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The project of re-thinking Canadian labour policy within a human capital policy is best understood as the domestic equivalent of the international effort to reconceive the nature of development as requiring the integration of the economic and the social. Changes in modes of productive relations in the "new economy" require not just a complex reassessment of the best ways to achieve the goals of various labour policies but, more radically, involve a challenge to the conceptual basis of labour law. This both requires and provides the opportunity for a reconceptualization of the appropriate "platform" for delivering labour law and a new paradigm for understanding labour law itself.

Over the past century agriculture in the Okanagan has relied heavily on low cost ethnic labour. The historical documentation of this ethnic agricultural labour is fragmented occurring primarily in photographs, personal diaries, minutes of organizations, newspaper articles, and in some journal articles and books where there is specific mention of a particular ethnic group. This research compiles some of this documentation and synthesizes it into a single document which provides an overall account of the presence and role of ethnic agricultural labour in the Okanagan Valley. More specifically, this research substantiates and examines the presence of the early British settlers and five ethnic groups. They are the First Nations people (1880s - early 1900s and 1940s to 1960s), Chinese (late 1800s to 1930s), Japanese (1942 - late 1940s), Doukhobor (early 1930s - late 1950s), and Portuguese (1955 - early 1960s). --From authors' introduction. Contents: Introduction -- The Early British Settlers: 1860s - 1920s -- The Chinese: Early 1900s-1930s -- The First Nations People: 1880s-present -- The Doukhobors: 1930s-1950s -- The Japanese: 1940 -- The Portuguese: 1940s -- Conclusion -- References.

Korean Workers: The Culture and Politics of Class Formation by Hagen Koo is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "Getting By in Hard Times: Gendered Labour at Home and on the Job," by Meg Luxton and June Corman.

Presents a brief account of incidents arising out of the celebration of anniversary dates important to the international Communist movement in Canada between World War I and World War II. Such celebrations played an important part in activating the sense of internationalism and unity in a movement whose membership consisted largely of diverse immigrant groups. Recent immigrants, who risked deportation, were particularly vulnerable to government retaliation against Communist propaganda activities, including participation in parades and celebrations.

"The article reviews the book, "Gustave Francq: Figure marquante du syndicalisme et précurseur de la FTQ," by Éric Leroux.

The article reviews the book, "Patrick Lenihan: From Irish Rebel to founder of Canadian public sector unionism," by Jack Tarasoff.

The article introduces the reader to developments with unions and literacy, a labour activity that is gaining a toe-hold on today’s union agenda. The historical role of unions and literacy is explored, as well as its relationship to more traditional labour education. Some tough questions are asked about who is participating in union activity and who is left out, and how literacy has the potential to reach many union members who are not yet active. The article takes the reader inside a class of night cleaners. Building on the the real situation of a worker/participant who has been injured, the instructor facilitates a learning process that builds literacy skills while exploring avenues for collective recourse. While union-based literacy challenges many traditional assumptions and practices both in the workplace and within the labour movement, it is gaining ground and finding resonance within a growing number of Canadian unions, federations and the Canadian Labour Congress. With a popular education approach that builds on the Latin American and other Third World experience, literacy is revealed as an important metaphor for inclusion and democratization.

The article reviews "Socialist Register, 2001: Working classes and global realities," edited by Leo Panitch and Colin Leys. The Register is published annually.

This assessment was prepared for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. It examines the conditions of work in the offices of the Ontario Disability Support Program. I was asked by the Union to assess the extent to which the organization of work by the Employer makes reasonable provision for the health and safety of staff and to offer recommendations, if any, arising out of my assessment. The assessment provides evidence in support of the union's claim that "The employer is failing to make reasonable provisions for the health of its employees in the ODSP by failing to maintain sufficient staff to handle the workload required of its staff." --Introduction

The article reviews the book, "Only One Place of Redress: African Americans, Labor Relations, and the Courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal," by David E. Bernstein.

The article reviews the book, "Poor-Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion," by Jean Swanson.

This article analyzes the development in Canada of 2 critical differences between Canadian and US labour policy: union recognition and state regulation of striker replacements. The development of public policy on these issues helps illuminate the fundamental principles of state intervention in post-war labour-management relations. Canadian lawmakers have circumscribed the economic weapons of unions and established stringent certification requirements; but they have also restricted employers' recruitment of striker replacements and limited management involvement in the certification process.

Compilation of recent English/French publications on Canadian labour history that emphasize the period 1800-1975. Materials pertaining to the post-1975 period may also be included, although more selectively. [See the database, Canadian Labour History, 1976-2009, published at Memorial University of Newfoundland.]

Trade Union Activists, East and West: Comparisons in Multinational Companies, by Guglielmo Meardi, is reviewed.

Edward Thompson developed a distinct view of the transition from capitalism to socialism. Rejecting the concept of a catastrophic change in which the vanguard party would serve as the institutional nucleus of a new society, Thompson argued that capitalism had been “warrened” from within by a network of local, self-governing, working-class institutions that prefigured a socialist world. In the mid-1960s, however, Thompson turned to other matters and failed to resolve the longstanding debate on the Left about the role of trade unions in a transition to socialism. Recent events in Seattle, Qué bec City, and Genoa suggest that workers and students acting through new institutions improvised for the occasion must work together in actually bringing about revolutionary change. The same pattern shows itself in highpoints of working-class activity in the 20th century, as in Russia in 1905 or Hungary in 1956.

The legal approach in Canada towards the regulation of trade union democracy has sought to balance individual member's rights with respect for the autonomy of unions. While the United States and England have heavily legislated the areas of internal trade union affairs, Canada has enacted relatively few laws in this area. Rather, unions in Canada have enjoyed considerable legal freedom to develop their own democratic practices and culture. The irony of this approach is that it is the Canadian courts, rather than the more experienced and liberal labour relations boards, that are the final legal arbiters over most internal union matters. However, this is slowly changing. Several provinces have recently enacted modest changes that direct their labour boards to hear complaints from union members respecting the fairness of internal hearings. In the absence of extensive statutory regulation, union constitutions and the democratic traditions behind them become significant legal documents

Somewhere in the toxis mess that is the Sydney tar ponds is the sweat of my grandfather and my wife's grandfather. Both of them gave more than 40 years of their lives to the steel plant, located in the centre of Cape Breton's largest city. The Sydney tar ponds are the size of three city blocks. The steel plant's 80 year reliance on coke-ovens technology is the culprit. In the process of turning coal into coke, benzene, kerosene, napthalene, lead, and arsenic, a dog's breakfast of hundreds of thousands of tons of chemical waste, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), were dumped into a local estuary, Muggah Creek. The creek, which leads to Sydney Harbour, received, and continues to receive, millions of litres of raw sewage each day. That this is an environmental disaster is obvious; that it is simultaneously a class issue is not. --Author's introduction

The article reviews the book, "The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions," edited by Anthony Carew, Michel Dreyfus, Geert Van Goethem, Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick, and Marcel Van Der Linden.