Documents Briskin, Linda 10 results

"The article examines two internal union strategies for improving equality bargaining. The first, representational democracy (RD), highlights the demographic profile of women's participation in collective bargaining (CB). The discussion presents the existing, albeit imperfect, data on women's participation. It supports the continuing importance of the gender profiles of negotiators, but also considers the limits of RD via an exploration of essentialism, critical mass and gender composition. It concludes that RD is a limited proxy for voice, and, given the individualism inherent in its claims, an imperfect vehicle for collective agency. The paper then develops the concept of representational justice (RJ), which speaks to collective mechanisms which ensure that women's interests are represented; in effect, a move from individual equality champions to vehicles for championing equality. As one means to such an end, the article argues for building formal and constitutionalized links between CB and union equality structures. Highlighting internal union strategies to support equality bargaining complements the widespread focus on the substantive issues on the bargaining agenda and takes the discussion of equality bargaining in new directions. Certainly, this approach underscores the importance of unions linking struggles around diversity, equality and representation inside unions to the CB process and agenda. "

"Inattention to the gender implications of austerity measures, and coincident cuts in gender equality structures by state, employers and often unions themselves threaten gender equality measures and equality bargaining. These threats are compounded by the reconfiguring of the language of equality which is now re-focused on class inequalities, on the one hand, and an expanded range of equality-seeking groups, on the other. The language of equality no longer adequately captures trends in gender equality. Intersectionality (compound discrimination) is explored as a reference point for bargaining equality. Austerity measures are also reshaping the household-workplace-community nexus, re-invoking outdated and conservative views of women's place, reconfiguring the positioning of women's rights, and, to some extent, engineering women's return to the household. This article argues that unions need to radicalize discourses around the household-workplace-community nexus, and explores gendered social unionism as an alternative progressive frame for equality bargaining. It concludes that bargaining for equality may support not only a revival of innovative collective bargaining but also union revitalization."

"In the last three decades, nurses have gone on strike in many countries including Canada, the UK, the US, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Israel, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Portugal and South Africa. This article has a twofold purpose: first, to highlight oft-hidden patterns of nurse militancy through strike narratives; and second, to consider the contributions of nurse militancy to union renewal. It argues that the militancy of nurses speaks to many of the strategic threads in the union renewal project. It touches upon four themes: women's militancy, rank-and-file militancy, coalition-building and community outreach, and professionals in the labour movement. In considering the militancy of women, this discussion genders the union renewal debate. At the same time, the article broadens the focus of the women and unions scholarship from issues of representation and leadership, constituency and cross-constituency organizing, and equity policy and bargaining to include workplace militancy."

'This article interrogates the notion that women union leaders lead differently. Despite significant variation in the union movements in Australia, Canada, Sweden, the UK and the USA, similar discourses on women's union leadership emerge in all five countries. Based on a materialist social construction approach which supports a recognition of difference without reference to essentialist ideas about women's nature, this article seeks to identify what may be common across these countries to explain this phenomenon. The article argues that the fact that women face discrimination in unions, on the one hand, and organise as a constituency and have access to women-only education, on the other, supports the development of transformational leadership among women unionists, even across diverse contexts and cultures. Unpacking union women's leadership practices in this way reveals a dialectic of victimisation and agency.'

"Drawing on mobilization theory, this article seeks to identify the factors that shape the willingness of union members to take industrial action. The study utilized data from a large-scale survey (N = 1,111) carried out in a financial services union during the renegotiation of a collective bargaining contract. The results suggested that individuals were more willing to engage in industrial action when they experienced a sense of injustice or unfairness in the employment relationship and when they held a collectivist orientation to work. Moreover, their propensity to take industrial action was greater when they considered that their union was an effective instrument of power. Workplace representatives were also important, particularly when they were seen as being responsive to their members' needs in situations of perceived injustice. The implications for mobilization theory and for union strategy are discussed."

"This article explores cross-constituency organizing inside three Canadian unions that involves dual, parallel and integrated structures. It assesses these approaches with reference to the conceptual frame of intersectional political practice. In particular, this study highlights the institutionalization of intersectionality through constitutional, organizational and representational intersectionality. The paradigm of autonomy and integration is used to identify effective mechanisms for cross-constituency vehicles. Cross-constituency organizing is a form of coalition-building inside unions It is a vehicle for building solidarities across identities and advancing equity organizing in Canadian unions that supports, at one and the same time, union revitalization and the union equity project."