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		New Volume The promise and perils of participatory policy making by Lucio Baccaro, Konstantinos Papadakis Discussion Paper 190 Executive compensation: Trends and policy issues by Franz Christian Ebert Raymond Torres Konstantinos Papadakis Discussion Paper 192 Labour, Globalization and Inequality: Are Trade Unions Still Redistributive? by Lucio Baccaro Discussion Paper 193 Impact of changing work patterns on income inequality, by Uma Rani Subscribe to our mailing list and we will keep you informed about our new publications

Conference on Organized labour

Responses to the Conference Paper 

• Norene Pupo, Associate Professor, Sociology, York University, Toronto; Canada;
• Jerry White, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Western Ont., Canada; 
• Don Wells, Associate Professor, Labour Studies and Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.

Thanks for sending us an invitation to participate in the network. Following is a brief summary of the research project that we have been doing. The project has been underway for over three years. It is titled "Union Responses to Economic Restructuring in Canada". The outcome will be a book and probably a few articles in scholarly and popular publications. The time frame of the analysis is the 1980s and 1990s. We have focused on union responses in manufacturing (electrical/ electronic and telecommunications), health care, hospitality (hotels and restaurants), retail food, and mining (nickel). The project analyses the similarities and differences in responses of unions in the same economic sectors in order to understand the impact that differences in union structure, history, culture and policy have on union responses. The areas of response cover roughly those that are outlined in your network invitation. 

Among the findings:

1) there has generally been less difference in the actual union responses at the local level among different unions than is generally understood when one analyses formally policy responses at higher levels of these unions.

2) decentralizing tendencies to the level of the enterprise and the workplace have been growing rapidly.

3) the significance of these decentralizing tendencies for labour relations is often greater in informal arrangements than it is in formal collective bargaining arrangements.

4) there is a growing disconnect between local and higher levels of unions in this process of decentralization. 

5) we do not see a great deal of evidence of the formation of new labour-management unitary cultures but we do see evidence of greater cooperation on a range of flexibility issues at workplace level that could be labeled pragmatic responses to a shift in the balance of power between workers and managers in favour of the latter.

6) we think that overall tendencies to a new more decentralized form of labour management relations with major affinities with earlier models of corporate welfarism are emerging (although there are major variations within and among sectors and unions).

We can provide you with more information if you or members of your network are interested.