LABR 1F90 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Picketing, Nonpartisanism, Tactical Voting

• School: Brock University
• Department: Labour Studies
• Course: LABR 1F90
• Professor: Larry Savage

Document Summary

Unions and political action- labr 1f90 sec 1 nov 17 2015. Although unions make important gains for workers through collective bargaining and workplace representation, they cannot rely exclusively on their workplace-based power to achieve all the things that improve workers" lives. So much of the labour relations framework is influenced and shaped by politics. To effectively defend their interests, unions need to act politically. Business unionism emphasizes unions" workplace economic role and therefore narrowly focuses on collective bargaining and workplace representation. Its relationship with political parties calls to mind the maxim famously expressed by former american federation of labor president samuel gompers: reward your friends and punish your enemies . Social unionism has a more expansive vision of unions" purpose. Unions engage with electoral politics to help shape the legislative agenda in a way that will benefit workers. There exists a broad spectrum of union engagement with electoral politics in canada.