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The article reviews the book, "New Labor History: Worker Identity and Experience in Russia, 1840-1918," edited by Michael Melancon and Alice K. Pate.

Drawing on the literature as well as themes emerging from interview data collected as part of a multi-year, three-province (Alberta, Nova Scotia and British Columbia), qualitative study (eighty-three semi-structured interviews) of the restructured social services sector in Canada, this article explores discernible types of caring work delineating seven kinds, only one of which is paid. The social service workers' description of their changing worlds show not only extremely heavy workloads but also that their paid, volunteer, community, and union activist work involve many of the same skills, tasks and mind sets, thus blurring the lines between professional and non-professional identities as well as the lines between work and leisure. Moreover, this work was highly gendered and significantly racialized.

[D]ocuments the application of pro-active pay equity legislation to the private sector of the Canadian province of Ontario in the early 1990s. We report substantial lapses in compliance among smaller firms where the majority of men and women work. We also find that the pay equity law had no effect on aggregate wages in female jobs or on the gender wage gap. This experience provides unique perspectives on (1) the tensions between the workings of a decentralized labour market and the principles of comparable worth and (2) the obstacles to its extension to the private sector.

The article reviews the book, "Taking Stands: Gender and the Sustainability of Rural Communities," by Maureen G. Reed.

The book, "Worked Over: The Corporate Sabotage of an American Community," by Dimitra Doukas, is reviewed.

The article reviews the book, "Taxing Illusions: Taxation, Democracy and Embedded Political Theory," by Phillip Hansen.

The BC Labour Heritage Centre Society was founded in 2004 with JJ (Jack) Munro as Chair. The Society preserves, documents and presents the rich history of working people in British Columbia. The Society engages in partnerships and projects that help define and express the role that work and workers have played in the evolution of social policy and its impact on the present and future shaping of the province. --Website "About" page.

Inspirés par les explications « pull » et « push » de la résurgence du travail autonome dans les années 1980 et 1990, nous proposons un modèle inédit de l’entrée dans le travail autonome et une évaluation de sa pertinence à partir des résultats d’une enquête originale via l’Internet auprès de 748 travailleurs autonomes québécois. La principale hypothèse de notre modèle propose que le passage au travail autonome découle le plus souvent d’une décision motivée à la fois par des aspirations personnelles et professionnelles spécifiques et par des conditions d’emploi précaires ou insatisfaisantes. Les résultats de notre étude exploratoire confirment la pertinence de notre hypothèse quant à l’influence combinée des facteurs « push » et « pull » sur la décision d’entrer dans le travail autonome. Elle révèle néanmoins des différences significatives entre les déterminants des décisions des hommes et des femmes.

The article reviews the book, "Silicon Valley, Women, and the California Dream: Gender, Class, and Opportunity in the Twentieth Century," by Glenna Matthews.

The article reviews the book, "La relation de service : opportunités et questions nouvelles pour l’ergonomie," edited by François Hubault.

The article reviews the book, "La convention collective au Québec," by Gérard Hébert, Reynald Bourque, Anthony Giles, Michel Grant, Patrice Jalette, Gilles Trudeau and Guylaine Vallée.

In Common and Contested Ground, Theodore Binnema provides a sweeping and innovative interpretation of the history of the northwestern plains and its peoples from prehistoric times to the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The real history of the northwestern plains between a.d. 200 and 1806 was far more complex, nuanced, and paradoxical than often imagined. Drawn by vast herds of buffalo and abundant resources, bands of Indians, fur traders, and settlers moved across the northwestern plains establishing intricate patterns of trade, diplomacy, and warfare. In the process, the northwestern plains became a common and contested ground. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Binnema examines the impact of technology on the peoples of the northern plains, beginning with the bow-and-arrow and continuing through the arrival of the horse, European weapons, Old World diseases, and Euroamerican traders. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Jacques-Victor Morin: Syndicaliste et Educateur Populaire," by Matieu Denis.

The article reviews the book, "Le pouvoir de négocier. S’affronter sans violence : l’espace gagnant-gagnant en négociation," by François Delivré.

This study explores the ways in which spatial configurations have shaped the use of contractors in the export coalfields of Queensland (Australia) and western Canada since the late 1960s. It is argued that the divergent employer strategies pursued after 1996 - whereby Queensland producers dramatically increased their use of contractors while their Canadian counterparts did not-reflects their different spatial placement within the global coal trade. In Canada, the main problem was locational disadvantage due to distance from deep-water. In consequence, employers responded to falling prices by concentrating production in the area of greatest locational advantage. For Queensland producers, the issue was high mine-site labour costs. In this context, using contractors was part of a strategy to transform labour relations through the Workplace Relations Act.

The article reviews the book, "Rebellious Families: Household Strategies and Collective Action in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries," edited by Jan Kok.

This innovative book is concerned with the power relations, complexities, and contradictions in the paid workplace. Workplace learning is not value-free or politically neutral, and cannot be studied independently of the political economy of work. [This book] is part of a growing body of work that offers an alternative to mainstream approaches to workplace learning, recognizing that power relations, politics and conflicts of interest all shape learning. The authors emphasize the lived experiences of working people, avoiding prescriptive accounts and uncritical Human Resource Development views. --Publisher's description. Contents: 1. Introduction -- 2. Management strategies and workplace learning -- 3. Groups, teams and workplace learning -- 4. Organizational learning and learning organizations -- 5. Unions and workplace learning -- 6. Adult education, learning and work -- 7. Toward the future of workplace learning. Includes bibliographical references (p. [181]-194) and index.

[Excerpt] In this chapter we seek to answer the following questions: Why has it been so difficult for unions to turn the organizing efforts and initiatives of the last six years into any significant gains in union density? Why have a small number of unions been able to make major gains through organizing? And most importantly, which organizing strategies will be most effective in reversing the tide of the labor movement's organizing decline? What our findings will show is that while the political, legal, and economic climate for organizing continues to deteriorate, and private sector employers continue to mount aggressive opposition to organizing efforts, some unions are winning. Our findings also show that the unions that are most successful at organizing run fundamentally different campaigns, in both quality and intensity, than those that are less successful, and that those differences hold true across a wide range of organizing environments, company characteristics, bargaining unit demographics, and employer campaign variables.

This is a study of horizontal and vertical solidarity within a national labour movement, based on a nationwide survey of members of affiliated unions of the Congress of South African Trade Unions. On the one hand, the survey reveals relatively high levels of vertical and horizontal solidarity, despite the persistence of some cleavages on gender and racial lines. On the other hand, the maintenance and deepening of existing horizontal and vertical linkages in a rapidly changing socio-economic context, represents one of many challenges facing organized labour in an industrializing economy. COSATU's strength is contingent not only on an effective organizational capacity, and a supportive network linking key actors and interest groupings, but also on the ability to meet the concerns of existing constituencies and those assigned to highly marginalized categories of labour.