Search

La recherche comparative en relations industrielles bénéficie actuellement d'un regain d'intérêt. Un des thèmes majeurs est la génération du consentement au sein de l'atelier. Il existe déjà une tradition de recherche bien établie sur ce thème, mais son apport n'a reçu que peu d'attention jusqu'ici. L'article expose les grandes lignes de cette tradition ethnographique, mettant ses forces en relief. Il existe aussi des points faibles, notamment en ce qui a trait à la généralisation des résultats. Après évaluation, ces limites paraissent moins définitives que ne le suggèrent certaines critiques. Des exemples de l'application de cette approche à l'étude comparative sont présentés, et un programme de recherche est avancé.

The article reviews the book, "Ideology: An Introduction," by Terry Eagleton.

A number of hypotheses as to the possible impact of the collective bargaining process of Section 48 of the Alberta Public Service Employee Relations Act (PSERA) are tested. Section 48 declares non-arbitrable a broad range of management rights items. The results suggest that power relations, market forces, and shared understandings in Crown hospitals have overridden the anticipated effect of the law. In Crown Service bargaining, however, Section 48 has served to buttress traditional management rights that pre-date the PSERA. Management's defense of such rights, facilitated by Section 48, has contributed to frustrating legalism, strained bargaining relationships with certain Crown locals, and a blunting of union power within the formal bargaining system. Further research is needed to determine the nature and effect of informal workplace responses. Recent unlawful strikes of social workers and corrections officers are evidence of growing pressure for change in the legislation.

The article reviews the book, "The Blacksmith in Upper Canada, 1784-1850: A Study of Technology, Culture and Power," by William N. T. Wylie.

In 1973 the Government of Canada and the ten provinces agreed to undertake jointly a complete review of Canada's social security system. The review and development of policy options was scheduled to be completed by 1975 with the implementation of chosen options to take a further two or three years. A prominent and much debated policy option with respect to income security was a guaranteed annual income. In 1974 the Government of Canada and the Province of Manitoba agreed jointly to undertake a guaranteed annual income experiment called the Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment. The primary research purpose of the experiment was to provide information respecting the labour supply response of the recipients of a system of guaranteed annual income payments. The experiment officially ended in March, 1979, but did not report on the labour supply response. This study examines the history and fate of the Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment. Two major conclusions are drawn. The first conclusion is that the Government of Canada had decided shortly after the experiment had begun that it would not support a one-tiered guaranteed annual income program such as was being tested by the experiment. The second conclusion is that social policy research that requires the use of rigorous and complex social science methodology should be considered an important part of the normal policy-making process, but should be conducted by a research body that is independent of the initiating government(s).

The article reviews and comments extensively on the book, "History and the New Left: Madison, Wisconsin, 1950-1970," edited by Paul Buhle.

Many industrial relations decisions are made on the basis of perceptions, including, in some cases, which shop steward to approach to handle a union member's grievance. An analysis of shop steward performance and role conflict suggests that steward effectiveness in relating to members and management can be fostered by providing more time for stewards to perform their duties as union representatives. While training can ease the adjustment to stewardship, its main impact on role performance may be greater information dissemination. Most important, greater conflict in the union-management relationship may lead to fewer resolutions at the first step, lower quality steward-management relations, and a lesser ability to disseminate information. Stewards generally reported that they adopted a rather pragmatic approach to resolving grievances with supervisors. Regression analysis suggests that women may adopt a less-aggressive, more problem-solving approach than men.

A study presents a quantitative retrospective evaluation of 3 Canadian occupational projections covering the period of 1961 to 1981 in an attempt to assess their usefulness as a guide to education and training policies. Using appropriately adjusted, detailed occupational data from the 1961, 1971, and 1981 Canadian censuses, the results indicate that for broad categories, such projections do appear to provide reasonable results. For the major occupational groups, all 3 projections were within a range of plus or minus 10% of the ex post actual employment for the majority of the groups. As might be expected, the projection accuracy declined as the occupational detail increased. However, these ex post evaluations do suggest that a variable coefficients model can provide useful additional information for occupational projections. The results do not suggest that it is possible to simply take on faith the results of any occupational projection.

In the first half of the twentieth century, many of Toronto's immigrant Jews eked out a living in the needle-trade sweatshops of Spadina Avenue. In response to their expliotation on the shop floor, immigrant Jewish garment workers built one of the most advanced sections of the Canadian and American labour movements. Much more than a collective bargaining agency, Toronto's Jewish labour movement had a distinctly socialist orientation and grew out of a vibrant Jewish working-class culture. Ruth Frager examines the development of this unique movement, its sources of strength, and its limitations, focusing particularly on the complex interplay of class, ethnic, and gender interests and identities in the history of the movement. She examines the relationships between Jewish workers and Jewish manufacturers as well as relations between Jewish and non-Jewish workers and male and female workers in the city's clothing industry. In its prime, Toronto's Jewish labour movement struggled not only to improve hard sweatshop condistions but also to bring about a fundamental socialist transformation. It was an uphill battle. Drastic economic downturns, hard employer offensives, and state repressions all worked against unionists' workplace demands. Ethnic, gender, and ideological divisions weakened the movement and were manipulated by employers and their allies. Drawing on her knowledge of Yiddish, Frager has been able to gain access to original records that shed new light on an important chapter in Canadian ethnic, labour, and women's history. --Publisher's description

The resignation of J.B. McClachlan from the Communist Party of Canada in 1936 is one of the more controversial episodes in the biography of a well-known Canadian labour radical. He was one of the few party leaders to enjoy wide recognition and popular support. His resignation was a difficult personal decision as well as a significant episode in the history of the party. In previous accounts his resignation has been presented ultimately as a repudiation of labour radicalism generally and the Communist Party in particular, as a protest against the adoption of the united front in 1935, or as a form of local and personal political exceptionalism. McLachlan himself made no formal public announcement of his resignation and, except for an impromptu speech at a public meeting in September 1936, he remained largely silent. In response to a letter from party general secretary Tim Buck he prepared a personal explanation of his withdrawal from the party in June 1936. This document, which is reproduced at the end of this article, remains the most important single piece of evidence concerning his resignation. An analysis of the circumstances leading to McLachlan's resignation shows that he did not regard his resignation as a repudiation of basic principles. He had supported the move towards the united front both internationally and domestically but disagreed with the implementation of the policy by the party leadership, especially sa demonstrated in the case of the Amalgamated Mine Workers of Nova Scotia. McLachlan's view of the united front, which he considered to be consistent with the position of the Communist International, stressed the principles of internal democracy and local autonomy in the construction of the united front. In McLachlan's view there were already enough indications to show that leaders such as John L. Lewis had not been fundamentally transformed and that in the long run the decision to endorse an alliance of convenience with the established labour bureaucracy was an ambiguous legacy for the class struggle. In 1936 McLachlan was overtaken by events, but given his own history he was in a position to perceive the difficulties ahead more clearly than most of his contemporaries.

La précarité de l'emploi caractérise de plus en plus la culture contemporaine du travail. Les individus sont appelés par conséquent à subir des transitions sur le marché du travail. Certaines sont volontaires mais plus de 80 % sont involontaires et parmi les personnes qui subissent de telles transitions une première fois, plus de la moitié subiront une transition subséquente. Nous nous attardons ici aux seules transitions entre l'entrée et la sortie en emploi, qui touchent plus du tiers de la population active à chaque année au Canada, d'après les données recueillies par Statistique Canada auprès de plus de 65 000 personnes au cours des années 1986 et 1987.

The article reviews the book, "Life and Labor on the Border: Working People of North-Eastern Sonora, Mexico, 1886-1986," by Josiah McC. Heyman.

The article reviews the book, "Combination and Conspiracy: A Legal History of Trade Unionism 1821-1906" by John V. Orth.

The article reviews and comments extensively on the book, "Socialism Unbound," by Stephen Eric Bronner.

The article reviews the book, "A la Jonction du Mouvement Ouvrier et du Mouvement des Femmes: La Ligue Auxiliaire de l'Association Internationale des Machinistes, Canada, 1903-1980," by Sylvie Murray.

The ideologies of Canadian industrial relations (IR) scholars are analyzed. At the descriptive level, it would appear that a considerable majority of the scholars, perhaps as high as 70%, adhere to beliefs consistent with either a liberal-reformist or a radical ideology, even though there is widespread support for many of the arguments associated with the "new cooperativism." It would also appear that, whatever the content of ideology, its structure remains by and large one-dimensional. The findings also suggest that scholars who report that they specialize in IR or are affiliated primarily with an IR school tend to be more left-wing than their counterparts in economics and management. This would appear to reflect an ideological partitioning of the field among different schools. In turn, ideology would appear to have important implications for the pedagogy of scholars and the orientation they are likely to convey to future decision makers.