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Building on and deepening my existing community-engaged research relationships with community members in Sliammon, B.C. and Ile-a-la-Crosse, SK, this dissertation is, as I described it to community members, a history of handmade items. At the intersection of economic change, changing colonialist policy, ideas about tradition, and Indigenous political interests that has taken place in Indigenous communities in the latter half of the twentieth century, seemingly local or domestic objects in fact highlight complexities within and beyond communities over time. The role of objects was shaped – in conflicting or paradoxical ways – by newcomer institutions that sought to define Indigenous people and their activities in constrained ways. Yet for community members, the processes and products of making things became ways to define and historicize tradition itself. These two themes – objects in families and communities, and objects in newcomer institutions – provide the overarching structure for this dissertation. People in both communities have shared in parallel processes of using and co-opting colonizing influences not only to make a living for themselves within those contexts, but also, through their involvement in “making things,” to make explicit statements about the significance of histories and historical interpretation in community changes. This dissertation, and the individual and collective experiences of making things portrayed within it, are a means of discussing how labour, gender, and tradition have been mobilized in Ile-a-la-Crosse and Sliammon in the twentieth century, and especially from the 1930s and onwards to respond to contemporary realities. Because the communities I have worked with are very different places from each other – a small, west coast First Nation and a predominantly Metis municipality in northwestern Saskatchewan – this work is intentionally not comparative. Rather, I use these two case studies to follow how community members have interpreted their histories through processes of making tangible “things,” depending on local historical circumstances. I consider the changing ways that community members have responded to and worked within colonial intervention. First and foremost, though, by making things, they sought to address their own economic, social, and political concerns. Changes in processes of making and interpreting handmade items help to illuminate how community members envisioned objects in their communities, not only as practical items or symbols of cultures or histories, but also as ways to describe the shifting significance of tradition for making sociopolitical arguments illustrated by the objects themselves.

The article reviews the book, "Soldiers as Workers: Class, Employment, Conflict and the Nineteenth-Century Military," by Nick Mansfield.

This article reviews the book, "The Moral Mapping of Victorian and Edwardian London: Charles Booth, Christian Charity, and the Poor-but-Respectable," by Thomas Gibson-Brydon.

The article reviews the book, "Smokestacks in the Hills: Rural Industrial Workers in West Virginia," by Lou Martin.

Thiis article reviews the book, "Recruitment and Selection in Canada," by Victor M. Catano, Willi H. Wiesner, and Rick D. Hackett.

The article reviews the book, "The Fate of Labour Socialism: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Dream of a Working-Class Future," by James Naylor.

Alberta's move to increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018 could lead to the loss of roughly 25,000 jobs. Alberta, being a boom and bust economy, would be better off taking current and future economic conditions into account when considering any future increases to its minimum wage.

Au début des années 1970, les travailleurs de l'amiante de Thetford Mines et d'Asbestos ont entrepris un combat pour assainir leurs milieux de travail et leurs villes, dans lesquelles les mines étaient imbriquées. À Thetford Mines, ils ont mené une longue grève de sept mois et demi qui a conduit à la mise sur pied du Comité d'étude sur la salubrité dans l'industrie de l'amiante, puis, avec l'élection du jeune Parti québécois, à la Loi sur la santé et la sécurité du travail qui introduisait les principes de l'élimination des dangers à la source et de la participation des travailleurs à son application. La crédibilité de leurs syndicats s'en trouvait renforcée. Mais bientôt la montée d'un mouvement international visant à bannir l'amiante et la crise économique du début des années 1980 allaient porter un dur coup à l'industrie et entrainer un déclin que rien ne pourrait arrêter. Les travailleurs miniers, qui s'étaient unis contre leurs employeurs et parfois contre l'État dans leur combat pour la santé, s'allièrent dès lors à leurs entreprises et aux pouvoirs publics pour promouvoir le minéral et tenter de préserver leurs emplois et la vitalité de leurs régions. Ils n'ont jamais envisagé l'arrêt de la production d'amiante car ils ont toujours considéré qu'il est possible d'en maitriser les risques et ils défendirent bec et ongles leur produit en arguant du caractère sécuritaire de ses utilisations modernes, malgré un consensus international grandissant à l'encontre de cette thèse.

This article reviews the book, "Educating the Neglected Majority: The Struggle for Agricultural and Technical Education in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec," by Richard A. Jarrell.

This article reviews the book, "La crise des emplois non qualifiés," edited by Samir Amine.

Thiis article reviews the book, "Finding a Voice at Work? New Perspectives on Employment Relations," edited by Stewart Johnstone and Peter Ackers.

[This book] is a timely and much-needed exposure of historical and contemporary practices of state-sanctioned violence against Black lives in Canada. This groundbreaking work dispels many prevailing myths that cast Canada as a land of benevolence and racial equality, and uncovers long-standing state practices that have restricted Black freedom. A first of its kind, Policing Black Bodies creates a framework that makes legible how anti-Blackness has influenced the construction of Canada's carceral landscape, including the development and application of numerous criminal law enforcement and border regulation practices. The book traces the historical and contemporary mobilization of anti-Blackness spanning from slavery, 19th and 20th century segregation practices, and the application of early drug and prostitution laws through to the modern era. Maynard makes visible the ongoing legacy of a demonized and devalued Blackness that is manifest today as racial profiling by police, immigration agents and social services, the over-representation of Black communities in jails and prisons, anti-Black immigration detention and deportation practices, the over-representation of Black youth in state care, the school-to-prison pipeline and gross economic inequality. Following the dictums of the Black Lives Matter movement, Policing Black Bodies adopts an intersectional lens that explores the realities of those whose lives and experiences have historically been marginalized, stigmatized, and made invisible. In addressing how state practices have impacted Black lives, the book brings from margin to centre an analysis of gender, class, sexuality, (dis)ability, citizenship and criminalization. Beyond exploring systemic racial injustice, Policing Black Bodies pushes the limits of the Black radical imagination: it delves into liberatory Black futures and urges the necessity of transformative alternatives. --Publisher's description. Contents: On State Violence And Black Lives -- Devaluing Black Life, Demonizing Black Bodies: Anti-Blackness From Slavery To Segregation -- The Black Side Of The Mosaic: Slavery, Racial Capitalism And The Making Of Contemporary Black Poverty -- Arrested (In)Justice: From The Streets To The Prison -- Law Enforcement Violence Against Black Women: Naming Their Names, Telling Their Stories -- Misogynoir In Canada: Punitive State Practices And The Devaluation Of Black Women And Gender-Oppressed People -- "Of Whom We Have Too Many": Black Life And Border Regulation -- Destroying Black Families: Slavery's Afterlife In The Child Welfare System -- The (Mis)Education Of Black Youth: Anti-Blackness In The School System -- From "Woke" To Free: Imaging Black Futures.

This article reviews the book, "Toronto's Poor: A Rebellious History," by Bryan D. Palmer and Gaétan Héroux.

Under Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), migrant workers come to Canada for up to eight months each year, without their families, to work as temporary foreign workers in agriculture. Using a ‘whole worker’ industrial relations approach, which emphasizes intersections among work, family and community relations, this article assesses the impacts of these repeated separations on the wellbeing and cohesion of Mexican workers’ transnational families. The analysis is based primarily on 74 in-depth, semi-structured interviews that were conducted in Spanish with male workers, their spouses and children, and with the children’s teachers. Assessment criteria include effects on children’s health and educational success, children’s behaviour, mothers’ abilities to cope with added roles and work, and emotional relations among workers, children and spouses. The study findings suggest that families are often negatively impacted by these repeated separations, with particular consequences for the mental and physical health of children. Children’s behavioural challenges often include poor school performance, involvement in crime, drug and alcohol abuse (especially among sons), and early pregnancies among daughters. As temporary ‘single moms,’ wives often have difficulty coping with extra functions and burdens, and lack of support when their husbands are working in Canada. Typically, there are profound emotional consequences for workers and, frequently, strained family relations. The article concludes by offering practical policy recommendations to lessen negative impacts on SAWP workers and their families, including higher remittances; improved access to labour rights and standards; and new options for family reunification.

The article reviews the book, "A Town Called Asbestos: Environmental Contamination, Health, and Resilience in a Resource Community ,"by Jessica Van Horssen.

Given the growing trend towards "fissured" employment structures char- acterized by the use of subcontractors and supply chains, the lack of any mech- anism for imposing third-party liability is a serious gap in employment standards legislation. By limiting liability to the direct employer, traditionally conceived, the legislation as it has been interpreted can leave victims of wage theft without recourse against a judgment-proof subcontractor. This paper seeks to address that deficiency by focusing on Ontario's successful experience with various statutory regimes that provide for third-party liability, including construction liens and trusts, the internal responsibility system under occupational health and safety legislation, and "cause or permit" regulatory liability in environmental and other public welfare legislation. Building on the key principles of these schemes, all of which create non-delegable responsibilities in the face of arm's- length subcontracted relationships, the author proposes the adoption of a system of joint and several liability for entities that "cause or permit" violations of employment standards. This would require lead companies to take some of the responsibility for compliance by subcontractors down the supply chain, thereby providing vulnerable workers with stronger protections against non-payment of wages. At the same time, the author argues, this approach would strike an appropriate balance with the needs of employers, because a number of low-cost tools would be available to lead companies to spread risk, and third-party lia- bility would not capture subcontracting arrangements that do not jeopardize the wage entitlements of vulnerable workers.

Going postal. We think of the rogue employee who snaps. But in [this book] Jeremy Milloy demonstrates that workplace violence never occurs in isolation. Using violence as a lens, he provides fresh and original insights into the everyday workings of capitalism, class conflict, race, and gender in the United States and Canada of the late twentieth century, bringing historical perspective to contemporary debates about North American violence. [The book] is the first full-length historical exploration of the origins and effects of individual violence in the automotive industry. Milloy’s gripping analysis spans 1960 to 1980, when North American auto plants were routinely the sites of fights, assaults, and even murders. He argues that the high levels of violence were primarily the result of workplace conditions – including on-the-job exploitation, racial tension, bureaucratization, and hypermasculinity – that made fear and loathing a shop-floor reality long before mass shootings attracted media attention in the 1980s. Workplace violence is typically the domain of management studies and psychology, but while we pass legislation and adopt best practices, the problem continues. Milloy’s explosive book reveals that workplace violence has been a constant aspect of class conflict – and that our understanding needs to go deeper. Blood, Sweat, and Fear will interest everyone concerned with the causes of workplace violence, and in particular scholars and students of labour history, sociology, sociological criminology, masculinity studies, and studies of race and of violence. --Publisher's description. Contents: Dripping with blood and dirt: confronting the history of workplace violence under capitalism -- Fights and knifings are becoming quite commonplace: Dodge main, 1965-80 -- The way boys and men took care of business: Windsor Chrysler plants -- The constant companion of all that earn their living here: workers, unions, and management respond -- Chrysler pulled the trigger: the courts and the press -- Out of the back streets and into the workplace: the discovery of workplace violence in the 1980s and 1990s.

On May 15, 2014, the Government of British Columbia apologized to its Chinese Canadian community for historical wrongs. It also committed to provide a legacy for all British Columbians so that we can learn more about a time we cannot and should not forget. This website is a part of that legacy. It offers resources that document the history of the discrimination, chronicle the consultation process and formal Apology in the Legislature, and provide updates on the many legacy projects that highlight the substantial contributions Chinese Canadians have made to the culture, history and economic prosperity of our province. --Website description

The article reviews the book, "Coxey's Army: Popular Protest in the Gilded Age," by Benjamin F. Alexander.