Search

Dans un contexte d’affaiblissement du dialogue social en général et de la légitimité des syndicats en particulier, nous proposons dans cet article de renouveler notre regard sur le binôme managers et syndicats à travers un changement de perspective. Dans le cadre d’une recherche qualitative approfondie menée au sein de l’industrie aéronautique française, nous nous sommes intéressée au dialogue informel quotidien entre les middle-managers et délégués syndicaux à l’échelle de l’atelier (Kochan, Katz et McKersie, 1994). Nous avons cherché à identifier la nature et les conditions du dialogue entre managers et syndicats dans leur activité quotidienne. Pour ancrer ce changement de perspective, nous utiliserons le concept de dialogue relationnel (Cunliffe et Eriksen, 2011) permettant de dépasser l’approche traditionnelle de dialogue social et pour en éprouver autrement l’effet. Nous montrerons alors que le dialogue relationnel, qui est basé sur une qualité relationnelle, une approche processuelle du dialogue et sa dimension polyphonique, permet aux middle-managers d’anticiper les tensions dans les équipes et d’améliorer leurs décisions managériales. Or, ce dialogue relationnel n’est pas perçu de manière positive par toute l’organisation, notamment les responsables des ressources humaines, qui tentent d’en réduire l’impact grâce à la mise en place d’outils de gestion empêchant les arbitrages plus informels issus du dialogue entre les managers et les syndicats. S’inscrivant dans l’évolution récente des recherches en RI s’enrichissant de cadres conceptuels venant des organizations studies, cet article contribue à tester le concept de dialogue relationnel non pas entre le manager et ses collaborateurs, mais avec des responsables syndicaux. Nous avons ainsi pu identifier des conditions organisationnelles de ce dialogue, ce qui n’avait pas encore été fait. En effet miroir, l’application du concept de dialogue relationnel dans une situation de relations professionnelles permet d’enrichir l’approche pluraliste en soulignant à la fois ses potentialités et l’importance des conditions nécessaires à ce type de dialogue.

Community unionism is still contested in the literature, and its presence across various industries and union formations is often not concretely described. This thesis engages in an examination of community unionism within the literature and assesses its potential presence in Toronto’s Labour Community Services, an organization which provides administrative and organizational support to labour unions and community groups in the Greater Toronto Area. Interviews with LCS organizers and staff members and other Toronto labour activists are assessed against common depictions of community unionism within the literature to determine if LCS is engaged in community unionism, or perhaps some other organizational strategies or philosophies. Interviews demonstrated a clear commitment to community building and deepened ties between the labour movement and various formations of community across Toronto and surrounding regions. Interviews also reveal the state of union-community resources, the barriers commonly experienced in this form of organizing, and how organizers and staff members perceive their role in the broader labour movement. Interviews with key informants reveal a series of strategies and choices which shape how Labour Community Services operates. Ultimately, Labour Community Services does not engage in community unionism as a whole practice, but rather utilizes several strategies and operative choices that share common ground with community unionism. A byproduct of these strategic choices is the creation of forms of community unionism between both the labour unions and community groups that LCS frequently works with.

The article reviews the book, "The Origin and Dynamics of Inequality: Sex, Politics and Ideology," by Jon Wisman.

Une meilleure pollinisation croisée entre l’économie du travail et les relations industrielles conduirait à des gains mutuels. Le présent article s’articule autour de critiques courantes de l’économie du travail qui sont illustrées par des exemples tirés des relations industrielles. Ces critiques, ainsi que leurs principes sous-jacents, expliquent souvent d’importants concepts des relations industrielles et apportent par le fait- même des connaissances susceptibles d’enrichir les réflexions en économie du travail. L’intention de cet article est d’avoir un regard prospectif pour faire avancer la réflexion théorique et empirique sur les aspects actuels et futurs du travail et de l’emploi.

Mutual gains can be made through greater cross-pollination between labour economics and industrial relations. The paper is organized around common criticisms of labour economics, with examples from industrial relations. Such criticisms, and their underlying principles, often explain important concepts in industrial relations, which can provide insights that may enhance labour economics. The intent here is to apply a forward-looking lens to advance theoretical and empirical reflection on current and future aspects of work and employment.

The article reviews the book, "Making and Breaking Settler Space: Five Centuries of Colonization in North America," by Adam J. Barker.

Recent years have seen massive waves of migration from the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa to Europe and North America and a corresponding rise in anti-immigrant, far-right populism in host countries, placing the question of migration at the forefront of politics and social movements. Henaway seeks to understand these patterns through contextualizing global migration within a history of global capitalism, class formation, and the financialization of migration. As globalization intensifies, a neoliberal labour market forces workers around an unevenly developed world to compete for wages--not through foreign investment and outsourcing, but through an increasingly mobile working class. Henaway rejects the right-wing response of restricting or "managing" immigration through temporary worker programs and instead suggests that stopping a race to the bottom for all working people involves building solidarity with the struggles of these migrants for decent work and justice. Through examining the organizing strategies of migrant workers at giants like Amazon and Wal-Mart as well as discount retailers like Dollarama and Sports Direct, the immense power and agency of precarious workers in global companies like UBER or Airbnb, the successful resistance of taxi drivers or fast food workers around the world, and the contemporary mass labour movement organized by new unions and workers' centres, Henaway shows how migrant demands and strategies can help shape radical working class politics in North America and Europe. --Publisher's description

Four working-class Vancouver sisters, still reeling from the impact of World War I and the pandemic that stole their only brother, are scraping by but attempting to make the most of the exciting 1920s. Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue is a love story — but like all love stories, it’s complicated … Morag is pregnant; she loves her husband. Georgina can’t bear hers and dreams of getting an education. Harriet-Jean, still at home with her opium-addicted mother, is in love with a woman. Isla’s pregnant too — and in love with her sister’s husband. Only one soul knows about Isla’s pregnancy, and it isn’t the father. When Isla resorts to a back-street abortion and nearly dies, Llewellyn becomes hellbent on revenge. But can revenge lead to anything but disaster for a man like Llew — a policeman tangled up in running rum to Prohibition America? Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue is immersed in the complex political and social realities of the 1920s and, not-so ironically, of the 2020s: love, sex, desire, police corruption, abortion, addiction, and women wanting more. Beautifully written, with a loveable cast of characters, this novel is a tender account of love that cannot be acknowledged, of loss and regret, risk and defiance, abiding friendship, and the powerful bonds of chosen family. --Publisher's description

Deindustrialization became a pressing political issue and an object of research almost simultaneously in North America. This article inquires into the intellectual origins and radical roots of the deindustrialization thesis in Canada and the United States. Though the two countries share much in common, their distinctive formulations of the deindustrial problem in the 1970s and 1980s reflected key economic and political differences between them. Radical political economists in Canada and the United States turned to dependency theory and capital flight, respectively, in their theorization of deindustrialization. Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison’s 1982 book, The Deindustrialization of America, in particular, is a founding text for the burgeoning field of deindustrialization studies. We can learn much from re-engaging with this early scholarship. In doing so, however, we need to bridge the continuing analytical divide between micro-level labour histories of working-class communities and macro-level studies of political economy and the international division of labour.

Since its founding as a province, Saskatchewan has been depicted by the academic literature as possessing a political culture that was distinctly collectivist, dirigiste, protectionist, and polarized, largely owed to the historical political dominance of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the New Democratic Party (NDP) in the province. Such narratives have outlived the political fortunes of both the CCF and NDP, and have, until this point, persisted despite the rise of the right-wing Saskatchewan Party. This thesis aims to fill a scholarly gap, through considering the influence of prolonged Saskatchewan Party governance on the province’s politics and assessing the current state of Saskatchewan’s political culture. Specifically, I ask the following question: what is the dominant political culture strand in Saskatchewan Party-era Saskatchewan? Through a series of online focus group activities involving people from across the province, I assess and substantiate the influence of political culture pillars, such as collectivism, laissez-faire, heartland, and adversarialism, in shaping Saskatchewan’s provincial identity and contemporary political culture. This study demonstrates that Saskatchewan’s political culture has changed. Specifically, this thesis finds Saskatchewan’s contemporary political culture to be ‘blended’, containing components of both traditional and alternative political culture strands, although displaying a slight preference for the neoliberal and conservative alternative political culture. The findings suggest that the current Saskatchewan political culture has departed from its collectivist and hinterland traditions in favour of individualism and heartland. Meanwhile, the political orientations towards the provincial government’s role in the society and the economy (dirigisme or laissez-faire) or the attitudes Saskatchewanians possess towards political actors and the political system (adversarialism or pragmatism) are considerably more varied and lack ideological consistence. Ultimately, this study highlights the influence of political party shifts in serving as mechanisms and reflections of political culture change and provides an overview of Saskatchewan’s contemporary political culture under prolonged Saskatchewan Party governance. A concluding discussion highlights the value and significance of this research and suggests area of future exploration about Saskatchewan provincial politics and political culture.

The article reviews the book, "Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Walmart," by Adam Reich and Peter Bearman.

Comment les syndicats chinois réagissent-ils à la plateformisation du travail et à la résistance des travailleurs des plateformes ? Centré sur les livreurs de repas, cet article examine les défis que le travail de plateforme pose à la Fédération nationale des syndicats de Chine (Zhonghua quanguo zonggonghui中华全国总工会), la seule organisation syndicale légale en Chine, et la manière dont, dans un premier temps, les livreurs se sont mis en lutte sans l’intervention des syndicats. Dans un deuxième temps, répondant aux injonctions des autorités politiques, la FNSC a cherché à syndiquer les livreurs en développant de nouveaux modes d’organisation. Parallèlement, elle a développé une offre de service à destination de ces travailleurs. Ce n’est que tout récemment qu’elle s’est impliquée dans la négociation de conventions collectives portant sur les conditions d’emploi et de travail des livreurs. Même si le manque de recul ne permet pas de saisir la portée réelle de ces négociations, elle interpelle cependant par rapport à la réalité du syndicalisme en Chine.

The article reviews the book, "The Heart of Toronto: Corporate Power, Civic Activism, and the Remaking of Downtown Yonge Street," by Daniel Ross.

We examined how home-based teleworkers perceived managerial control in an Italian context in order to gain insight into some of the organizational changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on studies of changes to managerial control over the past few decades, we show how workers have experienced the reconfiguration and hybridization of control practices and methods in home telework. Our results cast doubt on the widely held belief that telework is revolutionizing managerial control and work procedures. Organizational and power dynamics at work are key to determining how telework affects employee experiences.

This brief addresses the specific discussion questions posed in the Ministry’s Paper and highlights several other priority areas for reform that are essential for ensuring that app-based workers have access to the full range of rights and protections afforded to other workers in our province, including the right to collectively bargain.

The rise of the ‘gig economy’ and on-demand work using online platforms like Uber and Skip the Dishes has ignited public debate about precarious work and what makes a “good job.” Precarious work is not a new phenomenon, nor is it limited to the gig economy—but we don’t know just how widespread a problem it has become, mainly because Statistics Canada does not collect timely data on many of its dimensions. As part of the Understanding Precarity in BC project we conducted a pilot BC Precarity Survey—the first of its kind in BC—to address this gap and collect new evidence on the scale and unequal impacts of precarious work in our province. The survey, conducted in late 2019, reveals a polarized labour market in which precarious work is far more pervasive than many assume and includes much more than “gig work.” It also shows that the burden of precarious work falls more heavily on racialized and immigrant communities, Indigenous peoples, women and lower-income groups. --Website description

Pour célébrer le 60e anniversaire de l’Association canadienne des relations industrielles (ACRI), Relations industrielles-Industrial Relations (RI-IR) et l’ACRI ont convenu de publier un numéro spécial afin de faire progresser et de consolider les connaissances dans notre domaine. Depuis plus d’un siècle en Amérique du Nord, les chercheurs et les praticiens des relations industrielles étudient les problèmes liés au travail et à l’emploi, qui se perpétuent dans le cadre des modèles de production capitalistes, mais qui deviennent de plus en plus diversifiés et complexes. Par exemple, alors que le travail précaire, la santé et la sécurité au travail et les changements technologiques ont toujours posé des défis aux travailleurs, la pandémie mondiale de COVID-19 a montré que nous n’avons pas fait tout ce que nous pensions pour créer des systèmes d’emploi ou des politiques du travail qui facilitent l’équilibre entre la vie professionnelle et la vie privée, protègent les revenus des travailleurs contre les risques sociaux, permettent d’atteindre l’équité en matière d’emploi, retiennent les personnes et les compétences nécessaires au bon fonctionnement des organisations et respectent l’exercice des droits fondamentaux par les travailleurs. De plus en plus, les praticiens doivent faire face à ce que certains appellent une « polycrise », c’est-à-dire plusieurs crises simultanées (par exemple, le vieillissement de la population, l’inflation, l’évolution des préférences des travailleurs, le travail à distance et/ou le retour au travail en personne, les changements démographiques générationnels). Ces crises se combinent et s’exacerbent les unes les autres, rendant ainsi les problèmes classiques de main-d’oeuvre plus imprévisibles et plus complexes. --Introduction

To commemorate the Canadian Industrial Relations Association’s (CIRA-ACRI) 60th anniversary, Relations industrielles-Industrial Relations (RI-IR) and CIRA have agreed to publish a special issue to advance and consolidate knowledge in our field. For more than a century in North America, industrial relations scholars and practitioners have been studying work and employment problems, which remain age-old under capitalist models of production but are becoming more diverse and complex. For instance, while precarious work, occupational health and safety and technological change have always challenged workers, the global COVID-19 pandemic has shown that we have not come as far as we think in creating employment systems or labour policies that facilitate work-life balance, protect worker incomes against social risks, achieve employment equity, retain the people and skills required for effective operation of organizations and respect workers’ exercise of fundamental rights. More and more, practitioners must deal with what some call a “polycrisis”—several crises happening at once (e.g., population aging, inflation, changing worker preferences, remote work and/or a return to face-to-face work, generational demographic shifts). These crises combine with and exacerbate each other, thus making classic labour problems more unpredictable and complex. --Introduction

Bereavement scholarship predominantly explores psychological aspects of grief, which neglects the role of social, economic, and political factors that shape the space allotted to accommodate these experiences. The current Canadian social context offers minimal space to honour bereavement as a part of the human condition. Aiming to respond to calls for enhancing bereavement care, this dissertation explores bereavement accommodation for workers in precarious employment in Ontario, Canada. Drawing on critical qualitative research and feminist ethics, this study employs policy analysis and in-depth interviews to generate multi-scalar knowledge on the everyday experiences of bereaved workers in precarious employment. I argue that there are discrepancies between how bereavement is represented in the social context and the everyday experiences of bereaved workers. The current representation portrays bereavement as a short-term, workplace disruption, neglecting grief and many forms of practical and emotional labour in bereavement. Participants expressed they were uninformed and unprepared for grief and bereavement labour, and that navigating the current context created tension, stress, exhaustion, isolation, and stigma. I argue we need a collective, ontological reckoning with our sense of autonomy, recognizing and honouring our interdependence in life and death. I argue that bereavement is a neglected public health issue driven by socio-political forces that devalue relationality, stigmatize emotions, and render bereavement an individual responsibility. This thesis makes broad recommendations for a public health approach to bereavement care, including enhancing grief literacy, creating more responsive care pathways and strategies for addressing individual and collective grief, and establishing safeguards for precarious workers.

The article reviews the book, "Under the Iron Heel: The Wobblies and the Capitalist War on Radical Workers," by Ahmed White.