Conference Agenda

Neoliberal reforms involving outsourcing public services are a form of institutional experimentation that usually had the effect of worsening conditions of employment. This article addresses these dynamics by drawing on comparative empirical research in the UK and Germany, involving two case studies in each country of municipalities that had outsourced services and more recently brought them either fully or partially back ‘in-house’. Situated within a wider, 6-country comparative study of public procurement and employment conditions, these four case studies are augmented with follow-up interviews 18 months after the original research (25 interviews and extensive documentary analysis) to explore the longer term impacts of insourcing, how and whether the initial and hoped-for benefits of insourcing were maintained and in some cases eroded, and which actors (including unions but also state agencies and institutional arrangement relating to minimum and ‘living’ wage ordnances) played the most significant role in maintaining decent work and seeking to promote ‘better’ work in the aftermath of insourcing.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the ability of collective bargaining parties to respond to various disruptions impacting the world of work through social dialogue. This polycrisis context involves going beyond traditional repertoires to deal with uncertainty brought by these disruptions through strategies and practices that will take different forms, and which will be deliberate or emergent, permanent or temporary. Drawing on three vignettes of parties dealing with Covid-19 crisis, labour shortages and climate crisis, we provide some lessons from the field on the parties’ capacity to adapt - and sometimes their incapacity and tardiness to - and demonstrate the resilience of the industrial relations system. Methodologically, our results are based on a content analysis of the collective agreements in force in Quebec. We also present the findings of an in-depth interview campaign with experienced negotiators in a variety of sectors, to gain a better understanding of the compromises negotiated by the parties in response to these different fault lines.

Faced with the various manifestations of the ecological crisis, Quebec’s unions dispose of a wide range of institutions to protect workers’ interests. Mechanisms for national and sectoral social dialogue enable labour to define the transition’s requirements in terms of workforce skills and training (Laroche, 2013) within state policies (Michaud et Laroche, 2024). However, at the local level, where collective bargaining takes place, the articulation between these levels offers a more contrasting interpretation of workers’ participation in a just transition guaranteeing decent work. Based on three qualitative case studies (n=140) in the metal sector, this presentation highlights the main levers of action and factors of inertia for local union action. We contribute to power resource approaches (Refslund and Arnholtz, 2022) as mobilized to understand just transition union strategies (Kalt, 2022) by nuancing territorial anchoring of production for workers as well as the power of non-decision which, in the Quebec institutional framework.

Digitalization has been depicted as an inherently disruptive factor reconfiguring employer-workers relations in a variety of fora. In this paper, I analyze whether the adoption of digital technologies affects work processes on the shopfloor and how social relations between workers and managers influence different aspects of the labour process. In line with recent critical contributions on technologies and work, I argue that these changes are modified to suit specific contexts, often through negotiation and contestation in the workplace. My core argument is that the nature of workplace compromises emerging from these dynamics depends on the conjunction of two main factors: the material aspects of workplaces (markets, production and technologies) and the power resources that shape relationships between workers, their unions and management. Empirically, this paper is based on multiple case studies of workplaces in three manufacturing segments, all located in the province of Québec (Canada): aluminum, rubber, and lumber production.