects demeurent à améliorer pour qualifier les compagnies aériennes étudiées d’organisations capacitantes.

Detailed analysis of Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey shows the complex relationship between the different types of non-standard employment, including non-permanent jobs, self-employment, part-time work and low pay. Term and contract work has increased substantially since 1997, but there is no corresponding decrease in permanent jobs or increase in part-time or low wage jobs. The different forms of non-standard employment are concentrated in specific population groups, including women in part-time and low wage jobs, university graduates and younger workers in term and contract jobs, and older workers in self-employment. But precarious employment is much more strongly related to occupation and industry than to workers’ characteristics. There are some provincial differences, while firm and establishment size and unionization have small effects on non-standard employment. These findings cast doubt on the dominant narrative of precarious employment.

Analyzes the crisis in Canadian Communism triggered by international developments including Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's denunciation of the crimes of the Stalin era made in a "secret speech" in February 1956, and the Soviet Union's intervention later in the year to crush the revolt in Hungary. Calls attention to Karen Levine's article, "The Labor-Progressive Party in Crisis, 1956-1957, " published in the same issue, that was originally written as an undergraduate essay at the University of Toronto in the late 1970s.

One response to the employer’s search for “flexibility” (most evident in the “platform economy”) may be “institutional experimentation,” i.e., changes to institutions and how they relate to organizations and labour standards. Our question: “What form of institutional arrangement can best enable the lessons of policy experimentation to be learned and disseminated?” Under directed devolution, as proposed here, legal entitlements or obligations would be set at a higher level (say, a national jurisdiction). A lower level (“subsidiary bodies”) would be required to work out detailed implementation of those standards, with a view to protecting the affected workers’ interests. The subsidiary bodies might cover specific industries or groups of industries. They may need to be quite innovative. Results would be evaluated and ideas generated. By emphasizing flexibility and learning, directed devolution enables actors to learn from the experiments of other actors. One such example is the regulation of New York’s road passenger transport industry in 2019, a highly innovative attempt to convert a high-level time-based minimum standard into a practical, local solution. Directed devolution is a form of multi-level policy-making, with some similarities to the concept of subsidiarity, but more tightly integrated. Other relevant but distinct forms of multi-level bargaining include the ILO Conventions, the Bangladesh Accord and several forms of regulation adopted in Australia. Actors and policy-makers should have long-term strategies, be careful in their processes of selecting institutional members, and be prepared to deal with powerful opposition. Directed devolution can be useful wherever establishing enforceable general principles is important and can make a real difference, but there are complications with implementation if circumstances vary considerably among organizations or industries. Devolution can be achieved without losing enforceability, and this can be done without shifting power away from those with less power. Directed devolution is a complement to, not a substitute for, specific regulatory interventions.

Many areas of practice in health and social services are emotionally demanding. This type of work can be associated with psychological health problems and middle managers play a key role in reducing such risks for their staff. Although the importance of providing this support is recognized, attaining such an objective is not necessarily straightforward because of the multiple demands that managers must juggle. Using an ergonomic perspective, this qualitative research study, which was conducted in a regional child protection service in Quebec (Canada), aimed to identify the strategies used by middle managers to support staff whose work is considered emotionally demanding. The results reveal that managers use a range of support strategies, which fall into seven categories. Although the strategies are distributed along two axes, proximity (direct, indirect) and time (short-term, long-term), they tend to be more direct and short-term (e.g., provide emotional support). The choice of strategies is influenced by various facilitating or constraining organizational, interpersonal and individual factors. A strong influence appears to be time availability. This study provides a detailed picture of the strategies used by middle man-agers and the complexity with which these individuals are confronted in providing their staff with support. Further research is required, for example, to better understand the impact of certain factors on the choice of support strategies and to evaluate the impact of support strategies from a staff perspective.

The article reviews the book, "Automation and the Future of Work," by Aaron Benanav.

Le concept de création de valeur partagée (Creating Shared Value, CSV) proposé par Porter et Kramer ne fait pas l’unanimité au sein de la communauté scientifique. Pourtant, il bénéficie d’une certaine popularité chez les chefs d’entreprises qui voient dans ce concept le moyen de répondre efficacement aux enjeux du développement durable et indirectement de réconcilier économie, social et écologie. Si l’utilisation de la CSV dans les déclarations du dirigeant permet de rassurer l’ensemble des parties prenantes sur l’objectif poursuivi par l’entreprise, celle-ci ne trouve pas obligatoirement des effets dans les pratiques organisationnelles. Basant sa recherche sur une étude de cas unique inscrite dans une perspective longitudinale, l’auteur s’intéresse ici au passage du discours aux actes. Il s’interroge sur le caractère performatif de la CSV et met en évidence des conditions de performativité spécifiques au discours sur la création de valeur partagée. Au terme de cette recherche, trois facteurs ont pu être mis en évidence comme des éléments facilitateurs : l’absence de théorie concurrente, la mise en oeuvre d’un processus d’acceptation sociale, l’inscription de la CSV dans une perspective plus globale touchant à la raison d’être de l’entreprise. Les résultats ainsi obtenus, qui devront cependant être confirmés par une étude à plus grande échelle, complètent les travaux précédents sur les conditions de performativité du discours stratégique en l’adaptant au concept de CSV aujourd’hui largement utilisé dans les milieux d’affaires.

Cet article porte sur les salariés des grandes surfaces alimentaires en France. Si la littérature existante sur le secteur porte essentiellement sur les caissières et utilise la monographie, notre approche s’intéresse aux managers de rayon. Porter le regard sur les managers de rayon, premier niveau d’encadrement en magasin, permet de mieux comprendre les logiques qui traversent le secteur. Mais contrairement à l’approche habituelle qui utilise la monographie, notre approche combine les échelles d’analyse (micro, méso et macro) afin d’ancrer les observations du terrain au sein de l’histoire sectorielle et de la conjoncture. Cela nous conduits à associer la sociologie du travail et de l’emploi avec la sociologie des groupes professionnels pour montrer que les managers travaillent au sein de deux principaux segments professionnels : les rayons alimentaires, d’une part, et les rayons non alimentaires, d’autre part. Sur chaque segment, les conditions de travail ne sont pas tout à fait les mêmes : la situation économique des groupes intégrés étant préoccupante, ces derniers ont procédé à une réorganisation des rayons. Par conséquent, les conditions d’emploi sont également différentes. En effet, si le processus de centralisation-décentralisation des tâches et la sélection d’un nouveau profil de managers sont bien mis en oeuvre de façon homogène dans les rayons alimentaires, deux rayons non alimentaires conservent leur particularité. Au rayon parapharmacie tout d’abord, le titre de docteur constitue une barrière à l’entrée dans ce marché du travail fermé. Parallèlement, les récentes réorganisations permettent à ce dernier de s’emparer des rayons des collègues, faisant de ce manager le grand gagnant des mutations actuelles. Aux rayons brun-blanc-gris ensuite, les managers sont dans une situation plus difficile : plus que partout ailleurs, ces rayons qui perdent de l’argent ont été réorganisés ou supprimés, annonçant la « mort » progressive de ce groupe.