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Today the giant Stelco steel mills in Hamilton are shut down, but in Canada’s turbulent labour history it was a place of protracted conflict between the stubborn, anti-union management of the company and the equally stubborn and militant Local 1005 of the Steelworkers Union. The story is a fascinating one – a microcosm of the larger labour/management struggles in Canada. Among the events the book explores includes: the battle from 1919 to 1944 to establish a union in the face of hostile management; the struggle for supremacy at 1005 between Communist and CCF factions; the 1946 strike for union recognition which became the post war showdown in Canada between unions and management; and the chaotic 1966 wildcat strike that tore the union apart. The book tells the story of Local 1005 and at the same time explores the nature of political life in a local union, and the social and economic forces that shaped the politics of the local. This is a book that describes how working people struggled to improve their lives, and in the process changed the history of the trade union movement and the nature of Canadian political life. --Publisher's description

This article reviews the book, "The Dynamics of Industrial Conflict, Lessons from Ford," by Henry Friedman & Sander Meredeen.

After having addressed the concept of tripartism and the issues of corporatism and incomes policies, the author examines the background to the imposition of controls and the subsequent tripartism debate. Finally, the author focuses on the main stages in the negociations over controls and tripartism, with particular reference to major shifts in CLC policy and strategy.

This article reviews the book, "Working People, An Illustrated History of Canadian Labour," by Desmond Morton & Terry Copp.

The author critically examines theoretical developments in industrial relations. Pluralism, the Systems approach and the radical perspectives are identified as the main contributions to the stream of thought in industrial relations theory.

The objective of this paper is to identify characteristics which distinguish first strike situations from other strike actions. It is based on both collective bargaining and conflict resolution litera- ture as well as the detailed analysis of a recent walkout by a public school teachers' union.

Job search theory has been offered in recent years as one explanation of unemployment. A key element of the theory requires that workers behave as if they operate on a reservation wage strategy. The authors verify this hypothesis.

This article reviews the book, "Chroniques impertinentes du 3ème (sic) Front commun syndical, 1979-1980," by François Demers.

Industrial capitalism was established in Canada in two distinct phases, as was the case in other Western countries. The ‘first industrial revolution’ — as it has been called — began in Canada around 1850 and 1860 and flourished in the 1880s due to the National Policy that was in effect at the time. The ‘second industrial revolution’ began in the early 20th century and was the result of a much more sophisticated capitalist economy, which saw the emergence of new and complex technologies and means of production, as well as corporate giants in the steel, automotive, paper and chemical industries, to name but a few. Although this second phase of industrial capitalism had a significant impact on the working conditions of thousands of men and women in Canada, recent historiography, despite being abundant in the field of labour history, has largely ignored the phenomenon of mass production that characterised this second phase. The author retraces part of this history through a study of the steel industry in Hamilton, Ontario, one of the three major centres of this industry in Canada. He examines the rise of the Steel Company of Canada and its predecessors between 1895 and 1930, the transformations that took place in steelworking methods at the time, and the labour relations that developed within this corporation in its Hamilton. --Translation of website summary in the French language

After having examined three theoritical approaches, the author présents public policy relating to race and sex discrimination in employment and analyzes 74 cases decided by the boards of enquiry and courts.

This study attempts to verify the appropriateness of three existing taxonomies of need fulfillment by Maslow, Alderfer and lawler, respectively, in the area of nonwork.

McVICAR, KATE (Katie), shoe worker and union leader; b. c. 1856 at Hamilton, Canada West; d. there 18 June 1886. Katie McVicar, daughter of a poor Scottish tinsmith and his English-born wife, joined two older sisters in the Hamilton labour force in the early 1870s. Like most women who went into factory work in the late 19th century, she began as a single woman, living at home, in order to augment her family’s income. However, unlike most, she remained single and continued to live at home until her early death at the age of 30. Her comparative longevity as a factory operative accounts to some degree for her emergence as a prominent leader in the Knights of Labor. --Introduction

As Canada's most industrialised province, Ontario served as the regional centre of the Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, an organisation which embodied a late nineteenth-century working-class vision of an alternative to the developing industrial-capitalist society. The Order opposed the exploitation of labor, and cultivated working-class unity by providing an institutional and cultural rallying point for North American workers. By 1886 thousands of industrial workers had enrolled within the ranks of Ontario's local and district assemblies. This book examines the rise and fall of the Order, providing case studies of its experience in Toronto and Hamilton and chronicling its impact across the province. --Publisher's description

Expresses appreciation to departing/arriving editorial board members, in particular Ross McCormack who also contributed in his capacity as President of the Canadian Committee on Labour History. Welcomes Bryan Palmer as review editor and Robert Babcock as incoming CCLH president. Takes note of two articles in the issue that were originally conference papers, the oral history project of Sudbury labour leader Jim Tester (his speech is published in the issue), the bibliography compiled by Douglas Vaisey and Marcel Leduc, and the report of recent archival acquisitions by Danny Moore.

The focus of this thesis is the Liberal government's program of mandatory wage and price controls introduced on October 14, 1975. Beginning with a brief discussion of the marxist theory of the state, the thesis examines prior experiences with wage restraint programs, the evolution of post-war industrial relations, and the emergence of symptoms of economic crisis toward the end of the 1960's. Thereafter it considers the progress of state efforts to introduce wage/ price restraint, the social forces which shaped the pattern of state intervention, the actual operations of the Anti-Inflation Board, and the character of organised labour's opposition to compulsory controls. The thesis argues that state intervention into the sphere of wage bargaining is one concrete example of the deeper contradictions which lie at the basis of the state structure. With the end of the long boom of post-war expansion, the underlying tendencies toward a crisis of capital accumulation became manifest. The deteriorating effectiveness of established techniques of economic management, and the failure of the Liberal government to develop a coherent program of capitalist planning set the immediate context for the program of wage and price controls. The objective of controls was to restrict the rate of wage increases, thereby easing the downward trend in profit levels and relaxing the fiscal crisis of the state. The record of the Anti-Inflation Board revealed two general characteristics of the current economic and social crisis. First, the capitalist state is virtually powerless to exercise any influence over the long term pattern of inflation and slump. At the present stage of capitalism, attempts to plan economic development simply exacerbate the inherent anarchy of capitalist production. Second, the weakness of organised labour's opposition to controls indicates the urgent necessity for a restructuring of the economic and political organisation of the working class in order to defend the economic and social gains of the postwar period.

This article reviews the book, "The Labour Companion : A Bibliography of Canadian Labour History, Based on Materials Printed from 1950 to 1975," compiled by G. Douglas Vaisey, John Battye, Marie De Youne, and Gregory S. Kealey.