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[This book] details the Canadian Left's promotion of colonial policies and nationalist myths. Yves Engler...outlines the NDP's and labour unions' role in confusing Canadians. From Korea to Libya, Canada's major left-wing political party has backed unjust wars; Canadian unions supported the creation of NATO, the Korean War, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the Bay of Pigs invasion and the coup in Haiti. Left, Right also shows how prominent Left commentators concede a great deal to the dominant ideology. Whether it's Linda McQuaig turning Lester Pearson into an anti-US peacenik, Stephen Lewis praising Canada's role in Africa, or others mindlessly demanding more so-called peacekeeping, Left intellectuals regularly undermine the building of a just foreign policy. Left nationalist ideology, both Canadian and Quebecois, has warped the foreign policy discussion; viewing their country as a semi-colony struggling for its independence has blinded progressives to a long history of supporting empire and advancing corporate interests abroad. Even many victims of Canadian colonialism among indigenous communities have succumbed to the siren song of supporting imperialism. Finally, Left, Right suggests some ways to get the Left working for an ecologically sound, peace-promoting, non-exploitative foreign policy that does no harm and treats others the way we wish to be treated. --Publisher's description

In this chapter, we bring together narratives elicited by Tracy [Gregory], whose graduate work as a peer researcher with strip club dancers in Northern Ontario contributes the bulk of the data, and the contributions of Jennifer [Johnson] - a former committee member for Tracy's graduate research and later a supporter of Tracy's continued work in establishing the Sex Workers Advisory Network of Sudbury (SWANS). Together, we apply the insights of feminist geography and sex-work-informed thinking to the issues of spatial awareness and relations of power described by the participants in the study. --From Authors' Introduction

"Regulating Strikes in Essential Services" offers a comparative perspective on one of the most sensitive areas of industrial relations: strike in essential services. Designing a fair, effective and acceptable regime that will reconcile public interest and the public's need for an uninterrupted flow of essential services on the one hand, while maintaining the freedom of collective bargaining on the other, is an ever more difficult public policy challenge. This book, the first detailed analysis of existing legal and practical approaches across a spectrum of key national jurisdictions, provides a structured and insightful overview of the law and practice of regulating strikes in essential services. As such it could be of great value for public policy debate and the enhancement of national law in the field. --Publisher's description

Examines anti-unionism in professional sport through a case study of ongoing efforts to organize players in the Canadian Hockey League, the world's largest development hockey league.

This chapter examines the campaign to unionize one workplace within [an] organizing wave: VICE Canada, a subset of VICE media, a privately held business who’s youth oriented properties spend a range of news and culture websites a magazine and advertising agency to TV channels and a record label. --Authors

This chapter explores the consequences of a particular set of management strategies deployed at John Deere Welland Works plant between 1998 and 2009. This chapter examines the interplay of tiered pay systems with team bonus incentives in the context of seniority-based bidding for jobs. This case study demonstrates how these management strategies foster divisions and dissension among the workers creating a legacy of inequality and strong undercurrent of anti-union sentiment among unionize workers at the plant. --Authors

This chapter draws upon research conducted on retail work from 2009 to 2016 and it highlights the most significant patterns and findings about union avoidance and how anti-unionism is manifested in retail stores on an ongoing basis and in organizing attempts. --Author

Over the past few decades, the impact and influence of the media have grown to exceed any other source of public opinion. Union density has steeply declined during this same time period, so the public perception of unions has been increasingly derived from highly selective representations in the media rather than direct experience. This chapter analyzes the increasing influence of the media on the labour movement and provides insight into how unions can ensure that they are represented fairly in the media.

This chapter explores the relationship between the social organization of migrant workers’ unfreedom through the conditionality of legal status and how the creation and deployment of precarious migrant labour regulates national labour markets. It begins by drawing the connections between neoliberal labour regimes, immigration controls, and the exploitation of migrant workers. It shows how precarious migrant status is linked to precarious employment, and how the categories of “foreigner” and “citizen” are used to justify the unfreedom and hyper-exploitation of migrant workers. Focusing on “low-skilled” occupations within the food services sector in which precarious (low-paid and insecure) jobs predominate, this chapter then describes the “low-skilled” (since October 2014 called “low-wage”) stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, its growth, the “public” reaction to foreigners taking Canadian jobs, and the government’s response to this controversy.

Rebellious youth, the Cold War, New Left radicalism, Pierre Trudeau, Red Power, Quebec's call for Revolution, Marshall McLuhan: these are just some of the major forces and figures that come to mind at the slightest mention of the 1960s in Canada. Focusing on the major movements and personalities of the time, as well as the lasting influence of the period, Canada's 1960s examines the legacy of this rebellious decade's impact on contemporary notions of Canadian identity. Bryan D. Palmer demonstrates how after massive postwar immigration, new political movements, and at times violent protest, Canada could no longer be viewed in the old ways. National identity, long rooted in notions of Canada as a white settler Dominion of the North, marked profoundly by its origins as part of the British Empire, had become unsettled. Concerned with how Canadians entered the Sixties relatively secure in their national identities, Palmer explores the forces that contributed to the post-1970 uncertainty about what it is to be Canadian. Tracing the significance of dissent and upheaval among youth, trade unionists, university students, Native peoples, and Quebecois, Palmer shows how the Sixties ended the entrenched, nineteenth-century notions of Canada. The irony of this rebellious era, however, was that while it promised so much in the way of change, it failed to provide a new understanding of Canadian national identity. A compelling and highly accessible work of interpretive history, Canada's 1960s is the book of the decade about an era many regard as the most turbulent and significant since the years of the Great Depression and World War II. --Publisher's description

Revised version of the article published in 2010.

Analyzes some of the practices that cause discontent within unions including weaknesses in equity, internal politics, and decision-making practices.

This chapter describes the multi-faceted dynamics of anti-unionism in Canada, and considers how the labour movement might respond. Authors Larry Savage and Stephanie Ross describe the history of anti-unionism in politics, law, and Canadian culture while paying special attention to employer union avoidance tactics and the influence of mainstream media on the public perception of unions

This chapter examines union avoidance strategies in Canada's growing casino gaming sector through a case study of six successive failed unionization drives at Niagara's casinos between 1996 and 2016. --Authors

This chapter offers a broad overview of who is exposed to precarious employment, its characters, its association with health outcomes and its impact on house hold well-being. --From authors' introduction Almost every person works at some point in their lives. The Research Handbook on Work and Well-Being examines the association of particular work experiences with employee and organizational health and performance. --Publisher's description.

The Canadian working class was emerging well before 1867. By Confederation one could say for the first time that the growth of the working class was now unstoppable. The creation of the Dominion of Canada took place precisely at that moment when widespread industrialization was visibly underway. In 1851, fewer than a quarter of Hamilton, Ontario’s workers laboured in workshops of ten or more employees; by 1871 the share was more than 80%.[1] In less than two decades, Hamilton had been transformed from a market town dominated by commerce into a powerful symbol of heavy industry. Significant and startling though this change was at the time, it was dwarfed by developments in the 1890s. In that decade, Canadian economic growth simultaneously intensified in the older cities and found new fields in which to flourish in the West. The population of Canada in 1901 was 5,371,315; ten years later it was 7,206,643 – an increase of 34%. At the same time, however, the labour force grew from 1,899,000 in 1901 to 2,809,000 in 1911, a phenomenal 50% increase.[2] To put this into some perspective, there were only 3,463,000 people in the Dominion in 1867 — by 1911 there were close to that many working, wage-earning Canadians. The working class were motivated and shaped by different factors in the various regions of the country, although common themes were quick to arise. --Introduction

Prior to May 2015, the oil-rich jurisdiction of Alberta had, for over four decades, been a one-party state. During that time, the rule of the Progressive Conservatives essentially went unchallenged, with critiques of government policy falling on deaf ears and Alberta ranking behind other provinces in voter turnout. Given the province’s economic reliance on oil revenues, a symbiotic relationship also developed between government and the oil industry. Cross-national studies have detected a correlation between oil-dependent economies and authoritarian rule, a pattern particularly evident in Africa and the Middle East. Alberta Oil and the Decline of Democracy in Canada sets out to test the “oil inhibits democracy” hypothesis in the context of an industrialized nation in the Global North. In probing the impact of Alberta’s powerful oil lobby on the health of democracy in the province, contributors to the volume engage with an ongoing discussion of the erosion of political liberalism in the West. In addition to examining energy policy and issues of government accountability in Alberta, they explore the ramifications of oil dependence in areas such as Aboriginal rights, environmental policy, labour law, women’s equity, urban social policy, and the arts. If, as they argue, reliance on oil has weakened democratic structures in Alberta, then what of Canada as whole, where the short-term priorities of the oil industry continue to shape federal policy? In Alberta, the New Democratic Party is in a position to reverse the democratic deficit that is presently fuelling political and economic inequality. The findings in this book suggest that, to revitalize democracy, provincial and federal leaders alike must find the courage to curb the influence of the oil industry on governance.--Publisher's description.

In this case study, we examine why the use of Temporary Foreign Workers increased in Alberta, how the former Conservatives government of Alberta encouraged and justified the use of migrant workers, and how a petroleum-based economy affects labour markets and the democratic health of a region. This study also explores how Alberta’s use of migrant workers is consistent with labour-market dynamics in an oil-exporting economy. --Authors' introduction

Given the difficulty generalizing across countries about industrial relations and human resource management practices, the discussion in this chapter is restricted to the United States and Canada. The chapter focuses on the continuity and change in North American auto industry labour relations. It traces the evolution of the post-war labour relations system in the North American automotive industry prior to 2000. It discusses the development of the archetypal Fordist system in the 1930s and 1940s, which produced a highly uniform pattern of labour relations across the auto industry in the United States and Canada. In the 1980s, Japanese automakers and their key suppliers introduced key elements of Japanese production methods (JPS) to North America. By 2012, not only had differences in bargaining outcomes narrowed between the United States and Canada but there was a new reality in which ‘union and non-union work in the auto industry have been rendered indistinguishable’.