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The article reviews the book, "Unfree Masters: Recording Artists and the Politics of Work," by Matt Stahl.

This article reviews the book, "The Great Depression in Latin America," edited by Paulo Drinot and Alan Knight.

The article reviews the book, "Rebel Youth: 1960s Labour Unrest; Young Workers, and New Leftists in English Canada," by Ian Milligan.

This article reviews the book, "Smart Globalization: The Canadian Business and Economic History Experience," edited by Andrew Smith and Dimitry Anastakis.

This article reviews the book, "Winning the War for Democracy: The March on Washington Movement, 1941–1946," by David Lucander.

This paper considers the potential of Quebec's unique "decree system" as a measure that could be used to combat the rapid growth of precarious work in Canada. Under this system, which is also known as "juridical extensions," the province's government may order that a collective agreement covering a certain type of work be "extended" so as to be binding on all employers and employees in the sector, regardless of whether or not they are parties to a collective bar- gaining relationship. There are several reasons why precarious workers may benefit from an expansion and renewal of the decree system. First, the fact that decree coverage is broadly linked to the nature of the work performed avoids many of the regulatory problems that arise from labour market segmentation based on employment status or the form of the relationship. Thus, individuals who are in a disguised employment arrangement or in an agency or triangular work relationship (and who therefore may be excluded from labour relations, employment standards and other protective legislation) are entitled to the wages and benefits prescribed by an extended agreement. Second, parity committees - historically responsible for the administration and enforcement of extended agreements - could serve as the preferred platform for delivery of harmonized, sector-based pension, benefit and training programs. Third, those committees could be reconceived so as to facilitate workers'participation in decision-making at the enterprise level and thereby to promote industrial democracy. The author argues that while a comprehensive response to precariousness would likely require afar-ranging reevaluation of Canada's approach to labour market regu- lation, the decree system could provide at least a partial or intermediate solution.

The article reviews the book, "Beyond Marx: Theorising the Global Labour Relations of the Twenty-First Century," edited by Marcel van der Linden and Karl Heinz Roth.

For many workers in Ontario, the Employment Standards Act (ESA) provides the only formal measures of workplace protection. The complaints-based monitoring system utilized by the Ontario Ministry of Labour, however, makes it difficult to assess the overall prevalence of employment standards (ES) compliance in the labour force. In addition to outright ESA violations, prevailing research highlights the significance of the erosion, evasion, and outright abandonment of ES for workers’ access to protection through practices such as the misclassification of workers and types of work. In this article, we report on efforts to develop a telephone-survey questionnaire that measures the overall prevalence of ES violations, as well as evasion and erosion in low-wage jobs in Ontario, without requiring respondents to have any pre-existing legal knowledge. Key methodological challenges included developing strategies for identifying ‘misclassified’ independent contractors, establishing measures for determining whether workers were exempt from the ESA, and translating the regulatory nuances embedded in the legislation into easyto- answer questions. The result is a survey questionnaire unique in the Canadian context. Our questionnaire reflects the concerns of both academic researchers and workers’ rights activists. Pilot survey results show that Ontario workers do not necessarily distinguish between ES violations and other workplace grievances and complaints. With careful questionnaire design, it is nevertheless possible to measure the prevalence of ES violations, evasion and erosion. In order to track the effects of ES policies, particularly those on enforcement, we conclude by calling for the establishment of baseline measures and standardized reporting tools.

The article reviews the book, "Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual," by Lauren Coodley.

The article reviews and comments on "Revolutionary Activism in the 1950s and 60s: A Memoir," volumes 1 and 2, by Ernest Tate.

This study explores employers ’ anti-union strategies in the Niagara Peninsula from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s in order to enhance our understanding of the nature of relations between labour and capital during the period generally described as that of the postwar compromise. Relying on such unexplored archival collections as the papers of the St. Catharines firm, Ontario Editorial Bureau, as well as the collections of the Archives of Ontario and Library and Archives Canada, the study focuses on four main union-avoidance strategies: the establishment of company-dominated unions, anti-union public relations campaigns, corporate welfarism, and company relocation. By illustrating the depth and endurance of Niagara employers’ opposition to unions during the period of supposed compromise between employers, workers and the state the study demonstrates that there was greater continuity than we have supposed between management views of workers’ rights during the period of the postwar compromise and the neoliberalism that characterized subsequent decades.

Documents how discrimination against minorities during WWII was much more prevalent than the selective portrayal in the television series, "Bomb Girls."

The article reviews the book, "What Unions No Longer Do," by Jake Rosenfeld.

The article reviews the book, "The Second Red Scare and the Unmaking of the New Deal Left," by Landon R.Y. Storrs.

Une grande administration publique a souhaité comprendre l’incidence de son pilotage par la performance sur les conditions de vie au travail, notamment grâce à l’utilisation d’indicateurs. D’après la littérature, il n’existe pas une forme de performance, mais différentes performances dont les critères d’évaluation sont sélectionnés en fonction de la stratégie adoptée par l’organisation. L’application du pilotage par la performance dépend du choix des outils de mesure. Entre direction et agents, les cadres de proximité traduisent les objectifs de performance en missions concrètes. La façon de piloter les services pour atteindre les objectifs a des impacts sur la qualité du service produit, sur la qualité de vie au travail et le ressenti des conditions de travail. Une étude qualitative à partir de 36 entretiens centrés sur l’activité a été menée auprès d’agents, de cadres de proximité dans différents types de service, et de cadres intermédiaires. Ces résultats ont ensuite été croisés aux débats dans des groupes de travail «Métiers» et «Management-local». Les personnes interrogées ne remettent pas en cause l’utilisation d’indicateurs pour mesurer l’activité. Une culture du chiffre oriente même l’activité en priorisant certaines tâches au détriment d’un travail gris non mesuré. Néanmoins, il n’existe pas de perception commune de la performance au sein de cette administration, ce qui implique différents usages d’indicateurs. La recherche de la performance par l’administration via un pilotage par indicateurs a entraîné des phénomènes d’intensification du travail et d’évolution des métiers. Des pratiques induites afin de s’adapter aux conditions de travail se sont développées, celles-ci sont à la source d’écarts entre performance mesurée par les indicateurs et performance réelle des services. Ces stratégies de contournement sont un facteur dégradant les conditions de vie au travail, avec notamment un sentiment de non qualité du service rendu à l’usager et une perte de sens du métier. Les cadres de proximité, responsables de service, concilient tous ces paramètres afin de faire en sorte que les équipes puissent effectuer leur travail dans les meilleures conditions possibles.

This article reviews the book, "The Search for a Socialist El Dorado: Finnish Immigration to Soviet Karelia from the United States and Canada in the 1930s," by Alexey Golubev and Irina Takala.

Two linked Toronto strikes of street railway employees in 1886 are used to explore contrasting patterns of behaviour or “contentious performances” in Victorian city streets. Strikers led by the Knights of Labor exercised self-discipline when picketing so as to gain the support of the community and defeat the ironclad contract imposed by their anti-union employer. At a moment of working-class mobilization amid industrialization, these employees of a modern, mass-transportation firm deployed “emergent” union tactics. Positioning themselves as breadwinners and as citizens asserting their right to join a union, they deployed a choreographed masculinity encouraged by Knights leaders who strategized to win the disputes. By contrast, large crowds composed overwhelmingly of working-class men and boys demonstrated their disapproval of the street railway company and its anti-labour policy in unruly actions detailed in lively press accounts. The crowds’ transgressive actions point to a “residual” pattern of protest and spontaneous expressions of masculinity derived from boyhoods spent in the streets. Moreover, at times these crowds engaged in playful behaviour and brought into the streets more people drawn by the fun, thus adding momentum to the strikers’ campaign and helping to prompt the repressive measures taken by law enforcement.

The article reviews the book, "An American in London: Whistler and the Thames," by Margaret F. MacDonald and Patricia de Montfort.

This article reviews the book, "Cleaning Up: How Hospital Outsourcing is Hurting Workers and Endangering Patients," by Dan Zuberi.

The article reviews the book, "Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in Distress," by Steve Early.