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The article reviews the book, "The Real Living Wage: Civil Regulation and the Employment Relationship," by Edmund Heery, Deborah Hann, and David Nash

Thousands of children and youth across the country took to the streets for two weeks in spring 1947 to protest a three-cent increase in the price of chocolate bars. The protest initially generated enthusiastic press coverage and had widespread popular support, but when the National Federation of Labor Youth (nfly), the Communist Party's youth organization, announced its support, anti-communists in the press and the community red-baited the protesters. The campaign quickly lost momentum, which anti-communists attributed to the presence of Communists but was more likely due to their own red-baiting attacks in the press. Some of these protests were spontaneous reactions to a 40 per cent increase in the price of candy bars, while others were led or inspired by nfly. Either way, the countrywide mobilization of thousands of children and youth marks a turning point in the history of Canada's left. Erupting in tandem with a nationwide strike of industrial workers and protests of activist consumers demanding greater economic security and a more responsive state, the children's chocolate bar protest provides a window on this critical moment in the class struggle. The attacks on this popular protest at the moment that the long run of community-based militancy was about to be demonized, delegitimated, and silenced by red-baiting marks a significant milestone in Canada's Cold War. In addition to adding the youngsters' challenge to capital and the state to the history of the popular left, the event contributes to the growing literature on children and youth engaged in political protest, while their creative protest strategies offer a youthful dimension to the study of performance activism.

Ce texte s’inscrit dans une perspective critique où, à la lumière des différentes évolutions et changements, le moment semble opportun pour appeler à un réexamen ou à un renouveau de la gestion des ressources humaines (Delbridge et Keenoy, 2010 ; Hallée, Taskin et Vincent, 2018). La Critical Human Resource Management est une posture qui remet en cause le discours managérial dominant et qui valorise les voix exclues de la réflexion en GRH (Delbridge et Keenoy, 2010). Ces préoccupations sont liées à une tradition de critique humaniste, notamment l’injustice sociale et la remise en question des systèmes sociaux et économiques que des entreprises servent et reproduisent (Adler, Forbes et Willmott, 2007). Les enjeux liés au genre, à l’inégalité, à la gouvernance, au pouvoir et à la domination font partie du questionnement (ibid., Lee Ashcraft, 2009). Nous avons mobilisé la théorie de critique de la justice sociale de Fraser où des enjeux de citoyenneté, de reconnaissance, de redistribution et de participation y sont notamment discutés (Fraser, 1989). Ces concepts, que nous associons à des pratiques de GRH, ont fait l’objet d’une recherche à partir d’emplois du care qui sont à prédominance féminine. L’un des problèmes fondamentaux de la dévalorisation du travail « dit » féminin repose sur l’idée que les activités professionnelles similaires aux divers types de travaux à domicile sont naturelles chez la femme et donc, issues de dispositions biologiques plutôt que de compétences acquises (Kymlicka, 1999). Nos résultats montrent que les disparités de traitement pour les emplois du care pourraient s’assimiler, dans les faits, à une exclusion déguisée, malgré des discours contraires. Les titulaires des emplois du care ne participent pas suffisamment à l’interaction sociale sur un même pied d’égalité, considérant les obstacles institutionnalisés formels et informels liés à la reconnaissance, à la redistribution et à la participation.

The article reviews the book, "Le Québec en mouvements : Continuité et renouvellement des pratiques militantes," by Pascale Dufour, Laurence Bherer, and Geneviève Pagé.

Indigenous doulas in Canada carry added responsibilities as they juggle with cultural and societal expectations to appropriately support their communities and extended relations. They not only face socioeconomic challenges as a result of doula care being excluded from the universal healthcare system, but also deal with the affective costs of caregiving. Through an Indigenous-centred intersectional lens, the idea of Indigenous doula work as exploitative labour is examined under four key areas: (1) the historical role of doulas in Indigenous communities; (2) colonial policies and processes that devalued Indigenous women; (3) colonial policies and processes that devalued birth workers, and; (4) challenges that Indigenous doulas face today. This study aims to provide context to the challenges faced by Indigenous doulas working within the dominant, Western medical system and confines of capitalism. The study concludes that the policies and processes that derived from these systems have led to the hardships imposed on Indigenous doulas, which reveal a need for policy solutions that recognize the value of Indigenous doulas in the healthcare system.

The article reviews the book, "Solidarity Beyond Bars: Unionizing Prison Labour," by Jordan House and Asaf Rashid.

The article reviews the book, "El Golpe: US Labor, the CIA, and the Coup at Ford in Mexico," by Rob McKenzie and Patrick Dunne.

The article reviews the book, "A Field in Flux: Sixty Years of Industrial Relations," by Robert B. McKersie.

Annie Buller makes for an interesting case study of Canada’s World War II security state and how it functioned vis-à-vis the Communist Party of Canada and its allies. Her experiences speak to gender, party history, and broader elements of political policing, community responses, and confinement experiences. Like her life, her wartime encounters with the Canadian security state were concurrently like and different from those of other criminalized female and male activists at the time about whom we know more. Among the apprehended and incarcerated, female or male, Buller was somewhat of an anomaly and warrants special attention. Buller’s particular situation helps to shed light on lesser-understood elements of the Communist wartime carceral experience, including the lack of trust officials had in these processes at times to accomplish the intended repression and important details about efforts to free those incarcerated. Ultimately, Buller’s case and the movement to liberate her and the other incarcerated members of the party illustrate the power of grassroots activism in challenging oppressive systems.

With the advancement of science and technology and the improvement of social attitudes and mentalities, many Canadian women nowadays hold professions that have always been held exclusively by men. They have been able to integrate educational training, academic programs, and professional careers that have always been “masculine”, such as engineering, architecture, accounting, finance, military, trades, construction, and law enforcement, to name a few. Women in Canada have successfully performed and integrated these “masculine” professions. However, this integration was only a one-way street in many circumstances, not appreciated or accepted by men who considered it an invasion of their professional property and territory. Therefore, it unfortunately opens the door to bullying, discrimination, intimidation, and even sexual harassment. Sexual harassment of women in the workplace has always been persistent, especially in male-dominated industries. Not only does it harm women’s health, advancement, and career, but it also harms the organizations and their reputations. This research will investigate the impacts of sexual harassment on the overall health of women working in male-dominated industries in Canada.

This paper explores the perceptions and future imaginaries of a group of union members in Manitoba, Canada, concerning climate change, energy transition, and the roles of unions and workers in climate politics. Based on interviews with 30 rank and file workers carried out through the winter of 2020, the results suggest some starting points for a more active engagement between the labour movement and climate politics—an engagement that is central to climate justice, and that becomes more vital every moment as workers both participate through their waged labour in the production of ecological crisis, and stand to suffer intensely from both climate change and from elite-led energy transitions.

Cet article vise à étudier les conséquences sociales des relations industrielles de la sous-traitance internationale qui, si elle est source de compétitivité pour les grandes entreprises dans les pays développés, peut conduire à des conditions de travail indécentes dans les pays en développement, en particulier dans les industries à forte intensité de main-d'oeuvre. Nous abordons la question peu explorée de la nature de l'engagement des PME du textile au Maroc en matière de responsabilité sociale compte tenu des exigences des grands donneurs d’ordres. Les résultats de notre étude quantitative corroborent l'hypothèse d'une dégradation des conditions de travail des salariés qui accompagne la sous-traitance internationale.

The article reviews the book, "Countercurrents: Women's Movements in Postwar Montreal," by Amanda Ricci.

The article reviews the book, "Environmental Activism on the Ground: Small Green and Indigenous Organizing," by Jonathan Clapperton and Liza Piper.

This article pushes forward research and thinking on “boundless work” in hierarchal gendered organizations within the context of late neoliberalism. Weaving the tools of feminist political economy with rhetorical analysis techniques, our analysis of gendered work in Ontario nursing homes reveals moralized hierarchies, contextually specific variations across organizations, and potential sites of resistance and change. It demonstrates the utility of understanding and exploring “boundless work” as an interpretive category that is actively under negotiation. This paper is part of the SPE special theme “Decent care work: politics, policy, and resistance.”

This paper provides a history of more than a century of efforts to establish and maintain a homegrown Canadian sugar supply – a twentieth century version of what Eric Williams called the ‘war of the two sugars,’ or the global competition between sugar beet and cane. To resolve beet sugar’s so-called ‘labour problem,’ the industry has collaborated with the Canadian state to produce new classes of temporary workers, mobilizing incarcerated Japanese Canadians, migrant indigenous families, and Mexican and Caribbean workers employed through the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program. At the same time, the sugar industry has sought to refine itself of the racialised workers upon whom it relies by promoting the figure of the white Canadian worker. The Canadian ‘war of the two sugars’ has been fought through the stratification of the labour force along the lines of citizenship, resulting in the production of unique racial forms.

Organisées au printemps 1971 pour dénoncer l'intervention américaine au Vietnam, les conférences indochinoises constituent l'une des plus importantes tentatives de coalitions féministes de l'époque. L'événement incarne le projet de bâtir une sororité globale. Bien qu'abondamment critiqué dans l'historiographie, cet idéal est rarement analysé dans toute son ambiguïté : cet article propose donc d'historiciser la sororité et de mettre en lumière la complexité de ses usages politiques. Tout en reconnaissant l'importance des conflits entourant ce projet, nous souhaitons justement comprendre pourquoi, malgré tout, celui-ci s'impose comme cadre de référence partagé par une si grande diversité de militantes au tournant des années 1970., Cette relecture des conférences indochinoises permet de proposer une définition plus souple de la sororité globale : les discours sur la question reflètent les tiraillements d'un mouvement mû par l'urgence d'articuler les différentes subjectivités des femmes pour organiser une opposition massive et efficace à la guerre du Vietnam. La sororité sert ainsi de cadre de référence fédérateur suffisamment malléable pour permettre à diverses conceptions du féminisme de coexister et de s'entrechoquer. Elle permet ainsi de baliser un terrain à partir duquel une solidarité féministe pluraliste et débattue peut se développer.

The article reviews the book, "The Moderate Bolshevik: Mikhail Tomsky from the Factory to the Kremlin, 1880-1936," by Charters Wynn.

Dans cet article, nous proposons un développement théorique sur le concept de découplage, qui s’avère utile pour analyser les relations industrielles. Beaucoup d’auteurs définissent le découplage comme un processus de réponses des organisations aux pressions institutionnelles. Si le découplage « politique-pratique » décrit par Bromley et Powell (2012) rejoint le cas de figure décrit par Meyer et Rowan (1977), où le choix est intentionnel, associé à un simulacre d’évaluation, le découplage « moyens-fins » rappelle les situations décrites par Reynaud. Dans ce cas, les dirigeants ont l’intention d’appliquer les normes institutionnelles, qu’ils ont reproduites sous forme de procédures, mais échouent à les appliquer sous la pression des opérationnels. Pour autant, la TNI n’explique par le processus sous-jacent au découplage en négligeant la dimension politique dans la production de normes et de règles, ce que la TRS permet à travers le concept de régulation sociale. En quoi le découplage dans les organisations est-il une forme de régulation sociale ? Nous faisons tout d’abord un état de l’art sur le concept de découplage, en particulier les travaux de chercheurs de la TNI inscrits dans une approche épistémologique du constructivisme social, en précisant leurs lacunes. Nous montrons ensuite que la TRS, compatible en partie avec cette dernière approche, apporte une lecture qui rompt avec une analyse multiniveau en considérant les processus de production de règles de tous les groupes sociaux sans les hiérarchiser. Nous montrons que la TRS appréhende ce phénomène comme une forme de régulations disjointes en distinguant trois catégories selon l’existence de négociation et d’accord : Les régulations disjointes « d’évitement » expliquent le découplage « politique-pratique », où la direction a connaissance de l’écart entre ses normes institutionnelles et les règles des opérateurs et fait le choix d’éviter la confrontation. Les régulations disjointes « conflictuelles » expliquent le découplage « moyens-fins » avec un alignement des structures voulu par la direction, contrariée par le pouvoir des professionnels. Les régulations disjointes « de méconnaissance » expliquent le découplage provoqué par une absence de connaissance des règles autonomes par la direction. Les équipes d’opérateurs peuvent aussi ignorer la règle de contrôle. Ces formes de disjonction entre les espaces sociaux (institutions, sommet stratégique, groupes d’opérateurs) expliquent les différents types de découplages à l’oeuvre dans un secteur économique, ouvrant des pistes de recherches stimulantes pour le futur.

For more than fifty years, Jamaican farm workers have been seasonally employed in Canada under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). In Canada, these workers live and work in conditions that make them vulnerable to various health issues, including poor mental health. This ethnographic study investigated Jamaican SAWP workers’ mental health experiences in Southern Ontario. Several common factors that engender psychological distress among Jamaican workers, ranging from mild to extreme suffering, were uncovered and organised into five themes: (1) family, (2) work environments and SAWP relations, (3) living conditions and isolation, (4) racism and social exclusion, and (5) illness and injury. I found that Jamaican workers predominantly use the term ‘stress’ to articulate distress, and they associate experiences of suffering with historic plantation slavery. Analysis of workers’ stress discourses revealed their experiences of psychological distress are structured by the conditions of the SAWP and their social marginalisation in Ontario. This article presents and discusses these findings in the context of SAWP power dynamics and concludes with policy recommendations aimed at improving the mental health of all SAWP workers. In foregrounding the experiences of Jamaican workers, this study addresses the dearth of research on the health and wellbeing of Caribbean SAWP workers.