scholarly journals The ‘Great Recession,’ the Employers’ Offensive and Canadian Public Sector Unions

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (1 / 2) ◽  
Author(s):  
David Camfield
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Context Change ◽  
Promising Direction ◽  
Social Movement Unionism ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Municipal Workers ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
Il Y A ◽  
Union Renewal

The global economic crisis and its effects have changed the context for public sector unions in Canada. There is evidence that an intensified offensive against public sector unions is beginning. Few public sector unions are prepared to respond adequately to such an offensive, as the important 2009 strike by Toronto municipal workers illustrates. In this more difficult context, change within public sector unions is increasingly urgent. The most promising direction for union renewal lies in the praxis of social movement unionism. However, there are very few signs of moves to promote this approach within Canadian public sector unions. La crise économique globale et ses effets ont changé le contexte pour les syndicats du secteur public au Canada. Il y a des signes qu’une attaque violente contre les syndicats du secteur public a commencé. Peu de syndicats du secteur public sont prêts à répondre dans une manière satisfaisante à cette attaque, comme le montre la grève importante des travailleurs municipaux à Toronto en 2009. Dans ce contexte plus difficile, des changements au sein des syndicats du secteur public sont de plus en plus urgents. La direction la plus prometteuse pour une renaissance syndicale est la pratique d’un syndicalisme de mouvement social. Toutefois, il y a très peu d’indices que les syndicats du secteur public au Canada s’inscrivent dans une telle approche.

scholarly journals Spontaneity, Coalition Structure, and Strategic Choice

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 851-869
Author(s):  
Amanda Pullum
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Coalition Structure ◽  
Sufficient Time ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Political Tactics ◽  
Public Sector Unions

Following the Great Recession, austerity programs and restrictions on the public sector were introduced worldwide. In this article, I ask how and why labor coalitions in two states used differing organizational structures to respond to “shock politics” that severely restricted public-sector unions in 2011. I find the availability or lack of a citizen-initiated veto referendum shaped but did not completely explain differences in strategic choices between unions in Wisconsin and Ohio. Rather, tensions among allies and lack of time for strategic planning also contributed to a nonhierarchical coalition in Wisconsin, while Ohio unions had ample time to create a bureaucratic coalition and plan a successful veto referendum campaign. I argue that given sufficient time to respond to political threats, hierarchical organizations can promote efficient, effective deployment of some political tactics.

scholarly journals Renewal in Canadian Public Sector Unions

2007 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Camfield
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Social Movement ◽  
Sector Reform ◽  
Public Sector Union ◽  
Union Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Movement Unionism ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
Union Renewal

Challenges from employers and governments and the limited success of public sector union responses suggest the need for renewal in Canadian public sector unions. This article engages with discussions of union renewal by way of theoretically conceptualizing the modes of union praxis relevant to Canadian unions. It then examines the nature of neoliberal public sector reform and assesses the experiences of Canadian public sector unions under neoliberalism. In this difficult context, unions that are able to make progress in the interconnected development of greater democracy and power will be more capable of channelling workers’ concerns into union activity. This, along with international and Canadian evidence, highlights the significance of the praxis of social movement unionism to union renewal in the public sector.

scholarly journals The Politics of Austerity and the Conservative Offensive against US Public Sector Unions, 2008-2012

2012 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 612-632 ◽  
Author(s):  
Étienne Cantin
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Collective Bargaining ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Public Employees ◽  
Conservative Movement ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
Economic Developments ◽  
Government Workers ◽  
Political Economic

SummarySince the onset of the Great Recession, anti-union conservatives have been hammering out an arguably bogus yet politically potent argument: collective bargaining with government workers is unaffordable as their wages, health benefits, and pensions are driving states into deficits. Whilst evidence does not support the politically motivated attacks on public sector workers and their unions, a confluence of political-economic factors has been abetting efforts to scapegoat public employees and their unions.The first section of this essay places the 2011 wave of anti-public-sector-collective-bargaining statutes in its broad political and economic context. Whilst resulting from a longstanding hostility of the USA’s conservative movement to unionism and collective bargaining, recent anti-public-sector-collective-bargaining statutes are also the outcome of three political-economic developments galvanising anti-union GOPers—first, the fact that most US union members are now government workers, which makes it easier for anti-unionists to characterize them as a “privileged” elite; second, the Great Recession and ensuing deficit crisis; and third, the rousing of the conservative movement that led to the 2010 electoral “shellacking” of the Democrats. The second section focuses specifically on Wisconsin and argues that what is going on there ought to be seen for what it is: an attempt to exploit the economic crisis to win an eminently political victory over organised labour and allied Democrats.

The trade-off between pension costs and salary expenditures in the public sector

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-168
Author(s):  
Dongwoo Kim ◽  
Cory Koedel ◽  
P. Brett Xiang
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Pension Plans ◽  
Teacher Salary ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Pension Costs ◽  
Crowd Out ◽  
Pension Contribution ◽  
Effect Heterogeneity

AbstractWe examine pension-cost crowd out of salary expenditures in the public sector using a 15-year data panel of state teacher pension plans spanning the Great Recession. While there is no evidence of salary crowd out prior to the Great Recession, there is a shift in the post-recession years such that a 1% (of salaries) increase in the annual required pension contribution corresponds to a decrease in total teacher salary expenditures of 0.24%. The effect operates through changes to the size of the teaching workforce, not changes to teacher wages. An explanation for the effect heterogeneity pre- and post-recession is that public employers are less able to shield the workforce from pension costs during times of fiscal stress. This problem is exacerbated because unlike other benefit costs, such as for health care, pension costs are countercyclical.

State Fiscal Policy during the Great Recession

2013 ◽  
Vol 650 (1) ◽  
pp. 252-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Louise Campbell ◽  
Michael W. Sances
Keyword(s):  
Great Recession ◽  
Personal Income ◽  
Social Program ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
State Budget ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Original Analysis ◽  
Public Sector Unions ◽  
Home Values

Plunging tax revenues and soaring social program demand during the Great Recession created state budget shortfalls of historic magnitude. After reviewing states’ aggregate reaction to the economic downturn, we conduct an original analysis of the recession’s budgetary impact on the states and their policy responses. Economic factors such as falling personal income and home values explain much of the variation in the recession’s impact. State budgeting rules and practices conditioned states’ experiences, but not always as intended: budget gaps were smaller in states with stricter balanced budget requirements, but larger in states with statutory spending limitations. Personal income tax increases were more likely in states with a Democratic legislature or greater public unionization rates, while midyear spending cuts were smaller in states with larger public sector unions. In sum, we find that while states’ objective economic situations determined the bulk of their responses to the Great Recession, political factors determined these responses’ shape and form.

Resisting the Great Recession: Social movement unionism in Croatia and Serbia

2021 ◽  
pp. 095968012110232
Author(s):  
Danijela Dolenec ◽  
Daniela Širinić ◽  
Ana Balković
Keyword(s):  
Social Movement ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Paired Comparison ◽  
Varieties Of Capitalism ◽  
Event Data ◽  
Social Movement Unionism ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
Policy Strategies ◽  
The Impact

Addressing the debate regarding the impact of the Great Recession on changing union strategies in post-socialist Europe, our analysis shows that in Croatia and Serbia the crisis, while depressing strike numbers, was nevertheless met with substantial union resistance. Developing a paired comparison and relying on protest event data for the period 2000–2017, we argue that the differences among the two countries’ respective varieties of capitalism drive divergent union strategies described as social movement unionism. In Serbia, the role of unions in protests articulating workers’ demands remained more central and unions were overall more present in the protest arena, while in Croatia, unions have exhibited stronger propensity to forge alliances and adopt innovative policy strategies. While taking on board scholarship that portrays social movement unionism as signalling union weakness, we argue that strategies which increase union mobilization capacity may also be understood as increasing union resilience in changing social circumstances.

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