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Like immigrants, aboriginal populations' economic success may be enhanced by the acquisition of skills and traits appropriate to the “majority” culture in which they reside. Using 1991 Canadian Census data, we show that Aboriginal labour market success is greater for Aboriginals whose ancestors intermarried with non-Aboriginals, for those who live off Indian reserves, and for those who live outside the Yukon and Northwest Territories. While these three “facts” could also be explained by a combination of other processes, such as discrimination, physical remoteness, and selection, only the skill/trait acquisition, or “assimilation” hypothesis is consistent with all three.

English/French abstracts of articles in the current issue.

English/French abstracts of the articles in the Spring 2002 volume.

Biennial index produced by the Canadian Periodical Index.

Decentralization has been an important international development in large organizations, including those in the public sector, in recent years. The introduction of self-governing trusts in the U.K. National Health Service in the early 1990s serves as a paradigm case of public sector decentralization, managerialism and marketization. Local managers were able to develop their own employment arrangements in order to improve the recruitment, retention and deployment of labour. This article finds that pay initiatives were subverted by environmental constraints but change proceeded in the organization of working time. The findings have implications beyond the U.K. and health service context, notably the conceptual relevance of the "firm-in-sector" framework and the policy limits and potential of decentralization.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Revolutionary Women in Russia" by Anna Hillyar and Jane McDermid; "In the Shadow of Revolution," edited by Sheila Fitzpatrick and Yuri Slezkine; and "The Politics of Gender After Socialism: A Comparative Historical Essay" by Susan Gal and Gail Kligman.

The article reviews the books, "Coffret 1 : La boîte à idées : volume M : Les pratiques observables du management des équipes et des personnes ; volume P : Le pilotage du management ; Coffret 2 : La boîte à outils," by Jean-Louis Langevin.

Using the postal service as an example, the critical role played by a series of "implicit" judgments when estimating the government earnings differential is highlighted. Regression estimates demonstrate that alternative treatments of location, gender, industry, occupation and union status result in estimates ranging from a double digit advantage for postal workers to no advantage at all. It is shown that women employees and those in rural locations generate substantial positive postal differentials, while the differentials for men and urban employees are very modest. Ignoring this point and making policy based on the average differential is unlikely to be effective. It is argued that the standard of comparability, comparing similar workers doing similar work, requires that judgments about samples and controls be made explicit as they largely determine the resulting estimates.

This study investigates the prevalence and impacts of employer resistance to union certification applications in 8 Canadian jurisdictions. Employer resistance was found to be the norm, with 80% of employers overtly and actively opposing union certification applications. Analysis demonstrated that employer opposition to union certification can impact upon both initial certification outcomes and on the probability the parties will establish and sustain a collective bargaining relationship. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that focusing only on the probability of certification success seriously underestimates the impact of employer opposition.

Les relations industrielles (RI) influencent-elles la performance des organisations ? Des données financières de même que des données traitant d’une douzaine de pratiques RI et du climat RI ont été colligées dans 241 caisses populaires faisant partie du Mouvement Desjardins au Québec afin d’estimer l’effet des RI sur trois dimensions de la performance. Les résultats sont à l’effet que lorsque l’influence des autres déterminants est tenue constante, les pratiques RI et le climat RI ont un impact significatif sur la performance organisationnelle, en particulier sur la productivité et les coûts de main-d’oeuvre.

The article reviews the book, "Workers' Compensation: Foundations for Reform," edited by Morley Gunderson and Douglas Hyatt.

The article reviews the book, "The World's Most Dangerous Woman: A New Biography of Emma Goldman.," by Albert Moritz and Theresa Moritz.

The article reviews the book, "La révolution du travail : de l’artisan au manager," by Rolande Pinard.

L’analyse des organisations s’est-elle engagée dans une fausse voie depuis la première parution, il y a plus de quarante ans, de la revue Administrative Science Quarterly ? Il y aurait eu divorce entre la théorie et l’empirie, le lien aurait été perdu entre les deux. L’auteur montre que cette perte est due aux références à des ensembles théoriques structuraux, alors que les organisations, comme la société dans sa globalité, ne sont explicables qu’en partant des interactions entre acteurs, interactions qui permettent de comprendre comment se vivent les incertitudes de l’action. Des exemples précis montrent que le fondement de ces interactions est, dans les organisations productives, la relation des salariés aux objets techniques, la rationalité instrumentale. Elle leur permet d’entrer en relations et de gérer les incertitudes sans réifier ni contrôler ces relations.

The article reviews the book, "Sociologies du travail : quarante ans après," edited by Amélie Pouchet.

In most communities the relationship between trade unions and social activist organizations is usually underdeveloped and uneven. Likewise trade unions usually have no organic connections to unorganized workers and contribute little to the task of representing these workers in their struggles against employers and government agencies. The Workers Organizing and Resource Centre (WORC), a collective administered by trade unionists and social activists, is an attempt to bridge this solitude. Since it was established in 1998, WORC has been the home to numerous working class advocacy organizations and a hub of progressive activity in Winnipeg. Its mandate is to facilitate the development of community organizations, provide advocacy work for non union workers, and to assist in organizing the unorganized. This paper describes the function that WORC plays in the Winnipeg progressive community and discusses the relationship to its sole source of funding, the national office of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.

The article reviews the book, "Initiation à la négociation collective by Jean Sexton.

“The west wants in” was the rallying cry of the Reform Party launched in 1987. What the West wanted, how its aspirations could be fulfilled within Confederation, and how fulfilling them might change Canada itself came to dominate the party’s agenda over the next decade or so. The West’s relationship to the rest of the country has also been a major theme in Canadian labour history, of ten with respect to notions of “western radicalism” or “western exceptionalism.” Reviewing Labour / Le Travail’s coverage of Canadian labour over the past quarter-century, this article reviews the extent to which western workers have been represented, the varying ways in which their identity has been characterized, and the degree to which traditional perceptions of a “radical” West have been either reinforced or revised as a result.