No abstract

In this paper I examine how labour geographer's research on the work-place, the wage relation and class have evolved and assess their implications for the sub-discipline. Since the early 1990s post-structural and post-structurally informed Marxist approaches have both challenged classical Marxism and added new insights. In particular, the former have de-centred the formal work-place as a site of value production, exploitation and class and emphasized the critical role of intersectionality of class with other identities such as gender and race. Paralleling and informing this shift has been a significant restructuring of capitalism as formerly stable employment is disrupted via (often global) outsourcing, downsizing and the blurring of enterprises and organizations. Thus post-structural perspectives have developed important insights into the active agency and the differentiated nature of labour, the work-place and class. Yet despite some congruence between post-structural and Marxist approaches I argue that there remain important empirical and theoretical concerning the work-place, the wage-relation and class. I conclude that while post-structural approaches are correct in arguing that the formal work-place and wage relation are not the exclusive sites of work, surplus production or class identity, over-emphasize the decline of the formal work-place and the wage relation's role in collectivity and class identity more traditional Marxian concerning this relationship remain powerfully relevant to both labour geography and progressive politics.

In this paper we argue that far from being surpassed by globalization, the nation‐state remains a key space for organized labour. However, labour geographers’ focus on patterns of union organization and strategies of ‘internationalism’ underplays the enduring role of national institutions. Moreover, while labour geographers have recognized the significance of new forms of work organization, such as just in time and lean production, with some exceptions they have not examined how unions both formally and informally determine the trajectory of workplace change. Based on case studies of unions in the Canadian and German auto industries, we stress that the linkage between national and workplace scales remains critical to understanding how unions are responding to the challenges being presented by lean and just in time production. Finally, while there is a re‐scaling of bargaining in the automobile industry to the firm or enterprise scale, the outcomes of decentralization depend largely on the national regulatory context.

Based on a case study of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union in southern Ontario we argue for a critical reconstruction of both the labour geography and industrial cluster literature. The former stresses the active role of labour in the formation of economic landscapes, but has yet to explore labour's agency in production and how labour institutions shape technological change, firm innovation and industrial policy and strategy. Conversely, much of the industrial cluster and regional innovation systems literature is silent on the role of unions and industrial relations institutions in fostering innovation. We conclude with two main points. First, while some contend that positive union roles in innovation can only stem from partnerships with management and team working, we argue that innovation is more likely to emerge and worker interests are better protected when traditional collective bargaining structures and progressive employment legislation play a central role. Second, positive workplace and cluster level cooperation in the Canadian automotive parts industry are jeopardized by the broader and ongoing macro‐economic restructuring of OEM global production networks due to over‐capacity and intense cost‐cutting pressures reverberating down the supply chain.

No abstract

No abstract

In this paper I critically examine new forms of state–civil-society arrangements via a case study of non business stakeholder representation in UK Training and Enterprise Councils and in Local Boards for Training and Adjustment in Ontario, Canada. Drawing on insights from both poststructural and regulationist approaches, I situate their development and crises in what Jenson and Phillips term ‘citizenship regimes’. Local representation of labour and equity groups could be effective and reflected struggles over both recognition and redistribution. However, representation often depended on resources drawn from other scales and especially on the relationship of stakeholders with the provincial and national state. Local representation has some autonomy from macroshift in citizenship regimes, but in both cases there is strong evidence that the state is able to incorporate stakeholder representation into what Jessop terms ‘metagovernance strategies’, although it cannot necessarily control it.

This paper focuses on restructuring in eleven first‐tier suppliers in the South Wales motor components sector and examines the influence of production politics, including plant‐local labor market relations, on the implementation of flexible manufacaturing during the 1980s. Although industrial geographers have recognized the role of recruitment and training in the restructuring of the spatial division of labor they have tended to focus primarily on the role of new firms operating at “green field” sites and view this process as functional to the needs of capital. However, the argument of this paper will be that while new forms of work organization are influenced by the technical and commercial possibilities of new technology and markets, the form of work organization cannot simply be “read off” from the macro‐economic level, but will be partially determined by existing spatiallyuneven social relations of production.