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Considers the human and financial cost of the 1918-19 flu pandemic versus the Covid-19 pandemic. Pays tribute to the late Leo Panitch, to whom the volume is dedicated. Comments on articles in the issue and notes that they emphasize the importance of all forms of work and organization. Deplores the rise of market-driven universities and the cuts at Laurentian University. Welcomes Kirk Niergarth as co-editor, which helps pave the way for Joan Sangster's retirement as co-editor.

Introduced by editors Sangster and Smith, this roundtable offers papers by former students of Panitch on his multifaceted legacy. Themes include Panitch as organic intellectual (Warskett), the fall and future of social democracy (Blanc), money and the critique of capitalism between political sociology and political economy (Konings), Panitch and the practice of socialist mentorship (Maher), and Panitch as a transformative teacher (Ross).

Discusses union-backed strategic voting (most often, endorsement of Liberal rather than NDP candidates) to defeat the Conservatives. Concludes that such campaigns have been divisive and do not advance the labour movement. A revised and expanded version of the essay published in the first edition (2012).

This article begins with a broad overview of the scholarly literature on labour politics in Canada before focusing more specifically on the relationship between organized labour and the NDP. The article is organized thematically, focusing on three key features of the party-union relationship: (1) institutional ties between labour and the NDP; (2) the ideological impact of labour on the politics of the NDP: and (3) labour's (in)ability to deliver votes to the party. Each dimension of the party-union relationship reveals factors that contributed to a loosening of ties over time and sets the stage for a final concluding section exploring the implications of a weakened NDP-union link for the future of labour and working-class politics in Canada. --From author's introduction

Demand for home and community care services has continuously increased in Canada and elsewhere in the last few decades due to aging of the population and healthcare policy changes shaped by budgetary limitations. As a result, home and community care organizations are having trouble hiring adequate numbers of healthcare workers to meet the escalating demand, the result being increased workload on these workers. Another stream of literature has shown that care recipients and their family members, frustrated with the limited ability of healthcare workers to provide adequate care because of increased workload, might resort to violence and harassment. Bringing these two streams of literature together, we examined the relationships among three variables : workload ; workplace violence and harassment ; and well-being of personal support workers (PSWs). Using structural equation modeling, we analyzed a 2015 Ontario-wide survey of 1,347 PSWs employed in the home and community care sector. The results indicate that workload is negatively associated with extrinsic and intrinsic job satisfaction, and this relationship is mediated by violence and harassment and by stress. Specifically, workload is positively associated with violence and harassment at work, which in turn is positively associated with stress, which in turn is negatively associated with extrinsic and intrinsic job satisfaction. Our study contributes to the literature by examining the impact of a work environment factor, workload, on the well-being of PSWs. This approach makes it possible to expand the current literature’s focus on psychological processes at the individual level to a more contextual approach. Furthermore, the results have important implications for home and community care organizations as well as for the healthcare sector in general. The well-being of PSWs is critical to retaining them and to ensuring the quality of care they provide their clients. Thus, their workload should be lowered to a more manageable level to help minimize the violence and harassment they experience.

This report looks at the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic security of women in Canada and the current efforts to respond to urgent economic need in the short- to medium-term, as well as demands for fundamental systemic change moving forward. ...The study focuses on three areas: it examines the impact of COVID-19 on women’s participation in the labour market since the pandemic struck in spring of 2020; it assesses the impact of federal and provincial government programs and income supports through a gendered and intersectional lens; and it examines gaps in the system and proposes measures to help women get through the COVID crisis and ensure their speedy return to the labour market once the worst of the crisis is over.

Canada’s continuous reliance on temporary foreign workers to address its labour shortage and maintain its competitive advantage has resulted in a seasonal transnational workforce characterized by its precarious living and working conditions, cumulative legal disenfranchisement based on the lack of permanent status, and vulnerability to the ongoing pandemic. Despite the common portrayal of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) as a ‘model for migration management’ by governments and growers, a large body of academic publications has studied their precarious conditions in an attempt to explain the seeming contradiction between a highly-exploited workforce and the steady growth of willing participants. This project examines the exploitative practices embedded in the cycles of transmigration through a series of individual interviews with SAWP participants, scholars, and government officials. The central argument is that the differential treatment of migrant and citizen workers lies at the heart of the former’s precarity. It stems from the paradoxical promotion of human rights at the macro-level, while relying on an exploited workforce at the micro-level. The program creates mechanisms that keep workers in a state of continuous marginalization despite decades of participation in the program. The legal, subtle, and overt mechanisms that maintain workers in a continuous state of control and competition are among the key findings of this project. This project challenges the idealization of the SAWP by analyzing the main beneficiaries, its shortcomings, and its projected future. It presents a unique opportunity to reimagine temporary foreign worker programs and methodological nationalism in a globalized context.

The article reviews the book, "Balayons les abus : expérience d’organisation syndicale dans le nettoyage," by Marielle Benchehboune.

The article reviews the book, "Change and Continuity: Canadian Political Economy in the New Millennium," edited by Mark P. Thomas, Leah F. Vosko, Carlo Fanelli, and Olena Lyubchenko.

Examines the shifting currents of court decisions on labour rights in the Charter era. Concludes that labour's resort to the courts is primarily defensive and that victories, when they occur, are limited.

Obituary for Wayne Roberts (1944-2021), a Labour/Le Travail contributor who wrote on labour, food policy, the environment, and urban issues.

The article reviews the book, "Une histoire politique du tiers-monde," by Vijay Prashad.

Defines the value-action gap (i.e., the disjuncture between word and deed) and explores the labour movement's mixed response to the environmental challenge in terms of this model. The conclusion urges labour to help foster a broad-based movment that would integrate environmental sustainability with economic equality and social justice. It also cautions against the embrace of green capitalism. A revised version of the essay in the first edition (2012).

The year 1983 began like any other year in Canada's leftmost--er, West Coast province. Then Bill's bills unleashed four months of public unrest. The newly elected Social Credit government announced an avalanche of far-right legislation that shocked the country. By dropping viciously anti-union legislation that slashed protection for hard-won human rights, Premier Bill Bennett attacked nearly everyone in his contingency. A resistance movement called Solidarity sprung up across the province. Massive street protests, occupations and plans for an all-out general strike had all eyes on B.C. Like other uprisings - from France in 1968 to the anti-racism protests of 2020 - Solidarity arrived unexpectedly and rocked social foundations. Revolution, in one province? Filled with revealing interviews and lively, insightful prose, David Spaner's Solidarity goes behind the scenes of one of the greatest social uprisings in North American history. Spaner delves into the Solidarity months of 1983 through his own experience and that of the activists, both iconic and unsung, that organized B.C.'s masses. Solidarity's intimate storytelling mixes popular culture and rebel politics, finding political answers in the personal lives of those touched by the movement. In recreating this one singularly dramatic event, Spaner's Solidarity becomes the ongoing history of 20th century B.C. - exploring its great divides and unions, cultures and subcultures, and conflicts that continue into the 21st century. -- Publisher's description

There is abundant evidence that when workers can provide input, express opinions, and influence change in their work places. Providing workers with regular, safe channels of “voice” at work increases their personal motivation and job satisfaction. It benefits their employer, too, through reduced turnover, enhanced productivity, and better information flows. And it contributes to improved economic and social outcomes—everything from stronger productivity growth, to less inequality, to improved health.... Summary and main findings

Examines the legislative record of the governing conservative Saskatchewan Party on protecting the rights of migrants and immigrants in the context of business and labour market demands. Concludes that the province's legal regime stands well in comparison to other jurisdictions, although the government has at times also catered to anti-immigration populism, such as the Yellow Vest Canada movement.

Examines the anti-union legislative record of the Saskatchewan Party, which saw one of its core bills, prohibiting the right to strike in a broad range of public sector services, struck down by the Supreme Court. The court did, however, uphold a companion bill that undermined workers' ability to organize. Provides background on provincial labour regimes since the landmark Trade Union Act of 1944 that was passed by the CCF government of Tommy Douglas. Concludes that the Saskatchewan Party has done more than any previous conservative government to curtail the right of workers to organize and take job action.

A Liberal-Labour Lady restores British Columbia's first female MLA and the British Empire and Commonwealth's first female cabinet minister to history. An imperial settler, liberal-labour activist, and mainstream suffragist, Mary Ellen Smith demanded a fair deal for "deserving" British women and men in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in England in 1863, the daughter and wife of miners, she emigrated to Nanaimo, BC, in 1892. As she became a well-known suffragist and her husband Ralph won provincial and federal elections, the power couple strove to shift Liberal parties leftward to benefit women and workers, while still embracing global assumptions of British racial superiority and bourgeois feminism's privileging of white women. His 1917 death launched Mary Ellen as a candidate in a tumultuous 1918 Vancouver by-election. In the BC legislature until 1928, Smith campaigned for better wages, mothers' and old age pensions, and greater justice, even as she endorsed anti-Asian, settler, and pro-eugenic policies. Her death in 1933 ended an experiment in extending democracy that was both brave and deeply flawed. A Liberal-Labour Lady sheds light on a Canadian suffragist undeservedly neglected by scholars and forgotten by posterity. It also illuminates a half a century of political history, first-wave feminism, immigration, and labour history set in a broad context of shifting ideas, ideologies, and strategies. Although simultaneously intrepid and flawed, Mary Ellen Smith is revealed to be a key figure in early Canada's compromised struggle for greater justice, who helped set the contours of a modern Canada. -- Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "The Death Penalty and Sex Murder in Canadian History," by Carolyn Strange.

The right to strike has been constitutionally protected in Canada since 2015. In other jurisdictions where the right to strike is explicitly recognized in the constitution, protection against strikebreaking is recognized as part of that right. Only two Canadian provinces restrict the use of replacement workers during a strike or a lockout. Quebec’s Labour Code has provisions that prohibit the use of replacement workers at the employer’s establishment. Quebec arbitrators, courts, and boards have interpreted this ill-defined concept as a strictly physical location of production, while ignoring technological advances that make remote work possible. This paper examines how the restrictive interpretation of establishment allows a form of strikebreaking that the Spanish Constitutional Court has described as “technological strikebreaking” (esquirolaje technologico), while also allowing the use of technology already at the employer’s disposal to circumvent restrictions on replacement workers even when such technology is not routinely used. The impact of technology on strikebreaking is examined through two case studies: the successive lockouts at the Journal de Québec and the Journal de Montréal. In both cases, external contributors provided the newspapers with content electronically, thus allowing uninterrupted publication. Using Katz, Kochan and Colvil’s three-tier model of collective bargaining, this paper looks at how technological strikebreaking disrupts not only the balance of bargaining power but also bargaining strategy, and how, in the case of the Journal de Montréal, it led to devastating bargaining outcomes. Though the lockouts led to a call for legislative reform in 2011, legislative change is not necessary to align existing provisions with the goal of shortening labour disputes.