Your search

The article reviews the book, "The Industrialists: How the National Association of Manufacturers Shaped American Capitalism," by Jennifer Delton.

Prisons don’t work, but prisoners do. Prisons are often critiqued as unjust, but we hear little about the daily labour of incarcerated workers — what they do, how they do it, who they do it for and under which conditions. Unions protect workers fighting for better pay and against discrimination and occupational health and safety concerns, but prisoners are denied this protection despite being the lowest paid workers with the least choice in what they do — the most vulnerable among the working class. Starting from the perspective that work during imprisonment is not “rehabilitative,” this book examines the reasons why people should care about prison labour and how prisoners have struggled to organize for labour power in the past. Unionizing incarcerated workers is critical for both the labour movement and struggles for prison justice, this book argues, to negotiate changes to working conditions as well as the power dynamics within prisons themselves. --Publisher's description

This article examines the efforts to establish objective criteria in deciding on appropriate wage levels for non-professional service workers in Ontario's hospital sector during the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing from recent literature in cultural political economy and the politics of valuation, it shows how industrial relations specialists sought to reframe the field of struggle through the practice of interest arbitration. Through a comparative study of arbitration cases in this period, the article explores the complex displacement of expertise from local hospital boards and medical professionals to law professors and labour economists, who sought to establish an industrial jurisprudence that could avoid strikes and lockouts in such essential industries by assigning awards based on the probable outcomes of industrial conflict. No longer were disputes settled through the ideological obfuscations of "justice"; instead, expert arbitrators drew on the science of economics in asserting irrefutable labour market "realities." While pretensions to scientific expertise in the settlement of disputes remained hegemonic through the late 1960s, hospital workers in Ontario, through their unions and in alliance with New Left organizations, effectively reasserted "justice" as a highly contextualized unit of value through their militant struggles in the early 1970s. The article concludes by discussing the tensions and contradictions produced out of these struggles and the subsequent challenges in regulating public-sector labour disputes.

The article reviews the book, "Transgender Marxism," edited by Jules Joanne Gleeson and Elle O'Rourke.

This study examines the effects of demographic characteristics of arbitrators on arbitration outcomes in the Canadian university sector. More specifically, we attempt to explain whether five characteristics of arbitrators (their experiences in law, management, and union affairs as well as their age and gender) could significantly determine how they adjudicate in cases heard in labor relations tribunals. Therefore, we examine whether the five aforementioned characteristics, as the group of independent variables, could significantly determine the variations of two dependent variables, namely the outcome of the arbitration procedure and compensation of any damages- interests.

The article reviews the book, "James P. Cannon and the Emergence of Trotskyism in the United States, 1928–38," by Bryan D. Palmer.

The article reviews the book, "Stampede: Misogyny, White Supremacy, and Settler Colonialism," by Kimberly A. Williams.

Research in economic geography has focused on the shift away from the standard employment relationship in the West; yet within these debates, non-standard work is an amorphous stand-in for many kinds of labour. Our aim is to account for absences and ambiguities within one form of non-standard work—freelancing—to make the contours of this work more visible, and to understand why a growing sector of the labour market is not well measured, protected or understood. Working from a Canadian case study, we first examine the conflicting ways freelancing is statistically measured, using an umbrella of intersecting terms that refer to labour or workers. Second, we critically review how freelancing is (not) legislated, organized and protected, areas of mediation which often still presume a standard employment relationship. Finally, we consider how the identity of ‘freelancer’ is lived, through freelancers’ complex yet partial definitions that embrace flexibility and constraint.

It is only in the last few decades that Canadian trade unions have expressed labour solidarity with Indigenous peoples by bringing their attention to the distinct concerns of Indigenous workers in the workplace and beyond it. Trade unions have taken important steps to express support for their Indigenous members and their communities, yet little is understood about Indigenous peoples’ experiences in the capitalist labour market shaped by land dispossession, the ongoing manifestations of settler-colonial oppression, and the systemic economic marginalization by Canadian institutions and employers. It is pertinent to identify what unions are doing to support them and where they can strengthen labour solidarity so that they can develop critical sites of resistance against colonial-capitalist power. A closer analysis is needed to understand Indigenous peoples’ relationships to unions, relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous working people, and the challenges for unions to build united struggles with Indigenous peoples. This study examines the spaces of union engagement with Indigenous workers and their communities amongst the challenges presented by the reality of ongoing colonial oppression in Canada. The purpose of this study is twofold: 1) to examine the roles that trade unions have had with Indigenous peoples in the paid labour market and recent initiatives that they have taken to meet the needs of Indigenous workers and unionists, and 2) to analyze the ways trade unionists understand and approach Indigenous peoples’ concerns and anti-colonial struggles within the broader confines of settler-colonial capitalism, and to determine the challenges to transforming their practices of solidarity with Indigenous peoples. This study draws upon semi-structured, indepth interviews with 22 Indigenous and non-Indigenous key informants who are elected trade union officials, staff, and rank-and-file unionists. The study’s findings reveal emerging activism of Indigenous workers within their workplaces, unions, and beyond, and the complexities between Indigenous peoples’ relationships with paid labour, unions, and struggles for selfdetermination. I argue that unions are turning their attention to support the distinct needs of Indigenous workers and to support anti-colonial struggles, but they are limited to redressing the effects of settler-colonial capitalism. They face difficulty engaging in solidarity due to the structural limitations of settler-colonial capitalism. By reflecting on participant insights into these challenges, this study proposes an anti-colonial framework for unionists to transform their practices of labour solidarity.

The article reviews the book, "Bent Out of Shape: Shame, Solidarity and Women's Bodies at Work," by Karen Messing.

Section 50 of the Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act prohibits an employer from punishing a worker who complains about a health and safety concern and who seeks to exercise the right to raise or report this concern. A worker who suffers such a reprisal may file a grievance if covered by a collective agreement or make an application to the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB).

In October 1890, Eugene T. Kingsley’s life changed irrevocably while working as a brakeman on the Northern Pacific Railway when he was injured in a fall between two rail cars. While recuperating in hospital after the amputation of both legs, he began reading the works of Karl Marx. Joining a popular socialist movement, his activism eventually brought him to Vancouver, B.C. where he founded the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC). Kingsley, known as a passionate orator, went on to become one of the most prominent socialist intellectuals of his day. Class Warrior is a collection of Kingsley’s writing and speeches that underscores his tremendous impact on Canadian political discourse. --Publisher's description. Contents: Foreword: E. T. Kingsley: Canadian Marxism’s “Old Man” / Bryan D. Palmer -- Introduction: Re-evaluating the British Columbia School of Socialism: E. T. Kingsley, Disablement, and the “Impossiblist” Challenge to Industrial Capitalism in Western Canada / Benjamin Isitt and Ravi Malhotra. Part 1: Selected Writings of E. T. Kingsley. Part 2: Selected Speeches of E. T. Kingsley. Part 3: The Genesis and Evolution of Slavery. Part 4: On the World Situation. Appendix: Partial Record of E. T. Kingsley’s Public Speeches and Lectures; Kingley's Speeches.

Agriculture is at the centre of society’s most pressing sustainability challenges, including food insecurity, climate change, ecological degradation, and social inequity. Organic agriculture, when practiced according to an ethic grounded in ecology, health, fairness, and care, has been proposed as a remedy to these challenges. Building on a movement for an alternative to socially and ecologically exploitative food production, organic agriculture is now a multi-billion-dollar industry with established legal and regulatory frameworks around the world. While this growth could be seen as a success, empirical research has called into question the extent to which organic agriculture and market-oriented third-party certifications can foster sustainability transitions and has found that performance is often context dependent (e.g. depending on which practices are adopted). There remain significant gaps in knowledge about how organic agriculture is practiced in jurisdictions around the world relative to the sustainability-related principles on which it was founded, especially the principle of fairness. To address these gaps, I developed a mixed-method assessment grounded in a critical realist methodological approach to evaluate the contributions of organic agriculture to socio-ecological sustainability in Canada. I utilized both qualitative and quantitative methods—drawing from interviews with farmers, inspectors and organic policymakers, analysis of census data for farms across Canada, surveys of vegetable farmers in British Columbia and organic policy documents—to investigate how organic agriculture is shaped and enacted by organic community members at multiple scales. My analysis of organic standards in North America, along with census and survey data in Canada, provide strong evidence for higher levels of adoption of ecologically sustainable management in organic agriculture relative to all other farms. Yet, despite explicit attention to the principle of fairness in organic standards and among organic community actors, I found little evidence that organic agriculture in Canada is correlated with improved working conditions for farmworkers in practice. Across Mexico, the US and Canada, no organic standards contain any requirements related to social sustainability. At the same time, standards governance and community-led efforts toward integrating the principle of fairness into certification show potential to advance a more just and sustainable agriculture.

Despite the organic movement’s early connections to labour advocacy and commitment to the principle of “Fairness”, the evolution of the organic sector has generated questions about the strength of its links to food justice in certified organic farming. Scholar-activists have, in particular, highlighted the problematic nature of labour relations on many organic farms. This article reports on a growing relationship between an organic farming association (the Certified Organic Associations of British Columbia) and a migrant workers justice collective (Fuerza Migrante) with aspirations of alliance building. Drawing from qualitative interviews and participant observation, we examine the extent to which efforts by the organic community towards fairness in labour relations may signal an opening whereby the organic movement may take up the more radical struggle for rights, status and justice for racialized migrant workers. We draw on theoretical work on post-capitalist relations and emancipatory social transformations to provide scaffolding to our assessment, and illuminate the importance of complementary efforts. While the primary demands raised by migrant workers and their allies (eg structural changes to temporary foreign worker programs) are not yet mirrored by the organic community’s advocacy, this paper documents preliminary efforts towards centering of migrant worker struggles for justice that may open up spaces for social emancipation for workers in organic farming systems. We also provide recommendations for how the organic community could act in solidarity with migrants and advance migrant justice priorities.

The article reviews the book, "Grève des stages, grèves des femmes. Anthologie d'une lutte féministe pour un salaire étudiant (2016–2019)," by Collectif.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent government responses resulted in a shift in the identity of the essential worker that now included low wage essential workers. Using a critical discourse analysis methodology written news media texts were analyzed revealing various discursive strategies were utilized to construct the new essential worker identity. Findings revealed a fluid, complex identity that was politicized to advance other issues. The need to re-frame the definition of the essential worker was discussed along with the implications on the attainment of occupational rights for low wage essential workers.

The article reviews the book, "Mining Country: A History of Canada's Mine and Miners," by John Sandlos and Arn Keeling.

The article reviews the book, "Bread and Roses: Gender and Class Under Capitalism," by Andrea D'Atri.

Durant la crise sanitaire liée à l’épidémie de COVID-19, des milliers de salariés français ont été contraints de travailler isolés les uns des autres. Cette situation inédite a engendré de lourds inconvénients en matière de conditions de travail, entraînant de hauts niveaux d’épuisement professionnel. L’objectif de cette recherche est de déterminer si le soutien social du manager direct est en mesure de modérer les effets négatifs des conditions de travail sur l’épuisement professionnel des salariés en période de crise sanitaire. Les résultats montrent que ce soutien a un impact direct sur l’épuisement professionnel, quel que soit le lieu de travail. Cependant, il n’est pas en mesure de modérer l’effet des conditions de travail sur l’épuisement professionnel des salariés à domicile, et n’y arrive que modestement pour les salariés sur site.