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Every day millions of Canadians go out to work. They labour in factories, offices, restaurants, and retail stores, on ships, and deep in mines. And every day millions of other Canadians, mostly women, begin work in their homes, performing the many tasks that ensure the well-being of their families and ultimately, the reproduction of the paid labour force. Yet, for all its undoubted importance, there has been remarkably little systematic research into the past and present dynamics of the world of work in Canada. The essays in this volume enhance our understanding of Canadians on the job. Focusing on specific industries and kinds of work, from logging and longshoring to restaurant work and the needle trades, the contributors consider such issues as job skill, mass production, and the transformation of resource industries. They raise questions about how particular jobs are structured and changed over time, the role of workers' resistance and trade unions in shaping the lives of workers, and the impact of technology. Together these essays clarify a fundamental characteristic shared by all labour processes: they are shaped and conditioned by the social, economic, and political struggles of labour and capital both inside and outside the workplace. They argue that technological change, as well as all the transformations in the workplace, must become a social process that we all control. --Publisher's description. Contents: On the job in Canada / Craig Heron and Robert Storey (pages 3-46) -- Dimensions of paternalism: Discipline and culture in Canadian railway operations in the 1850s / Paul Craven and Tom Traves (pages 47-74) -- Work control, the labour process, and nineteen-century Canadian printers / Gregory S. Kealey (pages 75-101) -- Contested terrain: workers' control in the Cape Breton coal mines in the 1920s / David Frank (pages 102-123) -- Keeping house in God's country: Canadian women at work in the home  / Veronica Strong-Boag (pages 124-151) -- Skill and gender in the Canadian clothing industry, 1890-1940 / Mercedes Steedman (pages 152-176) -- Mechanization, feminization, and managerial control in the early twentieth-century Canadian office / Graham S. Lowe (pages 177-209) -- Work and struggle in the Canadian steel industry, 1900-1950 / Craig Heron and Robert Storey (pages 210-244) -- Logging pulpwood in Northern Ontario / Ian Radforth (pages 245-280) -- On the waterfront: longshoring in Canada / John Bellamy Foster (pages 281-308) -- Life in a fast-food factory / Ester Reiter (pages 309-326) -- Autoworkers on the firing line / Don Wells (pages 327-352).

This article reviews the book, "Proletarianization and Family History," edited by David Levine.

The article reviews the book, "Understanding Technological Change," by Chris De Bresson, with Jim Petersen.

The article reviews and comments on "The Creation of Patriarchy," by Gerda Lerner, and "Women's Work, Men's Property. The Origins of Gender and Class," edited by Stephanie Coontz and Peta Henderson.

This paper investigates the changing experience of child factory labour in late 19th and early 20th century Ontario. It explores the largely accepted, though untested assumptions that restrictive legislation (the Ontario Factory Act of 1884) was achieved at the behest of middle and upper-class social reformers whose concern was motivated by a new concept of childhood. The evidence provided reveals that, contrary to historical myth, organized labour was the motivating force behind the anti-child labour legislation. It also indicates that, once proclaimed, the legislation was poorly monitored and enforced and, as such, was largely ineffective in curtailing the practice of child labour. Despite this, however, the paper provides evidence to show that child factory labour did decline significantly after the mid-1890s. The explanation offered is essentially one of changes in the demand for and the supply of child labor. That is, the centralization and accumulation of industrial capital in concert with technological advances in production restricted opportunities for child factory labor. At the same time, improvements in workers' standards of living reduced the need for families to send children to work. The study does not deny the importance of the changing concept of childhood in curtailing child labour. However, rather than being afforded primacy, the new views of childhood are seen as part of the social backdrop which made employers of children subject to criticism and adult workers desirous of protecting children's 'tender years'.

This article reviews the book, "Trade Unions and Politics," by Ken Coates and Tony Topham.

The article reviews the book, "Keeping Left? CERES and the French Socialist Party," by David Hanley.

Après avoir résumé la problématique et la réglementation du temps supplémentaire au Québec, au Canada et dans d'autres pays, les auteurs présentent le phénomène du temps supplémentaire dans l'ensemble des branches d'activité au Canada, au Québec et en Ontario pour la période allant de 1975 à 1984.

Reviews and comments on judicial interpretations of the federal Access to Information Act of 1984, including third party applications, exemption cases, personal information cases, procedural cases (the journal's editor and a journalist were involved in this case, which was decided in favour of CSIS), and user fees, deemed refusals [i.e., delays in processing a request], and other issues. Concludes that, overall, the courts have failed to give full effect to the legislation. Also notes that the government ignored the recommendations of a parliamentary standing committee for amendments.

The article reviews the book, "The Hawk's Nest Incident: America's Worst Industrial Disaster," by Martin Cherniak.

The essays are gathered around two themes: the relationship of sociology and social history, and the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and region with class. Unlike most Canadian essay collections, the contributors and their subjects cover Canada from British Columbia to Newfoundland, with forays into Cape Breton and central Canada. The volume contains articles by Ian McKay, Gordon Darroch, James R. Conley, Alicja Muszynski, Gillian Creese, and Jim Overton. An interesting collection of some of the new work being done in Canada by historians and sociologists, Class, Gender, and Region reflects Charles Tilly’s suggestion that “there should be no disciplinary division of labour: simply both doing social history.” --Publisher's description (Athabasca University Press) Contents: Introduction / Gregory S. Kealey -- The crisis of dependent development: class conflict in the Nova Scotia coalfields, 1872-1876 / Ian McKay --Class in nineteenth-century, central Ontario: a reassessment of the crisis and demise of small producers during early industrialization, 1861-1871 /Gordon Darroch -- “More theory, less fact?” Social reproduction and class conflict in a sociological approach to working-class history / James R. Conley -- Race and gender: structural determinants in the formation of British Columbia’s salmon cannery labour force / Alicja Muszynski -- The politics of dependence: women, work, and unemployment in the Vancouver labour movement before World War II / Gillian Creese -- Public relief and social unrest in Newfoundland in the 1930s: an evaluation of the ideas of Piven and Cloward / James Overton.

The essays are gathered around two themes: the relationship of sociology and social history, and the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and region with class. Unlike most Canadian essay collections, the contributors and their subjects cover Canada from British Columbia to Newfoundland, with forays into Cape Breton and central Canada. The volume contains articles by Ian McKay, Gordon Darroch, James R. Conley, Alicja Muszynski, Gillian Creese, and Jim Overton. An interesting collection of some of the new work being done in Canada by historians and sociologists, Class, Gender, and Region reflects Charles Tilly's suggestion that "there should be no disciplinary division of labour: simply both doing social history." --Publisher's description

The editor reports on the Notebook section introduced in the previous issue as well as the interdisciplinary coverage of labour. The forthcoming issue will launch an annual review of Access to Information legislation, while issue 23 will update on archival and bibliographic resources for the study of labour.

Expresses appreciation to three departing editorial board members, in particular André LeBlanc. Notes the introduction of a new section on access to information and the return of the section on labour accessions at the National Archives. Publication of the updated Canadian labour bibliography is deferred until a later issue. The editor apologizes and notes the correction to be made on p. 145 of Alvin Finkel's article [The Cold War, Alberta Labour, and the Social Credit Regime] in the previous issue.

This paper is an attempt to schematize and survey those recent efforts of industrial relationists and labor economists to examine mediation within an inter-disciplinary framework.

The article reviews the book, "Communist Resistance in Nazi Germany," by Allan Merson.

The article reviews the book, "Solidarity and Fragmentation: Working People and Class Consciousness in Detroit, 1875-1900," by Richard Jules Oestreicher.

This paper presents new estimates of unionization and collective bargaining coverage for Canada from a special Statistics Canada household survey conducted in December 1984. The new estimates are comparee with the old estimates.