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No 2009:106:
Neoliberal Restructuring, Activism/Participation, and Social Unionism in the Nonprofit Social Services

Donna Baines ()
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Donna Baines: McMaster University

Abstract: During the era of neoliberalism, the nonprofit services sector has simultaneously been a site of (a) promarket restructuring and collective and individual resistance and (b) alternative forms of service delivery. Drawing on data collected as part of an ethnographic study in the Canadian nonprofit social services sector, this article explores the impacts of some of restructuring on professional, quasi-professional, and managerial employees in eight unionized, nonprofit social services. The data show that the adoption of social unionism has permitted some nonprofit social service workers to initiate new processes through which to have a voice in far-reaching social issues, sometimes in coalition with management and/or clients. The findings of this study point to the irrepressibility of the participatory spirit and its capacity to seek new forms and practices despite the stretched and restructured conditions of today’s nonprofit social services sector.

Keywords: Restructuring; voluntary spirit; unions; participatory spirit; social services

Language: English

19 pages, 2009

Note: Available online at: http://nvs.sagepub.com/cgi/rapidpdf/0899764008326681v1

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RePEc:hhh:senior:2009_106 This page was generated 2009-11-02 09:56:59