MARCH 2022
Tuesday 8 March 2022
Title : Sectoral Experimentation – Constructing New Sectoral Institutions and Regulatory Mechanisms: Are They Fit for Purpose? / L’expérimentation sectorielle – Création de nouvelles institutions et de nouveaux mécanismes de régulation sectorielle. Sont-ils adaptés aux besoins ?
Time : 06h00-07h45 (Vancouver) ; 9h00-10h45 (Montréal) ; 14h00-15h45 (London) ; 15h00-16h45 (Paris / Brussels) ; 22h00-23h45 (Beijing) ; 01h00-02h45 (+ 1 Day – > Wednesday 9 March, Melbourne)
Language : Bilingual (French-English)
Zoom Link : https://umontreal.zoom.us/j/82219394528?pwd=OENTeGFSNHJTcDVyWEs0RnI3QXRjQT09
CASE # 1
Leon Gooberman (Cardiff University), Marco Hauptmeier (Cardiff University)
Union coalition building, strategic framing and the agricultural wages panel in Wales
This case explores the creation of a union coalition that introduced a new employment relations institution: The Agricultural Advisory Panel for Wales, a bipartite institution that sets statutory wages and employment conditions for all farm workers. Building on social movement theory, we argue that the union’s strategic framing within a conducive political opportunity structure enabled the coalition to form and pursue its goals. The union engaged in a specific frame alignment strategy, frame bridging, to explore and mobilize intersections and shared interests between its own frame and those of its coalition partners. Frame bridging prompted actors to reverse their policy preferences and participate in the coalition, which was facilitated by a political opportunity structure formed from the political salience of the agricultural sector and pre-existing social ties in the ‘small state’ political economy of Wales.
CASE # 2
Dalia Gesualdi-Fecteau (UQAM)
Unpacking the Working Conditions in the Forest Management Sector: An Empirical Assessment of a Multiscale Institutional Experimentation
In Quebec, in 2013, the introduction of the new forest regime set forth a new dynamic in the governance and management of the public forest. By doing so, the Quebec government wished to promote the contribution of the public forest to economic development but also to ensure its sustainability. Among the changes made by the new forest regime, it was decided that the State would now assume full responsibility for the execution of non-commercial activities, which oversee the growth composition, health and quality of forest stands. While one of the goals of the state with the new forest regime is to “maintain the many socioeconomic benefits society derives from forests”, the practices and strategies of the different key-actors of this regime shape working conditions for better…or for worse. Drawing on empirical materials, we will consider how the restructuration by the state of the employment system of a core sector has led to trade-offs that largely shape the degree and patterns of risks that workers face.
Discussants : Pier-Luc Bilodeau (Université Laval), Janice Fine (Rutgers University)
Moderator : Gregor Murray (Université de Montréal)
Friday 25 March 2022
Title : Experimentation in the Gig Economy: What Kinds of Institutions, What Kinds of Organizations? / Expérimentation dans l’économie de plateforme : Quels types d’institutions, quels types d’organisations ?
Time : 07h30-09h15 (Vancouver) ; 10h30-12h15 (Montréal) ; 14h30-16h15 (London) ; 15h30-17h15 (Paris / Brussels) ; 22h30-00h15 (Beijing) ; 01h30-03h15 (+ 1 Day – > Saturday 26 March, Melbourne)
Language : English
Zoom Link : https://umontreal.zoom.us/j/89621224493?pwd=cWxzbG8ybzhvNytnTEQzK1dpRHRPUT09
CASE # 1
Maria Figueroa (SUNY Empire State College)
Achieving Worker Protections in the App-based Food Delivery Industry of New York City
More than a year of worker organizing and policy advocacy efforts culminated this past November 2021 with the passage of a set of municipal laws, which provide basic protections for the 65,000 workers in the app-based food delivery industry of New York City (NYC). The new regulations, which are the first of their kind in the U.S. platform delivery industry, provided basic protections such as access to bathrooms, trip distance limits, safeguards against unfair banking fees, and most importantly, a minimum pay.
At the center of this case of experimentation for better work is the local worker organization Workers’ Justice Project/Deliveristas Unidos (WJP/LDU), which in alliance with progressive legislators and labor unions, is replicating the institutional experimentation initiated by platform rideshare workers in NYC and Seattle. As in the case of rideshare workers, WJP/LDU focused on achieving local level protections for platform workers, and did not engage in the state and national level policy debate about employment status in the platform economy.
The case of NYC app-based delivery workers is situated in Phase T1 on the experimentation continuum, as it involves the formation and implementation of new labor standards in this largely unregulated industry. The case analysis draws on applied research (including worker surveys and focus groups) conducted in collaboration with WJP/LDU.
CASE # 2
Hannah Johnston (Northeastern University)
‘Don’t let them bury us alive’: Worker organizing and the New York City campaign to #EndCabbieDebt
In November 2021, New York City agreed to guarantee a debt restructuring plan that would provide taxi medallion owners with affordable monthly payment and forgive tens of millions of dollars of owner-driver debt. The agreement was brokered between the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), New York City, and Marblegate Asset Management, the largest holder of NYC taxi medallion loans.
High levels of owner-driver debt are attributed to the city’s historic failure to regulate the industry. This led first to rapidly inflated medallion prices and pervasive predatory lending practices. Then, following the arrival of ride-hailing services like Uber, the valuation of medallions precipitously dropped causing many drivers to find themselves mired by toxic assets. The agreement came on the heels of a 15-day hunger strike and a 45-day protest held by members of the NYTWA and their supporters.
This case presents this debt relief agreement as NYTWA’s most recent victory in its decades-long quest to improve working conditions for drivers in the for-hire transport sector. Drawing on campaign materials, participant observation, and interviews with drivers, it situates debt relief as part of a multi-year and multi-faceted campaign for industry-wide regulation. In doing so, it examines the NYTWA’s complementary use of associational and symbolic power resources to achieve institutional recognition and industry reform.
Discussants : Raoul Gebert (Université de Sherbrooke), Kurt Vandaele (ETUI)
Moderator : Vincent Pasquier (HEC Montréal)
APRIL 2022
Friday 8 April 2022
Title : Les technologies numériques et l’expérimentation institutionnelle : les industries des services automobiles française et québécoise dans une perspective comparée / Digitalization and Institutional Experimentation: The Cases of the French and Quebec Auto Services Industry in Comparative Perspective
Time : 06h15-08h00 (Vancouver) ; 9h15-11h00 (Montreal) ; 14h15-16h00 (London) ; 15h15-17h00 (Paris / Brussels) ; 21h15-23h00 (Beijing) ; 23h15-01h00 (+ 1 Day – > Saturday 9 April, Melbourne)
Language : French (this workshop will take place in French only – no interpretation will be provided)
Zoom Link : https://umontreal.zoom.us/j/85068677055?pwd=dXcydmd4MnRIcGgrSUJlaldYV0RUZz09
CASE # 1
Bernard Julien (ENS-Cachan), Emmanuelle Dutertre (ESSCA)
La régulation institutionnelle des processus de transformation numérique : l’action collective de la branche des services de l’automobile face aux processus de digitalisation des activités qui l’affectent
En France, la gestion de la formation professionnelle relève du paritarisme. Ce principe, souvent présenté comme une spécificité française, est fondé sur la mutualisation des fonds et sur une cogestion de leur affectation par les entreprises (organisations professionnelles) et par les représentants des salariés qui relèvent d’une même branche. La mise en œuvre de ce paritarisme de gestion est confiée à des OPCA (Organisme Paritaire Collecteur Agréé) également doté d’une gouvernance paritaire et chargés de déployer la politique de formation ainsi définie. Les réformes successives ainsi que le renforcement de l’individualisation et de la personnalisation des droits à la formation, de même que l’incitation faite aux entreprises de former leurs salariés sur fonds propres tendent à fragiliser ce mode de gestion.
A la faveur de notre implication dans un vaste programme d’étude et de rénovation des contenus de formation financé par l’Etat et mené par l’OPCA de branche des services de l’automobile entre 2017 et 2022 après qu’il ait gagné l’appel d’offre lancé en 2016, nous avons pu à la fois enquêter sur les enjeux très concrets des transformations numériques du travail au sein des garages et observer ces méta-organisations à l’œuvre (organisme de branche) en tant qu’organisme paritaire dans la mise en œuvre de politique de formation et de préservation de l’emploi et de la qualité du travail.
Notre présentation rend compte de nos observations et propose une évaluation de l’aptitude de ce dispositif institutionnel à rénover, à accompagner voire à modeler les processus de “digitalisation” des différents services de l’automobile. Il s’agira plus particulièrement de s’interroger sur la capacité des organisations paritaires à réguler la demande des acteurs dominants (constructeurs et autres “têtes de réseaux”) et à maintenir la qualification des professionnels de l’automobile. Plus largement, nous nous interrogerons sur le devenir du paritarisme face à « la double menace » potentielle que sont l’avancée technologique et la réforme de la formation professionnelle entrée en vigueur en 2019. De fait, impliqués depuis 2016 dans cette expérimentation institutionnelle qui a coïncidé avec une accélération des entreprises de digitalisation des différents services de l’automobile d’une part et avec d’assez profondes réformes de la gouvernance et des financements de la Formation Professionnelle en France d’autre part, nous bénéficions d’un poste d’observation privilégié pour procéder à une telle évaluation.
L’analyse proposée s’appuie donc sur une étude de cas, le secteur automobile et plus particulièrement le domaine de l’après-vente. Il s’agit d’un secteur ancien, composé de petites entreprises, confronté depuis ses origines aux évolutions technologiques. Plus récemment, il est fortement incité au développement digital par les constructeurs automobiles ou les têtes des autres réseaux opérant dans ces métiers. Les évolutions numériques sont de différentes natures : traitement des données issues des véhicules connectés, développement des services proposés sur Internet (RDV en ligne, devis en ligne, avis en ligne), arrivée d’outils numériques dans les process organisationnel (Tablette de réception de la clientèle), évolution des DMS (Dealer Management Systems) vers des modèles fortement intégrateurs afin de soutenir ce développement du numérique.
Au-delà des diagnostics que notre participation aux différentes études conduites nous permet de formuler sur la nature et les enjeux des processus de transformation digitale en cours, notre cas permet d’évaluer le sort qui a été réservé par les acteurs impliqués dans ce programme à l’ambition que ses commanditaires avaient de rénover le pilotage des changements de contenus des formations initiales et continues pour le rendre plus “réactif” que ne l’est d’ordinaire le système paritaire. Nous croyons pouvoir défendre à ce niveau que si une part significative des travaux a pu se conformer à cette exigence et permettre une accélération des processus de rénovation, cela n’a pas empêché l’exigence paritaire de continuer de prévaloir quand il est apparu évident que des enjeux professionnels et syndicaux forts étaient en cause.
Dans deux cas très significatifs qui concernaient les “metteurs en main” d’une part et les “e-vendeurs” d’autre part, le programme a été suspendu après la phase d’étude pour laisser au dialogue paritaire le temps de se nouer. Alors le narratif de “l’urgence opérationnelle” qui était au fondement du programme financé par l’Etat n’a plus pu opérer et, en mobilisant l’outillage traditionnel de la négociation sur les grilles de qualification et de rémunération, les acteurs sont parvenus à exercer un réel contrôle sur le processus de digitalisation et ses conséquences sur le travail. Le paritarisme loin de refluer a ainsi paru réaffirmer et réactualiser sa participation à une gestion négociée des transformations technologiques de la branche.
CASE # 2
Gregor Murray (Université de Montréal), Mathieu Dupuis (Université Laval), Meiyun Wu (Université de Montréal)
Perturbations numériques et expérimentations : Le cas des techniciens des services automobiles au Québec
Même si la technologie est souvent présentée comme ayant des effets inexorables sur le travail et l’emploi, l’histoire des changements technologiques et des travaux qui s’y sont intéressés nous enseignent que ceux-ci doivent être compris à la fois comme une force perturbatrice, mais aussi comme un phénomène en proie à un remodelage par les systèmes sociaux dans lesquels ils s’insèrent. L’incertitude de leurs résultats et la co-influence entre technologie et ordre négocié est le point de départ de ce cas d’expérimentation. Les changements technologiques et la numérisation exercent de fortes pressions sur ces compromis institutionnalisés dans le monde du travail, provoquant ainsi la remise en cause des règles négociées et l’expérimentation autour de nouvelles formes de régulation.
Secouée par une double perturbation – les transformations numériques et la crise climatique – cette industrie vit un changement paradigmatique quant à la nature des produits fabriqués. Plus particulièrement, ce cas porte sur le métier des techniciens qui assurent l’entretien et la réparation des véhicules. Le changement des modes de propulsion vers les véhicules électriques et hybrides et l’intégration des technologies numériques dans les nouvelles générations de véhicules bousculent l’industrie et remet en question les compromis institutionnalisés pour les personnes qui assurent l’entretien des véhicules. Le changement climatique s’imbrique dans l’accélération des nouvelles technologies numériques.
Cette double perturbation génère une grande incertitude de la part des acteurs de cette industrie qui se livrent à de nombreuses expérimentations – souvent à l’extérieur de leurs répertoires traditionnels. Les normes sont parfois remises en question, parfois renouvelées, parfois recombinées, dans le cadre d’une délibération continue sur la manière d’adopter et de mettre en œuvre ces nouvelles technologies. Les règles qui émergent de cet ordre (re)négocié sont sujettes ainsi à diverses formes d’expérimentations. Pour le moment, les contours des nouveaux compromis institutionnalisés font l’objet d’une transition incertaine autour des jeux de pouvoir entre les acteurs dont les répertoires et le pouvoir doivent composer avec les effets multiples de la numérisation.
Discussants : Isabelle Daugareilh (COMPTRASEC – Université de Bordeaux), Jean Charest (Université de Montréal)
Moderator : Pier-Luc Bilodeau (Université Laval)
Thursday 21 April 2022
Title : Unfree Labour : Experimental Remedies / Esclavage moderne : remèdes expérimentaux
Time : 14h30-16h15 (Vancouver) ; 17h30-19h15 (Montréal) ; 22h30-00h15 (London) ; 23h30-01h15 (Paris / Brussels) ; 05h30-07h15 (Beijing) ; 07h30-09h15 (+ 1 Day – > Friday 22 April, Melbourne)
Language : English
Zoom Link : https://umontreal.zoom.us/j/83420914354?pwd=bTM3c0c2SkNOZTVTSUtKaDNoMTBkUT09
CASE # 1
Judy Fudge (McMaster University), Jonelle Humphrey (McMaster University)
Experimental regulation to address forced labour in supply chains: What will Canada choose?
There have been successive unsuccessful attempts by private members and senators to enact legislation that would require Canadian companies to take steps to avoid practices in their supply chains that could result in violations of human rights norms. The first bill was introduced in 2009 and it was designed to promote environmental best practices and to ensure the protection and promotion of international human rights standards in respect of the mining, oil or gas activities of Canadian corporations in developing countries. Since concerted business opposition defeated this bill, Conservative and Liberal federal governments have been reluctant to make any form of corporate social responsibility initiative mandatory. Beginning in 2018, there has been a flurry of private member and senate bills that would impose an obligation on Canadian corporations to disclose the steps that they have taken to ensure that there is no forced or child labour in their businesses or supply chains. This type of transparency legislation is modelled on similar modern slavery laws in California, the UK and Australia. On November 30, 2018, Canada, Mexico and the United States signed the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), which requires each party to prohibit the importation of goods that have been produced in whole or in part by forced or compulsory labour.
Domestic political pressures have combined with Canada’s international commitments to prompt the Liberal Minority government elected in 2021 to commit to introducing legislation to tackle forced labour in supply chains. Concerned that transparency laws do not work, advocacy groups promoting labour rights and corporate responsibility have urged the government to move beyond such laws to impose mandatory due diligence obligations. This case study addresses two questions: how will the federal government respond to these pressures and what type of regulation will it choose? Relying on key informant interviews and documentary analysis, this case study explores the role of social actors in shaping Canada’s response to calls to introduce regulation to tackle forced and child labour in supply chains. It also assesses the range of regulatory experiments on offer and locates Canada’s experiment amongst them
CASE # 2
Shelley Marshall (RMIT)
Neo-liberal expansion or regulatory assemblage aimed at taming supply chain capitalism? Australia’s Modern Slavery Act after one year
In late 2018 the Australian government passed its Modern Slavery Act (the Act): its response to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and its substitute for more rigorous human rights due diligence legislation of the type seen in the European Union. Australian companies captured by the Act are now lodging their second statements in accordance with its reporting requirements. This paper reflects on responses to the Act so far to address a global debate about this model of regulation. Does the response by companies confirm fears that the Modern Slavery Act represents a neo-liberal expansion of corporate agency? Or alternatively, is it part of a broader, fragmented regulatory extension of Australian labour regulation beyond the bilateral employment relationship to global production chains?
The paper will discuss the findings of a comprehensive study of Modern Slavery statements lodged by reporting entities in the first reporting cycle of the Act, as well as a broader assessment of regulatory innovation in Australia. On the one hand, the study shows few reporting entities accounting for actions that represent practical responsibility for egregious human rights abuses or action that might result in less bonded and forced labour. The most common actions reported entail passing responsibility for human rights protection onto suppliers. In this sense, the Act legitimates the expansion of governance power by lead firms over the production chain. But while the study confirms fears that big corporations are mainly using the Act to virtue signal without substance, there are some examples of firms that have been the target of labour rights campaigns taking more substantial actions. There is also normative power that can be harnessed by worker organisations from the public signalling by large corporations that they bear responsibility for labour conditions in production networks. If this were combined with legal actions made available to unions thanks to a raft of other reforms undertaken in recent years in Australia, it might provide an avenue for the expansion of worker agency rather than corporate agency. The paper ‘tries out’ the argument that the Modern Slavery Act is best understood as part of a regulatory and policy assemblage aimed at moderating supply chain capitalism, and ends with a call to action to unions to better utilise this assemblage.
Discussants : Isabelle Martin (Université de Montréal), Renée-Claude Drouin (Université de Montréal)
Moderator : Dalia Gesualdi-Fecteau (UQAM)
MAY 2022
Monday 16 May 2022
Title : Experimenting for Better Work? Assessing Models for Organizing along Value Chains / Expérimenter pour améliorer le travail le long des chaînes de valeur. Quelques modèles d’organisation sous la loupe
Time : 06h30-08h15 (Vancouver) ; 9h30-11h15 (Montréal) ; 14h30-16h15 (London) ; 15h30-17h15 (Paris / Brussels) ; 21h30-23h15 (Beijing) ; 00h30-02h15 (+ 1 Day – > Friday 1 April, Melbourne)
Language : English
Zoom Link : https://umontreal.zoom.us/j/87305050959?pwd=OFJBcjkrTXRIeGdHM0xPRUdrQ3lLQT09
CASE # 1
Huw Thomas (University of Bristol)
Experimenting with Institutional Power: Worker and Consumer Power in the Sri Lankan Tea Sector
Completed work on the tea sector in Sri Lanka looking at experimental worker power in global value chains. Argument is that certification schemes (Rainforest Alliance, ETP, Utz) at best have no effect and at worst are associated with indecent forms of work. These multi-stakeholder/private forms of governance did not provide an additional source of institutional power (failed experimentation). Conditions of work were improved and guaranteed through structural and associational power, combined with workers experimenting with different forms of institutional power (institutional experimentation) such as the ILO, its technical cooperation projects and its labour standards.
CASE # 2
Jean Jenkins (Cardiff University), Helen Blakely (Cardiff University), Rekha Chakravarthi (Cividep India), Rhys Davies (Cardiff University), Catriona Dickson (Cardiff University), Katy Huxley (Cardiff University), Sam Maher (…), Noa Serban-Temisan (Clean Clothes Campaign), Kaveri Thimmaiya (…)
Clean Clothes? The Never-Ending-Story of Exploitation in the International Garment Sector
This paper is based on two pieces of research into conditions in the international garment sector.
The first research project is the main focus for our analysis in this paper, and was a qualitative longitudinal study of workers in garment factories located in Bangalore, India. It was funded by the ESRC Global Challenge Research Fund and Indian and UK partners worked together in a research study that systematically recorded workplace grievances reported by workers to a small grass roots trade union organising in the locality over a period of 30 months. Detailed case notes on more than 350 workplace grievances were compiled between September 2018 and August 2021, supplemented by around 20 interviews with workers (conducted in their homes and other venues away from the workplace), plus observation of workers’ forums and meetings, and review of documentary evidence.
The second research project was also funded by the ESRC Global Challenges fund, and focused more broadly on the international sector, as it involved a collaboration with the Clean Clothes Campaign to create a database of Urgent Appeals submitted to them by their network partners and associates around the globe. This project compiled a more user-friendly database, primarily intended for reference as a practitioner tool for Urgent Appeals Coordinators within the CCC Network, as well as providing an evidence-based research resource.
By using the evidence from both projects, we are able to move from the individual grievance into a broader understanding of their position and relevance for industry norms. Thus, our findings in the Indian context come into sharp relief when pictured as a case in point – the ‘state of the industry’ becomes particularised and made human in the experiences of the individual worker. We see how exploitation happens, how it affects workers in their daily lives, and how remarkable are the forms of collective organisation that fight for workers’ rights and greater social justice at workplace level, despite facing the most immense odds in transnational space.
Empirically, the paper opens up the concrete experiences of workers on the ground, as well as affording insight into industry trends that form the backdrop for such conditions. Theoretically, it speaks to the possibilities of grass roots mobilisation in the face of uneven development and the collusion of states and corporations to negate in practice the international standards to which they commit in public. Taken together, the findings from the two research projects connect the international, the national and the local. It becomes possible to look in detail at workers’ experiences of work that is defined by societal norms, gendered employment practices and multiple levels of socio-economic disadvantage, alongside data that illuminates changing trends in the broader geographies of exploitation along the international supply chain.
Discussants : Judy Fudge (McMaster University), Kevin Banks (Queen’s University)
Moderator : Nik Hammer (Leicester University)
