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From 1870 to 1970 between ten and twenty per cent of women in paid work held jobs described by the Canadian census as "professional." In this important historical study, Mary Kinnear explores the experience of the first generations of professional women in Canada. Kinnear presents five case studies of professional women in Manitoba: university teachers, physicians, lawyers, nurses, and schoolteachers. Although the unrelenting efforts of nineteenth-century feminists won women access to higher education and the professions, the author reveals that most women, whether in male- or female-dominated professions, were forced to accept subordinate positions. They responded with acquiescence, indifference, resentment, or resistance. Kinnear considers the reasons for and the cost of these various strategies. In addition to quantitative data culled from census and other records, Kinnear has collected testimony from more than two hundred professional women, a rich mine of information. A significant contribution to the growing literature on women and the professions, In Subordination helps explain why professional women continue to fight for equality today. --Publisher's description

This investigation interrogates State documents that were part of organizing the anti-homosexual security campaign in the late 1950s and 19605 in the Canadian civil service that led to hundreds of men and women being dismissed and transferred from their jobs. This critical analysis provides an entry point into the textually-mediated social organization of this security campaign. Crucial to this were ideological conceptualizations of `national security' and 'character weakness' that were used to mandate practices of surveillance, dismissal, and transfer. This security campaign led to the identification of thousands of suspected gay men and lesbians that moved far beyond the civil service; to state-funded research on identifying homosexuals called the 'fruit machine'; to debates within the security regime over how broad-ranging this campaign should be; and to non-cooperation from lesbians and gay men.

This article examines the Worker Educational Association's National Labour Forum radio series as it developed into a popular, and politically contentious, program with a weekly national audience of 100,000. The series quickly evoked the condemnation of CD. Howe. head of the powerful Department of Munitions and Supply, and embroiled the program and the WEA in the sectarian struggles of the labour movement. Eventually the WEA was expelled from its central role in the production of Labour Forum and control was transferred to the state's Wartime Information Board and its Committee of Industrial Morale. The Trades and Labour Congress and Canadian Congress of Labour bureaucrats slowly responded to a persistent chorus of protest from workers and union locals, withdrawing their support one year prior to its cancellation in 1944.

The article reviews the book, "Workers' Culture in Imperial Germany: Leisure and Recreation in the Rhineland and Westphalia," by Lynn Abrams.

The article reviews the book, "La qualité totale: nouvelle panacée du secteur public ?," by Gérard Éthier.

Avec ce numéro thématique, la revue Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations publie pour la première fois des articles en ergonomie. De ce fait, le présent article vise deux objectifs: définir l'objet d'étude, l'objectif et la méthodologie d'intervention propres à l'ergonomie et mettre en lumière les points de rencontre et les perspectives de collaboration entre relations industrielles et ergonomie. L'intérêt porté à la question de la collaboration entre ces deux disciplines est expliqué, entre autres, par une «coïncidence historique ». Du cóté de l'ergonomie, la popularité des volets « organisation du travail » et « gestion sociale de l'intervention ergonomique » succéderait à une période où les énergies ont été concentrées sur le développement de modalités concrètes de travail en commun avec les disciplines techniques comme l'ingénierie, l'informatique et l'architecture. Parallèlement à cela, du cóté des relations industrielles s'est développé un intérêt de plus en plus marqué pour les problèmes pratiques de gestion posés par les micromécanismes organisationnels que représente, dans l'entreprise, l'activité réelle et informelle des opérateurs. Trois formes concrètes de collaboration à faire naître entre ergonomes et spécialistes en relations industrielles sont proposées.

Two objectives are pursued: to define the object of study, the objectives and the methodology that are characteristic of ergonomics, and to highlight the common points and possibilities of collaboration between industrial relations and ergonomics. The interest inherent in a collaboration between these 2 disciplines is explained, among other things by a historical coincidence. On the ergonomics side, a period that concentrated on developing concrete ways of collaborating with technical disciplines like engineering, computing and architecture has given way to a focus on work organization and the social management aspect of ergonomics intervention. At the same time, industrial relations has developed a more pronounced interest in the practical management problems that are posed by micro-organizational processes within firms, namely, the informal work activities of operators.

The article reviews the book, "L'Europe des communistes," by José Gotovitch, Pascal Delwit, and Jean-Michel DeWaele.

The article reviews the books by Neville Kirk including "Labour and Society in Britain and the USA: Capitalism, Custom and Protest, 1780-1850" and "Labour and Society in Britain and the USA: Challenge and Accommodation, 1850-1939."

The article reviews the book, "The Prophet's Children: Travels on the American Left," by Tim Wohlforth

The Ontario Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Recreation has provided funds for research, documentation, and publication of Ontario workplace heritage. In 1994, grants were disbursed for four projects, including a video production on the thirtieth anniversary of the postal workers' strike, a video and booklet focused on preserving workers' heritage in Ottawa, a video tour guide (entitled Mapping the Workers' City) on Hamilton, and a audio documentary on the history of the Northern Ontario labour movement. Takes note of a forthcoming labour conference at the University of Oregon.

Announces that records of the Laurentian University Faculty Association's 1989 strike have been deposited at the university's archives. Also announces a 60-page bibliography of British Columbia's labour history is available that was compiled by graduate students at Simon Fraser University. Briefly reported are recent conferences of the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association on labour and the environment (University of Oregon) and at the University of Northern British Columbia on new directions in BC history.

Labour bureaucracy has long been a subject of interest to sociologists and industrial relations specialists, but it has rarely been examined by labour historians. In Red Flags and Red Tape Mark Leier aims to understand how and why bureaucracy came to dominate an organization that was established to promote greater democracy for the working class. The formative years of the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council, from 1889 to 1910, provide the basis for his study of the interplay between bureaucracy, class, and ideology. Leier sets himself three tasks: he examines the theoretical debates on the labour bureaucracy; he investigates the early history of the VTLC to show how and why bureaucratic structures evolve over time; and he looks at the ideology and personnel of the labour council to try to understand the complex relationship between bureaucrats on the left and right of the political spectrum. He describes the ideology of the bureaucrats (including their attitudes towards gender and race) and how it compares to that of the council's members, and observes that bureaucrats are defined by their power over a movement rather than by their ideology. Finally, since the VTLC was, at different times, dominated by labourists and socialists, Leier explores why different leaders held variant or antagonistic views. Leier concludes that the pressure of trade unionism and the class position of labour officials led to increased bureaucracy and conservatism, even among the socialists of the labour council, and as the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council matured, increased red tape isolated the officials from the membership. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Breaking from Taylorism: Changing Forms of Work in the Automobile Industry," by Ulrich Jurgens, Thomas Malsch and Knuth Dohse.

One tenet of labour process theory is the contention that, when confronted by degraded work, people will resist through militant behaviour or in other ways. However, that "resistance hypothesis" has been tested rarely. Canadian postal workers have manifested some considerable militancy, for instance through legal and wildcat strikes and through frequent recourse to the grievance mechanism. Too, their work has been subjected to technological change often pointed to as a prime example ofjob degradation. But not all aspects of postal work have been subjected to technological change. Thus, postal workers constitute a test ofthe "resistance hypothesis:" if degraded work provokes militancy, then ceteris paribus postal workers involved in automated work will be more militant than those who are not. In this study, a group of postal workers employed in "Cancity" in 1985-6 (N=152) were surveyed regarding their attitudes and experiences. Factor analytic techniques were used to construct a scale of attitudinal militancy, and hierarchical set analysis - summarised using dummy variable path coefficients - was used to examine the causal links between this outcome and logically prior factors, including job degradation, employment history, and achieved and ascribed statuses including sex. The results indicate that job degradation does have an impact on attitudinal militancy, but that this impact is modest at best, and weakens as other influences are taken into account.

The article reviews the book, "Trade Unions and Community: The German Working Class in New York City, 1870-1900," by Dorothee Schneider.

The article reviews the book, "Contested Countryside: Rural Workers and Modern Society in Atlantic Canada, 1800-1950," edited by Daniel Samson.

This thesis documents the employment history of Sne-nay-muxw women. The Sne nay-muxw, a Coast Salish peoples, live on the southeast coast ofVancouver Island close to the city ofNanaimo. Nanaimo was established by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1852 as coal mining town. Coal dominated the economy until the early 20th century when forestry related production became important. Today a service economy has eclipsed both the primary and secondary industries. Within these economies a distinct gender, race and class segregation structured Sne-nay-muxw women’s employment opportunities. This study examines the nature of this segregation, the Sne-nay-muxw domestic economy and the gender ideology that promoted both women’s inclusion and exclusion in. wage labour. A central question posed in this thesis is why Sne-nay-muxw women today perceive their traditional roles to be within the home despite their historical participation in the labour force. Feminist anthropology provides the theoretical and methodological approach used for this study. It is accepted that women’s experiences in the labour force are different not only from men but also from other women based upon relational inequalities ofrace and class. Historical data was collected from a variety of sources; published and unpublished government reports, missionary accounts, letters and journals. Nineteen women and eight men were interviewed in the community for both historic and contemporary accounts of employment experiences. History reveals that during the mining economy Sne-nay-muxw women were excluded from working in the mines and limited to employment as domestic servants. The introduction of Chinese labour, decreasing coal demands and increased technology forced many women to migrate with their families to the canneries on the Fraser river and the hop fields in Washington state. In the forestry related production economy, Sne-nay-muxw women’s opportunities were limited despite the expansion of employment for women in the service sector. State policies and inferior education were significant factors in this exclusion. At this time Sne-nay-muxw women continued to migrate with their families to the fish camps on Rivers Inlet and the berry fields in Washington state. In the last two decades the service economy has dominated in Nanaimo. Sne-nay-muxw women have found increasing job opportunities on and off reserve in administration, management and professional service delivery programs. While this employment is part of the wider trend for women in the service economy, Sne-nay-muxw women’s opportunities remain segregated by gender, race and class. Women’s participation in the labour force is shown to be linked to the organization of their domestic economy. Before 1920 this economy incorporated both subsistence production and farming with seasonal wage labour. After this time the Sne-nay-muxw became increasingly dependent upon wage labour. However, extended family and kinship networks have remained important for support and cooperation. This form ofhousehold organization did not constrain women’s participation in the labour force. Today extended families remain the central organizing principle in Sne-nay-muxw lives. Sne-nay-muxw women’s identity and opportunities for education and employment remain linked to their membership in these families. Shifts in women’s participation in the labour force is shown to be accompanied by acceptance of a domestic ideology. During the mining economy when women actively sought wage labour, they acquired domestic skills needed for wage labour but did not accept an ideology that promoted their dependency upon men. Historical evidence indicates that they retained a significant degree of autonomy in their lives. With men’s increased security of employment in the forestry economy, the idealized role ofwomen as housewives was promoted. Families that were able to realize women’s exclusion from the labour force gained status and prestige in the community. Finally, in the service economy, the Sne-nay-muxw gender ideology includes women’s participation in the labour force to occupations linked to their domestic and nurturing roles.

The article reviews and comments on the books "Sweatshop Strife: Class, Ethnicity and Gender in the Jewish Labour Movement of Toronto, 1900-1939," by Ruth A. Frager and "Taking Root: The Origins of the Canadian Jewish Community," by Gerald Tulchinsky.

During the 1930s the Communist Party of Canada organized and promoted the working-class struggle against conditions resulting from the Depression. And while some have argued that the state's intelligence community paid little attention to the efforts of the communists between the wars, the evidence reveals a major operation on the part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to watch and suppress Communist Party activities. By tracing the involvement of World War I veteran and Communist Party activist, Stewart O'Neil, in four radical movements - the Workers Ex-Servicemen's League, the On-to-Ottawa trek, the workers' theatre movement, and the Spanish Civil War- this paper demonstrates the extent of, and the tactics used by, the RCMP in its surveillance and suppression of these radical movements.