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Compilation of recent English/French publications on Canadian labour history that emphasize the period 1800-1975. Materials pertaining to the post-1975 period may also be included, although more selectively. [See the database, Canadian Labour History, 1976-2009, published at Memorial University.]

A study examines the relationship between stressful working conditions, social support at work, employee distress, and union members' (dis)satisfaction with their union. It might be assumed that under stressful working conditions, unionized workers would turn to their union to seek better working conditions and would have a positive orientation toward their union. However, it is also possible that stressful working conditions and distressed, alienated employees will become dissatisfied not only with their job but also with their union. The data for the study come from a survey of unionized postal workers employed by Canada Post Corporation in Edmonton in 1983.

This dissertation focuses on the work-for-pay exchange between aboriginal people and immigrants of European stock--the two most prominent cultural groups in the early history of British Columbia--and follows the patterns of this exchange from its origins through to the 1970s. It examines both the material and the rhetorical construction of the "Indian" as a part of British Columbia's labour force, a process described as racialization, and emphasizes, as well, the transformation of meaning inherent in cross-cultural exchange. It is a province-wide analysis, the core of which is a micro-history of one aboriginal group, the Songhees people, who live in the area now occupied by Victoria, the capital city. This examination challenges the long-standing view that aboriginal people were bystanders in the economic development and industrialization of British Columbia outside, and after, the fur trade. From the establishment of the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1849, through Confederation with Canada in 1871 and to the 1885 completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, aboriginal people comprised the majority of the population in present-day British Columbia, and the majority of the work force in agriculture, fishing, trapping and the burgeoning primary industries. This dissertation charts the subsequent decline in participation of aboriginal people in the capitalist economy from 1885 to 1970. Using a micro-historical study and close attention to aboriginal voices it offers a set of explanations for the changing proportions of work, both paid and unpaid, and state welfare payments. The micro-history reveals that the Songhees people engaged in two distinct but connected economies and were already familiar with forms of labour subordination prior to the European introduction of a capitalist economy. The Songhees participation in paid labour for Europeans was facilitated by these existing forms of labour organization and depended on the co-existence of their other economies; the Songhees used earnings from capitalist paid labour to expand their non-capitalist economies. After 1885, new state policies repressed the non-capitalist aboriginal economics and therefore diminished the underlying motivation for aboriginal participation in capitalist work. At the same time, an influx of labour-market competition and a variety of racialized laws and practices restricted the Songhees' ability to get work. Increasingly they were left with seasonal, low-skill and low-wage labour, a niche that maintained them so long as it was combined with a subsistence economy and involved the full participation of adult and adolescent family members. In the late 1940s and 1950s this pattern too was remade. Legal restrictions dramatically limited the subsistence economies; technological change curtailed the demand for seasonal labour in the canning, fishing and agricultural sectors, particularly affecting aboriginal women workers; and, compulsory schooling regulations began to reduce labour available to the family economy. At the same historic moment when the combined wage and subsistence economies ceased to be able to support them, the state extended some existing social welfare programs, such as Old Age Pension, to Indians, and expanded other programs, including Family Allowance, to all Canadians. In examining the patterns of aboriginal-non-aboriginal exchange relations over the long-term, this dissertation argues that high rates of unemployment and welfare-dependency among contemporary aboriginal communities are relatively recent historical phenomena, with observable roots and causes.

The article reviews the book, "Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer," by John J. Abt.

A study attempts to identify determinants of executive compensation in Canada while comparing how they differ between Canada and the US. Results suggest that firm size, firm performance, and firm ownership structure all determine executive compensation in Canada. However, several differences between the determinants of executive compensation in Canada and the US are identified.

The article reviews the book, "Relations professionnelles, emploi et formation au Québec," published by Critique Régionale, nos. 23-24, 1994, Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Over the past seventeen years, trade union educator D'Arcy Martin has conducted hundreds of courses for Canadian workers. He has learned that there are people-"conscious romantics"-who dream of a more egalitarian world while confronting the obstacles that stand in the way of building it. This book provides a refreshing personal account of union culture and its dynamics. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Reimagining Canada: Language, Culture, Community and the Canadian Constitution," by Jeremy Webber.

Creating Economic Opportunities: The Role of Labour Standards in Industrial Restructuring, edited by Werner Sengenberger and Duncan Campbell, is reviewed.

In March 1919, more than 230 union representatives gathered in Calgary for the Western Labor Conference. There, they initiated plans for a revolutionary industrial organizatin, the One Big Union, which embodied the internationalist principles of Marxist unionism. Within its first year, the One Big Union (OBU) issued over 70,000 membership cards, and was a powerful symbol of working-class demands for the end of class exploitation. However, given its patriarchal inheritance, the OBU was always something more than just a class organization. It was an attempt by working men to organize around a specific sense of gender identity, which I have called Marxist masculinity, in order to reconstitute the social bases of male power. The first chapter outlines the events surrounding the creation of the OBU in 1919 and the wave of general strikes that swept through Canada that summer. In particular, it sketches the relationship between class politics and a masculine structure of feeling, and how this relationship influenced the OBU's ideology. The second chapter discusses three elements around which Marxist masculinity was constructed. To begin, the experiences of women in the OBU are situated in relation to the organization's policies regarding membership in individual unions and the Women's Auxilliary. As well, it examines the personal lives of OBU leaders and the naturalized assumptions about heterosexuality which governed their politics. The final chapter discusses the purge of Tom Cassidy and Catherine Rose, two dedicated activists fired because of rumours of their sexual involvement. The OBU leadership wanted to prevent a public moral panic around issues of "free love" and was thus determined to have the matter kept quiet. In taking this position, OBU leaders regulated the gender and sexual identities of union members through concepts of proper masculine and feminine socialist behaviour.

The article reviews the book, "The Centralia Tragedy of 1919: Elmer Smith and the Wobblies," by Tom Copeland.

The article reviews the book, "Copper Crucible: How the Arizona Miner's Strike Recast Labor-Management Relations in America," by Jonathan D. Rosenblum.

The article reviews the book, "In Subordination: Professional Women, 1870-1970," by Mary Kinnear.

The article reviews the book, "Le droit disciplinaire des corporations professionnelles," by Mario Goulet.

The article reviews and comments on the books "Don't Call Me Servant: Government Work and Unions in Ontario, 1911-1984," by Wayne Roberts, and "Lives in the Public Service: A History of the Manitoba Government Employees' Union," by Doug Smith, Jock Bates and Esyllt Jones.

The 1920s are seen by historians as a crucial period in the formation of the Canadian working class. In Ideal Surroundings, Suzanne Morton looks at a single working-class community as it responded to national and regional changes. Grounded in labour and feminist history, with a strong emphasis on domestic life, this analysis focuses on the relationship between gender ideals and the actual experience of different family members. The setting is Richmond Heights, a working-class suburb of Halifax that was constructed following the 1917 explosion that devastated a large section of the city. The Halifax Relief Commission, specially formed to respond to this incident, generated a unique set of historical records that provides an unusually intimate glimpse of domestic life. Drawing on these and other archives, Morton uncovers many critical challenges to working-class ideals. The male world-view in particular were seriously destabilized as economic transformation and unemployment left many men without the means to support their families, and as the daughters of Richmond Heights increasingly left their class-defined jobs for service and clerical positions. Drawing on recent theoretical and empirical work, Morton expertly combines interpretive and narrative material, creating a vivid portrayal of class dynamics in this critical postwar era. Her focus on the home and domesticity marks and innovative move towards the integration of gender in the study of Canadian history. --Publisher's description

In the 1890s, Rossland was the most important mining centre in southeastern British Columbia. In Roaring Days, Jeremy Mouat examines many different aspects of mining, from work underground to corporate strategies. He also brings to life the unique individuals who were a part of this history – the miners who toiled long hours under unimaginable working conditions, the citizens of Rossland who built a bustling town out of the wilderness, and the mine owners and entrepreneurs who became wealthy beyond all expectations. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "La Prostitution féminine à Montréal, 1945-1970," by Danielle Lacasse.

The article reviews several books including "Labor Visions and State Power: The Origins of Business Unionism in the United States," by Victoria C. Hattam, "The Experience of Workers in the United States With Democracy and the Free Market During the Nineteenth Century," by David Montgomery and "The State and Labor in Modern America," by Melvyn Dubofsky.

The article reviews the book, "My Past Is Now: Further Memoirs of a Labour Lawyer," by John Stanton.