Solving the Labour Problem at Imperial Oil: Welfare Capitalism in the Canadian Petroleum Industry, 1919-1929

Abstract

spending my time, as a serious man, to defeat any organization; I am not putting my life and my service into this work of industrial relations for the purpose of upsetting any plan of any organization. It would be foolish to do that." 2 These public pronouncements stand in sharp contrast to the private concern expressed by executives of Imperial Oil over growing labour unrest in all of its refineries as World War I drew to a close. When informed of union activity on the west coast, Company President, CO. Stillman, wrote to Strachan that: Our friends [at Standard] should understand that vyc are constantly struggling against the same problem [of labour unrest] ... it extends from the loco Refinery in British Columbia through to Regina, Sarnia and (from information we recently obtained that the labour

Non-union employee representation in North America: diversity, controversy and uncertain future1

“…Taras (2000a;2000b) suggests several other cogent reasons. She points out, for example, that companies running JIC plans typically pay wages and benefits as high or higher than the union level, thus mitigating any direct labour cost saving, while successful operation of a JIC requires a tremendous amount of management time and sophistication (also see Grant, 1998;Kaufman, 2003c). Finally, employers fear that a JIC can easily turn into a labour union.…”

Community by Necessity: Security, Insecurity, and the Flattening of Class in Fort McMurray

“…Syncrude is 25 percent owned by Imperial and currently managed by Exxon, Imperial's parent company. Its predecessor, Standard Oil, spent many years fending off unionization, assisted in part by former Prime Minister MacKenzie King (Grant 1998;Patmore 2006;Rees 2010). After at least two attempts in the late 1970s, Syncrude employees are still not unionized.…”