Larry Savage

Bio: Larry Savage is an academic researcher from Brock University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Politics & Democracy. The author has an hindex of 7, co-authored 26 publications receiving 120 citations.

Contemporary Party-Union Relations in Canada

Abstract: The longstanding political alliance between the Canadian labor movement and the New Democratic Party (NDP) has experienced new stresses in recent years. Whereas the NDP was widely considered the political arm of the labor movement during the Keynesian post-war period, under neoliberalism, the relationship between most unions and the NDP has become more tactical and less cohesive. This article surveys contemporary party-union relationships in Canada, at both the federal and provincial levels, with a view to demonstrating that weakening party-union relations are rooted in larger macro-economic and political transformations and are shaped by factors related to region and language.

Workers' Rights as Human Rights: Organized Labor and Rights Discourse in Canada

Abstract: In the wake of a series of prolabor Supreme Court decisions in Canada, the mantra of “workers' rights as human rights” has gained unprecedented attention in the Canadian labor movement. This article briefly reviews the Canadian labor movement's recent history with the Supreme Court before arguing that elite-driven judicial strategies, advocated by several academics and Canadian unions, threaten, over time, to depoliticize traditional class-based approaches to advancing workers' rights. The argument is premised on the notion that liberal human rights discourse does little to address the inequalities in wealth and power that polarize Canadian society along class lines.

Quebec Labour and the Referendums

Abstract: . The Quebec labour movement's decision to withdraw its support for Canada's federal system in the 1970s and instead embrace the sovereignist option was unquestionably linked to the intersection of class and nation in Quebec. In this period, unions saw the sovereignist project as part of a larger socialist or social democratic societal project. Because the economic inequalities related to ethnic class, which fuelled the labour movement's support for sovereignty in the 1970s, were no longer as prevalent by the time of Quebec's 1995 referendum, organized labour's continued support for the sovereignist option in the post-referendum period cannot adequately be explained using the traditional lens of class and nation. This paper employs an institutional comparative analysis of Quebec's three largest trade union centrals with a view to demonstrating that organized labour's primary basis for supporting sovereignty has changed considerably over time. While unions have not completely abandoned a class-based approach to the national question, they have tended to downplay class division in favour of an emphasis on Quebec's uniqueness and the importance of preserving the collective francophone identity of the nation. Party–union relations, the changing cultural, political and economic basis of the sovereignist project and the emergence of neoliberalism in Quebec are offered as key explanatory factors for the labour movement's shift in focus.Resume. La decision du mouvement syndical quebecois de retirer son soutien du systeme federal, dans les annees 1970, et d'embrasser l'option souverainiste, a ete liee incontestablement a l'intersection de classe et nation au Quebec. Dans cette periode, les syndicats ont vu le projet souverainiste en tant qu'element d'un plus grand projet de societe a caractere social democratique ou socialiste. Toutefois, puisque les inegalites economiques associees a la classe ethnique qui avaient pousse le mouvement syndical dans le camp de la souverainete n'etaient plus aussi prononcees lors du referendum de 1995, l'analyse traditionnelle de classe et nation ne peut plus expliquer le maintien de sa position souverainiste durant la periode postreferendaire. Cet article se fonde sur une analyse comparative et institutionnelle des trois plus grandes centrales syndicales quebecoises en vue de demontrer que les motifs premiers de l'appui syndical au projet souverainiste ont change considerablement avec le temps. Meme si les syndicats n'ont pas completement abandonne l'approche militante surla question nationale, ils ont relegue les divisions de classes au second plan et plutot mis l'accent sur le caractere distinct du Quebec et sur l'importance de preserver l'identite francophone collective de la nation. Les relations entre les syndicats et les partis politiques, la base culturelle, politique et economique du projet souverainiste, et l'introduction du neoliberalisme au Quebec sont presentees en tant que facteurs principaux expliquant l'evolution de la position syndicale a l'egard de la question nationale.

Organized Labor, Nuclear Power, and Environmental Justice: A Comparative Analysis of the Canadian and U.S. Labor Movements

Abstract: This article engages in a comparative analysis of the U.S. and Canadian labor movements’ attitudes toward nuclear power, in both historical and contemporary periods, with a view to explaining the d...

Labour Rights as Human Rights? A Response to Roy Adams

Abstract: n recent years, a number of leading industrial relations scholars, including Roy Adams, have endeavoured to link labour rights and human rights in an attempt to shift the debate about the nature of labour relations in the North American context. Specifically, Adams and others have argued that workers should not be viewed as economic interests, but rather as bearers of fundamental human rights (Adams 2006; Macklem 2006; Compa 2000, 2003, 2008; Swepston 2003; Gross 2003 and 1999; McIntyre and Bodah 2006; Friedman 2001). There is a certain appeal to the labour rights as human rights approach. Indeed, the normative weight associated with human rights discourse in liberal democratic societies has made it a popular political tool for social movements looking to press their demands. I

The Future of Higher Education

Abstract: 3. And financial aid has failed to keep up with ri sing costs. Most aid now comes in the form of loans, and studen ts from lower income families are less willing than more affluent students to take on large loan burdens to finance their education. There has also been a movement from need-based aid toward non-need -based aid. Fewer than 15-20 private institutions provide finan ci l aid based solely on students’ financial need.

The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All- Administrative University and Why It Matters

Abstract: The Fall of the Faculty: The Rise of the All- Administrative University and Why It MattersBenjamin Ginsberg. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 248 pp. $29.95This is a horrifying book: I cannot recall ever being so upset so quickly, even by overviews of or commentaries on the economic, political, or militaristic debacles that have haunted the world during the past century. Because I have dedicated my professional life to academia, before I began to read, I alerted myself to be vigilantly objective, but I was roiling with anger after a mere paragraph or two. Not that I was unaware of the situation. My mother, my father, and I have just under 200 years invested in formal education: learning, instructing, and even a bit of administering. From the time that I was old enough to understand matters, all I ever heard at the end of each day was a recitation of what had occurred in my parents' schools. The problems usually, though not always, stemmed from inept or demagogic administrators who caused a great deal of ongoing harm. I never met the early tyrants, but now 60 years later, I still recall their names. Eventually my father moved on to college teaching, but matters here were even worse. My own experiences as a professor at two major universities confirm much that Benjamin Ginsberg offers in this extremely important study, although I was lucky to work closely with three deans who were extremely efficacious and kind, at least to me. I never had any trouble or problems with administrators. I prospered. However, as the chair of the grievance committee at an institution with 750 full- time faculty members, I was aware that other bodies rolled- right offthe campus (although, ironically, this was not always an administrator's fault).Despite my knowledge, I was immediately enlightened: Ginsberg, a professor at Johns Hopkins, has brought together a panoply of miseries inflicted on the professoriate and by extension on students as well as on higher education generally. Though all academics are aware of most of the points he makes, it may never have occurred to them (or to me) that what is being done is based on a hidden agenda, one that is extremely detrimental to the faculty. In the recent past, professors had a great deal of power and used it to teach and make discoveries in their fields, thus forwarding the two primary goals of an academic institution: instruction and research. Slowly but inexorably, administration has increased its own size (adding deans, associate deans, assistant deans; provosts and their subordinates; and so on, interminably but superfluously) and its power, delimiting and deflecting faculty influence in the decision- making process; whereas in the past, it would have been difficult or impossible to build a new arena, pay a football coach five million dollars a year, or alter the curriculum without full faculty cooperation, today the faculty may be the last to learn that some major alteration has been instituted. Ginsberg calls this "rampant administrative blight." Throughout this study, he adduces frequent apposite examples, some in great detail, to prove his points. So, for example, the lack of faculty influence at Boston University is demonstrated by the fact that a high percentage of professors "loathed and feared the dictatorial President John Silber," but they were unable to divest themselves of their leader.One of the major negative alterations in higher education has been the substitution of adjuncts (part- timers) for tenured or tenure track faculty. In 1976, 31 percent were adjuncts; by 2005, this had increased to 48 percent; during the same period, however, part- time administrators had decreased from four to three percent. Ginsberg cites the egregious case of the University of Maryland's main campus where one will find 29 vice- presidents and assistants of various stripes and denominations. Many earn more than $200,000 a year. As this university retrenched (a contractual arrangement that generally allows for the dismissal of tenured professors), the administrators' salaries soared. …