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With bright, strong imagery, Ginger Goodwin presents the story of labour activist and martyr Albert “Ginger” Goodwin. This accessible and thoughtful graphic history explores Goodwin’s life, work, and death in the mining communities of Cumberland and Trail, British Columbia. Drawing on local history, and exploring the ways the history of labour organizing affects contemporary movements, Ginger Goodwin is a story that needs to be shared. --Publisher's description

The contemporary living wage movement emerged in the United States through the 1990s. It marked a particularly dramatic response at the local and regional level to the erosion in the quality of employment in the American labour market. In many respects it was and is today a rebellion of urban, racialized service sector workers. What is much less discussed are efforts to establish living wage policies in Canada. The Canadian living wage campaigns are much less movements than a strategy of rational policy advocacy. A variety of legal, political and ideological factors make this so. It is not a judgement but an observation meriting some greater interrogation.

The article reviews the book, "Metis and the Medicine Line: Creating a Border and Dividing a People," by Michel Hogue.

Union approaches in relation to the global recalibration of work and employment relations and practices over the last three decades are being worked out in practice. The question for unions is by which means they either have leverage or the potential to exercise power in relation to state and corporate decisions and strategies. Unions thus face challenging questions about the ways they organize, exercise their capacities and attempt to meet their purposes. With reference to the Australian maritime sector, the study examines the ways the main union, the Maritime Union of Australia, developed multi-scalar approaches to localized events. The problem unions face is to defend and advance workers’ interests. The task is to organize, to realize their capacities to defend and advance maritime workers’ interests, increasingly in multi-scalar ways. The argument is that leaderships and activity that ‘bridge’ scalar relationships are an important condition in this process. There appears to be a complex set of cross-connections between the local, the national and the international. While transnational connectivity increasingly defines contemporary forms of trade unionism, these scalar relations are defined in relation to the workplace, the everyday world, and by the ways that transport is a defining characteristic of the global world. These relations constitute contemporary class struggle where work and employment relations are always in a process of change and development. Trade unionism, thus, remains a collective expression of power relations, in an increasingly internationalized world of work and employment. Thus, this research presents important lessons for multi-scalar organization and campaigning by unions to realize their capacities and purpose. Nonetheless, this study is only a beginning. While it indicates the processes of bridging, the next step is to investigate the variety of ways that bridging may take place and with what outcomes for the development of multi-scalar activity. // Les approches syndicales en relation avec le rééquilibrage des relations industrielles et des pratiques en matière d’emploi et de travail durant les trois dernières décennies s’élaborent dans la pratique. La question qui se pose pour les syndicats est de savoir quels sont les moyens qui peuvent leur permettre d’influencer ou qui ont un potentiel pour influer sur les décisions et les stratégies de l’État et des entreprises. Les syndicats sont ainsi confrontés à diverses questions concernant les manières d’organiser et d’exercer leurs capacités ainsi que d’atteindre leurs objectifs. En se basant sur l’expérience du syndicalisme maritime australien, cette étude examine la façon dont le principal syndicat, le Syndicat maritime de l’Australie (Maritime Union of Australia), a su développer des approches à paliers multiples pour aborder les situations locales. Le problème auquel les syndicats doivent faire face est celui de défendre et de faire progresser les intérêts des travailleurs. Leur défi principal est d’organiser et de montrer leurs capacités à défendre et faire progresser les intérêts des travailleurs maritimes, en utilisant davantage l’approche à paliers multiples. Notre argumentation est à l’effet que le leadership et les activités qui permettent de faire le pont entre les paliers multiples constituent une importante condition du processus. Il semble exister un ensemble de connexions complexes entre les paliers local, national et international. Alors que la connectivité transnationale définit de plus en plus les formes contemporaines de syndicalisme, ces relations à paliers multiples sont définies en rapport avec les milieux de travail, le monde du quotidien, et par le fait que le transport s’avère une caractéristique du monde global. Ces relations constituent le lieu de la lutte des classes contemporaine où le travail et les relations industrielles s’insèrent continuellement dans un processus de changement et d’évolution. Ainsi, le syndicalisme demeure une expression collective des relations de pouvoir dans un monde du travail et de l’emploi s’internationalisant de plus en plus. Aussi, la présente recherche offre de tirer d’importantes leçons pour les organisations à paliers multiples et pour les syndicats qui cherchent à mettre en oeuvre leurs ressources et leurs objectifs. Malgré tout, cette étude constitue seulement un début. Bien qu’elle procure des indications sur le processus d’harmonisation des paliers multiples, la prochaine étape sera d’étudier les diverses manières dont cette recherche d’harmonisation peut se dérouler et avec quels résultats pour le développement d’activités à paliers multiples.

For the approximately 600,000 migrants currently working in Canada, changes made to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in 2014 have left them more vulnerable to exploitation and have further narrowed their access to permanent residence. These are the findings of Canada’s Choice: Decent Work or Entrenched Exploitation for Canada’s Migrant Workers?, the latest report from human rights lawyer and Metcalf Fellow Fay Faraday, that builds upon her two previous Metcalf papers on the precarious conditions created and perpetuated by Canada’s controversial Temporary Foreign Worker Program. “Canada has lost its innocence on temporary labour migration,” says Faraday. “The 2014 reforms do nothing to alleviate – and in many cases exacerbate – insecurity for migrant workers. And exploitation predictably follows.” The report details the continued exploitation faced by migrant workers — including unscrupulous recruitment practices, employment mobility restrictions, and a lack of protection from rights abuses— and provides clear policy recommendations to strengthen protections and build employment security for Canada’s migrant workers. Canada’s Choice is also part of a submission to the Parliamentary Committee that is currently studying the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. With Canada’s labour migration policy at a crossroads, we hope that this timely report will contribute to informing the public discourse and lead to comprehensive reforms that enforce the rights of some of our nation’s most vulnerable workers. --Publisher's description

This article reviews the book, "Working through the Past: Labor and Authoritarian Legacies in Comparative Perspective," edited by Teri L. Caraway, Maria Lorena Cook and Stephen Crowley.

The Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) has become the dominant approach in comparative political economy and enjoys wide application and attention in disciplines outside of political science and sociology. Indeed the VoC approach has enjoyed much attention in comparative industrial/employment relations (IR). This article undertakes a critical evaluation of the importation of the VoC paradigm into comparative IR. Inter alia, it is argued that the VoC approach, as it is presently configured, may have little to teach IR scholars because its basic theoretical concepts and methodological priors militate against accounting for change. This article begins with a summary of the routine problems researchers in comparative political economy and comparative IR have encountered when attempting to account for change within the constraints of the VoC paradigm. Here the focus is on the limitations imposed when privileging the national scale and the problems engendered by a heavy reliance on comparative statics methodology infused with the concepts of equilibrium and exogenous shocks. The article then goes beyond these routinely recognized limitations and argues that the importation of terminology from neoclassical economic theory, of which the original VoC statement makes foundational reference, further serves to constrain and add confusion to the comparative enterprise; namely, comparative advantage, Oliver Williamson’s neoclassical theory of the firm, the use of the distinction made between (im)perfect market competition in neoclassical economics and the fuzzy distinction made between firms, markets and networks. In the concluding section we argue that the VoC’s narrow focus on the firm and its coordination problems serve to legitimate IRs traditional narrow focus on labour management relations and the pride of place that HRM now enjoys in the remaining IR departments. Ultimately, however, the embrace of the VoC paradigm by comparative IR is a net negative normative move.

The article reviews the book, "Techniciens de l’organisation sociale. La réorganisation de l’assistance catholique privée à Montréal (1930-1974)," by Amélie Bourbeau.

Within the past decade, the unprecedented growth in non-tenure/tenure track faculty has led to speculation as to the learning environment and learning outcomes for students. Both national media and researchers have raised concerns about the growth in short-term contract faculty, yet there is little evidentiary data to support policy development. Our study of sessional faculty in Ontario’s publicly funded universities provides much needed data and insight into the current pressures, challenges, and adaptations of the rapidly rising number of university instructors who work on short-term contracts, also known as sessional faculty. --From Executive Summary

Fondé en 1967, le Jazz libre se démarque dans le paysage culturel du Québec par sa quête d’une praxis révolutionnaire dont la visée est de promouvoir la démocratie culturelle dans les milieux ouvriers. Durant ses huit années d’existence, ce groupe d’improvisateurs tisse des liens non négligeables avec le Conseil central des syndicats nationaux de Montréal, le Front de libération du Québec et le Front de libération des femmes. Les membres de ce collectif s’approprient le free jazz – une musique rattachée au nationalisme noir – afin de situer leur projet d’un Québec socialiste et indépendant dans un processus historique marqué par la décolonisation. Cette appropriation exprime un désir de concrétiser un rapprochement entre l’individu québécois colonisé – celui que Pierre Vallières qualifie de « nègre blanc d’Amérique » – et son homologue afro-américain. Elle repose sur la conviction que l’improvisation en musique est un vecteur de communication, d’organisation et de participation. La présente étude interroge le discours politico-culturel sur lequel la « musique-action » du Jazz libre repose. Elle propose une analyse élargie de la place occupée par le free jazz dans les mouvements de résistance au pouvoir tout en mettant en relief le volet culturel du militantisme politique déployé au Québec durant les années 1960 et 1970.

The article reviews the book, "Free Labor: The Civil War and the Making of an American Working Class," by Mark A. Lause.

The article reviews the book, "L’intervention en santé et en sécurité du travail. Pour agir en prévention dans les milieux de travail," edited Sylvie Montreuil, Pierre-Sébastien Fournier and Geneviève Baril-Gingras.

The 2005 first-contract strike at Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alberta was one of the largest private sector labour victories in that province in over twenty years. At the time, the strike made national headlines for violence and animosity on the picket line. The strike is also noteworthy because African and Asian immigrant and refugee workers played a central role in the dispute. The union involved, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, adopted a series of innovative tactics which also contributed to the outcome. This article examines the events of the 2005 strike and explores the role played by immigrant activism in catalyzing and anchoring the struggle. It also analyzes which strategies employed by the union were most effective in organizing this group of workers. The article concludes by contemplating possible lessons for the labour movement today for organizing immigrant workers.

Workplace injuries happen every day and can profoundly affect workers, their families, and the communities in which they live. This textbook provides workers and students with an introduction to effective injury prevention. It pays particular attention to how issues of precarious employment, gender, and ill-health can be better handled in Canadian occupational health and safety (OHS). Health and Safety in Canadian Workplaces offers an extensive overview of central OHS concepts and practices and provides practical suggestions for health and safety advocacy. It attempts to bring OHS into a twenty-first century context by discussing contemporary workplaces and the health effects of new work processes and structures while recognizing that safety has gendered and racialized dimensions. Foster and Barnetson contend that the practice of occupational health and safety can only be understood if we acknowledge that workers and employers have conflicting interests. Who identifies what workplace hazards should be controlled is therefore a product of the broader political economy of employment and one that should be well understood by those working in the field. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Workplace injury in theory and practice -- Legislative framework of injury prevention and compensation -- Hazard recognition, assessment and control -- Physical hazards -- Chemical and biological hazards -- Psycho-social hazards -- Health effects of employment -- Training and injury prevention programs -- Incident investigation -- Disability management and return to work -- The practice of health and safety.

When Professor Murray Young was teaching his pioneering courses on New Brunswick history up to what was then the recent past of the 1960s, colleagues would ask him what text he was using for the contemporary period. His answer was the Byrne Report. Students in that class learned how to read tables of data and lists of recommendations, and they came to appreciate the Report of the Royal Commission on Finance and Municipal Taxation as one of the most significant documents in the historical evolution of the province. --Introduction

The article reviews the books, "Sensing Chicago: Noisemakers, Strikebreakers, and Muckrakers," by Adam Mack, "Urban Green: Nature, Recreation, and the Working Class in Industrial Chicago," by Colin Fisher, "The People and the Bay: A Social and Environmental History of Hamilton Harbour," by Nancy B. Bouchier and Ken Cruikshank, and "Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town," by Ellen Griffith Spears.

The article reviews the book, "Watching Women’s Liberation 1970: Feminism’s Pivotal Year on the Network News," by Bonnie J. Dow.

Analyzes various forms of discrimination experienced by women journalists at Canadian Press from the mid-1960s to 2000. A feminist, interdisciplinary approach is used to examine masculine newsroom norms and how they affected women's careers. Problems of mentoring are also explored. The study is based on over 30 oral interviews including with women who worked at different times as journalists and editors at CP.

Depuis les années 1980, les syndicats locaux doivent souvent gérer les compressions demandées par la partie patronale lors des rondes de négociation. Disposant de très peu de marge de manoeuvre dans sa négociation, le syndicat se voit contraint de choisir entre une précarité généralisée et une précarité réservée à un groupe de travailleurs. Il en arrive à faire des compromis qui l’amènent à devenir un vecteur d’inégalités économiques et sociales, plutôt qu’un moteur d’amélioration des conditions des travailleurs. Les diverses clauses de disparité de traitement confèrent des droits et des avantages différents à certaines catégories de salariés travaillant pour un même employeur, que ce soit en raison de leur statut d’emploi (Bernier, 2011), de leur affiliation syndicale ou de leur date d’embauche (Côté, 2008).L'objectif principal de cette étude est de traiter des conséquences qu'ont eu la présence de ces clauses « orphelins », ainsi que leur contestation, sur les deux syndicats locaux étudiés. Également, nous souhaitons fournir des pistes de réflexion quant à ses impacts sur le collectif syndical. En effet, nous avons observé, chez les deux syndicats étudiés, que l'on refuse de considérer la double échelle salariale comme étant de la discrimination, et ce, pour deux principales raisons. D'abord, les exécutifs locaux sont peu familiers avec la notion de discrimination. Leurs connaissances se limitent souvent à la discrimination directe, alors que les plaignants allèguent une discrimination indirecte désavantageant les salariés les plus récemment embauchés, et donc plus jeunes. Secundo, les syndicats ne se reconnaissent aucune part de responsabilité dans l'entente intervenue en raison du contexte économique et juridique de la négociation et des fortes pressions exercées par l'employeur. En conclusion, nous aborderons les différents effets de la négociation de clauses « orphelins », soit la persistance des inégalités et la difficulté de mettre en oeuvre la norme d'égalité en milieu syndiqué. // Title in English: When the Union Becomes a Vector of Inequalities: The Effects of Orphan Clauses on Union Association. Since the 1980s, unions have often been under pressure to accept wage compressions during collective bargaining. Faced with little bargaining power, their only choice sometimes ends up being between accepting eroded conditions for all or only some of their members. In this context, unions go from being a partner in the fight against inequalities to being a vector of inequalities. Based on two case studies where unions agreed to introduce orphan clauses to existing collective agreements, this paper aims to document the consequences unions have to deal with when some of their members decide to challenge such clauses because they find them to be discriminatory.We observed that in both unions, there was a refusal to consider the dual salary scale as being discriminatory for two main reasons: first, local officers are unfamiliar with the notion of discrimination, often limited to direct discrimination, while the orphan clauses create indirect discrimination that impacts the newlyhired employees, and consequently those employees that are younger; second, Unions do not recognize any responsibility on their part as the labour agreement was reached in a specific legal and economic context and under pressure from the employer.In conclusion, we find that various effects of the negotiation of orphan clauses include the persistence of inequalities and the difficulty to implement equality rules within the unionized sector.

Cet article fait la lumière sur le militantisme et la vie politique d’Alphonse-Télesphore Lépine (1855–1943), premier député ouvrier élu à la Chambre des communes du Canada (1888–1896). Dans le cadre de cette analyse, nous explorons la manière dont ce membre influent de l’Ordre des Chevaliers du travail de Montréal met en place sa campagne électorale et nous tentons de comprendre les liens, parfois tumultueux, que celui-ci entretient avec les militants de l’Ordre. Centrant notre analyse sur la personne d’Alphonse-Télesphore Lépine comme objet historique – dont les choix, les relations professionnelles, les idées et les valeurs sont au centre de la chose publique –, nous cherchons à rendre compte des réseaux partisans, et plus largement, de la culture politique des ouvriers.