AP/SOSC 2210 6.00
Labour Relations, Restructuring and Resistance
This is a required course for all students majoring or minoring in Work and Labour Studies. This course analyzes labour relations in Canada in a comparative perspective. It reviews the historical development of the labour movement and the formation of the industrial relations system. In the historical process of collective struggle, workers gained significant legislated labour rights (including the right to organize, negotiate a collective agreement and resolve workplace conflicts through dispute resolution mechanisms) that form Canada’s contemporary industrial relations system. Workers also won major social rights in the form of universal public services like universal healthcare, unemployment insurance, public education, health and safety, employment standards, and human rights legislation. The course also explores the rise of neoliberal globalization from the 1970s onward, and examines its impact on labour markets, workers’ legislated labour rights and worker protections, work time, health and safety, social programmes and other public services. The course concludes by analyzing labour movement responses to these transformations, including labour-management relations, new organizing strategies, international solidarity, social unionism, and community-based organizing.