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The article reviews the book "The Limits of Rural Capitalism: Family, Culture, and Markets in Montcalm, Manitoba, 1870-1940," by Kenneth Michael Sylvester.

'Precarious employment' is a better concept for understanding labour market insecurity than the dominant concept in Canada, 'non-standard work.' We examine dimensions of precariousness between and within mutually exclusive forms of employment. The growth of 'non-standard work' is fuelled by increases in forms of employment that lack regulatory protection, such as own- account self-employment. Wage work falls along a continuum of precariousness measured as regulatory protection, control and income. Finally, employment in precarious forms is shaped by social location. White men are concentrated in the least precarious forms of employment, while white women, women of colour and youth are concentrated in the more precarious forms.

This article examines the relationship between gender, forms of employment and dimensions of precarious employment in Canada, using data from the Labour Force Survey and the General Social Survey. Full-time permanent wage work decreased for both women and men between 1989 and 2001, but women remain more likely to be employed in part-time and temporary wage work as compared to men. Layering forms of wage work with indicators of regulatory protection, control and income results in a continuum with full-time permanent employees as the least precarious followed by full-time temporary, part-time permanent and then part-time temporary employees as the most precarious. The continuum is gendered through both inequalities between full-time permanent women and men and convergence in precariousness among part-time and temporary women and men. These findings reflect a feminization of employment norms characterized by both continuity and change in the social relations of gender. (English)

The article reviews the book, "Heroines and History: Representations of Madeleine de Verchères and Laura Secord," by Colin M. Coates and Cecilia Morgan.

Globalization and neo-liberalism have been associated with a decline in unions. In seeking to respond to these problems, unions could cooperate internationally. The orthodoxy among industrial relations scholars is that the European Treaty is antithetical to international unionism because of various provisions which promote competition. The experience of the International Federation of Professional Footballers' Associations (FIFPro) contradicts this orthodoxy. In August 2001, FIFPro entered into a framework collective bargaining agreement with Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) on a new set of rules to govern the worldwide employment of professional footballers. Football's transfer and compensation system violated competitive provisions, in particular the freedom of movement of workers, contained in the European Treaty. Following the 1995 decision of the European Court of Justice in Bosman, and strategic interventions by the European Commission, FIFA sought an accommodation with FIFPro, to protect its new employment rules from further legal attack.

The article reviews the book, "The Political Economy of Work in the 21st Century: Implications for an Aging American Workforce," by Martin Sicker.

The article rebuts Nelson Lichtenstein's conclusion (published in the same issue of the journal) that Walter Reuther was affiliated with the US Communist Party in the mid to late 1930s. (At the time, Reuther was a vice president of the United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW); he went on to become UAW president from 1946 till his death in 1970.)

Recruitment processes are seen as critical to the success of contemporary organizations and integral to human resource practices, particularly in those firms setting up greenfield operations or undertaking organizational change programs. This article analyses the recruitment methods used in several large call centres in the Australian telecommunications industry. It particularly focuses on the issue of how recruitment was explicitly or implicitly designed to recruit customer service representatives who might be antithetic to workplace trade unionism. Three processes are identified. These include the use of sophisticated recruitment processes which identify those with unitarist tendencies, identifying and excluding, or blacklisting, those with union backgrounds or those who previously worked in highly unionized firms and lastly applying pressure on recruits to sign individual non-union contracts at the appointment or promotion stage.

A number of conflicting theoretical hypotheses have been advanced regarding the impact of unions on investment behaviour. The net impact of unions on investment is thus an empirical issue. In this article, the available empirical literature is reviewed. In addition, new evidence of the impact of unions on investment is presented using French data. In contrast to previous studies, both aggregate and disaggregate measures of union activity are used. The results indicate that French unions, in general, have not had a negative impact on investment behaviour. However, there is some evidence that the more militant unions have a negative impact on investment.

The article reviews and comments on several books including "Betrayal of Local 14: Paperworkers, Politics, & Personal Replacements," by Julius Getman, "Copper Crucible: How the Arizona Miners' Strike of 1983 Recast Labor-Management Relations in America," by Timothy J. Minchin and "Forging a Common Bond: Labor & Environmental Activism During the BASF Lockout," by Jonathon D. Rosenblum.

The article reviews the book, "Cultures of Opposition: Jewish Immigrant Workers, New York City, 1881-1905," by Hadassa Kosak.

The article reviews the book, "The Job Training Charade," by Gordon Lafer.

Trade unions have dealt with the thorny issue of layoffs since their formation, but relatively little has been written on the topic of union strategies for surviving large-scale redundancies. This paper examines these strategies in an industry that is all too familiar with massive layoffs: railroading. An analysis of union responses to job losses presupposes an understanding of the factors underlying managerial decisions about staff reduction. We argue that the nature of "downsizing" has changed considerably in the last 40 years. In industries such as railroading, managers were formerly preoccupied with labour-saving technology. As such, unions struggled for a significant voice and co-determinative role in the introduction of new machinery. In Canada, unions came close to obtaining such a role through the recommendations of the Freedman Report. Following their defeat in acquiring a major role in determining issues of technological change, railway unions focused on winning employment security provisions in their contracts. However, managers would view employment security as an anomaly when they turned to organizational change to increase productivity. More recently, older railway unions and newer union entrants to the industry have experienced tactical disagreements over how to confront the offensive against employment security in railroading.

The article reviews the book, "The End of Marriage? Individualism and Intimate Relations," by Jane Lewis.

The article reviews the book, "Mass Communication in Canada," 4th edition, by Rowland Lorimer and Mike Gasher.

The article reviews the book "With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farm Workers Today," by Daniel Rothenberg.

The article reviews the book, "Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology, and the Daily Lives of the Poor," by Sharon Farmer.

The article reviews the book "Biomedicine and Alternative Healing Systems in America: Issues of Class, Race, Ethnicity, and Gender," by Hans A. Baer.

The article briefly reviews Bridget Anderson's "Doing the Dirty Work? The Global Realities of Domestic Labour;" Barbara Paleczny's "Clothed in Integrity: Weaving Just Cultural Relations and the Garment Industry;" Walter Johnson's "Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market;" Anna Heilman's "Never Far Away: The Auschwitz Chronicles of Anna Heilman;" Lesley Gill's "Teetering on the Rim: Global Restructuring, Daily Life, and the Armed Retreat of the Bolivian State;" "Public Sector Pay Determination in the European Union" edited by Robert Elliott, Claudio Lucifora, and Dominique Meurs; Philip Resnick's "The Politics of Resentment: British Columbia Regionalism and Canadian Unity;" "Against the Grain: Foresters and Politics in Nova Scotia" by L. Anders Sandberg and Peter Clancy; and "The Nonprofit Sector in Canada: Roles and Relationships," edited by Keith G. Banting.

The article briefly reviews Howard Margolian's "Unauthorized Entry: The Truth About Nazi War Criminals in Canada, 1946-1956;" Raka Ray's "Fields of Protest: Women's Movements in India;" Naila Kabeer's "The Power to Choose: Bangladeshi Women and Labour Market Decisions in London and Dhaka;" Daniel James's "Doña María's Story : Life, History, Memory, and Political History;" "Women's Work in Britain and France" by Abigail Gregory and Jan Windebank; Elliott D. Sclar's "You Don 'I Always Get What You Pay For: The Economics of Privatization;" Mary H. Blewett's "Constant Turmoil: The Politics of Industrial Life in Nineteenth- Century New England;" Keith Wrightson's "Earthly Necessity: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain;" Stephen Heathorn's "For Home, Country and Race: Constructing Gender, Class, and Englishness in the Elementary School, 1880-1914;" and Mêlante Nolan's "Bread Winning: New Zealand Women and the State."