Your search

During World War I and the 1920s, African American trainmen throughout the South took advantage of federal administrative bodies that had set anti-discrimination rules to challenge racist employers and white trainmen alike. After the war, white workers insisted that African Americans be relegated to porter jobs. White employers demanded that African American workers who continued to work as brakemen and flagmen, as they had during the war, accept lower wages for such skilled work than their white counterparts were paid. The federal government preferred to turn a blind eye to racial discrimination against African American workers in the period after federal control of the railways ended. Despite this concerted attack from all sides on their rights, unions of African American trainmen continued their fight, with some success, before federal administrative tribunals as well as the courts to retain skilled positions and receive the same pay as their white equivalents. Only the devastation of rail jobs in the 1930s largely destroyed the African American trainmen's wartime gains.

The article reviews the book, "Du côté des vainqueurs : une sociologie de l’incertitude sur les marchés du travail," by François Sarfati.

The article reviews the book, "Game Plan: A Social History of Sport in Alberta," Karen L. Wall.

The article reviews the book, "Relentless Change: A Casebook for the Study of Canadian Business History," edited by Joe Martin.

This article examines the revitalization of a union federation's capacity to represent young workers. It presents a qualitative study of the role and impact of one of the most developed forms of youth involvement in a union, youth committees. It first analyzes the extent to which these committees helped put the concerns of members under the age of 30 on the union federation's agenda and fostered their participation in its internal life. Second, it examines the ways in which these committees initiated a degree of change in the federation at the institutional level. Overall, our findings indicate that youth committees were able to question existing practices and initiate a degree of union change. However, the disagreements expressed by the young workers tended to remain confined within these parallel structures, thus limiting their potential to change the representative capacity of the federation.

The article reviews the book, "Brève histoire du régime seigneurial," by Benoît Grenier.

The article reviews the book, "Développement des identités, des compétences et des pratiques professionnelles," edited by Anne-Marie Vonthron, Sabine Pohl and Pascale Desrumaux.

Cet article présente les travaux d’une communauté de chercheurs du Réseau de recherche en santé et en sécurité du travail du Québec (RRSSTQ), créée en 2006, laquelle s’intéresse aux questions d’âges et de rapports sociaux en milieux de travail, en lien avec les conditions de travail et la santé et la sécurité du travail. De disciplines diverses (ergonomie, sociologie, psychosociologie, communication, droit, éducation), cette communauté réalise des recherches à partir d’enquêtes et d’études de terrain s’appuyant sur une approche compréhensive des phénomènes. Cette problématique se situe dans un contexte social singulier marqué, entre autres, par la mondialisation des marchés, une introduction massive des nouvelles technologies, une transformation des formes d’emploi, ainsi qu’un vieillissement de la main-d’oeuvre dans les pays industrialisés. Ces transformations créent des conditions particulières de rétention et d’intégration de la main-d’oeuvre dans les milieux de travail. À partir des données de l’Enquête québécoise sur des conditions de travail, d’emploi et de santé et de sécurité du travail (EQCOTESST), réalisée en 2008, auprès d’un échantillon représentatif de 5 071 répondants, l’objectif de cette étude est de tracer un portrait des conditions de travail en fonction de l’âge des travailleurs au Québec. L’article propose l’interprétation de ce portrait à partir d’un cadre d’analyse s’appuyant sur une approche diachronique des dynamiques âge-travail-santé dans le but de mieux orienter les interventions en milieu de travail.

The article reviews the book, "In Pursuit of Gold: Chinese American Miners and Merchants in the American West," by Sue Fawn Chung.

This paper explores changes in labour market outcomes between June 2005 and November 2010. It asks if the recovery in labour markets following the 2008 financial crisis favoured men or women. The analysis is based on a unique longitudinal database of individuals in the Toronto-Hamilton labour market. Men were the most likely to have paid employment in the post-financial crisis period, but only at the cost of a significant deterioration in its terms and conditions. The findings suggest that many middle-aged workers were not protected by job seniority or implicit lifetime employment relationships. The findings point to a further decline in the prevalence of the standard employment relationship and the male breadwinner model of employment.

Through the use of a social exclusion framework and analysis of recent data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (2009), a national longitudinal database, this empirical research investigates the mechanisms through which social groups are made and socio-economic outcomes are determined in Canada today. Our objective is to explore and describe the social characteristics and personal attributes that intersect to direct divergent economic realities. To this end, we initially present a brief review of the social exclusion literature, as well as descriptive data on several aspects of age and immigration. This is followed by logistic regressions for five dimensions of economic exclusion, to examine who is made socially excluded in economic terms in Canada. Subsequently, to progress the analysis from a focus on the individual effects of specific social attributes, we calculate the combined odds of two dimensions of economic exclusion (low individual earnings and insecure employment) for eight prototypes of individuals, to highlight the intersecting effects of social dynamics related to age, gender, visible minority status and immigrant status, and to ultimately explore who gets ahead and who falls behind in the Canadian labour market. We conclude with a discussion of policy and research implications.

Defined benefit (DB) pension plans have historically been an import- ant element in Canada's "three pillar" retirement income system. However, recessions in the global and Canadian economies have increased pressures on the funding of DB plans, and highlighted concerns about their sustainability - developments which have prompted governments in Canada to introduce a num- ber of reforms to pension benefit legislation. The authors, counsel to employers and plan sponsors, provide an overview of the existing legislation and the reform process, with particular emphasis on changes to Ontario's regulatory framework for DB plans as it relates to four key areas: plan solvency andfunding, surpluses, partial plan wind-ups, and asset transfers and plan mergers or splits. The paper notes that many if not all of these measures have been well-received by plan sponsors. However, in assessing whether the reforms will have the intended effect of stemming the decline in DB plan participation, the authors question whether the measures taken so far are not "too little, too late," and suggest that more far-reaching, and permanent, steps will be necessary. The paper also reviews and comments on the main features of the legislation recently enacted by the federal government providing for pooled registered pension plans.

This study uses both institutional and individual level data to examine the variation of part-time faculty employment in colleges and universities in the United States. Results support the arguments that higher educational institutions actively adopt contingent work arrangements to manage their resource dependence with constituencies, to save on labour costs, and to maximize academic prestige. Private institutions, on average, have higher levels of part-time faculty than their public counterparts. The proportion of part-time students and the share of institutional revenues derived from tuition and fees are positively associated with part-time faculty employment. Institutions that have limited resource slack and pay high salaries to their full-time faculty members tend to employ a high proportion of part-time faculty.

The article reviews and comments on the books "Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink," by Louis Hyman, "Packaging Pleasure: Holiday Camps in Twentieth-Century Britain," by Sandra Dawson, and "Consumption and Its Consequences," by Daniel Miller.

Cet article a pour objectif de poser un regard rétrospectif sur les activités scientifiques et les réflexions menées par le regroupement stratégique en transfert de connaissances (RS-TC) afin de dégager des axes de développement sur ce thème en lien avec la santé et sécurité au travail (SST). Afin de dresser ce bilan, nous avons effectué une analyse documentaire à partir de deux sources principales : 1) les activités de type symposiums et tables rondes organisées successivement en 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010 et 2011 et les diverses présentations et publications qui en sont issues et 2) les revues de littérature effectuées sur le transfert des connaissances en SST. Nous présentons d’abord un bref portrait des activités de transfert en SST réalisées par le RS-TC du Réseau de recherche en santé et sécurité du travail (RRSSTQ). Par la suite, nous proposons diverses pistes de réflexion développées à partir des activités menées depuis la création de ce regroupement au sein du RRSSTQ. Par exemple, le piège de restreindre le sens du terme connaissance et de s’y astreindre, le choix d’un intitulé représentatif de la question du transfert au Réseau, la nécessité d’opérer une double articulation individu/organisation, l’importance et la complexité du rôle des relayeurs, la multiplicité des outils de relais, la problématique de l’implantation. Nous terminons sur une piste de réflexion encore inexplorée par la communauté de chercheurs en TC de ce regroupement – les décideurs, auxquels peu d’efforts ont été consacrés – et sur les suites à donner au travail réalisé à ce jour : développer un cadre d’analyse propre à rendre compte des savoirs et savoir-faire développés au Réseau.

The article reviews the book, "Reds at the Blackboard: Communism, Civil Rights, and the New York City Teachers Union," by Clarence Taylor.

The article reviews the book, "Hearts and Minds: Canadian Romance at the Dawn of the Modern Era, 1900-1930," by Dan Azoulay.

Labour landmarks are monuments, memorials, plaques and other sites that commemorate the past experiences of workers in society. These sites are also manifestations of the collective memory of labourers. In industrial Cape Breton, which has a long history of labour and class struggle, an analytical survey of labour landmarks reveals how the industrial past has been remembered and memorialized. This overview reflects the narratives that have been attached to these sites, the ways in which historical memory has been localized and constructed in industrial Cape Breton, and the new layers of meaning that are revealed as these communities transition into post-industrialism.

Discusses the importance of labour landmarks, in particular the United Steelworker's Memorial Monument in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Provides the historical context of labour unrest and industrial fatalities that occurred at the Sydney steelplant, with summaries of the circumstances that resulted in the deaths of individual workers over the decades. Takes note of ownership changes, advances in workplace safety through unionism, and the plant's toxic legacy.