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The Generation Effect shows that employment precarity is penalizing a generation. Precarious employment has become an unwanted, unnecessary and not-by-choice, new reality of our workforce and economy. Despite the recent changes to Ontario employment regulations, most legislation remains outdated and provides for a workforce and economy that no longer exists. Our social support systems are outdated and currently unable to support the growing ranks of the working poor and people living in poverty. The continued adherence to neoliberalism, an economic philosophy and ideology that has made it easy for corporations to trade and enhance their profits and, at the same time, eliminate full-time permanent jobs, has made life more difficult for millennial workers. The Generation Effect provides a snapshot of the lives of Hamilton-area millennials working in a labour market that differs significantly from that of their parents. It is a starting point for a long overdue conversation about the current nature and structure of work, its impact on millennial workers and their families, our communities and society at large. --From authors' summary

Some studies have shown strong support for positive outcomes related to flexible work arrangements such as improved performance and productivity (Bloom, Liang, Roberts, Ying, 2015; Laschinger, Finegan, Shamian, Wilk, 2001; Laschinger, Leiter, Day, Gilin, 2009), while others have found detrimental effects including negative impacts on managing and separating work, life, and family demands (Cohen Single, 2001; Yuile, Chang, Gudmundsson, Sawang 2012). The typical approach to studying flexible work arrangements is to examine outcomes at the individual level among employees, assessing the relationship with performance and work-life, or work-family balance. This study examined the relationship between flexible work arrangements and job attitudes and work-life balance, simultaneously at both the individual and organizational unit level of analysis in the Federal public sector in Canada. The data is from responses captured five times over the span of 12 years within the public-sector workforce. The findings provide further contributions to the body of research on the job demands-resources model (Bakker Demrouti, 2007) and support the idea that some types of flexible work arrangements are positively related to work-life balance and job satisfaction, while also being positively mediated by structural empowerment of employees. These findings hold both at the individual and organizational level. Certain flexible work arrangements, namely flextime and telework, show consistent and positive relationships with work-life balance at both the individual and organizational unit level. Compressed work weeks, and income averaging, however, show signs of negative relationships and require further study. A critical finding of this study is that empowerment consistently fosters improved work-life balance and job satisfaction, providing strong evidence for practitioners to prioritize employee structural empowerment as part of strategic human resource plans.

This article reviews the book, "How Capitalism Destroyed Itself: Technology Displaced by Financial Innovation," by William Kingston.

The article reviews the book, "Global Labour Studies," by Marcus Taylor and Sébastian Rioux.

The purpose of this article is to highlight the role that Izzat played in the unfolding industrial disputation that emerged at the Toyota plant in Bangalore between 1999 and 2007. Isolated instances contributed to a build-up of employee and community resentment at what was perceived as an attack on Izzat. Behind the events is the attempt to transpose Japanese “lean production and management systems” into an Indian subsidiary where local industrial and cultural conditions were not suitable for the imposition of such practices from headquarters to a subsidiary. The result of the analysis contributes to the understanding of workplace industrial relations (IR) in India and the centrality of Izzat. Within India, the significance of trade unions; the respect of employees; the importance of family and community; the importance of seniority; and the role of respect and honour are factors that multinationals often fail to understand in the design and implementation of their production and HRM systems. The study contributes to the debate over the transferability of standardized HRM policies and practices. MNEs should play a proactive role in supporting the employees of subsidiaries to adjust to and accommodate new paradigms in workplace industrial relations. The aggressive production and HRM practices at the Toyota plant were not compatible with the norms and cultural institutions of the Indian workforce. One of the key implications of this research is that foreign production, organizational and industrial relations systems and practices cannot be transplanted into host-country environments without the due recognition of key cultural conditions, notably Izzat in India.

This thesis aims to increase understanding of the association of underemployment (unemployment or overqualification) to mental health inequities between immigrant and Canadian-born labour force participants. The first paper provides a theoretical framework to guide design, analyses and interpretation of findings for this thesis, and future research on social determinants of mental health inequities. The second paper uses the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) Cycle 1.2 to assess the construct validity of self-rated mental health (SRMH) for the overall population, and sub-groups by immigrant status and sex. Positive associations between SRMH and a comprehensive array of mental morbidity measures were large and consistent, but a sizeable percentage of respondents with mental morbidity did not rate their mental health as fair/poor. SRMH is useful for assessing social determinants of inequities in general mental health, but not specific mental health morbidities. The third paper uses CCHS Cycle 2.1 (2003) to examine the association of underemployment to fair/poor self-rated mental health (SRMH) in: 1. labour force participants (18-64 yrs) in Canada, and 2. between a. immigrants vs. Canadian-born labour force participants, and b. recent immigrant (< 10 years in Canada) vs. long-term immigrant (³ 10 years in Canada) labour force participants. Underemployment was positively associated with fair/poor SRMH for labour force participants. There was a significant positive association of overqualification to fair/poor SRMH for immigrant (AOR 1.63), but not for Canadian-born labour force participants (AOR 1.03), and differences between the groups were significant (p<0.05). Unemployment had a higher magnitude of association (AOR 3.41) than overqualification (AOR 1.52) to fair/poor SRMH for long-term immigrants, while overqualification had a higher magnitude of association (AOR 2.04) than unemployment (AOR 1.15) to fair/poor SRMH for recent immigrants arriving between 1993-2003. For recent immigrants, the associations of unemployment and overqualification to fair/poor SRMH were not statistically significant (p<0.05). Though differences between groups did not achieve statistical significance (p<0.05), differences may have practical importance....

Controversy shrouds sharing economy platforms. It stems partially from the platforms’ economic impact, which is felt most acutely in certain sectors: Uber drivers compete with taxi drivers; Airbnb hosts compete with hotels. Other consequences lie elsewhere: Uber is associated with a trend toward low-paying, precarious work, whereas Airbnb is accused of exacerbating real estate speculation and raising the cost of long-term rental housing. While governments in some jurisdictions have attempted to rein in the platforms, technology has enabled such companies to bypass conventional regulatory categories, generating accusations of “unfair competition” as well as debates about the merits of existing regulatory regimes. Indeed, the platforms blur a number of familiar distinctions, including personal versus commercial activity; infrastructure versus content; contractual autonomy versus hierarchical control. These ambiguities can stymie legal regimes that rely on these distinctions as organizing principles, including those relating to labour, competition, tax, insurance, information, the prohibition of discrimination, as well as specialized sectoral regulation. This book is organized around five themes: technologies of regulation; regulating technology; the sites of regulation (local to global); regulating markets; and regulating labour. Together, the chapters offer a rich variety of insights on the regulation of the sharing economy, both in terms of the traditional areas of law they bring to bear, and the theoretical perspectives that inform their analysis. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction: The “sharing economy” through the lens of law / Finn Makela, Derek McKee, and Teresa Scassa. Part 1: Technologies of regulation. Peer platform markets and licensing regimes / Derek McKee -- The false promise of the sharing economy / Harry Arthurs -- The fast to the furious / Nofar Sheffi. Part 2: Regulating technology. The normative ecology of disruptive technology / Vincent Gautrais -- Information law in the platform economy: Ownership, control, and reuse of platform data / Teresa Scassa. Part 3: The space of regulation—local to global. Urban cowboy e-capitalism meets dysfunctional municipal policy-making: What the Uber story tells us about Canadian local governance / Mariana Valverde -- The sharing economy and trade agreements: The challenge to domestic regulation / Michael Geist. Part 4: Regulating Markets. Should licence plate owners be compensated when Uber comes to town? / Eran Kaplinsky -- Competition law and policy issues in the sharing economy / Francesco Ducci. Part 5: Regulating labour. The legal framework for digital platform work: The French experience / Marie-Cécile Escande-Varniol -- Uber and the unmaking and remaking of taxi capitalisms: Technology, Law, and Resistance in Historical Perspective / Eric Tucker -- Making sense of the public discourse on Airbnb and Labour: What about labour rights? / Sabrina Tremblay-Huet.

The article reviews the book, "Women's ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present," edited by Eileen Boris, Dorothea Hoehtker, and Susan Zimmermann.

The article reviews the book, "La fabrique de l’Homme nouveau. Travailler, consommer et se taire ?," by Jean-Pierre Durand.

The BC tradition of fighting back against unfair pay and unsafe working conditions has been around since before the colony joined Confederation. In 1849 Scottish labourers at BC's first coal mine at Fort Rupert went on strike to protest wretched working conditions, and it's been a wild ride ever since. For years the BC labour movement was the most militant in the land, led by colourful characters like Ginger Goodwin, murdered for his pains, and pull-no-punches communist Harvey Murphy, who brought the house of labour down on himself with his infamous "underwear speech." Through years of battles with BC's power elite and small victories followed by bitter defeats, BC unions established the five-day work week, the eight-hour day, paid holidays, the right to a safe, non-discriminatory workplace and many more taken-for-granted features of the modern work landscape. But unions' enemies never sleep and, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, battles still go on, like that of BC teachers in their long and ultimately successful struggle to improve classroom conditions. On the Line also highlights the role played by women, Indigenous and minority workers in working toward equality and democracy in workplaces and communities. In prose that is both accessible and engaging, accompanied by over two hundred archival photos, Mickleburgh tells the important story of how BC's labour organizations have shaped the economic, political and social fabric of the province--at a cost of much blood, sweat, toil and tears. This volume is the most comprehensive overview of labour's struggle in BC and will be of particular interest to union members, community activists, academics and readers of regional history. -- Publisher's description

This article reviews the book, "The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century" by Walter Scheidel.

Violence in the workplace has attracted widespread scholarly and media attention in the United States and Canada since the 1980s. Governments and corporations on both sides of the border have identified this violence as a serious problem affecting the health and safety of workers. However, there is still much that is unknown about workplace violence. Is the problem of workplace violence more serious than it was today? How has it changed over time? What are the factors that have produced violence at work? How have workers, management, and governments defined violence at work? How have they approached the problem? This dissertation historicizes the phenomenon of workplace violence, investigating on-the-job violence in the North American automotive industry between 1960-1980. It embeds violence at work in its economic, political, and cultural contexts and investigates how violence shaped the North American workplace and identities of class, gender, and race on the job. A comparative, transnational approach is central to this study. If we seek to understand the structural factors causing workplace violence, the national context cannot be ignored. This is especially true when considering the US and Canada, two countries which are extraordinarily integrated economically but often contrasted socially and culturally. My research has uncovered a significant history of violence in the automotive workplaces of Detroit and Windsor, and shows that national and local contexts were crucial in determining the level of violence. Violence was a regular element of shop-floor culture and workplace conflict in both countries, but was different in each. In Detroit, violence at work reached epidemic levels and was a major factor in the crisis that gripped the city's auto plants in the 1960s and 1970s. This was not the case in Windsor. Yet in both cities workplace violence became a major concern outside the factory when work-related murders seized national headlines and challenged citizens to understand these tragedies. The thesis demonstrates that, though the patterns and levels of violence were different in each place, violence was no aberration, no freak occurrence, but an ongoing phenomenon that influenced the labour process and workplace culture in both Detroit and Windsor.

This article reviews the book, "An Exceptional Law: Section 98 and the Emergency State, 1919–1936" by Dennis G. Molinaro.

The article reviews the book, "Fondaction, un Fonds pleinement engagé dans la finance socialement responsable," edited by Benoît Lévesque.

C’est avec tristesse et désarroi que nous apprenions, le 28 juin 2018, le décès de notre collègue et ami, Jacques Bélanger. Comme bien des lecteurs et des lectrices de la revue RI/IR le savent, Jacques Bélanger fut un professeur titulaire renommé du Département des relations industrielles de l’Université Laval, un contributeur fréquent à RI/IR, et le codirecteur et cofondateur du Centre de recherche interuniversitaire sur la mondialisation et le travail, le CRIMT. Intellectuel brillant, théoricien novateur, pédagogue chevronné, comment, dans un espace si restreint, donner un juste aperçu de ce que Jacques fut et de son immense contribution à la recherche et à l’avancement des connaissances sur le travail humain dans ses multiples déclinaisons ? Jacques Bélanger, chercheur de réputation mondiale, est toujours demeuré profondément attaché à ses origines et à Saint-Vallier de Bellechasse, son village.... / Our reaction to news of the death of our dear colleague and friend, Jacques Bélanger, on 28 June 2018, was one of deep sadness and dismay. As so many RI/IR readers will know, Bélanger was a distinguished Professor in the Industrial Relations Department at Université Laval, a frequent contributor to RI/IR, and the co-director and co-founder of the Interuniversity Research Centre on Globalization and Work, the CRIMT. Bélanger was a brilliant intellectual, innovative theorist and accomplished teacher. In the few words permitted here, we can only provide a glimpse of his multiple contributions to research and the advancement of knowledge across diverse aspects of contemporary work and employment. Despite his international renown, Jacques Bélanger was profoundly attached to his origins and, in particular, to his birthplace and village of origin, Saint-Vallier de Bellechasse.....

From 1995 to 1998, Ontario was the site of a sustained political and industrial conflict between the provincial government of Premier Mike Harris and a loosely-coordinated protest movement of labour unions, community organizations, and activist groups. The struggle was aimed at the defeating the “Common Sense Revolution,” a sweeping neoliberal program advanced by the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. The program designed to renovate the state, rationalize the social safety net, repeal barriers to capital accumulation, and decisively weaken the strength of organized labour. What became a union-led extra-parliamentary opposition drew in large sections of the population often aligned with a political culture of statist collectivism encompassing both social democracy and “Red Toryism”. The movement emerged at a time when the two major parties aligned with such ideas embraced neoliberal policies. Under the leadership of Mike Harris, the Red Tories were pushed out of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, the one-term New Democratic government of 1990-95 made a decisive turn towards neoliberal austerity amidst a catastrophic recession, declining federal transfers, and employer hostility. Through the union-led “Days of Action” of large political strikes, mass demonstrations, and numerous militant protests, the implementation of the Common Sense Revolution was slowed and weakened and the government’s popularity greatly diminished. However, the province’s union leadership was deeply divided over loyalties to the New Democratic Party following its turn to neoliberal austerity. One union leadership faction opposed the Days of Action while the other proved unwilling to escalate the scale of industrial disruption against the Common Sense Revolution. The crisis led to an open factional dispute within organized labour that culminated in the formal suspension of the political strikes in the summer of 1998. The outcome was an unprecedented political defeat for the labour-led forces defending an expansive redistributive welfare state, and a retreat by organized labour from extra-parliamentary political strategies in favour of electoralism. The government managed to regain support before winning re-election in 1999. The end of the Days of Action marked the political triumph of neoliberal restructuring and permanent austerity, and the crafting of a new political and economic common sense that has endured in Ontario to this day.

The article reviews the book, "Wobblies of the World: A Global History of the IWW," edited by Peter Cole, David Struthers, and Kenyon Zimmer.

This article reviews the book, "Travail et subjectivité : perspectives critiques," by Daniel Mercure and Marie-Pierre Bourdages-Sylvain.

This article reviews the book, "Propaganda and Persuasion: The Cold War and the Canadian-Soviet Friendship Society" by Jennifer Anderson.

Nombreuses sont les recherches ayant examiné l’impact du mentorat sur la réussite de carrière. Toutefois, davantage d’études sont requises afin d’appréhender cette relation, car force est de constater que la majorité des recherches menées jusque-là ont occulté la bi-dimensionnalité de chacun de ces deux construits. Par ailleurs, vu les spécificités féminines, nous estimons que la compréhension de l’impact du mentorat sur la réussite de carrière serait améliorée par l’intégration du genre. Le but de ce travail est de démontrer que le genre joue un rôle modérateur entre le mentorat reçu — estimé par ses deux fonctions instrumentale et psychosociale — et la réussite de carrière aussi bien objective que subjective. Des analyses en équations structurelles, notamment des analyses multigroupes ont été conduites à partir de données recueillies dans le secteur bancaire tunisien auprès de 237 cadres moyens et supérieurs. Nos analyses montrent que les femmes obtiennent moins de promotions et semblent moins satisfaites de leur carrière. Il ressort aussi que les femmes perçoivent moins de soutien de la part de leur mentor, particulièrement d’ordre psychosocial. Si la présente recherche démontre que pour les hommes, comme pour les femmes, le soutien prodigué par le mentor est associé à la réussite de carrière objective, il n’en est pas de même pour le type du mentorat à l’origine de cette réussite. Ainsi, seule la fonction instrumentale favorise l’avancement des femmes, contrairement aux hommes, dont l’avancement est lié uniquement à la fonction psychosociale du mentorat. Enfin, la présente étude indique l’inexistence d’un lien direct entre les fonctions du mentorat et la réussite subjective, et ce, aussi bien pour les hommes que les femmes. Toutefois, nos résultats permettent de mettre en évidence un effet indirect du mentorat psychosocial sur la réussite subjective des hommes par le biais de leur succès objectif.