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The article reviews the book, "Power from the North: Territory, Identity, and the Culture ofHydroelectricityin Quebec," by Caroline Desbiens.

The authors show that the decline in the relative wages of immigrants in Canada is far from homogeneous across the wage distribution. The well-documented decline in the mean wage gap between immigrants and Canadian-born workers hides a much larger decline at the low end of the wage distribution, while the gap hardly changed at the top end of the distribution. Using standard OLS regressions and unconditional quantile regressions, the authors show that both the changes in the mean wage gap and in the gap at different quantiles are well explained by standard factors such as experience, education, and country of origin of immigrants. Interestingly, an important source of change in the wages of immigrants relative to the Canadian born is the aging of the baby boom generation, which has resulted in a relative increase in the labor market experience, and thus in the wages, of Canadian-born workers relative to immigrants.

Review of: Initiation à la négociation collective (2nd edition) by Pierre-Luc Bilodeau et Jean Sexton.

This article examines the period leading up to the establishment of the Schefferville iron mine in subarctic Québec, Canada, with a focus on the years 1937–54. The beginning of iron ore mining at Schefferville was a decisive moment in the growth of the modern Québec state, opening the way for the industrial exploitation of the province’s natural resources – mineral and otherwise – in the hinterland. Relying on oral and written sources, the research emphasizes the roles and actions of Innu individuals during this phase of development conducted by exploration companies and the Iron Ore Company of Canada at the heart of their ancestral homeland. If the early mining experience at Schefferville evolved largely to the detriment of the Indigenous communities inhabiting the region, a decentring approach to ethnohistory in the context of industrial colonialism reveals that the Innu also worked to determine their own engagement with the mining world, adjusting and maintaining their practices on the land while participating in the wage labour economy.

"Depicts...[the] labour environment at Louisiana State University and a stark difference in resolve between US and Canadian academic librarians with respect to unionization.." -- Editors' introduction.

The article reviews the book, "The Wages of Relief: Cities and the Unemployed in Prairie Canada, 1929-39," by Eric Strikwerda.

This report documents how the growth of unions from the First World War to the mid 1970’s helped create a shared prosperity or “middle class” in Canada, which has been steadily shrinking with the rise of corporate power and the erosion of unions since the late 1970’s. It provides compelling empirical validation of the crucial role unions played in redistributing income from capital to labour (profits to wages) and from the upper to the lower parts of the income hierarchy. The report examines ways union renewal can play a crucial role in restoring middle class security and mass prosperity in Canada. The Rand Formula is a formula dating back to 1946 when a decision was made during an arbitration hearing by Justice Ivan Rand that union dues would be paid by all employees benefitting from the collective agreement, not just signed union members. This means the employer deducts the dues from all employee paychecks and then forwards those funds to the union. The Rand Formula prevents employees from benefitting from the work of the union, while not paying union dues.

"[C]onducts a wide empirical study of Canadian employment data in search of any evidence that higher minimum wages reduce employment or increase unemployment. The authors examine the relationship between minimum wages and employment in all ten Canadian provinces betwenn 1983 and 2012, finding no consistent evidence that minimum wage levels affect emoployment in either direction. Instead, their research concludes that employments levels are overwhelmingly determined by larger macroeconomic factors." --CCPA Monitor, Nov. 2014

The article discusses the 1968 United Federation of Teachers (UFT) strike in New York City public schools in relation to the community control movement in New York City schools. Topics include UFT leader Albert Shanker's fears of anti-Semitism among New York City blacks who supported community control, educational innovations by black and Puerto Rican activists, and the impact of teacher professionalization on parent-teacher relations.

The article examines two internal union strategies for improving equality bargaining. The first, representational democracy (RD), highlights the demographic profile of women’s participation in collective bargaining (CB). The discussion presents the existing, albeit imperfect, data on women’s participation. It supports the continuing importance of the gender profiles of negotiators, but also considers the limits of RD via an exploration of essentialism, critical mass and gender composition. It concludes that RD is a limited proxy for voice, and, given the individualism inherent in its claims, an imperfect vehicle for collective agency. The paper then develops the concept of representational justice (RJ), which speaks to collective mechanisms which ensure that women’s interests are represented; in effect, a move from individual equality champions to vehicles for championing equality. As one means to such an end, the article argues for building formal and constitutionalized links between CB and union equality structures. Highlighting internal union strategies to support equality bargaining complements the widespread focus on the substantive issues on the bargaining agenda and takes the discussion of equality bargaining in new directions. Certainly, this approach underscores the importance of unions linking struggles around diversity, equality and representation inside unions to the CB process and agenda.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Selling Sex: Experience, Advocacy, and Research on Sex Work in Canada," edited by Emily van der Meulen, Elya M. Durisin, and Victoria Love; "Sex Work: Rethinking the Job, Respecting the Workers," by Colette Parent, Chris Bruckert, Patrice Corriveau, Maria Nengeh Mensah, and Louise Toupin; and "From Bleeding Hearts to Critical Thinking: Exploring the Issue of Human Trafficking," edited by Kamala Kempadoo and Darja Davydova.

Introduces 10 papers given at a roundtable, entitled History Under Harper, that was convened by the Canadian history and political science associations. Takes note of the royalist and militarist overtones of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's efforts to shape Canadian national identity, such as the unprecedented anniversary celebration of the War of 1812, as well as the Conservative government's decision to conduct a thorough review of the teaching of history in primary and postsecondary institutions.

Across countries, union membership and voter turnout are highly correlated. In unadjusted terms union members maintain a roughly 0.10 to 0.12 point gap in voting propensity over non-members. We propose a model -- with three causal channels -- that explains this correlation and then empirically tests for the contribution of each channel to the overall union voting gap. The first channel through which union members are more likely to vote is through the so-called "monopoly face" of unionism whereby unions increase wages for members and higher incomes are a significant positive determinant of voting. The second is the "social custom" model of unionism whereby co-worker peer pressure creates incentives for union members to vote alongside fellow members. The third channel is based on the "voice face" of unionism whereby employees who are (or have been) exposed to collective bargaining and union representation at the workplace are also more likely to increase their attachment to democratic engagement in society at large. We test to see how much of the raw "union voting gap" is accounted for by these three competing channels using data from 29 European countries. We find that all three channels are at work, with the voice accounting for half of the overall gap and the other two channels (monopoly face and social custom) each accounting for approximately a quarter of the overall union voting gap.

"[D]iscusses the issues of gender and status at Carleton University in the broader context of the pursuit of equity in Ontario during the 1960s and 1970s." -- Editors' introduction.

This article reviews the book, "Wrestling with Democracy: Voting Systems as Politics in the Twentieth-Century West," by Dennis Pilon.

The article reviews the book, "Progressive Education: Revisioning and Reframing Ontario's Public Schools, 1919-1942," by Theodore Michael Christou.

This article reviews the book, "Writing Unemployment: Worklessness, Mobility, and Citizenship in Twentieth-Century Canadian Literatures," by Jody Mason.

Licenciements, restructurations et fermetures d’usines demeurent, dans le présent contexte de crise économique, au coeur de l’actualité. Cet environnement turbulent a des conséquences sur l’emploi local. C’est dans ce récent contexte de crise, menaçant l’emploi et les entreprises, que certaines organisations se sont emparées d’un dispositif de gestion des ressources humaines innovant : la mise à disposition de salariés (MAD). Ce dispositif vise à sauvegarder l’emploi local ainsi qu’à accroître le panel de compétences des salariés en bénéficiant. Il implique diverses organisations ayant pour but principal d’éviter les licenciements et de favoriser l’acquisition de nouvelles compétences pour les salariés y participant. Le prêt de main-d’oeuvre suppose que l’entreprise prêteuse ne facture à l’entreprise utilisatrice que la stricte valeur des salaires versés au salarié pendant la mise à disposition, des charges sociales afférentes, ainsi que, s’il y a lieu, des frais professionnels remboursés à l’intéressé au titre de la mise à disposition. Il s’agit d’un dispositif d’entraide à but non lucratif, généralement privilégié lorsque les entreprises ont des relations de proximité : géographique, dès lors que les acteurs sont localisés sur un même espace, mais aussi socio-économique, dès lors que les acteurs développent des relations. Trois pôles de compétitivité Rhône-Alpin ont été étudiés, dans lesquels l’utilisation de prêt de main-d’oeuvre entre organisations privées et centre de recherche public a été mise à profit. La grille de lecture utilisée correspond à la démarche analytique de l’économie de la proximité (Bouba-Olga et Grossetti, 2008). Nous nous attachons à répondre à la problématique suivante : dans quelles conditions la proximité permet-elle de construire des formules innovantes de GRH inter-organisationnelles, telles que le prêt de main-d’oeuvre ? Les résultats montrent que la proximité, qu’elle soit géographique ou socio-économique, permet de construire des dispositifs de GRH inter-organisationnelle innovants tels que la mise à disposition de salariés.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Raising the Workers’ Flag: The Workers’ Unity League of Canada, 1930–1936," by Stephen Endicott; "Labour Goes to War: The CIO and the Construction of a New Social Order, 1939–1945," by Wendy Cuthbertson; "Our Union: UAW/CAW Local 27 from 1950 to 1990," by Jason Russell; and "Union Power: Solidarity and Struggle in Niagara," by Carmela Patrias and Larry Savage.

This paper describes a case study of a particular form of knowledge worker, lawyers and their efforts to achieve collective bargaining. Within self-regulated professions like law, the professional regulatory body controls much of the labour process and defines the body of professional knowledge. Apprenticeships, such as clinical locums in medicine and articles in law, play an important role in the transfer of labour process norms. However, more and more professionals seek employment in large organizations where the autonomy historically enjoyed by the self-employed worker and crafted in the confines of mentorships is increasingly subject to bureaucratic and administrative controls. In large employment settings rules and policies may interfere with workers' exercise of professional discretion and full utilization of their knowledge. The result of the erosion of traditional labour process power under bureaucratic forms of organization leads professionals to seek alternate forms of control. Many turn to collective bargaining as a means to wrest back control over the application of discretionary judgment from large, often public sector, employers.