Rational corporation meets disciplined worker: The (re)production of class subjects in corporate crime law reform

Abstract

This paper uses Canada’s corporate criminal liability legislation as an empirical exemplar with which to interrogate the limits of using the law to address the abuses of corporate power and to protect workers’ safety. The author draws from Althusser’s notion of interpellation to contemplate whether demands to discipline corporations through the law, particularly by labour/unions, misrecognise the problems of workplace safety, including that workers are routinely injured and killed in the pursuit of surplus profits. The author concludes that the problems of workplace safety ultimately demand broader strategies that challenge and transform the capitalist mode of production.