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Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, many Canadians have become newly aware of problematic power imbalances and potential for abuse under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), which forms a key component of the Canadian agri-food workforce. The increased attention brought to some of the negative outcomes of Canada’s agricultural migrant labour system appear to have prompted an industry response, including through the More than a Migrant Worker initiative launched by a collection of agri-food industry groups. This dissertation presents the results of research on texts gathered from the More than a Migrant Worker initiative. Critical discourse analysis was used to identify themes, arguments, and rhetorical techniques the initiative employs to convey a narrative about migrant farm workers to the public. Findings indicate that these agri-food industry groups have adopted a defensive stance in response to critiques of migrant labour policies, as demonstrated by the discourse’s treatment of themes such as migrant workers’ and their families’ financial motivations, the purported necessity of migrant labour to sustain Canadian food production, and the formal rights and protections built into the TFWP, combined with a de-emphasis of the evidence of persistent systemic issues in the protection of migrant workers from mistreatment. The findings support a theoretical framework of managed migration based on a combination of Labour Market Segmentation Theory and the New Economics of Labour Migration, in which the devaluation of agricultural work in the domestic labour market and the disruption of traditional economies by neoliberal global market forces generate a demand for and supply of migrant labour, respectively. The paper’s conclusion provides directions for further research to expand academic knowledge of migrant labour discourse and migration theory, as well as recommendations for policy makers, the agri-food industry, and advocacy groups for productive policy discussions that find consensus on ways to protect and improve the conditions of migrant farm workers.

How have neoliberal discourses of the gig economy shaped the terrain of gig worker organizing in Ontario? This thesis interrogates and contextualizes Uber’s efforts to legitimize and further expand its operations in Ontario during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the centrality of its appeals to (and reproduction of) workers’ entrepreneurial common sense in these endeavors. Drawing on ten-semi structured interviews with current and former Uber drivers and delivery workers, it explores the contradictory form of independence experienced by platform-mediated gig workers, reflecting on the significance of gig work being perceived as the “least worst option” within the contemporary labour landscape.

Since the 1970s, many OECD countries have seen a significant increase in maternal employment rates. In cross-national comparison, Canada has high maternal employment rates, but lags behind some Nordic and East European countries. Within this context, this study explores how larger social, cultural and policy environments shape mothers' employment experiences, challenging the notion that women prefer to opt out of the labour force when they have children To conduct this analysis, I drew on focus groups (n=19) and individual interviews (n=39) with 58 mothers in Canada with preschool children in the province of Alberta. The key finding from this study was that the majority of mothers, despite wanting to continue their careers alongside parenthood, experienced challenges integrating unpaid and paid work. To navigate these challenges, mothers employed various strategies, including seeking flexibility at work, reducing work hours, or opting out of employment. Yet, many remained ambivalent regarding their employment arrangements. I detail the ways in which paid parental leave and childcare policies acted as facilitators or barriers to mothers’ labour force participation. Overall, the findings indicate that current policies are not sufficient to support mothers in the labour force. This study adds to a body of Canadian literature that examines how barriers such as pervasive gender norms in the workplace and households, and workplace inflexibility, create barriers to mothers’ labour force participation and impact mothers’ experiences in the labour market.

This dissertation examines the intersection between two significant economic and societal challenges: an aging workforce and rapid technological change. The aging workforce is a growing concern, particularly in Canada, where the population of older workers (55 years and older) surpasses that of younger entrants (15 to 24 years). This demographic shift, already contributing to labour shortages in key sectors like manufacturing and healthcare, poses risks to labour participation rates and the stability of healthcare and pension systems (Acemoglu & Restrepo, 2017; Maestas et al., 2016). Given the projected exodus of older workers and limited incoming replacements, scholars and practitioners advocate for delayed or phased retirements to mitigate talent shortages. Simultaneously, technological change reshapes work, presenting opportunities and challenges, especially for older workers who may find adapting to new technologies daunting. This environment makes it critical to understand how technology affects older workers' experiences, including their retirement intentions. I conducted two studies to better understand the impact of technology and technological changes on older workers' work experiences. In Study One, I conducted a systematic literature review to synthesize existing research on technology's impact on older workers, with a comprehensive analysis of 121 articles, including both peer-reviewed (n=82) and grey literature sources (n=39). Thematic analysis revealed key areas in the current literature, such as socio-demographic factors, training and development, and retirement planning. The results of this study also included descriptive insights on journals, methodologies, regions, and publication dates, highlighting 14 important research gaps. These gaps guided recommendations for future studies, which aim to address the implications of technological innovations on an aging workforce. In the second study, I empirically examined the relationship between technological change and older workers' retirement intentions using a sample of 361 participants. Testing a moderated mediation model grounded in the Job Demand-Resources (JD-R) theory, I analyzed burnout and perceived work ability as serial mediators alongside moderating factors of computer self-efficacy, technological training, and organizational justice. Findings accentuate the complex interplay of burnout, work ability, and retirement intentions, emphasizing that burnout negatively impacts work ability, which in turn influences retirement intentions. Notably, technological training significantly moderated the relationship between burnout and work ability, reinforcing its role as an important factor shaping older workers' capacity to adapt within technologically evolving work environments. Ultimately, this dissertation provides valuable implications for both theory and practice. The findings from both studies provide important directions for the successful integration and retention of older employees in the rapidly changing technological work environment, as well as for creating a supportive work environment for them.

The progressive advancement of technology and the rise of fissured workplaces have led to significant shifts in global employment structures, particularly towards the gig economy. In Canada, however, gig economy workers remain largely excluded from opportunities for unionisation. Historically, unions have demonstrated substantial organisational power, serving as critical institutions for improving workplace conditions through collective bargaining. This study, therefore, aims to examine the impact of unionisation, immigration, human capital, inflation and information and communication technology on wage determination in Canada, situating the analysis within the broader context of a rapidly evolving employment landscape. Using Canadian time series data from 1980 to 2022, the research uses the dynamic autoregressive distributed lag approach to identify both cointegrating relationships and counterfactual effects among the variables. Additionally, the counterfactual analysis examines the effects of ±1% and ±5% shocks on the dependent variables. The robustness of these findings is confirmed through the kernel-based regularised least squares machine learning approach.,The findings reveal that unionisation, inflation, immigration and information and communication technology development significantly influence wages at a 1% level, while human capital at a 5% level in the long term. The robustness of these findings is further confirmed by the kernel regularised least squares machine learning algorithm.,Based on the findings, the study recommends that policymakers should implement targeted strategies to enhance union representation among gig economy workers and strengthen collective bargaining mechanisms. Additionally, addressing broader factors influencing wage dynamics, such as human capital development, immigration policies, information and communication technology advancements and inflation-indexed wage adjustments, can foster equitable and sustainable wage growth across diverse sectors. Exploring the dynamic and cointegrating relationships between unions’ organising power and wage levels within the purview of inflation, immigration, human capital and information and communication technology development is unprecedented. Additionally, applying the kernel regularised least squares machine learning algorithm to check robustness is completely new in a study within the realm of employment relationships.

This paper proposes novel natural language methods to measure worker rights from collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) for use in empirical economic analysis. Applying unsupervised text-as-data algorithms to a new collection of 30,000 CBAs from Canada in the period 1986-2015, we parse legal obligations (e.g., “the employer shall provide...”) and legal rights (e.g., “workers shall receive...”) from the contract text. We validate that contract clauses provide worker rights, which include both amenities and control over the work environment. Companies that provide more worker rights score highly on a survey indicating pro-worker management practices. Using time-varying province-level variation in labor income tax rates, we find that higher taxes increase the share of worker-rights clauses while reducing pre-tax wages in unionized firms, consistent with a substitution effect away from taxed compensation (wages) toward untaxed amenities (worker rights). Further, an exogenous increase in the value of outside options (from a leave-one-out instrument for labor demand) increases the share of worker rights clauses in CBAs. Combining the regression estimates, we infer that a one-standard-deviation increase in worker rights is valued at about 5.7% of wages.

Given Canada's child care deficit, economic migration remains contingent on the unpaid care work of grandparent migrants, particularly grandmothers or ‘flying grannies’, who arrive through temporary pathways such as the super visa and often juggle multiple transnational caring obligations. However, routine pauses to the parent and grandparent sponsorship program render humanitarian and compassionate applications one of the few options available for grandparents seeking permanent residence. Yet this discretionary tool and grandparents’ multiple caregiving roles continue to be understudied. This socio-legal study, therefore, unpacks narratives of care in 171 humanitarian and compassionate grounds cases involving grandparents who applied to, considered applying, or were referred by judges and immigration officers to apply for the Super Visa. Drawing on Ellermann, we argue that the types of care that are valued and, subsequently, which ‘exceptional’ cases are granted permanent residence, reflect a human-capital citizenship logic and membership status. The subjective criteria used by judges and other ‘gatekeepers’, especially when determining the best interest of any child and hardship, reveal multiple tensions, inconsistencies and a limited notion of care that entrench stereotypes based on race, gender, culture, class and other vectors of social location. Ultimately, family reunification is deemed conditional, and grandparents are rendered temporary.

Homage to the life and work of historian Joy Parr, who wrote widely on labour and gender history, and the history of technology.

Canada is wholly reliant on migrant farmworkers who provide cheap labour while being barred from a wide range of rights and services, including pathways to permanent residency (Sharma, 2012; Satzewhich, 1990; Basok, 2002). Whereas most of the research on migrant farmworkers follows a deficit model, my thesis focuses on collective agency by asking: how do migrant farmworkers create a sense of home in Canada while unable to settle permanently in the country? Drawing from interviews and participant observation conducted in Guatemala and Canada, I show how migrant farmworkers exceed the boundaries of the farms where they live and work, forging their own modes of social organization using Indigenous Mayan cultural logic. Framing migrant farmworkers as strategic boundary-crossers, I highlight how they breach farm borders and, through the exchange of ideas across nation-states, inspire new migration journeys.

Major Canadian cities have seen an overrepresentation of young and immigrant workers delivering meals in their food delivery industries. This type of labour is increasingly done via online digital platforms. The objective of this article is to use interviews to analyze the working conditions and experiences of food delivery workers in Toronto and Montréal, highlighting the elements of precariousness that characterize this type of work. The degree to which customers perform managerial functions through digital platforms is only one of the various forms and aspects of algorithmic control experienced by delivery workers. Through 30 semi-structured interviews with delivery riders, and notes collected through participatory observation, this article presents commonly experienced negative aspects of platform work among young and immigrant delivery drivers.

British Columbia was the site of some of the most significant events in the history of the labour movement and had some of the best-organized and most politically conscious communist workers. In this illuminating volume, Jon Bartlett follows the activities of BC Communists from the onset of the Great Depression to the coming of the Popular Front and investigates the collisions between these Communists and the organs of the federal, provincial, and municipal governments. Reflecting on the vectors of cultural resistance, from the creation of vernacular newspapers to the circulation of popular song and verse, Bartlett charts workers’ efforts to resist wage cutbacks in mines, mills, and the logging and fishing industries and describes the organization of opposition to the relief camps and its outcomes. -- Publisher's description

Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program has often been portrayed as a model for temporary migration programmes. It is largely governed by the Contracts negotiated between Canada and Mexico and Commonwealth Caribbean countries respectively. This article provides a critical analysis of the Contract by examining its structural context and considers the possibilities and limitations for ameliorating it. It outlines formal recommendations that the article co-authors presented during the annual Contract negotiations between Canada and sending states in 2020. The article then explains why these recommendations were not accepted, situating the negotiation process within the structural context that produces migrant workers' vulnerability, on the one hand, and limits the capacity of representatives of sending and receiving states to expand rights and offer stronger protections to migrant farmworkers, on the other hand. We argue that fundamental changes are required to address the vulnerability of migrant agricultural workers. In the absence of structural changes, it is nevertheless important to seek improvements in the regulation of the programme through any means possible, including strengthening the Contract.

Wage theft is the number one issue workers bring to the Workers’ Action Centre. For people in low-wage and precarious work, being offered subminimum wages, not getting all their wages, or paid late, are common occurences. While the problems giving rise to wage theft are not new, the crisis has become dire due to a combination of factors, including chronic under-enforcement of our labour laws, our current cost of living crisis, and the weakening of Canada’s social safety net. In the last 10 years, almost $200 million dollars has been assessed as owing to workers in Ontario through the Employment Standards Act (ESA) complaint process. ...In 2024 we surveyed 513 workers in Toronto about the problems they experience at work. The survey was done in English, Spanish, Tamil, Bengali, Somali, and Chinese (Mandarin). We targeted our surveymethodology to reach recent immigrants, racialized workers, non-status and low-wage workers who are often missed in standard labour force surveys. Our goal was to document the extent of employment standards’ violations that people in precarious work face and the impact of violations on these workers. The result of that survey paints a stark picture of what workers are up against in Ontario. --From Executive summary

This article reviews the book, "Dans la rue. Une histoire du frapru et des luttes pour le logement au Québec" by François Saillant.

In this lecture, I will, however, focus on one of the legacies of slavery, that is, the largely untold story of racial segregation in the world of work in Canada. We have come so effectively, and rightly, to focus on the effects of discrimination, that we may have inadvertently walked past the history. Reclaiming this history will comprise the first part of my talk. The second part of my talk will reference the emergence of the duty of fair representation. I will seek to illustrate the weight of the erasure of anti-Black racism through this duty. In other words, far from representing a peculiarity of US law that failed to travel well,8 Steele v Louisville & Nashville Railway Co’s9 foundation in racial discrimination needs to be acknowledged and engaged for an inherent tension to be addressed. So third and finally, I will posit the paradox of unresolved “choice” at the heart of the majoritarian frame of the Wagner Act, not to try somehow to resolve it, but by refusing to allow us to all too quickly individualize it, and instead to steer us closer to a related, necessary justification for a proactive commitment that we have already, if incompletely, made— the commitment to embracing the societal transformation entailed by achieving and sustaining substantive equality through employment equity

In this first part of our two-part report on Canadian modern slavery law, we introduce Canada’s Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act and situate it in its international legal and doctrinal context.

We draw upon the commentaries introduced in the first part of this two-part report to analyze current Canadian modern slavery law and then continue by evaluating the potential legislative and jurisprudential avenues through which Canadian law on this subject could further develop.ention.

À l’aube du 21e siècle, l’arrivée des multinationales change à tout jamais la dynamique entre les travailleurs et le patronat dans l’industrie forestière à Hearst en Ontario. Cet article examine le déroulement des événements et les principales transformations apportées aux conventions collectives signées entre les travailleurs hearstois et l’entreprise américaine Columbia Forest Products, un producteur de contreplaqué, pendant environ une décennie. Lorsque des scieries familiales sont vendues à des géants de l’industrie, le processus de négociation des ententes se métamorphose. La conjoncture économique joue également un rôle déterminant dans l’articulation des conventions collectives à un moment où l’industrie forestière nord-ontarienne traverse une série de crises, notamment le conflit canado-américain du bois d’œuvre. À maintes reprises, les travailleurs syndiqués doivent consentir une partie de leurs gains historiques pour tenter de sauver leurs emplois.

In this paper, we reflect on our experiences in the Mount Saint Vincent University Faculty Association and our efforts to prioritize decolonizing, indigenizing, and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (EDIA) in the collective bargaining process. We examine the performative nature of EDIA efforts in negotiations by university administrators and the Board of Governors, outlining our employer’s active resistance to proposals pertaining to EDIA, their lack of explicit Indigenous and EDIA expertise on their bargaining team, their sidelining and exclusion of university Indigenous and EDIA experts, as well as the absence of transparency and accountability in decision-making. We suggest that three actions — strengthening internal and external solidarity, democratizing governance, and pursuing legislative reform — offer a pathway to rethinking equity-based bargaining, challenging the instrumentalization of EDIA, and achieving genuine structural change.

Efforts to improve inclusion of workers with disabilities have often focused on providing accommodations. While this is useful and necessary, the need for an accommodation signals that a barrier exists. What if fewer barriers existed in the first place? The inclusive design movement seeks to create tools, policies, and practices that are inherently barrier-free. This paper reviews how to apply inclusive design principles to HR policies and procedures, enabling the creation of more inherently equitable practices. Bargaining teams have an important role to play in ensuring that collective agreement clauses related to HR comply with inclusive design principles. Specific recommendations are made, with particular attention to recruitment, selection, tenure and promotion, attendance management, scheduling, and enforcement of respectful communication policies.