Chicken Girl - Smith, Heather (Penguin Random House Canada, 2020)
Poppy used to be an optimist. But after a photo of her dressed as Rosie the Riveter is mocked online, she's having trouble seeing the good in the world. As a result, Poppy trades her beloved vintage clothes for a feathered chicken costume and accepts a job as an anonymous sign waver outside a restaurant. There, Poppy meets six-year-old girl Miracle, who helps Poppy see beyond her own pain, opening her eyes to the people around her: Cam, her twin brother, who is adjusting to life as an openly gay teen; Buck, a charming photographer with a cute British accent and a not-so-cute mean-streak; and Lewis a teen caring for an ailing parent, while struggling to reach the final stages of his gender transition. As the summer unfolds, Poppy stops glorifying the past and starts focusing on the present. But just as she comes to terms with the fact that there is good and bad in everyone, she is tested by a deep betrayal. – Publisher's description
OCLC: 1112907005

Trajectories of Union Renewal: - Stevens, Andrew (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Western Canada’s oil-exporting economies have come to rely on migrant labour as a cornerstone of economic development. A global division of labour intersecting with the constellation of Canada’s migrant worker programs has shaped the contemporary political-economic character of many Canadian provinces, including Saskatchewan. These programs have worked to construct bifurcated labour markets for growing low-wage industries that exist alongside high-wage resource-sector employment. Although a majority of these migrant workers end up employed in non-unionized workplaces, foreign workers who secure occupations in health care, construction, warehousing, and manufacturing are often represented by a union. The study explores union attitudes and union-member engagement among migrant labour through the lens of union revitalization, in an attempt to confront claims that migrant workers are without an affinity to organized labour and avoid participating in union business and the collective-bargaining process.

Digitalized Drones in the Steel Industry: The Social Shaping of Technology - Stroud, Dean; Timperley, Victoria; Weinel, Martin (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
New digital technologies are often framed as an inevitable and determining force that presents the risk of technological unemployment and the end of work (Lloyd and Payne, 2019). In manufacturing specifically, digitalization is referred to as Industry 4.0, a term that emerged in Germany as a central economic and industrial policy and has taken on a wider resonance across Europe (Pfeiffer, 2017). In this article, we explore the workplace implications of a specific Industry 4.0 innovation. We examine the insertion of drone technology—as a timely and topical example of industrial digital technological innovation—in the steel industry. The article brings to debates on the digital workplace a discussion of the relationship between the material forces of production and the social relations within which they are embedded (Edwards and Ramirez, 2016). Drawing on interview data from two European industrial sites, we suggest that the increasing use of drones is likely to be complicated by a number of social, economic and legal factors, the effects of which are, at best, extremely difficult to predict. Introduced for their potential as labour-saving devices, drones seemingly offer a safer and more efficient way of checking for defects in remote or inaccessible areas. However, whilst employers might imagine that digital technologies, like drones, might substitute, replace, or intensify labour, the workplace realities described by our interviewees make insertion highly contingent. We highlight several such contingencies, with examples of the ways that the steelworkers’ interests differ from those of their employers, to discuss how the insertion of digital technologies will ultimately be shaped by the power, interests, values and visions prevailing in the workplace, as well as in the wider polity and public culture.
Keywords: digitalization; drones; industrial relations; industrie 4.0; industry 4.0; innovation technologique; numérique; relations industrielles; technological innovation

Theorizing Precarization and Racialization as Social Determinants of Health: A Case Study Investigating Work in Long-Term Residential Care - Syed, Iffath Unissa (York University, 2020)
This thesis uses anti-racist and feminist political economy of health perspectives that intersect with immigrant status, in order to analyze the findings from a single-case study investigating the social determinants of health and work precarization in a residential long-term care (LTC) facility in Toronto, Ontario. Throughout this dissertation, I use mixed methods case study to investigate social, political, and economic implications in the lives of health care workers. Observation, interview, and survey methods were utilized to investigate workers health in relation to the precarization of work. Specifically, I used the concept of precarization as a lens to track the ways in which work relations impact the other social determinants of health. The main areas of focus include the intersections of gender, work, and occupational health with race, immigrant status, and culture; the ways in which precarization affects employees in this specific health care sector; the implications of precarization in the health and wellbeing of workers and their families; the role of (un)paid care work and social support provided by family members; and the exercise of strength, resilience, resistance, agency, and coping strategies. Broadly, I will argue that precarization in LTC is an increasingly experienced phenomenon, and that various levels of precarization are experienced by particular workers who are women, racialized persons, and immigrants. This study contributes to our understanding of racialization as a social determinant of health, and analyzes the health impacts of workplace inequality through the lens of precarization. The study makes the case for closer attention to racism and precarity both on and as social determinants of health.

In the Name of Liberty: The Argument for Universal Unionization - Talarico, Andrea (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, " In the Name of Liberty: The Argument for Universal Unionization," by Mark R. Reiff.

How to Pronounce Knife: Stories - Thammavongsa, Souvankham (Penguin Random House Canada, 2020)
Named one of Time's Must-Read Books of 2020, and featuring stories that have appeared in Harper's, Granta, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review, this revelatory book of fiction from O. Henry Award winner Souvankham Thammavongsa establishes her as an essential new voice in Canadian and world literature. Told with compassion and wry humour, these stories honour characters struggling to find their bearings far from home, even as they do the necessary "grunt work of the world." A young man painting nails at the local salon. A woman plucking feathers at a chicken processing plant. A father who packs furniture to move into homes he'll never afford. A housewife learning English from daytime soap operas. In her stunning Giller Prize-winning debut book of fiction, Souvankham Thammavongsa focuses on characters struggling to make a living, illuminating their hopes, disappointments, love affairs, acts of defiance, and above all their pursuit of a place to make their own. In spare, intimate prose charged with emotional power and a sly wit, she paints an indelible portrait of watchful children, wounded men, and restless women caught between cultures, languages, and values. As one of Thammavongsa's characters says, "All we wanted was to live." And in these stories, they do—brightly, ferociously, unforgettably. A daughter becomes an unwilling accomplice in her mother's growing infatuation with country singer Randy Travis. A former boxer finds a chance at redemption while working at his sister's nail salon. A school bus driver must grapple with how much he's willing to give up in order to belong. And in the title story, a young girl's unconditional love for her father transcends language. Tender, uncompromising, and fiercely alive, How to Pronounce Knife establishes Souvankham Thammavongsa as one of the most important voices of her generation. –Publisher's description
OCLC: 1153264906
Keywords: Audiobooks; Downloadable audio books; Livres audio; Nouvelles canadiennes; Short stories Women authors; Short stories; Canadian; Écrits de femmes

Remembering 1919: The Winnipeg General Strike - Thiessen, Janis Lee (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Despite an abundance of research on the Winnipeg Genral Strike of 1919, how the strike has been remembered and commemorated by subsequent generations of Winnipeggers has been understudied. Though many archived oral histories of those involved in the strike exist, the intergenerational memory of the strike has been largely unaddressed. In anticipaton of the strike's centennial, I conducted oral history interviews with six descedants of those involved in the 1919 strike, to learn how stories of the strike have been passed down in their families and how those stories shaped the interviewees' own understandings of labour and social justice. These interviews, though limited in number, attest to the importance of memory (both individual and collective) in oral history and, subsequently, in labour history.

Blue Solidarity: Police Unions, Race and Authoritarian Populism in North America - Thomas, Mark P; Tufts, Steven (Work, Employment and Society, 2020)
With a focus on police unions in the United States and Canada, this article argues that the construction of ‘blue solidarity’, including through recent Blue Lives Matter campaigns, serves to repress racial justice movements that challenge police authority, acts as a counter to broader working class resistance to austerity and contributes to rising right-wing populism. Specifically, the article develops a case study analysis of Blue Lives Matter campaigns in North America to argue that police unions construct forms of ‘blue solidarity’ that produce divisions with other labour and social movements and contribute to a privileged status of their own members vis-a-vis the working class more generally. As part of this process, police unions support tactics that reproduce racialised ‘othering’ and that stigmatise and discriminate against racialised workers and communities. The article concludes by arguing that organised labour should maintain a critical distance from police unions.
Keywords: Blue Lives Matter; institutionalised racism; police unions; right-wing populism

Flexibility for Who? Working Time, the Ontario Employment Standards Act and the Experiences of Workers in Low-Wage and Precarious Jobs: De la flexibilité pour qui? Loi sur les normes du travail de l’Ontario et temps de travail : expérience de travailleurs à bas salaire et occupant des emplois précaires - Thomas, Mark; Condratto, Shelley; Landry, Danielle; Steedman, Mercedes (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
In Ontario, hours of work and overtime standards are regulated by the Employment Standards Act (ESA). This legislation covers most employers and employees in the province. As part of an ESA reforms process designed to promote workplace flexibility and enhance competitiveness, the Ontario ESA (2000) allowed for the extension of weekly maximum hours from 48 to 60, and the calculation of overtime pay entitlements to be based on an averaging of hours of work over up to a four-week period. Situated in the context of shifts towards greater working time flexibility, this paper examines the dynamics of working time regulation in the Ontario ESA, with a specific focus on the regulation of excess and overtime hours. The paper considers these processes in relation to general trends towards forms of labour market regulation that support employer-oriented flexibility and that download the regulation of employment standards to privatized negotiations between individual employees and their employers, tendencies present in the ESA that were sustained through further reforms introduced in 2018 and 2019. The paper draws its analysis from interviews with both workers in precarious jobs and Employment Standards Officers from the Ontario Ministry of Labour (MOL), as well as administrative data from the MOL and archival records. In the general context of the rise of precarious employment, the paper argues that ESA hours of work and overtime provisions premised upon creating working time flexibility enhance employer control over time, exacerbate time pressures and uncertainty experienced by workers in precarious jobs, and thereby intensify conditions of precariousness. The article situates the working time provisions of Ontario’s ESA in the context of an ongoing fragmentation of the regulation of working time as legislated standards are eroded in ways that make workers in precarious jobs more vulnerable to employer exploitation.
Keywords: Ontario; employment standards; normes minimales de travail; precarious work; temps de travail; travail précaire; working time

More Sugar, Less Salt: - Thompson, David (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
A champion of impoverished women, children, immigrants, and the unemployed, Edith Hancox’s chosen family were capital’s dispossessed. Rosemary Hennessy’s material feminist theory of affect-culture and Antonio Gramsci’s articulation of the impassioned organic intellectual offer a conceptual framework for the emotive role Hancox played in nurturing and sustaining working-class resistance in the aftermath of the Winnipeg General Strike. A partial biography is gleaned from contemporary newspaper reports, Hancox’s journalism, government records, family correspondence, and other archival sources. What emerges is a glimpse into the actions, thoughts, and lived experiences of a profoundly significant, yet neglected, socialist feminist. An illegitimate birth, servitude, marriage, motherhood, immigration, and a critical engagement with organized religion formed the basis of Hancox’s radical leadership during the Winnipeg revolt. As secretary of the first national unemployment association in Canada, Hancox mobilized thousands of the nation’s workless and presented a devastating gender, race, and class critique of liberal capitalism. Through her writing and activism, she also challenged the most important leftist organizations of her era – the Labor Church, the Women’s Labor League, the One Big Union, and the Communist Party of Canada – to build a more expansive and inclusive revolutionary movement.

The CHL Players’ Class Action – Players’ Victory or CHL Shutout? - Thornicroft, Kenneth Wm. (CanLII Connects, 2020)
Are “major junior” hockey players amateur athletes honing their skills with a view to playing professional hockey, or employees working in for-profit businesses? This question lies at the heart of the ongoing class actions involving the Canadian Hockey League (“CHL”) and its member leagues and teams (the “CHL Litigation”). –From introduction

Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission - Tough, David (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Adjunct Underclass: How America’s Colleges Betrayed Their Faculty, Their Students, and Their Mission," by Herb Childress.

Freedom to Strike? What Freedom to Strike? Back-to-Work Legislation and the Freedom to Strike in Historical and Legal Perspective - Tucker, Eric (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Analyzes the historical and legal framework of restrictive labour laws that constrain the right to strike. Argues that, although the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutional freedom to strike in 2015, the impact of the SCC ruling should be assessed within this broader context.

Class Crimes: Master and Servant Laws and Factories Acts in Industrializing Britain and (Ontario) Canada - Tucker, Eric; Fudge, Judy (Criminality at Work, 2020)
This chapter compares the historical development and use of criminal law at work in the United Kingdom and in Ontario, Canada. Specifically, it considers the use of the criminal law both in the master and servant regime as an instrument for disciplining the workforce and in factory legislation for protecting workers from unhealthy and unsafe working conditions, including exceedingly long hours work. Master and servant legislation that criminalized servant breaches of contract originated in the United Kingdom where it was widely used in the nineteenth century to discipline industrial workers. These laws were partially replicated in Ontario, where it had shallower roots and was used less aggressively. At the same time as the use of criminal law to enforce master and servant law was contested, legislatures in the United Kingdom and Ontario enacted protective factory acts limiting the length of the working day. However, these factory acts did not treat employer violations crimes; instead, they were treated as lesser ‘regulatory’ offences for which employers were rarely prosecuted.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/criminality-at-work-9780198836995?cc=pl&lang=en&

Newcomers as Potential Drivers of Union Revitalization: Survey Evidence from Belgium - Vandaele, Kurt (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Most people tend to join mainstream trade unions for instrumental motives and not so much for ideological reasons. This instrumentalism, together with the passivity of most union members, endangers members’ union loyalty and their willingness to act collectively. One possible way to de-emphasize the traditional model of service-oriented unionism and strengthen union commitment is to involve members in small union tasks. By partially assigning day-to-day union work to lay members, it is believed that over-stretched union representatives will be able to assign more time to implementing union policies of strategic importance. The article examines to what extent new union members are willing to voluntarily engage in union tasks inspired by organizing unionism. To test this empirically, an e-survey was conducted among first-time members of a Belgian union. Predominantly young, the respondents had been members of the union for maximum of seven years. Belgium is an interesting case for exploring how member-union ties can be boosted, as it is a quintessential example of a country with a high union density characterized by instrumental and passive membership. Following the deletion of cases with missing data, 518 observations are available for analysis. The dependent variable measures the organizing-oriented activism intent based on union tasks reflecting one-on-one organizing tactics for reaching out to potential members. A critical mass of 41.3% new members is (greatly) interested in at least one task. The regression results show that two variables derived from the planned behaviour theory significantly influence organizing-based union tasks: the pro-union context and behavioural self-control, with the latter in particular a very strong antecedent. Apart from the finding that a larger membership base is interested in performing organizing-oriented tasks, the results also, support a developmental view on union activism, i.e. a step-by-step approach to stimulating union activism via introducing various levels of union participation.
Keywords: jeunes travailleurs; membres; organizing; participation; renewal; renouveau organisationnel; syndicat; trade union; union membership; union participation; young worker

Closing the Enforcement Gap: Improving Employment Standards Protections for People in Precarious Jobs - Vosko, Leah F.; Closing the Enforcement Gap Research Group; Grundy, John; Akkayamak, Guliz; Noack, Andrea M.; Casey, Rebecca; Hoe, Alice; Hall, Alan; Tucker, Eric; Condratto, Shelley; Mirchandani, Kiran; Soni-Sinha, Urvashi; et al. (University of Toronto Press, 2020)
The nature of employment is changing: low wage jobs are increasingly common, fewer workers belong to unions, and workplaces are being transformed through the growth of contracting-out, franchising, and extended supply chains. Closing the Enforcement Gap offers a comprehensive analysis of the enforcement of employment standards in Ontario. Adopting mixed methods, this work includes qualitative research involving in-depth interviews with workers, community advocates, and enforcement officials; extensive archival research excavating decades of ministerial records; and analysis of a previously untapped source of administrative data collected by Ontario’s Ministry of Labour. The authors reveal and trace the roots of a deepening "enforcement gap" that pervades nearly all aspects of the regime, demonstrating that the province’s Employment Standards Act (ESA) fails too many workers who rely on the floor of minimum conditions it was devised to provide. Arguably, there is nothing inevitable about the enforcement gap in Ontario or for that matter elsewhere. Through contributions from leading employment standards enforcement scholars in the US, the UK, and Australia, as well as Quebec, Closing the Enforcement Gap surveys innovative enforcement models that are emerging in a variety of jurisdictions and sets out a bold vision for strengthening employment standards enforcement. – Publisher's description.
OCLC: 1121454404

"Keep Your Mind on Your Job": Women Workers, Beauty Culture, and Dangerous Bodies in the Wartime Industrial Workplace - Vugt, Sarah Van (Making the Best of It: Women and Girls of Canada and Newfoundland During the Second World War, 2020)
Many women who lived through the Second World War believed it heralded new status and opportunities, but scholars have argued that very little changed. How can these interpretations be reconciled? Making the Best of It examines the ways in which gender and other identities intersected to shape the experiences of female Canadians and Newfoundlanders during the war. The contributors to this thoughtful collection consider mainstream and minority populations, girls and women, and different parts of Canada and Newfoundland. They reassess topics such as women's presence in the military and in munitions factories, and tackle entirely new subjects such as wartime girlhood in Quebec. Collectively, these essays broaden the scope of what we know about the changes the war wrought, and draw on diverse methodologies to address wider debates about memory, historiography, and feminism. Making the Best of It offers new insights into the impact of the Second World War and lays the foundation for a better understanding of the dramatic alterations that occurred in the lives of women and girls in Canada after the 1940s. – Publisher's description
OCLC: 1132272620
Keywords: 1900-1999; Canada; Canadian essays; Femmes Canada Conditions sociales 20e siècle; Femmes Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador Conditions sociales 20e siècle; Guerre mondiale; 1939-1945 Femmes Canada; Guerre mondiale; 1939-1945 Femmes Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; Newfoundland and Labrador; Women; Women Canada Social conditions 20th century; Women Newfoundland and Labrador Social conditions 20th century; Women Social conditions; World War; 1939-1945 Women Canada; World War; 1939-1945 Women Newfoundland and Labrador

Moved by the State: Forced Relocation and Making a Good Life in Post War Canada - Walls, Martha (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Moved by the State: Forced Relocation and Making a Good Life in Post War Canada," by Tina Loo.

An International History of Coalminers’ Actions to Voice Resistance to the Appropriation of their Safety and Health, 1870-1925 - Walters, David; Quinlan, Michael (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
This paper seeks to explore the history of miners’ struggles to represent their interests in health and safety in coalmines in a range of countries in the period between 1870 and 1925. It has two objectives, the first objective being to examine these struggles both in terms of what determined them and how effective they were. The second objective is to assess the significance of these struggles for current understandings of representative participation in Occupational Health and Safety (OHS). Starting with late 19th century Australia, the research method involved search, retrieval and analysis of historical sources including newspaper accounts, recorded testimony to Commissions of Inquiry into mining incidents and disasters, records of the debates of the legislature on relevant regulatory reforms and records of trade union meetings, as well as the accounts of contemporary observers and published analysis. Extending its inquiry to other countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Belgium, the methods used for these countries were less focused on newspaper accounts and more reliant on the analysis of published historical records of national and international trade union congresses, and those of the legislatures of these countries, as well as theses and accounts in the research literature. In combination, these sources corroborate one another and provide rich qualitative data, the analysis of which has achieved both research objectives. As well as filling an important gap in the literature on the development of worker involvement in OHS, this paper shows that coalminers’ struggles and strategies for workers to have a say in their health and safety, and the contexts that shaped them are both instructive and important in understanding current experiences.
Keywords: coalmining; health and safety; histoire; history; mine de charbon; mineur; minor; représentation des travailleurs; santé et sécurité; worker representation

Histoire du taxi à Montréal : des taxis jaunes à UberX - Warren, Jean-Philippe (Boréal, 2020)
Comme toutes les grandes villes occidentales, Montréal fourmille de taxis qui parcourent les rues, font la navette entre l'aéroport et le centre-ville, attendent près des stations de métro, des hôpitaux et des grands hôtels. Trains, tramways, autobus, métros et vélos de Montréal ont eu droit à leur histoire, mais pas les taxis. Le monde du taxi est pourtant un sujet riche et complexe, un carrefour où se rencontrent plusieurs spécialisations de l'histoire : urbaine, politique, économique, sans oublier le travail et l'immigration. Depuis sa voiture, le chauffeur ou la chauffeuse est témoin des rapports tendus entre le travailleur et l'État, la ville et les citoyens, les quartiers excentrés et le centre-ville, le peuple et les élites. Il est aussi témoin des luttes entre la majorité francophone et les minorités culturelles, des mutations technologiques et de l'essor du transport en commun. Le monde du taxi, c'est aussi et surtout des travailleurs qui forment une catégorie sociale unique et qui pratiquent un métier rempli de paradoxes. Au fil de son enquête, faite de recherches sur l'industrie et d'entretiens avec ses acteurs, Jean-Philippe Warren en est venu à la conclusion que le chauffeur de taxi est la dernière incarnation du cowboy : libre de ses mouvements, de son emploi du temps, mais prisonnier de quantité de facteurs. Il peut arrêter de travailler quand il veut et travaille sans cesse. Il a toujours de l'argent dans ses poches, mais est pauvre. Il veut que l'État intervienne pour le protéger, mais exècre les régulations. Il pratique un métier monotone, mais rempli d'imprévus. Il est à la fois entouré de monde et seul. S'ajoutant à la diversité ethnique des membres de la profession, ces paradoxes créent une sous-culture absolument fascinante où se jouent des luttes de pouvoir économique et de contrôle territorial. Une sous-culture tout aussi difficile à intégrer qu'à quitter. En utilisant les ressources combinées de l'histoire et des sciences sociales, en mêlant l'examen des archives et l'enquête de terrain, cette première histoire du taxi à Montréal débouche sur un portrait inédit de la ville. Elle se veut aussi une contribution à la compréhension d'un monde qui cultive les extrêmes et qui, s'il veut se transformer pour le mieux, pour le bien-être de ses travailleurs, de leurs familles et des usagers, doit s'appuyer sur des données tangibles et une histoire critique. –Publisher's description
https://express.editionsboreal.qc.ca/articles/jean-philippe-warren-histoire-du-taxi-a-montreal/?slug=essais-et-documents
Keywords: History; Québec Montréal; Taxicabs; Taxicabs Québec (Province) Montréal History; Taxis Québec (Province) Montréal Histoire

The parties agree that... The role of collective bargaining in advancing university goals - Webber, Michelle; Rose-Krasnor, Linda (Academic Matters, 2020)
Universities play a vital role in society and the principles of academic freedom, tenure, equity, and institutional autonomy are foundational to their success. How are these principles defended and strengthened? Through collective bargaining. –Editor's note

Imperial Standard: Imperial Oil, Exxon, and the Canadian Oil Industry from 1880 - Wereley, Ian (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Imperial Standard: Imperial Oil, Exxon, and the Canadian Oil Industry from 1880," by Graham D. Taylor.

Canadian Political Economy - Whiteside, Heather (University of Toronto Press, 2020)
In Canadian Political Economy, experts from a number of disciplinary backgrounds come together to explore Canada's empirical political economy and the field's contributions to theory and debate. Considering both historical and contemporary approaches to CPE, the contributors pay particular attention to key actors and institutions, as well as developments in Canadian political-economic policies and practices, explored through themes of changes, crises, and conflicts in CPE. Offering up-to-date interpretations, analyses, and descriptions, Canadian Political Economy is accessibly written and suitable for students and scholars. In 17 chapters, the book's topics include theory, history, inequality, work, free trade and fair trade, co-operatives, banking and finance, the environment, Indigeneity, and the gendered politics of political economy. Linking longstanding debates with current developments, this volume represents both a state-of-the-discipline and a state-of-the-art contribution to scholarship. – Publisher's description
OCLC: 1146581412
Keywords: 2000-2099; Canada; Canada Conditions économiques 21e siècle; Canada Economic conditions 21st century; Canada Politics and government 21st century; Canada Politique et gouvernement 21e siècle; Economic history; Economics; Economics Canada; Politics and government; Économie politique Canada

The Commodification of Living Beings in the Fur Trade: The Intersection of Cheap Raw Materials and Cheap Labor - Wilson, Tamar Diana (The Capitalist Commodification of Animals, 2020)
The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fur trade in the United States and Canada that sent hundreds of thousands of furs to Europe and China relied on “Cheap Labor” and the abundance of “Cheap Raw Materials,” that is to say, living beings such as sea otter, land otter, beaver, and seals. Native American labor, procured by and paid through trade goods in a kind of “putting out” piece-rate system, was cheap partially because their lives were maintained/reproduced through traditional agricultural or hunting and gathering economies. The commodification of fur-bearing animals led to their sharp decline and in some cases near extinction. Cheap labor and cheap living beings interacted dynamically in unison to enable capital accumulation under mercantile capitalism. At the very end of the nineteenth century, fur farming as a petty capitalist enterprise became common in Canada and the United States, and more recently has expanded greatly in China.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346736625_The_Commodification_of_Living_Beings_in_the_Fur_Trade_The_Intersection_of_Cheap_Raw_Materials_and_Cheap_Labor

Mapping Ruling Relations Through Homelessness Organizing - Withers, A. J. (York University, 2020)
Poor peoples organizing can be effective even in periods of neoliberal retrenchment. This dissertation examines ruling relations and the social relations of struggle from the standpoint of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With political activist ethnography as my central theoretical framework and methodological approach, I conducted field research, interviews and textual analysis of City and organizational documents. Focusing on OCAPs homelessness campaigns, I examine the social relations of struggle in three campaigns in Toronto: a campaign to stop the criminalization of homeless people in a public park by private security, a campaign to increase access to a social assistance benefit for people in emergency housing need, and a campaign to increase the number and improve the conditions of emergency shelter beds. My research demonstrates the active and ongoing research and theorization that anti-poverty activists engage in as well as the practices of delegitimization, excluding critique, testimonial injustice and epistemic violence that ruling relations engage in to counter activist research and theory. Some of this research and theory has regarded both Housing First policy and philosophy and Torontos emergency shelter system which OCAP, homeless people and other advocates have been decrying as unjust and inept for years. This dissertation explicates some of the ways that the City works to delegitimize its challengers and demonstrates the validity of many of the longstanding critiques of the ruling regime. While the City of Toronto has worked to contain homelessness organizing in Toronto, and deployed numerous demobilization tactics to do so, each campaign was fully or partially successful. Full or partial victories were secured by anti-poverty activists through the use (or threat) of direct action tactics.

A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution - Zachernuk, Philip S. (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution," by Toby Green.

The Left in the United States and the Decline of the Socialist Party of America, 1934–1935 - Zumoff, Jacob A. (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
In the early years of the Great Depression, the American Socialist Party (sp) attracted left-wing youth and intellectuals at the same time that it faced the challenges of distinguishing itself from the Democratic Party of Franklin D. Roosevelt. By 1936, as its right-wing historic leadership (the “Old Guard”) left the sp and many of the more left-wing members of the sp had decamped, the party dwindled to a shell of its former strength. This article examines the internal struggles within the sp between the Old Guard and the left-wing “Militant” groupings and analyzes how the groups to the left of the sp reacted, particularly the pro-Moscow Communist Party and the supporters of Trotsky and Bukharin who were organized into two smaller groups, the Communist Party (Opposition) and Workers Party.