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The article pays homage to the life and work of US historian Robert H. Babcock (1931-2014), a Canadian studies specialist who was known especially for his book, "Gompers in Canada."

Young people today in Canada face a reality vastly different from the one 20 or 30 years ago, economically and socially. This paper will examine how young workers are experiencing various changing realities such as: student debt, precarious employment (unemployment, under-employment, and unwaged work), reduced job security (including unionization), rising inequality, changing wealth/debt dynamics and, less quantifiably, diminished social cohesion and community connection as a result of growing insecurity. While this paper will examine the issue from a national perspective, it will also identify how some of these trends are being played out — or differ — in Newfoundland and Labrador.

This article reviews the book, "Border as Method: Or, the Multiplication of Labor," by Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Neilson.

In this paper, the author argues that by imposing a duty to accommodate on unions in the Renaud case, the Supreme Court of Canada intended primarily to encourage unions to cooperate with employer efforts to accommodate, and did not seek to make unions co-liable for all discrimination embedded in collect- ive agreements. The Court's decision was ambiguous, however, and subsequent tribunals and courts have distorted its original intent by imposing joint (and sometimes sole) liability on unions for discrimination in situations in which they had no meaningful control over bargaining outcomes or no independent abil- ity to accommodate the claimant, or in which unions' representative role was not properly considered. Unions have largely avoided Renaud-based liability because, in the decades since that decision, workplace human rights claims have increasingly been dealt with through grievance arbitration (where unions are not vulnerable to co-liability claims) rather than before human rights tribunals. The author sees this as a generally positive development which permits human rights claims to be integrated with collective agreement claims and places pri- mary accountability for workplace discrimination on employers, who are best placed to remedy the discrimination. She acknowledges, however, that dealing with workplace discrimination at arbitration could create conflicts of interest, which may require reconsideration of some aspects of current procedure. She concludes that Renaud has largely done the job the Supreme Court intended, although it has done so by influencing union behaviour in arbitration rather than by making unions directly accountable for compliance with statutory human rights norms. She expresses continuing concern about Renaud's ambiguities and calls on the Supreme Court to clarify Renaud's message in light of modern conceptions of the duty to accommodate and the realities of workplace power distribution.

This article reviews the book, "The War and its Shadow: Spain's Civil War in Europe's Long Twentieth Century," by Helen Graham.

Les Salariés de l'incertitude. Solidarité, reconnaissance et équilibre de vie au travail, by Diane Bellemare, is reviewed.

Canadian labour law has ensured that all workers who benefit from collective agreements contribute to the cost of maintaining those agreements through union dues. Today the security of unions is under attack within Ontario, and elsewhere in Canada. This paper looks at how Conservative proposals, imported from the US, would threaten union security in Ontario by removing the Rand Formula requirement of mandatory dues payment, and allowing workers to opt out of the bargaining unit. 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.

Canada’s system of industrial legality has routinely limited the collective abilities of workers to strike. Under the conditions of neoliberal globalization, those limitations have intensified. Yet, in 1997, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, waged a successful strike against Pepsi-Cola Canada. In addition to defeating the company, the union also expanded workers’ collective rights through a successful constitutional challenge to restrictive common-law rules limiting secondary picketing. This paper examines the history of that strike, exploring the multifaceted strategies that the workers undertook to challenge the company, the state, and the existing law. It argues that workers were successful because they utilized tactics of civil disobedience to defend their abilities to picket. Recognizing that success, the paper is also critical of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision and its evolution of common-law torts to limit workers’ collective action. The paper concludes by arguing that the Pepsi conflict highlights the importance of civil disobedience in building workers’ movements while emphasizing the inherent limitations of constitutional challenges to further workers’ collective freedoms in Canada.

In this article, I examine the Service, Office, and Retail Workers’ Union of Canada (SORWUC), an independent, grassroots, socialist-feminist union that organized workers in unorganized industries in Canada in the 1970s and 1980s. I look at SORWUC’s role in Canadian labour history in general, and its efforts to organize workers in the service industry in particular. My central thesis is that SORWUC’s socialist-feminist unionism and commitment to organizing unorganized workers positioned the union as radically differ­ent from the mainstream labour movement. This difference both helped and hindered the union. Specifically, SORWUC’s experiences organizing workers at Bimini pub and Muckamuck restaurant in British Columbia demonstrate that although its alternative structure and strategies aided organizing and strike efforts, these factors made little difference in the union’s dealings with the labour relations boards and the courts: in both cases, the action or inaction of the state ultimately determined the outcome. Although SORWUC no longer exists, it remains an important historical example of how workers in Canada have been and can be organized. SORWUC thus offers important lessons about service worker organizing, alternative forms of unionization, and the powerful role of the state in labour relations in the postwar period.

Relatively little attention has been paid to understanding and addressing the potential health-related barriers faced by older workers to stay at work. Using three representative samples from the Canadian Community Health Survey, we examined the relationship between seven physical chronic conditions and labour market participation in Canada between 2000 and 2005. We found that all conditions were associated with an increased probability of not being able to work due to health reasons. In our adjusted models, heart disease was associated with the greatest probability of not working due to health reasons. Arthritis was associated with the largest population attributable fraction. Other variables associated with not being able to work due to health reasons included older age, female gender and lower educational attainment. We also found particular combinations of chronic conditions (heart disease and diabetes; and arthritis and back pain) were associated with a greater risk than the separate effects of each condition independently. The results of this study demonstrate that chronic conditions are associated with labour market participation limitations to differing extents. Strategies to keep older workers in the labour market in Canada will need to address barriers to staying at work that result from the presence of chronic conditions, and particular combinations of conditions.

"[D]escribes the early history of librarianship at the University of Toronto, including the evolution of library education and the fight for recognition and status of librarians." -- Editors' introduction.

The article reviews the book, "An Environmental History of Canada," by Laurel Sefton MacDowell.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Connecting Canadians: Investigations in Community Informatics," edited by Andrew Clement, Michael Gurstein, Graham Longford, Marita Moll, and Leslie Regan Shade; "Alternative Media in Canada," edited by Kirsten Kozolanka, Patricia Mazepa, and David Skinner; "Public Engagement and Emerging Technologies," edited by Kieran O’Doherty and Edna Einsiedel; and "Networks Of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age," by Manuel Castells.

[Provides] a review of Canadian and international research that affirms the critical role that labour rights and unions play in reducing income inequality, promoting the social well-being of all citizens, and advancing democracy within nations. --Introduction

Book review of: Articuler emploi et famille : le rôle du soutien organisationnel au coeur de trois professions by Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay.

James W. Orr (1936-2009) was one of a number of rank-and-file labour militants in the city of Saint John, New Brunswick who bore witness to, and had some hand in, a number of upheavals in the local labour movement. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood in west Saint John, he came of age at the time of the momentous Canadian Seamen’s Union strike of 1949, which had a permanent impact on his outlook. Leaving school at sixteen to work for the Canadian Pacific Railway, he then joined the navy before going on to become a lifelong union man on the docks. As a member of Local 1764, International Longshoremen’s Association, he helped lead the 1974 strike against the Maritime Employers’ Association. He was one of the organizers of the 1976 Saint John General Strike on 14 October against the federal government’s wage controls. Orr was also a key organizer of the 1979 NO CANDU campaign that closed the port in support of civil rights for workers in Argentina. Within the ILA, he helped open union membership for non-union workers on the docks, an effort that cost him his position as a union officer; however, the influx of new blood rejuvenated the ILA and reoriented it in the direction of social unionism. Local 273 went on to replace the archaic shape-up system with a dispatch system while also struggling against the bureaucracy of the international union and for the autonomy of Canadian locals. The object of this study is to rescue Jimmy, or “the Bear” as he was affectionately called, from what the influential social historian E.J. Hobsbawm describes as “the anonymity of the local militant.” This study relies heavily upon oral history, including two interviews completed before Orr’s death, and his personal papers deposited at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick.

This article reviews the book, "Climate@Work," edited by Carla Lipsig-Mummé.

This research explores the relationship between a strategic approach to quality management in Canadian organizations and employee measures of happiness. In particular, it investigates how a strategic approach to quality management impacts on employee satisfaction, engagement, and morale. Understanding the relationships between a strategic approach to quality management and employee measures of happiness helps companies, policy-makers, and academia. Companies can use the conclusions to decide on the value of a quality management system as it relates to employees. The findings provide answers to employees, management, and labour unions that need to understand the impact a strategic approach to quality will have on them. Policy-makers can use the findings to set the agenda for closing Canada’s productivity gap. Knowledge of this research can support policy-maker decisions to simplify the process for implementing a strategic approach to quality, realizing the benefits for participating organizations and employees at those organizations. This research helps academia fill two major gaps in the literature: First, the impact that the implementation of a strategic quality approach has on employee happiness (namely satisfaction, engagement, and morale). The second is the focus on Canadian organizations. There are relatively few studies that investigate a strategic approach to quality that focus on Canadian companies. Much of the research related to strategic quality employs data from American, Asian, Australian, and European organizations whereas this research uses data from exclusively Canadian organizations. This is the only academic research (to the knowledge of the researcher) that uses original Canada Awards for Excellence recipient results to draw conclusions. In this research, organizations with a strategic approach to quality (Canada Awards for Excellence recipients) are compared with similar size organizations with no defined approach to quality (non-winners). A 66-question survey was used with 591 respondents representing 58.68% response rate from 12 Canadian organizations. The participating organizations were a mix of small and medium size organizations ranging in size from 5 employees to 400 employees in both the service and manufacturing sectors. The survey respondents included 315 from Canada Award for Excellence winners and 276 from non-winners. Of the 12 organizations studied, five are Canada Award for Excellence winners and seven of them are non-winners. The research provides evidence that organizations taking a strategic approach to quality have a positive impact on the employees of that organization. The research has found significant connections between an organization’s level of strategic quality and the effect on employees in terms of morale, engagement, and satisfaction. The survey alongside focus group analysis shows that there is a clear relationship between strategic quality and employee measures of happiness. The findings indicate that the impact of implementing quality is positive and results in benefits for both the organization as a whole and the individual employee. Significant differences are noted between Canada Award for Excellence winners and non-winners.

This article reviews the book, "Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life," by James Daschuk.

Critiques the Conservative Party's attack on evidence-based research and the teaching of Canadian history as part of a broader, neoliberal assault on equality, including feminism, environmental protection, and minority rights.