Worker Representation in the Regulation of Occupational Health: Explaining the Shift to Knowledge Activism
| Author | Alan Hall |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09646639221099361 |
| Published date | 01 April 2023 |
| Date | 01 April 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Worker Representation in
the Regulation of
Occupational Health:
Explaining the Shift to
Knowledge Activism
Alan Hall
Department of Sociology, Memorial University, St
John’s, NL, Canada
Abstract
This paper explains the origins, features and impacts of ‘knowledge activism’as an emer-
gent form of collective OHS resistance. Coupling labour process theory with Pierre
Bourdieu‘s concepts of capital, the analysis connects transformations in production,
management, technology, and neoliberal governance to shifts in labour/management
power relations, both within the joint committee and the workplace more generally,
as defined by the relative social, cultural and symbolic capital accumulated and mobilized
by worker representatives.
Keywords
occupational health and safety, worker representation, workplace politics, knowledge
activism
Introduction
Within Canada, a major innovation in occupational health and safety (OHS) law in the
1970s and 80 s was the mandating of joint OHS committees (JOHSCs), with worker
representatives (reps.) elected by the workers or appointed by their Union (Tucker,
1995). While only granted advisory roles, there was initial hope within the Canadian
Corresponding author:
Alan Hall, Department of Sociology, Memorial University, St John’s, NL, A1C 5S7, Canada.
Email: alanh@mun.ca
Article
Social & Legal Studies
2023, Vol. 32(2) 273–293
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/09646639221099361
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Labour Union community that worker representation and joint committees would provide
an avenue for significant participation and impact in occupational health and safety deci-
sions (Hall, 1991; Storey, 2004). Research has confirmed positive impacts on working
conditions and accident rates in Canada and elsewhere but findings also point to varia-
tions and limitations in committee and representative effectiveness (ACOHS, 1986;
Facey et al., 2017; Hall et al., 2006; 2013; 2016; Lewchuk, Robb and Walters,
1996; O‘Grady, 2000; Olle-Espluga et al., 2014; Shannon, 2000; Walters and
Haines, 1988; Walters and Nichols, 2007; Walters et al., 2016; Walters and
Wadsworth, 2020). Most research efforts to explain these differences have tended to
focus on factors such as management commitment and cooperation, the presence, bargain-
ing power, andorientation of labour unions,training, time allowances, governmentenforce-
ment of OHS law, and hyper-bureaucratization (Baril-Gingras and Dubois-Ouellet, 2018;
Blewett and O‘Keefe, 2011; Lewchuk, Robb and Walters, 1996; O‘Grady, 2000;
Shannon, 2000; Størkersen et al., 2020; Walters and Nichols, 2007).
Since employers retain authority and responsibility within Canadian OHS laws to
make final health and safety decisions, many of these constraining or enabling factors
speak to the political capacity of workers and worker representatives to “persuade”or
pressure the employer to implement their recommendations (OOHSA, 1978/1990).
However, from their mandated beginning in the province of Ontario (e.g. see Ham,
1976; Burkett, Riggin and Rothney, 1981; OMOL, 1985; Dean, 2010; see also
Corporate Submissions on Bill 208, 1990
1
), JOHSCs have been cast by successive gov-
ernments, corporate leaders and OHS institutions and experts as apolitical technocratic
partnerships operating within an “internal responsibility system”(IRS), organized to
work cooperatively and responsibly to achieve what these authorities claimed were
common labour/employer interests in preventing injuries and disease. Accordingly,
overt displays of political orientation, tactics and strategies by unions or worker represen-
tatives were condemned by government officials, corporation leaders and conservative
OHS experts as betrayals of the partnership ethic (e.g. Burkett, Riggin and Rothney,
1981; McKenzie and Laskin, 1987; Dean, 2010).
While there was substantial Labour resistance to this governance model when it was
first introduced leading to demands for more significant worker and rep. powers in OHS
decisions, by the 1990s most labour unions had increasingly accepted this IRS framing
(Storey, 2004, 2005; Storey and Tucker, 2006). This institutional shift translated over
time into widespread committee capture by management with rep. and union acceptance
of management constructed parameters limiting which conditions could be audited and
which kinds of changes were considered possible (Hall, 1999; 2021b; Hall et al. 2016;
MacEachen, 2000, 2005). In fulfilling this technocratic monitoring role, what has been
called in the OHS literature, technical-legal (TL) representation, reps. restrict their activ-
ities to inspections, report writing, and tightly scripted meetings where management
representatives largely govern what gets fixed and/or forwarded for action to corporate
or front-line management (Hall et al., 2006; 2016; Hall, 2021b).
Research suggests that along with TL captive representatives and committees, many
joint JOHSCs are perhaps better described as inactive or dysfunctional than technocratic,
with little meaningful organized activities or positive impacts (Facey et al., 2017; Hall
and Tucker, in submission; Olle-Espluga et al., 2014; Walters and Wadsworth, 2020).
274 Social & Legal Studies 32(2)
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