The Chronology of Revolution: Communism, Culture, and Civil Society in Twentieth-Century Britain - Weesjes, Elke (Labour / Le Travail, 2021)
The article reviews the book, "The Chronology of Revolution: Communism, Culture, and Civil Society in Twentieth-Century Britain," by Ben Harker.

In Memoriam: Leo Panitch, 1945–2020 - Whitaker, Reginald (Labour / Le Travail, 2021)
Pays homage to Panitch's life and work as an activist, academic, and writer. Discusses Panitch's origins in Winnipeg's left-wing Jewish community, his tutelage as a graduate student under Ralph Miliband in England, and his wide-ranging engagement as a Marxist political scientist. The author also reflects on his near half-century friendship with Panitch that began in London, England, in 1972.

Sewing in Arviat: Inuit Women’s Work Through Stories and Parkas - Williamson, Christina (Carleton University, 2021)
Sewing has long been a core part of Inuit women's land-based labour in Arviat, Nunavut. The objects that Inuit women produce by sewing, such as parkas, embody their responses to and perspectives of colonialism and the entrenchment of the capitalist economy in their communities. This dissertation takes an interdisciplinary approach using archival records and photographs, museums objects, interviews with seamstresses and experiential learning. In this project, gendered work is inherently connected to gendered knowledge. The amauti, a women's parka with a pouch to carry small children is useful for understanding both work and knowledge because it is a tool for women's work, while also serving as a conceptual lens through which to discuss Inuit women's knowledge transmission. I use methodologies developed in material culture studies to carefully develop three case studies to trace Inuit women's labour through three sewing mediums. The first case study uses caribou skin parka designs to examine women's responses to shifting patterns of subsistence and contact with First Nations and Qallunaat. This chapter argues that changes in caribou skin parka designs embody Inuit women's work as they render changes in their designs to respond to changes in their worlds, thereby enabling the continued work of all family members. Ann Meekitijuk Hanson's concept of Inuktization underpins the next two chapters. One examines the use of trade commodity beads, to centre the decisions of Inuit seamstresses as they undertake the physical and intellectual labour that resulted in beadwork that reflects Inuit aesthetics and worldviews. In the final case study, I argue that the shift to fabric parka sewing in the twentieth century demonstrates that sewing remains a significant part of women's work in the mixed economy of Arviat. Inuit women Inuktized fabric into something that suited their needs despite the deprivations caused by colonial policies. The findings of this project foreground Inuit women's work in historical records by centring the sewn objects that women make; they use their knowledge and skills to create a distinctly Inuit modernity.

The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland - Wood, Gregory (Labour / Le Travail, 2021)
The article reviews the book, "The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor, and Class War in the American Heartland," by Toni Gilpin.

Family Responsibilities and Silence of Rural Migrant Workers in China: The Role of Town-Fellow Organizations - Yuan, Fang; Cooke, Fang Lee; Zhong, Teng; An, Fansuo (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2021)
Employee voice in China remains an under-researched topic from an industrial relations perspective. We investigated the relationship between family dependents (children and elderly) and migrant worker silence, with town-fellow organizations as a moderator, based on the data of the 2014 Guangdong Migrant Workers Survey. The findings reveal that migrant workers with dependent children are more likely to keep silent when their labour rights and interests are violated at the workplace, while family responsibilities for dependent elderly family members do not have significant impacts on migrant workers’ silence. In addition, town-fellow organizations weaken the association between family responsibilities for elderly dependents and silence. Our study contributes to the existing literature on employee voice and provides evidence on the role of town-fellow organizations in China as an informal, emerging institutional actor that regulates labour relations through their involvement in dispute resolution.
Keywords: acteur institutionnel informel; employee silence; family dependents; informal institutional actor; membres de famille à charge; migrant workers; organisation de migrants venus de la même ville; silence de l’employé; town-fellow organization; travailleurs migrants

A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution - Zachernuk, Philip S. (Labour / Le Travail, 2021)
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.

Canadian Universities Are Surveilling Striking Workers with Private Security - Delamont, Kieran (Vice, 2020)
Over the past two decades, the use of private security agencies has become a common fixture of academic labour disputes.

General Motors Returns to Oshawa—But Offers Only Second-Tier Jobs in a ‘Pop-Up’ Plant - Leah, Tony; Keetch, Rebecca (Labor Notes, 2020)
Unifor President Jerry Dias called it “a home run.” The media headlines were all about “reopening the Oshawa plant.” Unifor, the union that represents workers at the Detroit Three auto companies in Canada, announced a tentative agreement with General Motors Canada on November 5 that included a $1.3 billion investment to “restart” the Oshawa Assembly Plant. GM had ended vehicle assembly there last year, eliminating the jobs of 5,000 assembly and supplier workers. The prospect of jobs returning is very welcome. What’s missing from the news coverage, though, is the reality that GM is not really reopening the old plant. Instead the new operation will be a “pop-up” assembly plant—designed to meet the short-term need for additional production of hugely profitable pickup trucks. The company is making no long-term commitments to the workers it will hire, nor to the community where its pickups and profits will be made. In effect, GM will open a brand new plant inside the shell of the old plant—with an almost entirely new workforce, an inferior wage scale, fewer benefits, and no job security.

Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company’s Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups - Gurley, Lauren Kaori (Motherboard, 2020)
Dozens of leaked documents from Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center reveal the company’s reliance on Pinkerton operatives to spy on warehouse workers and the extensive monitoring of labor unions, environmental activists, and other social movements. - Introduction

How Foodsters United Is Organizing Canada’s Gig Economy - Darrah, Dan (Jacobin, 2020)
After unionizing gig economy workers, Ontario’s courier union Foodsters United found themselves without an employer when Foodora filed for bankruptcy. Now they’re exploring how worker cooperatives could use the efficiency of platform structures to bypass corporate exploitation.

Junior Hockey Employment Lawsuit on Thin Ice; Judges Refuse to Ok $30-Million Deal - Perkel, Colin (CBC, 2020)
A $30-million settlement of three class actions over the alleged failure to pay junior hockey players the minimum wage has been thrown into jeopardy after three judges refused to sign off on the agreement.

Delivering justice - Schofield, Liisa; Williams, Chris (Briarpatch, 2020)
Foodsters United and the campaign to organize gig workers in Ontario – Three months after Foodora couriers won the right to unionize – a historic win for app-based workers – Foodora announced it was leaving Canada. Five worker leaders talk about the highs and lows of the campaign, and what’s next for Foodsters United.

Inclusion, Exclusion, and Migrant Farm Labour in Canada (2020)
The history of farm labour in Canada has been profoundly shaped by questions of inclusion and exclusion – especially at the border. Drawing on transnational research on Ontario’s tobacco workforce and looking in particular at migrations from the southern United States and the Caribbean, this talk will demonstrate how often-racist immigration policies and labour practices determined not only who could enter the Canadian farm labour market, but also the conditions of workers’ participation and their ability to attain a decent livelihood. Edward Dunsworth is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University. A historian of migration, labour, and Canada in the world, his current book project uses a case study of Ontario’s tobacco sector to advance a significant reinterpretation of the histories of farm labour and temporary foreign worker programs in Canada. This talk was delivered Sept. 18 [2020] as the first talk in the 2020 Shannon Lecture series; the theme for this year's series is 'Human Rights in the History of Canada'.

Remote Work and Employment Dynamics under COVID-19: Evidence from Canada - Gallacher, Guillermo; Hossain, Iqbal (Canadian Public Policy, 2020)
In this study, we find that 41 percent of jobs in Canada can be performed remotely, with significant variation across provinces, cities, and industries. We complement this finding with labour microdata and document facts on the relationship between the feasibility of remote work and income inequality, gender, age, and other worker characteristics. We then show that workers in occupations for which the possibility of remote work is less likely experienced larger employment losses between March and April. This relationship also holds for employment losses across cities and (in one of the specifications) across industries. Across provinces, there is a negative link in the February–March 2020 variation.

Canadian Hockey League Settles Lawsuits Filed by Current, Former Players Over Back Pay - Canadian Press (CBC, 2020)
The Canadian Hockey League on May 15 settled three class-action lawsuits filed by current and former junior players seeking back pay for minimum wage.

Legal Aid Ontario Lawyers Organizing Against the Odds: A Case Study of Professional Workers Unionizing - Chong, Patricia; LeBlanc, Michelle; Liu, Anna (ICDD Working Papers, 2020)
Legal Aid Ontario (LAO) lawyers provide legal advice and advocate for low-income individuals in the province of Ontario (1990), Canada, who would otherwise be unable to afford legal representation. As workers, LAO lawyers had limited ability to address workplace concerns with their employer, many of which negatively impacted their ability to advocate for their clients, or undermined their professional and ethical obligations. Lawyers as a job classification are excluded from the Ontario Labour Relations Act (OLRA), and are therefore unable to unionize using a defined legal process protected by legislation. Analyzing the example of a successful four-year long campaign led by LAO lawyers and the Society of United Professionals, IFPTE Local 160 (SUP) for voluntary union recognition, this case study examines organizing a union when labour legislation does not facilitate a unionization process; running a comprehensive organizing campaign for professional workers; framing issues to resonate with the public; and what motivates professional workers to unionize. --From introduction

Northern Populism: Causes and Consequences of the New Ordered Outlook - Graves, Frank; Smith, Jeff (School of Public Policy Publications (University of Calgary), 2020)
Canada has not been left untouched by a new authoritarian, or ordered, populism that has seen the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union. Based on measurements of public opinion and other means developed to assess the phenomenon, this paper finds that populism in Canada is a significant political force, replacing the traditional left-right political spectrum. Not only has northern populism created a heightened partisan polarization in Canada, but it also proved to be a strong predictor of the outcome of the 2019 federal election. The authors’ research shows that 34 per cent of Canadians maintain a populist outlook. Older, less-educated, working-class Canadians are the most likely to sympathize with ordered populism, and it is more prevalent in Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is also more closely aligned with Canadians whose political sympathies lie with conservative political parties. A number of factors have contributed to the rise of ordered populism. These include economic stagnation, the growing disparity between the wealthy and the middle and working classes, a sense that society is headed in the wrong direction and a backlash against the loss of traditional core values.

Canada’s Covid-19 Blind Spots on Race, Immigration and Labour - Bouka, Aimée-Angélique; Bouka, Yolande (Policy Options, 2020)
Over the long term, Canada should collect better health data that looks closely at the intersecting issues of race and immigration. The low-paid and precarious positions in industries that are considered essential during the COVID-19 pandemic (sanitation, health care, and those in the food supply chain) are filled with women, recent immigrants, and racialized Canadians. Many of these workplaces are notoriously plagued with exploitative labour practices that, in many ways, contributed to the spread of the virus in the first place. Recent immigrants and racialized Canadians, notably Filipinos and Sudanese Dinka, who work in these industries, for example, meat-packing plants in Brooks, High River and Balzac, Alberta, are at great risk of negative health outcomes during this pandemic....

Why the 'Invisible Workers' Cleaning up Covid-19 Need Better Labour Protection - Enright, Michael (The Sunday Edition with Michael Enright, 2020)
The message has been loud and clear: everyone needs to do their part to fight the spread of COVID-19, and that means not leaving our homes unless absolutely necessary. But for tens of thousands of people who work as cleaners across this country, this pandemic has meant having to keep showing up for work — for more demanding shifts, and under potentially hazardous working conditions. You can't telecommute if you're a cleaner or janitor. In Canada, as elsewhere in the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed just how essential their work is for public health and safety. And yet, janitorial workers in Canada have for years been among the lowest-paid in the country, and classified as so-called 'low-skilled' labour. Essential, but not commanding a lot of respect. Deena Ladd is the executive director of the Workers' Action Centre, an organization in Toronto that works with people in low-wage and unstable employment. She spoke to The Sunday Edition's Michael Enright about the working conditions of cleaners in Canada. --Website description

Holding the Line: Canadian Union Power in International Perspective - Stanford, Jim (Canadian Law of Work Forum (CLWF), 2020)
This review of the state of labour and distributional struggles in Canada, compared to the experience of other countries, paints a cautiously optimistic picture. Canadian workers have been relatively successful in preserving their organizational and institutional power (including relatively high and stable rates of unionization). Perhaps more importantly, Canadian workers have been active in wielding that power – both through industrial conflict and political advocacy – to defend and even improve their share of the overall economic pie. --From author's conclusion

Why Unions Are Good — But Not Good Enough - Eidlin, Barry (Jacobin, 2020)
For socialists, unions are paradoxical organizations. On the one hand, unions are essential for creating a workers' organization that can oppose capital and challenge it for power. But they are also an insufficient vehicle for mobilizing those workers to transform the world. [The article is a reprint of the chapter, "Labor Unions and Movements," in the Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx (2019), edited by Matthew Vidal, Tomas Rotta, Tony Smith, and Paul Prew.]

Deindustrialization – and the Politics of Our Time (2020)
Examines the political responses to deindustrialization as well as its historical roots and lived experiences.DéPOT is a partnership of over 35 research centres, industrial museums, labour archives, trade unions and other organizations across Italy, France, Germany, the UK, Canada and the United States. [Funded by the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Council.]

View of Contributors / Collaborateurs | Labour / Le Travail (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Provides brief bios of the contributors to v. 85 (Spring, 2020).

The Case for Economic Democracy - Adams, Roy (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "The Case for Economic Democracy," by Andrew Cumbers.

Pierre Trudeau, the Assault on Collective Bargaining, and Lowering Working-Class Expectations - Aivalis, Christo (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Examines the federal state's interventions in collective bargaining, including the use of back-to-work legislation, during the 1970s and 80s under the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau.

The Geographies of Precarious Labour in Canada - Ali, Waad; Newbold, K.; Mills, Suzanne (Canadian Journal of Regional Science / Revue canadienne des sciences régionales, 2020)
Using Statistics Canada’s 2011-2016 Labor Force Surveys, this paper examines the spatial dimensions of precarious forms of employment (PFE) in Canada. We first compare different PFEs across a range of geographies including national, provincial, census metropolitan areas and urban/rural areas. The results show that different PFEs exhibited distinct spatial patterns across space and scale. Second, using logistic regression models, results show that patterns in PFEs were reinforced by factors such as immigration status, gender, age, education, and income. These models further confirm that spatial variations in PFEs were robust even when controlling for socio-demographic and socio-economic effects. Taken together, these marked spatial patterns advances our understanding of the spatial divisions of precariousness in Canada.

(End)Zones and (Out)Fields of Production: Contemporary Conditions of Labor and Artistic Critique - Anderson, Stephanie (Western University, 2020)
In a 2013 exhibition publication titled It’s the Political Economy, Stupid!, John Roberts made the observation that “Over the last ten years we have become witness to an extraordinary assimilation of art theory and practice into the categories of labor and production.” Whereas once art claimed for itself a critical capacity in relation to the larger system of capitalist domination by its status as a putatively ‘autonomous’ sphere of production from which it leveraged its difference and critique, today it is largely acknowledged that there is no longer any such ‘outside’ to be aspired to. If, in the recent past, the immaterial, informational, creative, experiential, and affective elements of conceptual art were seen as potential resistant forces, in our current climate, where these forms of labor have become the dominant mode of production for the capitalist economy, these potentialities are now being widely questioned. With these developments in mind, this dissertation consists of a series of integrated articles that focus on the increasingly diffuse and interconnected circuits of global exchange and labor as they interact with specific sites and interventions of contemporary artistic production. In this, they coalesce around a general binding inquiry: does artistic labor today have the capacity to function as a critique of the (transforming) mechanisms of control and exploitation characteristic of capitalism in the twenty-first century? And if not, what does that entail about the continued political viability, and persisting social functions of contemporary artworks? Drawing on autonomist Marxist thought, the sociology of work and labor, performance studies, and critical readings on the relationship between artistic labor and recent forms of capitalist production, the chapters are organized around exhibitions and artworks which represent, critique, or (re)produce the conditions of production in late capitalism, while situating these within a global economy characterized by an uneven network of productive relations. In so doing, they trace the trajectory of labor relations and production practices as they have transformed over the last half decade through artworks and exhibitions that engage specific emblematic sites of production—the factory, the prison, and the museum (or amalgams of these spaces), and attempts to tease out places where reflection on the relationship between ‘artistic’ and ‘non-artistic’ labor in each may lead to clarity regarding the socio-political efficacy of contemporary art in an increasingly saturated and complex economic infrastructure.

Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism - Antaya, Sean (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism," byAndrew Feffer.

The New Left at Work: - Antaya, Sean (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
his article examines rank-and-file organizing in Windsor’s automobile factories during the 1970s. In particular, I look at the history of two organizations: Workers’ Unity and the New Tendency’s Auto Worker Group. I demonstrate how these groups were part of the North American New Left’s broader turn toward Marxism and the working class that contributed to the emergence of radical rank-and-file movements that challenged both management and bureaucratized trade union leaders. In Windsor, New Left auto workers embraced forms of autonomist Marxist politics concerned primarily with working-class self-activity at the point of production, and these activists formed connections with influential theorists and organizations in Detroit and Italy. Putting these intellectual exchanges into action, the rank-and-file organizations in Windsor used direct action in an attempt to improve working conditions and develop a radical culture of democracy on the shop floor. Although these groups were relatively short lived, their history tells us much about the trajectory of the New Left in Canada and the ways that former student activists grappled with the radical potential of 1970s working-class militancy.

The Political Economy of Employment Regulation in Small Developing Countries - Arrowsmith, James; Parker, Jane (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
It is generally accepted that employment regulation offers mechanisms to generate orderly economic growth as well as provide for the protection of workers. Both these efficiency and equity arguments particularly pertain to developing country contexts. The evolution and impact of employment law and industrial relations institutions in large developing countries is of growing interest to western scholars, but small developing countries have been ignored. This lack of research inhibits understanding of the political economy of employment regulation in developing country contexts. This article explores developments in labour regulation in three small developing countries in the South Pacific—Nauru, Tonga, and Papua New Guinea—that have been impacted by globalization and international labour regulation in different ways. The comparative research adopts a stakeholder analysis approach based on programs of qualitative interviews and documentary analysis. The paper identifies a number of structural and agency constraints on the development and effective implementation of employment regulatory systems that primarily reflect political factors. These include disorganized employment relations, under-developed civil society institutions, concentration of power networks, the under-resourcing and compartmentalization of state institutions and a broader context of political change and instability. These factors, which are related to country size as well as stage of development, subvert the introduction, implementation and review of employment regulation even where efficiency and equity arguments may be accepted by policymakers. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications and need for future research.
Keywords: Nauru; Pacific Island Countries; Pacifique Sud; Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée; Papua New Guinea; Tonga; employment regulation; less developed countries; pays en développement; pays insulaires; réglementation de l’emploi

A Qualitative Descriptive Study of Underground Workers Who Received Aluminum Dust Treatment and Its Organizational Level Impact - Aubin, Danielle; Lightfoot, Nancy; Gauthier, Alain; Côté, Daniel; Arrandale, Victoria (Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, 2020)
From 1943 to 1980, some underground gold and uranium workers in Ontario, Canada were required to inhale aluminum dust for silicosis prevention. Workers were exposed to the dust for up to 30 min daily. This study explored the perceived organizational impact on workers exposed to the aluminum dust treatment in Northeastern Ontario. This qualitative descriptive study included 16 respondents who participated in individual semi-structured interviews. All respondents were Northeastern Ontario workers who were exposed to aluminum dust treatment for at least 1 year. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically. Themes that emerged were: 1) confidence and trust in companies, 2) lack of participants' and heath care providers' knowledge, and 3) need for compensation and formal apology. Workers' perceived that their long term health was impacted by exposure. The results will be used to help workers, companies, and unions address workplace exposures. The latest information about McIntyre powder will enhance the knowledge about the impact of the exposure.
Keywords: Aluminum; Aluminum dust; Aluminum powder; McIntyre powder; Qualitative descriptive; Workplace exposure

Courage, strength, and resolve: How the King's University College Faculty Association unionized in the middle of a pandemic - Bangarth, Stephanie (Academic Matters, 2020)
Facing a global health pandemic and an uncooperative administration, the King's University College Faculty Association decided it was time to unionize. Now they're stronger than ever. --Editor's note

Regulating Employment Precarity in Ontario Home Care - Bartkiw, Timothy J. (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
In the mid-1990s, the province of Ontario instituted a new model of “managed competition” to govern a significant portion of home care services delivery. The new model, based on competitive bidding for the delivery of home care services, deepened reliance on private and increasingly for-profit “service provider organizations.” In time, the outcomes of the transition to managed competition – particularly increased employment precarity and turnover – grew increasingly salient and became captured in prior literature. However, a series of subsequent responses to these outcomes also began to emerge, ostensibly aimed at improving work and employment conditions in this sector. This article provides a historical analysis of various responses to the heightened employment precarity wrought by the managed competition regime in Ontario home care, with a focus on personal support workers (psws) insofar as they have historically tended to experience the most precarious conditions among the primary home care occupations. The analysis suggests that the core institutional arrangement of fissured work and organizational relations, coupled with a hyperdecentralized bargaining structure, was a key constraint and mediating factor. The most dramatic policy measure aimed at employment precarity, the 2014 psw Wage Enhancement Initiative, constituted a major, ad hoc overriding of this structure that had until then delivered wage restraint so successfully that it challenged the government’s own health human resources objectives. This reliance on such an extraordinary ad hoc instrument, without addressing the core institutional structure, severely restricts the degree of improvement in psw employment outcomes capable of being produced by collective bargaining in Ontario home care.

Analyse critique de l'extractivisme comme mode de développement nordique à partir du cas de l'exploitation du minerai de fer au Québec - Bédard, Samuel (Université du Québec à Montréal, 2020)
Ce mémoire de maîtrise traite du rapport qu’entretiennent les grandes entreprises minières avec les collectivités locales, dans un contexte nordique. À partir du cas québécois de l’exploitation du minerai de fer, nous tentons d’apporter un éclairage nouveau à l’idée communément admise selon laquelle l’implantation, sur des territoires enclavés, de grands projets extractifs, constitue un vecteur de développement régional important. La démarche d’économie politique proposée prend pour objet les modes de gestion des ressources humaines et financières privilégiés dans le secteur minier de la Côte-Nord. Les données recueillies dans le cadre d’une analyse documentaire et d’une série d’entretiens semi-dirigés, menés à l’hiver 2019, convergent vers la thèse suivante : la diminution des retombées économiques constatée dans cette région est attribuable à la déterritorialisation de l’organisation contemporaine du travail dans les mines ainsi qu’à l’émergence de stratégies de restructuration épousant la dynamique du cycle de commodités.

Améliorer la gestion du changement dans les organisations - Ben Mansour, Jamal (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Améliorer la gestion du changement dans les organisations," edited by Martin Lauzier and Nathalie Lemieux.

Petit traité de management pour les habitants d’Essos, de Westeros et d’ailleurs - Berrier-Lucas, Celine; Deschaintre, Stéphane; Coblence, Emmanuel (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Petit traité de management pour les habitants d’Essos, de Westeros et d’ailleurs," by Marine Agogué, Stéphane Deschaintre, and Cyrille Sardais.

Masters and Servants: The Hudson’s Bay Company and Its North American Workforce, 1668-1786 - Berthelette, Scott (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Masters and Servants: The Hudson’s Bay Company and Its North American Workforce, 1668-1786," by Scott P. Stephen.

Exploring the Intersections of Sexual Violence and Precarious Work: A Literature Review - Bigras-Dutrisac, Hélène; Berlingieri, Adriana; McFadyen, Nicole D.; MacQuarrie, Barbara J. (Western University, Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children, 2020)
This literature review presents an overview of the existing academic research on workers’ experiences of sexual harassment in order to better understand the factors influencing workers’ responses to these forms of harassment. We focus on the understudied intersection of precarious work and sexual harassment to address and investigate the higher rates of unwanted sexual attention reported by workers engaged in precarious work. --From Introduction

L’aménagement du pluralisme syndical en droit du travail québécois : quel équilibre entre efficacité et participation des salariés ? - Bilodeau, Pier-Luc (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
En marge du modèle dominant de monopole de l’association majoritaire dans les rapports collectifs du travail, le pluralisme syndical s’est exprimé de longue date au Québec et nécessite un aménagement normatif approprié. Le présent article vise à identifier les enjeux d’un tel aménagement à partir d’une étude comparative de trois cas, soit : 1- la participation des associations accréditées aux comités d’équité salariale; 2- le traitement des plaintes relatives au maintien de l’équité salariale dans des entreprises où plus d’une association accréditée représente des salariés; et, 3- la participation des associations syndicales à la négociation des conventions collectives sectorielles de l’industrie québécoise de la construction. L’analyse des solutions retenues par le législateur dans ces trois cas permet de mettre au jour une tension entre efficacité et participation des salariés, ainsi que de discuter des conséquences de celles-ci pour la démocratie au travail.
Keywords: Quebec law; droit québécois; démocratie au travail; effectiveness; efficacité; employee participation; participation des salariés; pluralisme syndical; union pluralism; workplace democracy

What Does It Cost to Care? Improving Wages and Staffing Levels in Ontario’s Long-Term Care Facilities - Block, Sheila; Dhunna, Simran (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2020)
The COVID-19 pandemic has made the holes in our social safety net and the failures in our social infrastructure painfully obvious. A horrific example of these failures is the impact of the pandemic in long-term care (LTC) homes. This paper provides a cost estimate for adequately funded caregiving in Ontario long-term care homes, showing that it would cost about $1.8 billion to increase care levels and equalize wage rates across the sector in this fiscal year. This equates to just over 1% of overall provincial program spending in Ontario.

Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics - Bocking, Paul (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics," by Eric Blanc.

Prairie Fairies: A History of Queer Communities and People in Western Canada, 1930–1985 - Boulay, Nadine (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Prairie Fairies: A History of Queer Communities and People in Western Canada, 1930–1985," by Valerie Korinek .

What Have You Done for Me Lately? Back-to-Work Legislation and the Constitutional Right to Strike - Braley-Rattai, Alison (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Discusses back-to-work legislation, including the definition of essential services, with respect to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Supreme Court of Canada's 2015 decision that upheld the right to strike. Concludes that back-to-work legislation will continue to be the Canadian state's go-to option, although recent case law also supports "meaningful" alternative dispute resolutions.

Progression des femmes et mixité dans les services correctionnels au Québec : des transformations possibles ? - Brière, Sophie; Pellerin, Antoine; Laflamme, Anne-Marie; Laflamme, Julie Maude (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Cet article s’intéresse au cheminement de carrière des agentes de services correctionnels, particulièrement aux facteurs qui ont une influence sur leur rétention et leur progression. Alors que les études antérieures réalisées sur la réalité des femmes qui exercent ce métier montraient de nombreux obstacles et révélait le fait que les établissements de détention véhiculaient une culture masculine et des stéréotypes bien ancrés vis-à-vis des rôles qui sont joués dans ce milieu, la progression de la situation des agentes de services correctionnels québécoises a été très importante depuis le début des années 1990 et leur taux de rétention en emploi est, de nos jours, excellent. Nous avons donc cherché à comprendre cette progression et cette rétention, tout comme quelles en furent les conséquences au plan organisationnel. Sur la base d’approches théoriques mobilisées de manière convergente, soit les approches sur la mixité au travail, les théories féministes, la théorie institutionnelle et la théorie du changement, des entretiens semi-dirigés ont été menés auprès d’agentes et d’agents de services correctionnels et de gestionnaires oeuvrant dans des établissements de détention québécois. Les résultats de notre collecte de données révèlent que la progression des femmes au sein des services correctionnels a pris la forme d’une réelle mixité au travail et a eu un impact significatif sur le milieu de travail. Le fait que les équipes de travail soient composés d’hommes et de femmes et que les tâches confiées aux membres du personnel, à l’exception des fouilles à nu, soient identiques et non tributaire du genre, ont permis aux femmes d’être perçues comme des membres à part entière de l’organisation. Nous avons également constaté des transformations et des changements importants dans tous les piliers de l’organisation, ainsi qu’une évolution de la culture organisationnelle. Enfin, notre recherche a aussi permis d’identifier quelques enjeux qui représentent toujours des obstacles à la progression et à la rétention des agentes de services correctionnels.
Keywords: approach to equality; correctional services; diversity; diversité; démarche organisationnelle d’égalité; femmes; mixité au travail; services correctionnels; women; workplace gender mix

Temporary Foreign Work, Precarious Migrant Labor and Advocacy in Canada: A Critical Exploratory Case Study - Brown-McLaughlin, Simone (University of Alberta, 2020)
Over the past forty-seven years, thousands of temporary foreign migrant workers have been arriving in Canada annually, to labor in sectors of precarious work including farming, caregiving and the service sector given the demand from employers seeking cheaper sources of labor or for work that Canadians are not available to do or are unwilling to do. Given the context of 21st century neoliberal capitalist globalization which has transformed the international division of labor, there has been an increase in the demand for migrants as a flexible source of cheap labor. Canada’s dependence on migrant workers has been facilitated through bilateral and unilateral programs with countries of the Global South to provide a steady stream of workers for its workforce. The purpose of this research was to critically explore and develop an understanding of precarious migrant worker exploitation and concerns pertaining to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) in Canada to inform advocacy undertaken by migrant organizations. Utilizing a race-gendered neo-Marxist perspective on capital and migrant labor a case study strategy was adopted and developed pertaining to the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) and the Caregivers Program. Data collection included in-depth and focus group interviews with 17 farm and caregiver migrant workers and advocates, document reviews and analysis of web materials. Thematic analysis suggests temporary migrant work is marked by coercion, misrepresentation of contracts and bonded contractual arrangements. Migrant work and living in Canada are characterized by increasing levels of labor unfreedom experienced as domination, subordination, and race-gendered exploitation. Temporary foreign migrant workers are being driven further into debt, endure substandard working conditions and a social experience in Canada marred by prejudice, discrimination, and oppression. These preliminary critical exploratory findings inform advocacy work for migrant workers by contributing to new ways of "knowing and doing” and to challenge existing predatory precarious migrant work policies, processes, and experiences in Canada and internationally.

Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s–1830s - Brown, Douglas H. L. (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Writing the Lives of the English Poor, 1750s–1830s," by Steven King.

Projecting Grid Compression to Reduce Gender Salary Gaps - Brown, Laura; Troutt, Elizabeth (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
This paper examines the effects of grid compression on gender-based salary gaps. In this case, the workplace setting is a large Canadian research university previously found to have both a positionally segregated cohort of academic staff and a persistent gender-based differential in their salaries. The annual salary grids at this institution underwent seemingly subtle compressions over the course of two decades, with within-rank compression largely confined to the first decade and across-rank compression confined to the second decade. We employ a simulation methodology to check whether the two types of compression reduce the salary gap to varying degrees. After deflating staff salaries back to the start of each decade, we project the salaries forward using the historical annual increases and grids in place in each year at the university. We compute the gap present in the salary distribution at the start and end of each decade in the simulation, and check whether the gap decreased more across one decade than the other. We find that across-rank compression of the institution’s salary grid during the second decade narrows the salary gap to a greater extent than the within-rank compression of the earlier decade. Our work demonstrates that employers using stated salary grids could use simulation to monitor the equity effects of their pay policies and shows that they could accelerate the closure of gaps through consciously altering relationships among pay levels at different points in the grid’s hierarchy.
Keywords: disparités entre les sexes; pay differential; politiques salariales; sex gender gap; simulation; wage determination; wage equity; écarts de rémunération; équité salariale

Impact des contextes économique et organisationnel des entreprises sur le sens du travail chez les salariés - Bruyère, Mireille; Lizé, Laurence (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Cet article propose d’établir des liens entre le sens du travail chez les salariés et les contextes économique et organisationnel dans lequel ils travaillent. Cet environnement économique est marqué, notamment, par la montée des relations donneurs d’ordre/sous-traitants, une gestion plus flexible de la production ou de l’emploi et la financiarisation des entreprises. Selon nos hypothèses, ces transformations agissent sur les conditions de travail et, de ce fait, sur le sens que les individus peuvent accorder à leurs tâches. Ce sens peut varier à la hausse comme à la baisse. Cette étude exploite deux bases de données françaises : tout d’abord, l’Enquête Conditions de travail 2013 réalisée auprès de 6724 salariés, rattachés à 5496 établissements. Ensuite, chaque établissement a été apparié à des données macro-sectorielles de l’Insee (Base ESANE-FARE, en évolution entre 2008 et 2012), afin de disposer d’informations sur l’évolution de ratios qui caractérisent les dynamiques productives actuelles, comme le taux de marge ou la financiarisation du capital des entreprises. À l’aide de questionnaires auprès des salariés, quatre conditions du sens du travail ont été identifiées et, ensuite, mesurées par quatre scores. Il s’agit de l’utilité, l’autonomie, la pression temporelle et les relations dans le collectif de travail. Ce sont les variations de ces scores que nous cherchons à expliquer. Par une analyse multiniveau, nous pouvons mesurer l’impact du contexte organisationnel (niveau 2) et du contexte macro-sectoriel des entreprises (niveau 3) sur ces quatre conditions du sens du travail. Les résultats montrent comment l’organisation du travail dans les établissements et la financiarisation des entreprises influencent le sens du travail chez les salariés. De plus, nous avons observé que le sens de cet impact dépend beaucoup de la position de l’établissement dans la chaîne de valeur.
Keywords: analyse multi-niveau; conditions de travail; financialization; financiarisation; meaning of work; multi-level analyses; sens du travail; working conditions

Mapping Wage Theft in the Informal Economy: Employment Standards Violations in Residential Construction and Renovations - Buckley, Michelle (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
This article explores the experiences of informal construction and home renovation workers with payment-related violations of employment standards. Such violations, often broadly referred to as ‘wage theft,’ can comprise an array of practices including, but not limited to, withholding workers’ wages for long periods of time, paying workers below the minimum wage, extracting illegal deductions from workers’ paycheques, and outright not paying the wages due.
Keywords: employment standards violations; home renovations; informal economy; informal work; rénovation résidentielle; travail informel; violations des normes du travail; vol de salaires; wage theft; économie informelle

Le syndicalisme entre deux âges : le mouvement ouvrier à Québec et Lévis, 1896-1914 - Cadieux, Alex (Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa, 2020)
Dans notre thèse, nous étudions la période de « flottement » et de réorganisation du mouvement ouvrier entre le déclin de l’organisation des Chevaliers du Travail et l’ascension du syndicalisme catholique. Notre étude révèle que cette expérience de transition, entre les années 1896 et 1914, est formatrice pour le mouvement ouvrier de Québec et Lévis. L’analyse de ces années s’avère essentielle mieux saisir et caractériser la suite des évènements dans le monde syndical de cette région. Notre regard nouveau sur le mouvement ouvrier de Québec et Lévis permet d’éclairer le rôle actif des travailleurs et de nuancer le misérabilisme contenu dans une partie de l’historiographie ouvrière. En effet, nous montrons que les travailleurs de Québec et Lévis s’activent dans le monde du travail, mais aussi sur la scène politique, entre 1896 et 1914 afin d’améliorer leurs conditions de vie et de travail. Notre thèse indique aussi que, contrairement au contexte montréalais, Québec devient le bastion du syndicalisme national durant cette période. Cette conjecture peut trouver racine dans la relation particulière qui se développe à Québec et Lévis entre les patrons, la classe ouvrière et l’Église. En effet, l’Église de Québec et Lévis se montre un acteur important entre 1896 et 1914 ; la classe ouvrière doit ainsi négocier avec cette dernière pour se développer. Notre analyse permet ainsi d’expliquer le cheminement particulier des ouvriers de Québec et Lévis entre 1896 et 1914 et de mieux saisir leurs idéologies et leur conduite.

Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada - Cantin, Étienne (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Labor and the Class Idea in the United States and Canada," by Barry Eidlin.

Behind Closed Doors: Exposing Migrant Care Worker Exploitation During COVID-19 - Caregivers' Action Centre (Caregivers' Action Centre, 2020)
Migrant care worker organizations are releasing a report today documenting the experiences of hundreds of racialized migrant domestic workers during COVID-19. The report, “Behind Closed Doors: Exposing Migrant Care Worker Exploitation During COVID-19”, features shocking stories of abuse including working every day without a break, thousands of dollars in stolen wages, workers being trapped in employers’ homes for months, and being laid off and evicted. The report documents how these crises threaten workers’ ability to unite with their families and access permanent residency, and calls for full and permanent immigration status for all migrants as the only solution. --Press release 2020-10-28

From Industrial to Social Campaigns: Lay Morality, General Elections and Australia’s Trade Union Federation - Caspersz, Donella; Barratt, Tom (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
This article considers the potential for union revitalization through campaigning in general elections. It first charts changes in unions’ campaigns in general elections, moving beyond a focus on industrial relations issues towards issues of social significance, such as health and education. Second, by reconceptualizing this activity using lay morality, unions may enhance their ability to increase their power and legitimacy. Thus, by acting in this way, unions can broaden the bases for their legitimacy and build new opportunities for their renewal. However, this approach may not lead to revitalizing their density, but may open the opportunity for their renewal because this approach consolidates their legitimacy to a broader constituency. We suggest that when unions act in this way, they become agents of social utility who champion the interests of a wider constituency. We argue that, given the dynamics of changes to work and the ways in which workers now work, this provides one route for unions to tap into these multiple subjectivities of workers and remain relevant. This article combines an analysis of over 1000 media articles that cover four periods of campaigns by peak unions in Australian elections between the years 2007-2016, with original interviews with key informants and an analysis of electoral survey results for each election to provide the discussion. These three methods triangulate to establish the shift in unions’ campaign focus and to suggest that this is a potential path to revitalization.
Keywords: lay morality; moralité laïque; national elections; revitalisation syndicale; social utility; union revitalization; utilité sociale; élections nationales

Borders and Boundaries in the Lives of Migrant Agricultural Workers - Caxaj, C. Susana; Cohen, Amy; Buffam, Bonar; Oudshoorn, Abe (Witness: The Canadian Journal of Critical Nursing Discourse,, 2020)
In 2018, roughly 72% of the 69,775 temporary migrant agricultural labourers arriving in Canada participated in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Despite having legal status in Canada, these individuals are often systematically excluded from community life and face barriers when accessing health and social services. SAWP workers’ exclusion from many public spaces and their incomplete access to the benefits of Canadian citizenship or residency provide us a unique opportunity to examine social and political mechanisms that construct (in)eligibility for health and protection in society. As individuals seeking to care for the sick and most marginalized, it is important for nurses to understand how migrant agricultural workers are positioned and imagined in society. We argue that the structural exclusion faced by this population can be uncovered by examining: (1) border politics that inscribe inferior status onto migrant agricultural workers; (2) nation-state borders that promote racialized surveillance, and; (3) everyday normalization of exclusionary public service practices. We discuss how awareness of these contextual factors can be mobilized by nurses to work towards a more equitable health services approach for this population.

American Labour’s Cold War Abroad: From Deep Freeze to Détente, 1945–1970 - Clark, Denis (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "American Labour’s Cold War Abroad: From Deep Freeze to Détente, 1945–1970," by Anthony Carew.

Identité professionnelle et agressions dans les métiers spécialisés de la construction et du secteur manufacturier au Québec - Cloutier, Geneviève; Marchand, Alain (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Cette étude vise à mieux comprendre le lien entre identité professionnelle et agressions fondées sur le sexe et le genre dans les métiers spécialisés de la construction et du secteur manufacturier au Québec. Une limite importante dans la littérature s’avère être l’absence d’étude portant sur l’identité professionnelle et sa fragilisation. L’identité professionnelle englobe l’ensemble des pratiques et des coutumes qui procure une reconnaissance aux travailleurs dans l’exécution de leurs tâches, en plus d’une affirmation d’eux-mêmes au travail (Ashforth et Mael, 1989). Des questionnaires ont été distribués dans sept chantiers de construction et dans quatre établissements manufacturiers, pour un total de 282 répondants. Les résultats des analyses multiniveaux, en considérant les variations entre les 54 équipes de travail, ont suggéré un effet direct de la déviance interpersonnelle sur les agressions psychologiques. Les résultats ont aussi révélé que l’identité professionnelle et sa fragilisation prédisposent aux agressions, notamment une faible intégration des différences dans l’équipe, ainsi qu’un soutien social insuffisant. Tandis qu’une utilisation des compétences plus forte et une faible préoccupation pour le groupe s’associent aux agressions sexuelles dans les métiers spécialisés. De plus, une faible estime publique du métier s’associe à des agressions physiques, alors que des demandes élevées au travail et l’insécurité d’emploi s’associent à des agressions psychologiques. Enfin, les modèles multiniveaux ont associé le fait d’être une femme aux agressions physiques et sexuelles. Les conclusions de cette recherche corroborent l’importance d’agir sur les dimensions identitaires afin de réduire les agressions, particulièrement en misant sur l’inclusion des travailleurs dans les processus innovants et sur une plus grande ouverture de leur part aux nouvelles idées. Au niveau de la culture des métiers spécialisés, il serait également judicieux de privilégier les valeurs dites plus féminines basées sur la collaboration, l’empathie et le soutien.
Keywords: agression fondée sur le sexe et le genre; identité professionnelle; modèles multiniveaux; multilevel models; métiers spécialisés; professional identity; sex and gender-based aggressions; skilled trades

Access to Justice for Gig Workers: Contrasting Answers from Canadian and American Courts - Coiquaud, Urwana; Martin, Isabelle (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
With the introduction of digital platforms in the Canadian labour law’s landscape comes an increased used of agreements imposing arbitration as a dispute resolution mechanism. To challenge their classification as independent workers and gain employment standards acts’ protection, gig workers therefore need to submit their disputes to a private proceeding, often located outside Canada. It is in this context that the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision to invalidate the arbitration clause in Heller v Uber Technologies Inc. must be read. Having granted leave for appeal, will the Supreme Court of Canada follow in the footsteps of American law and allow mandatory arbitration agreements to impede collective actions challenging the misclassification of gig workers? Our study of the Ontarian and American decisions regarding the validity of mandatory arbitration agreements between Uber and its drivers brings to light the determining impact of the approach chosen by courts.
Keywords: Ontario; United States; access to justice; accès à la justice; arbitrage ou clause compromissoire; arbitration clause; dispute resolution mechanism; mode de résolution des conflits; plateformes numériques; status of platform workers; statut des travailleurs; États-Unis

La « fabrique réglementaire » autour de l’arrivée d’Uber - Coiquaud, Urwana; Morissette, Lucie (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
L’arrivée d’Uber a provoqué une petite révolution par sa conception innovante de la prestation de transport par taxi, rendue possible grâce à une application numérique (la plateforme) permettant de jumeler conducteurs et passagers. Cette incursion aurait pu être bénéfique à l’ensemble de l’industrie, mais elle s’est effectuée, au Québec, au mépris des acteurs historiques en place et, surtout, de la réglementation en vigueur, ce qui entraîna sa fissuration, puis sa démolition. L’industrie fut alors complètement déréglementée.
Keywords: Quebec; Québec; Uber; deregulation; digital platforms; déréglementation; plateformes numériques; politiques publiques; public policies; taxi

Annual general meeting [2020: convened virtually from various locations across Turtle Island] - Committee on Canadian Labour History (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Minutes of the annual general meeting held by Zoom on June 16, 2020,

Canada 1919: A Nation Shaped by War - Cook, Tim; Granatstein, J.L. (Studies in Canadian military history, 2020)
With compelling insight, Canada 1919 examines the year following the Great War--a war that was, for Canada, completely unexpected in its magnitude. In the midst of relief that the killing had ended, economic and political tensions were fraught as the survivors attempted to right the country and chart a path into the future. The Canadian Corps had played a significant role in the war and were hailed as the "shock troops" of the British empire. They came home full of both sorrow and pride in their accomplishments, wondering what they would do, and how would they fit in with their families. The military stumbled through massive demobilization. The government struggled to hang on to power, labour seethed, and the threat of Bolshevism emerged. At the same time there were positive changes, and a new Canadian nationalism was forged. This book offers a fresh perspective on the concerns of the time: the treatment of veterans, including nurses and Indigenous soldiers; the place of children; the influenza pandemic; the rising farm lobby; the role of labour; Canada's international standing; and commemoration of the fallen. Canada 1919 exposes the ways in which war shaped Canada--and the ways it did not. -- Publisher's description
Keywords: 1900-1999; Canada; Canada Conditions sociales 1918-1930; Canada Conditions sociales 20e siècle; Canada Conditions économiques 1918-1945; Canada Economic conditions 1918-1945; Canada Military policy; Canada Politics and government 1914-1945; Canada Politique et gouvernement 1914-1945; Canada Social conditions 1918-1930; Canada Social conditions 20th century; Economic history; Economics; Guerre mondiale, 1914-1918 Aspect social Canada; Guerre mondiale, 1914-1918 Aspect économique Canada; Guerre mondiale, 1914-1918 Canada; Military policy; Ottawa authors, musicians, etc; Politics and government; Social aspects; Social conditions; World War, 1914-1918 Canada; World War, 1914-1918 Economic aspects Canada; World War, 1914-1918 Social aspects Canada

Mining Ontario: Corporate Power, the Mining Industry, and Public Policy in Ontario - Corbeil, Matthew Joseph (York University, 2020)
This dissertation critically examines the history of the government of Ontarios policies towards the mining industry to analyze the impact of concentrated economic power on political processes in liberal democracies. It is the first comprehensive study of the political power of one of the provinces largest and most influential industries. Drawing on critical theories of business power, this dissertation examines policy developments across four contentious issue areas, namely fiscal policy, air pollution control, occupational health and safety, and access to mineral lands. Employing a qualitative historical narrative, the study draws on data collected from the Public Archives of Ontario, newspapers, published reports and secondary academic literature. Challenging those theoretical perspectives that downplay the direct influence of large business enterprises over public policy, this dissertation argues that the mining industry has exercised a predominant influence over the government of Ontarios public policies. While the industry disposes of several political resources that privilege it in relation to its opponents, two in particular deserve special attention: First, minings commanding economic presence in the provincial North where alternative investment opportunities are generally absent, and second, the industrys deep-seated linkages with the provincial mining ministry in terms of personnel and ideology. In sum, the mining industrys structural power over the Northern economy together with its close working relations with the provincial ministry of mines have rendered provincial policymakers particularly vulnerable to the industrys lobbying, allowing the industry to play a predominant, though not monolithic, role in shaping provincial public policy.

Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance - Cothran, Boyd (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Our History is the Future: Standing Rock versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance," by Nick Estes.

Toward Humane Jobs and Work-Lives for Animals - Coulter, Kendra (Animal Labour: A New Frontier of Interspecies Justice?, 2020)
This chapter examines the idea of animals having humane jobs. The concept of humane jobs has been proposed primarily to help conceptualize and propel good work for people which also benefits animals. Here the focus expands to interrogate whether animals can be engaged in what could be considered humane jobs and what that would involve. By building in particular on feminist political economy and care ethics, as well as the front-line efforts of people who work with animals, the chapter elucidates key preconditions and perameters for certain animals to have humane jobs, including important inclusions and exclusions. Moreover, it argues that humane jobs are not sufficient on their own, but rather that we also ought to be emphasizing animals’ work-lives. This means understanding animals not only as workers but as whole beings, and taking seriously their lives, relationships, and experiences, before and after work, on a daily basis, and over their lifetimes. The chapter is thus both inductive and generative, and offers a constellation of ethical and conceptual considerations, intended to drive further research, foster nuanced and contextualized analysis, and help inspire tangible changes in thought and political action.
Keywords: Animal welfare Moral and ethical aspects; Animaux Protection Aspect moral; Animaux de travail Aspect moral; Farming and Country Life; Working animals Law and legislation; Working animals Moral and ethical aspects

From Faceless to In-Your-Face Bosses: Work in Neo-Feudal America [review essay] - Dabscheck, Braham (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews "Coerced: Work under Threat of Punishment," by Erin Hatton, "Bite Back: People Taking on Corporate Food and Winning," edited by Saru Jayaraman and Kathryn De Master, "Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy," by Alexandra J. Ravenelle, "Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work," by Alex Rosenblat, and "Bandage, Sort and Hustle: Ambulance Crews on the Front Line of Human Suffering," by Josh Seim. "Beginning in 2018, the University of California Press has published a series of books under the general title of 'Labor in a Time of Crisis.' They examine employment and related issues of those who engage with Uber, TaskRabbit, Kitchensurfing and Airbnb; food workers; prisoners, workfare workers (welfare recipients), college athletes, science graduate students; and ambulance crews....These five works document different dimensions of the nature of work in neo-feudal America." --From author's introduction and conclusion.

Maurice Blackburn: Champion of the People - Dabscheck, Braham (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Maurice Blackburn: Champion of the People," by David Day.

The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor and Class War in the American Heartland - Dabscheck, Braham (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "The Long Deep Grudge: A Story of Big Capital, Radical Labor and Class War in the American Heartland," by Toni Gilpin.

The Supreme Court of the United States and Anarcharsis’ Theory of the Law: A Review Article - Dabscheck, Braham (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
This article reviews the book, "Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America," by Adam Cohen.

Touched with Fire: Morris B. Abram and the Battle against Racial and Religious Discrimination - Dabscheck, Braham (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Touched with Fire: Morris B. Abram and the Battle against Racial and Religious Discrimination," by David E. Lowe .

Du flexible au liquide : le travail dans l’économie de plateforme - Degryse, Christophe (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Le modèle social historique que connaissent la plupart des pays industrialisés s’est bâti sur des fondations solides qui, à l’instar du théâtre classique, repose sur ces trois unités : unité de lieu de travail (l’atelier, la fabrique, l’usine, le bureau), unité de temps de travail (les horaires de travail hebdomadaires, les périodes de repos) et unité d’action (l’organisation collective du travail). Or, après avoir connu, vers la fin du 20e siècle, des « fissurations » dans l’unité de lieu avec le développement de la sous-traitance, des chaînes de valeur mondiales et la coordination d’entreprises subordonnées, l’économie de plateforme et les nouvelles formes d’externalisation du travail qu’elle permet contribuent, aujourd’hui, à éroder l’ensemble de ces fondements, à tout le moins dans certains segments de l’économie, ce qui a pour effet de «liquéfier» le travail et de fragiliser ce modèle social historique. Le travail dans l’économie de plateforme échappe aux régulations de lieux, de temps et de l’organisation collective. Autrement dit, pour les travailleurs de plateforme, il n’y a pas de locaux d’entreprise, pas de collègues, pas d’horaires, pas de représentants du personnel, pas non plus de règlements en matière de santé et de sécurité, pas de prévention des accidents du travail, pas de congés payés, pas de négociation collective, pas d’assurance-maladie… Cette nouvelle forme de fragilisation et de précarisation des travailleurs donne lieu, depuis quelques années, à l’expérimentation de pratiques innovantes, parmi lesquelles la création de collectifs autonomes, l’organisation d’actions collectives, la construction de cahiers de revendications, mais aussi le répertoire d’action plus traditionnel du mouvement syndical : sensibilisation, organisation, négociation. Certes, ces stratégies sont confrontées à des obstacles inédits tels que la difficulté à identifier le responsable de la relation de travail, l’absence de lieu de dialogue social, la confusion concernant le statut du travailleur, la difficulté à organiser ces îlots de travailleurs éparpillés en l’absence de lieux d’échange entre eux. Malgré leurs limitations, ces expérimentations sociales peuvent être vues comme l’embryon d’un modèle social adapté à l’économie de plateforme et, plus largement, à la généralisation du numérique dans l’économie.
Keywords: digitalization; modèle social; online work platforms; plateformes de travail en ligne; platform economy; social model; syndicats; unions; ère numérique; économie de plateforme

Pushing ahead: Advancing collective bargaining rights in the library - Dekker, Jennifer (Academic Matters, 2020)
Well-resourced libraries are core to advancing the goals of the academy and the work of faculty and students. Often overlooked due to their small numbers, what challenges do librarian and archivists face in the workplace and how can we ensure they are supported? --Editor's note

Equal Justice: Fair Legal Systems in an Unfair World - Dennie, Martine (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Equal Justice: Fair Legal Systems in an Unfair World," by Frederick Wilmot-Smith.

Uncertain Future, Unsettled Present? Everyday Geographies of Precarious Immigration Status in Toronto, Canada - Dennler, Kathryn Elizabeth (York University, 2020)
Increasing processing times for immigration applications and increasing numbers of people admitted on temporary visas mean that more newcomers spend longer periods of time living in Canada with restricted rights and uncertain if they will be able to remain. This has contributed to an increase in precarious immigration status, which refers to a sense of insecurity caused by ones formal immigration status. The purpose of the dissertation is to examine how people are affected by living for prolonged periods of time with uncertainty about future residence and how these effects vary across space and time. The study, based on qualitative research with migrants in Toronto and people who work on migration issues, investigates how immigration status is performed in everyday life and how immigration status intersects with other social relations to produce distinctive affective textures of life in Toronto. The research shows that formal immigration status affects people differently depending on their migration motivations, capacities, and community support networks. Lack of reliable information about the time required to become eligible for permanent residence and application processing times make it more difficult for people to make decisions about how to orient themselves towards the future, the present, and the passage of time in ways that meet their needs. It identifies two salient temporal orientationssuspending or embracing engagement with everyday lifeeach of which comes with benefits and risks. Finally, the research suggests that contemporary practices of immigration control can lead to an internalization of discourses that construct people with precarious immigration status as unworthy of membership in Canadian society. Participants sought to undermine these discourses through narrative redefinition of themselves as people who have something to contribute but are stopped from doing so. I find that this resistance is necessary to peoples ability to persist, yet it has a limited effect on the harm done. The research findings contribute to scholarly understandings of formal immigration status and the slow violence of living with precarious immigration status.

Le Conseil général de la CEQ et l’arrimage de l’éducation à la souveraineté du Québec, 1990-1995. - Derradji, Fabrice (Université de Montréal, 2020)
Notre doctorat est une recherche sur l’histoire du syndicalisme enseignant au Québec durant la première moitié des années 1990. Plus précisément, du Congrès de la Centrale des enseignants du Québec (CEQ) de juin 1990 à la convocation par le ministre de l’Éducation du gouvernement Parizeau des États généraux sur l’éducation en mars 1995. Notre recherche s’efforce de poser des jalons pour une première histoire critique du syndicalisme des enseignants à construire dans son rapport à l’histoire de l’éducation selon un constat initial que la première est sous-évaluée, voire largement invisible dans divers champs des sciences humaines et sociales (Relations industrielles, sociologie et histoire). La CEQ est la centrale syndicale des fédérations et des syndicats locaux représentant des enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (des secteurs primaire, secondaire, collégial et même universitaire) et des professionnels de l’enseignement (animateurs de pastorale à l’époque). L’organe décisionnel de la CEQ est le Congrès national qui se réunit tous les deux ans ; l’application des décisions du Congrès se fait à la fois par le Bureau national (Conseil exécutif à partir de juin 1992) et le Conseil général des délégués de toutes les fédérations et de tous les syndicats locaux affiliés à la Centrale. Cette agora syndicale, qui se réunit six fois par année, est le cœur de la vie démocratique, tumultueuse, de la Centrale syndicale et étudie tous les rapports, les documents, les analyses, etc., qui lui sont soumis par le Bureau national / Conseil exécutif, l’unité de recherche de la CEQ ou divers comités. Dans un premier temps, notre thèse aborde le fait que le syndicalisme enseignant québécois est un objet historique inachevé et inabouti. Notre démarche tente de répondre à ce lien problématique entre historiographie et histoire. Puis, elle propose de nouveaux jalons pour une étude critique de cette histoire, notamment sur l’échec de la première tentative d’arrimage syndical de l’éducation à la souveraineté du Québec de 1977 à 1984. Mais alors, comment une centrale syndicale a-t-elle pu évoluer d’une opposition d’inspiration marxiste à toute tentative de réforme imposée de l’éducation et à un projet de souveraineté considéré comme conservateur et « capitaliste » portée par le PQ en 1977-1985 à iii une proposition d’une réforme globale, néolibérale, de l’éducation et un soutien à une souveraineté « sociale-démocrate » portée par le même parti politique en 1994-1995 ? Pour expliquer et comprendre ce paradoxe historique, nous allons étudier les nouvelles orientations stratégiques de la CEQ à partir du Congrès de juin 1990. Puis, dans un second temps, à partir d’archives syndicales – les procès-verbaux des réunions des délégués syndicaux au Conseil général de la CEQ –, notre étude historique porte sur le second arrimage de l’éducation fait par la Centrale à la conquête de la souveraineté du Québec, et particulièrement le rôle que joua le Conseil général des délégués syndicaux quant à la définition de quatre positions : 1) la question de la déconfessionnalisation, puis de la laïcité du système éducatif québécois ; 2) l’élaboration de la politique d’éducation interculturelle ; 3) les enjeux politiques et stratégiques autour de la définition de la souveraineté du Québec ; 4) le tournant participatif et la proposition d’une réforme globale de l’éducation au Québec. Enfin, notre recherche historique nous amène à décrire les mémoires syndicales enseignantes qui font de la CEQ une centrale syndicale si particulière dans l’histoire du mouvement ouvrier québécois.

Revenge of the She-Punks: A Feminist Music History from Poly Styrene to Pussy Riot - Dewitt, Jessica M. (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Revenge of the She-Punks: A Feminist Music History from Poly Styrene to Pussy Riot," by Vivien Goldman.

Au-delà de l’entreprise libérée : Enquête sur l’autonomie et ses contraintes - Dickason, Rebecca (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Au-delà de l’entreprise libérée : Enquête sur l’autonomie et ses contraintes," by Thierry Weil and Sophie Dubey.

Back to the Future of Canadian Labour Law - Doorey, David (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Covers perspectives on the evolution of labour law in Canada and the US since the 1980s. Argues that labour law in the future will trend toward sectoral bargaining or some other form of broad-based bargaining, although there will be foreschocks in the nearer term. The paper was presented as the H.D. Woods Lecture at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Industrial Relations Association, Vancouver, May 2019.

Les lois du travail au Canada : retour vers le futur - Doorey, David (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Ce texte a initialement été présenté à titre de Conférence H. D. Woods dans le cadre de la Conférence annuelle de l’Association canadienne des relations industrielles (ACRI/CIRA), en mai 2019, à Vancouver.

The Law of Work - Doorey, David J. (Emond Publishing, 2020)
[This second edition] presents a comprehensive overview of all aspects of Canadian employment and labour law. Ideal for a non-legal audience, this resource considers the social context in which these laws are made and draws from various disciplines, including economics, management studies, and history. Through short, focused chapters, students will be introduced to the three regimes of work law: common law, regulation, and collective bargaining. Notable legal cases and explanations of key concepts are featured throughout, alongside practical problem-solving exercises and discussion questions that invite readers to apply the law to real-life workplace scenarios. --Publisher's description

Canadian Labour Relations: Law, Policy, and Practice - Doorey, David J.; Braley-Rattai, Alison (Emond Publishing, 2020)
This book offers non-legal students an in-depth exploration of work-related law, policy, and current issues. Topics include the unionization process, collective bargaining, regulation of unions, industrial conflict, collective agreement administration, and notable court decisions. Practical problem-solving exercises and questions are featured throughout in order to help readers apply the law to real-life scenarios. This edition includes updated legislation, mock arbitration and negotiation scenarios, and an entirely new section that explores key policy issues and debates. --Publisher's description

Living Wages in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick 2020 - Driscoll, Chelsea; Saulnier, Christine (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Nova Scotia Office, 2020)
The living wage was first calculated in Atlantic Canada in 2015 (Halifax). Antigonish was added in 2016 and Saint John, New Brunswick in 2018. Last year, we calculated the living wage rate for St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. This year we have added two more Nova Scotia communities: Bridgewater and the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.

“The CCF Is Not a ‘Class’ Party”: Labour, Politics, and Their Unification at the Lakehead, 1944-1963 - Duplessis, Nicholas James (Lakehead University, 2020)
This study analyzes the new sophistication of the organized labour movement and labour’s relationship to politics in a period of rapid change for the Lakehead. ““The CCF is not a Class Party”” argues that, between 1944 and 1963, the organized labour movement and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) at the Lakehead underwent parallel structural developments against the backdrop of conservative social forces in the postwar period that, by the end of the 1950s, necessitated a merger of the two formally distinct entities. The amalgamation of labour and politics, resulting in the formation of the New Democratic Party (NDP), is best examined through the political career of Douglas Fisher, who first represented the CCF and, later, the NDP in Port Arthur. The debate surrounding the ‘New Party’ idea in the late 1950s at the Lakehead is reflective of the uneasy relationship between labour and politics that had formed throughout the postwar period.

Construire des mobilisations face aux restructurations d’entreprises : une comparaison du pouvoir syndical local en France et au Canada - Dupuis, Mathieu (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Les restructurations d’entreprises sont des réalités socio-économiques importantes depuis au moins trois décennies. À la suite de la crise de 2008-2009, ces tendances, loin de se résorber, se sont accélérées et ont poussé les représentants des salariés à investir de nouveaux champs d’action stratégiques pour contester, avaliser ou influencer les restructurations. Ces mobilisations syndicales ne sont pas sans faire apparaître de contradictions dans les fonctions représentatives des salariés. Cet article propose d’analyser ces stratégies et leurs résultats à travers une comparaison internationale de quatre syndicats locaux dans deux contextes nationaux différents (France et Canada). Sa thèse principale est que ces stratégies se doivent d’être analysées au-delà des contextes institutionnels propres et selon la notion de pouvoir syndical « de », c’est-à-dire des capacités associées aux acteurs sociaux. Trois registres d’action sont identifiés, à savoir « d’opposition », « de coopération » et « d’inventivité ». L’apport de cet article est, à la fois, de souligner l’importance du pouvoir syndical, mais de l’interroger dans la durée, les stratégies d’urgence à la suite d’annonces de restructurations prenant des directions diverses. Bien que cette analyse diachronique relativise la centralité du pouvoir syndical, celui-ci demeure capital à l’heure où les régimes institutionnels subissent d’importantes transformations.
Keywords: analyse comparée; comparative analysis; corporate restructuring; entreprises multinationales; institutions; multinational corporations; pouvoir social; restructurations d’entreprises; social power; syndicats; trade unions

Financialization and Union Decline in Canada: The Influence on Sectors and Core Industries - Dupuis, Mathieu; Peters, John; Scrimger, Phillippe J. (Competition & Change, 2020)
This article explores the long-run relationship between financialization and union density in Canada’s non-financial sector. Drawing on critical political economy literatures, we argue that the shareholder business model, the growing use of financial assets and leading global industries have led to a restructuring of labour markets and unionized workforces. Evidence from panel data analysis suggests that the negative relationship between financialization and union density holds when controlling for economic context and sectoral characteristics. We conclude that the sectoral impacts of financialization on union density – especially in highly financialized sectors such as manufacturing, extractive resources, transport and warehousing – are critical to understanding union decline and recent changes to employment relations.

Workplace Inclusion - Literature Review - Egale (Egale, 2020)
This literature review provides insight into the current state of LGBTQI2S workplace inclusion in Canada and beyond. The current national and international contexts through which LGBTQI2S people navigate at work are examined, and an overview of the gaps in research specific to LGBTQI2S workplace inclusion in Canada is explored. In our research, policy, and community engaged work, Egale has witnessed a culture of change in LGBTQI2S workplace inclusion. However LGBTQI2S people in Canada continue to face discrimination and exclusion in the workforce, and there exists particular harm for transgender and gender non-conforming people. Sexuality and gender oppression intersect with experiences of racism for Black, Indigenous, and people of colour within LGBTQI2S populations in Canada. Persistent issues for LGBTQI2S people in the workplace make visible the failure of organizations to protect LGBTQI2S employees and the failure of Canada’s current workplace and human rights frameworks. --Website description

Introducing Rethinking Class and Social Difference: A Dynamic Asymmetry Approach - Eidlin, Barry; McCarthy, Michael A. (Rethinking Class and Social Difference, 2020)

Red Round Globe Hot Burning: A Tale at the Crossroads of Commons and Closure, of Love and Terror, of Race and Class, and of Kate and Ned Depard - Epstein, James (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Red Round Globe Hot Burning: A Tale at the Crossroads of Commons and Closure, of Love and Terror, of Race and Class, and of Kate and Ned Depard," by Peter Linebaugh.

Bargaining in the shadow of BC’s Public Sector Employers’ Council - Fairweather, Annabree (Academic Matters, 2020)
For three decades, the wages, benefits, and language British Columbia’s faculty associations are able to negotiate have been restricted by the government. How do workers mobilize and challenge the PSEC regime and its iron grip on the province’s public-sector bargaining? --Editor's note

Whistleblowing. Toward a New Theory - Fanchini, Mahaut (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Whistleblowing. Toward a New Theory," by Kate Kenny.

Resetting Normal Report 2 - Faraday, Fay; Canadian Women's Foundation; Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives; Ontario Nonprofit Network (Canadian Women's Foundation, 2020)
Economic losses due to COVID-19 have fallen heavily on women, and most dramatically on women living on low incomes who experience intersecting inequalities based on race, class, disability, education, migration, and immigration status. The pandemic crisis has revealed the fragility of response systems and the urgent need for structural rethinking and systemic change.

Women and Work: Feminism, Labour, and Social Reproduction - Ferguson, Susan (Between the Lines, 2020)
This edited collection introduces and explores the causes and consequences of precarious employment in Canada and across the world. After contextualizing employment precarity and its root causes, the authors illustrate how precarious employment is created amongst different populations and describe the accompanying social impacts on racialized immigrant women, those in the non-profit sector, temporary foreign workers and the children of Filipino immigrants. --Publisher's description.

Live at the Cellar: Vancouver’s Iconic Jazz Club and the Canadian Co-operative Jazz Scene in the 1950s and '60s - Fillion, Eric (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Live at the Cellar: Vancouver’s Iconic Jazz Club and the Canadian Co-operative Jazz Scene in the 1950s and '60s," by Marian Jago .

Company Town - Findlay, Peter D. (CBC, 2020)
When GM announces it’s closing shop in Oshawa, Ont., an embattled union and its disillusioned workers face the fight of their lives.

Pratiques de rétention des femmes dans des emplois traditionnellement masculins au Québec : que peut-on apprendre de l’expérience des inspectrices ? - Fournier, Pierre-Sébastien; Brière, Sophie; Pellerin, Antoine; Laflamme, Anne-Marie (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
La diversité de la main-d’oeuvre dans les organisations représente une stratégie porteuse afin de surmonter les problèmes de recrutement et de rétention d’une main-d’oeuvre qualifiée et compétente. Parmi les groupes cibles, les femmes sont sous-représentées dans de nombreux emplois qui nécessitent des qualifications et des compétences spécifiques. La littérature montre bien l’importance des pratiques de gestion comme outil de rétention. L’objectif de cet article est de documenter les pratiques de gestion favorables à la rétention des femmes dans le cas particulier des inspectrices dans les domaines de l’hygiène, de la santé et de la sécurité au travail. De façon plus précise, elle vise à comprendre la réalité des femmes inspectrices afin de saisir, de leur point de vue, les pratiques de gestion qui favoriseront ou non leur rétention dans l’organisation. Deux groupes ont fait l’objet de cette étude : des inspectrices en santé et sécurité du travail et des inspectrices en hygiène alimentaire et animalière. Au total, 62 personnes ont été rencontrées lors d’entrevues collectives, soit 10 gestionnaires et 52 inspectrices et inspecteurs. Les résultats montrent six grandes pratiques stratégiques : la valorisation du travail et de l’expertise professionnelle, la réduction des risques du travail, la rémunération globale équitable, les horaires flexibles, l’autonomie au travail et la transformation des dynamiques de travail. La réussite passe par une transformation stratégique de l’ensemble des processus visant à instaurer un contexte favorable au recrutement et à la rétention des femmes. Un modèle pour agir à divers niveaux sur ces enjeux de diversité dans les milieux de travail est proposé. Ce modèle permet ainsi de mieux documenter les pratiques organisationnelles et d’aller au-delà des obstacles rencontrés par les femmes de façon individuelle.
Keywords: diversité de main-d’oeuvre; food hygiene; hygiène alimentaire; management practices; pratiques de gestion; retention of women; rétention des femmes; santé et sécurité au travail; workforce diversity; workplace health and safety

Work and Worth: A Contested History of Labour and Value in Toronto’s Public Libraries - Frederiksen, Lia (University of Toronto, 2020)
Public libraries are often thought of as inherently democratic institutions where the provision of informational resources supports social inclusion and civic participation. Inspired by a recent citywide conflict over potential library closures in Toronto, Canada, this dissertation investigates a more contested history than conventional interpretations have often permitted by revealing a series of conflicts over public library buildings, budgets, and governance across more than a century. The main argument is that understanding this history requires an account of the overall work done to make and remake these spaces into what they are today, as a way of understanding of what these spaces may soon become. This argument illustrates how the perceived worth of providing public library service, whether or not it is accounted for in monetary terms, can be seen as socially constructed and politically contested. To make this argument, I draw mainly from feminist theorizations of work, which broaden this category to encompass productive waged labour along with paid and unpaid reproductive labour coded as ‘nonwork’ or ‘unproductive’, and geographers’ insights on the contested social production of space. In so doing, this dissertation aims for a critical re-thinking of what these spaces mean for daily urban life.

The Canadian Precariat: Part-Time Faculty and the Higher-Education System - Gagné, Ann (2020)
This collection includes reflections about the precariousness of academic employment for non-tenured professionals across Canada. It includes articles from those who have taught in post-secondary education across Canada, as well as as from those some who have experienced precarity as student and union organizers. It also includes voices of students working and teaching in the higher education system. The texts are both in the form of critical engagement with the academic discourse and research as well as reflective memoirs on experiences of educational precarity from numerous social locations. They highlight precarity at all levels of employment in the Canadian higher education system and offer suggestions on how to improve this long-standing and damaging reality affecting tens of thousands of the precariously employed. --Publisher's description. Contents: Introduction / Ann Gagné -- Manufactured Precarity: Some Solutions to Help Mitigate the Impacts of Precarious Employment of Canadian Sessional Instructors / Amber Diaz -- The Tensions of Tenure and Allyship: On Becoming, Speaking, and Listening / Veronica J. Austen -- Reflections of Precarity from a Student and Student Representative / Gayle McFadden -- Immigrant Precarity in the Academe: The Quebec Version / Cristina Artenie -- Towards Best Practices in Canadian Higher Education: A Precarious Memoir in Miniature / Ann Gagné.

‘Smart’ Industrial Relations in the Making? Insights from Analysis of Union Responses to Digitalization in Italy - Gasparri, Stefano; Tassinari, Arianna (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
How do unions respond to the emerging threats and opportunities posed by digitalization in the sphere of employment relations? What factors account for the focus and varying effectiveness of their responses? This paper seeks to address these questions in the case of Italy—a theoretically interesting case that combines significant digitalization-related challenges, historically strong industrial relations institutions under increasing pressure, and diverse union confederations. From the available evidence, we find that Italian union strategies and demands so far have been primarily focused on interventions at the macro and meso levels, with a view to extending traditional forms of protection—especially sectoral collective bargaining agreements—to deal with the disruptive effects of digitalization. This focus has been coupled with some limited innovation in union agendas and discursive repertoires focused on the micro level of intervention, as well as a shift in union preferences toward inclusion of platform workers and self-employed workers in their constituencies. Whilst highlighting the importance of agential factors, we nonetheless find that the focus and effectiveness of union interventions are crucially shaped by prior institutional legacies and distributions of power resources, as well as by the ideological orientation and strategic capabilities of individual unions themselves. Overall, Italian unions have to date tended to privilege gradual response strategies based on extension and adaptation of existing and established institutions. It remains to be seen whether such adaptive approaches will be sufficient to effectively govern the digital transformation of work or whether more radical institutional experimentation will become necessary. Either way, in order to build smart industrial relations in Italy, unions will have an active role to play.
Keywords: Industry 4.0; commerce électronique; e-commerce; industrial relations institutions; industrie 4.0; institutions; plateformes; platforms; relations de travail; stratégies syndicales; trade union strategies

Neo-Taylorism in the Digital Age: Workplace Transformations in French and German Retail Warehouses - Gautié, Jérôme; Jaehrling, Karen; Perez, Coralie (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The paper analyzes how digitalization in conjunction with changes to the economic environment are affecting the nature of low-skilled jobs in the logistics sector; in particular, job content and the working and employment conditions attached to those jobs. On the basis of expert interviews and company case studies in French and German retail warehouses, the authors investigate whether the adaptation of these jobs corresponds to the more general ‘neo-Taylorist’ transformation of workplaces discussed in the literature and seek to identify those factors that are helping to stabilize or modify this trend. Drawing on the comparative labour relations literature, which distinguishes between different types of workers’ power resources (institutional, associational and structural), the study examines how and to what extent employees and their representatives renegotiate or influence techno-organizational choices. By focusing on firms headquartered in France and Germany, we can shed some light on whether the institutional power of organized labour may enable them to foster trajectories other than the kind of ‘digital Taylorism’ we see in liberal market economies. The findings point, however, to a general convergence on digitally enhanced ‘Neo-Taylorism,’ which is characterized by deskilling and intensification of performance control. The limited cross-country variation can largely be explained by the very similar effects across countries of ‘lean’ supply-chain transformation and the trend toward outsourcing and offshoring, which negatively affect workers’ structural power. Moreover, associational resources are negatively affected by the deskilling trend. Meanwhile, the findings provide some evidence of a beneficial impact from the institutional power of worker representatives in both countries: in particular, the rights to veto and co-determine performance management systems. These rights have not altogether helped prevent the shift toward neo-Taylorism but have contributed to somewhat less intense forms of neo-Taylorism.
Keywords: changements technologiques; deskilling; digital Taylorism; déqualification; employment relations; gestion de la performance; performance management; power resources; relation d’emploi; ressources de pouvoir; taylorisme digital; technological change

Les théories du travail : les classiques - Gharyeni, Abdellatif (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Les théories du travail : les classiques," edited by Daniel Mercure and Jan Spurk .

Reform, Revolution and Direct Action amongst British Miners: The Struggle for the Charter in 1919 - Gildart, Keith (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Reform, Revolution and Direct Action amongst British Miners: The Struggle for the Charter in 1919," by Martyn Ives .

La carrière managériale des Marocaines : politiques de diversité et obstacles à leur inclusion - Giraud, Laurent; Sahraoui, Doha; Frimousse, Soufyane (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Objectif de la recherche : L’objectif de cette recherche est de cerner quels sont les leviers des politiques de diversité qui pourraient se révéler particulièrement efficaces au Maroc, ainsi que d’identifier les obstacles à la carrière managériale des Marocaines. Intérêt de la recherche : Comme les politiques de diversité proviennent de modèles de management généralement occidentaux, il se peut que des idiosyncrasies marocaines en amenuisent les impacts. L’intérêt d’une telle recherche réside dans l’identification des leviers des politiques de diversité efficaces au Maroc, un territoire qui témoigne toujours de fortes inégalités de genre, notamment dans les fonctions managériales. Méthodologie : Les données ont été récoltées au Maroc grâce à 36 entretiens semi-directifs au sein de six entreprises et auprès de femmes managers, de Directeurs généraux et de Directeurs des ressources humaines. Résultats : Les résultats identifient les obstacles classiques à la carrière managériale des Marocaines, ainsi que les leviers des politiques de diversité qui seraient particulièrement efficaces au Maroc. Contributions et implications managériales : Les entreprises trouveront, dans cet article, les leviers prioritaires permettant de déployer de meilleures politiques de diversité dans un contexte marocain. Les DRH y trouveront, également, une liste des obstacles à la carrière managériale des Marocaines, ce qui devrait leur permettre de mieux les prendre en compte. Limites : Le biais de désirabilité sociale et la taille restreinte de l’échantillon sont les principales limites de cet article.
Keywords: Maroc; Morocco; career; carrière; diversity; diversité; femmes; inclusion; managers; women

The Talent Revolution: Longevity and the Future of Work - Glee-Vermande, Catherine (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "The Talent Revolution: Longevity and the Future of Work," by Lisa Taylor and Fern Lebo.

Contesting Big Brother: Legal Mobilization against Workplace Surveillance in the Puretex Knitting Company Strike, 1978–1979 - Godden, Mason (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
In 1978, over 200 textile workers affiliated with Local 560 of the Canadian Textile and Chemical Union went on strike at Puretex Knitting Company, a small garment factory in Toronto, Ontario. Of the strikers, 190 were immigrant women who opposed management’s installation of nine security cameras on the premises, one of which was trained on the entrance to the women’s washroom. To have the cameras removed and win the strike, Local 560 used a combination of traditional strike tactics and legal mobilization. This article makes a case for the significance of the Puretex strike by arguing that workplace surveillance acted as a flashpoint around which feminist and legal allies could mobilize in support of exploited immigrant women in the textile industry during the 1970s. By the strike’s end, the Puretex women had not only gained invaluable and transformative strike experience but engaged with industrial legality and the state in a way that brought about meaningful change in their workplace. The Puretex strike is therefore a significant case of immigrant women’s militant organizing in the labour and feminist movements during the 1970s and an important reminder that engagement with industrial law and the state, in certain historical contexts, can provide avenues for successful worker resistances.

Changements de paradigmes et survie des revues : ce que la démarche scientifique peut enseigner aux chercheurs en relations industrielles / Paradigm Shifts and Journal Survival: What the Scientific Enterprise Has to Teach Employment Relations Scholars - Gould, Anthony (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The editor reflects on the 75th anniversary of the journal.

How the Government Restricts Free and Fair Collective Bargaining: An Examination of Faculty Bargaining History as Constrained by the "Ontario Labour Relations Act" - Gray, Donna (Academic Matters, 2020)
Looking back over half a century of bargaining by university faculty and librarians, it is clear that not all academics have seen the same benefits. Is the Ontario Labour Relations Act to blame and how can the scales be rebalanced? --Editor's note

Surviving on Minimum Wage: Lived Experiences of Manitoba Workers and Policy Implications - Hajer, Jesse; Smirl, Ellen (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Manitoba Office, 2020)
In 2001, CCPA-Manitoba published a report titled The Minimum Wage and a Tipping Wage: A Survey of People Who Work At or Near the Minimum Wage in Manitoba. Researchers gathered data from 70 workers making minimum wage. The report concluded that minimum wage was insufficient to provide workers with anything more than a ‘subsistence wage’ and did not reflect the cost of living. This current research represents an update of the 2001 study and concludes that little has changed for minimum wage workers in Manitoba. This project utilizes both quantitative and qualitative data to explore the challenges of working for, and living on, minimum wage. Forty-two workers in Winnipeg and Brandon were interviewed to gain a better understanding of their experiences, challenges, and hopes for the future.

The Subjectivities and Politics of Occupational Risk: Mines, Farms and Auto Factories - Hall, Alan (Routledge advances in sociology, 2020)
The Subjectivities and Politics of Occupational Risk links restructuring in three industries to shifts in risk subjectivities and politics, both within workplaces and within the safety management and regulative spheres, often leading to conflict and changes in law, political discourses and management approaches. The state and corporate governance emphasis on worker participation and worker rights, internal responsibility, and self-regulative technologies are understood as corporate and state efforts to reconstruct control and responsibility for Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) risks within the context of a globalized neoliberal economy. Part 1 presents a conceptual framework for understanding the subjective bases of worker responses to health and safety hazards using Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and the sociology of risk concepts of trust and uncertainty. Part 2 demonstrates the restructuring arguments using three different industry case studies of multiple mines, farms and auto parts plants. The final chapter draws out the implications of the evidence and theory for social change and presents several recommendations for a more worker-centred politics of health and safety.The book will appeal to social scientists interested in health and safety, work, employment relations and labour law, as well as worker advocates and activists. --Publisher's description. Contents: 1. Introduction and Research MethodsPart 1: Risk Subjectivities and Practices2. Identifying Hazards and Judging Risk3. Taking Risks or Taking a Stand: Interests, Power and IdentityPart 2: Case Studies of Health and Safety in Hard Rock Mining, Family Farming and Auto Parts Manufacturing 4. Transforming the Mining Labour Process: Transforming Risk and its Social Construction5. Reconstructing Miner Consent: Management Objectives and Strategies6. The Transformation and Fragmentation of Canadian Agriculture7. Health and Safety in Farming8. The Transformation of Production and Health and Safety in Auto Parts Manufacturing.9. Participation and Control in a Non-Union Auto Parts Firm10. Conclusion and Implications for Change.

“All of This Happens Here?”: Diminishing Perceptions of Canada through Immigrants’ Precarious Work in Ontario - Hande, Mary Jean; Mian Akram, Ayesha; Condratto, Shelley (Journal of International Migration and Integration, 2020)
Prior to entering Canadian workplaces, immigrants generally expect strong legislative protections based on Canada’s global reputation for equity and equality as reported by Hardwick and Mansfield (Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 99(2), 383-405, 2009). However, after exposure to poor working conditions, employment standards (ES) violations, and challenges with filing claims for recompense, immigrant workers’ perceptions of work in Canada often diminish significantly. Although scholars have explored Canadian immigrants’ experiences with unemployment and poor working conditions, little research has uncovered the effects of these experiences on their shifting perceptions of Canada and their overall experience of adjusting to a new life in Canada. Our narrative data, collected in Ontario, Canada, reveals (1) the exploitation of immigrant workers’ perceived limited access to and knowledge of workplace rights and (2) limited access to employment opportunities and protections for immigrant workers. These two factors lead to workers’ diminishing perceptions of Canada as they navigate poor working conditions on the precarity track according to Goldring and Landolt (Goldring and Landolt 2013). This analysis offers insight into the everyday experiences of immigrant workers and the impacts of precarious employment on perceptions of Canada.
Keywords: Canada; Canadian Politics; Employment standards; Immigration and settlement; Labour Law/Social Law; Precarious work; Social Work and Migration; Sociology of Migration; Sociology of Work; Sociology of the labour market; Worker perceptions; Working conditions

Change and Continuity: Canadian Political Economy in the New Millennium - Harrison, Trevor (Canadian Journal of Sociology, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Change and Continuity: Canadian Political Economy in the New Millennium," edited by Thomas, Mark P., Leah F. Vosko, Carlo Fanelli, and Olena Lyubchenko.

They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada - Henry, Natasha (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "They Call Me George: The Untold Story of Black Train Porters and the Birth of Modern Canada," by Cecil Foster.

The Canadian Labour Movement: A Short History - Heron, Craig; Smith, Charles W. (Lorimer, 2020)
In The Canadian Labour Movement, historian Craig Heron and political scientist Charles Smith tell the story of Canada's workers from the midnineteenth century through to today, painting a vivid picture of key developments, such as the birth of craft unionism, the breakthroughs of the fifties and sixties, and the setbacks of the early twenty-first century. The fourth edition of this book has been completely updated with a substantial new chapter that covers the period from the great recession of 2008 through to 2020. In this chapter, Smith describes the fallout of the financial crisis, how Stephen Harper's government restricted labour rights, the rise of the "gig economy" and precarious work, and the continued de-industrialization in the private sector. These pressures contributed to fracturing the movement, as when Unifor, the largest private sector union, split from the Canadian Labour Congress, the established "house of labour." Through it all, rank-and-file union members have fought for better conditions for all workers, including through campaigns like the fight for a $15 minimum wage. --Publisher's description

Deeming Laws and Practices as Violations of the Rights of People With Work-Acquired Disabilities in Canada - Hilgert, Jeffrey (New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, 2020)
The Ontario Network of Injured Workers’ Groups in Canada is leading a multiyear campaign called Workers’ Comp is a Right to reform the provincial workers’ injury compensation system and to fight back against regressive changes made to the system over several decades. At their Annual General Meeting in Toronto held in June 2019, delegates voted unanimously to make this submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a part of the regular supervisory process under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The subject is income deeming “phantom jobs” to injured worker claimants with income replacement benefits. The document illustrates how Canadian injured worker groups have activated a human rights lens and references international labor and human rights standards concerning social insurance and income replacement benefits for work-related injury and illness.

Organiser les inorganisés d’une multinationale de services en ligne ? Le virage numérique d’Organization United for Respect at Walmart - Hocquelet, Mathieu (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Cet article s’intéresse à l’Organization United for Respect at Walmart, l’une des initiatives nationales les plus ambitieuses en matière d’organisation de la main-d’oeuvre aux États-Unis au cours de la dernière décennie. S’appuyant sur une enquête qualitative menée autour du travail d’organisation des employés lors d’actions et de mobilisations de OUR Walmart (OWM) de 2013 à 2018, il revient sur les transformations de la campagne d’organisation des inorganisés (organizing) du géant de la grande distribution. À partir d’une approche diachronique des dimensions pratiques et rhétoriques d’OWM, nous verrons que l’effort d’organisation lancé par le grand syndicat des travailleurs de l’alimentation et du commerce UFCW, puis sa poursuite de manière indépendante après 2014, ont conduit OWM à opérer un virage numérique. Cet article montre, plus spécifiquement, que le lancement d’OWM dans le cadre d’une campagne syndicale visant le distributeur Walmart et son existence en tant qu’association indépendante depuis se caractérisent par deux approches de l’organisation des inorganisés. Au terme d’une revue de littérature portant sur les enjeux de cette stratégie, sur les caractéristiques de la campagne et la méthodologie adoptée, l’article examine comment OWM est passée d’une approche de l’organisation des inorganisés par un grand syndicat des services à une campagne beaucoup plus modeste en effectifs et en ressources financières. Liant innovations numériques et participation active des salariés, le virage technologique et réticulaire entamé par OWM souligne ainsi une opportunité de rendre visibles les inégalités raciales et de genre, tout en favorisant la coconstruction d’une solidarité professionnelle à grande échelle dans une entreprise et un secteur auparavant jugés hors d’atteinte et qui aujourd’hui, se trouvent particulièrement exposés en matière de risques en santé et sécurité au travail.
Keywords: United States; bas salaire; campagne d’organisation; digital technology; inequalities; inégalités; labour organizing; low-wage workers; numérique; travailleurs inorganisés; États-Unis

"Ni Rome, ni Moscou" : l'itinéraire des militants communistes libertaires de langue française à Montréal pendant l'entre-deux-guerres - Houle-Courcelles, Mathieu (Laval et Université Paris, 2020)
Cette thèse retrace l’itinéraire collectif d’un groupe de militants communistes libertaires de langue française pendant l’entre-deux-guerres à Montréal rassemblés autour d’Albert Saint-Martin (1865-1947). Figure importante du mouvement ouvrier au Québec, l’itinéraire politique de Saint-Martin est multiforme : on le retrouve associé au Parti socialiste du Canada, à la One Big Union, au Parti socialiste (communiste), à la Ligue des sanstravail, à l’Association révolutionnaire Spartakus, à l’Université ouvrière, à l’Association humanitaire, à la Ligue du Réveil féminin et à de nombreuses coopératives de consommation et de production. Saint-Martin est entouré de camarades provenant de divers horizons politiques. Notre thèse nous a permis d’identifier plus de 300 individus ayant pris part à des activités militantes à ses côtés. À travers l’analyse croisée de leurs parcours individuels, nous cherchons à mieux comprendre les modalités de leur engagement collectif avant, pendant et après la Première Guerre mondiale, leur représentation de la société idéale et les moyens d’y parvenir, la nature et la diversité de leurs liens de sociabilité, les territoires où se déploient leurs réseaux, la fréquence et les thèmes de leurs réunions de même que les symboles et les rituels qui y sont rattachés. Nous faisons l’hypothèse que celles et ceux qui participent aux activités de ce milieu partagent une même culture révolutionnaire articulée autour des notions de communisme, d’anticapitalisme, d’anticléricalisme et d’internationalisme, débouchant sur une critique des institutions autoritaires : l'État, l’Église catholique, la propriété privée, l’armée, le mariage, etc. Les stratégies d’émancipation individuelle et collective mises de l’avant par ces militants et ces militantes reposent sur l’éducation et l'action directe. C’est cet ensemble de principes théoriques, stratégiques et tactiques que nous regroupons sous le terme de communisme libertaire.

Making Prison Work: Prison Labour and Resistance in Canada - House, Jordan Lorne (York University, 2020)
This dissertation examines prisoner-worker organizing in Canada by considering three case studies in detail: first, the successful unionization of an experimental privately managed abattoir at the Guelph Correctional Centre, a provincial jail in Ontario, in 1977; second, efforts by federal prisoners to unionize, with a particular focus on the efforts by the Prisoners Union Committee in 1975 and the Canadian Prisoners Labour Confederation, between 2010-2015, and; third, the nation-wide federal prison strike in response to prisoner wage cuts in 2013. Through these cases, this study examines the similarities and differences between prisoner-workers and their non-incarcerated counterparts, and considers the methods and motivations of prisoner organizers, as well as the substantial legal and organizational barriers that Canadian prisoners face in their organizing efforts. Working prisoners are one of many groups who labour on the margins of society and the economy, and who have been largely overlooked or dismissed by both scholars of work and labour and the labour movement. This study seeks to expand conventional definitions of who is a workerand what constitutes the working classby demonstrating ways that prisoners have asserted their rights as workers and the legitimacy of their organizations and struggles. Through these struggles, which have been conceptualized not only as economic, but also as political struggles, prisoners have contested their state of privation and laid claim to new sets of rights. At their most successful, the organizing efforts of working prisoners have resulted in not only improvements to their working lives, but also expanded rights and freedoms in relation to their incarceration.

Advancing equity and fairness through collective bargaining - Hudson, Geoffrey L. (Academic Matters, 2020)
Building more equitable and diverse universities is vital, but it can be challenging. By integrating equity into their bargaining process and prioritizing it in their negoations, the faculty, librarians, and professional staff at the Northern ontario School of Medicine have make remarkable progress on these issues. --Editor's note

Historical Memory: The Struggle for the Miners’ Archive in Bolivia - John, S. Sándor (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The Miners' Archive [founded on the impetus of mine workers in 2000] remains little known outside Bolivia. Yet the story of its creation is part of the legacy of struggle and sacrifice by Bolivia's predominantly Indigneous working people and a vital contribution to collective memory by and for the working class, and for historians the world over. --From author's conclusion.

Work: What is Political Economy - Joseph, Daniel James (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Work: What is Political Economy," by Bruce Pietrykowski.

From the “Dark Druidical Groves” to the “Dartmouth Station”: A Tribute to Michael S. Cross - Kealey, Gregory S. (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Pays homage to the life and work of the Canadian social historian, Michael Cross (1938-2019). Includes two photos.

Making the Best of It: Women and Girls of Canada and Newfoundland During the Second World War - Kealey, Linda (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Making the Best of It: Women and Girls of Canada and Newfoundland During the Second World War," edited by Sarah Glassford and Amy Shaw,

“Just Go to Work”: Gendered Harassment in Resource Extraction Work in Canada - Kelly, Griffin (University of Alberta, 2020)
This Master’s thesis examines tradeswomen’s experiences of and responses to gendered harassment at camp-based work in resource extraction industries in western Canada. This study predominantly features women working in the Alberta oil sands industry. Gendered harassment at work has been identified as a major issue in recent years (Curtis et al., 2018; Denissen, 2010; Wade & Jones, 2019) and this study aims to better understand tradeswomen’s day-to-day experiences of harassment in work camps. I utilize constructivist grounded theory methodology and critical feminist geography as the theoretical framework for the project. I find that tradeswomen employ a wide range of affective, material, and social strategies to manage harassment. I introduce two concepts, “just go to work” (JGTW) and “me vs. other girls,” to illuminate these strategies for self-preservation in the masculine occupational culture of work. This is labour that tradeswomen must perform in addition to their demanding work duties and schedules. JGTW demonstrates how gendered harassment is embedded into the masculinist culture of work of the trades. This study begins to address this gap in scholarly literature to capture the shifting cultural context of the oil sands industry and identifies new areas for future research.

Work, Industry, and Canadian Society - Krahn, Harvey; Hughes, Karen; Lowe, Graham S. (Top Hat, 2020)
Work, Industry, and Canadian Society provides a sociological introduction to the history, nature, organization, and management of work in Canada. The eighth edition expands and adds new coverage on the biggest work challenges faced now and in the future, such as Canada’s aging and increasingly diverse workforce, the work experiences of Canada’s Indigenous peoples, the rise of the app-based “gig” economy, and how technology will continue to impact future jobs and work organization. The new edition continues to incorporate recent empirical findings, review new and ongoing theoretical and policy debates, and provide a more international perspective. As the world of work continues to change rapidly, all trends and statistics have been updated. These authors are well regarded for their teaching and research, and their years of experience are evident in this comprehensive volume on the past, present, and future of work in Canada. --Publisher's description. Contents: Historical perspectives on work -- Contemporary debates and issues -- Canadian employment trends -- Good jobs, bad jobs, no jobs -- Labour markets: opportunities and inequality -- Gender and paid employment -- Household, family, and caring work -- Organizing and managing work -- In search of new managerial paradigms -- Conflict and control in workplace -- Unions and industrial relations -- Alternative approaches to organizing work -- Work values and work orientations -- Job satisfaction, alienation, and work-related stress.

Resistance Comix: Narrative, Activism, and History - Kristofferson, Rob (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews and comments on the books, "Amplify: Graphic Narratives of Feminist Resistance," by Norah Bowman and Meg Braem, art by Dominique Hui; "Direct Action Gets the Goods: A Graphic History of the Strike in Canada," by Graphic History Collective with Althea Balmes, Gord Hill, Orion Keresztesi, and David Lester; "1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike," by Graphic History Collective and David Lester; and "Christie Pitts," by Jamie Michaels and Doug Fedrau.

L’impact de la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État sur les conditions de travail des agents et agentes de l’État québécois - Lampron, Louis-Philippe (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Au-delà des importantes questions soulevées quant à la validité constitutionnelle de la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État, qui alimenteront sans doute les débats politiques et juridiques au cours de la prochaine décennie, est-il vrai de prétendre que cette loi établit un nouveau régime de séparation du religieux et de l’État au Québec? Le présent article a pour objectif de démontrer que les seuls changements concrets que la Loi sur la laïcité imposera aux règles actuellement applicables au Québec se résument à deux interdictions concernant le port de certains signes religieux. Pour le reste, la Loi sur la laïcité se borne essentiellement à codifier des règles et des principes qui s’appliquaient déjà aux agents et agentes des institutions publiques du Québec et qui continueront de s’appliquer même si la Loi sur la laïcité devait être abrogée ou déclarée inconstitutionnelle par les tribunaux au cours des prochaines années.
Keywords: Charte; Charter; Quebec law; droits et libertés; interdiction; laicity; laïcité; loi québécoise; position in authority; poste en autorité; prohibition; religious symbols; rights and freedoms; signes religieux

New NDP vs. Classic NDP: Is a Synthesis Possible, and Does It Matter? - Langford, Tom (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Review essay of "The New ndp: Moderation, Modernization, and Political Marketing" (2019) by David McGrane and "Party of Conscience: The CCF, the ndp, and Social Democracy in Canada" (2018) edited by Roberta Lexier, Stephanie Bangarth and Jon Weier.

Take the Plant, Save the Planet - Leah, Tony; Panitch, Leo; McQuaig, Linda; Gindin, Sam; Keetch, Rebecca; Wells, Jennifer; Christianson, Russ (Socialist Interventions pamphlet series, 2020)
On November 26, 2018, General Motors announced a number of plant closures in North America, the largest of which was in Oshawa, Ontario. The Oshawa facility, once the largest auto complex on the continent, was to end all its assembly operations by the end of 2019. ...This pamphlet provides background material on Oshawa and joins Green Jobs Oshawa in encouraging workers elsewhere to prepare now for the threats to their jobs and productive capacity that will inevitably come. --From introduction

Digitalization and Regulation of Work and Employment: Introduction - Lévesque, Christian; Fairbrother, Peter; Roby, Nicolas (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
This thematic issue is an effort to understand how digitalization is disrupting and reordering the regulation of work and employment. It also examines how these concerns may lead to organizational and institutional experimentation.

Régulation du travail et de l’emploi à l’ère numérique : Introduction - Lévesque, Christian; Fairbrother, Peter; Roby, Nicolas (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Ce numéro thématique cherche à comprendre comment le numérique est venu perturber et réorganiser la régulation du travail et de l’emploi et comment il peut conduire à des formes d’expérimentation organisationnelle et institutionnelle.

Drowned: Anishinabek Economies and Resistance to Hydroelectric Development -in the Winnipeg River Drainage Basin, 1873-1975 - Luby, Brittany Alexandra (York University, 2020)
In 1893 the Keewatin Lumber and Power Company planned the first hydroelectric generating station on the north shore of Lake of the Woods (near present-day Kenora, Ontario). Approximately fifty years later, federal officials seeking employment for Canadian veterans turned to Northwestern Ontario and its underutilized water resources, envisioning a manufacturing hub on the Precambrian Shield. Between 1950 and 1958, the Hydroelectric Power Commission of Ontario remodeled the Winnipeg River drainage basin to produce power for federally-sanctioned peacetime industries, namely pulp and paper production. To redesign the Winnipeg River drainage basin, however, hydro officials needed to encroach on Anishinabek lands: both federally-recognized reserves and unrecognized, but heavily occupied, ancestral territories. This dissertation tells the story of how Anishinabek families used a diverse array of strategies adaptation, cooperation, and passive resistance to manage environmental change caused by Whitedog Falls Generating Station. Anishinabek families worked to stabilize their communities in an era of imposed environmental and economic change. Historians have long argued that hydroelectric development is necessarily at odds with Indigenous culture and subsistence economies. This dissertation provides a counter-narrative, arguing that cultural and economic damage, although linked to environmental damage, correlated more strongly with Anishinabek exclusion from resource negotiations. Moreover, this work complicates historical representations of a uniform Indigenous response to development. Given limited negotiations between the Hydro-Electric Power Commission and local First Nations, Anishinabek families did not respond to industrial incursions with one representative voice. The process of development itself, I argue, prevented a unified community response. As a result, Anishinabek communities fractured in response to hydroelectric development.

L’art du sens dans les organisations - Luc, Sylvain (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "L’art du sens dans les organisations," edited by Jean-Luc Moriceau, Hugo Letiche and Marie-Astrid Letheule.

Serving Each Other: Sharing Economies and Affective Labour in Montreal’s Kiki Scene - Lundy, Jess D. (Jessica Dawn) (Carleton University, 2020)
Against a tense socio-political backdrop of white supremacy, intensifying pressures of neoliberal fiscal austerity, and queer necropolitics, this thesis addresses performance-based activist forms of place-making for urban-based queer, trans, and gender nonconforming communities of colour. Using participant observation and qualitative interviews with pioneering members of Montréal's Kiki scene and Ottawa's emerging Waacking community and interpreting my findings through the theoretical lens of queer of colour theory, critical whiteness studies, queer Latinx performance studies and Chicana feminism, I argue that Kiki subculture, which is maintained by pedagogical processes of 'each one, teach one', is instrumental in facilitating i) life-affirming queer kinship bonds, (ii) alternative ways to simultaneously embody and celebrate non-normative gender expression with Black, Asian, and Latinx identity, iii) non-capitalist economies of sharing, and iv) hopeful strategies of everyday community activism and resilience to appropriative processes during economic insecurity and necropolitical turmoil.

Marx at the Arcade: Consoles, Controllers, and Class Struggle - MacDougall, Robert (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Marx at the Arcade: Consoles, Controllers, and Class Struggle," by Jamie Woodcock.

Closing Sysco: Industrial Decline in Atlantic Canada's Steel City - MacKinnon, Lachlan (Studies in Atlantic Canada history, 2020)
This book is a history of deindustrialization and working-class resistance in the Cape Breton steel industry between 1945 and 2001. The Sydney Steel Works is at the heart of this study - having existed in tandem with Cape Breton's larger coal operations since the early twentieth century. Chapters explore the multi-faceted nature of deindustrialization, the internal politics of the steelworkers' union, successful efforts to nationalize the mill in 1967, the years in transition under public ownership, and confrontations over health, safety, and environmental degradation in the 1990s and 2000s. The book moves beyond the moment of closure to trace the cultural, historical, and political ramifications of deindustrialization as they continue to play out in post-industrial Cape Breton Island. This represents a significant intervention into the international literature on deindustrialization, pushing scholarship beyond the bounds of political economy and cultural change to begin tackling issues of bodily health, environment, and historical memory in post-industrial places. -- Publisher's description
Keywords: 1900-1999; Acier Industrie et commerce Nouvelle-Écosse Sydney Histoire 20e siècle; Acier Industrie et commerce Nouvelle-Écosse Sydney Personnel Conditions sociales 20e siècle; Deindustrialization; Deindustrialization Nova Scotia Sydney History 20th century; Deindustrialization Social aspects; Deindustrialization Social aspects Nova Scotia Sydney; Désindustrialisation Aspect social Nouvelle-Écosse Sydney; Désindustrialisation Nouvelle-Écosse Sydney Histoire 20e siècle; History; Nova Scotia Sydney; Plant shutdowns; Plant shutdowns Nova Scotia Sydney History 20th century; Social conditions; Steel industry and trade; Steel industry and trade Nova Scotia Sydney Employees Social conditions 20th century; Steel industry and trade Nova Scotia Sydney History 20th century; Sydney (N.-É.) Conditions sociales 20e siècle; Sydney (N.S.) Social conditions 20th century; Sydney Steel Corporation; Usines Fermeture Nouvelle-Écosse Sydney Histoire 20e siècle

Austerity, Struggle, and Union Democracy: Bill 115 and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, an Insider View - Mancini, Chantal (Labor Studies Journal, 2020)
In 2012, unions representing teachers and education workers in Ontario, Canada, were faced with Bill 115, legislation used by the provincial government to impose a collective agreement upon education workers and remove their right to strike. With a specific focus on the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, this paper is an insider view of how Bill 115 and the external political contexts of the time affected Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation’s internal democratic practices at the height of the struggle. It employs theories of union democracy in order to consider how external forces can shape teacher unions’ internal democracy, and how the competing pressures faced by union leaders can impact their actions and decisions. This paper takes the view that internal union democracy is an important consideration in teacher unions’ resistance to government austerity agendas.

Barriers to Economic Security: Disability, Employment, and Asset Disparities in Canada - Maroto, Michelle; Pettinicchio, David (Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue canadienne de sociologie, 2020)
Although ample research shows that people with disabilities face significant labor market barriers, questions remain about whether and how disadvantages in employment and earnings contribute to economic insecurity. We use 1999 to 2012 Canadian Survey of Financial Security data to study disparities in nonhousing assets, which include household savings, stocks, and pensions, across households with and without disabilities. We find that households where the respondent or their spouse reported a disability held 25 percent less in nonhousing assets after accounting for key employment, education, and demographic factors. Demonstrating the more complicated relationship between disability, employment, and assets, these direct effects were further strengthened by disability's indirect effects on assets through its relationship with employment income.

Federal Enforcement of Migrant Workers’ Labour Rights in Canada: A Research Report - Marsden, Sarah; Tucker, Eric; Vosko, Leah F. (York University, 2020)
Although Canada’s migrant labour program is seen by some as a model of best practices, rights shortfalls and exploitation of workers are well documented. Through migration policy, federal authorities determine who can hire migrant workers, and the conditions under which they are employed, through the provision of work permits. Despite its authority over work permits, the federal government has historically had little to do with the regulation of working conditions. In 2015, the federal government introduced a new regulatory enforcement system - unique internationally for its attempt to enforce migrants’ workplace rights through federal migration policy - under which employers must comply with contractual employment terms, uphold provincial workplace standards, and make efforts to maintain a workplace free of abuse. Drawing on enforcement data, and frontline law and policy documents, we critically assess the new enforcement system, concluding that it holds both promise and peril for migrant workers.

Just a Farmwife?: An Intergenerational, Intersectional Study of Women’s Labour on Southern Alberta’s Dutch Reformed Family Farms, 1950–2019 - Martens, Shelby Blair (University of New Brunswick, 2020)
Through two-part intergenerational oral histories, this thesis explores the intersections of labour, gender, and lived religion in the lives of twelve Southern Alberta, Dutch Reformed women from family farms from the 1950s to 2019. By focusing on the broader lived experience of the women interviewed, and not just their physical labour on the farm, this thesis argues that women’s roles on the family farm were crucial, while complicating the narrative of farm women’s roles to show their multiple and often conflicting identities.

Casinos and Captive Labour Markets: - Mazar, Alissa (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Economically depressed communities across North America have opened casinos based on the promise of creating “good jobs.” Some scholars find that workers benefit from casinos via employment and wage growth, while others find that casinos exploit host communities, including their workers. Yet, little research addresses whom casinos employ and how workers experience the quality of employment. Existing research is based on geographic areas that house multiple casinos where workers have the mobility to move between different casino operators. Across North America, however, casinos are being adopted in economically depressed areas and in limited-licence states with large distances between casinos. Using the case study of Casino Windsor – located in Canada’s economically struggling automotive capital, Windsor, Ontario – this article speaks to whether casinos offer “good jobs” when a single casino exists in an economically struggling area. Based on 48 interviews with Windsor stakeholders and casino workers, media coverage, and descriptive statistics, these findings provide an alternative story of the employment implications of casino development when casino workers are immobile. The immobility of Casino Windsor workers results from a high unemployment rate, the absence of other employment offering comparable remuneration, and an international border. This scenario allows management to rule through disciplinary actions while still reaping the benefits of worker “loyalty” and effort. With states/provinces justifying casino developments to economically devitalized host communities by promising the creation of “good jobs,” researchers and policymakers must consider whether such developments will create and potentially exploit a captive labour supply, leading to the development of not-so-good casino jobs.

Harms of Criminalization of Sex Work: How End-Demand Legislation and Immigration Policy Shape Labour, Health and Rights Among Im/Migrant and Indoor Sex Workers in Canada - McBride, Bronwyn (University of British Columbia, 2020)
Background and objectives: Globally, sex workers experience labour rights abuses, disproportionate burdens of workplace violence, and restrictions on safer ways of working (i.e., collectively and in indoor venues) due to criminalization. These inequities are often exacerbated among im/migrant sex workers, who may additionally face precarious legal status, restrictive immigration policies and racialized policing. Despite implementation of “end-demand” legislation (legal models aimed at ending clients’ demand for sexual services) in dozens of countries, little empirical research has explored how end-demand laws impact sex workers’ labour conditions. This dissertation sought to explore how end-demand laws and prohibitive immigration policy impact labour conditions, health and rights among im/migrant and indoor sex workers in Vancouver. Methods: This dissertation drew on quantitative and qualitative data collected from AESHA (An Evaluation of Sex Workers’ Health Access), a community-based open prospective cohort of 900+ women sex workers across Vancouver, Canada, who complete bi-annual interviewer-administered questionnaires and voluntary sexual health testing. Mixed methods (explanatory and confounder bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses; interrupted time series; coding of semi-structured interview data) were used to elucidate the impacts of end-demand laws and resulting law enforcement practices on indoor and im/migrant sex workers’ labour environments. Results: This dissertation found that end-demand legislation in Canada failed to improve sex workers’ access to justice, restricted access to supportive third parties and safer indoor venues, heightened the vulnerability of sex work venues to violence, and limited access to occupational health resources (condoms, community-led services); with negative implications exacerbated among im/migrant sex workers. Conclusion: These findings extend limited existing research on the impacts of end-demand legislation, and demonstrate that end-demand criminalization reproduces the harms of full criminalization models. These results have important implications for legislative, policy, and law enforcement reforms towards enabling safe labour environments among im/migrant and indoor sex workers. This dissertation calls for the decriminalization of sex work; removal of prohibitions on im/migrant sex work; sensitivity and anti-stigma trainings among authorities; dedicated efforts to address systemic racism in sex work policing; promoting rights-based municipal occupational health standards; and increasing support for sex worker-led outreach; to promote sex workers’ labour and human rights.

Work Incentives for “Welfare Mothers” in 1970s Ontario: - McKeen, Wendy (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
This article analyzes the politics surrounding the 1970s/early 1980s introduction of work-incentive measures for “welfare mothers” in Ontario. It uses governance and assemblage theory to analyze the substance and dynamics of the debates in this area as they involved state officials, social policy and social welfare advocates, and welfare mother activists. Using a wide array of archival documents and media accounts, the article uncovers the discursive and other kinds of practices that government officials used in seeking to contain the debate and foreclose more radical possibilities, as well as the role that progressive groups sometimes played in reinforcing official expertise. The article concludes that the work incentives for welfare mothers measures were not just benign policy but mechanisms that screened out the political and, ultimately, further disempowered and marginalized welfare mothers. Such programs operate to this day to reinforce a worldview that ignores structural oppression and inequality.

Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England - McNeil, Adam (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England," by Jared Ross Hardesty.

L’adéquation formation-emploi : concepts et pratiques de gestion des ressources humaines - Michaud, Renée; Bernier, Amélie; Ben Mansour, Jamal (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
L’adéquation formation-emploi a fait couler beaucoup d’encre au cours des dernières années, car elle présente des défis importants auxquels tant les entreprises que les pouvoirs publics cherchent à répondre. Il s’agit d’une notion polysémique que l’on doit s’assurer de bien cerner parce que la littérature regorge d’une multitude de vocables et de mesures utilisés pour décrire les situations d’inadéquation formation-emploi et d’écarts observés dans le marché du travail.
Keywords: PME; adéquation formation-emploi; appariement personne-emploi; gestion des ressources humaines; human resource management; person-job matching; skills mismatch; small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs)

Gender and Academic Promotion to Full Professor in Ontario - Millar, Paul E.; Barker, Jane (Canadian Journal of Sociology, 2020)
This is a study of 933 academic promotions from associate to full professor in Ontario, Canada for the period 2010-2014. Publicly available sources provided a bibliometric profile including gender, year of promotion, university, academic discipline, salary, type and number of publications and number of authors for each promotion to full professor. We found a large gender gap in academic promotions favouring men, which is explained mainly by a structural focus on male-dominated academic disciplines. We also found large differences in numbers of publications by academic discipline, which was substantially reduced after considering the number of authors per publication. Business professors were paid substantially more than other professors at the time of promotion. Our study focused on publications, and given this limitation the results should be taken in the context that there are multiple considerations for promotion. Publication quality and impact, grants and patents, were not adjusted for.
Keywords: Salary

The Violence of Work: New Essays in Canadian and US Labour History - Milloy, Jeremy; Sangster, Joan (2020)
From mining to sex work and from the classroom to the docks, violence has always been a part of work. This collection of essays highlights the many different forms and expressions of violence that have arisen under capitalism in the last two hundred years, as well as how historians of working-class life and labour have understood violence. The editors draw together diverse case studies, integrating analysis of class, age, gender, sexuality, and race into the scholarship. Essays span the United States and Canadian border, exploring gender violence, sexual harassment, the violent kidnapping of union organizers, the violence of inadequate health and safety protections, the culture of violence in state institutions, the mythology of working-class violence, and the changing nature of violence in extractive industries. The Violence of Work theorizes and historicizes violence as an integral part of working life, making it possible to understand the full scope and causes of workplace violence over time. --Publisher's description, Contents: Introduction: Accounting for violence / Jeremy Milloy -- The perils of sex work in Montreal: seeking security and justice in the face of violence, 1810-1842 / Mary Anne Poutanen -- The rules of discipline: workers and the culture of violence in progressive-era reform schools / James Schmidt -- The "new solution": anti-labour kidnapping, D.B. McKay, and the legacy of the second Seminole War / Chad Pearson -- Billy Gohl: labour, violence, and myth in the early twentieth-century Pacific Northwest / Aaron Goings -- Slow violence and hidden injuries: the work of strip mining in the American west / Ryan Driskell Tate -- The murder of Lori Dupont : violence, harassment, and occupational health and safety in Ontarion / Sarah Jessup -- "By the nuimbers" : workers' compensation and the (further) conventionalization of workplace violence / Robert Storey -- Gender violence in the hospitality industry: panic buttons, pants, and protest / Emily E. LB. Twarog.

The Hidden Work of Challenging Precarity - Mirchandani, Kiran; Hande, Mary Jean (Canadian Journal of Sociology, 2020)
This article explores the hidden work of workers employed in precarious jobs which are characterized by part-time and temporary contracts, limited control over work schedules, and poor access to regulatory protection. Through 77 semi-structured interviews with workers in low-wage, precarious jobs in Ontario, Canada, we examine workers’ attempts to challenge the precarity they face when confronted by workplace conditions violating the Ontario Employment Standards Act (ESA), such as not being paid minimum wages, not being paid for overtime, being fired wrongfully or being subject to reprisals. We argue that these challenges involve hidden work, which is neither acknowledged nor recognized in the current ESA enforcement regime. We examine three types of hidden work that involve (1) creating a sense of positive self-worth amidst disempowering practices; (2) engaging in advocacy vis-à-vis employers, sometimes through launching official claims with the Ontario Ministry of Labour; and (3) developing strategies to avoid the costs of precarity in the future. We argue that this hidden work of challenging precarity needs to be formally recognized and that concrete strategies for doing so might lead to more robust protection for workers, particularly within ESA enforcement practices.
Keywords: Canada

Le travail à l’épreuve des nouvelles temporalités - Mohamed, Yasmine (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Le travail à l’épreuve des nouvelles temporalités," edited by Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay et Sid Ahmed Soussi.

Formation à l’égalité femmes-hommes par le théâtre d’entreprise : une analyse de saynètes - Montargot, Nathalie; Redon, Gaëlle (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Cet article a pour objectif d’analyser la formation à la diversité par le théâtre d’entreprise en se centrant sur le thème de l’égalité femmes/hommes dans le monde professionnel. Il se focalise sur la première phase de la prestation théâtrale, à savoir les saynètes de formation sur catalogue, jouées par des comédiens-formateurs. Ces dernières exposent les situations d’inégalités femmes/hommes au travail, afin de préparer la seconde phase formatrice qui porte sur les stéréotypes, l’analyse des comportements exposés et les possibles remédiations. La problématique de recherche est centrée sur la façon dont le théâtre d’entreprise représente les inégalités femmes/hommes au travail dans les saynètes introduisant leur formation à la diversité. Pour y répondre, une méthodologie qualitative a été choisie et celle-ci permet de comprendre les mécanismes à l’oeuvre dans les formations théâtrales qui servent de support aux politiques de gestion à la diversité dans les organisations. Il apparaît, notamment, que ces formations se concentrent sur certaines dimensions de l’égalité femmes/hommes, le plus souvent dans un but de mise en conformité avec la loi, omettant en cela de prendre en compte plusieurs facettes du phénomène d’inégalité. Cette recherche montre le mode de fonctionnement du théâtre fondé sur un idéal-type et l’exposition de situations, basées sur les différentes barrières rencontrées par les femmes. Bien qu’il constitue un outil de formation et de sensibilisation original, seul, il n’est pas suffisant pour saisir toute la complexité du phénomène en oeuvre et mener à un changement des comportements. Il apparait donc important dans de futures recherches de mieux appréhender le processus de formation et de procéder à une mesure longitudinale de l’apport du théâtre dans la formation à l’égalité femmes-hommes.
Keywords: corporate theatre; diversity; diversité; formation; gender equality; stereotypes; stéréotypes; théâtre d’entreprise; training; égalité femmes/hommes

Connected by a Thread: Stories of Migration and Labour in Sara Angelucci’s Piece Work - Montpetit, Chiara (Concordia University, 2020)
This thesis is a critical analysis of the multimedia project Piece Work (2017) by Toronto-based, Italian Canadian artist Sara Angelucci (b. 1962). Focusing on Coppley Apparel, a garment factory in Hamilton, Ontario, the project explores the process of making business suits through the digital collage Coppley Patterns and the photographic series Mano d’Oro. The sound installation A Sewers’ Chorus features the voices of the garment workers who recall positive and negative memories of their work experiences and personal histories, while the video installation Suit Elevator depicts the business suit in its final form. The majority of Coppley Apparel’s employees are women from non-white racialized groups. Deploying an intersectional feminist approach, this thesis argues that Piece Work reveals the complex lives of these factory workers from immigrant backgrounds in ways that speak against persisting discourses and practices of racialized and gendered labour in the garment industry. It begins by providing an overview of the history of the Coppley Apparel factory in relation to the history of migrant garment factory workers in Hamilton, and the broader history of racialized and gendered factory labour in the city. This thesis also acts as a record of the migration story of Nina Acciaroli, the artist’s mother, whose first job in Canada was at Coppley Apparel. It then examines A Sewers’ Chorus and its use of oral history, providing a discussion of the different stories shared by the interviewees, which range from happy childhood memories and nostalgic flashbacks to accounts of traumatic experiences. The thesis provides a comprehensive discussion of the process of making Piece Work, contextualizing it within Angelucci’s larger artistic practice of incorporating voices in the exploration of her family’s immigrant experience. Ultimately, Piece Work recognizes the employees of Coppley Apparel as people with singular voices and unique experiences and highlights their agency by including the complexity of their voices and identities as women, garment workers, racialized minorities, and contributing members of Canadian society.

Organization Change: Theory and Practice - Montreuil, Véra-Line (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Organization Change: Theory and Practice, 5th edition," by Warner W. Burke.

Organizing Canadian Theatre Designers: The Intersection of Creative and Precarious Labour - Moore, Conor (Simon Fraser University, 2020)
Canadian theatre designers share many similarities with other freelance, creative workers in Canada. The conditions of precarity that define their working relationships are similar to those that affect workers in other sectors, such as film, music, television, and visual arts. This thesis begins by examining the existing literatures and research concerning creative and precarious work, primarily in Canada, but also internationally. Drawing on in-depth interviews of 55 designers from within the relatively small community of Canadian theatre designers, approximately 500-700 workers, I examine the working conditions that designers find challenging and seek suggestions for how they can be improved. Additionally, I explore the different models that designers have used to organize in Canada, Quebec, and the United States. By comparing these models with the interviews from designers, I conclude that the best way for Canadian designers to improve their working conditions is to build a closer relationship with IATSE [International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees], the union that represents stagehands and technicians. Finally, I identify some questions for further exploration, including the tension between artistic and worker identities, while also touching on the present circumstances of the Covid-19 crisis and the current conversations concerning racism and white supremacy within Canadian society.

Radical Housewives: Price Wars & Food Politics in Mid-Twentieth Century Canada - Mosby, Ian (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Radical Housewives: Price Wars & Food Politics in Mid-Twentieth Century Canada," by Julie Guard.

L’économie morale des rémunérations : une comparaison France-Québec des rhétoriques de justice salariale d’enseignants - Moulin, Stéphane (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Cet article propose un cadre théorique pluraliste d’analyse de l’économie morale des rémunérations afin d’examiner les jugements de justice salariale que portent les enseignants québécois et français. La question générale de recherche est la suivante : Quelles sont les rhétoriques mobilisées pour justifier des avantages salariaux et pour dénoncer des injustices? Théoriquement, nous proposons un cadre d’analyse selon lequel les acteurs construisent des rhétoriques de justice en combinant quatre normes particulières (droits, besoins, investissements et marché) à deux principes premiers (égalité et différenciation). Notre cadre permet d’abord de tenir compte de la hiérarchisation des normes, des plus égalisatrices aux plus différenciatrices. De plus, notre cadre systématise l’idée de malléabilité instrumentale des normes, les normes de droits et de besoins pouvant être perverties dans une orientation différenciatrice et la norme du marché subvertie dans une orientation égalisatrice. Méthodologiquement, nous analysons des témoignages électroniques d’enseignants de la France et du Québec, du niveau primaire à l’enseignement supérieur. L’intérêt heuristique du corpus tient, d’une part, au fait qu’elle permet d’inclure des salariés dont les régimes de rémunération sont inégaux et, d’autre part, à la comparaison des deux contextes nationaux. Nous explorons tant les thèmes de justifications salariales que les champs sémantiques des justifications et des dénonciations. L’analyse nous conduit à confirmer la mobilisation par les enseignants d’une pluralité de rhétoriques de perception de l’injustice. Nous dégageons un continuum hiérarchisé de logiques de perceptions de l’injustice : les enseignants ont d’autant plus tendance à mobiliser des normes différenciatrices qu’ils sont élevés dans la hiérarchie salariale statutaire. L’analyse empirique permet également de dégager l’existence de rhétoriques spécifiques aux deux espaces nationaux étudiés. Ces dernières correspondent à des usages subversifs du marché ou pervertis des principes de droits ou de besoins. Enfin, nous montrons que les enseignants les plus privilégiés pervertissent les normes du droit et du besoin pour préserver leurs avantages.
Keywords: distributive justice; enseignants; equity; justice distributive; repertoires; rémunération; répertoires; teachers; wages; équité

American Labour’s Cold War Abroad: From Deep Freeze to Détente, 1945-1970 - Muldoon, Jeffrey (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "American Labour’s Cold War Abroad: From Deep Freeze to Détente, 1945-1970," by Anthony Carew.

Bullshit Jobs: A Theory - Muldoon, Jeffrey (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Bullshit Jobs: A Theory," by David Graeber.

Capitalism in America: A History - Muldoon, Jeffrey (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Capitalism in America: A History," by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge .

The Dark Side of Management: A Secret History of Management Theory - Muldoon, Jeffrey (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "The Dark Side of Management: A Secret History of Management Theory," by Gerald Hanlon.

The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets - Muldoon, Jeffrey (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, " The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets," by Thomas Philippon.

The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing - Muldoon, Jeffrey (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing," by Merve Emre.

Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism - Newkirk, Anthony B. (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Bad Faith: Teachers, Liberalism, and the Origins of McCarthyism," by Andrew Feffer.

App Imperialism: The Political Economy of the Canadian App Store - Nieborg, David B.; Young, Chris J.; Joseph, Daniel (Social Media + Society, 2020)
To critically engage with the political economy of platformization, this article builds on the concepts of platform capitalism and platform imperialism to situate platforms within wider historical, economic, and spatial trajectories. To investigate if platformization leads to the geographical redistribution of capital and power, we draw on the Canadian instance of Apple’s iOS App Store as a case study. App stores are situated in a complex ecosystem of markets, infrastructures, and governance models that the disparate fields of business studies, critical political economy of communications, and platform studies have begun to catalog. Through a combination of financial and institutional analysis, we ask if Canadian game app developers are effective in generating revenue within their own national App Store. Given Canada’s vibrant game industry one would expect Canadian developers to have a sizable economic footprint in the burgeoning app economy. Our results, however, point toward the US digital dominance and, therefore, we suggest the notion of app imperialism to signal the continuation, if not reinforcement of existing instances of economic inequalities and imperialism.

Past and Future Work at the International Labour Organization: Labour as a Fictitious Commodity, Countermovement and Sustainability - Novitz, Tonia (International Organizations Law Review, 2020)
This article analyses past and future work at the International Labour Organization (‘ILO’) with reference to the transformational analysis offered by Karl Polanyi, examining how constitutional statements made through ILO Declarations reflect countermovement to market dominance. These policy shifts at the ILO are also analysed in relation to the three pillars of sustainability (environmental, economic and social), which arguably map onto Polanyi’s three fictitious commodities (with a focus on labour as emblematic of social concerns). It is argued that the emphasis on social justice and sustainability in the 2019 ILO Global Commission Report, including the proposal for a Universal Labour Guarantee, provides significant resistance to the economic orthodoxy regarding the future of work promoted by the World Bank Group and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (‘OECD’). However, this narrative of ILO countermovement also exposes a lack of balanced regulation which requires more inclusive voice on the global stage.
Keywords: ILO; countermovement; fictitious commodities; future; labour; sustainability; voice; work

Beyond the Barbed Wire: POW Labour Projects in Canada during the Second World War - O'Hagan, Michael (Western University, 2020)
This dissertation examines Canada’s program to employ prisoners of war (POWs) in Canada during the Second World War as a means of understanding how labour projects and the communities and natural environment in which they occurred shaped the POWs’ wartime experiences. The use of POW labourers, including civilian internees, enemy merchant seamen, and combatant prisoners, occurred in response to a nationwide labour shortage. Between May 1943 and November 1946, there were almost 300 small, isolated labour projects across the country employing, at its peak, over 14,000 POWs. Most prisoners were employed in either logging or agriculture, work that not only provided them with relative freedom, but offered prisoners unprecedented contact with Canada and its people. Work would therefore not only boost production but, it was hoped, instil POWs with Canadian mores and values through interaction with guards, civilians, and the natural environment. Rather than attempt a narrative encompassing almost 300 labour projects, this dissertation examines POW labour through a series of five case studies. The first examines prisoners cutting fuelwood in Manitoba’s Riding Mountain National Park while the second and third examine POWs cutting pulpwood in Northwestern Ontario for the Ontario-Minnesota Pulp & Paper Co. and Abitibi Power & Paper Co., respectively. The fourth case study examines POWs employed by Donnell & Mudge in its tannery in New Toronto, Ontario and the fifth examines the practice of employing POWs in farm work in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Through these case studies, this dissertation examines how how internment officials employed remote parts of Canada as a physical boundary to prevent escape attempts, while also using it as a space to provide POWs with relative freedom as an inducement to work, and how work challenged definitions of who or what was the “enemy”. With significantly more freedom than the typical internee, POWs interacted with civilians and guards on a more familiar level, resulting in illicit fraternizations and relationships between POWs and Canadians. Although such fraternization also triggered considerable protest, these interactions reveal a great deal regarding POWs’ opinions of and attitudes towards Canada and its people as well as Canadian attitudes towards POWs.

Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties - Palmer, Bryan D. (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties," by Mike Davis and Jon Wiener.

Les nouvelles sociologies du travail. Introduction à la sociologie de l’activité - Papinot, Christian (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Les nouvelles sociologies du travail. Introduction à la sociologie de l’activité," par Pascal Ughetto.

L’interdiction de signes religieux en entreprise : regards croisés autour de la protection du salarié en France et au Québec - Parent, Sébastien; Fleury, Pauline (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Dans la tourmente d’une récente intervention législative au Québec qui restreint le port de signes religieux pour certains agents et agentes de l’État occupant une fonction d’autorité, une volonté d’étendre cette nouvelle conception de la neutralité au sein d’espaces privés, comme l’entreprise, pourrait émerger. La validité d’une politique interdisant le port de signes religieux en milieu de travail doit, toutefois, être analysée à l’aune de la liberté de religion et du droit à l’égalité des travailleurs, ce qui sollicitera inévitablement l’interprétation du juge. À cet égard, la France dispose de précédents très précis sur cette question, alors que le Québec fait l’objet d’une riche jurisprudence en matière d’accommodement raisonnable pour motifs religieux, qui permet aussi d’y répondre. Or, en présence d’une problématique identique dans l’entreprise, qui mobilise de surcroît les mêmes droits fondamentaux des travailleurs, un regard croisé entre la France et le Québec révèle les chemins diamétralement opposés empruntés par les juges de chacun de ces espaces nationaux. Ces divergences s’observent aussi bien à l’occasion du contrôle de la légitimité de l’interdiction de signes religieux adoptée par l’employeur qu’au moment de circonscrire les mesures qu’il devra prendre afin d’éviter le congédiement du salarié. Plus encore, le fardeau financier que l’entreprise aura à supporter, au terme de cet exercice, se situe aux antipodes. Dans l’ensemble, cette analyse comparative met en évidence l’impact décisif du travail interprétatif du juge sur la protection de l’emploi, en ne manquant pas de discuter des possibilités que la logique française se transporte en droit québécois.
Keywords: accommodement raisonnable; discrimination; droit à l’égalité; duty of reasonable accommodation; enterprise; freedom of religion; liberté de religion; neutralité de l’entreprise; policy of neutrality; right to equality

Compassion: A Global History of Social Policy - Pasolli, Lisa (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Compassion: A Global History of Social Policy," by Alvin Finkel.

The Decorated Tenement: How Immigrant Builders and Architects Transformed the Slum in the Gilded Age - Patterson, Matt (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "The Decorated Tenement: How Immigrant Builders and Architects Transformed the Slum in the Gilded Age," by Zachary J. Violette.

Uberland: How Algorithms are Rewriting the Rules of Work - Peticca-Harris, Amanda (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Uberland: How Algorithms are Rewriting the Rules of Work," by Alex Rosenblat.

Postcapitalist Precarious Work and Those in the ‘Drivers’ Seat: Exploring the Motivations and Lived Experiences of Uber Drivers in Canada - Peticca-Harris, Amanda; deGama, Nadia; Ravishankar, M. N. (Organization, 2020)
In this inductive, qualitative study, we observe how Uber, a company often hailed as being the poster-child of the sharing economy facilitated through a digital platform may also at times represent and reinforce postcapitalist hyper-exploitation. Drawing on the motivations and lived experiences of 31 Uber drivers in Toronto, Canada, we provide insights into three groups of Uber drivers: (1) those that are driving part-time to earn extra money in conjunction with studying or doing other jobs, (2) those that are unemployed and for whom driving for Uber is the only source of income, and (3) professional drivers, who are trying to keep pace with the durable digital landscape and competitive marketplace. We emphasize the ways in which each driver group simultaneously acknowledges and rejects their own precarious employment by distancing techniques such as minimizing the risks and accentuating the advantages of the driver role. We relate these findings to a broader discussion about how driving for Uber fuels the traditional capitalist narrative that working hard and having a dream will lead to advancement, security and success. We conclude by discussing other alternative economies within the sharing economy.

Debating the Labour Movement’s Past, Present, and Future - Pollack, Marion; Selby, Jim (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The following is an exchange sparked by Jim Selby’s presentation piece in Labour/Le Travail vol. 83. Since debates about the labour movement’s strategies – past, present and future – raise important questions, we have printed Marion Pollack’s response to Selby’s article and, in keeping with journal protocol, his final response. —Editors' introduction

Roadside Americans: The Rise and Fall of Hitchhiking in a Changing Nation; Thumbing a Ride: Hitchhikers, Hostels, and Counterculture in Canada - Powell, Christopher (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the books, "Roadside Americans: The Rise and Fall of Hitchhiking in a Changing Nation," by Jack Reid, and "Thumbing a Ride: Hitchhikers, Hostels, and Counterculture in Canada," by Linda Mahood.

Radical Medicine: The International Origins of Socialized Health Care in Canada - Razumenko, Fedir (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Radical Medicine: The International Origins of Socialized Health Care in Canada," by Esyllt W. Jones.

Four Unruly Women: Stories of Incarceration and Resistance from Canada’s Most Notorious Prison - Rech, Nathalie (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Four Unruly Women: Stories of Incarceration and Resistance from Canada’s Most Notorious Prison," by Ted McCoy.

Occupational Safety and the City: Licensing Regulation and Deregulation in the Taxi Sector - Reid-Musson, Emily; MacEachen, Ellen; Bartel, Emma; Saunders, Ron; Meyer, Samantha; Bigelow, Philip (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
Many large cities in North America have jurisdiction over licensing rules that shape the employment and health conditions of ride-hail and taxi drivers. Yet there is a lack of research on the role of licensing agencies relating to the occupational health and safety (OHS) of taxi drivers. Most taxi and ride-hail drivers in Canada are self-employed workers and are, by default, exempt from OHS and worker compensation laws. Additionally, municipal licensing regimes in Canada and the US have undergone various changes as a result of pressures from new platform-based ride-hail services, like Uber and Lyft. The analysis is part of a larger study on the health and safety conditions faced by ride-hail drivers. The research approach adopted a multi-level sampling and analysis strategy with the aim of connecting taxi drivers’ everyday work experiences to company and sector practices, and with various regulatory arenas, including municipal licensing, taxation and car insurance. In this paper, the analysis draws from in-depth interviews at these different levels: with taxi and ride-hail drivers, with taxi and ride-hail managers, and with key informants in government, law, insurance, tax and elsewhere. The paper identifies features and impacts of municipal deregulation in the era of on-demand taxi services, focusing on a large Canadian city in a province where municipal authorities regulate the vehicle-for-hire sector. The research identified regulatory changes that included removing centralized taxi vehicle inspections, cancelling mandatory driver training, and instigating rapid changes to competition in the taxi workforce by issuing unlimited numbers of ride-hail licenses. Our analysis indicates that regulatory changes adopted by the city administration have compounded work vulnerabilities and hazards for taxi drivers, while extending hazardous conditions to ride-hail drivers. These hazards suggest the need for interventions at a range of levels, actors and agencies, rather than solely by city licensing officials.
Keywords: Lyft; Uber; municipal licensing; occupational health and safety; permis municipaux; ride-hail; santé et sécurité au travail; self-employment; service de hélage électronique; taxi; travailleurs autonomes; voiturage

The Academic Librarian as the Subaltern: An Institutional Ethnography of a Feminized Profession - Revitt, Eva Justyna (University of Alberta, 2020)
I locate this study within the context of my own work and experiences as an academic librarian and the disconnect that I have often felt between what I consider my role and the value of my work to be versus the perception and understanding of that role, the work, and its value by others. Overwhelmingly, librarians working at Canadian universities are considered academic staff, if not faculty. However, the role and fit of the academic librarian within the academic enterprise is overshadowed and frequently misunderstood. As the subaltern, librarians’ expertise and contribution to the university’s academic mission is often sidelined: the nature of the work too frequently viewed through an organizational rather than an academic lens and characterized as preoccupied with a structured set of regularized responsibilities. The goal of this study is to make visible the processes that shape the work experiences of academic librarians such as they are. Two research questions served as the impetus for this study: How is it that the academic librarian’s lesser status is the ideal at Canadian universities? What are the social processes that shape this ideal? This study is informed by the epistemological, ontological, and methodological assumptions of institutional ethnography: a research approach developed by the Canadian social theorist and sociologist, Dorothy Smith. Institutional ethnography considers the everyday, lived experiences of people as the research problematic—a term used by Smith to focus the inquiry on the actual, social, and active world as it is lived and experienced by people. An institutional ethnography progresses through layers, in this case the progression is from the academic librarian, to the library, to the institution, and beyond, to reveal how power structures external to the local setting influence daily life. To understand how the everyday world is put together so that things happen as they do, the focus of the investigation is on individual experiences and what people are doing relationally. However, in institutional ethnography the actions and experiences of people within a particular setting are not regarded as representative. Rather, the local experience is regarded as a window into the role of power. It is a politically charged and activist type of scholarship. Because institutional ethnography is concerned with explicating the actual rather than formulating or advancing the theoretical, the emphasis is on discovery rather than hypothesis testing. The findings of this study reveal how the value of librarians’ work is socially constructed and based on work that is perceived as women’s work; how the work of librarians is organized as library work rather than academic work; how accreditation bodies and the professions privilege the library over the librarian; and how institutional policies and practices position the librarian as academic on the margins of the academy. These social processes reveal how things come about so that librarians’ experiences as academic staff are such as they are. However, it is ideologies that help us understand why things are the way they are. I propose that two ideological codes—women’s work and the library—permeate our social consciousness, including speech, text, and talk, and infuse librarians’ work with particularizing characteristics. Ultimately, the findings of this study tie librarians’ work experiences to the necessary and gendered exploitation of labour that happens within a capitalist mode of production.

Understanding Needs, Breaking Down Barriers: Examining Mental Health Challenges and Well-Being of Correctional Staff in Ontario, Canada - Ricciardelli, Rosemary; Carleton, R. N. (R. Nicholas); Gacek, James; Groll, Dianne L. (Frontiers in Psychology, 2020)
Mental health challenges appear to be extremely prolific and challenging for correctional service employees, affecting persons working in community, institutional, and administrative correctional services. Focusing specifically on correctional workers employed by the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General, we shed light on their interpretations of the complexities of their occupational work and of how their work affects staff. Using a qualitative thematic approach to data analyses, we show that participants (n = 67) encounter barriers to treatment seeking, which they describe as tremendous, starting with benefits, wages, and shift work. We let the voices of staff elucidate what is needed to create a healthier correctional workforce. Recommendations include more training opportunities and programs; quarterly, semiannual, or annual appointments with a mental health professional who can assess changes in the mental health status of employees; offsite assessments to ensure confidentiality; and team building opportunities to reduce interpersonal conflict at work and increase moral by improving the work environment.

Graphic Memories of the Civil Rights Movement: Reframing History in Comics - Rocksborough-Smith, Ian (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Graphic Memories of the Civil Rights Movement: Reframing History in Comics," by Jorge J. Santos, Jr .

A Primer on American Labor Law - Rose, Joseph (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "A Primer on American Labor Law," by William Gould IV.

Not Completely a Company Town - Rosenfeld, Herman (Socialist Project: The Bullet, 2020)
Peter Findlay’s documentary film Company Town provides a welcome opening to initiate discussion and debate about the closure of General Motor’s once massive (it had 23,000 workers at one time) and historically central auto and truck complex and supplier plants. Behind the film’s basic narrative is a countdown from the period between the announcement (November 2018) of the closure and the actual end of production (December 2019). It creates space to raise issues such as the power and strategic orientation of the union and its leadership, the nature of the industry and competition in this era of late neoliberal capitalism, the consciousness and lives of auto and parts workers, and the possibilities of alternatives. --Introduction

Eric Hobsbawm, A Life in History - Ross, George (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Eric Hobsbawm, A Life in History," by Richard J. Evans.

Interunion Conflict and the Evolution of Faculty Unionism in Canada - Ross, Stephanie; Savage, Larry (Studies in Political Economy, 2020)
This article explores the role of interunion conflict in the rise and evolution of faculty unionism in Canada. We argue that competition and tension between the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in the early 1970s played a key role in driving professors’ support for the certification of independent faculty associations. Moreover, we contend that a parochial, sectionalist, and craft-like brand of faculty unionism remained dominant in Canada until the 2000s, when external forces and the rise of the neoliberal university convinced CAUT’s leadership to broaden the tent in terms of membership and embrace an enlarged notion of solidarity in an effort to better defend terms and conditions of work for university teachers.

Interrogating the Relationship Between Bargaining Structures and Bargaining Outcomes for Contract Academic Faculty in Ontario - Ross, Stephanie; Savage, Larry; Watson, James (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
This article uses case studies from three comparable Ontario-based universities to explore the relationship between bargaining unit structures and collective bargaining outcomes for unionized sessional contract academic faculty. The article charts the complex network of bargaining unit structures and inter-union or association relationships in Ontario universities and uses both quantitative and qualitative data to illustrate how different structures influence internal debates about sessional contract academic faculty, bargaining priorities, and collective bargaining strategies. The authors conclude that bargaining unit structures have less of an impact than practitioners assume and that success at the bargaining table for sessional contract academic faculty is dependent on a broad range of factors rather than any particular structure.

À l'avant garde du progrès: I'institut professionnel de la fonction publique du Canada 1920-2020 - Russell, Jason (Between the Lines, 2020)
Le 6 février 1920, un petit groupe d’employés de la fonction publique se réunit pour la première fois afin de former une association professionnelle. Un siècle plus tard, l’Institut professionnel de la fonction publique du Canada (IPFPC) est un agent négociateur représentant près de 60 000 travailleurs du secteur public dont les efforts pour le bien collectif améliorent la vie de chaque Canadien. Publié à l’occasion du 100e anniversaire de fondation de l’IPFPC, À l’avant-garde du progrès dresse le portrait complet de son évolution, de 1920 à aujourd’hui, et lève le voile sur un pan souvent négligé de l’histoire syndicale nord-américaine. L’auteur, Jason Russell, s’appuie sur une abondante collection de sources, dont des documents d’archives et des témoignages de dizaines de membres actuels et passés de l’IPFPC. Marquée par des réussites et semée d’embûches, l’histoire est complexe et racontée avec clarté et modération. Après des décennies de changements démographiques et générationnels, de booms et de crises économiques et de bouleversements politiques, les membres de l’IPFPC entament les cent prochaines années guidés par la même mission importante que celle qui les a inspirés jusqu’à présent : militer pour une justice sociale et économique pour le bien de tous les Canadiens et Canadiennes. --Résumé de l'éditeur

Leading Progress: The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, 1920-2020 - Russell, Jason (Between the Lines, 2020)
On February 6, 1920, a small group of public service employees met for the first time to form a professional association. A century later, the Professional Institute of the Public Service Canada (PIPSC) is a bargaining agent representing close to 60,000 public sector workers, whose collective efforts for the public good have touched the lives of every Canadian. Published on the centennial of PIPSC’s founding, Leading Progress is the definitive account of its evolution from then to now—and a rare glimpse into an under-studied corner of North American labour history. Researcher Dr. Jason Russell draws on a rich collection of sources, including archival material and oral history interviews with dozens of current and past PIPSC members. The story that unfolds is a complex one, filled with success and struggle, told with clarity and even-handedness. After decades of demographic and generational shifts, economic booms and busts, and political sea change, PIPSC looks toward its next hundred years with its mission as strong as ever: to advocate for social and economic justice that benefits all Canadians. --Publisher's description

Is Industry 4.0 a Good Fit for High Performance Work Systems? Trade Unions and Workplace Change in the Southern Ontario Automotive Assembly Sector - Rutherford, Tod; Frangi, Lorenzo (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The automotive industry has long been a leader in the introduction of new forms of work organization and technology—including mass production and high performance work systems (HPWS). It has also been a focal point for how trade unions negotiate such systems. Recently, much attention has focused on Industry 4.0 (I 4.0)—a manufacturing system featuring advanced robotics, digitalization and artificial intelligence. However, in the automotive industry, I 4.0 is confronted with considerable technical and social challenges, and I 4.0 paradigms have been criticized for marginalizing the continuing importance of employees in shaping, if not ‘hybridizing,’ such new production processes. Based on a study of UNIFOR union locals in Canadian automotive assembly plants, we argue that I 4.0 has to be analyzed in terms of the ways unions have influenced the almost universal adoption of HPWS in that sector. We thus investigate the ways unions have impacted HPWS and its implications for their roles in workplace integration of I 4.0. As such, we first argue that, while overlapping, HPWS and I 4.0 represent different managerial strategies. Second, we develop an exploratory analytical framework for use in examining union roles in negotiating HPWS and technology adoption. Based on this framework, we then analyze 18 interviews we conducted in 2017-2018 with plant managers and key UNIFOR representatives at five southern Ontario assembly plants. The interviews illustrate not only commonalities in adoption of HPWS, but also differing ways in which the union influences the ‘hybridization’ of HPWS. Union practices differ significantly from one plant to another as a function of three variables: 1- firm-plant competitive positions; 2- the union’s overall monopoly face; and 3- internal union local solidarity and narratives around HPWS. Keeping these commonalities and differences in mind, we then consider the challenges that unions are likely to confront as they begin negotiating I 4.0.
Keywords: automotive industry; high performance work systems; industrie 4.0; industrie automobile; industry 4.0; modèle de gestion à haute performance (MGHP ou HPWS); syndicats; trade unions

Inequality in Canada: The History and Politics of an Idea - Sager, Eric W. (McGill-Queen's studies in the history of ideas, 2020)
Economic inequality is one of the great issues of our era. But what is inequality? Eric Sager argues that inequality is more than the distribution of income and wealth. Inequality is the idea that there are wide gaps between rich and poor, that the gaps are both an economic problem and a social injustice, and that the problem can be either eliminated or reduced. This idea arose in a transatlantic world, in the long evolution of political economy in Britain and the United States from classical economics to the emerging welfare economics of the twentieth century. Within this transatlantic frame inequality took a distinct form in Canada. It appeared among radical reformers and republicans in the 1830s. It arose in a critique of wealth among Protestant thinkers and their moral imperatives. The idea appeared among labour radicals and reformers who interpreted the conflict between capital and labour as a problem of distribution. For social gospelers inequality was a simplifying frame that made sense of an alien modernity of industry, urbanism, and class conflict. A tradition of idealist thought persisted in the twentieth century, sustaining the idea of inequality despite deep silences among Canadian economists. The idea appeared forcefully in social Catholicism in Quebec, and then waned in the political and intellectual justifications of the social security state. In the new era of inequality in our century, a political solution may rest upon the recovery of an older ethical idealism and in a historically-informed egalitarian politics."-- Publisher's description
Keywords: Canada; Classes sociales Canada; Equality; Equality Canada History; Equality Political aspects Canada History; History; Social classes; Social classes Canada; Égalité (Sociologie) Aspect politique Canada Histoire; Égalité (Sociologie) Canada Histoire

A Suffragette in America: Reflections on Prisoners, Pickets and Political Change - Sangster, Joan (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "A Suffragette in America: Reflections on Prisoners, Pickets and Political Change," by E. Sylvia Pankhurst, edited with an introduction by Katherine Connelly,.

The Social Cost of Cheap Food: Labour and the Political Economy of Food Distribution in Britain, 1830–1914 - Sartore, Nastasha (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "The Social Cost of Cheap Food: Labour and the Political Economy of Food Distribution in Britain, 1830–1914," by Sébastien Rioux.

Charlottetown Living Wage 2020 - Saulnier, Christine (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Nova Scotia Office, 2020)
The living wage rate for Charlottetown, PEI is $19.30 per hour. This 2020 living wage is calculated to follow the principles and methodology laid out in the Canadian Living Wage Framework. The calculation for Charlottetown follows how the wage has been calculated in our Atlantic Canadian jurisdictions, including the most recent report with wages calculated for various communities in Nova Scotia, as well as Saint John in New Brunswick. In 2019, the living wage was calculated for St. John’s in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Rising to the Challenge: Reflections on a Round of Pandemic Bargaining - Savage, Larry (Academic Matters, 2020)
Bargaining is an intensive and complex procoess during the best of times, but what happened when the Brock University Faculty Association found itself bargaining a new collective agreement in the middle of a pandemic? --Editor's note

The Past, Present, and Future of the Canadian Labour Movement: Interrogating Insider Accounts - Savage, Larry (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Review essay of "A Grander Vision: My Life in the Labour Movement" (2019) by Sid Ryan, and "A New Kind of Union: Unifor and the Birth of the Modern Canadian Union" (2019) by Fred Wilson.

Research Handbook on Employee Turnover - Sayin, Firat (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "Research Handbook on Employee Turnover," edited by George Saridakis and Cary L. Cooper.

Unions, Industrial Relations and Market Income Inequality in Canada’s Provinces - Scrimger, Phillippe (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
While decades of scholarship point to the broad consensus that unions compress the distribution of wages and incomes, recent empirical contributions suggest that unions’ within-country egalitarian effect is dwindling, as unions decline and membership composition changes. What is more, unions now operate in an increasingly difficult political economy transformed by, among other forces, globalization, financialization and fiscal austerity. At the same time, there is an increased demand for unions to play a broader role in a movement for distributive justice. Transposing these debates to the Canadian provincial context, this article asks whether unions still matter for reducing inequality. Considering the role of industrial relations more broadly by taking into account strike activity and collective labour statutes, the article explores the relationship between union power and market income inequality over a period ranging from 1984 to 2012. This empirical contribution is framed in theories from comparative capitalism, economics, and sociology. Descriptive longitudinal statistics support the well-documented union decline narrative. On average, union density and strike activity have declined in the provinces. As for the quality of collective labour rights, it is argued that the relative apparent stability of statutes conceals more substantive issues with Wagnerism as an organizing model. Linking unions to inequality, results from multivariate regressions using panel data suggest that union power still matters for limiting market income inequality. While estimates for strike action are not statistically significant, those for union density and the quality of collective labour statutes suggest that unions still exert an inequality-reducing effect. However, the rarity of significant estimates across models using different measures of inequality indicates that this effect is by no means comprehensive.
Keywords: déclin; grève; industrial relations; inequality; inégalités salariales; relations de travail; revenus; strikes; syndicat; union decline

All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence - Shaw, Joshua David Michael (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
The article reviews the book, "All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence," by Emily L. Thuma.

Seam Stress: Garment Work and Gendered Labour Struggle in 1980s Montreal - Siaw, Leona (Concordia University, 2020)
Montreal’s garment industry was the largest in Canada until most of its factories closed or relocated in the 1980s and 1990s, but it did not go out quietly. Staring down the barrel of rapid, state-sanctioned deindustrialization, 9,500 members of the Quebec ILGWU, most of them immigrant women, launched an industry-wide strike in August of 1983, the first in 43 years, as well as the last. Using the strike as a springboard, this thesis combines oral history interviews and archival material with historical, geographical, and feminist literatures to understand how women workers experienced and contested garment deindustrialization in 1980s Montreal. The result is a graphic novel about garment work and feminist labour struggle, for public consumption. This thesis adds much-needed female perspective to a growing body of work around deindustrialization and its contestation within history and geography. Conceptually and politically, it seeks to recast the Mile End and Mile-Ex as a site of feminist, working-class struggle, placing gentrification in conversation with deindustrialization while offering a primer on place-based labour organizing during a time of unprecedented capital mobility.

Canadian Administrative Law: The Case for Judicial Humility - Silberman Abella, Rosalie (Relations industrielles / Industrial Relations, 2020)
For decades, the Supreme Court of Canada has contemplated the appropriate standard of judicial review of decisions by administrative tribunals. The Court has grappled with the tension between the role of, and relationship between, courts and tribunals. The author, who has been both a judge and a tribunal member, argues for an attitude of humility towards these administrative bodies. With this approach, the author argues, even those most skeptical of tribunals might recognize their value as less formal, more expeditious, more expert, and binding dispute resolution mechanisms that complement—rather than detract from or compete with—courts. They may come to appreciate tribunals as the court’s institutional justice sibling, pursuing similar ends through different means.
Keywords: Canada; administrative law; droit administratif; justice; recognition; reconnaissance; role; rôle; tribunal

Broader-Based and Sectoral Bargaining in Collective-Bargaining Law Reform: - Slinn, Sara J. (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Compelling evidence exists that centralized bargaining structures, including broader-based and sectoral bargaining (bbb), offer significant benefits to workers. Examining the role of bbb in major Canadian labour law reform initiatives between the late 1980s and 2019, this article explores why the labour movement, despite the potential advantages of bbb, has not collectively pursued bbb reforms. It concludes with an analysis of the failure to incorporate bbb proposals into labour legislation and an assessment of the key challenges to adopting significant bbb reforms in the future. Earlier research concluded that bbb proposals in the 1990s failed because of employer opposition and lack of understanding, including by labour. This study departs from earlier conclusions to find that neither of these factors has been prominent regarding bbb in recent decades. Instead, lack of support for bbb arises from some unions’ concerns about preserving existing representation rights, resistance to the prospect of mandatory councils of unions, and anticipation of jurisdictional conflicts. Lack of support for bbb from some peak labour organizations arises from a consensus approach to deciding which labour law reform issues to promote. An additional challenge to its adoption is the politicized nature of labour law reform, and the political cost of innovative and untried proposals deter governments from adopting bbb.

Protected Concerted Activity and Non-Unionized Employee Strikes: Worker Rights in Canada in the Time of COVID-19 - Slinn, Sara J. (Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 2020)
During the pandemic employees in the US have engaged in a wave of strikes, protests, and other collective action over concerns about unsafe working conditions, and many of these involved non-unionized workers in the private sector. Similar employee protests were notably absent in Canada. This article examines the differences in labour legislation between the US and Canada, which may help to explain these diverging experiences, primarily: the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) section 7 protection for concerted activity, and the NLRA section 502 ability for a good faith strike due to abnormally dangerous conditions for work. This article outlines and compares the situation of, and consequences for, three categories of workers engaging in a strike over fears of workplace safety: unionized employees, non-unionized employees, and non-employees, such as independent contractors under the NLRA compared to under the Ontario Labour Relations Act (OLRA), as generally representative of Canadian labour legislation. In the final section, this article considers how a statutory provision similar to the NLRA protected concerted activity provision might be incorporated into Canadian labour legislation such as the OLRA. It also considers some more fundamental questions that such changes might prompt policymakers to reconsider, including: the focus of our statutory system on “organizing” collective action to the exclusion of “mobilizing” collective action, and questions about the potential role of minority unionism in our labour legislation system.

Class Struggle from Above: The Canadian State, Industrial Legality, and (the Never-Ending Usage of) Back-to-Work Legislation - Smith, Charles (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Analyzes the historical context of class struggle and strikes under capitalism, the restrictions on strike activity in Canada, and the entrenchment of back-to-work legislation under the Canadian neoliberal regime.

Back-to-Work Legislation Roundtable: Introduction - Smith, Charles W. (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Introduces the roundtable on back-to-work legislation held at the Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies' annual conference in 2019. Summarizes the papers presented and pays tribute to the work of Leo Panitch and Donald Swartz.

Abstracts / Résumés [v. 86, Fall 2020] - Smith, Charles; Sangster, Joan (Labour / Le Travail, 2020)
Abstracts of papers from no. 86, Fall 2020.