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The shift towards the internal responsibility system and the mandating of Joint Health and Safety Committees in the early 1980s represented a radical departure in terms of how health and safety were regulated in the workplace. This paper examines the effectiveness of this institutional change using firm level data provided by the Worker's Compensation Board on lost time accidents from 1976 to 1989. It finds that where management and labour had some sympathy for the co-management of health and safety through joint committees, the new system significantly reduced lost-time accident rates. At workplaces where either labour or management resisted the spread of co-management the mandating of committees appears to have little effect on lost-time accident rates.

The article reviews the book, "Crossing the Line: Unionized Employee Ownership and Investment Funds," by Jack Quarter.

Time series data are used to estimate the effects of labor legislation, the political regime, and economic conditions on the proportion of certification applications granted. Applications filed with the British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba Labour Relations Boards (1951-1992) are considered and analyzed separately. Changes in labor legislation have the largest impact on certification application success in all 3 provinces. The political environment is estimated to be important in British Columbia, but not in Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Economic conditions affect certification success in Saskatchewan and to a lesser extent in British Columbia, but not in Manitoba. Large changes in economic conditions are estimated to have only small effects on the proportion of applications granted.

During the 1980s, unions in the US significantly increased their political activity. An important aspect of this effort is contributing money to congressional and presidential candidates through political action committees (PAC). A paper examines the PAC donations among a sample of elected local union officers of the United Steelworkers of America (USW). The descriptive results show significant variation in officers' PAC donations. Regression analyses show that union commitment is a significant predictor of PAC support as is location in a non-right-to-work state. The results have implications for promoting union PAC fundraising efforts, and hence the potential of US unions to rely on political action as a strategy for resurgence.

Ce texte utilise les données de l'Enquête sur l'activité de Statistique Canada pour les années 1988-89 pour examiner la question de la précarité liée au temps partiel dans une perspective longitudinale. Il propose comme indicateur de la précarité liée au temps partiel, la discontinuité dans l'emploi, notamment les risques de sortie hors emploi et les difficultés d'accès ou de retour au temps complet. Il trouve que (i) l'emploi à temps partiel est plus généralement lié aux discontinuités d'emploi que le temps complet, (ii) les risques de sortie d'emploi sont accrus chez les salariés à temps partiel, (iii) les femmes subissent davantage que les hommes la précarité liée au temps partiel. Chez elles, les facteurs susceptibles d'accroître les risques de précarité liée au temps partiel sont la responsabilité d'enfants d'âge préscolaire, une scolarité insuffisante et des horaires de travail qui les éloignent d'une situation de temps complet.

The article reviews the book "Riots in New Brunswick: Orange Nativism and Social Violence in the 1840s," by Scott W. See.

This article examines the history of colonial and national policies towards indigenous peoples in Australia and Canada during the 19th and 20th centuries. It is specifically concerned with the ways in which such legislation affected Aboriginal women. In attempting to provide a comparative assessment of the "statutory subjugation" of Aboriginal women, the article examines the law's definition of identity and band membership; enfranchisement and assimilation; personal autonomy (marriage, divorce, sexuality, motherhood); private and personal property; and political reorganization. It concludes that gender and race were key determinants of government policy in both countries, and that under the Canadian Indian Act and Australian Aboriginal Acts, women, in particular, suffered a great decline in status and severe limitations of autonomy. But the failure of state policies to bring about the complete degradation of Aboriginal women in particular, and Aboriginal peoples in general, suggests that there were forces operating to "destabilize ... hegemonic colonial control." Competing colonial values, collective resistance of Aboriginal societies, and the individual contestations of both colonizer and colonized, in the end, undermined imperial objectives.

The article reviews the book "Home to Work: Motherhood and the Politics of Industrial Homework in the United States," Eileen Boris.

The article reviews the book, "Under the Stars: Essays on Labor Relations in Arts and Entertainment," edited by Lois S. Gray and Ronald L. Seeber.

The article reviews the book "The Marxists and the Jewish Question: The History of a Debate (1843-1943)," by Enzo Traverso.

Dans quelle mesure le Code civil du Québec de 1994 retient-il une nouvelle conception du salarié ? Les treize dispositions (articles 2085 à 2097 C.c.Q.) qui traitent directement du salarié et de l'employeur sont-elles à ce point différentes qu'il nous faudrait reconsidérer les bases juridiques de la relation de travail ? Pour répondre à de telles questions, l'auteur rappelle la conception du salarié retenue au Code civil du Bas-Canada (1866) de manière à mieux saisir l'importance des modifications apportées en 1994. En un deuxième temps, une analyse critique de ces treize dispositions nouvelles lui permet de distinguer ce qui serait vraiment nouveau et aussi ce qui lui apparaît comme de simples mises en forme de l'état du droit au moment de cette codification. En cette période de changements profonds des «modes d'emploi», il importe de saisir la portée réelle ou virtuelle de toutes les modifications effectuées à la définition du salarié, base fondamentale du droit du travail.

The article reviews the book, "Modern Capitalism: Privatization, Employee Ownership and Industrial Democracy," by Nicholas V. Gianaris.

The article reviews the book "The Limits of Affluence: Welfare in Ontario 1920-1970," by James Struthers.

The article reviews the book, "Un État réduit? A Down-Sized State?," edited by Robert Bernier and James Iain Gow.

The article reviews the book, "Forging American Communism: The Life of William Z. Foster," by Edward P. Johanningsmeier.

This speculative essay presents a preliminary statement on the paradoxical character of 19th-century class formation in the two white settler dominions of Canada and Australia. Outposts of empire, these social formations were early regarded with disdain, the one a classic mercantilist harvester of fish, fur, and wood, the other a dumping ground for convicts. By the mid-to-late 19th-century, however, Canada and Australia were the richest of colonies. Within their distinctive cultures and political economies, both supposedly dominated by staples, emerged working classes that were simultaneously combatative and accommodated. By the 1880s impressive organizational gains had been registered by labour in both countries, but the achievements of class were conditioned by particular relations of fragmentation, including those of 'race' and gender.

The article reviews the book "Separate Spheres: Women's Worlds in the 19th-Century Maritimes," by Janet Guildford and Suzanne Morton.

The article reviews the book "Radicals of the Worst Sort: Laboring Women in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1860-1912," by Ardis Cameron.

The article reviews the book, "La judiciarisation de l'arbitrage de grief," by Rodrigue Blouin.

The article reviews the book, "100 Public Sector Collective Bargaining in Canada: Beginning of the End or End of the Beginning," by Gene Swimmer and Mark Thompson.