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In 1992, a labour dispute that would last 18 months tore Yellowknife apart, culminating in an explosion that killed nine miners. The fallout of one of Canada’s largest mass murders still lingers in this northern city.

One hundred and fifteen years ago this September, downtown Vancouver was beset by thousands of protesters rallying against Asian immigration to Canada. Over the course of the event, moods shifted and the crowd turned violent. While the reasons for the gathering in Vancouver then and the ongoing “Freedom Convoy” today differ, there are similarities and lessons to be learned. It may seem an odd choice to study a painful chapter of Canada’s history in an already-too painful moment. However, historian Barrington Walker offers insight into its importance. “It’s not about just digging up unpleasant stories about Canada; it’s about challenging a certain notion of our historical innocence.” ...The 1907 riots did not occur in a vacuum. They were the result of years of building tension exacerbated by an economic downturn in 1907. After years of financial boom, the global demand for British Columbia’s resources slowed and unemployment reached record high levels. “Workers and politicians were looking for someone to blame,” explains historian Julie Gilmour, “and ‘cheap [Asian] labour’ had become a regular target.” --From introduction

Pays tribute to co-editor Joan Sangster, who retires with the publication of this issue. Comments that the COVID-19 pandemic has not dimmed the journal's quality, and that it remains committed to fostering scholarship, dialogue and debate on injustices and inequities which, if anything, have become more apparent in the present context. Reports the cancelation of a workshop on the carceral state in Canada due to the pandemic, but that the first of the papers that were to be delivered appear in the issue.

This report examines the impact of increasing Ontario's minimum wage to $14 per hour in 2018. Despite dire predictions that increasing minimum wage would eliminate jobs, employment actually increased in the period after the change. The study, funded by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF), also found racialized workers, especially women, benefitted from the minmum wage increase, largely due to the gendered and racialized nature of low-wage work. Employment in almost all industries with lower-than-average wages increased.

List of labour-themed theses, including abstracts, that were mostly written by MA students at the University of New Brunswick.

The International Labour and Radical History Pamphlet Collection in the Queen Elizabeth II Library consists of more than 2200 pamphlets, representing a broad spectrum of leftist opinion that includes communists of various stripes, socialists, liberal reformers, trade unionists, civil libertarians and antiwar activists. Published for the most part between the years 1920 and 1970 (the collection also includes a number of Fabian Society publications that predate this period), the majority of the pamphlets are English-language publications from the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Canada and China. Among the topics and issues dealt with are socialist theory and practice, critiques of capitalism, war and peace, labour and the role of unions, international communism, the Vietnam war, racism and Third World liberation. Authors include Daniel DeLeon, Earl Browder, William Z Foster, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Georgi Dimitrov, James Cannon, Howard Fast, Anna Louise Strong, Paul Robeson, Harry Pollitt, Jacques Duclos, Vyacheslav Molotov, Sergei Eisenstein, as well as Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Mao. Canadian authors include Stewart Smith, Stanley Ryerson, William Kashtan, Dorise Nielsen, Jacob Penner, Sam Carr and Leslie Morris. However, the most significant of the Canadian titles are more than 60 works written by Tim Buck, representing a significant proportion of the writings (many of them scarce, uncommon or rare) of the longtime General Secretary of the Communist Party of Canada. --Website description

The article reviews the book, "The Warehouse: Workers and Robots at Amazon," by Alessandro Delfanti.

The article reviews the book, "Arc of the Journeyman: Afghan Migrants in England," by Nichola Khan.

In the last decade, considerable attention has been paid to the category of craft. Within the disciplines, particularly in sociology and art theory, scholars like Richard Sennett, Susan Luckman, and Glenn Adamson have attempted to define, theorize and delineate the history of craft and its influence in contemporary capitalist culture. Popularly, books and television shows feature the work of makers and craftspeople, their popularity compounded by online crafting communities like Etsy. For all of this attention, considerably less has been paid to the labour that creates the craft products to begin with. This dissertation interrogates the category of craft from a critical labour studies perspective, first by analyzing its labour process, and, second, by amplifying the voices of workers in these industries in order to reflect the conditions they face, their attitudes about craft, and their reflections on class and organizing. In order to accomplish both, the dissertation reports on participant interviews and critically examines cultural artifacts concerning so-called making (typically understood as amateur or semi-professional small-scale production) and craft industrialism (used to define scalable industries that use craft branding and terminology). Its key case studies are making/makerspaces and craft brewing in the Cascadia region of North America, although it also visits the roasteries, bike shops, and bakeries that make up some of the other primary sites of the artisanal economy. This dissertation makes four primary contributions to the critical study of craft. First, it reorients the common approaches to craft, which either prioritize craft objects or individual maker activity. By redirecting attention to the social process of production, it avoids the object-orientation of many approaches as well as the maker-as-virtuoso narratives of popular accounts. By focusing on the social dynamics of craft, the dissertation transcends the singular craftsperson to make its second contribution: the reconceptualization of skill as social category rather than individual attribute. This social approach to skill paves the way toward the dissertation's third contribution: a dialectical consideration of the craftworker as distinct from but intrinsically related to the craftsperson. Analysis of cultural artifacts and discussions with workers highlighted the dependency of craftsmanship and support work. Finally, the dissertation distills maker and worker attitudes into a set of observations regarding the maker movement's narratives of emancipation through self-directed work as well as the potential of solidarity in craft industries.

The world is desperate for cobalt. It fuels the digital economy and powers everything from cell phones to clean energy. But this 'demon metal,' this 'blood mineral,' has a horrific present and troubled history. Then there is the town in northern Canada, also called Cobalt. It created a model of resource extraction a hundred years ago -- theft of Indigenous lands, rape of the earth, exploitation of workers, enormous wealth generation -- that has made Toronto the mining capital of the world and given the mining industry a blueprint for resource extraction that has been exported everywhere. Charlie Angus unearths the history of the town and shows how it contributed to Canada's mining dominance. He connects the town to present-day Congo, with its cobalt production and misery, to horrendous mining practices in South America and demonstrates that global mining is as Canadian as hockey. -- Publisher's description

L’industrie automobile française s’est familiarisée depuis plusieurs décennies à l’usage des technologies digitales afin de réaliser ses projets de conception. Ceux-ci servent notamment à organiser l’activité collective lors d’un projet au sein d’équipes pluridisciplinaires et pluriterritoriales. En parallèle, pour innover au sein d’un marché concurrentiel mondial, ce secteur adopte des organisations de projets visant à raccourcir les délais de conception des véhicules. Cela invite à interroger l’activité de synchronisation individuelle et collective de ces acteurs de la conception à travers les usages organisationnels de ces technologies digitales. En s’appuyant sur des données issues d’une recherche en ergonomie, cet article éclaire les usages organisationnels des technologies digitales dans l’ingénierie de conception automobile, mais également la manière dont l’analyse de ces usages constitue une opportunité pour réinterroger les formes d’organisation du travail dans lesquelles des technologies digitales sont déployées.

Nous examinons le potentiel et les conditions de l’efficacité de dispositions clés de la réforme du régime québécois de prévention introduite par la Loi modernisant le régime de santé et de sécurité du travail (LMRSST) en septembre 2021. Pour ce faire, nous mobilisons la typologie en deux axes proposée par Tucker (2007) afin de caractériser la citoyenneté au travail en SST, et ce, dans une version renouvelée par une perspective sensible au genre et autres sources d’inégalités. D’une part, nous traitons des changements à la participation représentative, à l’influence des travailleur.euse.s et au contrôle interne, ajoutant l’examen de la protection de toutes les personnes au travail (sans égard à leur statut d’emploi) et de la responsabilisation le long des chaînes de valeur. D’autre part, nous traitons du contrôle externe et proposons de tenir compte de la couverture des risques souvent invisibilisés du travail des femmes. Le projet de loi initial reproduisait cette sous-estimation de certains types de risques. Devant l’opposition, l’adoption de dispositions clé a été reportée et un régime intérimaire établi. La LMRSST permettra, à terme, la couverture de l’ensemble des secteurs d’activité par des mécanismes de prévention (contrôle interne) et de participation représentative des travailleur.euse.s; au prix cependant d’un risque de conformité formelle plutôt que réelle quant au contrôle interne, un niveau variable d’influence des travailleur.euse.s et de l’affaiblissement de plusieurs conditions d’efficacité des mécanismes de participation. On peut anticiper des obstacles à l’exercice de leurs droits par les travailleur.euse.s non syndiqués et des petits établissement. Le Réseau de santé publique n’a plus un accès systématique aux établissements et on ne sait rien sur les ressources dont celui-ci comme l’inspectorat disposeront. Il reste à voir dans quelle mesure les travaux réglementaires paritaires à venir apporteront des avancées en prévention et en même temps, renforceront plutôt que d’affaiblir la citoyenneté au travail.

The article reviews the documentary, "Les Unions, qu'ossa donne?," written and directed by Hélène Choquette, in association with La bille bleue inc. production company.

The article reviews the book, "Voices of Guinness: An Oral History of the Park Royal Brewery," by Tim Strangleman.

The Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children at Western University, together with researchers at the University of Toronto and the Canadian Labour Congress launched a bilingual, national survey on workplace harassment and violence in Fall 2020. Closing in Spring 2021, thousands of workers across Canada completed the survey and a significant number volunteered to participate in in-depth interviews. The results of this research shed light on the prevalence of different forms of harassment and violence in the workplace, including how workers who are marginalized due to their social location and/or their precarious employment status are uniquely impacted. --Website description

Au Québec, les relations du travail dans l'industrie de la construction font l'objet, depuis 1968, d'un encadrement spécifique en marge du Code du travail. L'adoption et l'originalité de ce régime, qui prévoit un éventail de règles visant les rapports collectifs du travail, mais aussi l'emploi des travailleurs de la construction, sont souvent expliquées par les rivalités intersyndicales qui ont marqué le secteur depuis les années 1960. L'objectif du texte est de montrer que la mobilité provinciale des travailleurs de la construction constitue, au Québec, une source de conflits au travail qui, bien que pouvant mettre en présence des organisations syndicales rivales, doit néanmoins être distinguée de ces rivalités naissant du pluralisme syndical. Pour ce faire, après avoir mis en évidence certaines caractéristiques industrielles et économiques de la construction québécoise, nous proposons une analyse de l'évolution du cadre législatif et réglementaire applicable à l'emploi dans ce secteur, en portant une attention particulière aux conflits et manifestations qui l'ont marqué.

The article reviews the book, "Boom Kids: Growing Up in the Calgary Suburbs, 1950–1970," by James A. Onusko.

L’ambition de ce numéro thématique est dès lors de croiser les perspectives disciplinaires pour éprouver la dualité des technologies digitales : en quoi jouent-elles comme des opportunités ou des contraintes pour le travail et l’activité professionnelle ? Plus précisément, nous proposons d’examiner dans quelle mesure et à quelles conditions ces dispositifs techniques vont être bénéfiques aux individus, en étant des sources de développement de l’activité et de renouvellement des métiers et des compétences. Il s’agit aussi d’explorer comment, a contrario, la mise en place de tels outils peut dégrader les activités, altérer les composantes du métier, fragiliser les collectifs de travail, les parcours et les connaissances professionnels, et impacter la santé des salariés. / The aim of this thematic special issue is to draw on cross disciplinary perspectives to better understand the duality of digital technologies: how do they act as opportunities and/or constraints for work and workers. More specifically, we examine to what extent and under what conditions the new technologies can be beneficial to individuals by being sources of activity development and renewal of occupations and skills. We also explore how the implementation of such tools can be detrimental to these activities, alter aspects of occupations, weaken work ties, career paths and occupational knowledge as well as impact the health of employees. --from Introduction

The article reviews the book, "Les transformations contemporaines du rapport au travail," edited by Daniel Mercure.

The article reviews and comments on several books including "Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression," edited by Tithi Bhattacharya, "Social Reproduction and the City: Welfare Reform, Child Care, and Resistance in Neoliberal New York," by Simon Black, "Women and Work: Feminism, Labour and Social Reproduction," by Susan Ferguson, and "Social Reproduction Theory and the Socialist Horizon: Work, Power and Political Strategy," by Aaron Jaffe.