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The article reviews the book, "Stacking the Deck: The Streaming of Working-Class Kids in Ontario Schools," by B. Curtis, D. W. Livingstone and H. Smaller.

The article reviews the book, "Trois siècles d'histoire médicale au Québec," by André Goulet and Denis Paradis.

Symposium: La gestion des ressources humaines : du modèle traditionnel au modèle renouvelé by Gilles Guérin et Thierry Wils. Introduction : Michel Audet. Commentaires - Comments: Laurent Bélanger, Richard J. Long, Bernard Galambaud.

Symposium: La gestion des ressources humaines : du modèle traditionnel au modèle renouvelé, Gilles Guérin et Thierry Wils. Introduction : Michel Audet. Commentaires - Comments: Laurent Bélanger, Richard J. Long, Bernard Galambaud.

The article reviews the book, "Southern Labor and Black Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers," by Michael K. Honey.

The article reviews the book, "Transfer of Training : Action-Packed Strategies to Ensure High Payoff from Training Investments," by Mary L. Broad and John W. Newstrom.

The article reviews the book, "Wobblies, Pile Butts, and Other Heroes: Laborlore Explorations," by Archie Green.

In reaction to A.R.M. Lower's forest studies, which emphasize the role of markets and tariffs, it is argued that both capital and labour demonstrate extensive agency during the transition between Canada's exports of lumber to Britain and the United States. A series of micro-studies explore the socio-economic transition from colonial to corporate forestry, within a regional framework integrating rural and urban experiences. The succession between economies is examined, from fur to lumber, land speculation, to merchant capital and pioneer sawmilling, to the Ottawa Valley capitalist. The example, James MacLaren, used kinship capital pools and strategic business alliances to rise to the position of independent capitalist lumberman and Bank president. The labour institutions upon which his business was based, the shanty and the timber cove, were anchored to a web of household economies, both urban and rural. Families drew on monthly shanty wages. The shanty was common ground for small kin-groups of local farm workers, urban sawmiil workers, migrant workers, and a core of professional lumberers, resident in Ottawa. Staggered waves of arrival and departure show flexibility in when one decided to leave the farm for the shanty, implying it was a complementary institution. MacLaren's cove in Quebec City also accommodated rural workers amid numerous small non-union strikes. Across the harbour, timber ship labourers, divided over ethnicity and technology, coalesced violently into one of the country's strongest unions. As industrial lumber barges replaced rafts, sawmills replaced coves as export points. MacLaren used both to sell to British and U.S. markets simultaneously, expanding his investments into Vermont and New York. His capital was redeployed in resource developments, such as mining and railways, or local real estate, in a regional pattern that cut across the "Empire of the St. Lawrence". His connections were with American investors or competitors--Cleveland steel elites or the House of Morgan. The Bank of Ottawa, built upon his gathering of local groupings of capital, eventually found regional identity a hinderance in raising capital. Unable to make inroads into other markets, it merged with the Bank of Nova Scotia. In 1904 a successful appeal was made to the State to close timber limits against settlement. This was to make forests more acceptable as collateral to make the transition to pulp and paper. Couched in the discourse of fire, the closing of the forest common marks the true end of the frontier. For Quebec, this is the final abandonment of agrarian colonisation for a development model based on state supported large scale corporate forestry, mining and hydro-electric development.

New Zealand has had a long history of state-sponsored trade unionism, with up to 60% of the workforce being employed under the terms and conditions of a union negotiated collective bargain. It had adopted systems of industrial conciliation and arbitration as a means of resolving disputes over wage fixing and related matters. However, 2 major rewrites of legislation, the Labor Relations Act 1987 and the Employment Contracts Act 1991, have made a significant shift in these fundamentals. It is estimated that collective bargaining has fallen by nearly 60% in the 2 years since the Act took effect. Multi-employer bargaining has largely collapsed. Unions lost some 90,000 members in the first 7 months under the new system and an additional 86,000 in the most recent year - an aggregate loss of almost 30% of membership in less than 2 years. If the Employment Contracts Act regime continues, further fragmentation of unions may occur and collective bargaining will continue to collapse.

The article reviews the book, "Understanding Industrial Organisations : Theoritical Perspectives in Industrial Sociology," by Richard K. Brown.

Les transformations de l'organisation du travail reposent sur les relations de confiance entre les principaux agents du travail et de la gestion. Nous présentons quatre cas de coopération concertée vers une réorganisation de la production dans des établissements manufacturiers syndiqués. Le processus de mise en confiance se fonde sur la présence de personnes réputées et compétentes. La répétition de l'expérience, la durée des contacts interpersonnels et l'échange d'informations jugées crédibles permettent de consolider la confiance entre les représentants syndicaux et les membres de la direction qui solutionnent des problèmes particuliers au processus de transformation de l'organisation du travail dans leur établissement. Les ententes patronales syndicales sont de nature consensuelle et permettent la flexibilité recherchée par les acteurs. Des facteurs hors de leur contrôle les incitent toutefois à cosigner ces ententes et à cristalliser de nouvelles formes de relations fondées sur la coopération.

The article reviews the book, "Trading Freedom: How Free Trade Affects our Lives, Work and Environment," edited by John Cavanagh, John Gershman, Karen Baker and Gretchen Helmke.

Les lois Auroux de 1982 ont impulsé, en France, un mouvement de décentralisation des relations professionnelles. On peut effectivement constater, au cours de la dernière décennie, un développement notable des accords d'entreprise. Aux yeux de l'observateur, ce mouvement ne doit pas occulter, malgré tout, ni la pérennité des accords de branche, ni l'importante variable des accords d'entreprise selon les secteurs et les tailles d'entreprise ni, enfin, le fait que la dynamique n'est pas nécessairement la même d'un thème de négociation à l'autre. Une enquête menée dans deux secteurs (électronique et santé) permet de spécifier les limites de la décentralisation en matière de négociation sur l'emploi.

A study examined the effects of various factors underlying variations in the time taken to certify unions in British Columbia. A multivariate regression model with granting time as the dependent variable was employed, with dummy variables for the certification process, unfair labor practice complaints, region, industry union, and time period as the independent variables. The size of the union bargaining unit was considered, also. The results show that the certification process is the most important determinant of granting time. Most of the explanatory power of the model was obtained from the certification process and region regressors.

The article reviews the book, "The Politics of Continuity: British Foreign Policy and the Labour Government: 1945-46," by John Saville.

The article reviews the book, "Maritime Capital: The Shipping Industry in Atlantic Canada, 1820-1914," by Eric Sager and Gerald Panting.