L’histoire et le droit : une conversation nécessaire pour la protection des travailleurs

Laura Dehaibi

Parmi les domaines du droit, les règles applicables aux rapport collectifs de travail sont parmi celles qui reflètent le plus les luttes politiques et historiques en action au moment de leur création. Les lois du travail ne créent pas la liberté d’association et le processus de négociation collective : elles ne font que reconnaître et légitimiser ces phénomènes historiques. Et pourtant, une fois ces règles historiques enchâssées dans le texte juridique, elles perdent toute référence au passé.

Nous argumenterons que la reconnaissance explicite au sein des textes juridiques des luttes historiques ayant mené à leur création est essentielle, non seulement pour maintenir vivante la mémoire collective, mais également afin de permettre l’adaptation des lois du travail aux réalités changeantes des marchés du travail. En effet, bien que les structures corporatives reconnues par le droit aient subi des mutations majeures, que ce soit par la mondialisation, la fissuration de l’entreprise ou la dématérialisation des relations du travail, l’essence des luttes ouvrières demeure la même : assurer des conditions de travail décentes au sein d’une économie capitaliste qui cherche à maximiser les profits.

En nous inspirant des conventions internationales du travail qui tendent à être plus attentives aux leçons du passé, nous suggérerons que l’histoire des luttes ouvrières pourrait être intégrée dans les lois du travail au moyen de préambules, qui serviraient comme outil interprétatif à prendre en compte dans l’interprétation des règles applicables aux rapports collectifs de travail et ainsi reconnaître le rôle fondamental de la résistance ouvrière dans le droit.

The Countervailing Voice: Labour, Labour Studies, and Countering Management Ideology

Jason Russell

Labour as social and political force and labour studies as a field of study and catalyst for social  change have been diminished in Canada and the United States since the 1970s, arguably more in  the latter country that in the former one. This paper will argue that labour and labour studies are  as relevant as they have ever been, perhaps even more so, when they are contrasted with the  enormous social influence of management as both a social actor and an ideology. It will pay  particular attention to the rise of management in Canada in the five decades following World War  II and contrast the development of aspects of managerial practice such as management education and how it shaped the views of managers on labour in the workplace. The role of the state in  strengthening management compared with labour will be described. Labour faces a relentless  adversary and management ideology is ascendant in colleges and universities, but possibilities  for successfully strengthening labour and ensuring the relevance of labour studies are always  present.

People's History of English-Speaking Quebec and the case of the Black Rock Group

Lorraine O'Donnell

The « People’s History of English-Speaking Quebec » project addresses English-speaking Quebec history knowledge gaps and declining vitality through giving voice to marginalized sub-groups. I co-lead it at Concordia University’s Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN). Its main activities are oral history interviews, enriching the Community Knowledge Open Library of community group content on topics including labour (https://ckol.quescren.ca/en/lib/); and writing a book (underway).

I will present the project and a chapter I am working on. It is about the Black Rock group, which emerged in 1980s Verdun among working-class English speakers. They sought to preserve and promote their culture and heritage through events and publications. These included the short, brilliant and rude Black Rock Manifesto (1981), mainly authored by famed playwright David Fennario.

Archiving Fifty Years of Graduate Assistant’s Association at York University

Corey Orszak

September 2025 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the certification of what is now the  Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) local 3903, which represents different categories  of academic labour at York University. It also marks approximately one-and-a-half years worth  of effort by members of CUPE 3903 in constructing a union archive out of the documentary  remnants of those fifty years.

This paper describes the process of creating a member-driven-and-operated (academic)  labour archive. To this end, the CUPE 3903 Archive Committee and a number of volunteers have  inventoried, organized, arranged, described, published, publicized, and (where appropriate)  digitized thousands of union records. Still other participants have conducted interviews with past  and present members as part of an ongoing oral history initiative. To service the archive and the  day-to-day operational needs of the local, the Archive Committee also initiated a digital records  management system.

As an academic union erected around predominantly transient (and increasingly  precarious) labour, CUPE 3903 is tasked every year with the challenge of sustaining and building  upon its past accomplishments without reliable continuity among its membership. An archive  and records management system legible to lay members is one way of preserving knowledge  acquired through past struggles even without year-to-year predictability in participation. It is  thereby a means of applying labour history toward ongoing labour struggles. Indeed, through  member collaboration in its creation and subsequent use, the CUPE 3903 Archive is already  contributing to mobilization, organizing, bargaining, and otherwise asserting the rights of  precarious academic labour at York University.