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During the early 1920s the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) established a significant presence in industrial Cape Breton, based on support from the militant minority of the district's unusually combative coal mining union, UMWA District 26, and its charismatic Secretary-Treasurer James Bryson McLachlan. The latter's early recruitment was centrally important in forging what would become enduring political links with rank-and-file militants; it was largely thanks to McLachlan that, through all the ebb and flow of social context and human agency, the party survived the vicissitudes of deteriorating structural conditions and its own tactical blunders (most notably during the ‘third period’), to emerge in the mid-130s with genuinely optimistic prospects. The Scot did not always lead his forces well: like many revolutionary contemporaries his bolshevik temperament was ill-suited to defensive struggle. He nevertheless perceived, and to a limited extent acted upon, the need to construct a defensive communist counter-culture within the struggle for workers' power in the community and the workplace. The embodiment of bolshevik intransigence, McLachlan offered a fixed rallying-point for ‘class fighters,’ especially those who shared his internationalist perspective. Having drawn a new layer of younger militants towards him in 1934-35—and having seen off the CCF in the process—McLachlan could claim to have placed the CPC in its strongest position for a decade.

The article reviews the book, "Interdisciplinary Approaches to Canadian Society: A Guide to the Literature," edited by Alan F. J. Artibise.

The article reviews the book, "Hanging By A Thread: Social Change In Southern Textiles," by Jeffrey Leiter et al.

Some companies use the 2-tier compensation structure. This approach places new employees on pay scales which are lower than the pay scales of employees hired before the tiers were in place. These pay structures have been controversial because they violate a basic union tenet: equal pay for equal work. A recent study examined both the main and the interaction effects of knowledge of the pay structure and social and self-pay referents on pay attitudes in a setting with wage and job-duty tiers. Knowledge of the pay structure when hired and expected pay were among the most important predictors of pay fairness and pay satisfaction. The significant interaction effects found across tier levels indicated pay knowledge had a differential impact on pay attitudes. The interaction effects, however, did not support the assumption that the reason attitudes differ among employees on various tier levels is that they use different referents.

It is often asserted that unions must bargain over employment if efficient contracts are to be achieved. However, efficient outcomes can be reached and supported if the average rate of compensation paid to labor decreases with employment. It is argued that common fringe benefit and layoff and recall provisions should make the average cost of compensation decline with employment. This implies that most firms and unions can reach and support efficient outcomes even though the union negotiates only wages and fringes, and the employer chooses employment unilaterally. Thus, the distinction between monopoly models and efficient bargain models of union-firm interaction is not as relevant an empirical issue as previously believed.

The article reviews the book, "Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe," by Steven A. Epstein .

The article reviews the book, "The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism," by Gösta Esping-Andersen.

Unemployment is once again a pernicious and growing fact of life in Canada. Stephen McBride rejects economic interpretations of the return of high unemployment after decades in which Canada enjoyed almost full employment. He argues that the phenomenon can best be understood as the product of a political choice by policy makers - a choice which can plausibly be linked to the preferences and growing power of Canadian business in the post-1975 period. This argument is based on an evaluation of the implications of the monetarist economic paradigm whose influence in the late 1970s, a comparative survey of the policy strategies followed in other countries and the employment outcomes associated with them, and a systematic examination of Canadian public policy in the macroeconomic, labour market, unemployment insurance, and industrial relations areas. McBride's analysis reveals the state's increasing emphasis on addressing the accumulation demands of capital and decreasing emphasis on the provision of concrete benefits (such as full employment and social services) to citizens. Much state activity can be understood as an attempt to legitimate by ideological change the means the change in the state's priorities and the shifting balance of benefits conferred by public policy. Thus the Canadian state has played an important role in managing the return to a high unemployment regime. --Publisher's description

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill Word," by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, James Leloudis, Robert Korstad, Mary Murphy, LuAnn Jones, and Christopher Daly, and "Habits of Industry: White Culture and the Transformation of the Carolina Piedmont," by Allen Tullos.

The article reviews the book, "Vancouver's Chinatown: Racial Discourse in Canada, 1875-1980," by Kay J. Anderson.

The article reviews the book, "A Fool for Christ: The Political Thought of J. S. Woodsworth," by Allen Mills.

The article reviews the book, "Workers and the State in Twentieth Century Nova Scotia," edited by Michael Earle.

The article reviews the book, "Comprendre et prévenir le burnout," by Claude Gervais.

The article reviews the book, "La sélection du personnel: pour trouver l'excellence," by Denis Boucher and Christian Doyon.

The article reviews the book, "Les besoins de formation en management: principes et méthodes de diagnostic," by Milan Kubr and Joseph Prokopenko.

The article reviews the book, "Sachez évaluer votre personnel: le chemin de la réussite," by Denis Boucher and Christian Doyon.

The article reviews the book, "Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920," by Ted Ownby.

Introduces and provides background on the letter written on Feb. 21, 1939, from Victor Midgley in New Zealand to his friend and fellow socialist, Angus MacInnis, in Vancouver. Midgley, who was formerly a prominent member of the BC labour movement and the CCF, gives his assessment of union and political affairs in New Zealand, where a Labour government was then in power. The opening page of the handwritten letter is reproduced.

Cet article examine l'implication sociale et politique d'un groupe de ménagères de la classe ouvrière au cours du vingtième siècle. Dès leur formation en 1905, jusque dans les années trente, les locaux canadiens de la Ligue auxiliaire de l'Association internationale des machinistes ont promu des activités de nature familiale au sein du mouvement ouvrier et syndical. Ils ont également offert à leurs membres un centre d'éducation et d'action politique important. Après la deuxième guerre mondiale cependant, alors que les membres de la Ligue continuent de s'impliquer publiquement au sein de leurs communautés, elles expriment un sentiment d'appartenance au mouvement syndical et ouvrier nettement plus ambigu. L'évolution de la Ligue est examiné à la lumière des changements structurels qui affectent le mouvement syndical au cours des années trente et quarante.

The article reviews the book, "European Centre for Work and Society," edited by George Spyropoulos and Gabriel Fragnière.