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Discusses the death of nine workers due to the flash fire at Phillips garment factory in Toronto on 20 January 1950, which resulted in a public inquiry. Concludes with six short poems in memory of the workers.

The article reviews the book, "Protest and the Politics of Space and Place, 1789–1848," by Katrina Navickas.

The article reviews the book, "Hobohemia and the Crucifixion Machine: Rival Images of a New World in 1930s Vancouver," by Todd McCallum.

This article reviews the book, "Empty Labor. Idleness and Wokplace Resistance," by Roland Paulsen.

This study presents novel evidence on the relationship between sexual orientation and self‐employment. Using data from the 2001 and 2006 Census of Canada and the 2011 Canadian National Household Survey, we explore the propensity for self‐employment among same‐ and opposite‐sex couples. We examine the demographic, human capital, and family characteristics of coupled gay men and lesbians relative to their coupled heterosexual counterparts to offer potential mechanisms generating differences in rates of self‐employment. Our analysis further considers occupational variability in the likelihood of self‐employment. We find that gay men are less likely and lesbians more likely than heterosexuals to be self‐employed; however, there is significant variation across occupations. Gay men are more likely to be self‐employed in arts and culture, sales and service, and natural and applied sciences, but less likely in business, finance, and health‐related occupations. Lesbians are much more likely to be self‐employed in health‐related occupations, natural and applied sciences, and arts and culture. Marriage and having children are significant predictors of self‐employment for coupled heterosexual women but not lesbians.

In a series of recent cases involving the right to bargain collectively, the Supreme Court of Canada asserted that Wagner Act model, or a model of unionism which is both exclusive and majoritarian, need not be the only model available to workers in Canada (as is currently the case). Although the possible move away from Wagner Act unionism toward some form of minority unionism has received some support, this article argues that there are far too many dangers associated with minority unionism, namely, that it will be a corollary for right-to-work laws, will cause infighting between unions, and will divide and fragment workers’ sense of solidarity, and that the supposed benefits that may be attained through constitutionally protected minority unionism can, and should, be attained without it.

The aim of paper is to understand the role and significance of supply chain leverage in promoting health and safety management at sea, the institutional contexts in which it occurs and under which circumstances it is effective. This is a qualitative research study that examined the views of seafarers and their managers on what drives the implementation of occupational health and safety (OHS) management arrangements in two shipping sectors, namely, the independent oil and chemical tanker trade and the container trade. It is based on interviews with seafarers working on board several of these vessels and with representatives of the companies managing and operating the ships. As might be anticipated from previous theorizing of supply chain effects on OHS, the study found there to be strong evidence of its influence on OHS management arrangements on tankers. The most significant driver of this effect for both managers and seafarers appeared to be the surveillance of their OHS arrangements instituted by the heads of the supply chain—in this case the oil majors and their inspection systems. Perhaps more surprisingly, despite the more diffuse, transactional and arms-length supply arrangements in the container trade, in the one case study from this sector examined in the paper, supply chain influences on OHS were nevertheless discernable. However, it also demonstrated the positive role played by the framework for maritime regulation in determining the significance of these influences. Essentially, the results indicate that, under certain conditions, supply chain relations are useful in helping to support implementation of arrangements for OHS management on merchant vessels. However, it also more broadly demonstrates that such leverage is most likely to be effective when it operates within a wider institutional framework in which public regulation and its surveillance by regulatory authorities remains a key element.

This paper explores the practice of worker representation coalmining in Australia, in which there are both serious risks to health and safety and where regulatory provisions on worker representation on health and safety are longstanding. Despite their longevity, their operation has been little studied. The aim of the paper is to address this gap by examining the quality of the practice of worker representation in the sector. In particular, it explores strategies used by representatives to undertake their role in the context of the hostile industrial relations that are characteristic of coalmining. It examines documentary records of statutory inspections by worker representatives and government mines inspectors and analyses the content of qualitative interviews. It finds that the representatives address serious and potentially fatal risks in their activities and make effective use of their statutory powers in doing so, including their power to suspend operations they deem to be unacceptably dangerous. Nevertheless, they strive to operate within the boundaries of regulation in order to offset the negative influences of a hostile labour relations climate, As well as cautious use of their powers to order the cessation of operations where they deem the risks to be unacceptable, they also avoid accusations of unnecessarily impeding production and engaging with labour relations matters that are outside their statutory remit, through good communication between themselves and other workplace representatives. This is made possible by support from the relatively high level of workplace trade union organization present in the mines and further support derived from the trade union more widely and from the unique two-tier form of representation provided for by legislation. Both ensure the representatives are well informed, well trained and supported in their role. Overall, the study highlights the positive role representatives and unions play in preventive health and safety even in hostile labour relations climates., // Cette étude explore la pratique de représentation des travailleurs dans l'industrie minière australienne, industrie comportant des risques sérieux en matière de santé et de sécurité au travail, et où des dispositions réglementaires à cet effet existent depuis fort longtemps. En dépit de cette longévité, leur application a fait l'objet de peu d'étude. Le but de cet article est de combler cette lacune en analysant la qualité de la pratique de la représentation des travailleurs dans ce secteur. Plus particulièrement, nous nous intéressons aux stratégies mises en place par les représentants afin de jouer pleinement leur rôle dans le contexte hostile des relations de travail qui caractérise l'industrie minière australienne. Nous passons en revue les documents d'archives des inspections obligatoires menées par les représentants des travailleurs et les inspecteurs miniers gouvernementaux, et nous analysons le contenu d'entrevues qualitatives. Il ressort que les représentants des travailleurs sont avant tout préoccupés de contrer les risques graves et potentiellement mortels dans le cours des activités des mineurs et, ce faisant, ils utilisent de manière efficace leurs pouvoirs réglementaires, incluant celui de suspendre les opérations jugées potentiellement dangereuses. Néanmoins, ils s'efforcent d'opérer dans les limites fixées par la règlementation, dans le but de compenser les effets négatifs de l'hostilité du climat des relations de travail. En conséquence, ils se montrent prudents dans l'utilisation de leurs pouvoirs d'ordonner la cessation d'opérations qu'ils jugent comporter un risque inacceptable. Ainsi, ils évitent d'être accusés d'avoir indûment fait cesser des opérations et de s'être engagés sur des questions de relations de travail qui sont en dehors de leurs attributions légales. Ils maintiennent également de bonnes pratiques de communication entre eux et les autres représentants des travailleurs. Tout ceci est rendu possible grâce au soutien des hautes instances syndicales dans les mines et de l'appui émanant du mouvement syndical en général et du système unique de représentation bipartite prévu à la législation, lesquels font en sorte que les représentants des travailleurs sont bien informés, bien formés et bien supportés dans leur rôle. Dans l'ensemble, l'étude met en lumière le rôle positif que les représentants des travailleurs et les syndicats jouent en matière de prévention en santé et sécurité, même lorsque le climat des relations de travail s'avère hostile.

The article reviews the book, "Le « moment 68 » et la réinvention de l’Acadie," by Joel Belliveau.

The article reviews the book, "Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution," by James Ferguson.

The article reviews the book, "Struggle for the Soul of the Postwar South: White Evangelical Protestants and Operation Dixie," by Elizabeth Fones-Wolf and Ken Fones-Wolf.

Profile of Sam Berg, a former junior hockey player who in October 2014 agreed to become the representative plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against the three major junion hockey leagues: the Ontario Hockey League, the Western Hockey League, and the Quebec Major Junion Hockey League.

Labour market policy in Canada has undergone profound reforms over the past several decades. Successive federal and provincial governments have sought to “activate” the unemployed through measures such as Employment Insurance (EI) retrenchment and employment service models that stress individual responsibility for the problem of unemployment. This paper analyzes a little known attempt by federal officials to implement statistical profiling of the unemployed in employment service delivery during the mid-1990s. Known as the Service Outcome Measurement System (SOMS) and intended for use by frontline employment counsellors, the technology computed personal data about unemployed service users to predict the employment outcomes of different service options.

Drawing from the gender wage gap literature, we explore four possible causes of sexual minority earnings gaps: (1) variation in human capital and labor force participation, (2) occupational and industrial sorting, (3) differences in the institutional organization of the public and private sector, and (4) different returns to marriage and parenthood. Using the 2006 Census of Canada, we find that heterosexual men earn more than gay men, followed by lesbians and heterosexual women. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions show that industry of employment, rather than occupation, disadvantages gay men, lesbians, and heterosexual women. High levels of educational attainment lead to employment in lucrative occupations, but sexual minorities earn significantly less than heterosexual men within these occupations. Wage gaps are reduced in the public sector for heterosexual women, gay men, and lesbians. Finally, we find that heterosexual women experience a motherhood penalty, heterosexual men experience a fatherhood premium, and both receive a premium for marriage; however, the presence of children and marriage have no effect on the earnings of either gay men or lesbians in conjugal relationships.

This paper examines the effect of Inuit and Innu women’s participation in environmental assessment (EA) processes on EA recommendations, impact benefit agreement (IBA) negotiations, and women’s employment experiences at Voisey’s Bay Mine, Labrador. The literature on Indigenous participation in EAs has been critiqued for being overly process oriented and for neglecting to examine how power influences EA decision making. In this regard, two issues have emerged as critical to participation in EAs: how EA processes are influenced by other institutions that may help or hinder participation and whether EAs enable marginalized groups within Indigenous communities to influence development outcomes. To address these issues we examine the case of the Voisey’s Bay Nickel Mine in Labrador, in which Indigenous women’s groups made several collective submissions pertaining to employment throughout the EA process. We compare the submissions that Inuit and Innu women’s groups made to the EA panel in the late 1990s to the final EA recommendations and then compare these recommendations to employment-related provisions in the IBA. Finally we compare IBA provisions to workers’ perceptions of gender relations at the mine in 2010. Semi-structured interviews revealed that, notwithstanding the recommendations by women’s groups concerning employment throughout the EA process, women working at the site experienced gendered employment barriers similar to those experienced by women in mining elsewhere. We suggest that the ineffective translation of EA submissions into EA regulations and the IBA, coupled with persistent masculinity within the mining industry, weakened the effect of women’s requests for a comprehensive program to hire and train Indigenous women.

Information technology implementation in health care settings is contributing to work intensification and overwork for social workers and nurses. But strong professional and personal values lead workers to endure these conditions and prop up an increasingly “efficient” and lean health care system. A study done in Ontario, Canada, examines these circumstances and forms the basis for this article’s contribution to the deskilling/upskilling debate in labour process theory.

The article discusses the research and scholarship of feminist scholars on family sociology in Canada from the 1960s through the mid 2010s, including the feminist sociology of families. The relationship between neoliberalism and gender, including the alleged indifference of neoliberal government policies to gender of income earners, is discussed. An overview of Canada's national statistics agency Statistics Canada's data on labor, including on domestic labor, gender divisions in labor, women's employment and unpaid household work, is provided.

English/French abstracts of article published in the Fall 2015 volume.

English/French abstracts of articles in the Spring 2015 issue.

List of contributors to the Fall 2015 volume.