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- Title
Part-time Shift: The Struggle over the Casualization of Airline Customer Sales and Service Agent Work*.
- Authors
Shalla, Vivian
- Abstract
Through an examination of the struggle, during the 1980s, over the use by Air Canada of part-time workers to perform customer sales and service agent work, this article aims to expand our knowledge and understanding of the casualization of women's white-collar, service-sector employment under economic restructuring and the role played by unions in shaping the contours of the employment relationship. The study focusses on how Air Canada's attempt to promote labour flexibility coloured contract negotiations and was pivotal in prompting agents to take strike action for the first time in their history, as well as merge their union with a more powerful and militant one. It examines the contradictory effects of the casualization process on agents' ability to achieve independence and equality in the labour market and underscores the difficulties faced by the union in resisting destandardization.
- Subjects
WOMEN'S employment; CUSTOMER services; AIR Canada (Company); LABOR unions; CONTRACT negotiations; STRIKES &; lockouts
- Publication
Canadian Review of Sociology & Anthropology, 2003, Vol 40, Issue 1, p93
- ISSN
0008-4948
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1755-618x.2003.tb00237.x