摘要：Chris Hurl considers provincial politics in British Columbia. Although a large number of health care and education workers — approximately 40,000 in each case — went on strike in 2004 and 2005, industrial conflict in the province has diminished, although few gains were achieved. Hurl deconstructs three prominent narratives explaining the labour struggles in British Columbia and argues that structure is actively constituted through the course of struggle. In his view, the “absence of positive demands providing an alternative vision of public health care and education prevented these actions from advancing in a broader movement against privatization over the long term.” The lack of such demands, based on an underlying alternative vision, are not the consequence of specific interests, but “the relative weakness of formal and informal structures and strategies capable of challenging the premise of corporatist arguments calling for the harmonization of capital, labour and the state.”
