Search

What’s often framed as an “international student crisis” is less about migration numbers than labour. As Canadian universities become revenue engines and work rules shift with market needs, international students are channelled into Canada’s most precarious jobs, propping up low-wage sectors and exposing how exploitation is built into immigration policy itself.

Union wage gains were relatively healthy, but unemployment crept up and workers felt the cost-of-living crunch.

How migrant workers, with the support of Canadian unions, won justice in a landmark court decision. In April 2006, 42 Latin Americans landed in Vancouver to excavate tunnels for the Canada Line Skytrain. They thought they'd won the lottery with promised wages far above what they would earn at home. But the reality was miserable wages, unpaid overtime and inadequate living conditions. It was the beginning of the Canadian construction industry's reliance on migrant workers and the treatment of temporary foreign workers has made headlines ever since. Author Joe Barrett, fluent in Spanish and a researcher for BC Building Trades unions, first spoke to three of the Costa Rican workers through a chain link around the worksite. They confirmed the low wages. He shares his unique insider perspective as he joined the team of union organizers and became a liaison between workers, union officials and lawyers throughout the court battles. The workers' resentment grew in the face of employer lies, intimidation, coercion and prejudice. Most of them came from a group of villages in central Costa Rica. They grew up together, sharing a background of poverty and hardship. These common bonds gave them the courage they needed to face fears of employer retaliation as they organized, which resulted in a successful vote for union certification, a first for temporary foreign workers in the Canadian construction industry. But their victory was short-lived and their unity was broken by a series of employer "sticks and sweeteners." The fight for fairness continued at the BC Labour Relations Board (BCLRB) and, ultimately, at the BC Human Rights Tribunal in a race against time before the workers left Canada with the completion of the tunnels. In 2008, the tribunal delivered a triumphant decision, a landmark case in the evolving issue of global migration. Workers were awarded $2.4 million to compensate for discrimination based on country of origin; for wages, inferior accommodations, meals and expenses and injury to dignity and feelings. A Fight for Justice is an inspiring story of collective action and relationships across progressive communities in Canada and Latin America and offers a remarkable story of migrant workers successfully fighting for fairness and equality. --Publisher's description

Inspired by the recent national policy framework establishing the Canadian Employee Ownership Trust, we survey the landscape of broad-based employee ownership (BBEO) in Canada, focusing on the two prominent forms: worker co-operatives and broad-based employee share ownership. We conceptualize BBEO based on two inclusion criteria: the percentage of shares held by employees and the breadth of access to ownership opportunities. We also draw attention to two other relevant factors: the extent of employee control rights and degree of equality of share allocation. We then discuss the evolution and prevalence of the two forms of BBEO in Canada, utilizing limited available data and supplementing with illustrative examples. Finally, we call for an integrated and comparative research and policy agenda that bridges worker co-operatives and broad-based employee share ownership models.

How do digital platforms, such as Uber, Amazon, or DoorDash, reterritorialize social protections for immigrant workers at urban, national, and transnational scales? In this paper I show how they function as tools of economic integration, situating interplays between states, markets to generate new territorial configurations and exclusions in the digital economy. By analyzing the role of immigrant workers in the platform economy, I aim to show how platform economies both enable and constrain transnational mobility, deepening global inequalities through the uneven impact of flexible labour mediated by digital infrastructures. I focus specifically on software engineers and gig workers, who perform what Vallas and Schor (2020) identify as “geographically tethered work”. These two migrant groups allow me to observe how platformization has reterritorialized labour relations. Providing an analysis of different immigrant workers in the North American platform economy, I aim to show the ways in which immigration status makes these labour relations more precarious, increasing the reliance on transnational infrastructures of care.

Workplace racial discrimination remains a pervasive and harmful reality with profound implications for health and well-being. Drawing on evidence from three interrelated independent studies using both primary and secondary Canadian data, this research provides a comprehensive understanding of how workplace racial discrimination functions as both a social determinant of health and a chronic stressor contributing to adverse health outcomes and persistent health inequities. The findings demonstrate that workplace racial discrimination, manifesting through inequities in hiring, promotion, retention, and interpersonal interactions, increases the risks of significant psychological, physiological, and physical health outcomes for racialized workers. Experiencing workplace racial discrimination was strongly associated with heightened risks of anxiety, depression, stress and post-traumatic stress disorders, reinforcing mental health disparities across racialized groups. In addition, workplace racial discrimination increased perceptions of work-related stress, which in turn elevated the risk of diagnosed chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, stroke effects and musculoskeletal disorders. Physiological assessments further revealed that recalling racial discrimination experiences contributes to dysregulated cardiovascular reactivity, including elevated systolic and diastolic blood pressure, as well as mean arterial pressure values above the normal range. Particularly severe forms of racial discrimination, implicating job loss, early retirement, undesirable resignation or leaves were linked to greater blood pressure increases. When incidents of racial discrimination were reported, especially when participants received acknowledgment of their experiences, physiological responses were attenuated. These results underscore the importance of personal action, recognition, accountability and institutional action in mitigating health risks. These findings underscore how workplace psychosocial stressors trigger harmful biological and physiological responses that may result in lasting health consequences. Taken together, this research highlights workplace racial discrimination as a critical public health concern that transcends individual experiences and reflects broader organizational inequities. Conceptualizing discrimination as a chronic stressor provides an essential understanding in addressing racial health disparities. The evidence points to the urgent need for organizational reforms, robust anti-discrimination policies, and workplace practices that not only prevent discrimination but also support the mental and physical health of racialized workers. Addressing workplace racism is not solely a matter of social justice; it is a public health imperative with the potential to reduce disparities, promote workplace equity, and improve the overall well-being of diverse populations.

This article analyses the experiences of US and Canadian call centre workers and their unions with the shift from physical call centres to ‘work from home’ (WFH) arrangements. Drawing on interviews, focus groups and a worker survey, the authors find that the shift enabled new forms of spatial control grounded in worker preferences for remote work and associated with different forms of precarity. Management control over the physical location of work could increase job insecurity; control over the costs and risk associated with WFH arrangements could increase income insecurity; and control over communication between workers and with their unions could increase collective representation and voice insecurity. Local unions engaged in modes of resistance to spatial control, but with uneven success. Findings suggest that labour power requires union strategies that both defend WFH rights and develop protections targeted at forms of precarity associated with being able to work from home.

At the height of the Great Depression, 2,000 young, single, unemployed and homeless men decided to ride boxcars from Vancouver to Ottawa to seek work and wages from Prime Minister "Iron Heel" R.B. Bennett. Their undertaking became the On-To-Ottawa Trek. Vancouver Advocate cub reporter Mark Hunter is given the perilous assignment of infiltrating the Trek. Once accepted into the journey, can he remain incognito? Can he endure the odyssey's hardships and dangers? Also, can he survive the Trek's violent ending? Most important, can he provide objective and accurate reporting of the historic event? --Publisher's description

Adoptant un format original axé sur le dialogue et la conversation, cet ouvrage collectif se situe dans la tradition des travaux en relations industrielles – un champ disciplinaire étudiant les problèmes variés associés au travail et à l’emploi. Il jette un regard d’ensemble sur les nouveaux enjeux émergents concernant le futur des milieux de travail et aborde des sujets tels que la crise climatique, le télétravail, la diversité, l’équité et l’inclusion au travail, l’avenir du syndicalisme et les droits des travailleurs. / With an original format centred on dialogue and conversation, this book is rooted in the tradition of industrial relations research, a disciplinary field that studies diverse problems associated with work and employment. As a collaborative work that takes a broad look at new and emerging issues concerning the future of workplaces, it addresses topics such as the climate crisis, telework, diversity, equity, and inclusion at work, the future of unionism, and workers’ rights. --Publisher's description / Résumé de l'éditeur

Strategies designed to revive the declining union movement require new resources and new members for success. For this, many unions often used closed or agency shops. We compare these with the now dominant open shop as well as the union default. These options are assessed by asking how effective would each be at securing both members and resources for unions; and how much would each option protect and/or advance worker's autonomy in terms of various individual freedoms? Though closed and agency shops have many merits, especially in relation to the open shop, we conclude that the union default is superior to both.

The sixties were not just “sex, drugs, and rock and roll.” Social movements aimed at overcoming patriarchy, colonialism, and corporate capitalism were equally part of the sixties revolution. These movements are still very much alive. In The Long Sixties, seven veteran political activists from the sixties, all still engaged in campaigns and organizations across Canada, tell their stories of transformational activism. What could veteran activists from the sixties teach about activism? In addition to telling their stories — how they got involved, why they stay involved, how they persevered into their twilight years — they also critically reflect on their victories and defeats, their personal and political challenges, what they learned, and how their perspectives deepened and changed along the way. This book provides hope, chronicling the significant gains — in advancing peace, international human rights, Indigenous rights, women’s and 2SLGBTQ+ rights, workers’ rights, and environmental protection. Weathered voices open an intergenerational conversation about social solidarity and transformation to address the grave crises we face globally and nationally, including climate catastrophe, escalating warfare, extreme wealth inequality, ethno-nationalism, and a heightened continental threat to Canada’s sovereignty. -- Publisher's description

This article takes up the challenge of examining whether, and to what extent, existing labour laws in Canada are equipped to respond to new technological changes in the workplace. While the notion that technology changes labour is not new, both the types of technology associated with this new wave of change, and their rapid deployment, make this an urgently needed inquiry, given their impacts on material working conditions. Further, given that core statutory provisions regulating labour relations in Canada have remained relatively unchanged over the past 50 years, there is reason to speculate about their continued relevance, or suitability to respond to new technology in the workplace. --From Introduction

Canada's occupational health and safety (OHS) legislative frameworks describe the general rights and responsibilities of employers and employees to ensure safe workplaces. However, the extent to which these OHS frameworks recognize and safeguard reproductive health and fetal development remains understudied. Protections for reproductive health and fetal development were evaluated in OHS legislation, employment standards, and associated regulations across Canada's federal and 13 provincial/territorial jurisdictions by a policy analysis, supported by a sex and gender-based thematic and content analysis. OHS and reproductive health keyword frequencies were also determined. Three major themes were identified: (1) inconsistent recognition of workplace risks to reproductive health, (2) job modification, and (3) employer-mandated pregnancy leave. Our review found that workplace protections were generally limited to pregnancy, with little recognition of workplace risks to fertility, suggesting gaps in workplace protections for reproductive health and fetal development. We recommend contemporary reform of Canada's OHS legislation and regulations to support universal, comprehensive, and inclusive protections for reproductive health and fetal development for all workers, regardless of sex and pregnancy status.

The “Red Baron” from Local 213 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) was Les McDonald, once a firebrand Communist activist and the youthful leader of the left faction within the Vancouver electrical workers’ union. His fate would be intertwined with the Lenkurt Electric strike of 1966, a wildcat strike that led to the imprisonment of four trade union leaders. Following his involvement as a long-time trade unionist, McDonald went on to be better known for his dedication to the establishment of triathlon as an official sport of the Olympic Games. However, McDonald’s important role in Local 213 and the Lenkurt strike—a watershed moment in Canadian labour history—was, until now, the untold story of the first half of his life. Referencing Local 213’s Minute Books, newspaper articles, collected correspondence, as well as dozens of personal interviews conducted by the author, this book examines the history of IBEW Local 213 in the turbulent years leading up to the Lenkurt strike. In addition to describing these events and their important historical ramifications, author Ian McDonald chronicles how his father helped to rebuild a left faction within the local union. With a focus on the period between 1955 to 1985, this ground-breaking study of a single construction trade union local—its brief post-World War II experience with Communist leadership, well-known work-site militancy, and repeated interventions by the IBEW’s International Office—sheds light on the local’s “red” minority activism and ultimately explains why McDonald returned to the world of sport to finish his career. --Publisher's description

Elements of a redistributive and working-class agenda are already in demand, but many voters and especially the working class, feel politically alienated and disaffected that their interests are not being pursued.

Caring labour has long been a key part of the labour required of domestic violence shelter workers. Under the weight of public health directives during the COVID-19 pandemic, the nature and consequences of this caring labour changed. This paper examines these shifts within the broader context of the enduring invisibility of caring labour and the depoliticization of anti-violence work, both of which began long before the COVID-19 pandemic and has endured after. Drawing on 38 semi-structured interviews with shelter staff and residents working and living in domestic violence shelters in Ontario, Canada in 2022, we examine the pandemic-related shifts in shelter work and their wide-reaching consequences for workers, survivors, and anti-violence work.

The NDP’s ability to credibly advance this alternative vision depends largely on whether the labour movement is itself willing and able to engage in such political and economic education.

Over the past 50 years, women in Canada have made substantial gains in employment and earnings, supported by greater participation in full-time work, higher education levels, and movement into professional and unionized jobs. Despite this progress, major gender inequalities persist. Women—especially mothers of young children, caregivers, women with fewer years of formal schooling, and those facing overlapping forms of discrimination—remain concentrated in lower-paid occupations rooted in traditional gender roles. Persistent occupational segregation is a key contributor to Canada’s large gender pay gap and to rising inequality among women themselves. The employment recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic opened the door to change for some female workers, but as this study finds, not for Canada’s largely female and racialized low-waged workforce.

Migrant domestic workers have formed the backbone of Canada's care economy, filling gaps in care and performing this undervalued work since the inception of the settler-colonial state. Premilla Nadasen (2023) argues that the care economy is not only subject to the sexist devaluation of women's reproductive work but is rooted in slavery and the racist extraction of work that makes all other work possible. Nadasen also points to the history of resistance, noting that care work has not only been a site of oppression but also a site of resistance. In Canada, stories of exploitation and activist-led change in the care sector have unfolded over two centuries. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British women were brought to Canada as nannies. Fitting the image of the white nation brazenly embodied in immigration policies, these white women were provided permanent status on arrival. When the post-World War II period brought larger gaps in care, the Canadian state initiated the West Indian Domestic Scheme in 1955.... --Introduction

This article examines the conditions and struggles of Punjabi farmworkers in Canada during the 1980s, highlighting their resistance to exploitation within a racialized agrarian capitalist system. Focusing on the systemic challenges faced by these workers, the analysis underscores how exploitative practices perpetuated through the capitalist–contractor–corporate food regime shaped the economic and social realities of Punjabi farmworkers. The article also explores the pivotal role of the Canadian Farmworkers Union in mobilizing grassroots action, advocating for workers’ rights, and addressing systemic inequalities. By situating these efforts within broader labor movements, the study sheds light on the intersections of migration, labor, and racial capitalism in Canadian agriculture that still continue in the form of the seasonal agricultural worker program.