Hospital Strike: Women, Unions, and Public Sector Conflict

Peter Strathy is Vice-President Planning, Doctors’ Hospital, Toronto.

In 1981, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) staged a strike
in Ontario hospitals. The strike was an illegal and exceptional action
unsupported by many CUPE leaders. The province-wide action collapsed
after 10 days but had many longer-term effects on CUPE and its members.
This book is a case study of the causes and effects of the strike. It
highlights the roles of the political environment, of the union
structure and action, and of gender in creating and sustaining the
conditions for strike action in the public sector.

The theoretical framework for this analysis of the strike is labor
process analysis, which was first advanced by Karl Marx and later
developed by Harry Braverman in Labor and Monopoly Capital (1974) and by
other theoreticians. White provides a critical evaluation of labor
process theory and then advances four propositions to be tested by his
analysis of the 1981 hospital strike.

This study is based on extensive archival and interview material. It
presents its material in a well-organized and coherent format that leads
to well-supported conclusions. Significant achievements of the study
include the following: it provides a detailed and credible explanation
of the various forces at work to produce the 1981 strike, an event
initially viewed as an odd or exceptional act with no explanation; it
expands Braverman’s theoretical approach to labor process analysis; it
provides a wealth of material on a wide range of issues facing women in
the work force, and in CUPE in particular; and it contributes to the
methodology of industrial relations research. The study also outlines
major ways in which public-sector industrial relations differ markedly
from those in the private sector.

This book presupposes a readership with some background in political
economy or other social sciences. It should be available in academic
libraries and in specialized union, business, and hospital collections.
It will be read by all those with a deep interest in industrial
relations in Canada.

White is assistant professor in the Centre for Administrative and
Information Studies at the University of Western Ontario.