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Trade unions in Canada are losing their traditional support base, and membership numbers could sink to US levels unless unions recapture their power. Unions, Equity, and the Path to Renewal brings together a distinguished group of union activists and equity scholars who trace how traditional union cultures, practices, and structures have eroded solidarity and activism and created an equity deficit in Canadian unions. Informed by a feminist vision of unions as instruments of social justice, the contributors argue that equity within unions is not simply one possible path to union renewal – it is the only way to reposition organized labour as a central institution in workers’ lives. --Publisher's description

[S]ummarizes thirty years of effort by equity advocates to realize a feminist-inspired vision of a union movement that is inclusive and democratic, and that seeks to advance the interests of all working people, unionized or not. ...[The author] argues that the union renewal literature has not acknowledged the gendering of the labour movement, or the role that women's organizing has played in transofrming the labour movement and helping it to reposition itself in the face of neo-liberal globalization, thus assuring its future survival. --Editor's introduction

[C]onsists of an interview conducted by [the author] with Beverley Johnson, a long-time union activist, and her daughter, Marie Clarke Walker, currently an executive vice-president with the Canadian Labour Congress. It documents the historic and ongoing struggle for equity waged by people of colour, and the continuing acute problem of racism in Canada and within unions. --Editor's introduction

[P]resents statistics documenting the changing face of Canada's labour force, which is projected to become more feminized, more racialized, and more Aboriginal. ...[The author] warns that many of the most underprivileged workers are already turning to worker advocacy centres for help, rather than unions, because of unions' continuing failure to respond to their needs. --Editor's introduction

[E]xamines what types of issues unions should pursue in an effort to mobilize what is, at present, a largely a complacent or indifferent union membership. ...[The author] argues convincingly that the future survival of the labour movement lies with improving the lot of the most disadvantaged. --Editor's introduction

[E]xamines how coalition building between and across equity-seeking groups within unions contribute to union revitalization by building solidarity. [The author's] main focus is on what types of organizing structures contribute to unity in diversity, for example, by protecting the particular interests of each equity-seeking group while enabling a common equity agenda to be advanced. --Editor's introduction

[E]xamines the implications for unions of the federal and provincial human rights legislation and the Canadian Charter of Rights [with respect to equity]. ...[The author] warns that unless unions find acceptable ways to deal with the increasingly diverse interests of their members, conflict could ensue that could remove unions' legal right to represent certain minority intersts, as well as destroy union solidarity. [The author] describes one such conflict currently moving through the courts, which arose from the negotiation of a two-tier wage clause that is allegedly discriminatory. This is a cautionary tale that highlights the link between union revitalization and equity. --Editor's introduction

[D]raws on the [the author's] experiences in the Canadian Labour Congress and the Ontario labour movement to elaborate on the causes and consequenes of the limited progress made in advancing equity for racialized people within the labour movement. --Editor's introduction

The changing nature of the membership demographics within unions, along with declining union density and myriad other challenges, have made it mandatory for unions to change their traditional ways of doing things. In particular, because the porportion of female and minority group members within unions has grown considerably since the 1970s, equitable membership representation has become an issue of significant concern. The object of this chapter is to develop a general conceptual model of how to advance equity within unions.

[The authors] link union revitalization to the presence of separate spaces where women can identity and articulate their needs, create feminist politics, and develop the will and ability to contest existing power structures within unions. They offer three examples of how union feminists in Canada, the United States, and Australia have created such spaces in unlikely places and by so doing have secured workplace rights and economic and social justice for women. --Editor's introduction

[This book] is a collection of original papers that presents a vision of an invigorated and vibrant labour movement, one that would actively seek the full participation of women and other traditionally excluded groups, and that would willingly incorporate a feminist agenda. This vision challenges union complicity in the gendered segmentation of the labour market; union support for traditionalist ideologies about women's work, breadwinners, and male-headed families; union resistance to broader-based bargaining; and the marginalization of women inside unions. All of the authors share a commitment to workplace militancy and a more democratic union movement, to women's resistance to the devaluation of their work, to their agency in the change-making process. The interconnected web of militancy, democracy, and feminism provides the grounds on which unions can address the challenges of equity and economic restructuring, and on which the re-visioning of the labour movement can take place. The first of the four sections includes case studies of union militancy that highlight the experiences of individual women in three areas of female-dominated work: nursing, banking, and retailing. The second and third sections focus on the two key arenas of struggle where unions and feminism meet: inside unions, where women activists and staff confront the sexism of unions, and in the labour market, where women challenge their employers and their own unions. The fourth section deconstructs the conceptual tools of the discipline of industrial relations and examines its contribution to the continued invisibility of gender. --Publisher's description. Contents: Foreword / Judy Darcy -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Feminist Challenge to the Unions / Linda Briskin and Patricia McDermott. Part 1. Women on Strike. The Eaton's Strike: We Wouldn't Have Missed It for the World! / Patricia McDermott -- Alberta Nurses and the 'Illegal' Strike of 1988 / Rebecca Coulter -- Reflections on Life Stories: Women's Bank Union Activism / Patricia Baker. Part 2. The Politics of Gender within the Union Movement. Union Women and Separate Organizing / Linda Briskin -- Trade Union Leadership: Sexism and Affirmative Action / Carl J. Cuneo -- Women Working for Unions: Female Staff and the Politics of Transformation / Jane Stinson and Penni Richmond -- Black Women Speak Out: Racism and Unions / Ronnie Leah -- Unionism and Feminism in the Canadian Auto Workers Union, 1961-1992 / Pamela Sugiman. Part 3. Unions and Women Workers. Patterns of Unionization / Julie White -- Collective Bargaining and Women's Workplace Concerns / Pradeep Kumar -- The Gendered Dimension of Labour Law: Why Women Need Inclusive Unionism and Broader-based Bargaining / Judy Fudge -- Can a Disappearing Pie be Shared Equally?: Unions, Women, and Wage 'Fairness' / Rosemary Warskett -- Unions and Women's Occupational Health in Québec / Karen Messing and Donna Mergler -- From the DEW Line: The Experience of Canadian Garment Workers / Armine Yalniziyan -- Professions, Unions, or What?: Learning from Nurses Pat Armstrong. Part 4. Studying Women and Unions. A View from Outside the Whale: The Treatment of Women and Unions in Industrial Relations / Anne Forrest.