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The article reviews the book, "Reimagining Illness: Women Writers and Medicine in Eighteenth-Century Britain," by Heather Meek.

Climate change has reached crisis mode, and confronting it requires confronting corporations, economic planning, policies that exacerbate this process, and social relations that enable such policies and economic paths. This dissertation shows how settler colonialism in Canada revolves today around extractivism. This fact makes the struggle for land critical and highlights how Canadian nationalism is an obstacle to Indigenous solidarity and environmentalism. In 2020, the Shut Down Canada movement that started from Wet'suwet'en territories against building the CGL pipeline on their land, which was a scale-up from the Idle No More movement, underscored the importance of the Land Back movement for environmental justice. Its tactic of shutting down critical infrastructures was the largest scale in Canada's recent history of Indigenous resistance at the time. The well-documented militarized attacks on Wet'suwet'en unceded territories creates a dilemma that should concern every activist. At the same time, the impressive organizing efforts that started from Unist'ot'en as a space of resistance provide lessons for every movement. The case of the CGL pipeline and Wet'suwet'en resistance puts us at the conjuncture of three movements: the issue of solidarity between labour, anti-capitalist Environmentalists and the Indigenous movement. In this dissertation, I strategically explore possibilities for building strong Indigenous-environmentalist-labour solidarity. Through extensive policy analysis of the critical infrastructure risk management approach and media analysis of the CIRG task force, I explore a hidden link between the security arm of one of the largest global investment corporations, KKR, RCMP, and TC Energy executives. The government's risk management approach has enabled such a link, which facilitates and encourages conversations between the involved actors. The state's claim to the so-called public/Canadian interest in pipelines is of utmost importance to this dissertation. The concept of Canadian interest works as a settler colonial and national ideology of governing; historically and presently, the concept creates an umbrella that includes the Canadian working class as it excludes Indigenous communities, along with the processes of reproducing nature and non-capitalist forms of economy that many radical environmentalists try to create through commons. A lack of land-based analysis of the situation of working-class people in Canadian labour has turned the labour movement into a more economistic version of trade unionism, one that does not actively oppose Canadian nationalism.

This studio-based dissertation project emerges from my engagement with the politics of representation of labour and visual culture. Rooted in my experience as a Mexican artist living in Canada, the project examines how Mexican labour is framed through photography, performance, and installation. These themes form the central focus of my research, which moves across Lands and disciplinary forms to investigate how systems of power shape the representation of Mexican workers and how irony can be used as a tool to question dominant narratives. The written component of this dissertation forms part of an interdisciplinary thesis that includes a series of exhibitions and performances carried out between 2021 and 2025 in today’s Mexico and Canada. The artworks, presented across artist-run centres in Ontario and as outdoor installations, use staged photographs, installations, participatory works, to examine labour, value, and exchange. These pieces were shown in the province of Ontario, Canada and the state of Coahuila, Mexico. My thesis engages with a range of theoretical frameworks to support and extend my artistic practice. Drawing from visual culture theory, performance studies, and participatory art discourse, I incorporate the work of theorists such as Stuart Hall, Jacques Derrida, and Claire Bishop, among others. As a whole, this dissertation considers how visual and performance-based practices can challenge representations of Mexican labour across Lands and reflect on the systems that shape the movement of people, goods, and images. The written component includes five chapters, followed by photographic documentation of the works and exhibitions produced during my doctoral studies. Together, the writing and the artworks propose a critical reflection on contemporary labour and visual politics.

The author explores the influence of human rights campaigns on Canadian labour leaders' views of immigration in the 1940s. From the start of the labour movement from 1870s to the 1930s, unionists were among the most vocal and energetic opponents to large-scale immigration to Canada. By the 1940s, labour leaders abandoned most of this opposition and especially their racist and exclusionary rhetoric. Goutor shows that human rights activists - many of whom came from within the labour movement itself in the new wave of organizing during the Second World War - played a key role in driving this change. In particular, human rights campaigns convinced labour leaders that racism and anti-immigrant sentiment were social forces that mostly benefited conservatives and would empower social and political forces hostile to the mass unions emerging during the 1940s. --From editors' introduction

The article reviews the book, "Résister et fleurir," by Jean-Félix Chénier and Yoakim Bélanger.

In collective bargaining, General Wage Increases (GWI) are most normally framed and implemented as percentages, with each eligible member seeing a salary rise of X% on top of pre-existing salary. While this approach is not remarkable where salary grids are in place and union members start at the same rate, it can have significant effects where starting salaries vary, as is common in the university sector. Under these conditions, percentage increases over time contribute to the widening of intra-member salary inequity, exacerbating structurally gendered and racialized inequities of the academic labour market. This paper explores the impact of a flat rate increase approach to salary bargaining. Beginning with the context of collective bargaining in British Columbia, it examines how percentage-based and flat-rate increases would impact real salaries of faculty members at Simon Fraser University in order to better understand how faculty associations and unions could use flat rate approaches to begin to counteract the impact of differential starting salaries on the career earnings of faculty members. The paper finds that flat rate increases could be an effective tool against pay inequity even where that inequity is driven by forces outside the university.

This article examines the role of alcohol, specifically rum, in labour relations in the early staples trades. In the 18th-century colonies that would later form Canada, labour was generally scarce and therefore expensive. Employers had to offer high wages as they struggled to recruit and retain workers, but because their enterprises were typically undercapitalized and vulnerable to market fluctuations, they could not afford to pay the salaries in full at the end of the contracted period. Focusing on the fishing servants of Newfoundland and the voyageurs of the North West Company, the article shows how wages were systematically clawed back through the workings of a version of "truck." Payment was deferred to the end of the season, and in the interim, employers would supply their men with goods at inflated prices, ensuring that many ended up indebted beyond the value of their nominal wages and had to sign on for a further term to pay off their debts. Rum was a crucial element in this system, its addictive qualities making it the ideal instrument for absorbing earnings. Many fishing masters and fur traders actively encouraged consumption; drinking on the job, then, was not only allowed but, in some cases, practically mandatory.

Since the establishment of the Canadian Air Line Flight Attendants’ Association (CALFAA) in 1948 and the Airline Division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in 1984, flight attendant unions have advocated for duty time limits, sufficient rest periods, and fair wages. Recently, CUPE’s Airline Division has focused their efforts on unpaid ground time – a vital but overlooked element of flight attendant labor. Despite the union’s efforts, the persistence of unpaid ground time illustrates a trend of systemic prioritization of corporate profit over workplace equity. Through an overview of academic and grey literature (e.g. news articles, government documents), this review details the history of Canadian flight attendant unions before and after neoliberal reforms in the 1980s to trace trends in labor relations. We argue that increased governmental intervention and corporate exemptions in employee-employer labor relations prioritize the industry’s financial stability, forming structural barriers that dilute unions’ change-making capacity. Ultimately, we contextualize unpaid ground time within these trends – where systemic prioritization of corporate interests trump unions’ labor concerns, leaving attendants’ workplace inequity unaddressed.

In 1980s Ontario, racialized migrant domestic workers faced systemic exploitation, precarious immigration status, and exclusion from labour protections, reinforced by provincial and federal policies that devalued domestic labour. This thesis examines how INTERCEDE, a Toronto-based coalition, challenged these structural inequalities. Employing an intersectional approach, this study reveals how race, gender, immigration status, and class collectively marginalized migrant care workers. Drawing on extensive primary sources, it analyzes INTERCEDE's influence on major policy changes, including reforms to the Foreign Domestic Movement (FDM) program and to provincial labour laws. The thesis argues that while INTERCEDE efforts contributed to securing significant, albeit often fragile, victories, these gains highlighted both the power of activism and the persistent challenges under neoliberal regimes. It contributes to feminist labour history, migration studies, and care work scholarship by demonstrating how organized resistance reshaped Canadian policy and contested institutionalized marginalization.

We illustrate the exploitation in the relationship between Uber and its drivers by aligning their work with the characteristics of neo-villeiny. Two different legal developments in response to irregulation (or the lack of effective regulation) in similar institutional contexts emerge. While Uber drivers in the United Kingdom now have worker status, dysregulation (by which we mean regulation that exacerbates the problem it seeks to resolve) in Ontario has established neo-villeiny in law.

At the end of the twentieth century, as social democratic parties around the world struggled to produce a coherent response to the deindustrialization crisis, many pivoted towards progressive neoliberalism and Third Way social democracy. Almost everywhere, they turned their backs on the weakened trade union movement and embraced neoliberal assumptions about labour force flexibility and global competition. Shamefully, Third Way social democrats emphasized the moral dimension of poverty rather than its structural causes as they abandoned the old redistributive class politics of the Left. Based on extensive archival research and interviews with NDP politicians, senior economic policy advisors, and trade unionists, The Left in Power examines the response of the political Left in Ontario to the crisis that gripped the old ‘industrialized world.’ Steven High revisits the heartbreaking years of Bob Rae’s Ontario NDP government—from their historic and unexpected 1990 victory, to their policy shifts that left working-class voters feeling betrayed, to their landslide defeat in 1995—to uncover what we can learn from one social democratic party’s mistakes about how to govern from the Left. --Publisher's description

Higher unionization rates don't just benefit workers, evidence suggests they also offer broad social benefits like a cleaner environment and better health. [Includes tables.] --Website description

Background: In western Canada, Manitoba is a critical hub for a large population of migrant workers. Usually with limited English or French language ability and possessing limited rights and protections under the current TFWP, Temporary foreign workers (TFWs) are often tied to a single employer, leaving them vulnerable to employer abuse and the under-reporting of workplace injuries and illnesses due to the threat of deportation. Within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, when my dissertation research began, the many cases seen among TFWs in Manitoba raises additional important public health questions on the health and wellbeing of migrant workers in Manitoba that I discuss in this dissertation. Methodology: In close collaboration with Migrante Manitoba (MB), I conducted a qualitative study to explore the precarious lives of migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. I virtually interviewed 20 migrant workers who entered Canada through the TFWP, employed either as seasonal agricultural workers (n=7) or TFWs (n=13). Thirteen TFWs came from Philippines and seven farmworkers from Mexico (n=6) and Jamaica (n=1). Theoretical contribution: I developed the notion of transnational circuits of precarity to understand the multiple temporal-spatial layers of precarity that migrant workers encounter along their journeys to Manitoba. This multivalent concept is comprised of the following interconnected pieces: 1) a broader political economic “force-field” that compels the movement of human labour resources from the global South to the global North; 2) the rigid and regulated pathway put in place to ensure workers arrival at their work destinations; 3) the process of making “model minorities” through training programs that ensure the “smooth” transition of workers in their host country; and 4) the affective economy that is fueled by workers’ hopes, dreams, and desires. Altogether, these seemingly disparate processes articulate to produce complex temporal and spatial realities that shape the precarious trajectories of migrant workers. Such a paradigm shift away from the narrow temporal and spatial limits of a focus on “occupational health hazards” will be critical if workers are to realize any meaningful and substantive changes to their overall physical and mental well-being.

Wage-earner funds (löntagarfonder) in Sweden and the Fonds de solidarité ftq in Québec, both founded in 1983, are two of the most significant examples of collective workers' investment funds run by unions. This article situates the political context of their emergence in the neoliberal turn of social democracy in the early 1980s. In Sweden, the wage-earner funds were initially proposed as a radical anti-capitalist project in 1975, but the Social Democratic Party leadership developed the idea into a qualitatively distinct plan aimed at increasing investment capital available for private firms, as part of its new market-accommodating program. In Québec, the Fédération des travailleurs du Québec (ftq) proposed the solidarity fund as it moved toward concertation and away from the democratic economic planning and autogestion (worker self-management) that it had championed in the 1970s. In both cases, pro-market forces within organized labour proposed the funds so that workers' capital could be used to stimulate private, for-profit investment, while recuperating elements of earlier labour radicalism that had sought to enhance workers' power over capital. Built with an institutional orientation toward the incorporation of workers into financial capitalism, these collective workers' funds represent a neoliberal shift within organized labour in Sweden and Québec, two places where labour is comparatively well organized.

Over the last several decades, the workplace in Canada has experienced profound changes. Work has become increasingly insecure for a growing number of workers, and income inequality has deepened. New technologies have reshaped labour processes and have enhanced elements of employer control over work and workers. Entry into the labour market is itself a difficult process, as young workers struggle to match qualifications and credentials with jobs, while for many older workers, retirement with a secure income is a diminishing prospect. The demographic composition of the labour market is transforming, yet this change is conditioned by longstanding patterns of inequality in terms of gender, race, disability, and immigration status. Work and Labour in Canada explores the changing world of work, mapping out major trends and patterns that define working life and identifying the economic, social, and political factors that shape the contemporary workplace. Evaluating working conditions and the quality of jobs from a critical perspective, this text presents an analysis of recent trends in employment and unemployment as well as outlines the role and impact of unions and other workers’ organizations. The fourth edition includes a new chapter on work and technology, updated statistical data, and additional content on the basic income debate, labour and climate change, and COVID-19. This thoroughly revised and updated edition is essential for teachers, researchers, labour activists, and students of labour studies, sociology, political science, political economy, and economic geography programs. --Publisher's description

Canada is a country whose economy benefits considerably from migrant workers in the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). With little protection from workplace exploitation, as well as unclear and constantly changing immigration policies, migrant workers often lose their legal immigration status due to conditions out of their control, becoming non-status. Living in the shadows and without access to most publicly funded services, non-status migrants experience a myriad of chronic daily stressors. In partnership with non-status community members, this Community-based Participatory Research project explores the question, “In what ways does a lack of status influence the psychosocial well-being of non-status migrants in Alberta?”. Both non-status migrants and service providers participated in semi-structured interviews, while a group of service providers working in mental health also participated in a focus group interview. The interpretation of this study’s findings was guided by the socio-ecological systems framework. Non-status realities were described from the perspective of both non-status migrants and service providers. Findings included insights into how the TFWP creates systemic vulnerabilities for migrant workers and facilitates the loss of immigration status. This lack of status led to a scarcity of access to most basic services and resources, leading to significant detrimental impacts on psychosocial well-being. This produced internalized experiences of shame and un-belonging, as well as a range of deleterious mental health outcomes. Furthermore, the impacts associated with a lack of access were significantly exacerbated by a discriminatory and hostile sociopolitical environment. Recommendations centered around the inclusion of non-status migrants in collaborative partnerships with service providers and policymakers alike. In light of these findings and recommendations, the implications for counselling psychology practice are also illuminated.

Using post-structural theories, this paper explores the public discourses of several Canadian teacher unions and grassroots teacher activist groups around the issue of school reopening plans in Canada amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper aims to highlight the ways in which these two forces of teacher activism can influence and impress upon each other to create a different possible future for collective resistance to neoliberalism in education – an assemblage of union and grassroots activism intra-acting, shaping, and impressing upon one another.

How did labour fare in 2024? In many ways, the Canadian labour market and labour movement are both looking more like they did pre-pandemic. Hopes of using the relatively robust post-pandemic economy as a springboard to build something better seem to largely be fading. Strike activity was down considerably in 2024, after reaching historic heights the previous year, by some measures. Wage growth has cooled, even as unions continue to seek pay increases to account for post-pandemic inflation. While some legislative gains were made this past year, governments also intervened in several important labour actions to end or pre-empt strikes and to come to the aid of employers who locked out their workers. In particular, the federal government has been especially coercive in its use of back-to-work orders.... Introduction

The article reviews the book, "The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor," by Hamilton Nolan.

This thesis seeks to understand the historical conditions that have relegated worker cooperatives to the periphery of the Canadian political economy. It begins with a theoretical exploration of the relationship between worker cooperatives and capitalism, highlighting two key dynamics: 1) worker cooperatives are a form of collective property that allow workers to secure their subsistence outside of the wage-labour market; 2) worker cooperatives can serve a wide range of interests depending on the subjectivities of the worker-members and the objective conditions of their political-economic environment. This framework is then used to examine subjective and objective considerations in the context of Canadian worker cooperatives, with a focus on the emergence of the contemporary sector in the 1970s and 1980s. Material need has at times produced upswings of grassroots momentum, but this momentum has struggled to sustain itself in the absence of support from major institutions of the Canadian political economy.