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At the end of the twentieth century, as social democratic parties around the world struggled to produce a coherent response to the deindustrialization crisis, many pivoted towards progressive neoliberalism and Third Way social democracy. Almost everywhere, they turned their backs on the weakened trade union movement and embraced neoliberal assumptions about labour force flexibility and global competition. Shamefully, Third Way social democrats emphasized the moral dimension of poverty rather than its structural causes as they abandoned the old redistributive class politics of the Left. Based on extensive archival research and interviews with NDP politicians, senior economic policy advisors, and trade unionists, The Left in Power examines the response of the political Left in Ontario to the crisis that gripped the old ‘industrialized world.’ Steven High revisits the heartbreaking years of Bob Rae’s Ontario NDP government—from their historic and unexpected 1990 victory, to their policy shifts that left working-class voters feeling betrayed, to their landslide defeat in 1995—to uncover what we can learn from one social democratic party’s mistakes about how to govern from the Left. --Publisher's description
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The article reviews the book, "The Violence of Work: New Essays in Canadian and US Labour History," edited by Jeremy Milloy and Joan Sangster.
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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.
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Point Saint-Charles, a historically white working-class neighbourhood with a strong Irish and French presence, and Little Burgundy, a multiracial neighbourhood that is home to the city's English-speaking Black community, face each other across Montreal's Lachine Canal, once an artery around which work and industry in Montreal were clustered and by which these two communities were formed and divided. Deindustrializing Montreal challenges the deepening divergence of class and race analysis by recognizing the intimate relationship between capitalism, class struggles, and racial inequality. Fundamentally, deindustrialization is a process of physical and social ruination as well as part of a wider political project that leaves working-class communities impoverished and demoralized. The structural violence of capitalism occurs gradually and out of sight, but it doesn't play out the same for everyone. Point Saint-Charles was left to rot until it was revalorized by gentrification, whereas Little Burgundy was torn apart by urban renewal and highway construction. This historical divergence had profound consequences in how urban change has been experienced, understood, and remembered. Drawing extensive interviews, a massive and varied archive of imagery, and original photography by David Lewis into a complex chorus, Steven High brings these communities to life, tracing their history from their earliest years to their decline and their current reality. He extends the analysis of deindustrialization, often focused on single-industry towns, to cities that have seemingly made the post-industrial transition. The urban neighbourhood has never been a settled concept, and its apparent innocence masks considerable contestation, divergence, and change over time. Deindustrializing Montreal thinks critically about locality, revealing how heritage becomes an agent of gentrification, investigating how places like Little Burgundy and the Point acquire race and class identities, and questioning what is preserved and for whom. -- Publisher's description
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Introduces the theme of deindustrialization in Canada including history, gender, regions, technology, and resistance Summarizes the various contributions to this special issue of the journal.
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Job security has always been a paramount concern for the trade union movement. This article explores the ways that unions used collective bargaining to gain a measure of job security for their members in the face of deindustrialization as unionized factories in North America began to close in large numbers after the 1970s. These new measures included advance notice, severance pay, plant closing moratoria, restrictions placed on plant movements, transfer rights, and expanding the scope of collective ‘social’ bargaining to cover training and adjustment. In some sectors, such as automotive, collective bargaining has also been extended into areas normally left to management. The price was often high. Eventually some unions, notably the Canadian Auto Workers (established 1985; part of Unifor after 2013), prioritized winning new capital investments and product lines for unionized plants in their negotiations, though often at the cost of jobs, wage freezes or reductions, and other concessions. By focusing upon auto sector deindustrialization in Canada since the 1980s, we draw lessons from more recent union bargaining strategies, and how they constitute an important element of worker responses to industrial job loss and manufacturing closure.
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