| Reviews / Comptes Rendus | Labour/Le Travail, 53

Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Anthony Winson and Belinda Leach, Contingent Work, Disrupted Lives: Labour and Community in the New Rural Economy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 2002).

CANADIAN POLITICAL economy, as a vibrant academic and scholarly tradition, has receded from view over the course of the past few decades. The neo-liberal government agenda with its attendant hegemonic discourse stemming from the Mulroney era accompanied by the signing of NAFTA and the heralding of Canada's place as a prominent player in the drive to globalization among the G7 represents one set of factors that might explain why Canadian social scientists do not take more seriously Canadian political economy work and research. Another equally compelling set of factors is related to the increased pressure on universities to play a more prominent role in research that will benefit government and corporations, accompanied by targeted funding for such research and pressure to seek private corporate sponsors rather than continued reliance on public coffers for university funding in general as opposed to specific programs and components.

So it came as a pleasant surprise to read this book and to find that the authors situate themselves squarely within the tradition. Chapter Two of the book, "The Global and the Local: Understanding Globalization through Community Research," offers a thoughtful overview of Canadian political economy, situating it within the larger critical tradition of the effects of capitalism on labour forces, specifically those residing in rural towns and connected to manufacturing. While the authors remind us that global capitalist expansion is not new, their work does focus on what they refer to as the "new economy." Winson and Leach inform us: "Community is the crucible in which globalization finally works itself out. It is where the rubber hits the road." (43)

The aim of the book is to explore the effects of the "new economy" of the 1990s on the manufacturing labour forces in five Ontario rural communities. In 1992 the authors began research in three communities in Wellington County. At that time they interviewed workers laid off from the Canada Packers plant in Elora. Over the course of the next two years they interviewed workers laid off in the towns of Harriston (which lost its Canada Packers dairy plant) and Mount Forest (the Westinghouse plant closed at about the same time). Chapter Three contains historical sketches of all five communities and records the histories of the chief employers in those towns. For example, they characterize the firm of Bissell which operated in Elora from 1901 to 1954 as "emblematic of small town manufacturing," exemplifying the values of "industrial capitalism" practised by a class of indigenous manufacturers. (53–54)

In 1997 the authors expanded their studies to include the town of Arnprior, located in the Ottawa Valley, a new "high-tech Greenfield site" due to its proximity to "Silicon Valley" north. Beginning as a single-industry town reliant on the huge McLaughlin sawmill and the timber trade of the late 19th century, the town's labour force became reliant on employment in low-technology manufacturing (requiring relatively unskilled labour) after the mill shut down in 1929. The community passed through two subsequent phases: manufacturing pipes for the nuclear power industry and the more recent location of a Boeing plant and two firms that manufacture hardware and software for electronic communications. The fifth community included in the study is the single-industry town of Iroquois Falls in northeastern Ontario, the town with the most consistent history in terms of reliance on a single industry; namely, pulp and paper. Of the five communities, it is also the one with the most militant unionized workers, and the authors argue that this factor has been important in preserving well-paid unionized jobs. However, new technology and mergers have taken their toll, not so much on the older workers, many of them able to secure early-retirement packages rather than being laid off, but on young workers. The practice of young men working summers while in school and then taking their places in the mill, often without graduating from high school, has virtually ended.

The main argument is that in all five communities, secure well-paid jobs with benefits have been lost and workers forced to take on "contingent work" involving casual part-time or on call work at low pay and with few benefits. The authors outline the process in each of the communities. While the types of industry differ, the nature of the jobs has become increasingly the same, as companies strive to lower costs by eliminating highly paid work involving acknowledged skills by either shutting plants down (and moving to lower-cost areas in the United States and Mexico) or by introducing technology that replaces one type of worker by another with an overall downsizing in the total labour force employed (especially in the case of Iroquois Falls).

While class and class consciousness are highlighted by the authors (the conservative, often anti-union mentality, of rural small-town southwestern Ontario is compared to the more militant community of Iroquois Falls), Winson and Leach also note the importance of at least two other structural factors: age and gender. Many women were able to find relatively well-paying stable jobs in the manufacturing plants in southern Ontario, allowing them a measure of independence that many lamented when they lost their jobs after having worked for several decades. Because of their familial responsibilities, including the care of children and/or elderly parents and relatives, women were not as mobile as many of the men. Thus, for women, contingent labour meant finding part-time minimum wage work in the service sector (like fast food restaurants and grocery stores) or looking after the children of other working parents (qualifying them as "small businesses" despite the low financial rewards). When a majority of a town's labour force found itself unemployed, even this latter option was no longer available. Men's search for employment meant that they were often forced to take two or three part-time jobs that required travelling large distances. Even with several jobs, men reported themselves unable to earn the level of wages they had previously enjoyed during their manufacturing careers. Alongside lost jobs was the lost community of work enjoyed when people had long histories with a particular employer or in a particular plant. In Arnprior, the location of high-tech firms also introduced a "casualization" of labour since many jobs were contractual. In addition, workers commuted from outside to work in Arnprior and thus the expansion of jobs with the location of new businesses did not necessarily mean work for the local labour force. In addition to statistical information, the authors also provide information gleaned from interviews with workers in all five communites.

The factor of age has been mentioned in regards to Iroquois Falls. Overall, many of those who were laid off in all of the communities studied had worked for several decades and were looking forward to retirement. It is difficult for these workers, many without advanced education or skills outside of their particular work environments, to find other jobs. Health problems also become more pronounced for older workers and financial problems are exacerbated with the loss of health benefits at work. Commuting long distances to work several jobs, including different shifts, adds to stress levels and health risks. Women reported stress caused by becoming reliant on their husbands for financial support, many for the first times in their lives, in addition to reduced self esteem resulting from job loss and a steady income, as well as a husband who may also be laid off and sitting at home feeling worthless. Both men and women reported not even having enough money to go and have a cup of coffee with friends or for gas to go visit friends and relatives. The effect on the next generation of workers is potentially devastating. Jobs held in the community and passed down through the generations have been lost and young people are forced to relocate or to take low paying temporary work if they wish to remain in the community. This trend has been strengthened in Iroquois Falls because government jobs have also been lost as the public sector goes through retrenchment and a new round of centralization.

Winson and Leach demonstrate through their five case studies the imperative of keeping the political economy approach visible and vital, especially during this current period of globalization, periodic and cyclical recessions that lead to corporate mergers or relocations to cheaper sites outside Canada, alongside a neo-liberal government ideology that justifies such moves as somehow good for the Canadian economy. This book explores the effects of these decisions on workers living in rural towns in Ontario. The authors explore the effects on rural communities and the impact on rural manufacturing populations in particular. This is perhaps where the biggest weakness of the work becomes apparent. While it is clear that rural communities are threatened by the loss of their major employers, there is not enough in the study that makes these towns, and the people who live and work in them, come alive on the page. There are not many quotes from the interviews and those that appear are sketchy. The reader does not get a sense of "community" reading this book. The Canadian political economy literature contains good examples of case studies that bring community case studies to life. The authors had a rich source of interview data that they could have integrated into the study in a far more interesting way. As it stands there is much repetition rather than an analysis that focuses on the communities themselves and on the people who live in them as unique individuals coping with forces largely outside their control. A final point has to do with the putting together of the volume by the press. Missing is the appendix and the majority of the endnotes in Chapter Three.

In conclusion, a critical approach that questions the received wisdom of corporations and governments on the benefits of globalization for the Canadian economy is sorely needed. We also need more research on communities that tracks the effects of these changes on working people and their families, in a manner that makes the communities come alive for the reader.


Alicja Muszynski University of Waterloo

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