Just Labour (E-Journal - York University)
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An Introduction to the Initiative on the New Economy: Restructuring Work and Labour in the New Economy (RWL-INE)
Get PDFThe Union Advantage in Child Care: How Unionization Can Help Recruitment and Retention
Get PDFUnions exert a positive influence in child care workplaces and in the sector generally. Unionization is an important strategy for dealing with recruitment and retention, two of the biggest challenges facing the sector in Canada today. Overall, unionized child care workplaces contribute to higher quality programs and attract more experienced and more trained early childhood educators. Unions support a model of professionalism and workplace relationships that is inclusive, democratic and collective. They support professional development, affordable education and regulation of the service and the occupation. They are longstanding advocates for women’s equality, and a publicly funded child care system
Solidarity Forever? An Analysis of Changes in Union Density
Get PDFOriginally prepared to provide background information and analysis for a Canadian Labour Congress conference on rebuilding unions in the Fall of 2003, this article maps trends in union density i.e., the proportion of workers covered by a collective agreement. It provides a short overview of the period since the mid 1980s, and a much more detailed analysis of the period from 1997 to 2002 for which detailed data from Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey are available. Union density has trended down in the private sector to below 20% more because of a density decline among male blue collar workers than because of deindustrialization per se. Union density has remained high in public and social services, including outside the direct public sector, and this mainly explains why union density has held up much better among women than men. Union density is low, but relatively stable, in private consumer and business services. Density has fallen proportionately less in the higher union density provinces, particularly Quebec, and has fallen to well below average levels among private sector workers in the fastest growing provinces of Ontario and Alberta
Linking Labour Studies and Unions: Past Lessons and Future Visions
Get PDFOver the past century unions and post-secondary educational institutions have enjoyed an uneasy relationship. At times unions have courted universities and at other times college and university labour studies programmes have courted unions. Currently there are only a handful of labour studies programmes in Canada, and the support they receive from the labour movement is tepid at best. Why should this be? This paper surveys the history of this relationship from the arrival in Canada of the Workers’ Educational Association in 1918 to the present and offers a blueprint for future cooperation that would provide a variety of learning opportunities for trade unionists
Revealing the Class-Gender Connection: Social Policy, Labour Markets and Households
Get PDFComparative studies of welfare states are in the process of changing how they examine the relationships between class, gender and generations. Earlier accounts have focused on ideal types of regimes connecting social policy and labour markets. More recent accounts invoke families as key sites of investigation. The argument introduced here advocates for the combined connection between the intersections triad of social policy, labour markets and households as they reveal the relations embodied in class, gender and generation. Most of the illustrations locate households within the triad since they have received the least attention
The Design and Evaluation of a Joint Health and Safety Committee Education Programme in the Healthcare Sector in Western Canada
Get PDFIn spite of the long-term existence of joint committees, injury rates appear to be increasing in the healthcare sector. The purpose of this study was to deliver and evaluate a province-wide joint committee (JC) education program for healthcare institutions BC. The joint committee education program was designed with input from labour and management representatives and expert advice from compensation, union, and human resources consultants. The training program was designed to: 1) ensure that committee members fully understood their roles and responsibilities as outlined under the Workers' Compensation Act and Regulations, 2) increase the problem solving skills of committee members, 3) improve the committee's ability in identifying and resolving health and safety concerns in their workplace. Between June and December 2000, 1,206 JC members, (employed at 262 different healthcare facilities), were trained. An evaluation survey, designed as a retrospective before and after study, to evaluate whether the JC training sessions had produced changes in committee functioning was conducted from 7 to 15 months after the training (during the period July 2001 to September 2001) by two trained telephone interviewers. While the level of JC functioning was quite high most institutions prior to training the evaluation survey found large and statistically significant improvements in JC functioning. A 39.5% increase in the proportion of respondents reporting “high” marks for JC effectiveness in identifying hazards and an increase of 50% reporting “high” marks for understanding the JCs role were observed. Increases in the proportion of respondents reporting “high” marks for accuracy of JC minutes, specificity of recommendations, and perhaps most importantly, degrees of cooperation among JC members were in the 20 percent range. IN conclusion this province-wide training of JC members in healthcare institutions increased the functioning of JCs in key areas
Work and Family: Still the Most Difficult Revolution? A Review of the Women and Unions Conference, 2003
Get PDFAn Introduction to the Initiative on the New Economy: Restructuring Work and Labour in the New Economy (RWL-INE)
Get PDFClass Action: Building Political Activism Among Union Activists
Get PDFNew research into the political attitudes and behaviours of union activists challenges traditional beliefs about the prospects for politicizing unionists in Canada. A study of union activists in Alberta finds two significant results. First union activists are more politically active than the average Canadian. This contradicts conventional wisdom about union activists. Second, unions can play a direct and important role in fostering political participation among their activists, a finding that has the potential to extend to the general membership. However, to be effective in mobilizing unionists politically, unions need to approach the project differently than they do at present. It is a project of action, not words, and it must be grounded in the lived experience of union workers. In particular, perceptions of class play a central role in shaping the political decisions of unionists. Relational articulations of class lead to political mobilization, and thus union actions must reflect the lived experience of being working class in Canada
Excavating the Labour Dispute Data from Statistics Canada: A Research Note
Get PDFHas worker militancy changed as a result of restructuring and globalization? Have the gender-specific impacts of the 'new economy' politicized women workers in particular, especially those in the public sector? These two research questions are guiding this project.The first step has been to seek out the available Canadian statistical data which might help map worker militancy. This research note introduces the reader to the ways that Statistics Canada surveys handle militancy. The Labour Force Survey [LFS] and the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics [SLID], in which the proxy for the larger concept of 'worker militancy' is 'labour dispute' will help make visible the demographic characteristics of the striker. The Workplace and Employee Survey [WES] differentiates 'work-to-rule, work slowdown, strikes, lockouts and other labour related actions' and will offer a profile of the striker in the worker questionnaire, and a profile of the firm in the employer questionnaire.Although the statistical tables have not yet arrived, the design of the surveys provides an interesting window into Statistics Canada's perceptions about unions and their relevance. In fact, the process of excavating these surveys reveals absences that are intensely ideological and ways of posing questions that prevent the significance of union activity from emerging