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The article reviews the book, "Sociologie des relations professionnelles," by Michel Lallement.

Comme dans de nombreux autres pays industrialisés, l'on assiste en Allemagne, depuis une dizaine d'années, à une nouvelle donne des relations professionnelles sous l'influence notamment des politiques de flexibilité du travail. La réunification entamée en 1989 a également contribué, pour sa part, à modifier les relations collectives de travail. Centré sur les mutations en cours, cet article met en évidence les limites du transfert institutionnel du système de relations professionnelles de l'Ouest vers l'Allemagne oriental et montre, qu'en dépit de telles difficultés, la réunification a contribué à accentuer le processus de décentralisation des négociations collectives qui était déjà perceptible en R.F.A. avant 1989.

Marxists have long argued that major strikes produce an explosion of workers' class consciousness. A study discusses some weaknesses of the explosion-of-consciousness thesis, and tests research hypotheses using data from a case study of the 1987 strike by the Hamilton local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. A major finding is that an increase in a postal worker's negative attitudes toward out-groups did not necessarily go hand in hand with an increase in that striker's positive identifications with in-groups such as fellow workers, the local union and the labor movement. This supports treating the in-group and out-group dimensions of class consciousness as distinct. A second finding supports the hypothesis that an explosion of in-group consciousness due to inter-group conflict is more likely to occur among workers who are already identified with the in-group.

Responds to Martin Glaberman's critique of his paper, "Strikes and Class Consciousness," published in the Fall 1994 issue. of Labour/Le Travail. Argues that his concept of class consciousness and collective struggle is at the individual, rather than the supraindividual level espoused by Glaberman and György Lukács. Also argues that history does not produce preordained outcomes such as workers' councils, only possibilities of what can be done, which is why he urged Canadian socialists to focus on activist workers who are broadly politicized, non-sectarian, and linked through community networks.

Le présent article poursuit l'analyse, effectuée dans Lanoie (1992a), de l'effet conjoint des différentes mesures préventives et des interventions de la CSST sur les risques d'accident du travail au Québec, en élargissant la période étudiée (1983-90 au lieu de 1983-87), en ajoutant une autre catégorie d'accident — les incapacités permanentes — comme variable dépendante, et en réévaluant ces relations dans les secteurs à risque uniquement. Comme dans cette étude de Lanoie (1992a), nos résultats indiquent que les politiques adoptées au Québec ont, au mieux, engendré une diminution mineure de la fréquence des accidents durant cette période. Les faits marquants de cette étude sont l'impact constant, par rapport à 1987, des mesures d'intervention de la CSST sur la fréquence et la gravité des accidents dans l'ensemble des industries, l'effet plus prononcé des inspections sur la fréquence des accidents dans les secteurs à risque, et la relative inefficacité des mesures adoptées par la CSST à prévenir les accidents avec incapacité permanente.

A paper studies leadership, conditions of influence and effectiveness in workplaces where a group form has been chosen. The study focuses on the interaction within work groups and between employees working in groups and their immediate superiors in a Swedish psychiatric hospital. Its aims are to investigate the effect of this interaction on degree of influence over work and on preconditions for working effectively. An attempt to achieve these aims is made by obtaining a more refined picture of the relation between superior and subordinate. The results show that there is a relationship between the support and opportunities for development that subordinates receive from their superior and the support that subordinates themselves give to their superior. Further, there are positive relationships between, on the one hand, the volume of exchange of social support and, on the other, personal work influence and preconditions for working effectively.

A study looks at the effects of unions on profitability in the Canadian manufacturing sector, taking into account structural factors such as concentration and entry barriers. It is found that, although there is a moderately positive relationship between unionization and profitability at low levels of concentration, at higher levels of concentration unions are able to extract an increasing proportion of incremental profits that the firm (industry) may earn, until any incremental profit (rent) associated with further increase in industry concentration is completely captured by the union. This may reflect a greater ability on the part of unions to organize and exercise bargaining power in concentrated industries and redistribute income from capital to labor, but it also leads to underproduction and resource misallocation.

Research is viewed as a synthesis of production, distribution and rule-making systems (PDR systems), rather than regarding these 3 systems as independent forces. This PDR system theory focuses on the actors' strategic choices for the PDR systems, that is, subsystems of industrial relations system, and their interaction mechanisms. The contents and interactions of the PDR systems determine the performance levels of the organization - productivity, flexibility, innovation, fairness and satisfaction. This model can be used to analyze non-union workplaces as well as unionized settings by embracing collective bargaining as a subsystem of the rule-making system. The general framework of the model is illustrated by using data from a Korean automobile company, which is particularly well suited for this purpose since it reflects different combinations of different PDR practices over its history. The best practice of future industrial relations will be established by the PDR systems in which the creative humanware is maximized and actors spontaneously cooperative.

Opens with a "labour quote" drawn from Jack London's "War of the Classes" (1905) and promises that this will be a "new and irregular" feature. Reports on varioius forthcoming conferences with labour/work themes.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Hoffa," by William Sloane, and "Labor Shall Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of Labor," by Steven Fraser.

Le régime québécois de maintien des services essentiels accorde une place prépondérante à la responsabilité des parties. Il est basé d'abord et avant tout sur une recherche de consensus autant dans la détermination et le maintien des services essentiels que dans le règlement des conflits qui peuvent affecter le service au public. L'auteure présente d'abord le mandat et le cadre légal de l'exercice des pouvoirs du Conseil des services essentiels du Québec. Elle explique ensuite comment s'exerce la médiation et, finalement, examine comment la question de la détermination des services essentiels, selon une approche consensuelle, est traitée par d'autres juridictions canadiennes.

The article reviews the book "Lincoln, Land and Labor 1809-1860," by Olivier FrayssÉ.

The shift towards the internal responsibility system and the mandating of Joint Health and Safety Committees in the early 1980s represented a radical departure in terms of how health and safety were regulated in the workplace. This paper examines the effectiveness of this institutional change using firm level data provided by the Worker's Compensation Board on lost time accidents from 1976 to 1989. It finds that where management and labour had some sympathy for the co-management of health and safety through joint committees, the new system significantly reduced lost-time accident rates. At workplaces where either labour or management resisted the spread of co-management the mandating of committees appears to have little effect on lost-time accident rates.

The article reviews the book, "Crossing the Line: Unionized Employee Ownership and Investment Funds," by Jack Quarter.

Time series data are used to estimate the effects of labor legislation, the political regime, and economic conditions on the proportion of certification applications granted. Applications filed with the British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba Labour Relations Boards (1951-1992) are considered and analyzed separately. Changes in labor legislation have the largest impact on certification application success in all 3 provinces. The political environment is estimated to be important in British Columbia, but not in Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Economic conditions affect certification success in Saskatchewan and to a lesser extent in British Columbia, but not in Manitoba. Large changes in economic conditions are estimated to have only small effects on the proportion of applications granted.

During the 1980s, unions in the US significantly increased their political activity. An important aspect of this effort is contributing money to congressional and presidential candidates through political action committees (PAC). A paper examines the PAC donations among a sample of elected local union officers of the United Steelworkers of America (USW). The descriptive results show significant variation in officers' PAC donations. Regression analyses show that union commitment is a significant predictor of PAC support as is location in a non-right-to-work state. The results have implications for promoting union PAC fundraising efforts, and hence the potential of US unions to rely on political action as a strategy for resurgence.

Ce texte utilise les données de l'Enquête sur l'activité de Statistique Canada pour les années 1988-89 pour examiner la question de la précarité liée au temps partiel dans une perspective longitudinale. Il propose comme indicateur de la précarité liée au temps partiel, la discontinuité dans l'emploi, notamment les risques de sortie hors emploi et les difficultés d'accès ou de retour au temps complet. Il trouve que (i) l'emploi à temps partiel est plus généralement lié aux discontinuités d'emploi que le temps complet, (ii) les risques de sortie d'emploi sont accrus chez les salariés à temps partiel, (iii) les femmes subissent davantage que les hommes la précarité liée au temps partiel. Chez elles, les facteurs susceptibles d'accroître les risques de précarité liée au temps partiel sont la responsabilité d'enfants d'âge préscolaire, une scolarité insuffisante et des horaires de travail qui les éloignent d'une situation de temps complet.

The article reviews the book "Riots in New Brunswick: Orange Nativism and Social Violence in the 1840s," by Scott W. See.

This article examines the history of colonial and national policies towards indigenous peoples in Australia and Canada during the 19th and 20th centuries. It is specifically concerned with the ways in which such legislation affected Aboriginal women. In attempting to provide a comparative assessment of the "statutory subjugation" of Aboriginal women, the article examines the law's definition of identity and band membership; enfranchisement and assimilation; personal autonomy (marriage, divorce, sexuality, motherhood); private and personal property; and political reorganization. It concludes that gender and race were key determinants of government policy in both countries, and that under the Canadian Indian Act and Australian Aboriginal Acts, women, in particular, suffered a great decline in status and severe limitations of autonomy. But the failure of state policies to bring about the complete degradation of Aboriginal women in particular, and Aboriginal peoples in general, suggests that there were forces operating to "destabilize ... hegemonic colonial control." Competing colonial values, collective resistance of Aboriginal societies, and the individual contestations of both colonizer and colonized, in the end, undermined imperial objectives.

The article reviews the book "Home to Work: Motherhood and the Politics of Industrial Homework in the United States," Eileen Boris.