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Biographical account of lawyer Joseph Edward Bird (1868-1948) who, after his arrival in Vancouver from Ontario in 1902, became involved some of the leading labour and civil rights' cases of the day, including the Komagata Maru case (1914), where 376 Indian passengers were blocked from entry into Canada.

Depuis le milieu des années 1960, le gouvernement canadien organise la migration temporaire de travailleurs agricoles originaires principalement des Caraïbes et d'Amérique centrale, via deux principaux programmes, soit le Programme des travailleurs agricoles saisonniers (PTAS) et le Volet agricole du Programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires. Ces programmes ont permis de faire venir au Canada près de 42 530 travailleurs agricoles temporaires en 2013, dont 9760 au Québec seulement. Le PTAS et le Volet agricole soulèvent toutefois les critiques de plusieurs organisations et chercheurs. Une caractéristique commune centrale de ces programmes est particulièrement décriée, à savoir l'assignation des travailleurs à un employeur unique et à un emploi spécifique, puisque celle-ci aurait pour effet de priver les travailleurs de leur mobilité sur le marché du travail. En ce sens, il est notamment reproché à ces programmes de perpétuer des formes de travail non libre, alors que les travailleurs ne peuvent circuler librement sur le marché du travail. Dans la continuité de ces travaux critiques, ce projet de recherche se propose d'examiner le rôle de cette disposition juridique comme mécanisme de privation de la mobilité des travailleurs. Plus précisément, l'objectif de ce mémoire est d'analyser le rôle double du droit, d'une part, dans la production et l'encadrement de ces formes de travail non libre, et d'autre part, dans la possible contestation de celles-ci. Pour ce faire, nous nous appuierons tant sur analyse à la fois théorique et historique, que sur une vaste enquête de terrain. Cette enquête s'inscrit dans un projet de recherche plus large - dirigé par le professeur Martin Gallié - ayant permis de réaliser près de cent entretiens avec des travailleurs du PTAS et du Volet agricole de la région de Saint-Rémi, au Québec.

Held in Toronto from February 11-12, 2016, the conference examined the realities and impact of precarious academic work on our universities and considered solutions now and for the future. Speakers included researchers, activists, and policymakers from Canada, the USA, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Key themes included: Current realities of precarious academic work and the. Key themes included: current realities of precarious academic work and the impact on faculty, students, and higher education; learning from the experience of precarious labour in other jurisdictions; responding to the challenges of precarious academic work - current directions and future needs; and re-imagining academic work for the future. Includes videos and presentation slides of the conference proceedings.

Empruntant la voie tracée par l’administration quotidienne de la Commission des accidents du travail au Nouveau-Brunswick, le présent texte examine les tensions engendrées par l’introduction d’un régime d’indemnisation sans égard à la faute durant sa phase d’implantation (1918-1932). L’augmentation des accidents du travail au Nouveau-Brunswick au cours des années 1920 ayant incité les commissaires à réviser les taux d’évaluation sectorielle pour maintenir en équilibre la caisse des accidents, des employeurs qui contestaient les hausses les contraignirent à recourir aux tribunaux pour protéger le pouvoir discrétionnaire que lui conférait la loi. Dans la seconde moitié de la décennie, lorsque les employeurs et les membres élus du nouveau gouvernement conservateur se rapprochèrent sous l’effet d’une économie tournant au ralenti, la Commission entra dans une phase critique de son histoire. Les déficits budgétaires étant absorbés par un État qui la priva d’une autonomie restreignant des projets de relance, la Commission se consacra à une gestion sélective de la décroissance, laquelle accentua l’état de dépendance des travailleurs accidentés et des familles endeuillées. À l’aube de la réforme législative introduite au printemps 1932, le déficit d’autonomie de la Commission ne réussit pas à capter l’attention des contemporains préoccupés par les risques du travail et de la dépendance matérielle. Comme les protagonistes élaborant l’« infrastructure de la prévention » pour contrer les crises, notre contribution cherche à pallier une connaissance qui confère à l’indemnisation une place trop modeste comme sujet d’étude historique et comme objet de réflexion théorique sur le risque et le désastre.

Few researchers have sought to examine the consequences of psychological contract breach in the particular case of professional employees working for nonprofessional organizations. To increase our understanding, the purpose of this article was to test an original research model encompassing psychological contract breach, psychological contract violation, perceived organizational support, organizational and professional commitment, and intention to leave the organization. A study was conducted among a sample of 329 professional employees working in nonprofessional organizations. As predicted, this research shows a positive relationship between psychological contract breach and psychological contract violation, a negative relationship between breach and organizational commitment, and a negative relationship between organizational commitment and the intention to leave the organization. However, contrary to expectations, the results indicated that perceived organizational support has no moderating effect on the relationship between breach and violation. This finding does not confirm previous findings from the study by Suazo and Stone-Romero (2011). This unexpected result led to testing a different combination between perceived organizational support and PC-breach and PC-violation, which is documented in the literature on nonprofessional employees. Thus, in accordance with previous results by Suazo (2009), the data from our research indicate that the relationship between PC breach and perceived organizational support is mediated by PC violation. This alternative research model suggests testing a long mediation process by which the breach influences the intention to leave the organization via the violation, the perceived organizational support, and professional and organizational commitment. This long mediation process has been confirmed by our data. Finally, the results of this research suggest that when working in a non-professional context, professional employees tend to react to breaches of the psychological contract in a similar way to non-professional employees. // Peu de recherches ont examiné les conséquences de la brèche du contrat psychologique dans le cas particulier des employés professionnels travaillant pour des organisations non-professionnelles. Afin de combler cette lacune et dans le but de gagner en compréhension, cet article a pour objectif de tester un modèle de recherche original englobant la brèche et la violation, le soutien organisationnel perçu, les engagements organisationnel et professionnel, ainsi que l'intention de démissionner. Une recherche a été conduite auprès un échantillon de 329 employé(e)s professionnel(le)s travaillant dans des organisations non-professionnelles. Conformément aux prédictions, notre étude montre une relation positive entre la brèche et la violation, une relation négative entre la violation et l'engagement organisationnel, ainsi qu'une relation négative entre l'engagement organisationnel et l'intention de quitter l'organisation. Toutefois, contrairement aux attentes, les résultats ont indiqué que le soutien organisationnel perçu n'a pas d'effet modérateur sur la relation entre la brèche et la violation, ce qui tend à infirmer les conclusions précédentes de l'étude de Suazo et Stone-Romero (2011). Ce résultat inattendu a conduit au test d'une combinaison différente et documentée dans la littérature auprès d'employés non-professionnels. Ainsi, en conformité avec les résultats de Suazo (2009), les données indiquent que la violation a un effet médiateur sur la relation entre la brèche et le soutien organisationnel perçu. Ce modèle de recherche alternatif suggère de tester un processus de médiation long par lequel la brèche influence l'intention de quitter l'organisation via la violation, le soutien organisationnel perçu ainsi que les engagements professionnel et organisationnel. Ce long processus de médiation a été confirmé par nos données. Finalement, les résultats de cette recherche laissent penser que lorsqu'ils travaillent en contexte non-professionnel, les employés professionnels tendent à réagir aux brèches du contrat psychologique de manière semblable aux employés non-professionnels.

The article reviews the book, "Trotskyists on Trial: Free Speech and Political Persecution since the Age of FDR," by Donna T. Haverty-Stacke.

Toronto’s Poor reveals the long and too often forgotten history of poor people’s resistance. It details how the homeless, the unemployed, and the destitute have struggled to survive and secure food and shelter in the wake of the many panics, downturns, recessions, and depressions that punctuate the years from the 1830s to the present. Written by a historian of the working-class and a poor people’s activist, this is a rebellious book that links past and present in an almost two-hundred year story of struggle and resistance. It is about men, women, and children relegated to lives of desperation by an uncaring system, and how they have refused to be defeated. In that refusal, and in winning better conditions for themselves, Toronto’s poor create the possibility of a new kind of society, one ordered not by acquisition and individual advance, but by appreciations of collective rights and responsibilities. --Publisher's description

Nombreuses sont les études ayant répertorié les facteurs susceptibles de favoriser l’engagement affectif des employés envers leur organisation. Toutefois, davantage de recherches sont requises afin de comprendre les mécanismes par lesquels ces facteurs agissent sur le niveau d’engagement organisationnel affectif (EOA), et de cerner dans quel contexte et sous quelles conditions leurs effets s’avèrent les plus puissants (Becker, Klein, et Meyer, 2009). La présente étude s’inscrit dans la lignée des études récentes qui visent à surmonter cette limite en investiguant l’interaction entre les facteurs organisationnels et les caractéristiques individuelles dans la prédiction de l’EOA, soutenant que des dispositions individuelles modulent les perceptions des expériences de travail, influençant par le fait même les réactions attitudinales et comportementales. Plusieurs études démontrent que le locus de contrôle, défini comme la tendance des individus à croire qu’ils contrôlent ou non leur environnement et le cours des évènements (Rotter, 1954), joue notamment un rôle sur la façon dont les individus perçoivent leur environnement. Appuyant son raisonnement sur la théorie de l’échange social (Blau, 1964) et sur le modèle de l’engagement au groupe (Tyler et Blader, 2003), l’objectif de cette étude est d’examiner l’effet de l’interaction entre le locus de contrôle (interne/externe) et les perceptions de justice procédurale ainsi que la fierté organisationnelle des employés sur leur niveau d’engagement affectif. Les résultats indiquent que le locus de contrôle exerce un effet modérateur entre l’EOA et les deux antécédents proposés. Ainsi, en vertu de la norme de réciprocité, la tendance des individus à croire que la fierté organisationnelle et la justice procédurale sont le produit de leurs actions les conduiraient à s’engager affectivement auprès de cette dernière. En plus de souligner le rôle important du locus de contrôle dans les réactions attitudinales aux facteurs organisationnels, les résultats démontrent la pertinence d’étudier l’effet modérateur d’autres traits individuels susceptibles de moduler l’adoption de certains comportements et attitudes, ce qui peut représenter un avantage pour les salariés et les dirigeants.

The article reviews the book, "Lunch-Bucket Lives: Remaking the Workers' City," by Craig Heron.

This thesis conceptualises the job transition as a continuous process in the context of organisational downsizing and restructuring. It argues that the policy and research related to re-employment following job loss, organisational downsizing and relevant labour market interventions remains disconnected from, and hence underemphasises, the sequential and cumulative nature of the transition process while also focussing disproportionately on modifying individual behaviour and action. This study explores the intersection and overlap in factors, actions and decisions made by actors in each part of the transition process to better understand the dynamic nature of job transition and its implications for re-employment and future job quality. This research considers job transition from two forms of displacement – job displacement and worker displacement. It comprises a cross-national comparative study of displacement from public sector work in Ontario, Canada and Scotland, UK. Forty expert and stakeholder interviews were carried out addressing different aspects of job transition, targeting academic and policy experts, employers/senior managers, union representatives and labour market programme service providers. Furthermore, 38 semi-structured work history interviews were conducted with displaced workers along with a follow-up survey. This research argues that downsizing policy and labour market interventions appear to view any job as a better outcome than redundancy. Where organisational policies maintain employment, the emphasis is on maintaining extrinsic features of work. Through practices like salary protection and lateral transfers, good quality work beyond equivalent remuneration is a bi-product rather that a central consideration. The study finds that individuals, faced with particular processes and limited information, modify their behaviour to protect valued aspects of work including, but not limited to, extrinsic job factors. Conceptually, this research contributes to knowledge on job loss and re-employment, organisational downsizing practice and job quality. Empirically, it contributes to debates on public sector restructuring following the Great Recession of 2008.

Finding affordable, quality child care is a challenge for many Canadian families. In some areas of British Columbia, expectant mothers place their children on daycare waiting lists months before they are born. Yet, despite the demand, recent efforts to achieve a universal child care program have stalled. As Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma demonstrates, this is nothing new: child care policy in British Columbia has matured in the shadow of a persistent political uneasiness with working motherhood. Charting the growth of the child care movement in this province, Lisa Pasolli examines the arrival of Vancouver’s first crèche in 1912, the teetering steps forward during the debates of the interwar years, the development of child care policy, the rebellious advancements of second-wave feminists in the 1960s and 1970s, and the maturation of provincial and national child care politics since the mid-70s. In addition to revealing much about historical attitudes toward women’s roles at home and in the workplace, Working Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma celebrates the efforts of mothers and advocates who, for decades, have lobbied for child care as a central part of women’s rights as workers, parents, and citizens.... --Publisher's description

This book informs debates about worker participation in the workplace or worker voice by analysing comparative historical data relating to these ideas during the inter-war period in Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US. The issue is topical because of the contemporary shift to a workplace focus in many countries without a corresponding development of infrastructure at the workplace level, and because of the growing ‘representation gap’ as union membership declines. Some commentators have called for the introduction of works councils to address these issues. Other scholars have gone back and examined the experiences with the non-union Employee Representation Plans (ERPs) in Canada and the US. This book will test these claims through examining and comparing the historical record of previous efforts of five countries during a rich period of experimentation between the Wars. --Publisher's description.

During the period of the expansion and consolidation of the fruit and vegetable industry between about 1880 and 1945, seasonal work in the fields, orchards, packing houses and canneries of the Niagara Peninsula was performed by two main groups of marginalized workers: immigrant women and adolescents of eastern and southern European origin, and indigenous families. Contemporaries believed that these groups were inherently suited for the long hours, physical demands and low wages that characterized such work that those with greater options avoided. Such racial classification restricted their access to year-round, better-paid and cleaner work. That it was largely performed by minority groups, in turn, derogated such seasonal labour. During the two world wars, a radically different group of workers entered Niagara’s agricultural workforce: middle-class, Anglo-Canadian girls and women, most often labelled farmerettes. By comparing minority workers and farmerettes in Niagara’s fruit and vegetable industry the study sheds light on a little-studied sector of Canada’s workforce. The willingness of the state and growers to improve working conditions generally deemed perfectly acceptable for “foreigners" and “Indians," for the benefit of farmerettes, illustrates the workings of a racialized hierarchy in Canada’s labour market with great clarity. At the same time, the limit on wages even for the privileged farmerettes simultaneously demonstrates the depth and endurance of gender-based inequality in the workforce.

The article reviews the book, "The Origins of Right to Work: Antilabor Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Chicago," by Cedric de Leon.

Work motivation has been associated with work productivity. In health care, low motivation levels are associated with low productivity and linked to poor performance, decreased patient safety, and overall poor quality care. Hence the importance, ascribed in the literature, to clearly identifying the relationships between and among factors associated with work motivation, including work attitudes, and behaviours linked to work performance such as extra-role behaviours. Despite their importance to performance in health care, these relationships are understudied and poorly understood. The purpose of this study is to better understand work attitudes and their relationships to one another and to extra-role behaviours amongst nurses working in hospitals, the community, and long-term care settings in Ontario. This study comprises two stages: first, a scoping review focused on identifying individual-, unit-level, and organization-level characteristics that influence work motivation in health service organizations. The findings from the scoping review, augmented by a more in-depth review of the literature, aided in the development of a conceptual framework that guided the second stage of the study, to examine relationships amongst a specific set of nurses’ work attitudes - including perceptions of organizational justice, perceived organizational support, and affective commitment - and extra-role behaviours – specifically, organizational citizenship behaviours - in Ontario health care settings. In the second stage of the study, a survey was developed and administered to frontline nurses actively working in hospitals, the community, and long-term care settings in Ontario. Relationships amongst the constructs of interest were examined using structural equation modeling and path analysis. Examining the relationships of these concepts in a single model is novel, and offers insights regarding their complexity. The analyses further suggest that prior studies may be under-nuanced, and approaches to conceptualizing the concepts of perceived organizational justice and affective commitment in particular may have led to erroneous conclusions regarding their associations with perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behaviours. This study further addresses four significant gaps previously identified in the work motivation and work behaviour literature: (1) how affective commitment relates to behavioural efforts, specifically organizational citizenship behaviours; (2) utilization of reliable and validated instruments to study work motivation; (3) use of a sufficiently large sample to have empirical support for generalizability; and (4) examination of these phenomena, among nurses, across diverse health care settings.

This article reviews the book, "Ten Pathways to Death and Disaster," by Michael Quinlan.

This project provides a coalitional reading of Chinese Canadian literature, film, and history based on an allegorical framework of Asian-Indigenous relationalities. It tracks how Chinese labour stories set during the period of Chinese exclusion can not only leverage national belonging for Chinese settlers but also be reread for a different sense of belonging that remains attentive to other exclusions made natural by settler colonial discourses and institutional structures, that is, the disavowal of Indigenous presence and claims to sovereignty and autochthony. It contributes to important discussions about the experiences of racism and oppression that typically privilege the relations and tensions of diasporic and Indigenous communities but hardly with each other. What is more, this study aligns with a recent surge of interest in investigating Asian-Indigenous relations in Asian Canadian, Asian American, and Asian diaspora studies. The political investments driving this project show a deep commitment to anti-racist and decolonial advocacy. By examining how Chinese cultural workers in Canada have tried to do justice to the Head Tax generation’s experiences of racial exclusion and intersectional oppressions in fiction, non-fiction, graphic non-fiction, and documentaries, it asks whether there are ways to ethically assert an excluded and marginalized Chinese presence in the context of the settler colonial state. By doing justice to the exclusion of Chinese settlers in the national imaginary, do Chinese cultural workers as a result perform an injustice to the originary presence of Indigenous peoples? This thesis re-examines the anti-racist imperative that frames Chinese labour stories set during the period of Chinese exclusion in Canada: by exploring whether social justice projects by racially marginalized communities can simultaneously re-assert an excluded racialized presence and honour their treaty rights and responsibilities, it works to apprehend the colonial positionality of the Chinese diaspora within the Canadian settler state.

The article reviews the book, "From New Peoples to New Nations: Aspects of Métis History and Identity from the Eighteenth to Twenty-First Centuries," by Gerhard J. Ens and Joe Sawchuk.

The article reviews the book, "Reviving Social Democracy: The Near Death and Surprising Rise of the Federal NDP," edited by David Laycock and Lynda Erickson.

This article reviews the book, "Mentir au travail," by Duarte Rolo.