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Award-winning author Gregory S. Kealey's study of Canada's security and intelligence community before the end of World War II depicts a nation caught up in the Red Scare in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution and tangled up with the imperial interests of first the United Kingdom and then the United States. Spying on Canadians brings together over twenty five years of research and writing about political policing in Canada. Through its use of the Dominion Police and later the RCMP, Canada repressed the labour movement and the political left in defense of capital. The collection focuses on three themes; the nineteenth-century roots of political policing in Canada, the development of a national security system in the twentieth-century, and the ongoing challenges associated with research in this area owing to state secrecy and the inadequacies of access to information legislation. This timely collection alerts all Canadians to the need for the vigilant defense of civil liberties and human rights in the face of the ever increasing intrusion of the state into our private lives in the name of countersubversion and counterterrorism. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Animals, Work, and the Promise of Interspecies Solidarity," by Kendra Coulter.

This paper engages with workers’ accounts of a strike in Northern Ontario, Canada to consider the processes through which intra-union tensions develop and to examine their implications for member involvement and mobilization.

[This thesis] is an analysis of the role women played in the social, political, and labouring sphere at the Canadian Lakehead (comprised of the twin cities of Port Arthur and Fort William, Ontario – present day Thunder Bay) during the early twentieth century. Through an analysis of the involvement of women in the workforce, strikes, and political organizations, it contends that a parallel narrative of female involvement in the Lakehead’s labouring history exists between 1903 and 1918. During this period, women were involved in advocating for, and giving a voice to, both themselves and their sex in a largely male dominated area and era of influence.

This article reviews the book, "A Future Without Hate or Need: The Promise of the Jewish Left in Canada," by Ester Reiter.

This paper seeks to capture how unions are perceived by young workers in Portugal and to identify different types of perceptions. Our analysis considers both structural factors and subjective experiences and is based on semi-structured interviews with young people working in sectors with a high concentration of youth employment. The fact that young workers are increasingly exposed to the pressures of unemployment and precarious work might suggest that there is homogeneity in their perceptions about trade unions and collective action. However, our results show that young workers’ perceptions are not homogenous and that they interconnect with distinct segments, characterized by different socio-economic conditions, as defined by family status, education level and position in the labour market. Three types of perceptions were identified by content analysis of the interviews: positive, negative and critical perceptions. A final segment of younger and less-skilled workers, of families with low educational and economic resources and having left school prematurely, have neither information nor any understanding about unions. Our findings support the thesis that diversity of educational and early labour market experiences, which characterize transition processes to adulthood, shape the relation between young workers and unions, in particular the motivation to join unions. Capturing the diversity of young workers experiences and perceptions is a challenge to industrial relations research, as well as to trade unionism. It can provide unions with important insights into how to adapt their strategies to recruit new young members and to mobilize the latent interests of young workers in collective action.

Many studies have concluded that the effects of early industrialization on traditional craftsworkers were largely negative. Robert B. Kristofferson demonstrates, however, that in at least one area this was not the case. Craft Capitalism focuses on Hamilton, Ontario, and demonstrates how the preservation of traditional work arrangements, craft mobility networks, and other aspects of craft culture ensured that craftsworkers in that city enjoyed an essentially positive introduction to industrial capitalism. Kristofferson argues that, as former craftsworkers themselves, the majority of the city's industrial proprietors helped their younger counterparts achieve independence. Conflict rooted in capitalist class experience, while present, was not yet dominant. Furthermore, he argues, while craftsworkers' experience of the change was more informed by the residual cultures of craft than by the emergent logic of capitalism, craft culture in Hamilton was not retrogressive. Rather, this situation served as a centre of social creation in ways that built on the positive aspects of both systems. Based on extensive archival research, this controversial and engaging study offers unique insight to the process of industrialization and class formation in Canada. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction: Artisans, Craftsworkers, and Social Relations of Craft-Based Industrialization -- The Structure of Hamilton's Early Industrialization: Continuity and Change -- Personal Structures: Craftsworkers and Industrial Proprietors by 1871 -- Craft Mobility and Artisan-Led Industrialization: Continuity in Symbol and Practice -- A Culture in Continuity: Master-Man Mutualism in Hamilton, Ontario, during Early Industrialization -- The 'Self-Made Craftsworker': Transmodalism, Self-Identification, and the Foundations of Emergent Culture -- The 'Self-Improving Craftsworker': Dimensions of Transmodal Culture in Ideology and Practice -- Transmodal Culture in Apogee: 1872 Revisited -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index.

This article reviews the book, "Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885–1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik," by Barbara C. Allen.

The Charter of Quebec Values tabled several years ago by the province's former Parti Qu bicois government threw into sharp relief the divisions among the population as to the appropriate model for managing cultural and religious diversity in Quebec. The Charter, and specifically its proposal to prohibit public employees from wearing "conspicuous" religious symbols in the workplace, was rooted in the French republican model, which generally subordinates individual differences to the principle of equality before the law, and strictly adheres to the principle of state religious neutrality. As the author explains, the appeal of the republican model lay primarily in the fact that it was diametrically opposed to the Canadian model of multiculturalism, widely seen in Quebec as having been imposed on the province without its consent, and to certain controversial human rights decisions in which the right to accommodation of individual religious beliefs came into conflict with another fundamental right, such as gender equal- ity. In the author's view, the resolution of the contest between the republican and the multicultural models is to be found in the creation of a concrete legal framework for implementing Quebec's distinct, consensual model of diversity management - interculturalism. Pluralistic in outlook, interculturalism differs from multiculturalism mainly in that it recognizes key "collective values" - the use of French as a common language, the religious neutrality of the state, and equality between men and women - which could justify a refusal to accommo- date religious convictions in some cases. By incorporating Quebec's collective values into the accommodation analysis, interculturalism holds the promise of reconciling ethnocultural differences with the continuity of Quebec's French- speaking core, and protecting the rights of all residents.

Cet article s’intéresse au lien entre la stratégie adoptée par l’entreprise et les pratiques de gestion des ressources humaines (GRH) mises en oeuvre, en portant plus spécifiquement son attention sur les entreprises qui ont des stratégies d’innovation. Par innovation, nous entendons, à l’instar de King et Anderson (2002 cités par Lapointe et al., 2003), une nouvelle pratique, une nouvelle procédure ou un nouveau processus introduit sur le plan local dans un milieu de travail afin d’améliorer les performances économiques et sociales des entreprises. Nous intégrons également la notion d’innovation sociale, au sens de Klein et Harrisson (2006), afin de mettre l’accent sur l’aspect fondamentalement multidimensionnel de ce concept.À la suite d’une recension de littérature rigoureuse, nous proposons un modèle de recherche articulé autour de cinq hypothèses majeures relatives au contrôle des salariés, à leur formation, leur rémunération, mais également au climat social et à la négociation sociale. Pour tester ce modèle, nous nous appuyons sur les données 2011 de l’enquête REPONSE (Relations Professionnelles et Négociation d’Entreprise) de la DARES (Direction de l’Animation de la Recherche, des Études et des Statistiques) du ministère du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Santé, ainsi que du ministère de l’Économie, des Finances et de l’Industrie de France.À l’appui d’une étude empirique statistique (3 601 répondants « représentants de la direction »), nous montrons que les entreprises innovantes se distinguent nettement des autres en matière de GRH. Notamment, ces entreprises possèdent des systèmes de rémunération plus individualisés, elles fixent des objectifs plus généraux et effectuent moins de contrôle sur leurs salariés, favorisant donc la délégation dans le travail. Les entreprises innovantes investissent également davantage que les autres dans la formation et, enfin, elles mènent aussi plus de négociations avec les partenaires sociaux. Malgré de telles avancées, notre étude ne permet cependant pas de conclure à une quelconque relation entre stratégie et climat social. // Title in English: Human Resource Management and Innovation Strategies: A French Study based on the REPONSE 2011 Database. This article deals with the relationship between corporate strategy and human resource management (HRM) practices in France. It highlights that firms having innovation strategies differ from other companies, because they have different HRM practices. We adopt King and Anderson’s definition of innovation (2002, as quoted by Lapointe et al., 2003) as meaning the introduction of a new practice, a new procedure, or a new process, at the local level, with the aim of improving the economic and social performance of the firm. We also integrate Klein and Harrisson’s notion of social innovation (2006) in order to focus on the multidimensional aspect of the concept.Based on a rigorous literature review, we put forward a research model based on five major hypotheses concerning employee control/autonomy, training, remuneration, social climate and negotiation with trade unions. To test this model, we rely on the French public database called REPONSE 2011 from the French Ministry of Employment (N= 3,601 respondents).We show that innovative companies are very different from others in terms of HRM. In particular, these companies have more individualized pay systems, more general objectives, and have less control over their employees (they give more autonomy at work). Innovative companies also develop more training and, furthermore, are used to discussing and negotiating more than other firms. Conversely, no significant link is reached between social climate and strategy.

In South Korea, many struggles of non-regular workers, who attempted to organize their unions and engage in militant action to protest against employers’ inhumane discrimination and illegal exclusion, have failed to achieve the desired outcomes, due to their vulnerable employment status and their lack of action resources. In this light, our study examines the conditions that lead to victory in precarious workers’ struggles, by focusing on three attributes: internal solidarity with regular workers, external solidarity from labour and civil society groups outside the workplace, and mobilized protest repertoires. Specifically, this study seeks to identify the configurations of these three conditions that produce successful outcomes in precarious workers’ struggles, in terms of bargaining gains and organizational sustainability. We do this by employing fs/QCA modelling to examine 30 major cases of non-regular worker struggles occurring over a 16-year period from 1998 to 2013. Our analysis presents the finding that the conditional configuration of strong external solidarity, strong internal solidarity, and fewer struggle repertoires constitutes a significant causal path to successful outcomes. This reaffirms the idea that strong solidarity bridging, whether with regular workers that have a different employment status in the segmented workplace, or with labour and civil society groups outside the workplace, is the crucial causal condition for precarious workers to achieve their desired outcomes from struggle. An unexpected finding, however, is that when precarious worker struggles mobilize fewer struggle repertoires, they are likely to achieve the successful outcomes of bargaining and organizational gains. Our study contributes to the theoretical elaboration of labour movement revitalization for the precariat class, by shedding light on the activism of precarious workers, considering that the English-language literature that pays attention to the active role of such atypical workers in staging protests against employers’ inhumane treatments and the neoliberal labour regime is limited.

L’influence positive du soutien organisationnel par le biais d’attitudes et de pratiques favorables à la conciliation travail-famille (CTF) est largement reconnue. En revanche, peu d’études ont porté un regard spécifique sur les dynamiques entourant ces pratiques au sein de milieux où une organisation inflexible du temps de travail complique la manifestation de soutien à l’égard de la CTF, tout en créant des défis de conciliation importants. Réalisée en partenariat avec des syndicats québécois, cette étude s’intéresse aux pratiques informelles de CTF au sein de commerces d’alimentation québécois, un secteur d’emploi faiblement rémunéré où les horaires sont imposés, étendus, imprévisibles et variables.L’analyse thématique d’un corpus de trente entretiens semi-dirigés réalisés auprès de travailleuses syndiquées, de gestionnaires, de représentantes et de représentants syndicaux montre que, en dépit de règles liées à la convention collective, le mode d’établissement des horaires, en apparence neutre, témoigne de l’importance du caractère informel des pratiques de CTF. Ces dernières sont souvent individuelles, voire secrètes, et elles sont perçues comme le fruit d’un traitement privilégié accordé à certaines personnes. Compte tenu de l’accès restreint aux possibilités d’accommodements, ces pratiques peuvent entraîner une dynamique de « chacun pour soi », ce qui affecte la qualité des rapports entre collègues. Certaines mères de famille étaient particulièrement désavantagées par les normes de flexibilité valorisées dans leur milieu de travail. Enfin, des pratiques informelles sont acceptées au sein du collectif si elles sont transparentes et en autant que les gains des uns n’engendrent pas d’injustice perçue pour les autres.L’étude amène un éclairage sur l’impact collectif des pratiques informelles de CTF en contexte d’horaires atypiques, imprévisibles et variables. Elle montre la nécessité, pour les entreprises ainsi que pour les syndicats actifs dans ces milieux, de créer des conditions favorables au développement de relations interpersonnelles saines et équitables, ainsi que des pratiques qui valorisent l’expression des enjeux de CTF.

Les horaires atypiques imposés compliquent la conciliation travail-famille (CTF), particulièrement lorsqu’ils sont associés à un travail impliquant un bas salaire, un faible contrôle sur le travail, ou du temps partiel involontaire. Un nombre grandissant de travailleuses et de travailleurs sont exposés à ces horaires, mais peu d’études se sont intéressées aux stratégies de CTF déployées pour faire face à ces conditions contraignantes. Les seuls accommodements possibles reposent souvent sur des ententes informelles. Ces ententes sont fragiles et individuelles et, de plus, elles sont marquées par les rapports avec un gestionnaire ou des collègues. Elles exercent aussi une pression importante sur le collectif de travail, ce qui peut venir limiter la marge de manoeuvre permettant de concilier les deux réalités, c’est-à-dire l’espace nécessaire afin d’adapter sa tâche en fonction de son contexte et de ses capacités.Notre étude interdisciplinaire (en communication et ergonomie) porte sur les stratégies de CTF d’agentes et d’agents de nettoyage, un emploi comportant des horaires atypiques imposés et un faible niveau de prestige social. Cet article porte sur les facteurs organisationnels et les dynamiques relationnelles qui influencent la marge de manoeuvre d’agentes de nettoyage qui, pour concilier horaires atypiques et vie familiale, font le choix de travailler la nuit.L’analyse des données provenant d’observations et d’entretiens met en évidence l’interaction entre le choix de l’horaire de travail, le soutien des collègues et les rapports liés au genre ainsi qu’à l’ancienneté. En situant les stratégies de CTF au coeur de l’activité de travail, nos résultats permettent d’illustrer les tensions collectives suscitées par l’accommodement des besoins individuels de CTF.Améliorer les marges de manoeuvre visant à concilier vie familiale et horaires atypiques nécessite d’intervenir simultanément sur l’organisation du travail et les dynamiques relationnelles afin de favoriser l’émergence de pratiques collectives de soutien autour des enjeux de CTF. Ces dynamiques doivent être prises en compte lors de la mise en place de mesures organisationnelles, voire même de dispositifs légaux ayant pour but de faciliter la CTF.

By the end of the 20th century, there was general agreement that most labour markets were in transition and that employment was becoming less secure. However, official labour market data have not shown a dramatic increase in temporary or casual employment. This article takes a new look at the changing characteristics of employment and offers a new method to measure employment security: the Employment Precarity Index. We use the Employment Precarity Index to assess how insecure employment associated with a ‘gig’ economy might affect well-being and social relations, including health outcomes, household well-being and community involvement.

This chapter offers a broad overview of who is exposed to precarious employment, its characters, its association with health outcomes and its impact on house hold well-being. --From authors' introduction Almost every person works at some point in their lives. The Research Handbook on Work and Well-Being examines the association of particular work experiences with employee and organizational health and performance. --Publisher's description.

Migrant workers in China are a distinctive group due to the existence of the hukou system under which they continue to face restrictions on housing, education, and health care in urban areas. The equal employment legislation does not solve the discrimination problems. Compared with their urban counterparts, migrant workers are more vulnerable, in terms of both precarity of employment and the occupational hazards that they are exposed to, and badly need OHS protection. Any weakness of OHS regime will have a disproportionately adverse effect on migrant workers.China’s OHS regime has been through constant evolution. The old prevention structure, which separated occupational health from occupational safety, was proved to be less effective in protecting migrant workers. In recognition of its deficiencies, China’s top legislature made adjustments to the OHS legal framework by enacting and updating a series of laws. The new prevention structure, unifying the occupational health administration and the occupational safety administration, represents a step forward in terms of OHS protection for migrant workers.According to worker citizenship theory, China’s OHS regime can be categorized as a direct state regulation model. It carries with it both the strengths and weaknesses of direct state regulation models. On the participation rights dimension, the lack of consultative joint OHS committees and the lack of effective collective bargaining shut migrant workers out from the decision-making process on OHS matters. On the social rights dimension, the gendered and aged-based approach becomes a hindrance for female migrant workers and young migrant workers. Furthermore, levels of enforcement vary considerably across different periods and areas, subject to the ever-changing priorities on the government’s agenda. Migrant workers are still facing tremendous obstacles and challenges in obtaining access to adequate protection under the current OHS regime in China. Future reform measures should focus on delivering OHS protection for migrant workers in the informal sector, strengthening participation, and centralizing OHS administration, especially enforcement.

This article reviews the book, "Alien Nation: Chinese Migration in the Americas from the Coolie Era through World War II," by Elliott Young.

Introduces the special issue featuring articles on precarious employment, workers' compensation, and occupational health and safety issued from the International Conference on Regulation, Change and the Work Environment held at the University of Ottawa (Ontario) in December 2015. Includes brief bibliography.

The Ontario government has committed to raise its minimum wage to $14 on January 1, 2018 then to $15 on January 1, 2019. This paper examines who in the province will get a "raise" from the $15 minimum wage, and finds it will largely benefit the province’s most marginalized—a broad and diverse swath of workers including contract, seasonal, and casual workers, part-time workers, women, and immigrants. The report also finds that the vast majority of workers who will benefit from a higher minimum wage are over the age of 20, and that they work for big companies (those with 500 or more employees), not small businesses. The study comes as the Ontario government consults the public about its decision to raise the minimum wage to $15 by January 2019. Although the data source for these findings, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) public use microdata file (PUMF), did not specify Indigenous identify, additional research has shown the benefits of a $15 minimum wage to Indigenous Ontarians would be significant, particularly for First Nations women and families. --Website description

Unions and the City serves as a road map toward both a stronger labor movement and a socially just urbanism. Focusing on four key economic sectors (film, hospitality, green energy, and child care), this book reveals that unions can exert a surprising level of influence in various aspects of urban policymaking.