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The structure, content and space of union transnational co-ordination are much richer and complex than simply revolving around tensions and relations between bureaucrats and local activists. This is illustrated through the ETUC TRACE project, a study of a managed and steered form of international union coordination. Drawing on this study, this paper discerns a form of co-ordination that worked across various dimensions of action (i.e. "influencing" politics and "communicating" policy), various political relations (internal and external relations) and different organizational levels (micro and macro). By adding original material to the existing literature, the paper stresses the relevance of the project and the various dimensions for appreciating the problems unions face in establishing and sustaining effective cross-national coordination and a supportive environment of "union learning". The TRACE project acknowledged the need to build coordination through a variety of means and serves as an invaluable insight and lesson into more managed and conscious forms of coordination.

The article reviews the book, "La colonie nantaise de Lac-Mégantic. Une implantation française au Québec au XIXe siècle," by Marcel Fournier.

This article examines occupational health and safety (OHS), with a particular focus on youth apprentices. It uses quantitative and qualitative data to examine the incidence of injuries among youth apprentices, and their experiences related to health and safety at work in Canada. Analysis of large-scale national surveys suggests a high incidence of work-related injuries among youth and low participation rates of younger workers in formal OHS training. A survey of 173 former Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP) and Registered Apprenticeship Program in Alberta (RAP) participants finds that one-fifth suffered serious occupational injuries, which required time off work. The results from this study have important implications for youth apprenticeship programs, particularly the OHS- and trade-specific knowledge required for youth to work safely during and following their apprenticeship training.

This paper considers the likelihood of whether freedom of association under section 2(d) of the Charter will be held to include a constitutional right to strike - a question which the Supreme Court of Canada will have an opportun- ity to answer when it hears the upcoming appeal in the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour case. The authors note that the prospects for the recognition of such a right have changed dramatically in the five years since the Supreme Court concluded in B.C. Health that the Charter provided protection for a limited process of collective bargaining. The main reason for this shift is the Court's subsequent decision in the Fraser case, holding that collective bargaining is merely a "derivative right" of freedom of association and that an infringement of section 2(d) in the labour relations context will be found only where the impugned legislation or state action has the effect of making it "impossible" for employees to collectively pursue workplace goals. The authors go on to review how this "effective impossibility" test has been applied by appellate courts in Ontario, British Columbia and the federal jurisdiction in recent freedom of asso- ciation claims. In their view, the restrictive approach now taken by the courts makes it highly unlikely that section 2(d) will be found to protect a right to strike. Even if strike activity is held to attract constitutional protection, they argue, such protection would apply only in very limited situations.

The article reviews the book, "Committing Theatre: Theatre Radicalism and Political Intervention in Canada," by Alan Filewood.

Boom, Bust and Crisis: Labour, Corporate Power and Politics in Canada, edited by John Peters, is reviewed.

This article reviews the English-speaking literature on Spanish and German industrial relations published in the top 10 journals between 2000 and 2010. Our analysis contributes to the debate about the relevance of industrial relations by establishing the state of the art in research on Spain using Germany as a point of comparison. Apart from indicating deficiencies in research on Spain, the results reveal a greater convergence in research regarding its restricted multidisciplinary character, its focus on the international level and a strong emphasis on empirical, quantitative work with analysis conducted at various levels. At the same time some path dependency continues to exist, particularly concerning the active participants in research and the subjects for investigation. We conclude by discussing whether the research on Spain should require normative preconceptions in order to orient policymakers -- an aspect that has been largely overlooked when discussing the rejuvenation of industrial relations.

One of the reforms proposed for Ontario's broader public sector by the Drummond Report is the establishment of centralized bar- gaining structures. As Chaykowski and Hickey have argued, such a reform "must consider whether, how, and in what context, alterna- tive bargaining structures and enhanced coordination could yield outcomes which promote efficiencies and improve value."' In this regard, the transformation of bargaining structures in the Canadian construction industry offers some lessons on structural realignment.

The article reviews the book, "Boom, Bust and Crisis: Labour Corporate Power and Politics in Canada," edited by John Peters.

[The article shows] how management in the post-war period – in this case [Hobbs Hardware in] the mid-1970s – orchestrated effective campaigns to keep low-wage workers out of unions. This is especially true for those workers who toiled in seemingly inconsequential workplaces that were part of the growing service sector, and where unionization was largely prevented. The fact that unionization did not expand into the service sector would have lasting consequences for workers in service industries, for class relations across sectors, and for the Canadian labour movement. [The] analysis utilizes archival documents, but also relies on the memories of three former Hobbs workers.... --From author's introduction

The article reviews the book, "Uneasy Allies: Working for Labor Reform in Nineteenth Century Boston," by David A. Zonderman.

Since the 1960s, if not before, oral history and working-class history have been a dynamic duo, complimenting and overlapping, but also challenging and questioning each other. Both lay and professional historians have been in the forefront of efforts to recuperate, interpret, and preserve the oral histories of working-class individuals and communities across the globe. They created written histories, archival collections, museum exhibits, and community projects that gave workers, their families, and their communities -- those who were less likely to leave archival and written sources for posterity -- a new voice, and a new place in history. Working-class oral history has also encompassed far more than recovery and preservation. Labour historians have enriched the field of oral history by addressing questions about method, theory, and approach, by offering critical reflections on our assumptions and expectations about oral history practice. Oral history has similarly enriched the field of working-class history, posing new questions, challenging existing interpretations, and encouraging the diversification of the themes and subjects we study. In recognition of this dynamic relationship, and the ongoing, mutually beneficial conversation between oral and working-class history, Oral History Forum commissioned this special issue. --Introduction

The article reviews the book, "Ours to Master and to Own: Workers' Control from the Commune to the Present," edited by Dario Azzellini and Immanuel Ness.

This article examines the social integration of migrant and native employees in German industrial workplaces and the impact of workplace industrial relations on it. Drawing on data from interviews with management, works councils and employees, employee surveys and company statistics from three manufacturing companies, it analyzes the positioning of employees of different origin within the companies' social structure, explores their social interaction and asks what role works councils play in fostering social integration of a heterogeneous workforce. Findings show that workplaces are not free from discrimination but, rather, "pragmatic cooperation" and collegiality prevail. It is argued that the legal framework of German co-determination and workplace actors' orientation towards universalistic rule application ("internal universalism") encourages individuals to constitute themselves as employees with common interests and foster social integration.

The article reviews the book, "Canada and the Second World War: Essays in Honour of Terry Copp," edited by Geoffrey Hayes, Mike Bechtold, and Matt Symes.

The article reviews the book, "In the Cause of Freedom: Radical Black Internationalism From Harlem to London 1917-1939," by Minkah Makalani.

Travel is one of many extra-legal barriers that restrict access to abortion services. Paradoxically, women travel at the international, domestic, and local levels to circumvent legal and/or extra-legal barriers to access. Through an examination of four specific Canadian responses to inequality of access to abortion services relative to shifts in the legal terrain from the 1960s onwards, the authors demonstrate that travel signifies an interruption to reproductive choice. Women went to Britain and the United States for an abortion when these countries relaxed their abortion legislation. Within Canada, women sought out the services offered by the Morgentaler Clinic in Montreal in order to avoid the abortion bureaucracy that limited their right to choose. In New Brunswick, the pro-life movement successfully lobbied hospitals to restrict abortion services, and the provincial government to deny funding for abortions performed in freestanding clinics, forcing women to travel to access abortion services. Pro-choice activists in southeastern British Columbia launched a successful campaign to protect hospital abortions, ensuring that rural women had access to abortion services within their home communities. Today, 25 years after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the abortion law, abortion services are uneven at best and unattainable at worst in different regions of the country.

Current policy debates about Canada's retirement income system have failed to consider "gender risk" - i.e. the risk that Canadian women will bear a disproportionate share of welfare loss in old age. This paper argues that the continuing gender disparity in retirement income reflects Canada's heavy reli- ance on private pension instruments generated and shaped by labour markets. The author begins by looking at the relationship between gender and Canada's three-pillar retirement income system, noting that while public pensions distrib- ute benefits based on explicit policy goals, private pensions distribute them based on the "hidden hand" of market principles. She then considers the differential impact of employment-based pension plans on men and women as a function of the distinct patterns of male and female engagement in the labour market. Noting the close relationship between pension design choices and gender outcomes, she goes on to discuss the pension reforms introduced by Canadian governments in the 1960s and 1980s, in which those governments saw gender inequality as an issue to be addressed primarily by mandatory public plans rather than by voluntary private plans. Ultimately, the author contends, the gendered impact of Canada's pension system flows from the complex interaction between women's paid employment and their reproductive and caregiving work. A gender-equal pension system would recognize the unequal burden borne by women in labour markets and in families, and would pool and share the welfare risks which that inequality entails. Voluntary employment-based pension plans shaped by market imperatives at the enterprise level will not address these issues, in the author's view, nor will the type of individualized pension contemplated by the federal government's recent PRPP legislation providing for pooled savings vehicles to which employers do not contribute. What is needed, she argues, is a broad- based collective risk-sharing vehicle such as the CPP/QPP.

The article reviews the book, "Last Nightshift in Savar: The Story of the Spectrum Sweater Factory Collapse," by Doug Miller.

The article reviews the book, "Moving Beyond Borders: A History of British Canadian and Caribbean Women in the Diaspora," by Karen Flynn.