Your search

This article reviews the book, "24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep," by Jonathan Crary.

This paper explores some of the complex legal issues that a pension plan sponsor may face when making changes to plan design, particularly where those changes may have a negative impact on benefits. Pension standards legislation in Canada generally permits prospective amendments to a pension plan, pro- vided they do not affect vested rights. However, as the author explains, deter- mining the nature and extent of permissible changes may be complicated by differences in the language of the applicable legislation, which varies across jurisdictions. Furthermore, the key terms "accrued" and "vested" have not been interpreted in a consistent way by courts and tribunals. Turning specifically to the question of which pension benefits can be changed and which ones cannot, the author argues that pension standards law protects only accrued benefits, and not a particular plan design or all "rights" which might be said to arise from plan membership. The paper goes on to review the limited circumstances in which changes can be made to vested pension benefits.

Examines the controversy surrounding the passage of Bill C-377 by the Canadian federal parliament in 2012. Introduced as a private member's bill by Conservative MP Russ Hiebert in 2011, the legislation required unions to disclose publicly all of their activities to the Canada Revenue Agency under the Income Tax Act. The paper analyzes the anti-labour origins of the bill, which mirrored the union disclosure provisions of the US Taft-Hartley Act; it also considers the role of LabourWatch, the bill's principal private-sector Canadian advocate, as well as the Nanos Research polls commissioned by LabourWatch that appeared to show wide public support for the bill.

The article reviews the book, "A Freedom Budget for All Americans: Recapturing the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in the Struggle for Economic Justice Today," by Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates.

This article reviews the book, "Redeeming Time: Protestantism and Chicago’s Eight-Hour Movement, 1866-1912," by William A. Mirola.

In the Waterman case, the Supreme Court of Canada decided - at least with respect to the defined benefit pension plan under review - that pension benefits received by a wrongfully dismissed employee during the reasonable notice period are not deductible from any severance pay in lieu of reasonable notice that is otherwise payable. A majority of the Court held that the pen- sion benefits constituted a form of deferred compensation that was not intended to indemnify against income loss due to a wrongful dismissal, while the min- ority maintained that pension benefits received during the notice period must be deducted to prevent the dismissed employee from obtaining an undeserved windfall. In this article, the author reviews the law relating to the deductibility of various benefit payments from wrongful dismissal damages. In his view, the Waterman majority judgment does not provide wrongfully dismissed employees with an improper windfall, and there is no principled reason why pension bene- fits should be deducted from a damages award and thereby placed on a separate footing from other benefits that are components of an employee's overall com- pensation package.

This article reviews the book, "Seasons of Change: Labor, Treaty Rights and Ojibwe Nationhood," by Chantal Norrgard.

The article reviews the book, "D'où vient l'emploi ? Marché, État et action collective" by Frédéric Hanin.

Avec le décès de Pierre Verge, la revue Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations perd un réputé contributeur et un précieux ami. À la demande de la direction de la revue, la professeure Guylaine Vallée, qui connaît bien l’oeuvre de Pierre Verge et qui a travaillé avec lui, a accepté de rédiger ce texte hommage faisant état de sa contribution à l’avancement du droit de travail et des relations industrielles au Québec et au Canada. // An obituary is presented for Pierre Verge, a contributor to this journal, professor emeritus at the Law Faculty at the University of Laval in Québec, Québec, humanist, author, and advocate for the advancement of labor laws and industrial relations in Québec and Canada.

Cette étude examine l’influence d’engagements multiples envers l’organisation et le groupe de travail dans la prédiction des départs volontaires, en considérant les interactions entre les deux cibles et les effets principaux des dimensions d’engagement. Ce faisant, la présente étude innove en poursuivant une ligne de recherche émergente sur la façon dont des engagements multiples envers des cibles de travail emboitées s’articulent dans leur influence sur l’occurrence des départs volontaires. De plus, notre attention se porte particulièrement sur les interactions entre l’engagement organisationnel normatif et les dimensions d’engagement envers le groupe. En effet, des travaux récents suggèrent que l’engagement normatif peut voir sa signification perçue se modifier suivant le contexte intra-personnel créé par les autres dimensions d’engagement (Gellatly, Meyer et Luchak, 2006 ; Meyer, Stanley et Parfyonova, 2012). Nous explorons donc l’idée que l’engagement organisationnel normatif pourrait avoir des effets différents sur le risque de démission suivant qu’il s’accompagne d’un engagement affectif, normatif ou de continuité élevé envers le groupe. Sur la base d’une étude en deux temps de mesure espacés d’un an ( N = 268), les analyses révèlent que l’engagement organisationnel normatif présente un effet de réduction du risque de démission plus important lorsque l’engagement affectif envers le groupe est élevé, mais un effet de réduction du risque de démission plus faible lorsque l’engagement normatif envers le groupe est élevé, indiquant des interactions opposées entre les cibles d’engagement. De plus, l’engagement par manque d’alternatives est lié à un risque réduit de démission, cela seulement lorsque l’engagement de continuité envers le groupe est élevé. Enfin, l’engagement organisationnel affectif et l’engagement organisationnel par sacrifice perçu sont associés à un risque réduit de démission alors que l’engagement de continuité envers le groupe de travail augmente ce risque. Nous discutons la portée de ces résultats pour la compréhension du rôle des engagements multiples dans la rétention des employés. // English title: Well-being at Work: Contributions of a Person-centred Study. (English). This study examines the influence of multiple commitments toward the organization and the workgroup in predicting voluntary turnover by considering the interactions across foci and the main effects of commitment dimensions. In doing so, the present study innovates by pursuing an emerging line of research on how multiple commitments toward nested work foci combine each other in influencing the likelihood of voluntary leaving. In addition, we particularly focus on the interactions between normative organizational commitment and the dimensions of commitment to the workgroup. Indeed, recent studies suggest that normative commitment’s perceived meaning can change depending on the intra-personal context provided by the other commitments (Gellatly, Meyer, and Luchak, 2006 ; Meyer, Stanley, and Parfyonova, 2012). We thus explore the idea that normative organizational commitment may have different effects on the likelihood of leaving depending on whether it is accompanied by high affective, normative, or continuance commitment to the workgroup. Based on a study involving two measurement times spaced by one year (N = 268), analyses indicate that normative organizational commitment displays a stronger negative effect on turnover at high levels of affective commitment to the workgroup but a weaker effect on turnover at high levels of normative commitment to the workgroup, indicating opposite interactions across foci. In addition, lack of alternatives commitment is related to reduced turnover only when continuance commitment to the workgroup is high. Finally, affective organizational commitment and perceived sacrifice organizational commitment are associated with lower turnover while continuance commitment to the workgroup is related to higher turnover. We discuss the implications of these results for our understanding of the role of multiple commitments in employee retention.

Discusses the turbulent history surrounding the screening of the film, "Salt of the Earth," by Local 480 of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers' union in Trail, BC, in 1954. The Hollywood film, which is based on a true story of Chicano workers on strike at a mine in New Mexico, was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, as were many of the production's personnel. The paper is framed by the reminiscence of Anita Torres, who participated in the original 15-month-long strike, and who attended the screenings both in 1954 and in 2014 when it was commemorated.

Based on qualitative interviews of workers, managers and labour inspectors in China, we examine how employers adjust, often in subtle fashions, to minimum wage increases. Our findings highlight the “law of unintended consequences” in that their effects are often “undone” or offset by subtle adjustments such as reductions in fringe benefits and in overtime work and overtime pay premiums that are otherwise valued by employees. Employees often feel that they are no better off in spite of minimum wage increases because of these offsetting adjustments. This study also suggests possible reasons for the small or zero effect of minimum wage on employment in China. Lack of enforcement may be one of the reasons, but the employees we interviewed seem well aware of the legal minimum wage and employers do not want to get involved in disputes over this matter. For employers who would otherwise be affected by the minimum wage increase, the cost increase is mitigated by the offsetting adjustments. As a result, minimum wages do not seem to weaken the competitive position of employers in China.

This article reviews the book, "Ain’t Got No Home: America’s Great Migrations and the Making of An Interracial Left," by Erin Royston Battat.

The article reviews the book, "Locked Out: A Century of Irish Working-Class Life," edited by David Convery.

The aim of this paper is to conduct an exploratory analysis of the wider economic and social conditions associated with larger informal economies. To do this, three competing perspectives are evaluated critically which variously assert that cross-national variations in the size of the informal economy are associated with: under-development (modernization perspective); high taxes, corruption and state interference (neo-liberal perspective), or inadequate state intervention to protect workers (political economy perspective). Analyzing the variable size of the informal economy across 33 developed and transition economies, namely 28 European countries and five other OECD nations (Australia, Canada, Japan, New zealand and the USA), the finding is that larger informal economies are associated with under-development as measured by lower levels of GNI per capita, employment participation rates, average wages and the institutional strength and quality of the bureaucracy, higher levels of perceived public sector corruption, lower levels of expenditure on social protection and labour market intervention to protect vulnerable groups, but also restrictions on the use of temporary employment contracts and TWAs. The outcome is a tentative call to combine a range of tenets from all three perspectives in a new more nuanced and finer-grained understanding of how the cross-national variations in the size of the informal economy are associated with broader economic and social conditions. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for theory and policy, including the need for further analysis of the different impacts on the size of the informal economy of a wider range of indicators of modernization, corruption, taxation and types of state intervention.

Fréquemment, les chercheurs ont conceptualisé le conflit travail-famille de façon bidirectionnelle : l’étude des effets de la vie professionnelle à l’endroit de la vie de famille (appelé conflit travail-famille) et celle des effets de la vie de famille à l’égard de la vie d’emploi (appelé conflit famille-travail). Toutefois, les résultats inhérents aux recherches basées sur cette conceptualisation se sont avérés controversés. Autrement dit, très peu d’effort a été déployé afin de différencier entre les effets des différentes formes de ce conflit. Pourtant, Greenhaus et Beutell (1985) en ont proposé une conceptualisation multidimensionnelle, en ajoutant aux deux dimensions directionnelles trois autres supplémentaires liées au conflit de temps, d’effort et de comportement. Ainsi, notre recherche répond à la question générale suivante: la conceptualisation multidimensionnelle du conflit travail-famille est-elle plus efficace pour cerner la réalité de ce phénomène que la conceptualisation bidirectionnelle ? À partir d’un échantillon de 375 sujets provenant du personnel infirmier d’un centre hospitalier, nous avons privilégié une conceptualisation multidimensionnelle dudit conflit (Greenhaus et Beutell, 1985), et ce, afin d’identifier les effets spécifiques aux diverses dimensions de ce conflit. Pour ce faire, nous avons utilisé l’analyse en termes des cartes autoorganisatrices de Kohonen (SOM), cartes qui sont basées sur un réseau de neurones résultant de la méthode d’apprentissage non supervisée (Kohonen, 2001). Les résultats de l’analyse neuronale indiquent qu’il y a six formes de conflit. Deux d’entre elles paraissent générer des effets similaires à ceux obtenus selon la conceptualisation bidirectionnelle (conflit à haute intensité versus conflit à basse intensité), tandis que les quatre autres formes apparaissent engendrer des effets spécifiques, justifiant la nécessité d’appliquer la conceptualisation multidimensionnelle préconisée. En outre, l’analyse de variance appliquée aux données a révélé plusieurs différences significatives entre les six formes de ce conflit et des variables externes liées à des facteurs explicatifs dudit conflit, ainsi qu’à ses conséquences. Cette nouvelle taxonomie, basée sur la conceptualisation multidimensionnelle des conflits travail-famille, contribue à une meilleure compréhension de l’interférence entre la sphère de la vie familiale et celle de la vie professionnelle, en identifiant les formes spécifiques du conflit travail-famille au niveau desquelles une ou plusieurs sources de conflictualité sont en action. Des avenues de recherche et des implications managériales sont déduites à la lumière des résultats enregistrés.

Although the literature on comparative capitalism has been expanded to encompass the Mixed Market Economies (MMEs) of the Mediterranean world and other less mature institutional arrangements, it can be argued that more attention needs to be accorded to internal diversity within capitalist archetypes and the nature and path of change. In focusing on the latter, this paper explores changes in Industrial relations (Ir) regulation and practice in Greece which, since the onset of the economic crisis, has shifted towards lighter regulation; however, liberalization has not meant convergence with the mature Liberal Market Economy (LME) model and its presumed associated complementarities. Based on current developments and advances in the literature on comparative capitalism, this study explores the process and dynamics of institutional change, and the long continuities that set Greece apart from both ‘disorganized’ LMEs and other MMEs. This encompasses issues such as the composition of elites, the nature of institutional path dependence and change, and the uneven and partial nature of what constitutes institutional functionality. Whilst the Greek system is commonly condemned as dysfunctional, it satisfies specific economic interests. Being impelled in one direction by a progressive movement from below, it is driven in another by external pressures, and, at home, by “unpatriotic” elites, who have little interest in stronger regulation, and may well be served by weaker governmental capabilities. As local economic elites seek to reposition themselves within the system in order to cope with shifts in the capitalist economy, it may result in them further narrowing their focus onto their own immediate concerns accommodated through economic liberalization. Smaller, marginal, players may be pushed further out of the system and/or actively choose to withdraw, the attempts of the present government to ameliorate the shocks of liberalization notwithstanding. This vests the organized labour and other civil society associations with great historic importance.

The article reviews the book, "Labor and the Locavore: The Making of a Comprehensive Food Ethic," by Margaret Gray.

The project Leadership, Feminism and Equality in Unions in Canada (2012) explored the current practices, climate around, and attitudes to women, feminism, leadership, and equality through the insights, voices, and experiences of forty-four women union lead- ers, activists, and staff. This article outlines what we did: what prompted the project and its goals, methodology, activities, output, and results for participants. It also includes a summary of some findings that underscore the significance of the project.This project points to the permeability between and among breaking the silence, movement building, and union education. It asks what kind of union education is rel- evant and available for seasoned activists, leaders, and educators. It found that an ongoing process of what might be called politicized education is critical. Certainly this group of union women benefited from re-politicizing their individual experiences, per- haps what could be called “re-organizing.”

Objective: We examined disparities in hazardous employment characteristics and working conditions among Chinese and white workers in Toronto, Canada.Design. We used self-administered questionnaire data from a 2005–2006 population-based survey (n = 1611). Using modified Poisson regression, we examined the likelihood for Chinese workers of experiencing adverse exposures compared to whites. Models were stratified by sex and adjusted for differences in human capital. Work sector was conceptualized as a mediating variable.Results. Chinese workers were generally more likely to report adverse exposures. In many cases, disparities were only evident or more pronounced among women. The shorter length of time in Canada of Chinese relative to whites accounted for some of the observed disparities. Meanwhile, the higher educational level of Chinese compared to whites provided them with no protection from adverse exposures. The risk of experiencing discrimination on the labor market and at work was more than 50% higher among Chinese men and women as compared to whites, and those disparities, though reduced, persisted after adjustment for confounders.Conclusions. Discrimination is far more prevalent among Chinese than among whites and may explain their disproportionate exposure to other hazards.