Convergence Bites Back: Labour Struggles in the Canadian Communication Industry

Abstract

This article examines the concept of labour convergence in the context of two significant labour struggles in the Canadian communication industry: the 2005 lockouts at Canada’s national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and at Canada’s second-largest telecommunications company, the Telus Corporation. It begins with a brief analysis of convergence as a technological and institutional process, specifically as it applies to communication technology, the communication arena, and communication companies, and as a myth that contains utopian visions of universal connectedness. The article then describes how labour is deploying its own form of convergence, a form that conflicts with and sometimes “bites back” at the communication industry and its dream of friction-free capitalism.