Your search

Why have Americans, who by a clear majority approve of unions, been joining them in smaller numbers than ever before? This book answers that question by comparing the American experience with that of Canada, where approval for unions is significantly lower than in the United States, but where since the mid-1960s workers have joined organized labor to a much greater extent. Given that the two countries are outwardly so similar, what explains this paradox? This book provides a detailed comparative analysis of both countries using, among other things, a detailed survey conducted in the United States and Canada by the Ipsos-Reid polling group. The authors explain that the relative reluctance of employees in the United States to join unions, compared with those in Canada, is rooted less in their attitudes toward unions than in the former country's deep-seated tradition of individualism and laissez-faire economic values. Canada has a more statist, social democratic tradition, which is in turn attributable to its Tory and European conservative lineage. Canadian values are therefore more supportive of unionism, making unions more powerful and thus, paradoxically, lowering public approval of unions. Public approval is higher in the United States, where unions exert less of an influence over politics and the economy. --Publisher's description

This book offers an original contribution to understanding an often-ignored aspect of our knowledge society and the much-heralded ‘knowledge-based economy.’ It decisively explodes the dual myths that working-class adults have inferior learning capacities and that talented youths naturally leave blue-collar careers. Livingstone and Sawchuk document the genuine learning practices of working-class people in unprecedented detail, using richly textured accounts of prior school experiences; current adult education course participation; and a wide array of learning resources in paid workplaces, households, and community settings. The authors criticize dominant theories of learning and work and develop an alternative explanation of working-class adult learning. Their analysis, grounded in the specific practices of everyday life, pays careful attention to the ways in which differential economic power, labor processes, sectoral contexts, union cultures, and access to organized educational resources shape individual and collective learning activities. The book also provides a reflective discussion of research processes suitable for democratic knowledge production in partnership with workers and their organizations, as well as workers' own practical recommendations for changes in learning and work relations. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction: Dimensions of learning and work in the knowledge society -- Pt. 1. Researching learning and work. Starting with Workers and Researching the "Hard Way" / with D'Arcy Martin -- Beyond cultural capital theories: Hidden dimensions of working-class learning. Pt. 2. Case studies.  Auto workers: Lean manufacturing and rich learning / with Reuben Roth -- Building a workers' learning Culture in the Chemical Industry -- Learning, Restructuring and job segregation at a community college -- Divisions of labour / Divisions of learning in a small parts manufacturer -- Garment workers: learning under disruption / with Clara Morgan. Pt. 3. Comparative perspectives across case studies. Household and community-based learning: Learning cultures and class differences beyond paid work -- Surfacing the hidden dimension of the knowledge society: the struggle for knowledge across differences. Includes bibliographical references (p. [299]-309) and index.

The article reviews the book, "Kill and Chill: Restructuring Canada's Beef Commodity Chain," by Ian MacLachlan.

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.]

The article reviews the book, "Making Native Space: Colonialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British Columbia," by Cole Harris.

The Chinese have constituted the largest immigrant group entering Canada since 1987. This paper focuses on the paid work experience of Chinese immigrant women from Hong Kong and Mainland China who were highly educated, skilled professionals in their home country. It demonstrates that these immigrant women are being deskilled in Canada and this deskilling is complicated by the contradictory processes of globalization and economic restructuring, with its polarizing effects along axis of gender, race, ethnicity, class and citizenship. Gendered and racialized institutional processes in the form of state policies and practices, professional accreditation systems, employers' requirement for “Canadian experience” and labor market conditions marginalize Chinese immigrant women. As a result, they are being channeled into menial, part-time, insecure positions or becoming unemployed. In order for Chinese immigrant women to become equal and active participants in Canadian society the provision of inclusive programs and policies is necessary.

The article reviews the book, "The Making of a Policeman: A Social History of a Labour Force in Metropolitan London, 1829-1914," by Haia Shpayer-Makov.

The article reviews the book, "A Poetics of Social Work: Personal Agency and Social Transformation in Canada, 1920-1939," by Ken Moffatt.

The article reviews the book, "Unequal Freedom: How Race and Gender Shaped American Citizenship and Labor," by Evelyn Nakano Glenn.

The article reviews the book, "Labour before the Law: The Regulation of Workers' Collective Action in Canada, 1900-1948," by Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker.

The article reviews the book, "The Politics of Whiteness: Race, Workers, and Culture in the Modern South," by Michelle Brattain.

The article reviews the book, "State Work: Public Administration and Mass Intellectuality," by Stefano Harney.

The article reviews the book, "Values at Work: Employee Participation Meets Market Pressure at Mondragon," by George Cheney.

The article reviews the book, "La santé des femmes au travail en Europe : des inégalités non reconnues," by Laurent Vogel.

In the fall and winter of 1919-1920, in response to vigorous lobbying by A.J. Andrews and others on behalf of the Citizens’ Committee of 1000, the Canadian state, through Orders in Council in 1919 and 1920, became the paymaster for a private prosecution of the Winnipeg strike leadership charged at the end of the strike with seditious conspiracy. The prosecution was initiated under provisions of the Criminal Code that allowed for prosecutions by private citizens or organizations, subject to the consent of the Attorney General of Manitoba. The federal government paid Alfred J. Andrews and his associates in the Citizens’ Committee fees for services rendered during the strike, when, as leading figures in the Committee, they led the campaign against Winnipeg’s working-class revolt. The Department of Justice also paid $12,332.00 to the Winnipeg based McDonald Detective Agency for work associated with the prosecution. This federal largesse allowed Andrews to secure two juries almost certainly tainted by pre-trial investigations ordered by Andrews. The unity of purpose forged by Winnipeg’s business elite and the federal state illuminates the tendency of the liberal state and capital to forge a common front against perceived threats to the status quo in moments of extremis.

The article reviews the book, "La mondialisation et ses ennemis," by Daniel Cohen.

The article reviews the book, "Réfléchir la compétence : approches sociologiques, juridiques, économiques d’une pratique gestionnaire," edited by Arnaud Dupray, Christophe Guitton and Sylvie Monchatre.

Behind the recent emergence of of "whiteness" as a prevalent category of scholarly analysis lies the story of two intertwined intellectual traditions and their belated acceptance in the American academy. One of these traditions is antiracist Marxism; the other is the black antiracist tradition. Both have commented on white identity and white racism in ways that presage the insights of the explosion of whiteness studies that followed David Roediger's key text, "The Wages of Whiteness." In this essay, I will provide a brief overview of the two aforementioned traditions before proceeding to evaluate the post-"Wages" scholarship. Hopefully, my discussion will contextualize the whiteness phenomenon by pointing to its roots. I also hope to demonstrate that although some of the whiteness scholarship is less than perspicacious, the work of Roediger et al. constitutes a meaningful intervention into the historiography of race in American history. Finally, my intent here is to build upon and respond to Eric Arnesen's helpful survey of the whiteness field. --From author's introduction

Editorial introduction to the theme of the issue.

The article reviews the book, "The Color of Work: The Struggle for Civil Rights in the Southern Paper Industry, 1945-1980," by Timothy J. Minchin.