Rising Up: The Fight for Living Wage Work in Canada

Canada has one of the highest rates of low-wage work among advanced industrial economies. In a labour market characterized by the ongoing fallout from COVID-19, deepening income inequality, increasingly uncertain job tenure, and steadily diluted union representation, the living wage movement offers a response. Rising Up traces the history and international context of living wage movements across Canada. Contributors to this astute and compassionate collection of essays examine union- and community-based approaches to organizing in marginalized communities, the role of social reproduction, migrant labour, and media (mis)representations, among other key topics. In the 1970s, the balance of political and economic power began to shift in favour of business, as trade unions weakened and governments proved unwilling to check corporate power. By the 2000s, austerity measures had dismantled social services spending, facilitating the growth of precarious, often gendered or racialized low-waged employment. Rapidly increasing wealth and income inequality has followed in the wake of these deteriorating labour market conditions and mounting social disparities.As more and more workers in Canada and elsewhere face permanent low-paid work, Rising Up will stimulate debate about living wages and social inequality, promoting alternatives to a neoliberalized labour market. --Publisher's description. Contents: Resisting Low-Wage Work: The Struggle for Living Wages / Bryan Evans, Carlo Fanelli, and Tom McDowell -- The Comparative Political Economy of Low Wages / Stephen McBride, Sorin Mitrea, and Mohammad Ferdosi -- Labour Justice: Assessing the Politics of the American Labour Movement / Biko Koenig and Deva Woodly -- Media (Mis)Representations and the Living Wage Movement / Carlo Fanelli and A.J. Wilson -- The Emergence of the Living Wage Movement in Canada's Northern Territories / Kendall Hammond -- Getting by but Dreaming of Normal: Low-Wage Employment, Living in Toronto, and the Crisis of Social Reproduction / Meg Luxton and Patricia McDermott -- The Living Wage and the Extremely Precarious: The Case of "Illegalized" Migrant Workers / Charity-Ann Hannan, John Shields, and Harald Bauder -- Working for a Living, Not Living for Work: Living Wages in the Maritimes / Mary-Dan Johnston and Christine Saulnier -- The BC Living Wage for Families Campaign: A Decade of Building / Catherine Ludgate -- Challenging the Small Business Ideology in Saskatchewan's Living Wage Debate / Andrew Stevens -- The Living Wage Campaign in Hamilton: Assessing the Voluntary Approach / David Goutor -- Why Business-Led Living Wage Campaigns Fail: The Case of Calgary, Alberta, 1999-2009 / Carol-Anne Hudson -- The Low-Wage Economy in the Age of Neoliberalism: What Can Be Done? / Tom McDowell, Sune Sandbeck, and Bryan Evans.