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A chapter of the book "Labour/Le Travail" is presented. It examines the structure of the worker protest and union formation in Canada and Australia during the 19th century. It explores the works of Bryan Palmer, Douglas Cruikshank and Gregory S. Kealey. It mentions the impacts of the differences in strikes, worker protest and union growth between two countries on labor organization.

The article reviews the books "Canadian History: A Reader's Guide: Beginnings to Confederation," vol. 1, by M. Brook Taylor and "Canadian History: A Reader's Guide: Confederation to the Present," vol. 2, by Doug Owram.

Duddy Kravitz is obsessed with his grandfather's maxim, “A man without land is nobody.” He sets his heart on acquiring property and does not let any obstacle dissuade him. If he becomes hated along the way, he couldn't care less. In spite of enormous sacrifices and setbacks, Duddy never loses faith in realizing his dream. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is the novel that established Mordecai Richler as one of the world's best comic writers. A classic tale of coming of age on Montreal's St. Urbain Street, it is an unforgettable story of ambition, dreams, and familial love. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "When Strikes Make Sense and Why: Lessons from Third Republic French Coal Miners," by Samuel Cohn.

The article reviews the book, "Droit de l'arbritrage du grief," by Rodrigue Blouin, Rodrigue and Fernand Morin

Cet article identifie quels sont, parmi 21 objectifs et 23 comportements des parties durant la conciliation, ceux qui sont reliés à l'efficacité du processus. Les données ont été recueillies par questionnaire auprès de 732 porte-parole patronaux et syndicaux ayant oeuvré en conciliation volontaire au Québec en 1987-88. Le résultat le plus frappant est que les objectifs poursuivis par chacune des parties n'agissent à peu près pas sur l'issue du processus.

The article reviews the book, "Histoire de la FTQ, 1965-1992: La plus grande centrale syndicale au Québec," by Louis Fournier.

The article reviews the book, "The Splendid Vision: Centennial History of the National Council of Women of Canada, 1893-1994," by Naomi E.S Griffiths.

En France, comme dans la plupart des pays européens depuis les années quatre-vingts, se développe l'idée que face à un taux de chômage à deux chiffres une issue à l'état d'anomie dans lequel s'installe la société peut venir d'une flexibilité massive de la force de travail. L'article étudie comment émergent, dans les actions engagées autour des licenciements et des reconversions d'emploi, les éléments essentiels constitutifs d'un mythe des temps modernes énonçant la capacité des élites à produire une modernisation régulée de nos sociétés industrielles. L'auteur approche cette question en l'insérant dans le cadre plus large d'une sociologie du temps social.

The article reviews the book, "Cohésion sociale et emploi," edited by B. Eme and J.L. Laville.

This thesis points to an oversight in the literature about foreign domestic workers. Foreign domestic workers have, too often, been portrayed as one-dimensional victims — a group of powerless women vainly struggling for a respectable place in Canadian society. This portrayal, however, while it can explain their disadvantage along class and gender analyses, assumes a concept of power which dismisses their ability to resist. This thesis argues that foreign domestic workers, although occupying a highly disadvantaged position relative to others in society, are not only victims but actors. This argument acknowledges that their lives in Canada are only part of their grander life histories. When foreign domestic workers are placed at the centre of analysis, as subjects rather than objects, I was able to investigate a multifaceted notion of power. Fifteen foreign domestic workers from the Philippines were interviewed and specific questions were asked about their day to day lives, their background, and their ambitions. Their answers reveal a profound understanding of who they are as women, and as domestic workers. Some clearly understand the connections between the economic crisis in the Philippines and their role in that crisis. The interviews also show that domestic workers contemplated their situations beyond the present, and that they recount their lives in episodes of opportunities as well as constraints. Finally, what is most revealing is the strategies they employ to get through their days. Overall, the interviews with foreign domestic workers illustrate that when they are viewed as active social agents, they articulate power at various levels corresponding with their overlapping social roles and multiple levels of struggle.

Canadian women's history, though relatively new in the history of the profession, is now considered by some to be passé, past its prime, out of touch with the realities of the postmodern world of the 1990s. In fact, there is also a new interpretation of the historical evolution of Canadian women's history emerging, which situates women's history in the one dimensional past, gender history in the three dimensional future. ...[W]e need to re-examine the Canadian women's history which was actually written over the last twenty years as well as the current direction of gender history, then assess the theoretical and political underpinnings of both. We may actually find more overlapping continuities, similarities and problems. --Introduction than stark contrasts and oppositions.

Between 1920 and 1960 wage-earning women in factories and offices experienced dramatic shifts in their employment conditions, the result of both the Depression and the expansion of work opportunities during the Second World War. Earning Respect examines the lives of white and blue-collar women workers in Peterborough during this period and notes the emerging changes in their work lives, as working daughters gradually became working mothers. Joan Sangster focuses in particular on four large workplaces, examining the gendered division of labour, women's work culture, and the forces that encouraged women's accommodation and resistance on the job. She also connects women's wage work to their social and familial lives and to the larger community context, exploring wage-earning women's 'identities,' their attempts to cope with economic and family crises, the gendered definitions of working-class respectability, and the nature of paternalism in a small Ontario manufacturing city. Sangster draws upon oral histories as well as archival research as she traces the construction of class and gender relations in 'small town' industrialized Ontario in the mid-twentieth century. She uses this local study to explore key themes and theoretical debate in contemporary women's and working-class history. --Publisher's description

In 1963, the Ontario Government established a Women's Bureau within the Department of Labour to do research, public relations work, and policy development relating to working women in the province. This article examines the early evolution of the Women's Bureau from 1963 to 1970 assessing the reasons for its establishment and the successes and failures of its early programs designed to aid working women. The Bureau urged the government to consider anti-discrimination legislation, and in 1970 it helped to develop new legislation designed to enhance women's equality by legalizing maternity leave, banning discrimination based on marital status, and abolishing job posting by sex. Drawing on recent debates about the state and employment policy, particularly those looking at the relationship between feminist and labour activists and the state, this article asks whose interests the Bureau represented, and whether or not this state-initiated legislation designed to enhance gender equality was effective, either in the short or long term.

Current arguments about the causes of differing union density rates in the US and Canada range from public opinion hypothesis and differences in labor law, to increased US managerial hostility. Survey data on managers' and workers' attitudes in the 2 countries are used to examine the competing arguments. Using questions that probe opinions toward various aspects of union-firm relations, it is found that managers' attitudes in the 2 countries do not differ. This finding suggests that increased US managerial hostility is not the cause of the divergent unionization rates. US workers are the most militant of the 4 groups, with Canadian workers in the middle, between managers and US workers.

The article reviews the book, "Fourmies et les premier mai," edited by Madeleine Rebérioux.

The article reviews the book, "Family, Church, and Market: A Mennonite Community in the Old and New Worlds, 1850-1930," by Royden K. Loewen.

The article reviews the book, "The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919: An Illustrated History," by J. M. Bumsted.

A study tests a macroeconomic strike model widely used to study the incidence of labor conflict in developed countries on data from the world-at-large. Previous investigations of the influence of labor demand and worker wage expectations on strike frequency have produced contradictory results. Perhaps one reason for this is that these studies have left out all but the most developed countries and have rarely been comparative. The study uses a data set that includes data for 41 countries (approximately half of which are considered developing) from 1953-1985.

The article reviews the book, "Projecting capitalism: a history of the internationalization of the construction industry," by Marc Linder.