Struggles on the frontier of professional control: Leading cases from Canada

Abstract

Professions and unions have often been positioned as opposing alternatives or logics of action in theories of labour. Professions embrace a spirit of individualism and mystique, privileged by a social status, while unions are collectivist and seek respect and to usurp power from a dominant class. How do professionals successfully shift their position from dominance to subordination when they engage in collective bargaining? This article proposes that collective representation of professions is not a substitution of one form of power for another, but rather is the expression of a new arena of power for labour playing itself out at the forefront of work regulation in Canada. Three cases of labour disputes of professionalized workers highlight the struggle over the exercise of discretion and illustrate that collective bargaining is an occupational closure strategy that alters the boundaries of a profession in an attempt to maintain professional control.