Legitimating Worker Disentitlement: Depictions of Postal Workers’ Wage Struggles in Globe and Mail Editorials, 1970–2015

Abstract

Background Since the late 1970s, inflation-adjusted wages have stagnated as workers’ bargaining power has diminished. The discursive environment in which workers’ wage entitlements is contested is an important—yet often neglected—influence on worker bargaining power. Analysis The authors examine editorials published in the Globe and Mail between 1970 and 2015 related to postal workers’ wage bargaining to examine the criteria advanced to evaluate the legitimacy of workers’ wage demands. Conclusions and implications The discourses examined contribute to normalizing and legitimating postal worker disentitlement by emphasizing harm as the evaluatory criterion by which workers’ demands are judged. This framing of postal workers and their wage struggles contributes to an environment in which the legitimacy of wage demands is undermined, contributing to the overall economic and political climate in which wages have stagnated.