Trade unions in Canada are losing their traditional support base, and membership numbers could sink to US levels unless unions recapture their power. Unions, Equity, and the Path to Renewal brings together a distinguished group of union activists and equity scholars who trace how traditional union cultures, practices, and structures have eroded solidarity and activism and created an equity deficit in Canadian unions. Informed by a feminist vision of unions as instruments of social justice, the contributors argue that equity within unions is not simply one possible path to union renewal – it is the only way to reposition organized labour as a central institution in workers’ lives.
Janice R. Foley is a professor in the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Regina. Patricia L. Baker was an associate professor of anthropology at Mount St. Vincent University.
Contributors: Linda Briskin, Karen Brown, Miriam Edelson, Mary Margaret Fonow, Anne Forrest, Suzanne Franzway, Jan Kaine, Marie-Josée Legault, Anne McBride, Jane Parker, Barbara Pocock, Jeremy Waddington, Marie Clarke Walker, and Carol Wall
An important contribution to the union debate that highlights the work of women and equity advocates over the past several decades ... and provides possible solutions.