Search

Examines the effects of the sudden plant closings on the principle of freedom of association and the right of workers to organize in the US, Canada, and Mexico.

This article is based on Final Report: The Effects of Plant Closing or Threat of Plant Closing on the Right of Workers to Organize. The report was commissioned by the tri-national Labor Secretariat of the Commission for Labor Cooperation (the NAFTA labor commission) "on the effects of the sudden closing of the plant on the principle of freedom of association and the right of workers to organize in the three countries."

The article reviews the book, "Le Monde du Travail au Québec: Bibliographie = The World of Labour in Quebec: Bibliography," by James Douglas Thwaites and André Leblanc.

The article reviews the book, "Thunder Bay: From Rivalry to Unity," edited by Thorold J. Tronrud and A. Ernest Epp.

Historians have tended to view the Hudson's Bay Company `as an organization of crafty fur traders, bold explorers, lively voyageurs, and dour Scots' who opened up the Canadian west and protected it from American control. More recently, social historians have examined the roles of women and Native peoples to show that the HBC `was more than a business.' But, as Professor Edith Burley demonstrates, `the HBC was a business...the purpose of which was to provide shareholders with a return on their investments.' Low paid, subservient workers were required to fulful this purpose. In Servants of the Honourable Company, Professor Burley focuses on the work and workers of the HBC. About 15% of HBC workers were skilled tradesmen, while 70% were common labourers. Until now, however, these `servants' have been largely forgotten. The book looks at these workers from the points of view both of the HBC officers and the London committee and governor who oversaw the operations and of the men themselves, who came from the Orkney Islands, Norway, Scotland, Lower Canada, and the Red River Colony, the settlement created by the HBC in present-day Manitoba to become the nursery of future `halfbreed' workers for the company. The HBC sought workers from pre-industrial societies who would accept the traditional master-servant relationship. To a large extent they did. In fact, they never questioned this central tenet of the HBC hierarchy. They did, however, bargain for higher wages, refuse to work under intolerable and dangerous conditions, object to unfair treatment by authoritarian officers, cause work stoppages in protest for sufficient food and more grog, mutiny against tyrannical ships' captains, and even kill a particularly brutal officer. Servants of the Honourable Company details this important aspect of Canadian working-class experience. --Unattributed synopsis at Amazon

Canada’s unions have long brought workers together in solidarity and unity to carry on the fight against racism in our workplaces and communities. As we mark Human Rights Day—observed annually on December 10—Canada’s unions are calling out rising hate and racism, and underscoring the path set 25 years ago when they released the National Anti-Racism Task Force report titled Challenging Racism: Going Beyond Recommendations. This ground-breaking report explored systemic racism in union structures, our communities, institutions and society. It highlighted the perspectives, concerns, and recommendations of labour and community activists from across the country. --CLC website news release, Human Rights Day, 2022-12-10

The article reviews the book, "The Secret World of American Communism," by Harvey Klehr, John E. Haynes and Fridrikh I. Firsov.

Grievance arbitrators now have a responsibility to interpret and apply human rights legislation in the course of resolving collective agreement disputes. This responsibility, however, raises the question of whether grievance arbitration is the most suitable forum for the application of human rights laws. In Canada, grievance arbitration has been a hybrid process, containing both public and private components. Recent arbitral jurisprudence, however, suggests that arbitrators see themselves as primarily private adjudicators. These cases indicate that arbitrators have been reluctant to give full scope to the duty to accommodate in order to avoid disturbing the terms of the collective agreement. This reluctance to play a full role as human rights adjudicators means that arbitration is not necessarily the most ideal forum for the enforcement of Canadian human rights laws.

The paper presents findings of an ethnographic case study on social relations in an existing General Motors vehicle assembly plant where the traditional drag chain has been replaced by Swedish automated guided vehicle technology and some aspects of Japanese work organization have been implemented. The findings challenge claims that Fordism is being replaced by a fundamentally new production model, and that this is resulting in more fulfilling work and cooperative social relations. There are many fulfilling work and cooperative social relations. There are many continuities with Fordism and highly contradictory social relations. This and other studies of new work systems suggest, in fact, that contradictions between control and commitment, rather than being minimized or dissolved, can actually be heightened.

The article reviews the book, "Stanley Bréhaut Ryerson, un intellectuel de combat," edited by Robert Comeau and Robert Tremblay.

In late 1936 steel worker activists in Sydney launched a new organizing drive at the plant under the auspices of the CIO's Steel Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC). This effort drew the support of steel workers in a way that previous organizing attempts had not. However, the militant and self-reliant traditions of the steel workers collided with the cautious strategies and bureaucratic practices of the appointed SWOC leadership in the United States and Canada. As steel workers at Sydney showed great solidarity in their struggle with DOSCO, they also resisted what they saw as undemocratic and highly accommodationist practices by the union's national and international leadership. The struggles within the union embraced the issues of Canadian autonomy and nationalism as well as rank-and-file union control and the democratic rights of union members. It amounted to a struggle over what type of unionism was to be established within the Canadian steel industry.

The article reviews the book, "Grace Hartman: A Woman for her Time," by Susan Crean.

The article reviews the book, Les vrais maîtres de la forêt québécoise," by Pierre Dubois, preface by Richard Desjardins.

The article reviews the book, "Sizing Down: Chronicle of a Plant Closing: With Lessons for Understanding and Survival," by Louise Moser Illes.

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

The article reviews the book, "Le syndicalisme contemporain et son avenir," edited by Henryk Lewandowski and Zbigniew Hajn.

The article reviews the book, "Gentle Rebel: Letters of Eugene V. Debs," edited by J. Robert Constantine.

Public exhibitions about work safety assumed an importance for both workers and employers at the beginning of the 20th century that is difficult to evaluate from a late-20th-century perspective. In Quebec, Louis Guyon, chief inspector of industrial establishments and public edifices, noted with interest expositions in Germany and France. Through his efforts the first North American exposition concerning the prevention of accidents was inaugurated in Montreal on 23 September 1901. Only insufficient government funds prevented Guyon from following European models in creating a worker safety museum. Similarly, a worker health museum did not materialize in the province because of funding problems.

A study empirically examines the relationships between union status, union involvement, and the performance of gainsharing programs. The predictions of various competing theoretical perspectives are evaluated: 1. the agency/transaction cost approach, 2. the monopoly model, 3. the institutional voice model, and 4. a 2-faces model of labor organization. Gainsharing programs with union involvement in program administration resulted in better perceived performance than average programs in the nonunion sector. However, gainsharing programs in the union sector without union involvement had worse outcomes than those in the nonunion sector. These 2 divergent situations resulted in union status itself having an insignificant relationship with program performance.

The article reviews the book, "Wild Things: Nature, Culture and Tourism in Ontario, 1790-1914," by Patricia Jasen.