Labour Studies
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Thailand’s Hidden Workforce
Burmese Women Factory Workers
Kyoko Kusakabe, Ruth Pearson
Millions of Burmese women migrate into Thailand each year to form the basis of the Thai agricultural and manufacturing workforce. Un-documented and unregulated, this army of migrant workers constitutes the ultimate ‘disposable’ labour force, enduring grueling working conditions and much aggression from the Thai police and immigration authorities. This insightful book ventures into a part of the global economy rarely witnessed by Western observers. Based on unique empirical research,… (more information)
Struck Out
Why Employment Tribunals Fail Workers and What Can Be Done
David Renton
Every year, over a hundred thousand workers bring claims to an Employment Tribunal. The settling of disputes between employers and unions has been exchanged by many for individual litigation. In Struck Out, barrister David Renton gives a practical and critical guide to the system. In doing so he punctures a number of media myths about the Tribunals. Far from bringing flimsy cases, two-thirds of claimants succeed at the hearing. And rather than paying lottery-size jackpots, average awards are just… (more information)
Rethinking the Politics of Labour in Canada
Edited by Stephanie Ross, Larry Savage
Though the Canadian labour movement’s postwar political, economic and social achievements may have seemed like irrevocable contributions to human progress, they have proven to be anything but. Since the mid-1970s, labour’s political influence and capacity to defend, let alone extend, these gains has been seriously undermined by the strategies of both capitalist interests and the neoliberal state. Electoral de-alignment and the decline of class-based voting, bursts of unsustained extra… (more information)
Stayin’ Alive
The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class
Jefferson Cowie
A wide-ranging cultural and political history that will forever redefine a misunderstood decade, Stayin’ Alive is a remarkable account of how working-class America hit the rocks in the political and economic upheavals of the 1970s. In this edgy and incisive book—part political intrigue, part labor history, with large doses of American music, film, and TV lore—Cowie, with “an ear for the power and poetry of vernacular speech” (Cleveland Plain Dealer), reveals America… (more information)
Wage Theft in America
Why Millions of Working Americans are Not Being Paid – And What We Can Do About It
Kim Bobo
In what has been described as “the crime wave no one talks about,” billions of dollars worth of wages are stolen from millions of workers in the United States every year— a grand theft that exceeds every other larceny category. Even the Economic Policy Foundation, a business-funded think tank, has estimated that companies annually steal an incredible $19 billion in unpaid overtime. The scope of these abuses is staggering, but activists, unions, and policymakers—along with… (more information)
Canadian Labour in Crisis
Reinventing the Workers’ Movement
David Camfield
Does Canada have a working-class movement? Though many of us think of ourselves as middle class, most of us are, in fact, working class: we work for a wage. And though many of us are members of unions — the most significant organizations of the working-class movement in Canada — most people do not understand themselves to be part of this movement. Canadian Labour in Crisis asks why this is so. Through an analysis of the contemporary Canadian working-class movement and its historical… (more information)
Generation NGO
Edited by Alisha Apale, Valerie Stam
Young Canadians are increasingly active and engaged in global issues. Many are eagerly poised to contribute—in smaller and even larger ways—to international development and the Canadian national politics that, for better or worse, shape the field. Generation NGO captures some of the first impressions of these young international development professionals before they are relegated to the dusty corners of memory. It provides snapshots of some of their first experiences with inequality… (more information)
Manufacturing Meltdown
Reshaping Steel Work
D.W. Livingstone, Dorothy Smith, Warren Smith
In the 1980s, following decades of booming business, the global steel industry went into a precipitous decline, which necessitated significant restructuring. Management demanded workers’ increased participation in evermore temporary and insecure labour. Engaging the workers at the flagship Stelco plant in Hamilton, the authors document new management strategies and the responses of unionized workforces to them. These investigations provide valuable insights into the dramatic changes occurring… (more information)
Invisible Handcuffs of Capitalism
How Market Tyranny Stifles the Economy by Stunting Workers
Michael Perelman
Mainstream, or more formally, neoclassical, economics claims to be a science. But as Michael Perelman makes clear, nothing could be further from the truth. While a science must be rooted in material reality, mainstream economics ignores or distorts the most fundamental aspect of this reality: that the vast majority of people must labor on behalf of others, transformed into nothing but a means to the end of maximum profits for their employers. Perelman describes this illusion as the “invisible… (more information)
Class and Gender in British Labour History
Renewing the Debate (or starting it?)
Mary Davis
Politics constructs gender and gender constructs politics: this is a central theme in this collection of essays which seek not only to write a history that focus on women’s experiences but seeks also to analyze those dynamic forces that have shaped that history. It examines the ‘making’ of the other half of the working class women- as workers, trade unionists and political activists, and seeks to weave together intricate relationships between class and gender, particularly within… (more information)
Histories of Labour
National and International Perspectives
Edited by Joan Allen, Alan Campbell, John McIlroy
This book is a survey of the global trajectory of labour history, written by labour historians of international repute who are experts in the labour history of particular countries. Considering the labour histories of a number of countries, these essays examine early labour history, the 1960s, the mid-twentieth century, institutional contexts, links to the labour movement and conceptions of class, gender, ethnicity, culture, community and power. The authors analyze key debates, question dominant… (more information)
If You’re in My Way, I’m Walking
The Assault on Working People since 1970
Thom Workman
“If you’re in my way I’m walking.” This arrogant statement by former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien on the occasion of his physical altercation with a protester in Hull, Quebec in the mid-1990s symbolizes the spirit of the relentless drive of capital to rewrite the historical compromise reached with working people after World War II. This early post-war compromise—sometimes referred to as the Fordist Compact—was associated with improving wages and rising… (more information)
The Guy in the Green Truck
John St. Amand – A Biography
James N. McCrorie
Few mature men and women choose to abandon secure employment with handsome health and retirement benefits for a cause and an uncertain future. This biographical memoir is about a man who did just this, abandoning a promising career as a sociologist at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario, for the turbulent life of union organizer in Nova Scotia. In one of his first organizing campaigns, John St. Amand crisscrossed industrial Cape Breton signing up workers to the new Canadian Miner’s Union… (more information)
Fight Back
Work Place Justice for Immigrants
Aziz Choudry, Jill Hanley, Steve Jordan, Eric Shragge, Martha Stiegman
Displacement of people, migration, immigration and the demand for labour are connected to the fundamental restructuring of capitalism and to the reduction of working class power through legislation to free the market from “state interference.” The consequence is that a large number of immigrant and temporary foreign workers face relentless competition and little in the way of protection in the labour market. Globally and in Canada, immigrant workers are not passive in the face of these… (more information)
Mining Town Crisis
Globalization, Labour and Resistance in Sudbury
Edited by David Leadbeater
Sudbury is the largest hardrock mining centre in North America and among the largest in the world. Given the enormous mineral wealth that exists in the Sudbury Basin, one might think that prosperity would abound and that cultural, educational, health and social-welfare institutions would be of the highest order, existing within a well-maintained and attractive physical infrastructure. But this is not the Sudbury that people know. This book explores key aspects of Sudbury’s economic, health… (more information)
Building a Better World 2nd Edition
An Introduction to Trade Unionism in Canada, 2nd edition
Errol Black, Jim Silver
Substantially revised and updated, this widely used introductory text emphasizes how values, objectives and activities of unions are shaped in the face of employer resistance and hostile governments. It includes an analysis of why workers form unions; organization and democracy; collective bargaining and grievances; historical development; and gains unions have achieved for their members and all working people. It also examines the challenges created by rapid economic and technological change, the… (more information)
Capitalism Rebooted?
Work, Welfare, and the New Economy
Edited by Wayne Antony, Dave Broad
The so-called New Economy, based on huge advances in information and communication technologies, economic globalization and neoliberalism, promised to expand economic opportunities and growth, provide stimulating and well-paid jobs, reduce inequalities and develop the Third World. But the experiences of the past two decades have hardly been positive for workers and their families. While there have been significant economic and workplace changes, these changes have not been the boon to working people… (more information)
My Union, My Life
Jean-Claude Parrot and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Jean-Claude Parrot
Jean-Claude Parrot was National President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers for fifteen years and its chief negotiator for eighteen. During that time he provided the leadership which built what became Canada’s most militant and democratic union. When Pierre Trudeau decided to make the post office a crown corporation Parrot was there to guide the transition. He was also there to oversee the merger of the various postal unions into “one union for all.” As well as Jean-Claude… (more information)
Women Fishes These Days
Brenda Grzetic
As the fisheries have dramatically changed in Newfoundland and Labrador, so has the work and learning experiences of women fishers. Restructuring, work and learning are not gender neutral. Women Fishes These Days explores women’s lives in the restructured fishery, their workload and work responsibilities, work relations, professionalization and training. It also, through a series of interviews with women fishers, looks at the impact on their identity, their autonomy and, particularly, their… (more information)
Stickin’ to the Union
Local 2224 vs. John Buhler
Doug Smith
Stickin’ to the Union tells the story of the nine-month battle that the workers at Versatile Industries fought with their employer, the eccentric millionaire John Buhler, in the winter of 2001. Buhler, who had just bought the Versatile tractor plant with a $32-million government loan, provoked a strike by demanding a gutting of benefits and seniority provisions in the union contract. The union surprised all by charging Buhler with bargaining in bad faith and won a $6-million dollar labour-… (more information)
Industry and Society in Nova Scotia
An Illustrated History
Edited by James E. Candow
In 1990 the steam locomotive Samson was relocated to its current home in Stellarton’s Museum of Industry, where it was dismantled, conserved, re-assembled and put on display as the centerpiece of the Museum’s permanent collection. It is now the oldest surviving locomotive in Canada, and one of the oldest in the world. Samson, Hercules and John Buddle arrived in Nova Scotia in September 1839, the most conspicuous evidence yet that this British North American province had joined the industrial… (more information)
The Socialist Register 2001
Working Classes, Global Realities
Edited by Colin Leys, Leo Panitch
Managers want new workers who can be used casually-people scared and disciplined by lacking a secure job. Restricting workers’ skills and depriving workers of opportunities to learn and to organize makes for a more dependent and docile work force. Unions are not welcome. Blairs, Clintons and Schroeders may believe that their policies are working, and that opportunities are growing for ‘everyone’ but class exploitation and oppression remain facts of life in the new century. Socialist… (more information)
Jobs of Our Own
Building a Stakeholder Society
Race Matthews
”In Britain, Canada, Spain and Australia, there have been ongoing efforts to develop and alternative and kinder wasy of doing business-a Middle Way-dating back to and beyond the opening of this century. Race Matthews has uncovered a fascinating and unexpected linkage between these apparently unconnected reform movements. Are these the roots of a 21st century renaissance?”-Father Greg MacLeod, community economic activist, founder of New Dawn Enterprises and author of From Mondragon to… (more information)
Hollow Work, Hollow Society
Globalization and the Casual Labour Problem in Canada
Dave Broad
More and more people in Canada and other Western countries are now working at part-time, short-term and other casual jobs. People are now asking: What happened to full-time employment? Why is part-time work being promoted by business people and politicians as a positive thing? Situated historically, the restructuring of global capital and labour markets does not paint such a rosy picture. This book explains the contemporary casualization of work as integral to global economic restructuring. Hence… (more information)
Recasting Steel Labour
The Stelco Story
June Corman, D.W. Livingstone, Meg Luxton, Wally Secombe
This is a local study of steelworkers employed at, or aid off from, Stelco’s Hilton Works in Hamilton, Ontario. This local study has been situated in the context of the global restructuring of capitalism. The authors content that more than ever before the dynamics of the whole world economy limit and shape the actions of its past – a process referred to as “globalizing the local.” Restructuring is taking place in response to global demands. As the global net tighten,… (more information)
The Westray Tragedy
A Miner’s Story
Sean Comish
”Shaun pulls no punches and gives no quarter to those responsible for what took place on May 9th. This is a book that Canadians will want to read. The company, as Shaun states in his book, tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the public. They were not fooled. Shaun’s book gives the screaming truth of the incompetency and lack of regard for human life by company officials and politicians.” - Mike Piche, United Steelworkers (more information)
Were You Born on the Wrong Continent
How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life
Thomas Geoghegan
Tired of working ‘til you drop and not going anywhere? Try to imagine your life in a full-blown European social democracy—especially the German version. In an idiosyncratic, entertaining travelogue written in a “chatty, anecdotal style [that’s] appealingly digressive and winning” (Publishers Weekly), Thomas Geoghegan explains the appeal of “boring” Germany, where workers sit as directors on the big corporate boards and ordinary people have six weeks off… (more information)