From person-days lost to labour militancy: a new look at the Canadian work stoppage data/Des jours-personnes perdus et le militantisme des syndiques: relecture des statistiques sur les arrets de travail au Canada/De la nocion dias-persona perdidos a la militancia laboral : Una nueva vision de los datos sobre las paralizaciones laborales en Canada.

Basandose en los micro-datos de Recursos Humanos y Desarrollo Social de Canada (HRSDC) sobre las 23,944 paralizaciones de trabajo en Canada entre 1900 y 2004, este articulo introduce una perspectiva de militancia laboral en el estudio de las paralizaciones de trabajo, es decir, el punto de vista de los trabajadores. Se explora los modelos de militancia con un enfoque en la duracion de la huelga, la amplitud de la huelga y las huelgas pot un primer contrato. Se apoya asi las re-interpretaciones que permiten de visualizar el significado de ese tipo de paralizacion para los trabajadores, los sindicatos y las comunidades. El modelo de militancia laboral presenta una alternativa a la perspectiva empresarial basada en el tiempo perdido, a la preocupacion del gobiemo pot medir el impacto economico de las huelgas y al enfasis academico sobre los determinantes de la huelga. Desde una perspectiva de militancia laboral y como parte de esta re-evaluacion de los datos de paralizacion laboral provenientes del HRSDC, este articulo considera la fuente de tales datos. Se yuxtapone los datos estadisticos con entrevistas efectuadas con corresponsales provinciales que colectan la informacion por el HRSDC. Examinar los datos de esta manera hace resaltar la naturaleza politica de la colecta de datos (vistos como pertinentes o no), la presentacion de los datos (que deviene visible y que no lo es) y las fuentes de los datos (cuyas opiniones no son consideradas).

--Traduction/Translation : Janet Sarmiento, Montreal.

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This paper starts from a broad distinction among labour, union and worker militancies (Briskin, 2006). Union militancy focuses on the politics of unions themselves. Worker militancy speaks to the collective organization and resistance among non-unionized and often marginalized workers, many of whom are women and workers of colour. Worker militancies may be of increasing importance given the transformations wrought by restructured labour markets. Labour militancy speaks to the organized and collective activism of unionized workers involved in workplace struggles. Although this article focuses on strikes, it does not assume that strikes are the only form of labour militancy. Hebdon (2005) maps other forms of labour militancy. In his discussion of workplace conflict, he distinguishes among covert collective actions (such as sick-outs, slow-downs and work-to-rule), other collective actions such as claims of unfair labour practices, and individual forms of militancy around grievances. (1)

The particular goal of a labour militancy perspective on strikes is to highlight the experience from the point of view of workers on strike. This approach begins with similar assumptions to Godard (2005: 340-1, also 1992). He argues for a "strikes as collective voice" rather than what he calls the "strikes as mistakes" approach:

[S]trikes may indeed appear to be irrational from an economist's

point of view. But from the viewpoint of the parties themselves

(especially workers and their representatives), the decision to

strike often involves a much broader rationality, one which

involves competing values, principles, and fairness beliefs, and

often reflects underlying sources of discontent in the workplace

...

[E]qually important is the nature of the employment relation ...

[W]orkers are in a position of subordination to management, a

position which is not altered substantially by the right to engage

in collective bargaining.... This, coupled with the conflicts

which underlie labour-management relations, means that distrust

and resentment almost always pervade the workplace, albeit in

varying degrees. Though manifest in a number of ways, striking

serves as primary mechanism by which workers can voice this

distrust and resentment collectively ... [T]o view strikes only

as mistakes in negotiations is too narrow. Rather strikes should

be viewed, first and foremost, as mechanisms of "collective voice,"

serving as a means by which workers can collectively express

discontent and distrust.

In emphasizing the "broader rationality" that inspires strike action by workers, this approach underscores the reality that experiences of strikes differ significantly for management and for workers. (2) The most illuminating studies of workers' experiences are likely in-depth qualitative accounts of particular struggles. However, the question asked in this paper is what can be learned about the overall patterns of Canadian labour militancy by mining the work stoppage statistics. This article is not attempting to address the complex and widely-researched issue of strike determinants. Rather it has a more modest empirical goal: to map the strike experience from the point of view of workers using the work stoppages data from Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC). (3) This approach reveals the potential of this data set to highlight multiple forms of labour militancy and enriches the picture that emerges from commonly-used aggregate and average data.

This paper is organized in three parts: the first presents an overview of the HRSDC data on work stoppages and explores how the data set has traditionally been used; the second part discusses how the data are collected based on interviews with the provincial correspondents; and the final section considers three specific examples: on strike duration, strike size and strikes for first contracts.

THE WORK STOPPAGES DATA FROM HRSDC

Data on every work stoppage in Canada is currently collected by the Workplace Information Directorate of Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC). (4) Work stoppages include both strikes and lockouts (although the variable for lockouts was only added in 1976) which are a minimum of half a day in length and involve ten or more person-days lost (PDL). Person-days lost (previously man-days (5) and sometimes referred to as time lost) are the duration in working days (6) multiplied by the number of workers involved. Workers indirectly affected, such as those laid off as a result of a work stoppage, are not included in the data.

In the current Work Stoppages manual, a strike is defined as "a concerted work stoppage, by one or more groups of workers, aimed at forcing an employer to acquiesce to the group's demands. Strikes are most commonly the result of a labour dispute between a group of employees and their employer" (Renaud et al., 2005: 3). A lockout "is a work stoppage declared by an employer or group of employers where negotiations concerning wages or working conditions have not been able to bring about an agreement" (3). Although strikes and lockouts are coded differently in the HRSDC data and can be disaggregated, as a result of the permeability between strike and lockout and the difficulty distinguishing between them, the HRSDC coding for lockout is used "if the stoppage involved only a lockout or if both a strike and a lockout occurred." This means that strike and lockout are not mutually exclusive categories in the data. Given this cross over, tables in this paper include data on both strikes and lockouts. (7)

Short periodic reports on work stoppages are published in the Workplace Bulletin; they include a weekly report of major stoppages (500 or more workers) and a year-to-date summary of such major stoppages. Information includes the employer, location, union, number of workers and issues. (8) Although not available on-line, the detailed record for each stoppage of ten or more PDL contains a wealth of additional information (9): contract status, result, sector, province, metro/city, NAICS [North American Industrial Classification System] code, (10) jurisdiction, affiliation, union status (various, single, unorganized), and information on lockouts and rotating strikes. (11)

Franzosi (1989) notes the problems with the reliance on official strike statistics: "scholars' almost exclusive reliance on official strike statistics, which convey only limited information, has prevented them from investigating some important basic questions about strikes" (348). This article also suggests that certain aspects of strikes have been neglected, although unlike Franzosi who is interested in strike determinants, it focuses on highlighting a quantitative mapping of strike experience from the point of view of workers. Further, unlike the official data available .in many countries, HRSDC work stoppage data offer rich possibilities for examining strikes from a labour militancy perspective. The data set permits a form of micro-level rather than aggregate examination, the importance of which Franzosi as well as others (Gramm, 1986, for example) have stressed.