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New research into the political attitudes and behaviours of union activists challenges traditional beliefs about the prospects for politicizing unionists in Canada. A study of union activists in Alberta finds two significant results. First union activists are more politically active than the average Canadian. This contradicts conventional wisdom about union activists. Second, unions can play a direct and important role in fostering political participation among their activists, a finding that has the potential to extend to the general membership. However, to be effective in mobilizing unionists politically, unions need to approach the project differently than they do at present. It is a project of action, not words, and it must be grounded in the lived experience of union workers. In particular, perceptions of class play a central role in shaping the political decisions of unionists. Relational articulations of class lead to political mobilization, and thus union actions must reflect the lived experience of being working class in Canada.

The article reviews the book, "Unions in the Time of Revolution: Government Restructuring in Alberta and Ontario, by Yonatan Reshef and Sandra Rastin.

Cet article présente une réflexion entourant l’élaboration d’un modèle de conception de la formation visant une meilleure prise en compte de la réalité du camionneur. Derrière un problème de formation se cache un problème plus large de connaissances nécessaires pour affronter efficacement les situations de la vie et d’aide à l’apprentissage sur le cours de vie. Une telle aide nécessite préalablement de documenter la réalité du camionneur en termes d’activité de formation et d’activité de travail. Une observation participante d’une formation de camionneurs et une analyse de l’activité de travail ont été réalisées. Documenter ainsi la réalité du camionneur permet d’identifier des situations à transformer pour aider à l’efficacité et la sécurité des apprentis et des camionneurs. Cette réflexion a permis l’élaboration d’un modèle de conception proposant une double intervention : sur la formation et sur le travail comme moyen d’aider à l’apprentissage sur le cours de vie professionnelle.

The article reviews and comments on Ruth Compton Brouwer's "Modern Women Modernizing Men: The Changing Missions of Three Professional Women in Asia and Africa, 1902-69;" Shirley Jane Endicott's "China Diary: The Life of Mary Austin Endicott;" and Myra Rutherdale's "Women and the White Man's God: Gender and Race in the Canadian Mission Field."

The article reviews the book, "Adult Learning and Technology in Working-Class Life," by Peter Sawchuk.

Cet article analyse le potentiel régulatoire de la responsabilité sociale dans un contexte de mondialisation économique à partir d’une distinction entre ses trois dimensions : les pratiques, le discours et le questionnement. Sans comprendre la dynamique des initiatives corporatives de responsabilité sociale, le discours sur la responsabilité sociale élude les questionnements auxquels l’entreprise doit aujourd’hui faire face pour conserver sa légitimité et assurer son ancrage dans la société. Mais plutôt que de déplorer leur manque d’effectivité, les auteurs avancent que les mesures volontaires de responsabilité sociale telles que les codes de conduite ou ce que certains appellent la soft law sont annonciatrices d’un cadre de responsabilité sociale en voie d’institutionnalisation à l’échelle mondiale. Sur la base d’une analyse de l’expérience européenne, ils montrent que deux cadres de responsabilité sociale au potentiel régulatoire très différent sont actuellement en concurrence, et concluent en jetant les bases du système régulatoire qui semble se configurer à l’échelle internationale.

The book, ``Culture and the Labour Market,`` by Siobhan Austen is reviewed.

In 1924 sixteen-year-old Kay Chetley along with her parents Jennie and Robert, and her sister Roberta, moved to the industrial city of Welland, Ontario. Kay was raised in east Saint John, New Brunswick where her father worked as a stationary engineer on dredging barges. Her mother, from a farming family in Petitcodiac, New Brunswick, had been a primary school teacher until her marriage. The family's economic status thus ranged between the artisan class and the emerging lower-middle class. To maintain that position, Kay's father moved the family to Ontario so that he could take up work in the construction of the new canal. Welland, however, soon became the setting for Kay's courtship, wedding, her first years as a married wom[a]n, and her subsequent years as a mother. This typical female life-cycle was played out not only within a tight-knit nuclear family, the dominant familial form in the early 20th century, but also within the community of First Baptist Church, Welland. Kay's life thus provides an illustration of the interconnectedness of religion, family, courtship, leisure, and work in one Ontario industrial community. The core of this study is constructed around a series of five-year diaries left by Kay Chetley. ...The diaries cover the bulk of the period from 1934 to 1944 and offer a few lines detailing Kay's activities each day. --Author's introduction

The article reviews the book, "John Reed and the Writing of Revolution," by Daniel W. Lehman.

The book ,"Employment with a Human Face: Balancing Efficiency, Equity, and Voice," by John Budd, is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "Building Chaos: An International Comparison of Deregulation in the Construction Industry," edited by Gerhard Bosch and Peter Phillips.

The article reviews the book, "La chaîne invisible. Travailler aujourd’hui : flux tendu et servitude volontaire," by Jean-Pierre Durand.

A 1964 strike by women workers in Dunnville, Ontario provides an exceptional perspective on the complex ways in which class, gender, and ethnicity unite in the construction of identity. The women strikers drew on left-wing traditions of feisty femininity to claim an identity as real workers and authentic unionists while also embracing multi-ethnic identities that distinguished them from the Anglo-Celtic middle class. Their claims to authenticity challenged pervasive assumptions, including those of their union brothers, who defined labor militancy as implicitly male and distorted memories of the strike. Yet the limits on the women's own constructions of these identities are evident in their inability to perceive the Native women who scabbed during the strike as workers. By contrasting the ways in which identity was claimed, assigned, and contested by different groups of workers, this story problematizes categories of identity that are often used uncritically in labor history.

The book, "Class and Other Identities: Gender, Religion and Ethnicity in the Writing of European Labour History," edited by Lex Heerma van Voss and Marcel van der Linden, is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "Women in European History," by Gisela Bock.

The 1970's saw an explosion of new social movement activism. From the breakup of the New Left into single-issue groups at the end of the 1960's came a multitude of groups representing the peace, environmental, student, women's, and gay liberation movements. This explosion of new social movement activism has been heralded as the age of new radical politics. Many theorists and activists saw new social movements and the issues or identities they represented as replacing the working class as an agent for progressive social change. This article examines these claims through a case study of the quintessential social movement, Greenpeace, exploring Greenpeace Canada from 1971 to 2000 and its relationship to the working class. In order to understand the ideology behind Greenpeace, the author investigates its structure, personnel, and actions. The case study illustrates important contradictions between new social movement theory and practice and how those contradictions affect the working class. In particular, Greenpeace's actions against the seal hunt, forestry in British Columbia, and its own workers in Toronto demonstrate some of the historic obstacles to working out a common labor and environmental agenda.

The article reviews the book, "Workers After Workers' States: Labour and Politics in Post Communist Eastern Europe," edited by Stephen Crowley and David Ost.

The book, "The Next Upsurge: Labour and the New Social Movements," by Dan Clawson, is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "The French Canadians of Michigan: Their Contribution to the Development of the Saginaw Valley and the Keweenaw Peninsula, 1840-1914," by Jean Lamarre.

The article reviews the book, "The End of Baseball As We Knew It: The Players Union, 1960-81," by Charles P. Korr.