Original scientific paper
The Canadian Labour Market and Its Impact on Blue Collar Workers
Alexander J. Matejko
; Department of Sociology, University of Alberta, Canada
Abstract
The major transformations of the blue collar worker stratum come in Canada from the labour market with the inflow of women, white collar occupations, a much higher share of better educated people, regional migrations, decline of employment in agriculture, etc. There is the growing split between the core of blue collars, namely the unionized people earning on the average from seven to ten dollars per hour in construction, mining and manufacturing, and the peripheral workers in trade and services earning half of it or even much less. It is very difficult to promote a real united front of those two categories of working people who differ in the level of unionization, occupational stability and security, standard of living and expectations, even sex and age. The weakness of the Canadian labour movement, and also of the Canadian socialism, originates not only from the middle class identity and conservatism of many Canadians, even those who earn much below the middle class level, but also to the considerable extent from the above mentioned deep split within the blue collar worker stratum.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
155987
URI
Publication date:
31.12.1980.
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