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A historical work of non-fiction that chronicles the little-known stories of black railway porters-the so-called "Pullmen" of the Canadian rail lines. The actions and spirit of these men helped define Canada as a nation in surprising ways, effecting race relations, human rights, North American multiculturalism, community building, the shape and structure of unions, and the nature of travel and business across the US and Canada. Drawing on the stories and legends of several of these influential early black Canadians, this book narrates the history of a very visible, but rarely considered, aspect of black life in railway-age Canada. These porters, who fought against the idea of Canada as White Man's Country, open only to immigrants from Europe, fought for and won a Canada that would provide opportunities for all its citizens. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction -- Leaving the station: Stan Grizzle's legacy of social change -- The railways are always hiring: working in white man's country -- "Did you ring, Sir?": Modern luxury and black labour -- The coloured commonwealth: reckoning with ah racist past -- "I know nothing about that": Legislating the colour line -- The ending of empire: Reimagining immigration -- Pressuring parliament: a new kind of Canadian citizenship -- A Creolized country: the black British of the West Indies -- Permanent residence: social identity and the state -- Demerits and deadheading: the rail companies' unreasonable demands -- An uphill battle: Pushing for policy changes -- Fair consideration: The porters gain new ground -- The porters' final fight: A multicultural country -- Beyond the rails: The battle for black identity -- Conclusion: A multicultural brotherhood fulfilling a dream -- Afterword: Appreciating the legacy -- Endnotes -- Index.

Recognized on the first day of May every year, International Workers’ Day, or May Day, commemorates the struggles of workers around the world through the labour movements and the political left. Although established in Canada since the beginning of the 20th century, this day is not deemed a statutory holiday, as opposed to Labour Day, celebrated on the first Monday in September.

Precarious employment is often experienced as contract work, involuntary part-time work, low wage work, and self-employment. There is a well-developed body of literature pointing to negative health, economic, and social impacts related to precarious employment in urban centres, while little consideration has been given to the particularities that may make a rural precarious employment experience different. The goal of this exploratory research project is to understand the experience of being precariously employed in rural Ontario. Nineteen unstructured individual interviews with rural Ontarians experiencing rural precarious employment were conducted. The phenomenon of rural precarious employment was distinguished by five themes (financial, health, self-view, social, and system) emergent through phenomenology. The phenomenon encompassed experiences of poverty, decreased health, negative self-views, social struggles, and marginalization from support public systems. Unpacking precarious employment in rural Ontario from the experience of workers has significance for both rural scholars and policy makers. Rural scholars benefit from a better understanding of precarious employment as an experience in rural areas, and the addition of lived rural experiences to the precarious employment literature advances the understanding of urban bias in scholarship. This research provides provincial policy makers the opportunity to craft rural focused employment policy and better understand how services can support rural precarious employees.

Multinational corporations are undeniably the driving force of globalization and regional economic integration. A convenient institutional framework (Hall and Soskice, 2001) to apply when comparing multinationals from different host countries is the well-travelled road of dividing capitalist economies into coordinated market economies (CMEs) and liberal market economies (LMEs). This article aims to elucidate the tensions between centralized human resources practices and labour union avoidance usually exhibited by multinationals from so-called Liberal Market Economies (LMEs) when they expand into coordinated ones (CMEs). Specifically, it examines the recent acquisition of the German retail giant Galeria Kaufhof by the Canadian multinational Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). The article shows that HBC has settled into an uneasy acceptance of the CME institutions, while its investment motives vacillate between a long-term, market-enlargement strategy and a short- to medium-term one, based on the rapidly increasing real estate value of its downtown flagship stores. The article encourages researchers in IR to retain three principal conclusions for the literature and for further study. First, without predetermining outcomes by looking at host-country or home-country effects alone, institutionalist frameworks do present a convenient backdrop for conceptualizing movements of multinationals across jurisdictions. Secondly, concepts such as bricolage, recombining of institutional elements and institutional entrepreneurship, stemming from the institutional change literature, should routinely figure in one’s analytical toolbox, in any attempt at non-deterministic institutional analysis. Finally, sector-level actors, such as trade unions and employers’ associations, can play an essential role in any successful adaptation of collective bargaining institutions in the context of globalization by developing, maintaining and carefully utilizing their repertoire of strategic capabilities.

The article reviews the book, "Dix concepts pour penser le nouveau monde du travail," edited by Daniel Mercure and Mircea Vultur.

We examine the ways in which two major and related governmental institutions of China, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and government controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), exert different effects on the attitudes and behaviour of people toward the environment. Our motivation is to see which institution is more effective in making individuals ‘aware’ of environmental issues, expressing a ‘willingness to pay’ to alleviate the problems, and ultimately to ‘act’ on the issue by altering their behaviour. Based on theories of planned behaviour and social learning, we hypothesize that membership in the CPC as well as in the ACFTU fosters an ‘awareness’ of environmental problems and a ‘willingness to make a sacrifice’ to protect the environment, but that members of the ACFTU are more likely than members of the CPC to act on the issue by altering their behaviour. We test our hypothesis based on a nationally representative sample (n = 3112) from the 2010 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). Our results indicate that both the Party and the union have positive effects on ‘awareness’ and ‘willingness to pay’, but the union effect is generally stronger and only it (and not the Party) affects individual behaviour toward protecting the environment. Unions in China are generally regarded as having little or no independent power to organize workers and engage in free collective bargaining. Their role is to foster harmony between workers and employers and to co-opt grassroots actions, wildcat strikes and the growth of independent unions, all in the interest of fostering stability and growth. While this is undoubtedly the case, our results are consistent with an emerging view of a more variegated picture of Chinese trade unions that highlights some more positive elements, in our case, fostering ‘actions’ to improve the environment in China.

The article reviews the book, "Hard Work Conquers All: Building the Finnish Community in Canada," edited by Michel S. Beaulieu, David K. Ratz, and Ronald N. Harpelle.

We are honoured to take over as the editors of RI/IR. Our new responsibility, formally assumed in September 2018, weighs heavily on us. We know that the journal is special. Since 1945, it has carved out a reputation for being at the vanguard in presenting research concerning work, employment and the labour market, as well as for being transcendent in how it delivers its product. RI/IR distinguishes itself from its rivals in the way it brings together professionals from disparate cultural, linguistic and epistemological backgrounds. Much like Canada itself, the journal serves as a reminder that diversity is a strength and that respect for difference, far from being a matter of jaundiced tolerance, is in fact a critical precursor of greatness. Aside from its role as a broad church of ideas, methodologies and ideological orientations, RI/IR has provided a platform for francophone scholars to showcase their work alongside their Anglophone peers. / Nous sommes honorés d’assumer le rôle de directeurs de la revue Relations industrielles/Industrial Relations (RI/IR) et nous mesurons pleinement l’importance de cette nouvelle responsabilité, dont nous sommes formellement investis depuis le mois de septembre 2018. Notre revue est particulière, nous le savons. Depuis 1945, elle s’est forgé une réputation avant-gardiste grâce à la publication de travaux de recherche novateurs sur le travail, l’emploi et le marché du travail, tout en se surpassant dans sa façon de diffuser son produit. RI/IR se démarque de ses concurrents par sa capacité à rassembler des professionnels de diverses origines culturelles, linguistiques et épistémologiques. Tout comme le Canada, la revue rappelle, par son essence même, que la diversité est une force et le respect de la différence, loin d’être une tolérance amère, constitue un précurseur essentiel de la grandeur. Au-delà de son rôle d’incarner un large spectre d’idées, de méthodologies et d’orientations idéologiques, RI/IR offre aux chercheurs francophones une plateforme qui leur permet de présenter leurs travaux à côté de leurs homologues anglophones. --Introduction

Art has always played a significant role in the history of the labour movement. Songs, stories, poems, pamphlets, and comics, have inspired workers to take action against greedy bosses and helped shape ideas of a more equal world. They also help fan the flames of discontent. Radical social change doesn't come without radical art. It would be impossible to think about labour unrest without its iconic songs like "Solidarity Forever" or its cartoons like Ernest Riebe's creation, Mr. Block. In this vein, The Graphic History Collective has created an illustrated chronicle of the strike-the organized withdrawal of labour power-in Canada. For centuries, workers in Canada-Indigenous and non-Indigenous, union and non-union, men and women-have used the strike as a powerful tool, not just for better wages, but also for growing working-class power. This lively comic book will inspire new generations to learn more about labour and working-class history and the power of solidarity. --Publisher's description

In May and June 1919, more than 30,000 workers walked off the job in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They struck for a variety of reasons-higher wages, collective bargaining rights, and more power for working people. The strikers made national and international headlines, and they inspired workers to mount sympathy strikes in many other Canadian cities. Although the strike lasted for six weeks, it ultimately ended in defeat. The strike was violently crushed by police, in collusion with state officials and Winnipeg's business elites. One hundred years later, the Winnipeg General Strike remains one of the most significant events in Canadian history. This comic book revisits the strike to introduce new generations to its many lessons, including the power of class struggle and solidarity and the brutal tactics that governments and bosses use to crush workers' movements. The Winnipeg General Strike is a stark reminder that the working class and the employing class have nothing in common, and the state is not afraid to bloody its hands to protect the interests of capital. In response, working people must rely on each other and work together to create a new, more just world in the shell of the old. --Publisher's description,     Contents: Preface: Revisiting the workers' revolt by the Graphic history collective -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: The Winnipeg general strike at 100 by James Naylor -- 1919: A graphic history of the Winnipeg general strike by the Graphic History Collective and David Lester -- The art of labour history: Notes on drawing 1919 by David Lester -- The character of class struggle in Winnipeg: A photo-essay -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Contributors.

In Bureaucratic Manoeuvres, John Grundy examines profound transformations in the governance of unemployment in Canada. While policy makers previously approached unemployment as a social and economic problem to be addressed through macroeconomic policies, recent labour market policy reforms have placed much more emphasis on the supposedly deficient employability of the unemployed themselves, a troubling shift that deserves close, critical attention. Tracing a behind-the-scenes history of public employment services in Canada, Bureaucratic Manoeuvres shows just how difficult it has been for administrators and frontline staff to govern unemployment as a problem of individual employability. Drawing on untapped government records, it sheds much-needed light on internal bureaucratic struggles over the direction of labour market policy in Canada and makes a key contribution to Canadian political science, economics, public administration, and sociology.

The article reviews the book, "Politics of the Pantry: Housewives, Food, and Consumer Protest in Twentieth-Century America," by Emily E. LB. Twarog.

Although the health of the trade union movement may rest on its ability to include women in membership and leadership, little attention has been paid to women-only labour education. This original collection contains vibrant example of labour education events and the women involved who develop, implement, research, evaluate and facilitate at them. All the contributors speak from first-hand experience with women-only programs in unions across Canada, the United States and the world. They identify the methods used in pursuit of learner empowerment and transformation, and frankly discuss the outcomes. These real-life examples offer practical guidance and inspiration for all who create and support activist learning within unions and other social-justice organizations. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Facilitation training for union women: The Saskatchewan experience / Adriane Paavo & Barb Thomas -- Feminism and transformation: The prairie school for union women / Cindy Hanson & Adriane Paavo -- Union women on Turtle Island: A conversation / Sandra Ahenekew and Yvone Hotzak, interviewed by Cindy Hanson -- Confronting limits, pushing boundaries: LGBTQ education and cctivism / Donna Smith -- The wall: Reflections on a workshop methodology / Bev Burke & Suzanne Doerge -- The Regina V. Polk Women’s Labour Leadership Conference: Whole body, whole-life struggle / Helena Worthen -- WILD in Massachusetts: Leadership development for a changing labor movement / Tess Ewing, Dale Melcher & Susan Winning -- Leaders for tomorrow: Promoting diverse leadership in ETFO / Carol Zavitz -- Women breaking barriers: Using education to develop women’s leadership inside Canada’s largest union / Morna Ballantyne & Jane Stinson -- Critical love letter to the PSUW / Adriane Paavo & Cindy Hanson.

This dissertation examines the history of working-class environmentalism. It investigates the relationship between work and the environment and between workers and environmentalists. It presents five case studies that focus on the relationship between workers and the environment in British Columbia from the 1930s to the present, with particular emphasis on the forestry industry. Each case study examines how the interests of workers both intersect and conflict with the interests of environmentalists and how this intersection of interests presented itself throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Additionally, this dissertation examines how the working class has historically been constructed as the adversary of nature or wilderness and aims to explore how the working class, resource workers in particular, have come to symbolize that adversarial relationship. As well, it hopes to answer more epistemological questions about why working class environmentalism has not entered our lexicon and how lacking a sense of the working-class environmentalist serves to shape a discourse in which the history of worker environmentalism has been largely passed over. This study also explores how the collective memory of environmentalism has been constructed to exclude notions of class, and thus how environmentalism and the working class have been constructed as mutually exclusive categories. While this dissertation explores the exclusion of working class environmentalism it also attempts to write the worker-environmentalist back into history and show how teaching working class and labour history can help remedy this exclusion.

his thesis examines a selection of print materials from the radical and Communist-affiliated Left in the 1930s, a group and time period that are often passed over in assessments of Canadian literature. While similar texts have been studied in the context of legal evidence or political propaganda, they have rarely been considered as print objects in themselves, operating within a network of production, circulation, and response alongside other literary and non-literary media. In looking at the 1930s, a moment when the project of Canada was acutely challenged by the political and economic forces of the Great Depression, I see an equal challenge to scholars and critics by writers and readers struggling to organize from below. By considering examples of Canadian proletarian print from different points along the communication cycle, this project seeks to connect the imaginary aspirations and rhetorical strategies of these texts to the material contexts of their producers and readers. Chapter One addresses the existing gap in Canadian literary history, which maintains a liberal orientation throughout its associated institutions, approaches and subjects; this orientation has been upheld through political and legal structures hostile to proletarian movements. This chapter discusses Ronald Liversedge’s Recollections of the On-to-Ottawa Trek as a text that highlights and crosses such institutional boundaries. Chapter Two takes up the methods of book history, using the example of the “Worker’s Pamphlet Series” to discuss expanding this approach to include material such as pamphlets, periodicals, and manifestos as part of an explicit class analysis. Chapter Three analyzes the self-reflexive circulation of proletarian print in the restrictive legal environment created by Section 98 of the Criminal Code through materials produced by the Canadian Labour Defense League. Chapter Four examines surveillant readings and misreadings as they intercept proletarian print, using the Edmonton Hunger March and the subsequent pamphlet “The Alberta Hunger-March.” By mapping locations associated with this event and with the print economy in 1932 Edmonton, Chapter Five considers the formation of proletarian publics as highly localized interpretive communities, and how the application of tools such as GIS mapping might further re-center readers’ material lives in the analysis of print culture. As a whole, this dissertation demonstrates how the methods of analysis and historicization offered by book history can and should be applied to bring proletarian print and readers into conversation with the wider patterns of Canadian writing through the twentieth century. This is a necessary confrontation: as the study of Canadian literature begins to acknowledge the construction and contestation of our national myths, it must also avow the lasting political consequences for those who have been excluded.

This article examines the efforts to unionize Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) workers in British Columbia, Canada. Through an examination of three key legal cases, Greenway, Sidhu & Sons and Floralia, this article demonstrates the positive role that unionization and collective bargaining can have in improving working conditions and security for migrant agricultural workers in Canada. Specifically, through these cases, this article explores the strategies deployed by unions in organizing and collective bargaining processes to resist the problematic consequences associated with the SAWP’s circularity and system for recalling workers, and how those strategies enhance workers’ job security, rights and voice as workers. Together, these cases demonstrate the potential of labour law to shift conditions and experiences of work for migrants, and to enable workers to negotiate decent work, access rights and improve working conditions. Though focused on Canada’s SAWP, this article bears important implications for migrant agricultural workers in many other jurisdictions, and internationally.

This essay examines the United States Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Janus v AFSCME, Council 31, which concluded that agency shop provisions violate the First Amendment rights of public sector workers who are not union members but receive the fruits of the representation. This decision reversed over 40 years of precedent and imposed “right to work” as a new federal constitutional mandate, fulfilling the dream of anti-union forces since the first Gilded Age. The essay begins with a brief history of the open shop movement and the development of the agency shop as a constitutionally permissible form of union security in the private and public sectors. It then describes how an activist Supreme Court majority undermined the constitutionality of the agency shop, which set the stage for the Janus decision. The essay summarizes the majority and dissenting opinions in Janus, and describes how unions, employers, and some state legislatures are responding to the decision’s immediate impact.

Article 23(4) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states ‘Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.’ This article documents the global legislative history of Article 23(4) trade union rights from its original drafting to interpretation by international labour standards. The history includes debates on the fundamental principles of trade union rights, the decision by ECOSOC to ignore a call to establish a permanent UN Commission on Trade Union Rights, the devolution of authority from the United Nations to the International Labour Organization, how ILO international law experts framed trade union rights as a subset of the freedom of association, and the treatment of labour relations policy, including compulsory union membership, that resulted under international human rights norms. The history is discussed as one that confines standards of policy on labour rights in the global political economy and has particular implications for the discourse on labour rights as human rights.

The practice of design has become obscured by global networks of production, circulation, and consumption. Traditional design studies tend to focus on high-profile products, presenting heroic designers as the primary authors of works of design. This approach is inadequate for understanding design in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Contemporary design is better understood as an iterative and distributed process of give-and-take among actors, human and non-human, including people, tools, places, and ideas. It is a process that is influenced by conditions along the commodity chain that fall outside of the designers traditionally recognized sphere. This research demonstrates that commonly held conceptions of designers as sole authors and of design work as a largely intellectual, creative activity distanced from manufacturing, misrepresent the real practices and relations of design labour in the current global economy. Two object ethnographies follow the production, circulation, and consumption of everyday, mass-produced goods: the Vanessa steel-toe boot by Mellow Walk and the Non Stop flatware by Gourmet Settings. These case studies map networks of design labour across continents, countries, cities, and generations. Primary research includes 18 interviews, observations of environments and practices, and the analysis of material evidence. This process reveals actors whose contributions have typically been omitted from design history, and describes practices of design that contest traditional depictions of designers, design work, and evidence thereof. This research contributes a fuller and more accurate understanding of the range of creative labour and labourers involved in the design and development of goods for global markets while challenging the view of these goods as placeless and culture-free. I respond to the call by design historians to extend the scope of designs histories beyond the West, and I build on the work of design and creativity scholars who identify design thinking outside of recognized design roles. My work challenges established hierarchies of design, including who is permitted to design, which countries are perceived as superior sources of design and manufacturing expertise, and the hand-head dichotomy that underwrites how we think about design and that has been entrenched in traditional conceptions of manufacturing and the global division of labour. Understanding how the work of design is distributed and how it has changed in response to globalization gives insight into the politics of production and consumption.

The article reviews the book, "The Prairie Populist: George Hara Williams and the Untold Story of the CCF," by John F. Conway.