Search

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.

Rebellious youth, the Cold War, New Left radicalism, Pierre Trudeau, Red Power, Quebec's call for Revolution, Marshall McLuhan: these are just some of the major forces and figures that come to mind at the slightest mention of the 1960s in Canada. Focusing on the major movements and personalities of the time, as well as the lasting influence of the period, Canada's 1960s examines the legacy of this rebellious decade's impact on contemporary notions of Canadian identity. Bryan D. Palmer demonstrates how after massive postwar immigration, new political movements, and at times violent protest, Canada could no longer be viewed in the old ways. National identity, long rooted in notions of Canada as a white settler Dominion of the North, marked profoundly by its origins as part of the British Empire, had become unsettled. Concerned with how Canadians entered the Sixties relatively secure in their national identities, Palmer explores the forces that contributed to the post-1970 uncertainty about what it is to be Canadian. Tracing the significance of dissent and upheaval among youth, trade unionists, university students, Native peoples, and Quebecois, Palmer shows how the Sixties ended the entrenched, nineteenth-century notions of Canada. The irony of this rebellious era, however, was that while it promised so much in the way of change, it failed to provide a new understanding of Canadian national identity. A compelling and highly accessible work of interpretive history, Canada's 1960s is the book of the decade about an era many regard as the most turbulent and significant since the years of the Great Depression and World War II. --Publisher's description

This exploratory study examines union-civil alliances in New Zealand (NZ). It focuses on the involvement of NZ’s peak union body, the Council of Trade Unions, in three civil group coalitions around the Living Wage Campaign, Decent Work Agenda and Environmental Agenda. It assesses how the CTU and its affiliates’ coalition involvement are informed by and seek to progress liberal (representative), participatory and/or more radical democratic principles, and what this means for organizational practice; the relations between the coalition parties; workplaces; and beyond. Through case discussions, the study finds that civil alliances involving the CTU and its affiliates do not reflect a core trait of union activity in NZ. Among the union-civil alliances that do exist, there is a prevailing sense of their utility to progress shared interests alongside, and on the union side, a more instrumental aim to encourage union revival. However, the alliances under examination reflect an engagement with various liberal and participatory democratic arrangements at different organizational levels. More radical democratic tendencies emerge in relation to ad hoc elements of activity and the aspirational goals of such coalitions as opposed to their usual processes and institutional configurations. In essence, what emerges is a labour centre and movement which, on the one hand, is in a survivalist mode primarily concerned with economistic matters, and on the other, in a position of relative political and bargaining weakness, reaching out to other civil groups where it can so as to challenge the neo-liberal hegemony. Based on our findings, we conclude that Laclau and Mouffe’s (2001) view of radical democracy holds promise for subsequent coalitions involving the CTU, particularly in the context of NZ workers’ diverse interests and the plurality of other civil groups and social movements’ interests. This view concerns on-going agency, change, organizing and strategy by coalitions to build inclusive (counter-) hegemony, arguing for a politic from below that challenges existing dominant neo-liberal assumptions in work and other spheres of life.

Focusing on the Niagara region, this study explains the continued adherence of thousands of Canadian workers to communist-led unions during the Cold War era. It argues that co-operation between communist-led unions and communist-led ethnic clubs and other political and social activists in the pursuit of human rights, social justice, and environmental goals explains why thousands of workers continued to adhere to such unions despite intense red-baiting in the 1940s and 1950s. Reaching out to allies beyond the workplace in solidarity unionism was especially important because of the marginalization of communist-led unions within the Canadian labour movement. The study’s findings reinforce the view that local economic and political conditions played a significant role in shaping communist-led unions in Canada. The study also highlights the contribution of interethnic collaboration among immigrant workers to the development of the Canadian labour movement.

This article explores the labour history of the Maine–New Brunswick sardine herring fishery. It looks specifically at the impact of the 1920–21 recession on weir fishermen who provided juvenile herring fish for the Maine canneries. The article argues that Maine canneries successfully formed a buyers’ trust, which was a widely accepted form of business integration among government and business leaders during the 1920s, and used that trust to break the independence of weir fishermen. The trust used its power to devalue the market price of herring fish and take control of the supply and production of fish, which forced the fishermen into a dependent class. The article thus sheds light on the impact of recessions and recession recoveries on labourers by illustrating the ill effects of market concentration, which is an economic norm following recessions.

This article examines how the dormitory labour system as it is employed in the agricultural streams of Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) affects workers' everyday sociality. In the article, I demonstrate how the physical compression of home and work into a singular geographic site shapes workers' identities and everyday relationships. Drawing on findings gathered from interviews with migrant farm workers from Mexico and Guatemala working in Southern Ontario, I explore how the requirement to warehouse temporary foreign workers directly on employer property collides with workers' ability to establish an autonomous and dignified life in Canada. In particular, I demonstrate how the TFWP agricultural dormitory system produces inter-generational dynamics that intensify worker self-discipline and generates gender dynamics that support the development of a hyper-productive transnational workforce.

The article reviews the book, "Revisiting the Law and Governance of Trafficking, Forced Labor and Modern Slavery," edited by Prabha Kotiswaran.

La littérature en GRH a longuement discuté les évolutions intervenues dans le champ des carrières en opposant le modèle classique de la carrière organisationnelle au modèle de la carrière nomade, censé répondre au nouveau contrat psychologique qui lie les travailleurs aux organisations du XXIe siècle. Désormais, il s’agirait pour les gestionnaires RH d’attirer des talents dont ils savent que le passage dans l’organisation sera limité dans le temps. Le développement sans précédent des formes de travail au projet, à mi-chemin entre l’emploi salarié et le statut d’indépendant, semble donner raison à cette conception « moderne » de la carrière. Toutefois, une observation plus fine des évolutions en cours sur le marché du travail montre que les carrières des travailleurs au projet ne sont pas seulement le fruit des initiatives individuelles de travailleurs offrant leurs talents sur le marché. Elles passent souvent par des structures d’intermédiation qui, en offrant diverses formules de sécurisation, deviennent des partenaires incontournables de la gestion des trajectoires professionnelles. À partir d’un travail conceptuel sur la notion d’intermédiaire du marché du travail et sur la base de multiples études de cas contrastées sur le marché du travail belge, notre article montre la diversité des formes que peut prendre ce travail d’intermédiation et dégage deux « types idéaux » reflétant des conceptions opposées de la sécurisation des transitions professionnelles : la première considère les travailleurs au projet comme des « quasi-salariés »; la seconde comme des « quasi-indépendants ». Nous montrons, ensuite, en quoi ce jeu triangulaire conduit à une remise en cause de la gestion des carrières en tant qu’attribut régalien de la fonction RH.