The unionization of child care in Quebec: innovative practices, new concepts

The crisis of trade unionism leads to a variety of analyses of its causes. These analyses mask the passage of modern societies towards advanced modern societies and the importance of 'life politics' (Giddens, 1991), which is characterised by the emergence of new issues concerning 'life chances' as opposed to living conditions. The trade union response to these issues leads to wider-ranging demands and forms of action, including often short-term and fragile coalitions with other social movements. We suggest that openness to long-term coalitions is necessary in order to renew trade unionism and also to enable social movements to transform their respective identities. It is from this perspective that we analyse the experience of unionising early childhood centres in Québec. We propose an analytical framework that incorporates the issue of life politics and is based on the notion of 'region of labour relations'. We then bring out leads for boosting trade unionism by combining elements of the early childhood centre case and of the proposed framework. [PUB ABSTRACT] Reproduced by permission of Bibliothèque de Sciences Po