Employment Relations in the Neostaples Resource Economy: Impact Benefit Agreements and Aboriginal Governance in Canada’s Nickel Mining Industry

Introduction In earlier issues of SPE, Watkins 1 and Stanford 2 argue that resource development continues to be central to Canada’s economy, despite drastic structural changes over the past three decades. They note that everlarger natural resource firms are using highly mobile workforces to produce commodities for export rather than domestic manufacturing, and that fewer benefits are accruing to local communities. The narrative developed is that these changes mark a shift away from the once-prominent mature staples political economy theorized by Watkins 3 in which governments provided firms with access to natural resources in exchange for royalties, commitments to employment, and infrastructural development in rural areas. These arrangements resulted in the creation of resource-dependent communities throughout Canada, and also promoted economic diversification through expanded secondary manufacturing. Alternatively in what we term the “neostaples” economy, Stanford and Watkins maintain that resource rents are increasingly concentrated in the hands of foreign investors rather than governments, employees, and resource-dependent communities. In addition—and perhaps the reason these changes warrant attention from labour scholars—the neostaples political economy has proven to be a challenging one for collective representation. Whereas unions in the mature staples regime provided a large number of workers with a voice in the workplace and the ability to capture increasing shares of resource rents in