Negotiating Job Security and Capital Investments in Response to Deindustrialization: The Case of Canada’s Auto Sector

Resource type
Authors/contributors
Title
Negotiating Job Security and Capital Investments in Response to Deindustrialization: The Case of Canada’s Auto Sector
Abstract
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.
Publication
Labor History
Pages
1-17
Date
2024
Language
English
ISSN
0023-656X
Short Title
Negotiating Job Security and Capital Investments in Response to Deindustrialization
Accessed
3/22/24, 6:13 PM
Library Catalog
Taylor and Francis+NEJM
Extra
Publisher: Routledge _eprint: https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2024.2321243
Citation
Anastakis, D., & High, S. (2024). Negotiating Job Security and Capital Investments in Response to Deindustrialization: The Case of Canada’s Auto Sector. Labor History, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/0023656X.2024.2321243