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In recent years, trade unions in Canada have become increasingly reliant on constructing workers’ rights as part of the broader rubric of human rights. While the topic of labour rights has become popular in recent academic literature, it remains under-explored. An important element of constructing labour rights as human rights is its impact on union democracy and rank-and-file mobilization, though this has yet to be fully explored. Utilizing the case study of the Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU) struggle against Bill 29, this paper suggests that a reliance on the construction of labour rights as human rights and the corresponding judicial strategy prevents the development of a more radical, grassroots social movement unionism and instead facilitates the proliferation of hierarchical, elite dominated forms trade unionism. It concludes by suggesting that unions must be cautious of the potential downfalls of quelling militant grassroots activism in lieu of a rights-based challenge.

With increasing vigor, unions are championing the claim that "labor rights are human rights." This is especially true in Canada and is aided by a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 2007 that affords constitutional protection to the right to bargain collectively. Constructing labor rights as human rights relies on a judicial-based strategy at both the national and the international level, including the use of the International Labour Organization (ILO). This article seeks to determine how useful the ILO is to the Canadian labour movement. It finds that the ILO is of little use to Canadian unions in and of itself, but that it is more useful when Canadian courts apply the provisions of international law to domestic legislation. As a recent case history shows, however, there is no guarantee that the Supreme Court will elect to adopt the provisions of international law.

The article reviews the book, "Technology and Nationalism," by Marco Adria.

This paper examines how gender and the occupation of one's spouse may explain differences in the amounts and types of spousal support individuals receive when coping with the stress of their job. We analyze survey data from a sample of married lawyers, some of whom are married to other lawyers and some of whom have spouses who are not lawyers. The results show that men receive more emotional support from their spouse than women, regardless of their spouse's occupation. In contrast, lawyers receive more informational support from their spouse if they are also a lawyer, regardless of their gender. Future research might explore not only the importance of shared statuses, such as occupation, but also the meaning of shared experiences in order to better understand spouses' support of one another.

The article reviews the book, "Creative Community Organizing: A Guide for Rabble Rousers, Activists & Quiet Lovers of Justice," by Si Kahn.

The study aimed to identify ways of strengthening trade union organization amongst peripheral workers in micro and small enterprises (MSEs) through a mapping exercise in nine countries drawn predominantly from the Global South, the periphery of the global economy. The paper identifies four main responses by trade unions to non-standard employees; indifference, attempts at extending existing forms of representation, resistance to non-standard employment and most significantly, the creation of specific kinds of representation and protection for the new forms of employment. We conclude that mapping on its own is a limited tool in recruiting new union members amongst peripheral workers. However, new institutional actors are filling the vacuum created by the failure of traditional industrial relations actors to respond to the representation gap.

The article reviews the book, "Clean Clothes: A Global Movement to End Sweatshops," by Liesbeth Sluiter.

The article reviews the book, "Reproducing the French Race: Immigration, Intimacy, and Embodiment in the Early Twentieth Century," by Elisa Camiscioli.

The purpose of this research is to examine whether differences exist in the work values of several generations among 186 respondents in Quebec and 252 Arab respondents in the United Arab Emirates. We used an abridged version of Wils, Luncasu and Waxin (2007) work value inventory, including 28 work values arranged on four poles: self-enhancement, self-transcendence, openness-to-change and conservation. In the Quebec sample, there were no significant differences between generations in their scores on the four work value poles. In the Arab sample, the younger generation attached less importance to self-enhancement, but more importance to self-transcendence than the older generation with a small effect size. Our results also demonstrate that cultural origin had no significant impact on the average score on the work value poles. The diversity in work values among generations and cultures that we found in our samples does not support the idea that human resource management practices should be adjusted for different generations.

The article reviews the books "Corporations in Evolving Diversity: Cognition, Governance and Institutions" by Masahiko Aoki, "The Institutions of the Market: Organizations, Social Systems and Governance" edited by Alexander Ebner and Nikolaus Beck, and "Internationalisation and Economic Institutions" by Mark Thatcher.

Union Contributions to Labor Welfare Policy and Practice, edited by Paul A. Kurzman and R. Paul Maiden, is reviewed

When unions recruit women they tend to recruit them in gender blind ways. appealing to them as workers around job and workplace focused interests. This approach to collective representation ignores women's gender-specific experiences and understanding of their relationship to work as a blurring of the boundaries between work, home and community. By shifting their organizing strategy from the workplace and work to the community and relations of caring, this blurring of the boundaries opens up new strategies in which unions might organize and represent women workers. Using a case study of the organization of child care providers by a British Columbia union, the article explores how organizing in the interstices of work, home and community around relations of caring allowed this union to build a coalition of workers with divergent interests and employment relations.

The article reviews the book, "The Revival of Labor Liberalism," by Andrew Battista.

The article reviews the book, "SARS Unmasked: Risk Communication of Pandemics and Influenza in Canada," by Michael G. Tyshenko and Cathy Paterson.

This article is based on the findings of the Hospital Support Workers Study, which includes in-depth interviews with 70 hospital housekeepers and dietary aids in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. As a result of provincial government legislation in 2003, all hospital-based support work in the Vancouver region was privatized and contracted out to three multinational corporations. The outsourcing of hospital support services is part of a larger global trend toward neoliberal policy reform in health care. This article presents the perceptions of hospital support workers about the consequences of contracting out on their work conditions, training, turnover rates and other issues that directly affect their quality of work and have important implications for patient health and well-being. The findings suggest serious negative consequences for the health care system as a result of the privatization and contracting out of hospital support services.