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  • This article explores union responses to workplace-based covid-19 vaccine mandates in Canada. Specifically, the authors examine the complex interplay of factors that drove unions to adopt their respective positions on vaccine mandates and to frame those positions in particular ways for the benefit of their members and the wider public. Interviews with key informants, along with analysis of documents and arbitration decisions, reveal a disjuncture between the discursive quality of certain unions’ positions and their actual positions. In particular, media framing of unions as either “for” or “against” vaccine mandates oversimplified or misrepresented the actual positions adopted. In response, the article introduces a typology of union positions that distinguishes between support for mandatory-vaccination policies and support for voluntary-vaccination policies and reveals that the vast majority of unions favoured the latter. The authors further reveal that workplace vaccine mandates were both internally divisive and disorienting for unions, given the central role labour organizations play in managing workplace disputes and representing the interests of workers, both individually and collectively.

  • We examine the pivotal role of academic staff associations (ASAs) in advocating and influencing the adoption of vaccination mandates at Canadian universities in the run-up to the fall 2021 term. Through document analysis and semi-structured interviews with ASA leaders and staff, we delve into the factors behind ASA positions on such mandates. We demonstrate that the vast majority of ASAs advocated robust COVID-19 mitigation measures, including vaccination mandates, but their approaches varied because of regional differences and institutional and sectoral dynamics. Many ASAs actively promoted mandatory vaccination, unlike the case with the vast majority of other unions.

Last update from database: 9/1/25, 4:10 AM (UTC)