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Labour relations scholar Bob Barnetson sheds light on the faulty system of workplace injury compensation, highlighting the way some employers create dangerous work environments yet invest billions of dollars into compensation and treatment.

David Bennett is the retired National Director of Health, Safety and Environment of the Canadian Labour Congress and the Book Review Editor of the journal New Solutions. Northern Exposures is the result of thirty years of work in the labor movement on workplace health and safety and environmental protection. In the 1990s, the author had a central responsibility in moving the Canadian Labour Congress from its established work in health and safety into environmental protection, a story detailed in Northern Exposures. The book is a collection of published articles and reviews, linked by a new Introduction that shows the development of the thinking and actions of the Canadian labor movement in areas that were in constant flux. --Publisher's description. Contents: The right to know about chemical hazards in Canada,1982-2006 -- Labour and the environment at the Canadian Labour Congress: the story of the convergence -- Occupational health: a discipline out of focus -- Pesticide reduction: a case study from Canada -- The Canadian Labour Congress' pollution prevention strategy -- Prevention and transition -- Cancer battles and the sleep of reason policy and science need not be related: review -- Book about cancer: pragmatic purpose, profound analysis: reviews -- The secret history of the war on cancer: review -- Industrial materials: a guidebook for the future: review -- 'Natural capitalism's' bold theory: review -- Beware ISO -- ISO and the WTO: a report to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions' Working Party on Health, Safety, and Environment -- Health and safety management systems: liability or asset?

Feminism and the political left come to life in this account of an important early twentieth-century social activist. The political movements and social causes of the turbulent 1920s and 30s are brought to life in this study of the work and times of feminist, socialist, and peace activist Rose Henderson (1871-1937). Her commitment to social justice led to frequent monitoring and repression by the authorities but her contributions to activist thought continue to pose challenges for interpretations of the history of Canada, leftism, labour, and women. In the first biography of Henderson, Peter Campbell provides a broader vision and deeper analysis of the period, drawing together the history of labour and of women's movements in French and English Canada, as well as the rise of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and its relationship with the Communist Party. Through analysis of Henderson's ground-breaking ideology Campbell shows that in the interwar years she and her comrades developed a distinctive feminism that differs from that of the first and second waves of feminist thought. A fresh look at the turmoil of the early twentieth century from an eye in the storm, Rose Henderson: A Woman for the People brings well-deserved attention to an influential feminist and leftist. --Publisher's description.

A cogent analysis of North American trade unions' precipitous decline in recent decades. As companies increasingly look to the global market for capital, cheaper commodities and labor, and lower production costs, the impact on Mexican and American workers and labor unions is significant. National boundaries and the laws of governments that regulate social relations between laborers and management are less relevant in the era of globalization, rendering ineffective the traditional union strategies of pressuring the state for reform. Focusing especially on the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (the first international labor agreement linked to an international trade agreement), Norman Caulfield notes the waning political influence of trade unions and their disunity and divergence on crucial issues such as labor migration and workers' rights. Comparing the labor movement's fortunes in the 1970s with its current weakened condition, Caulfield notes the parallel decline in the United States' hegemonic influence in an increasingly globalized economy. As a result, organized labor has been transformed from organizations that once pressured management and the state for concessions to organizations that now request that workers concede wages, pensions, and health benefits to remain competitive in the global marketplace. --Publisher's description. Contents: Labor and global capitalism in North America, 1850-1970 -- The politics of Mexican labor and economic development in crisis -- Mexican labor and workers' rights under NAFTA and NAALC -- Labor mobility and workers' rights in North America -- The crisis of union-management relations in the United States and Canada -- The North American auto industry: the apex of concessionary bargaining -- Veba Las Vegas! unions play casino capitalism : autoworkers lose.

Household work is an essential part of many people's lives, yet all too often it is rendered invisible. More Than It Seems aims not only to make this vitally important work visible, but also to reconsider it as a source of learning. Drawing on a large study conducted in Canada, the authors consider diverse forms of household work, including carework. They highlight the experiences of people at the margins — including immigrants, Aboriginal women, people with disabilities, nannies, and people who provide and receive care — and analyze those experiences through the prism of lifelong learning theory. The result is a pioneering work that challenges our assumptions about both household work and lifelong learning. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Foreword / Patricia Gouthro -- Introduction: More Than It Seems: Household Work and Lifelong Learning / Patrizia Albanese -- What Is Housework? / Margrit Eichler -- Learning through Household Work / Margrit Eichler with Ann Matthews -- Portrait: Dorica -- Encounters with the Self: Disability and the Many Dimensions of Self-Care / Ann Matthews -- Portrait: Fang -- "Have You Had Your Meal Yet?": Chinese Immigrants, Food-related Household Work and Informal Learning / Lichun Willa Liu -- Portrait: Mithreal -- Choreographing Care: Learning through Unpaid Carework / Susan Ferguson and Margrit Eichler -- Portrait: Dee -- The Case of Nannies: Shifting Unpaid Work onto Paid Work / Nicky Hyndman -- Conclusions / Patrizia Albanese -- Appendix 1: Methodological Overview / Ann Matthews -- Appendix 2: The WALL Project / D.W. Livingston -- Appendix 3: Mothers Are Women (MAW) / Kathryn Spracklin.

At the end of World War I, Canada was poised on the brink of social revolution. At least that is what many Canadians, inspired by the success of the Russian Revolution in 1917, hoped and others dreaded. Seeing Reds tells the story of this turbulent period in Canadian history during the winter of 1918-19, when a fearful government led by Prime Minister Robert Borden tried to suppress radical political activity by branding legitimate labour leaders as "Bolsheviks" and "Reds." Canada was in the grip of a widespread Red Scare promoted by the government and the media in order to discredit radical ideas and to rally public support behind mainstream political and economic policies. The story builds toward the events of the Winnipeg General Strike in May-June 1919 when the authorities, believing that the expected revolution had begun, sent soldiers into the streets to put down with force a legitimate labour dispute. Author Daniel Francis examines Canada's Red Scare in a global context, including government responses to similar activities in the United States and western Europe, as well as its ramifications for the contemporary war on terror, in which issues of free speech and political dissent are similarly compromised in the name of national security. Based on government documents and first-hand accounts by the participants themselves, Seeing Reds is a gripping account of a little known episode in Canadian history. --Publisher's description.

An original adventure in public history — a tour of 50 sites where families, workers, unions and communities have recognized the place of workers in 20th-century New Brunswick history. Ten short chapters, with explanatory notes, illustrations and a map. // Une aventure originale en histoire publique — une tournée de 50 lieux où des familles, des travailleuses et des travailleurs, des syndicats et des communautés ont reconnu la place des travailleuses et des travailleurs dans l’histoire du Nouveau-Brunswick du 20e siècle. Dix courts chapitres, des notes explicatives, des illustrations et une carte. --Publisher's description

Work on Trial is a collection of studies of eleven major cases and events that have helped to shape the legal landscape of work in Canada. While most of the cases are well-known because of the impact they have had on collective bargaining, individual employment law, or human rights, less is known about the social and political contexts in which the cases arose, the backgrounds and personalities of the judges and the litigants, the legal manoeuvres that were employed, or the ultimate fate of all those who were involved. These studies, written by some of Canada's leading labour and legal historians, provide this context. Beginning with Toronto Electric Commissioners v. Snider, one of the earliest and most important cases involving the division of powers in the Canadian federation, to the events leading to the articulation of the "Rand Formula" in the immediate post Second World War period, and on to the struggles of women workers in the late 20th century in challenging the continu-ing employment practices based on hegemonic gender-based assumptions, each study tells a compelling story, rich in detail and full of perceptive insights into the complex relationship between law and work. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction / Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker -- pt 1. Constitutions and institutions. "Capitalist ’justice’ as peddled by the ’noble lords’": Toronto Electric Commissioners v. Snider et al. / R. Blake Brown and Jennifer J. Llewellyn -- John East Iron Works v. Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board: a test for the infant administrative state / Beth Bilson -- pt. 2. Responsible unions: security, orderly production, and dissent. How Justice Rand devised his famous formula / William Kaplan -- Dissent, democracy, and discipline: the case of Kuzych v. White et al. / Mark Leier -- Organizing offshore: labour relations, industrial pluralism, and order in the Newfoundland and Labrador oil industry, 1997-2006 / Sean T. Cadigan -- pt. 3. Courts and collective action in the post-war regime. The Royal York Hotel case: the "right" to strike--and not be fired for striking / Malcolm E. Davidson -- Hersees of Woodstock Ltd. v. Goldstein: how a small town case made it big / Eric Tucker -- A certain "malaise": Harrison v. Carswell, shopping centre picketing, and the limits of the post-war settlement / Philip Girard and Jim Phillips -- pt. 4. Human rights norms at work. Debating maternity rights: Pacific Western Airlines and flight attendants’ struggle to "fly pregnant" in the 1970s / Joan Sangster -- Challenging norms and creating precedents: the tale of a woman firefighter in the forests of British Columbia / Judy Fudge and Hester Lessard -- pt. 5. Changing common law norms. The micropolitics of Wallace v. United Grain Growers Ltd. / Daphne G. Taras -- Afterword: looking back / Harry Glasbeek.

One Hundred Years of Social Work is the first comprehensive history of social work as a profession in English Canada. Organized chronologically, it provides a critical and compelling look at the internal struggles and debates in the social work profession over the course of a century and investigates the responses of social workers to several important events. A central theme in the book is the long-standing struggle of the professional association (the Canadian Association of Social Workers) and individual social workers to reconcile advancement of professional status with the promotion social action. The book chronicles the early history of the secularization and professionalization of social work and examines social workers roles during both world wars, the Depression, and in the era of postwar reconstruction. It includes sections on civil defence, the Cold War, unionization, social work education, regulation of the profession, and other key developments up to the end of the twentieth century. Drawing on extensive archival research as well as personal interviews and secondary literature, the authors provide strong academic evidence of a profession that has endured many important changes and continues to advocate for a just society and a responsive social welfare state. --Publisher's description

The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, which involved approximately 30,000 workers, is Canada's best-known strike. When the State Trembled recovers the hitherto untold story of the Citizens' Committee of 1000, formed by Winnipeg's business elite in order to crush the revolt and sustain the status quo. This account, by the authors of the award-winning Walk Towards the Gallows, reveals that the Citizens drew upon and extended a wide repertoire of anti-labour tactics to undermine working-class unity, battle for the hearts and minds of the middle class, and stigmatize the general strike as a criminal action. Newly discovered correspondence between leading Citizen lawyer A.J. Andrews and Acting Minister of Justice Arthur Meighen illuminates the strategizing and cooperation that took place between the state and the Citizens. While the strike's break was a crushing defeat for the labour movement, the later prosecution of its leaders on charges of sedition reveals abiding fears of radicalism and continuing struggles between capital and labour on the terrain of politics and law. --Publisher's description. Contents: Permitted by Authority of the Strike Committee -- Who? Who? Who-oo? -- Seven Hundred and Four Years Ago at Runnymede -- The Anointing of A.J. Andrews -- The Flag-Flapping Stage -- To Reach the Leaders in this Revolutionary Movement -- Time to Act -- Enough Evidence to Convict the Whole Strike Committee -- The Road through Bloody Saturday -- The Only Way to Deal with Bolshevism -- They are all dangerous: Immigration Hearings -- They Started the Fire: Preliminary Hearing -- Poor Harry Daskaluk -- Duty to God, Country, and Family: The Russell Trial.

During the interwar period, Quebec was a strongly patriarchal society, where men in the Church, politics, and medicine, maintained a traditional norm of social and sexual standards that women were expected to abide by. Some women in the media and religious communities were complicit with this vision, upholding the "ideal" as the norm and tending to those "deviants" who failed to meet society's expectations. By examining the underside of a staid and repressive society, Andrée Lévesque reveals an alternate and more accurate history of women and sexual politics in early twentieth-century Quebec. Women, mainly of the working class, left traces in the historical record of their transgressions from the norm, including the rejection of motherhood (e.g., abortion, abandonment, infanticide), pregnancy and birth outside of marriage, and prostitution. Professor Lévesque concludes, "They were deviant, but only in relation to a norm upheld to stave off a modernism that threatened to swallow up a Quebec based on long-established social and sexual roles. --Publisher's description --T.p. verso; Includes bibliographical references and index

Globalization has created a whole new working class - and they are reliving stories that were first played out a century ago. In Live Working or Die Fighting, Paul Mason tells the story of this new working class alongside the epic history of the global labour movement, from its formation in the factories of the 1800s through its near destruction by fascism in the 1930s and up to today's anti-globalisation movement. Blending exhilarating historical narrative with reportage from today's front line, he links the lives of 19th-century factory girls with the lives of teenagers in a giant Chinese mobile phone factory; he tells the story of how mass trade unions were born in London's Docklands - and how they're being reinvented by the migrant cleaners in skyscrapers that stand on the very same spot. It is a story of urban slums, self-help co-operatives, choirs and brass bands, free love and self-education by candlelight. And, as the author shows, in the developing industrial economies of the world it is still with us. Live Working or Die Fighting celebrates a common history of defiance, idealism and self-sacrifice, one as alive and active today as it was two hundred years ago. --Publisher's description

This book examines life in Canada for the estimated 5,000 blacks, both African Americans and West Indians, who immigrated to Canada after the end of Reconstruction in the United States. Through the experiences of black railway workers and their union, the Order of Sleeping Car Porters, the author connects social, political, labor, immigration, and black diaspora history during the Jim Crow era. By World War I, sleeping car portering had become the exclusive province of black men. White railwaymen protested the presence of the black workers and insisted on a segregated workforce. Using the first-hand accounts of former sleeping car porters, the author shows that porters often found themselves leading racial uplift organizations, galvanizing their communities, and becoming the bedrock of civil rights activism. Examining the spread of segregation laws and practices in Canada, whose citizens often imagined themselves as devoid of racism, she historicizes Canadian racial attitudes and explores how black migrants brought their own sensibilities about race to Canada, participating in and changing political discourse there. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction. Birth of a nation: race, empire, and nationalism during Canada's railway age -- Drawing the line: race and Canadian immigration policy -- Jim Crow rides this train: segregation in the Canadian workforce -- Fighting the empire: race, war, and mobilization -- Building an empire, uplifting a race: race, uplift, and transnational alliances -- Bonds of steel: depression, war, and international brotherhood. Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-267) and index.

The story of the expansion of European civilization into the wilderness continues to shape perceptions of how Aboriginal people became part of nations such as Canada. This groundbreaking study subverts this narrative of progress and modernity by examining Canadian nation building from the perspective of a northern community and its residents. Drawing on decades of research and fieldwork, Patricia McCormack argues that Fort Chipewyan--established in 1788 and situated in present-day Alberta--was never an isolated Aboriginal community but a plural society that stood at the crossroads of global, national, and indigenous cultures and economies. The steps that led Aboriginal people to sign Treaty No. 8 and accept scrip in 1899 and their struggle to maintain autonomy in the decades that followed reveal that Aboriginal peoples and others can - and have - become modern without relinquishing cherished beliefs and practices. --Publisher's description. Contents: Writing Fort Chipewyan history -- Building a plural society at Fort Chipewyan: a cultural Rababou -- The fur trade mode of production -- The creation of Canada: a new plan for the Northwest -- Local impacts: state expansion, the Athabasca District, and Fort Chipewyan -- Christian missions -- The ways of life at Fort Chipewyan: cultural baselines at the time of treaty -- Treaty no. 8 and the Métis script: Canada bargains for the North -- The government foot in the door -- Fort Chipewyan and the new regime -- Epilogue: Facing the future -- Appendix: Personal testimony from Fort Chipewyan residents and related persons: memoirs and interviews.

Ce livre dresse un portait pénétrant de la complexité des valeurs, des attitudes et des croyances relatives au travail de la population active québécoise. Quelle importance et quelle signification revêt le travail aujourd’hui ? Le travail est-il de plus en plus un lieu de réalisation de soi ou n’est-il qu’une valeur en perdition, voire un simple moyen en vue de financer la vie à l’extérieur du travail ? Quel est le modèle de travail idéal auquel aspirent les travailleurs et quelles sont leurs attitudes envers les nouvelles normes et pratiques de gestion mises de l’avant par les employeurs au cours des deux dernières décennies ? Plus fondamentalement, de quelle manière l’identité personnelle est-elle reliée ou dissociée du rôle professionnel ? Issu d’une vaste enquête auprès d’un millier de travailleurs québécois, ce livre montre que le travail est toujours une valeur importante, mais que la réalisation de soi et la quête d’équilibre entre la vie privée et la vie professionnelle sont des aspirations de plus en plus partagées par les individus. Les grands schèmes de valeurs et d’attitudes par rapport au travail mis au jour dans l’ouvrage témoignent de changements culturels récents ainsi que de la diversité des situations de travail vécues. À des degrés divers, ces schèmes convergent vers les exigences du modèle productif contemporain ou s’en distancient : ils contribuent à l’émergence d’un nouveau monde du travail. Cet ouvrage a été réalisé par une équipe de recherche de l’Université Laval et de l’Institut national de la recherche scientifique, sous la direction de Daniel Mercure et de Mircea Vultur, avec la collaboration de Marie-Pierre Bourdages-Sylvain, Charles Fleury et Lilian Negura. --Publisher's description

Interrogating the New Economy is a collection of original essays investigating the New Economy and how changes ascribed to it have impacted labour relations, access to work, and, more generally, the social and cultural experiences of work in Canada. Based on years of participatory research, sector-specific studies, and quantitative and qualitative data collection, the work accounts for the ways in which the contemporary workplace has changed but also the extent to which older forms of work organization still remain. The collection begins with an overview of the key social and economic transformations that define the New Economy. It then illustrates these transformations through examples, including essays on wine tourism, the regeneration of mining communities, the place of student workers, and changes in the public service workplace. It also addresses unions and their responses to the restructuring of work, as well as other forms of resistance. --Publisher's description

This report is a fully updated and concise discussion of leading cases in workplace violence (including physical and mental harrassment) and the various laws that apply to them, including human rights, health & safety, workplace insurance and the Criminal Code of Canada. This edition will help you to identify what constitutes violence, what obligations are created by the common law and what employers need to do to protect their workers and themselves. --Publisher's description

The increased participation of women in the labour force was one of the most significant changes to Canadian social life during the quarter century after the close of the Second World War. Transforming Labour offers one of the first critical assessments of women's paid labour in this era, a period when more and more women, particularly those with families, were going 'out to work'. Using case studies from across Canada, Joan Sangster explores a range of themes, including women's experiences within unions, Aboriginal women's changing patterns of work, and the challenges faced by immigrant women. By charting women's own efforts to ameliorate their work lives as well as factors that re-shaped the labour force, Sangster challenges the commonplace perception of this era as one of conformity, domesticity for women, and feminist inactivity. Working women's collective grievances fuelled their desire for change, culminating in challenges to the status quo in the 1960s, when they voiced their discontent, calling for a new world of work and better opportunities for themselves and their daughters. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction -- Representations and realities: The shifting boundaries of women's work -- Gender, ethnicity, and immigrant women in post-war Canada: The Dionne textile workers -- Women and the Canadian labour movement during the Cold War -- 'Souriez pour les clients': Retail work, Dupuis Frères, and union protest -- Discipline and grieve: Gendering the Fordist Accord -- Aboriginal women and work in prairie communities -- Tackling the 'Problem' of the woman worker: The labour movement, working women and the Royal Commission on the Status of Women -- Conclusion: Putting contradictions in context.

As one of the most difficult periods of the twentieth century, the Great Depression left few Canadians untouched. Using more than eighty interviews with women who lived and worked in Toronto in the 1930s, Breadwinning Daughters examines the consequences of these years for women in their homes and workplaces, and in the city's court rooms and dance halls. In this insightful account, Katrina Srigley argues that young women were central to the labour market and family economies of Depression-era Toronto. Oral histories give voice to women from a range of cultural and economic backgrounds, and challenge readers to consider how factors such as race, gender, class, and marital status shaped women's lives and influenced their job options, family arrangements, and leisure activities. Breadwinning Daughters brings to light previously forgotten and unstudied experiences and illustrates how women found various ways to negotiate the burdens and joys of the 1930s. --Publisher's description

[E]xplores the precarious margins of contemporary labour markets. Over the last few decades, there has been much discussion of a shift from full-time permanent jobs to higher levels of part-time and temporary employment and self-employment. Despite such attention, regulatory approaches have not adapted accordingly. Instead, in the absence of genuine alternatives, old regulatory models are applied to new labour market realities, leaving the most precarious forms of employment intact. The book places this disjuncture in historical context and focuses on its implications for workers most likely to be at the margins, particularly women and migrants, using illustrations from Australia, the United States, and Canada, as well as member states of the European Union. Managing the Margins provides a rigorous analysis of national and international regulatory approaches, drawing on original qualitative and quantitative material. It innovates by analysing the historical and contemporary interplay of employment norms, gender relations, and citizenship boundaries. --Publisher's description