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This chapter seeks to move the discussion of labour and politics beyond the contest of political ideologies in the movement and the constraints of the liberal democratic state. To explain the different political histories of the Australian and Canadian movements we use a model with three dimensions: the changing balance between labour and politics; the different social forces that labour seeks to represent; and the different conceptions of politics that labour holds. After a discussion of the literature on labour and politics in the two countries, the paper applies this model to distinguish two periods, a formative period up to the early 1920s, in which labour entered politics. and the period from the 1920s to the 1950s when parties or governments took politics into the labour movement. The model enables us to characterize the politics of the Australian Labor Party as a form of class-based labourism, with significant moments of working-class socialism. We characterize the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation/New Democratic Party as a form of populist socialism. The paper concludes with some insights gained from using a common model in a comparative exercise.

Discusses the history and historiography of the Swiss labour movement with reference to defining events such as the 1848 civil war, the 1918 general strike, the growth of the political left, and the student radicalism of the 1960s. Concludes that although substantial scholarship has emerged since the 1960s, there is still much work to be done, such as women in the labour movement and studies that integrate the rich and varied history of the working class, including the relationship with Swiss bourgeois society.

Employee shirking, where workers give less than full effort to the job, has typically been investigated as a construct subject to organization-level influences. Neglected are individual differences that could explain why employees in the same organization or work-group might shirk. Using a sample of workers from the health care profession in the US, a new study sought to address these limitations by investigating subjective well-being (a dispositional construct), job satisfaction, as well as other individual-level determinants of shirking. Results indicate that whites shirk significantly more than nonwhites, and that subjective well-being, job satisfaction, and age have significant, negative effects on shirking. The implications of these results are discussed.

The article reviews the book "The Infernal Machine," by Larry Hannant.

A 4-phase theory of industrial relations evolution is formulated so as to obtain a deeper understanding of contemporary developments in industrial relations, as well as to situate the pattern of Greek industrial relations prior to 1990. Greece initiated a "U-turn" in its industrial relations system in the 1990s. The institutionalization of free collective bargaining, 3rd-party intervention on a voluntary basis, and the establishment of the Organization of Mediation and Arbitration (OMED) form the core of the new status quo in employee-employer relations in Greece. A general evaluation of the 3 years' experience of OMED indicates that a gradual, positive change in the atmosphere of the Greek industrial relations appears to have taken place. However, the transition from a long-standing low-trust and authoritarian industrial relations pattern requires the diffusion of new knowledge and experience, changes in cultures and support from multiple sources.

The article reviews the book, "Global Perspectives on Organizational Conflict," edited by M. Afzulur Rahim and Albert A. Blum.

[P]rovides an historical background to native labour in BC from the Gold Rush to the beginning of the Great Depression. It counters the common misconception that native people responded to European settlement and industrial development by retreating to a reserve existence. Evidence amassed from logging, transport, construction, longshoring, commercial fishing and canning, and a host of other industries shows that native Indians played a significant role in British Columbia's economy from the moment the first European explorers appeared off the coast. --Publisher's description. A massively documented history of Native Indian wage labour in British Columbia from initial European settlement in the mid 19th century to the beginning of the great depression. The first and as yet only historical study of Native Indian workers in Canada, it challenges many of the romantic misconceptions which have developed over the years. An expanded version of a title originally published in 1978. --Author's description

The presidential address at the 10th World Congress of the International Industrial Relations Association (IIRA) is presented. The IIRA is well on its way to inventing the institutions, policies and practices that can meet the full range of concerns of the diverse parties found in the workplace today and tomorrow. Given the resurgence in research, policy debates and innovations in practices, the contours of a new paradigm is emerging for international industrial relations.

Discusses the origins and history of the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians, a progressive organization founded in 1918 as the Ukrainian Temple Labour Association.

The article reviews the book, "Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth and Transformation of a Union," by Sam Gindin.

No persuasive account of labour in Australia and Canada can ignore the impact that immigration has wrought on the composition of the working class and preoccupations of workers, unions, and the varied political parties they have sponsored. Highlighting both similarities and differences between countries, the paper explores the paradoxical relationship that immigration has had with the labour movements of Australia and Canada. Although immigrants have been a critical source of union recruits, new ideas, and leaders (this being especially true for British skilled men), their presence was also long a source of concern, chauvinism, and division within predominantly white, Anglo-Celtic, and male-dominated union movements that adopted exclusionary policies, particularly regarding Asian and continental European workers. A more recent shift towards non-racist and inclusive policies unfortunately has not obliterated labour segmentation along racial and ethnic lines, especially job ghettos for immigrant women. Meanwhile, global restructuring and the loss of hard-earned union protections have increased immigrant workers' historic vulnerability. In explaining differences in the two countries -for example, Australia's greater 'success' at restricting non-white immigration before 1945 and Canada's earlier experience with a racially diverse work force - the paper cautions against easy generalizations, pointing instead to a series of historically contingent factors (such as 'accidents' of geography and differing political developments) that on some occasions led to rather different outcomes.

The article reviews the book, "Sociologie des relations professionnelles," by Michel Lallement.

Comme dans de nombreux autres pays industrialisés, l'on assiste en Allemagne, depuis une dizaine d'années, à une nouvelle donne des relations professionnelles sous l'influence notamment des politiques de flexibilité du travail. La réunification entamée en 1989 a également contribué, pour sa part, à modifier les relations collectives de travail. Centré sur les mutations en cours, cet article met en évidence les limites du transfert institutionnel du système de relations professionnelles de l'Ouest vers l'Allemagne oriental et montre, qu'en dépit de telles difficultés, la réunification a contribué à accentuer le processus de décentralisation des négociations collectives qui était déjà perceptible en R.F.A. avant 1989.

Marxists have long argued that major strikes produce an explosion of workers' class consciousness. A study discusses some weaknesses of the explosion-of-consciousness thesis, and tests research hypotheses using data from a case study of the 1987 strike by the Hamilton local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. A major finding is that an increase in a postal worker's negative attitudes toward out-groups did not necessarily go hand in hand with an increase in that striker's positive identifications with in-groups such as fellow workers, the local union and the labor movement. This supports treating the in-group and out-group dimensions of class consciousness as distinct. A second finding supports the hypothesis that an explosion of in-group consciousness due to inter-group conflict is more likely to occur among workers who are already identified with the in-group.

Responds to Martin Glaberman's critique of his paper, "Strikes and Class Consciousness," published in the Fall 1994 issue. of Labour/Le Travail. Argues that his concept of class consciousness and collective struggle is at the individual, rather than the supraindividual level espoused by Glaberman and György Lukács. Also argues that history does not produce preordained outcomes such as workers' councils, only possibilities of what can be done, which is why he urged Canadian socialists to focus on activist workers who are broadly politicized, non-sectarian, and linked through community networks.

Le présent article poursuit l'analyse, effectuée dans Lanoie (1992a), de l'effet conjoint des différentes mesures préventives et des interventions de la CSST sur les risques d'accident du travail au Québec, en élargissant la période étudiée (1983-90 au lieu de 1983-87), en ajoutant une autre catégorie d'accident — les incapacités permanentes — comme variable dépendante, et en réévaluant ces relations dans les secteurs à risque uniquement. Comme dans cette étude de Lanoie (1992a), nos résultats indiquent que les politiques adoptées au Québec ont, au mieux, engendré une diminution mineure de la fréquence des accidents durant cette période. Les faits marquants de cette étude sont l'impact constant, par rapport à 1987, des mesures d'intervention de la CSST sur la fréquence et la gravité des accidents dans l'ensemble des industries, l'effet plus prononcé des inspections sur la fréquence des accidents dans les secteurs à risque, et la relative inefficacité des mesures adoptées par la CSST à prévenir les accidents avec incapacité permanente.

A paper studies leadership, conditions of influence and effectiveness in workplaces where a group form has been chosen. The study focuses on the interaction within work groups and between employees working in groups and their immediate superiors in a Swedish psychiatric hospital. Its aims are to investigate the effect of this interaction on degree of influence over work and on preconditions for working effectively. An attempt to achieve these aims is made by obtaining a more refined picture of the relation between superior and subordinate. The results show that there is a relationship between the support and opportunities for development that subordinates receive from their superior and the support that subordinates themselves give to their superior. Further, there are positive relationships between, on the one hand, the volume of exchange of social support and, on the other, personal work influence and preconditions for working effectively.

A study looks at the effects of unions on profitability in the Canadian manufacturing sector, taking into account structural factors such as concentration and entry barriers. It is found that, although there is a moderately positive relationship between unionization and profitability at low levels of concentration, at higher levels of concentration unions are able to extract an increasing proportion of incremental profits that the firm (industry) may earn, until any incremental profit (rent) associated with further increase in industry concentration is completely captured by the union. This may reflect a greater ability on the part of unions to organize and exercise bargaining power in concentrated industries and redistribute income from capital to labor, but it also leads to underproduction and resource misallocation.

Research is viewed as a synthesis of production, distribution and rule-making systems (PDR systems), rather than regarding these 3 systems as independent forces. This PDR system theory focuses on the actors' strategic choices for the PDR systems, that is, subsystems of industrial relations system, and their interaction mechanisms. The contents and interactions of the PDR systems determine the performance levels of the organization - productivity, flexibility, innovation, fairness and satisfaction. This model can be used to analyze non-union workplaces as well as unionized settings by embracing collective bargaining as a subsystem of the rule-making system. The general framework of the model is illustrated by using data from a Korean automobile company, which is particularly well suited for this purpose since it reflects different combinations of different PDR practices over its history. The best practice of future industrial relations will be established by the PDR systems in which the creative humanware is maximized and actors spontaneously cooperative.

Opens with a "labour quote" drawn from Jack London's "War of the Classes" (1905) and promises that this will be a "new and irregular" feature. Reports on varioius forthcoming conferences with labour/work themes.