Workplace Restructuring and its Discontents

This article analyses the role of fetish—unspoken attachments—within and against the 2020 proposal to restructure the College of Sciences at Massey University.I look at the roles played by three forms of fetish: the commodity fetish, the fetishisation of intellectual labour, and the fetish of knowledge-without-consequences. I analyse the restructuring and its opposition by mapping these fetishes and the deadlocks to which they lead. In addition to highlighting insights that the concept of fetish generates into the politics of the restructuring, I speculate on the role of fetish as a political factor in the contemporary moment.

How do Restructuring Processes Influence Low- and Unskilled Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Workers and their Managers in a Norwegian Hospital?

It is a well-known fact that workplace restructuring has undesirable effects on the psychosocial work environment, health, and sick leave, but no attention has been given to the health effects of work environments characterized by restructuring, a multicultural staff, and a strong socioeconomic occupational hierarchy. In this casestudy, we examine a large Norwegian hospital in which all of these features are present. Through in-depth interviews with employees and their managers we investigate the healthiness of the restructuring process, and the consequences of the restructuring process on the work environment, subjective health, and sick leave. Results show that immigrant workers received less information, had higher level of frustration and less control over work, and experienced a decrease in well-being, autonomy, and social support. Immigrant worker vulnerability, that is, the handicap of poor understanding of the Norwegian language and a lack of understanding of general and local organizational norms and practices in the Norwegian workplace, is an important explanation. Immigrant workers with a poor Norwegian language understanding are even worse off. We conclude that a strong occupational hierarchy within the hospital exerts an overall influence on the position of low/unskilled employees in the restructuring process as well as their perception of and involvement in it.

Confronting the employment standards enforcement gap: Exploring the potential for union engagement with employment law in Ontario, Canada

Employment standards (ES) are legislated standards that set minimum terms and conditions of employment in areas such as wages, working time, vacations and leaves, and termination and severance. In Canada, the majority of workers rely on ES for basic regulatory protection; however, a significant ‘enforcement gap’ exists. In the province of Ontario, this enforcement gap has been exacerbated in recent years due to the deregulation of ES through inadequate funding, workplace restructuring, legislative reforms that place greater emphasis on individualized complaints processes and voluntary compliance, and a formal separation of unions from ES enforcement. The implications of these developments are that, increasingly, those in precarious jobs, many of whom lack union representation, are left with insufficient regulatory protection from employer non-compliance, further heightening their insecurity. Taking the province of Ontario as our focus, in this article we critically examine alternative proposals for ES enforcement, placing our attention on those that enhance the involvement of unions in addressing ES violations. Through this analysis, we suggest that augmenting unions’ supportive roles in ES enforcement holds the potential to enhance unions’ regulatory function and offers a possible means to support the ongoing efforts of other workers’ organizations to improve employer compliance with ES.