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In both academic and practitioner communities, there is an increased concern related to the time-consuming nature of the traditional labour arbitration system in Canada. The arbitration process was initially instituted to combat the delays and costs experienced in the courts. This study addresses the gap in the scientific literature by considering these ongoing concerns. Many Canadian jurisdictions offer the parties an opportunity to expedite the arbitration process pursuant to applicable legislation. However, despite the opportunity to accelerate the process, there appears to be a reluctance to use the expedited arbitration system. We performed content analysis on over 550 Canadian expedited and traditional labour arbitration cases. The case sample was limited to termination cases. We studied and compared delay at multiple times during the arbitration process, including the delay to the hearing, delay to the arbitration award, and total delay. Furthermore, we studied the case outcome; specifically, whether the grievance was granted or denied and adopted an ordered analysis to investigate differences in case outcomes. Our results support the perception that there is a difference in the expediency of expedited arbitration cases in comparison with traditional arbitration cases. The results also show that the outcomes of dismissal cases, decided in the expedited system, do not significantly differ from the traditional arbitration system. The findings suggest that there are statutorily available opportunities for the parties to accelerate the arbitration process without compromising the results.

Much literature focusing on the academy is concerned with the spread of neo-liberalism into the university sector. We argue that universities in Canada are operating in an era of “accountability governance,” with ideologies, discourses, and practices centred on quality, accountability, and efficiency. We explore the interplay between accountability governance as a regime of power and the work of faculty associations, especially as they strive to preserve faculty members’ professional autonomy and control over their academic work. Using in-depth qualitative interviews with executive members of several Ontario university faculty associations, we explore themes of neo-liberalization and corporatization of the university, shrinking faculty budgets, program reviews, and strategic mandates. While opportunities for action and resistance for faculty unions arise, particularly at the level of senate, more militancy and radicalism are not favoured by many members, as political action is often seen as “unprofessional.”

The article reviews the book, "The Struggle for Development," by Benjamin Selwyn.

This article reviews the book, "Knights Across the Atlantic: The Knights of Labor in Britain and Ireland" by Steven Parfitt.

The article reviews the book, "A Century of Transnationalism: Immigrants and their Homeland Connections," edited by Nancy L. Green and Roger Waldinger.

L’article porte sur les pratiques mises en oeuvre pour prévenir les risques psychosociaux (RPS) dans les entreprises. Selon les connaissances scientifiques actuelles, réduire ces risques requiert une approche intégrée qui vise à développer les ressources collectives et individuelles des travailleurs, ainsi qu’à réduire leurs contraintes professionnelles. Toutefois très peu de publications ont porté sur la façon dont les employeurs appréhendent effectivement ces questions. L’objectif de cette étude est de mieux comprendre les pratiques de prévention déclarées par des dirigeants d’entreprises, en relation avec la manière dont ils perçoivent l’exposition de leur personnel aux RPS. Nous avons élaboré un cadre d’analyse exploratoire des relations entre la prévention des RPS, la perception des facteurs de risques par les employeurs et diverses caractéristiques des entreprises. Ce cadre a servi de base à une enquête auprès de 404 établissements. À partir d’analyses factorielles et de régressions multiples, l’étude a fait émerger deux modes de prévention : 1- des mesures de gestion spécifique des RPS axées sur les procédures et la formation et liées principalement au risque d’atteinte à l’intégrité personnelle (harcèlement, agressions, discrimination, confrontation à des événements traumatisants) ; et 2- des mesures d’amélioration générale des conditions de travail (organisation, horaires, équipements et environnement de travail) qui peuvent contribuer à renforcer les ressources, mais que les employeurs ne perçoivent guère comme de la prévention des RPS. Les pratiques sont liées à des variables structurelles, ainsi qu’aux modes de participation et de gestion des risques professionnels dans leur ensemble, davantage qu’à la perception de l’employeur concernant l’exposition aux RPS. Les résultats soulignent deux défis pour les autorités. Le premier consiste à faire adopter par les entreprises une approche plus globale, non centrée sur les phénomènes de harcèlement. Le second réside dans le renforcement de mesures de prévention ayant un impact favorable sur l’activité réelle de travail.

In this essay I explain both why Karl Marx remains an important thinker and why he is in some respects inadequate. I focus on the central issue of 'materialism vs. idealism,' and briefly explore ways in which contemporary intellectuals still haven't assimilated the insights of historical materialism. In the last section of the paper I examine the greatest weakness of Marxism, its theory of proletarian revolution, and propose an alternative conceptualization that both updates the theory for the twenty-first century and is more faithful to historical materialism than Marx's own conception was.

The article reviews the book, "Cuban Revolution in America: Havana and the Making of a United States Left, 1968-1992," by Teishan A. Latner.

Comment analyser la montée de ces nouveaux mouvements de travailleurs que représentent les mobilisations des travailleurs informels et précaires, oů les femmes tiennent une place importante, y compris en termes de leadership ? Les approches traditionnelles en sociologie et en relations industrielles évoquent une montée des identités sociales par rapport aux identités professionnelles, comme s'il s'agissait de la montée d'intérets spécifiques. Â partir d'une redéfinition ontologique du travail qu'ouvre l'approche féministe matérialiste, cet article propose une autre lecture des objets de conflictualité amenés par les mobilisations de travailleuses et de travailleurs informels. Il s'appuie, pour ce faire, sur une étude de cas effectuée dans l'économie solidaire brésilienne et sur le concept d'identité collective de Melucci. Il explore la façon dont ces nouveaux mouvements de travailleurs définissent les processus d'exploitations et de dominations a combattre et la façon dont ils mettent en pratique leurs visions du changement social. Ľarticle met ainsi en lumiére la portée émancipatrice des transformations de leur rapport au travail et souligne, a l'opposé, les réductionnismes qui animent les stratégies syndicales, en particulier quand elles prétendent défendre les droits des travailleurs en développant des coopératives compétitives. Cette approche, qui reconnaît le caractére situé des connaissances, permet de mieux saisir la portée des mobilisations dans l'économie solidaire et le pourquoi des tensions entre syndicats et travailleurs précaires et informels lors des luttes menées par ces derniers.

Since the mid‐1990s, governments have adopted gender mainstreaming (GM) as a strategy for achieving gender equality and improving women's social, economic and political conditions. Yet, studies indicate that GM continues to be unevenly implemented, both within and across countries. To explain this outcome, this paper focuses on the local implementers of GM — the gender focal points — and how they understand GM and interpret it in their everyday work. Drawing upon interviews with gender focal points in the Canadian public service, we explore how bureaucratic role perceptions shape how these local actors understand GM and how they navigate the complex terrain between bureaucratic neutrality and the equality agenda of gender mainstreaming. Our exploratory study shows no common understanding among our interviewees, revealing how the meaning of gender mainstreaming varies depending on whether the public servant views himself or herself as policy analyst, policy advisor or policy advocate. Based on these insights, we conclude with suggestions for future research on gender mainstreaming.

In the decades after World War II, immigrants generally managed to fit into the Canadian labour market without too many obstacles. Even when they were poorly educated, they found adequate jobs in the secondary sector, particularly in manufacturing. Moreover, if they were initially paid less than the natives, they tended to catch up after about fifteen years. In the early 1970s, however, when the thirty-year postwar boom gave way to a period of restructuring the productive system, the ensuing strong expansion of the tertiary sector resulted in fewer suitable employment opportunities for immigrants. The Canadian and Quebec governments responded by putting in place a policy that sought to select their immigrants on the basis of human capital characteristics. This policy continues to this day, especially because the world of work is currently engaged in a new phase of transformation linked to the development of the knowledge economy.

We examine whether a sex-based salary gap identified at the University of Manitoba in 1993 and 2003 persists in 2013. We apply decomposition techniques to analyze the factors contributing to the salary gap in each year and to its changes across the two decades. We find that a smaller but substantial 12 percent gap persists in 2013. In contrast to previous years, the 2013 gap is completely explained by sex differences in faculty, experience, and, more important, type of appointment and rank. The distribution of values of these control variables changed considerably between the earlier years and 2013 in ways that influenced the gap.

Work stress is costly and decreases productivity. Quebecers are much more likely to report high work stress than other Canadians. Using data from the Canadian Community Health Survey spanning 2003–2012, we study the determinants of reported work stress. Chronic disease, mental health, and lifestyle choices all contribute to work stress. Despite including a large variety of influences, living in Quebec is persistently associated with higher work stress. We discuss contextual and cultural factors. No one explanation stands out, but Quebecers are absent from work more often than others, suggesting that the costs of this phenomenon are real.

This article aims to explain whether and to what extent formal and informal labor education and training initiatives help increase union participation among young members. Between 2009 and 2014, twenty-two interviews were conducted with ten national union leaders and twelve young leaders in two trade union organizations operating in the public and private sectors in Quebec. To complement these data, fifty-three focus group discussions were held, involving more than four hundred thirty young members (under the age of thirty). Our results reveal the presence of three areas of tension associated with the internal functioning of these unions. They also point out some factors that may boost the participation of young workers, internally.

There is renewed discussion of a basic or guaranteed income at both the federal and the provincial levels in Canada, but counterarguments about the cost, work disincentives, and electoral appeal of such schemes remain challenging. In this article, we argue that a grand plan for a basic or guaranteed income is unnecessary because self-financing redesign of existing tax credits to be refundable can better target benefits to low-income families while improving tax equity. Using 2015 tax and transfer parameters and estimates of income and population, we assess the federal transfer system as a source of universal income security, identify the revenues that can be raised through the elimination of selected federal tax credits, present four options that could be financed within that budget constraint, assess their performance, and select our preferred universal basic guaranteed income (UGBI) option. We then provide a more detailed assessment of the impact of our preferred UGBI design and discuss the extension of that design to provincial tax and transfer systems. We estimate that the combined federal and provincial UGBI that we propose would effectively target benefits to low-income households and virtually eliminate poverty for all but single non-elderly individuals at a modest efficiency cost in terms of work disincentives.

The recent economic downturn magnified a routine occurrence in the Canadian labour market: job loss resulting from an employer downsizing, moving, or going out of business. Nevertheless, even in times of economic expansion, rates of involuntary job loss persist across a wide range of demographic and labour market groups. Moving is one way individuals may respond to job loss, relocating either to cheaper housing or in search of work. Drawing on data from the 1996–2010 Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, this article examines the relationship between job loss and geographic mobility in Canada and provides evidence on the types of neighbourhoods to which individuals move. The findings establish job loss both as a key life course transition motivating residential mobility and long-distance migration in Canada and as a trigger event that initiates entry into high-deprivation areas.

À l'occasion du lancement du Fonds Syndicat du transport de Montréal (Employés-es des services d'entretien - CSN), nous avons cru opportun de présenter une composante de l'histoire de l'action syndicale de ces milliers de travailleurs et travailleuses qui ont concouru durant plus de cent ans au fonctionnement du service de transport en commun à Montréal.

We use two administrative data sets to examine the correlates of (a) taking the high school courses needed for university science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs and (b) applying to and registering in such programs. Staying on the STEM path during high school depends most importantly on math and science grades at each level. Factors such as gender, immigration status, and average neighbourhood income play relatively smaller roles. These two sets of factors play similar roles in the transition to university STEM programs. These results raise challenging questions of what lies behind the differences in critical factors among high school students.

The Knights of Labor became one of the great global working-class movements of the nineteenth century between 1880 and 1900, extending from New Zealand to Belgium, Scotland to South Africa. That story, however, has been told only in fragments, on local, regional, and national levels. No truly global history of the Knights of Labor yet exists. This article brings together what historians have so far uncovered of their activities outside Canada and the United States, provides an outline of what their global history might look like, and shows how that history enriches our understanding of national labor histories across the world and of the Knights themselves in their American home. Finally, this article addresses the wide range of historical topics that would benefit from such a global history, including labor and imperial history and the construction of gender and color lines on an international scale during the nineteenth century.

The recent announcements of the Ontario Basic Income Pilot and Finland's cash grants to jobless persons reflect the growing interest in some form of guaranteed annual income (GAI). This idea has circulated for decades and has now been revived, no doubt prompted by concerns of increased inequality and employment disruptions. The Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment (Mincome), conducted some 40 years ago, was an ambitious social experiment designed to assess a range of behavioural responses to a negative income tax, a specific form of GAI. This article reviews that experiment, clarifying what exactly Mincome did and did not learn about how individuals and households reacted to the income guarantees. This article reviews the potential for Mincome to answer questions about modern-day income experiments and describes how researchers may access these valuable data.