Just Labour (E-Journal - York University)
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Negotiating Writers’ Rights: Freelance Cultural Labour and the Challenge of Organizing
Full text linkAs media companies grow in profits and economic significance, workers in these industries are experiencing precarious forms of employment and declining union power. This article provides insight into the experiences of a growing segment of the media labour force in Canada: freelance writers, who face declining rates of pay, intensified struggles over copyright, and decreasing control over their work. At the same time, freelancers are currently experimenting with various approaches to collective organizing: a professional association, a union, and an agency-union partnership. As part of a larger project on freelance writers’ working conditions and approaches to organizing, this article provides an overview of three organizational models and raises some early questions about their implications
Recovering Marx’s Theory of Alienation: Theoretical Considerations from a Case Study with Community Activists in Scarborough, Ontario
Full text linkThe expansive literature on alienation demonstrates how various treatments emphasize different parts of human estrangement. This recovery focuses on demonstrating how Marx’s theory of alienation can prove fruitful in understanding social movement activity and promoting social justice. At the centre of collective action is a hope and vision for an alternative future, an imagination of communities based on mutual reliance and a strategy for de-alienation. In this paper, I begin with a review of Marx’s theory with an emphasis on a philosophy of internal relations, followed by an application to a recently completed case study with housing activists in Scarborough, Ontario. By posing questions for further development, I conclude that social alienation and responses to it can be developed further when seen as a learning process; that is, to understand the learning processes of one’s own estrangement as central to taking positive steps to overcome alienation
From Coal Pits to Tar Sands: Labour Migration Between an Atlantic Canadian Region and the Athabasca Oil Sands
Full text linkThe ongoing developments of the Northern Albertan Athabasca Oil Sands include exceptionally labour intensive processes, while securing labour for this industry has been a perpetual challenge. The industry has relied on temporary and transitory labour since its inception, with a great deal of mobile workers originating from Atlantic Canada. Based on ethnographic research, this paper examines the dynamics of an emerging route of migration between the former coal-mining region of Industrial Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and the sites of the Oil Sands industry. Processes of migration have had profound social and economic impacts on the communities of Industrial Cape Breton, while such mobile workers find themselves in a form of work organization which is increasingly precarious and contingent
Al Campbell and the Left: Building UAW/CAW Local 27
Full text linkThe role of the Left in unions, women’s activism, and the rise of industrial unions in the post-World War II decades have been the subject of valuable academic scrutiny. This article seeks to add to our understanding of these topics by looking at the role that one prominent activist—Al Campbell—played in building UAW/CAW Local 27 from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. Campbell strongly advocated an independent Canadian autowork ers’ union, supported women’s activism, and was instrumental in helping expand a major composite local in the union. I argue in this article that, in order to understand the nature of the post-war Canadian labour movement, we need to devote greater attention to the role of devoted leftists in building local unions
Fordism at Work in Canadian Coffee Shops
Full text linkAlthough many areas of work today are characterized by post-Fordist principles, there are still significant numbers of workplaces that have adapted and continue to operate using a Fordist model, and in particular, low-paying service industries that rely on a largely female an d part-time labour force. This paper explores how the Fordist model has been adapted and extended within the Canadian coffee shop franchise industry. Qualitative interviews were conducted with staff and managers in selected coffee shops to gain a better understanding of how work is organized and managed in this industry
Children Working Alone in Alberta: How Child Labour and Working Alone Regulations Interact
Full text linkThe Canadian province of Alberta does not effectively enforce its child labour laws. This non-enforcement interacts with the working-alone regulations in Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Act to deny workers under age 15 meaningful solo work protection. As a result, children and adolescents are exposed to the hazards adults face while working alone as well as hazards unique to children and adolescents working alone. This suggests that failing to enforce child labour laws has both obvious and subtle effects. The subtle effects are difficult to identify and remediate, in part because of the initial regulatory failure is politically difficult to acknowledge
Disproportionately Disenfranchised: Gendered Impacts of Interference in Collective Bargaining in Canada
Full text linkMuch has written about the growth of legislative in terference in collective bargaining and the right to strike in Canada in the latter part of the 20th century. However, consideration of the specifically gendered impacts of this interference has been largely neglected. This paper argues that suspension of collective bargaining rights and the right to strike impacts women workers in unique and disproportionate ways. Two cursory case studies from Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador provide examples of how suspension of bargaining rights has a differential impact on women. The paper calls attention to the need for a heightened focus on the specifically gendered impacts of neoliberal governments’ growing propensity to suspend collective bargaining rights in Canada
The Transformation of International Trade Unionism in the Era of Globalization
Full text linkFollowing the Second World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) held from June 21 to 25, 2010 in Vancouver, this article examines the changes undergone by international trade unionism in recent years. The increasing power of multinational corporations, as a result of globalization, has led to a transformation in international trade unionism which has produced a reorganization of its structures and the emergence of new forms of action to ensure the protection of workers’ rights worldwide. The key argument of this article is that the evolution of the structures and practices of international trade union organizations over the last two decades has been characterized by the implementation of strategies aimed, on the one hand, at reinforcing trade union unity and, on the other hand, at targeting multinational corporations. Lastly, although the transformation of international trade unionism has given rise to important structural changes, international trade union organizations continue to face formidable challenges in their efforts to effectively contribute to the regulation of the global economy
Who Will Fight for Us? Union Designated Women’s Advocates in Auto Manufacturing Workplaces
Full text linkWomen’s employment in traditionally male manufacturing jobs is hindered by both formal and informal structures (Levine 2009). In light of recent recession-based changes in the Ontario economy, it is becoming more important for women to maintain well-paying manufacturing employment. Women face different challenges in the home and workplace than men. This paper investigates the Canadian Auto Workers’ (CAW) Union’s unique women’s advocacy program, as a promising mechanism to secure women’s safety at home and at work, while protecting their employment status. Drawing on ethnographic research with women auto workers and union women, our findings suggest that the CAW’s women’s advocacy program is innovative and beneficial in maintaining women’s employment as they attend to personal problems. This program can be extended throughout other locals and unions to assist women dealing with violence and other issues related to work-life experience
