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Why are class politics more prevalent in Canada than in the U.S., even though the two countries share similar cultures, societies, and economies? Many view this cross­border distinction as a byproduct of long­standing differences in political cultures and institutions, but I find that it is actually a relatively recent divergence resulting from how the working class was politically incorporated in both countries before, during, and after World War II. My central argument is that in Canada, this incorporation process embedded "the class idea"--the idea of class as a salient, legitimate political category--more deeply in policies, institutions, and practices than in the U.S.Out of the social and political struggles of that period emerged two working class movements that, although bearing a surface resemblance, were organized along different logics. In Canada, the working class was incorporated as a class representative, whereas in the U.S. It was incorporated as an interest group. That difference in political incorporation enabled or constrained labor's legitimacy and organizational capacity in different ways in both countries. Canadian labor's role as a class representative legitimized it and expanded its organizational capacity, while U.S. labor's role as an interest group delegitimized it and undermined its organizational capacity.I show this through a detailed analysis of trajectories of labor movement strength in both countries over the course of the twentieth century, as measured by unionization rates, or union density. Starting from the observation that union density was very similar in both countries until the mid-1960s, then diverged, I first examine competing explanations for this divergence. Having illustrated their strengths and limitations, I then develop an argument showing how the divergence in working class organizational strength was the outcome of struggles for political incorporation.I identify two key moments that shaped these different processes of political incorporation. The first was the restructuring of party-class alliances in both countries in the 1930s and 40s, where U.S. labor decisively abandoned the project of building an independent working class party in favor of an alliance with the Democratic Party, at the same moment that Canadian labor forged an independent class alliance with progressive agrarian forces under the banner of the CCF. The second was differences in the effects of postwar Red scares on the relationship between labor and the left in both countries. While anti-Communism took its toll on working class movements in both countries, the labor-left alliance was severed in the U.S., but only strained in Canada. The outcome of these processes was a U.S. labor movement that conceived of itself more as an interest group representing a specific constituency within the Democratic Party, and a Canadian labor movement that conceived of itself more as a class representative with closer ties to a broader social movement.Differences in labor's political incorporation also shaped the formation and development of the regimes governing labor-management relations in both countries. The Canadian labor regime was created as a result of working class upsurge from below, whereas the U.S. labor regime was created as part of an elite reform project from above. This original difference influenced the organizing logics of each regime. Whereas the Canadian labor regime was organized around recognizing the existence of class conflict and seeking to mitigate it, the U.S. regime was organized around protecting workers' individual rights. Although this created a more interventionist Canadian system that restricted labor's scope of action in important ways, it also reinforced a collective, oppositional class identity vis-à-vis both employers and the state. Meanwhile, the U.S. system's focus on rights led to a stronger focus on legalistic proceduralism and imposing a formal equality between labor and management that obscured the power imbalance inherent in the employment relationship. Additionally, labor drew different lessons from these different processes of regime formation. Whereas Canadian labor learned the value of winning gains through disruptive mass mobilization, U.S. labor learned the value of winning gains through sympathetic politicians and favorable legal precedents.The combination of a more protective and institutionally stable labor regime and a labor movement more accustomed to winning gains through mass mobilization, Canadian labor was better positioned to defend itself than its U.S. counterpart when employers began a counter-offensive beginning in the late 1960s. While U.S. labor spiraled into decline, Canadian labor proved more resilient, leading to the divergence in union density rates.

Tight labor markets driven by resource booms could increase the opportunity cost of schooling and crowd out human capital formation. For oil-producing economies such as the Province of Alberta, the OPEC oil shocks during the period from 1973 to 1981 may have had an adverse long-term effect on the productivity of the labor force if the oil boom resulted in workers reducing their ultimate investment in human capital rather than merely altering the timing of schooling. The authors analyze the effect of this decade-long oil boom on the long-term human capital investments and productivity for Alberta birth cohorts that were of normal schooling ages before, during, and after the oil boom. Their findings suggest that resource booms may change the timing of schooling but they do not reduce the total accumulation of human capital.

During the Great Depression, the conflicting interests of capital and labour became clearer than ever before. Radical Canadian workers, encouraged by the Red International of Labour Unions, responded by building the Workers' Unity League – an organization that greatly advanced the cause of unions in Canada, and boasted 40,000 members at its height. In Raising the Workers' Flag, the first full-length study of this robust group, Stephen L. Endicott brings its passionate efforts to light in memorable detail. Raising the Workers' Flag is based on newly available or previously untapped sources, including documents from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's Security Service and the Communist Party's archives. Using these impressive finds, Endicott gives an intimate sense of the raging debates of the labour movement of the 1930s. A gripping account of the League's dreams and daring, Raising the Workers' Flag enlivens some of the most dramatic struggles of Canadian labour history. -- Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Sounds of Ethnicity: Listening to German North America, 1850-1914," by Barbara Lorenzkowski.

The article reviews the book, "Champagne and Meatballs: Adventures of a Canadian Communist," by Bert Whyte, edited by Larry Hannant.

Provides a critical assessment of labour's longstanding relationship with the NDP and makes the case that organized labour's own "culture of defensiveness" has helped to maintain its enduring links with the NDP, despite the party's diminishing interest in projects historically associated with social democracy. --Editor's introduction

Compares the case law on Fraser and Dunsmore and critiques the Supreme Court's failure in Fraser to address the functional nature of the discrimination against farm workers as an issue of equality rights under Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms,

In the past decade, Canada’s labour market has undergone a significant shift to rely increasingly on migrant workers who come to Canada from around the globe on time-limited work permits to provide labour in an expanding range of industries. Since 2000, the number of migrant workers employed in Canada has more than tripled. Expanding in response to employer demand, with little public debate, the greatest proportionate growth in migrant labour has been among low-skill, low-wage workers in sectors such as caregiving, agriculture, hospitality, food services, construction and tourism. This report provides a critical analysis of the federal and provincial laws that regulate and constrain the rights of low-wage migrant workers, proposes a rights-based framework to assess their treatment, identifies the ways in which the law constructs migrant workers’ insecurity through each stage of the labour migration cycle, and examines options for systemic change to increase workers’ security.... Executive summary

The article reviews the book, "In the Mood for Munsingwear: Minnesota's Claim to Underwear Fame," by Susan Marks.

The article reviews the book, "Welfare," by Mary Daly.

The article reviews the book, "Opportunity Denied: Limiting Black Women to Devalued Work," by Enobong Hannah Branch.

[This booklet] traces the development of International Workers’ Day, May 1st, against the ever-changing economic and political backdrop in Canada. Recognizing the importance of work and the historical struggles of workers to improve their lives, with a particular focus on the struggles of May 1st, the comic includes the reader as part of this history, and the story concludes that “We are all part of this historical struggle; it’s our history and our future." --Publisher's description

During the mid–2000s the number of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) present in Canada increased dramatically, more than tripling in eight years. The bulk of the increase was due to an expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) to include lower–skilled occupations. The stated reason for the expansion was to address short–term labour shortages. Contrary to expectations, upon the onset of the economic downturn in 2008, the number of TFWs did not decrease significantly, and appears to be increasing again in 2010 and 2011. This paper tracks the evolution of the TFWP from a stable program designed to address short–term labour needs in high–skilled occupations into a broader labour market tool. The paper examines the most recent available statistical data for the TFWP and other documentary evidence to argue the role of the TFWP in Canada´s labour market has quietly shifted, becoming a permanent, large–scale labour pool for many industries, reminiscent of European migrant worker programs. The paper also examines the potential labour market implications of an expanded, entrenched TFWP.

This article focuses on interactions between dispatchers and drivers in addressing issues related to high turnover in the trucking industry. The study uses a qualitative approach, based on 17 individual interviews and three group discussions with dispatchers, truck drivers and labour and management representatives from 11 different Quebec-based organizations. The results reveal four key characteristics influencing the day-to-day dynamics of trucking operations: 1) the importance of dispatcher-driver interactions in efficient and quality work operations; 2) the precedence of customer satisfaction in these interactions; 3) the interdependent nature of the dispatcher-driver relationship; and 4) the role of listening and mutual respect. These findings provide new insight into understanding this relationship that is critical to driver retention.

This article examines the round of collective bargaining that took place between the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW), Canada’s largest private-sector union, and the ‘Big Three’ auto manufacturers (Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors) during the most recent crisis of capitalism (sometimes popularly referred to as the ‘Great Recession’). During this round of bargaining, the union made concessions in order to secure production; the article argues what while this may have represented a short-term success, in the long run the union has implicitly bought into the logics of neoliberalism, which will have disastrous consequences for both the union and the larger labour movement.

À la fin de la Première Guerre mondiale, le Canada menace de basculer dans une révolution sociale. Rassemblements et mobilisations des milieux ouvriers se succèdent durant l’hiver 1918-1919 et culminent avec la grève générale de Winnipeg en mai-juin 1919. Le mouvement est finalement écrasé par l’armée sur l’ordre de Robert Borden, premier ministre de l’époque. Cette suite d’événements, qui correspond dans les faits à un conflit de travail généralisé, est immédiatement associée par les autorités à la menace d’une révolution bolchevique. Le gouvernement et les médias lancent une grande campagne de diabolisation à l’endroit des chefs syndicaux et autres leaders politiques. Le but, bien évidemment, est d’user de la peur que suscitent partout les rouges pour étouffer le conflit social, et d’obtenir le soutien de l’opinion publique pour l’éradication de toute activité politique jugée radicale. Fondé sur des documents officiels et des témoignages de première main, cet ouvrage raconte un épisode méconnu mais déterminant de l’histoire canadienne. La campagne contre « le péril rouge » a joué un rôle fondamental dans la répression des conflits de travail de l’entre-deux-guerres. Depuis, la même recette a été utilisée pour les mêmes raisons. En outre, les parallèles avec la guerre actuelle contre le terrorisme se font sans effort. Aujourd’hui comme hier, les libertés d’expression et de contestation de l’ordre établi sont contraintes au nom d’une sécurité nationale aux frontières desquelles semblent s’arrêter les droits civils. (Sommaire de l'éditeur)

Examines the Supreme Court's decision on Fraser in the context of the broader political battle on labour rights. The author links the decline in union density to increasing inequality in income and taxation. Canada's failure to ratify or comply with international conventions of labour rights is also analyzed.

The scope of labour rights that are protected by constitutional protections of freedom of association is highly contested and, increasingly, is being litigated before courts. In Canada, the Supreme Court began in 2001 to chip away at jurisprudence that provided a narrow interpretation of freedom of association, and, in 2007, it over-ruled precedent to hold that freedom of association includes collective bargaining. However, this incremental expansion of the freedom of association to include core labour rights came to a halt in the Supreme Court's April 2011 decision Attorney General of Ontario v Fraser. Although a majority of the Court agreed that freedom of association includes collective bargaining, Fraser is remarkable for the extent of disagreement amongst members of the Court over the scope of collective bargaining and how this disagreement has influenced the tone and cogency of the Court's reasoning. This article begins by providing a history of the successive rounds of litigation leading to the Supreme Court's decision in Fraser. This legal context is important because it is barely visible in the majority and concurring judgments, which read as if collective bargaining rights for agricultural workers were a subsidiary concern, and not the issue in dispute. The article then examines the four judgments that make up the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Fraser, focusing exclusively on the freedom of association arguments. The implications of the Fraser decision for the immediate future of constitutional litigation and labour rights in Canada are discussed in the final section.

Explains in detail the purpose of the book (see publisher's description) and provides a synopsis of the essays contained therein.

On 29 April 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada released its much-anticipated decision in Attorney General of Ontario v Fraser, which dealt with the scope of constitutional protection of collective bargaining. The case involved a constitutional challenge to an Ontario statute on the grounds that it violated agricultural workers’ freedom of association and right to equality by excluding them from the statutory protection that is available to virtually all other private sector workers and by failing to provide them with alternative legislative support for meaningful and effective collective bargaining rights. Although the Court upheld the constitutionality of the legislation by an eight to one majority, it provided four different, and incommensurable, sets of reasons. For the union that instigated the litigation, Fraser is a defeat. For the labour movement and their advocates, Fraser is ambiguous. What is clear, however, is that the Supreme Court of Canada was badly divided over the scope of protection that freedom of association provides to the right to bargain collectively. This collection of original essays untangles the two stories that are intertwined in the Fraser decision—the story of the farm workers and their union’s attempt to obtain rights at work available to other working people in Ontario, and the tale of judicial discord over the meaning of freedom of association in the context of work. The contributors include trade unionists, lawyers, and academics (several of whom were involved in Fraser as witnesses, parties, lawyers, and interveners). The collection provides the social context out of which the decision emerged, including a photo essay on migrant workers, while at the same time illuminating Fraser’s broader jurisprudential and institutional implications. --Publisher's description. Introduction: Farm Workers, Collective Bargaining Rights, and the Meaning of Constitutional Protection / Judy Fudge -- Farm Worker Exceptionalism: Past, Present, and the post-Fraser Future / Eric Tucker -- The Roots of Organizing Agriculture Workers in Canada / Wayne Hanley -- Development as Remittances or Development as Freedom? Exploring Canada’s Temporary Migration Programs from a Rights-based Approach / Kerry Preibisch -- Envisioning Equality: Analogous Grounds and Farm Workers’ Experience of Discrimination / Fay Faraday -- Harvest Pilgrims: Migrant Farm Workers in Ontario / Vincenzo Pietropaolo --The Fraser Case: A Wrong Turn in a Fog of Judicial Deference / Paul J.J. Cavalluzzo -- What Fraser Means For Labour Rights in Canada / Steven Barrett and Ethan Poskanzer -- Labour Rights: A Democratic Counterweight to Growing Income Inequality in Canada / Derek Fudge -- The International Constitution / Patrick Macklem -- Giving Life to the ILO: Two Cheers for the SCC / K.D. Ewing and John Hendy.