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The aim of paper is to understand the role and significance of supply chain leverage in promoting health and safety management at sea, the institutional contexts in which it occurs and under which circumstances it is effective. This is a qualitative research study that examined the views of seafarers and their managers on what drives the implementation of occupational health and safety (OHS) management arrangements in two shipping sectors, namely, the independent oil and chemical tanker trade and the container trade. It is based on interviews with seafarers working on board several of these vessels and with representatives of the companies managing and operating the ships. As might be anticipated from previous theorizing of supply chain effects on OHS, the study found there to be strong evidence of its influence on OHS management arrangements on tankers. The most significant driver of this effect for both managers and seafarers appeared to be the surveillance of their OHS arrangements instituted by the heads of the supply chain—in this case the oil majors and their inspection systems. Perhaps more surprisingly, despite the more diffuse, transactional and arms-length supply arrangements in the container trade, in the one case study from this sector examined in the paper, supply chain influences on OHS were nevertheless discernable. However, it also demonstrated the positive role played by the framework for maritime regulation in determining the significance of these influences. Essentially, the results indicate that, under certain conditions, supply chain relations are useful in helping to support implementation of arrangements for OHS management on merchant vessels. However, it also more broadly demonstrates that such leverage is most likely to be effective when it operates within a wider institutional framework in which public regulation and its surveillance by regulatory authorities remains a key element.

This paper explores the practice of worker representation coalmining in Australia, in which there are both serious risks to health and safety and where regulatory provisions on worker representation on health and safety are longstanding. Despite their longevity, their operation has been little studied. The aim of the paper is to address this gap by examining the quality of the practice of worker representation in the sector. In particular, it explores strategies used by representatives to undertake their role in the context of the hostile industrial relations that are characteristic of coalmining. It examines documentary records of statutory inspections by worker representatives and government mines inspectors and analyses the content of qualitative interviews. It finds that the representatives address serious and potentially fatal risks in their activities and make effective use of their statutory powers in doing so, including their power to suspend operations they deem to be unacceptably dangerous. Nevertheless, they strive to operate within the boundaries of regulation in order to offset the negative influences of a hostile labour relations climate, As well as cautious use of their powers to order the cessation of operations where they deem the risks to be unacceptable, they also avoid accusations of unnecessarily impeding production and engaging with labour relations matters that are outside their statutory remit, through good communication between themselves and other workplace representatives. This is made possible by support from the relatively high level of workplace trade union organization present in the mines and further support derived from the trade union more widely and from the unique two-tier form of representation provided for by legislation. Both ensure the representatives are well informed, well trained and supported in their role. Overall, the study highlights the positive role representatives and unions play in preventive health and safety even in hostile labour relations climates., // Cette étude explore la pratique de représentation des travailleurs dans l'industrie minière australienne, industrie comportant des risques sérieux en matière de santé et de sécurité au travail, et où des dispositions réglementaires à cet effet existent depuis fort longtemps. En dépit de cette longévité, leur application a fait l'objet de peu d'étude. Le but de cet article est de combler cette lacune en analysant la qualité de la pratique de la représentation des travailleurs dans ce secteur. Plus particulièrement, nous nous intéressons aux stratégies mises en place par les représentants afin de jouer pleinement leur rôle dans le contexte hostile des relations de travail qui caractérise l'industrie minière australienne. Nous passons en revue les documents d'archives des inspections obligatoires menées par les représentants des travailleurs et les inspecteurs miniers gouvernementaux, et nous analysons le contenu d'entrevues qualitatives. Il ressort que les représentants des travailleurs sont avant tout préoccupés de contrer les risques graves et potentiellement mortels dans le cours des activités des mineurs et, ce faisant, ils utilisent de manière efficace leurs pouvoirs réglementaires, incluant celui de suspendre les opérations jugées potentiellement dangereuses. Néanmoins, ils s'efforcent d'opérer dans les limites fixées par la règlementation, dans le but de compenser les effets négatifs de l'hostilité du climat des relations de travail. En conséquence, ils se montrent prudents dans l'utilisation de leurs pouvoirs d'ordonner la cessation d'opérations qu'ils jugent comporter un risque inacceptable. Ainsi, ils évitent d'être accusés d'avoir indûment fait cesser des opérations et de s'être engagés sur des questions de relations de travail qui sont en dehors de leurs attributions légales. Ils maintiennent également de bonnes pratiques de communication entre eux et les autres représentants des travailleurs. Tout ceci est rendu possible grâce au soutien des hautes instances syndicales dans les mines et de l'appui émanant du mouvement syndical en général et du système unique de représentation bipartite prévu à la législation, lesquels font en sorte que les représentants des travailleurs sont bien informés, bien formés et bien supportés dans leur rôle. Dans l'ensemble, l'étude met en lumière le rôle positif que les représentants des travailleurs et les syndicats jouent en matière de prévention en santé et sécurité, même lorsque le climat des relations de travail s'avère hostile.

The article reviews the book, "Le « moment 68 » et la réinvention de l’Acadie," by Joel Belliveau.

“Building The Power” is a fascinating look into the history of LiUNA Local 1611, documenting the dramatic events and accomplishments of its members since 1937, written by Local 1611’s Strategic Researcher and labour activist Mark Warrior. In 1953, Stacey Warner, while organizing pipeline workers, was threatened with a shotgun by a company thug hired for the sole purpose of intimidation. The police did not take notice. In 1981, the Labour Relations Board ignored the fact that the employer offered union member a $1,000 bribe to change his vote—right at the Labour Relations Board office—when LiUNA Local 1070 was attempting to certify his bargaining unit. Ignoring naked violence had been replaced by ignoring blatant lawbreaking. But the result was not the same. Warner succeeded in organizing the workers. These are examples of the conflict and often dangerous scenarios those in the Labour Movement have faced in their effort to secure workers’ right and fair working wages and safe working conditions. --Website description

This thesis examines contemporary popular and news media representation of motherhood and labour in Canada and the United States. I explore what texts about motherhood and maternal labour suggest about gendered responsibilities to citizenship in neoliberal conditions. Building on important feminist research in the fields of citizenship, care, and the welfare state, I ask how are mothers being socially responsibilized toward multiple forms of labour simultaneously and to what effect? By engaging feminist theories of citizenship and bridging this field with feminist theories of science, media, and affect, I demonstrate how, under neoliberal conditions and in precarious circumstances, the ways in which women appear to juggle their commitments to paid and unpaid labour, determines how mainstream discourses reflect their value as citizens. This dissertation uses feminist critical discourse analysis to assess how, as women are responsibilized toward unpaid intimate work in newly empirical ways at the same time that they are encouraged to pursue career success in full-time paid employment, contemporary women in Canada and the United States are encouraged to rise above welfare retrenchment and inadequate provision by juggling “it all.” My thesis is an intersectional feminist project that interrogates questions of gendered citizenship and maternal affect, and I join feminist political theorists in applying pressure to the field of citizenship studies to centre reproduction in discussion of gendered welfare.

The article reviews the book, "Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution," by James Ferguson.

Many Canadians believe their nation fell on the right side of history in harbouring escaped slaves from the United States. In fact, in the wake of the American Revolution, many Loyalist families brought slaves with them when they settled in the Maritime colonies of British North America. Once there, slaves used their traditions of survival, resistance, and kinship networks to negotiate their new reality. Harvey Amani Whitfield’s book, the first on slavery in the Maritimes, is a startling corrective to the enduring and triumphant narrative of Canada as a land of freedom at the end of the Underground Railroad. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Struggle for the Soul of the Postwar South: White Evangelical Protestants and Operation Dixie," by Elizabeth Fones-Wolf and Ken Fones-Wolf.

In recent years, environmental organizations and labour unions have begun to more seriously campaign for the promotion of green jobs as a way to address the twin problems of climate change and economic stagnation, particularly in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008. They variously suggest that green jobs will be created through increased investment in green sectors; for some, this requires public investment and the adoption of a Green New Deal (GND) policy orientation, while for others this requires only increased private investment in green industries. The former emphasize that since green sectors are more labour-intensive than traditional industries, investment in green infrastructure could thus generate comparatively more employment per dollar invested. At the heart of these proposals is the proposition that capitalist economic growth could be made consistent with social and ecological justice. This dissertation is a critical engagement with the propositions of the green jobs campaign through the concrete examination of two diverse cases of residential (i.e. post-consumer) recycling, a quintessentially green sector, in Buenos Aires and Toronto. Defining recycling as the (global) production of value from waste, the analysis pays particular attention to both the labour process and historical development of recycling. Through a combination of qualitative document analysis, archival research, and qualitative interviews, this thesis argues that purely market-coordinated recycling is not able to simultaneously deliver large-scale employment creation and improved socio-ecological outcomes because of the inherent tension between labour intensiveness and methods of increasing productivity. This tension, in turn, is rooted in the distributive conflict characteristic of capitalist production, the resolution of which requires increased economic growth. From an ecological perspective, then, this is simply a deferment of the problem. In line with proponents of the Green New Deal, this dissertation argues that mediation of this tension in a direction favourable to both ecological and social concerns requires collective intervention. However, going beyond the Green New Deal, it concludes that commitment to social and ecological justice requires moving in the direction of decommodified, cooperative production and collective consumption.

Profile of Sam Berg, a former junior hockey player who in October 2014 agreed to become the representative plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against the three major junion hockey leagues: the Ontario Hockey League, the Western Hockey League, and the Quebec Major Junion Hockey League.

This report was prepared for the Moose Cree First Nation. Employment opportunities figure prominently in the private agreements between First Nations, Inuit and Métis governments and the resource companies who want to develop on their territories. Resource companies and Indigenous leadership alike often see employment opportunities as a key way that local communities can benefit from resource-related development. Many early agreements, however, provided for entry-level positions but not for training that would lead to meaningful work that is well compensated for Indigenous communities. As a result, employment provisions in agreements often strive to provide greater detail about access to training and movement into higher skilled positions. Access to training is particularly critical in the construction sector, since jobs are short term and range from unskilled positions that have no upward mobility to registered tradespersons, foreman and superintendent positions. This report offers a detailed examination of how a negotiated agreement facilitated the training and employment of First Nations workers in the construction phase of the Lower Mattagami River Hydro River Project (LMRP) from 2010 to 2015.

For a purportedly democratic country such as Canada, it is strange that so many of us seem to accept, unquestioningly, the absolute right of the employer to arbitrarily dictate the terms and conditions of our workplaces. This is just one example of what Ralph Nader is talking about when he says that, "When all is said and done, democracy is widely liked and widely unpracticed."

Labour market policy in Canada has undergone profound reforms over the past several decades. Successive federal and provincial governments have sought to “activate” the unemployed through measures such as Employment Insurance (EI) retrenchment and employment service models that stress individual responsibility for the problem of unemployment. This paper analyzes a little known attempt by federal officials to implement statistical profiling of the unemployed in employment service delivery during the mid-1990s. Known as the Service Outcome Measurement System (SOMS) and intended for use by frontline employment counsellors, the technology computed personal data about unemployed service users to predict the employment outcomes of different service options.

Based on interviews with 200 farmworkers, as well as representatives from industry, advocates and civil servants, this study finds that most BC farm workers are subject to hazardous conditions like unsafe transportation, substandard living conditions, long work hours and dangerous equipment. Employment standards for the agricultural sector are only loosely enforced.

This submission to the Ontario Changing Workplaces Consultation represents a comprehensive effort by Unifor to analyze the causes and consequences of these negative trends in Ontario’s labour market, and to propose a set of policy responses to the economic, cultural, and technological pressures that are reshaping the world of work. Our submission begins by documenting the broad evolution in Ontario’s labour market, including the expansion of precarious work, growing inequality of income, the erosion of institutional bulwarks, and the consequent insecurity faced by most working people. It finds that a combination of cyclical and structural factors has contributed to a fundamental shift in economic bargaining power away from workers – and this shift has allowed employers to determine terms of employment that are increasingly precarious and exploitive.

Drawing from the gender wage gap literature, we explore four possible causes of sexual minority earnings gaps: (1) variation in human capital and labor force participation, (2) occupational and industrial sorting, (3) differences in the institutional organization of the public and private sector, and (4) different returns to marriage and parenthood. Using the 2006 Census of Canada, we find that heterosexual men earn more than gay men, followed by lesbians and heterosexual women. Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions show that industry of employment, rather than occupation, disadvantages gay men, lesbians, and heterosexual women. High levels of educational attainment lead to employment in lucrative occupations, but sexual minorities earn significantly less than heterosexual men within these occupations. Wage gaps are reduced in the public sector for heterosexual women, gay men, and lesbians. Finally, we find that heterosexual women experience a motherhood penalty, heterosexual men experience a fatherhood premium, and both receive a premium for marriage; however, the presence of children and marriage have no effect on the earnings of either gay men or lesbians in conjugal relationships.

[E]xamines the role of labor market institutions in the rise of income inequality in advanced economies, alongside other determinants. The evidence strongly indicates that de-unionization is associated with rising top earners’ income shares and less redistribution, while eroding minimum wages are related to increases in overall income inequality. The results, however, also suggest that a lack of representativeness of unions may be associated with higher inequality. These findings do not necessarily constitute a blanket recommendation for higher unionization and minimum wages, as country-specific circumstances and potential trade-offs with other policy objectives need to be considered. Addressing inequality also requires a multipronged approach, which should include taxation reform and curbing excesses associated with financial deregulation.

Released in advance of the Ontario government’s consultation process to review the Employment Standards Act and the Labour Relations Act, this report draws on Statistics Canada data to track a growing reliance on low-wage, precarious employment in Ontario, and how precariously employed workers have less access to the protections of membership in a trade union. The report also highlights the need to modernize the outdated regulatory laws for workers in Ontario, and concludes there is scope for the province to raise the minimum wage, to require employers to schedule more predictable work hours, to set a higher standard for paid leave, and to make it easier for lowwage workers to unionize.

Reviews the experiences of nine patients dealing with chronic pain and WorkSafeBC (formerly the Workers’ Compensation Board). One of the authors (Cecil Hershler), a physician, selected these patients as examples from thousands of patients over the past 25 years who had sought medical help for chronic pain. The authors explored a complex medical and social problem by listening to, summarizing and analyzing patient narratives and then identifying a number of common themes and issues. The authors suggest that these themes and issues point to a need for policy changes for the compensation of injured workers.

Papers from the April 9, 2015, Forum on the January 2015 Supreme Court of Canada decisions on labour rights and their implications for the Canadian labour movement.