ABSTRACT
British Columbia, Canada, has experienced a notable shift in the privatization of long-term residential care (LTRC) ownership and care delivery over a short time period. In this chapter, we describe how privatization has been advanced through a program of legislative and policy reforms that restructured a stable, unionized labor regime in favor of ‘flexible’ and contingent employment relations. In this case, legislation provided LTRC operators with unrestricted rights to contract out unionized work and re-tender commercial contracts at will – creating instability for care workers and seniors. Government reforms to create a contingent care workforce and encourage private sector involvement have been justified by the rhetoric of fiscal austerity, a key tenet of neoliberal governance. The history of labor restructuring in Canada’s third-largest province shows how unions and sectoral bargaining structures can serve as barriers to privatization and help maintain the stable employment conditions that make relational care possible. This chapter reviews of academic and grey literature, government documents, and media articles, and also draws on key informant interviews conducted as part of a university ethics-approved study.
