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The article reviews the book, "We Still Demand! Redefining Resistance in Sex and Gender Struggles," edited by Patrizia Gentile, Gary Kinsman, and L. Pauline Rankin.

The article reviews the book, "England's Great Transformation: Law, Labour, and the Industrial Revolution," by Marc Steinberg.

The article reviews the book, "Be Wise! Be Healthy! Morality and Citizenship in Canadian Public Health Campaigns," by Catherine Carstairs, Bethany Philpott, and Sara Wilmshurst.

The article reviews the book, "The Great Cowboy Strike: Bullets, Ballots, and Class Conflicts in the American West," by Mark Lause.

The article reviews the book, "Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman: A Memoir from the Early Twentieth Century," by Matilda Rabinowitz.

The article reviews the book, "Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South," by Keri Leigh Merritt.

The article reviews the book, "For Class and Country: The Patriotic Left and the First World War," by David Smith.

Discusses the PEPSO report, "Getting Left Behind."

The Ontario labour movement is in deep crisis, and has been staggering since the end of the 1990s. Given the labour movement’s historic role in leading and supporting progressive change, its current disorientation should be a matter of alarm to its members of course, but also to anyone concerned with countering the insatiable greed and social destructiveness of capitalism. --Introduction

On February 6, 2018, the Minister of Labour appointed us as a Labour Relations Code Review Panel with a broad mandate to review the B.C. Labour Relations Code, RSBC 1996, c 244 (the “Code”) and to provide recommendations for any amendments or updates to the Code. The terms of reference directed us to consult with the community, consider labour law developments in other Canadian jurisdictions and to: "….assess each issue canvassed from the perspective of how to “ensure workplaces support a growing, sustainable economy with fair laws for workers and business” and promote certainty as well as harmonious and stable labour/management relations. The conceptual and structural framework for the Code was established 45 years ago and there have been significant changes in the B.C. workforce, workplaces and economy in theintervening decades. --Introduction

Using International Social Survey Program data, we explore the relationship between economic context and attitudes with respect to the distribution of incomes in 20 modern societies, including Canada. Our findings demonstrate that economic inequality has an enduring influence on attitudes. Consistent with the economic self-interest thesis, preferences for equality are strongest among those in working-class occu- pations. Moreover, independent of one’s own social class, one’s father’s social class has a similar enduring impact on attitudes later in life. These relationships are relatively similar across the 20 societies we explore. Still, significant differences in attitudes can be explained by national economic context. We find a strong positive relationship between national-level inequality and opinions on how much inequality there ought to be in the income distribution. In contrast to previous research, however, our findings suggest that national-level economic prosperity and equality of opportunity have little influence on public opinion.

The theory and practice of community unionism has been central to discussions of alt-labor, union renewal, and revitalization, particularly in relation to union praxis at the urban or local scale. This comparative case study explores two labor-community campaigns to defend public child care services in the context of neoliberal austerity in urban/suburban space. While labor-community coalitions are a necessary—if not sufficient—condition for success, in urban/suburban contexts in which community allies are weak and municipal administrations hostile, public-sector unions must continue to play a leading role in campaigns despite the risk of being cast as defenders of sectional interests rather than of the public good. In such contexts, union involvement in community organizing is a necessary precursor to successful labor-community campaigns.

We use simulation methods and a detailed tax calculator to analyze the likely effects of two recent pro- posals aimed at reforming the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP): the federal proposal, eventually implemented throughout Canada, and the Quebec government’s December 2016 proposal. Accounting for education- adjusted life expectancy, earnings variability over the course of a career, and their interactions with the tax code and retirement income system, we find that internal rates of return (IRRs) for new QPP contribu- tions are similar under both reforms for individuals with lifetime average annual earnings of more than $40,000. Both reforms yield substantial IRRs for low-income individuals. Although the Quebec proposal offers higher IRRs for individuals earning less than $40,000, the federal proposal yields greater present value benefits for these same individuals. We show that if new QPP benefits were exempted from the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) clawback, and provided that the working income tax benefit and GIS were not enhanced, the two reforms would yield similar IRRs for individuals with average earnings of more than $15,000. The QPP reform would thus better focus on the middle-income earners originally targeted by reform advocates.

We investigate the post-layoff configuration of income sources and pathways of prime-age and older laid- off workers exhibiting a high degree of prior attachment. Using a unique Canadian administrative database that links the event of the involuntary layoff with detailed data on income receipt, we track all of their sources of income over an interval spanning five years after layoff. We conduct a multivariate statistical analysis of the incidence of relying on income from several alternative sources, specifically early retirement (both public and private), reemployment, self-employment, or reliance on social insurance benefits (other than pensions). The two most common states for laid-off workers who have not yet reached normal retirement age are early retirement and continued labour market activity. Our findings indicate that the older workers are at the point of layoff, the greater the likelihood is that they will rely on pension income as their primary income source. This incidence of reliance on pension income also increases with the number of years elapsed since the point of layoff.

In times of economic growth, it is fair to expect that wages and job quality will improve with positive benefits being experienced throughout society. But between 2011 and 2017—a period when Ontario’s economy experienced significant gains—our research found that these expectations did not come true: the adage that a rising tide will lift all boats proved to be false in Ontario.

We address health capacity to work among older Canadian workers with a specific focus on differences by gender and region. We find that in 2012 men would have needed to work more than five additional years between ages 55 and 69 to keep pace with how much men worked in 1976, holding health capacity constant. For working women, the comparable result is only two years more work. Most of these gaps arose before the mid-1990s; since then, employment advances have offset mortality improvements. Regionally, more than half the Ontario–Atlantic employment difference among older men is rooted in health differences.

Analysis of amended data from a large-scale Canadian employment audit study (Oreopoulos 2011) shows substantial organization size differences in discrimination against skilled applicants with Asian (Chinese, Indian, or Pakistani) names in the decision to call for an interview. In organizations with more than 500 employees, Asian-named applicants are 20 percent less likely to receive a callback; in smaller organizations, the disadvantage is nearly 40 percent. Large organizations may discriminate less frequently because of more resources in recruitment and training, more human resources development, and greater experience with diversity. Anonymized résumé review may allow organizations to test hiring procedures for discrimination fairly inexpensively.

This article examines workers’ experiences with a union characterized by a social unionist framing and repertoire in the political realm and bureaucratic servicing of problems in the workplace realm. It analyzes interviews with members and officials about union strategies within privatized homecare predominately provided by immigrant women in Toronto. Workers report both consensual and tense relations with clients prompting them to praise their union’s political strategies yet criticize its limited workplace support. Findings indicate the importance of framing and repertoire that connect quality work with quality care, yet indicate a complex labor process that requires more conceptual and strategic attention.

English/French abstracts of articles in the Fall 2018 issue.

The Workers’ Action Centre (WAC) is a worker-based organization. We are committed to improving the lives and working conditions of people in low-wage and unstable employment. Thousands of working families are struggling to make ends meet, so we take action and organize for decent work. We believe that the leaders in the fight for decent work should be the workers directly affected by poor working conditions. Workers have firsthand experience of problems at work, and have the best insight into what will bring fairness and dignity to Ontario’s workplaces. Our members are workers in precarious jobs. We are recent immigrants, workers of colour, women, men, and youth. Most of us don’t belong to unions because we work in small workplaces, are temporary workers, on contract, independent contractors or unemployed. This month we may be juggling 2 or 3 jobs, but next month we might not have any work or income. When we are able to find full-time work, there is still little protection against unfair working conditions or employers who don’t pay us what we should be paid. --Website