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This article reviews the book, "Joe Salsberg: A Life of Commitment," by Gerald Tulchinsky.

This article examines changes in levels of confidence in unions and proposes an intra-national comparison between Quebec and the rest of Canada based on the analysis of the three most recent waves of the World Values Survey (WVS) database, of which Canada is part (i.e. 1990, 2000, 2006). After noting differences in the trends of confidence in unions in these two regions, we applied the same logistic regression model to both regions, based on the 2006 WVS wave, in order to bring out the determinants of the propensity of individuals to express confidence in unions. The results show both similarities and differences between the two regions. As for the similarities between Quebec and the rest of Canada, it should be noted that involvement in politics and the fact of being unionized had a positive effect on the respondents’ propensity to have confidence in unions whereas most of the socio-demographic variables had no significant effects. As for the differences, the fact of reporting a higher income had a significant negative impact in Quebec, but was not significant in the rest of Canada. The fact of supporting the NDP in the rest of Canada had a more structuring effect on the propensity of individuals to have confidence in unions than the fact of supporting the BQ in Quebec. Moreover, the greater the extent to which citizens in Quebec identified with left-leaning ideological positions, the more likely they were to have confidence in unions. Finally, the respondent’s level of education was not significant in the rest of Canada but, cetiris paribus, was highly significant and positively related to confidence in unions in Quebec.

The article reviews the book, "Silvertown: The Lost Story of a Strike That Shook London and Helped Launch the Labor Movement," by John Tully.

This article reviews the book, "A New Kind of Bleak: Journeys through Urban Britain," by Owen Hatherley.

Cet article vise à tester sur longue période l’hypothèse de convergence des relations industrielles dans les pays développés. Prenant acte de la persistance du débat sur ce point, notamment du fait de la crise actuelle, mais aussi de la diversité des conceptions sous-jacentes, il propose de partir d’un objet de comparaison non prédéterminé par une orientation préalable : le « dialogue social ». Ce concept, utilisé notamment dans le cadre du Bureau international du Travail (BIT), reste toutefois assez flou et appelle une réélaboration. Nous ajoutons aux pratiques d’information, concertation et de négociations collectives, des pratiques moins souvent prises en compte : les pratiques du paritarisme de gestion, de la codétermination, ainsi que l’intervention de l’État, cette dernière pouvant renforcer ou, au contraire, contraindre le dialogue social. Se limitant, pour la partie empirique, à l’ensemble formé par les négociations collectives, les pratiques de codétermination et l’intervention de l’État, l’article examine l’évolution de 19 pays de l’OCDE pour six indicateurs de 1985 à 2011. Le choix est fait de ne pas pondérer a priori l’importance de chaque indicateur, et de procéder à une analyse de données en composantes principales suivie d’une classification par nuées dynamiques. Il en résulte cinq groupes de pays, groupes dotés d’une assez forte stabilité, dont on étudie les transformations au cours du temps. Enfin, les groupes de pays sont examinés sous l’angle des performances économiques et sociales, en retenant la croissance du PIB et l’évolution du taux de chômage. On retrouve alors, sur une base non contrainte par une orientation a priori, les groupes classiquement distingués par les analyses comparatives : les groupes « anglo-saxons », « continentaux », « nordiques » et « méditerranéens », ainsi qu’un dernier groupe composé de la Suisse et du Japon. L’article conclut à la persistance de la diversité au regard du « dialogue social », y compris pour la période récente marquée par la crise.

Building on previous research, Workers’ Action Centre members spent the past year identifying key problems workers are facing in the labour market and developing priorities for change. This report brings workers’ voices, experiences and recommendations to this conversation, contributing knowledge that will be essential to updating Ontario’s labour legislation from the ground up. --Website summary

The article reviews the book, "Le temps de travail et travail du temps," edited by Sylvie Monchatre et Bernard Woehl.

This paper takes a concise look at what the future might hold for pension law in Canada, by considering how it has developed in the past and where it stands today. Beginning with an overview of the Supreme Court of Canada's foundational decision in the Schmidt case, the author traces the evolution of what she sees as two distinct approaches to the resolution of pension disputes: the "classical" approach, and the "integrated" approach. The classical approach is both hierarchical and binary, in that if the governing pension legislation applies, its provisions prevail over the common law, while if the legislation does not apply, the court, in deciding the case, must choose whether to apply trust law principles or contract law principles. Under the integrated approach, by contrast, the court does not begin from the premise that a certain, unitary set of principles should be applied to decide the matter. Rather, it recognizes that pension disputes often involve the intersection of pension legislation, trust law and contract law, and that their resolution may properly be informed by a consideration of other areas of law as well as the underlying policy concerns. The author notes that the classical approach and the integrated approach both have advantages and disadvantages, and that both have a basis in the Supreme Court's jurisprudence. The paper concludes by setting out the types of novel pension issues which may come before the courts in the coming decade, and illustrates how the determination of those issues may depend on which of the two rival approaches is adopted.

Cet article étudie les stratégies de négociation et de mobilisation des dirigeants confédéraux de la CGT à l’occasion de réformes gouvernementales de la protection sociale qui préfiguraient celles qui ont été engagées depuis 2008 en réponse à la “crise” économique. L’analyse de l’autonomie des syndicats dans la négociation de ces réformes doit être réinscrite dans un examen au plus long cours des transformations des formes et des conditions de possibilité de la lutte syndicale. L’étude des pratiques de ces dirigeants syndicaux permet, en particulier, de s’interroger sur les ressorts de leur enrôlement dans ces processus de négociation, ainsi que sur les effets et les dilemmes qu’implique cette action institutionnelle sur leur manière de contester les projets gouvernementaux. Leur engagement dans ces procédures de concertation n’a rien de mécanique ni de consensuel. Il est, d’abord, le fruit de leur affaiblissement politique et militant. Cette situation modifie leur perception des profits qu’ils peuvent retirer à réinvestir les manières d’être et les outils légitimes dans l’espace de la négociation. Elle les porte notamment à valoriser la production de contre-expertise et de contre-propositions pour justifier leur opposition aux projets gouvernementaux. L’investissement de ces modes d’action institutionnels n’exclut pas le recours à l’arme de l’action collective, mais il contribue à en modifier les usages. D’une part, ces dirigeants syndicaux s’imposent des limites dans leurs stratégies de mobilisation des salariés pour asseoir leur légitimité dans la négociation. D’autre part, ils doivent composer avec de multiples contraintes organisationnelles qui entravent leur capacité à mobiliser leurs adhérents au cours de ces négociations interprofessionnelles. Contre la tendance à opposer l’institutionnalisation des syndicats à leur capacité à entrer en conflit, l’étude des pratiques des dirigeants de la CGT met donc davantage en évidence les contraintes institutionnelles, politiques et organisationnelles qui influencent la manière dont s’articulent et se reconfigurent les usages syndicaux des outils de la négociation et de l’action collective.

The article reviews and comments on several books including "Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider," by Satnam Virdee, "How Race is Made in America: Immigration, Citizenship, and the Historical Power of Racial Scripts," by Natalia Molina, and "Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy," by David FitzGerald and David Cook-Martin.

The article reviews the book, "Bad Time Stories. Government-Union Conflicts and the Rhetoric of Legitimation Strategies," by Yonathan Reshef and Charles Kleim.

The article reviews the book, "Sociologie des outils de gestion : introduction à l’analyse de l’instrumentation de gestion," by Eve Chiapello and Patrick Gilbert.

The article reviews the book, "After the Rebellion: Black Youth, Social Movement Activism, and the Post-Civil Rights Generation," by Sekou M. Franklin.

The article reviews the book, "Last Night Shift in Savar: The Story of the Spectrum Sweater Factory Collapse," by Doug Miller.

This article reviews the book, "Indigenous Encounters with Neoliberalism: Place, Women, and the Environment in Canada and Mexico," by Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez.

The article reviews the book, "Loyalty and Liberty: American Countersubversion from World War I to the McCarthy Era," by Alex Goodall.

This article reviews the book, "Fires on the Border: The Passionate Politics of Labor Organizing on the Mexican Frontera," by Rosemary Hennessey.

It appears to me that there is an obligation on any court studying the constitutionality of a provision of law, first, to give a detailed examination of the specific provision of law it is studying, as well as the whole context of the right, before pronouncing on its consti- tutionality. It is the failure of the Supreme Court of Canada majority in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour1 to do so that has given rise to much commentary, with one prominent newspaper questioning the "shoddy reasoning," the "curiously selective research" and the "slapdash approach to precedent."'2 Indeed, it is this failure that gives rise to the question of what the decision actually decides.' The majority judgment can best be understood in light of its misplaced emulation of European law, which is quite different from ours, and its frequent references to the Committee on Freedom of Association of the ILO. Although the Committee is not a judicial body, the majority judgment elevates it to one, though making the interesting proviso that the Committee's decisions are "not strictly binding."'4 The problems with showing such deference to the Committee on Freedom of Association are well known, and I will touch on them only briefly. One has only to read the papers by Brian Langille as well as Sonia Regenbogen, both of whom have gone to great lengths to study the committees of the ILO, to be disabused of the notion that these "committees" are judicial bodies or that their decisions are in any way binding on our courts.5 Indeed, in the Fraser case, I was amazed when, approximately two months after the matter was en delibdri, the Supreme Court received a missive from one of the ILO committees telling the Court its views on how the decision should be rendered.6 I strenuously objected to this document on two grounds: (1) how did the ILO committee know, in a secret delibdri, that one side needed its help? and, (2) by what right was a non-party to the Supreme Court proceedings lobbying the Court after the hear- ing, an action which the Court would properly have forbidden a party from taking? What may be less well known and understood are the basic dif- ferences between European labour law and our own.' The European law is based on a system of "voluntarism," whereby employees are free to join or not to join a union. An article quoted by the Court in B.C. Health makes this clear (though the Court's reliance on the article is unfortunate, given that the article's authors are referring to Convention 98 of the ILO, which Canada has not even ratified):' In view of the fact that the voluntary nature of collective bargaining is a funda- mental aspect of the principles of freedom of association, collective bargaining

The article reviews the book, "America's Assembly Line," by David E. Nye.