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There are 136,600 artists in Canada who spent more time at their art than at any other occupation in May of 2011 (which is when the National Household Survey data were collected). The number of artists represents 0.78% of the overall Canadian labour force. One in every 129 Canadian workers is an artist. The number of artists (136,600) is slightly higher than the labour force in automotive manufacturing (133,000) and slightly lower than the labour force in the utilities sector (149,900) and telecommunications (158,300). --Executive Summary

"[C]onducts a wide empirical study of Canadian employment data in search of any evidence that higher minimum wages reduce employment or increase unemployment. The authors examine the relationship between minimum wages and employment in all ten Canadian provinces betwenn 1983 and 2012, finding no consistent evidence that minimum wage levels affect emoployment in either direction. Instead, their research concludes that employments levels are overwhelmingly determined by larger macroeconomic factors." --CCPA Monitor, Nov. 2014

The project Leadership, Feminism and Equality in Unions in Canada (2012) explored the current practices, climate around, and attitudes to women, feminism, leadership, and equality through the insights, voices, and experiences of forty-four women union lead- ers, activists, and staff. This article outlines what we did: what prompted the project and its goals, methodology, activities, output, and results for participants. It also includes a summary of some findings that underscore the significance of the project.This project points to the permeability between and among breaking the silence, movement building, and union education. It asks what kind of union education is rel- evant and available for seasoned activists, leaders, and educators. It found that an ongoing process of what might be called politicized education is critical. Certainly this group of union women benefited from re-politicizing their individual experiences, per- haps what could be called “re-organizing.”

Objective: We examined disparities in hazardous employment characteristics and working conditions among Chinese and white workers in Toronto, Canada.Design. We used self-administered questionnaire data from a 2005–2006 population-based survey (n = 1611). Using modified Poisson regression, we examined the likelihood for Chinese workers of experiencing adverse exposures compared to whites. Models were stratified by sex and adjusted for differences in human capital. Work sector was conceptualized as a mediating variable.Results. Chinese workers were generally more likely to report adverse exposures. In many cases, disparities were only evident or more pronounced among women. The shorter length of time in Canada of Chinese relative to whites accounted for some of the observed disparities. Meanwhile, the higher educational level of Chinese compared to whites provided them with no protection from adverse exposures. The risk of experiencing discrimination on the labor market and at work was more than 50% higher among Chinese men and women as compared to whites, and those disparities, though reduced, persisted after adjustment for confounders.Conclusions. Discrimination is far more prevalent among Chinese than among whites and may explain their disproportionate exposure to other hazards.

So-called ‘transient workers’ from Quebec and Atlantic Canada made up a significant proportion of Ontario’s tobacco harvest workforce in the postwar era, though there is no existing research on this migrant population. Based on analysis of an unexamined archive, the article explores the relationship between seasonal transient workers, Ontario tobacco growers, and the federal Canadian government during the 1960s and 1970s. Migrants harnessed strategic forms of mobility or marketplace agency in precarious, unorganized and seasonal tobacco work. Further, the deepening of migrant precarity in Ontario agriculture can in part be traced back to this period of conflict between transients, tobacco growers and different levels of the Canadian government. Migrant precarity did not go uncontested among this population. Managed migration programs, still operational today, reflect the attempt to undermine migrants’ informal mobility agency. Transients travelled to find tobacco jobs with few constraints or pressures other than the compulsion to gain wages, using their relative freedom of mobility strategically, especially in public spaces, to disrupt local micro-hegemonies in tobacco areas. Government programs to manage farm labour migration were unveiled during this period in part to displace transients and solve a widely reported “transient problem” in tobacco.

Describes the activities of the Temporary Foreign Workers Association in Quebec, that was founded in 2001 to organize temporary and transient workers.

In a rebuttal to Haley's article in the same issue, the authors argue that the labour movement has stood for regulated resource extraction that would benefit Canadian society and enfroce environmental standards.

Discusses the UNIFOR initiative to develop community union chapters for workers who are generally excluded from union membership.

Critiques the political response of unions to the neoliberalism of Canada since the mid-1970s, and sets out steps for building an alternative, socialist Left.

Questions the "value added" strategy for extracting Tar Sands oil advocated by unions and the NDP.

Summarizes the report, "It's More than Poverty: Employment Precarity and Household Well-Being," released by the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario research group in Feburary 2014.

This article explores how precarious legal status circumscribes differential inclusion in the agricultural labor market and affects workers' lives through a comparative study of workplace health and safety among temporary migrant guest workers and immigrants in Canada. Original, multimethod research with South Asian immigrant and Mexican migrant farmworkers examines employment practices, working conditions, and health-care access. We find that both groups engage in precarious work, with consequences for their health and safety, including immigrant workers with citizenship. Nevertheless, migrant guest workers are subject to more coercive forms of labor discipline and a narrower range of social protection than immigrants. We argue that while formal citizenship can mitigate some dimensions of precariousness for farmworkers racialized as non-white, achieving a more just, safer food system will require broader policies to improve employer compliance and address legislative shortcomings that only weakly protect agricultural labor.

Describes the weakened state of the labour movement in Quebec, and efforts at renewal.

In the winter of 2012, the Canadian federal Conservative government introduced back-to-work legislation prohibiting work stoppages at Canada’s largest airline, Air Canada. In the following weeks, wildcat strikes by baggage handlers, ground crew, and even pilots rattled the company. These disputes were preceded in 2011 by another instance of back-to-work legislation and threats of legislation against Air Canada’s customer service workers and flight attendants, respectively. In all cases, the union leadership was legally forced to police their membership and order their members to cease job actions when they erupted. This article situates the Conservative government’s coercive measures to deal with labor unrest at Air Canada within a broader anti-union context, highlighting the continued decline of industrial pluralism in Canada and questioning whether the repeated use and threat of federal back-to-work legislation will open up space for civil disobedience as a new norm in Canadian industrial relations.

The article reviews the book, "Continental Crucible: Big Business, Workers and Unions in the Transformation of North America," by Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui.

The shifting provincial-municipal landscape in Ontario, which has positioned local government as central to the neoliberal project, has created both strategic opportunities and risks for organized labour. This article explores how the provincial state has used downloading and neoliberal municipal restructuring to shift the balance of class forces in local politics and provides analytical context against which to examine organized labour’s attempts to pursue progressive policy outputs in this new environment.

This report documents how the growth of unions from the First World War to the mid 1970’s helped create a shared prosperity or “middle class” in Canada, which has been steadily shrinking with the rise of corporate power and the erosion of unions since the late 1970’s. It provides compelling empirical validation of the crucial role unions played in redistributing income from capital to labour (profits to wages) and from the upper to the lower parts of the income hierarchy. The report examines ways union renewal can play a crucial role in restoring middle class security and mass prosperity in Canada. The Rand Formula is a formula dating back to 1946 when a decision was made during an arbitration hearing by Justice Ivan Rand that union dues would be paid by all employees benefitting from the collective agreement, not just signed union members. This means the employer deducts the dues from all employee paychecks and then forwards those funds to the union. The Rand Formula prevents employees from benefitting from the work of the union, while not paying union dues.

The knowledge synthesis presented in this report is based on an analysis of publicly accessible research on northern Aboriginal youth employment. We investigated the possible sources of the apparent mismatch between employment opportunities in northern Aboriginal communities and the hopes and needs of the people who make up the northern Aboriginal youth labour force. Our report outlines what is known about the sources of the mismatch, and the measures currently being taken to address it. We comment on the quality of the available evidence. Where possible, we have supplied missing information from primary sources. Finally, we offer recommendations for further research. --Executive Summary

Critique of the federal government's decision in December 2012 to curtail migrant farm workers' access to special benefits (parental, maternal, compassionate care) under the Employment Insurance plan, despite the fact that they contribute to it.

For many years, Canadian governments have tried to legislate higher earnings for low-wage workers. With origins at the municipal level, living wage laws are a relatively new policy that gained prominence in American cities starting in the mid-1990s. Currently more than 140 American municipalities have a living wage law. In 2011, the City of New Westminster in British Columbia became the first and only Canadian city to adopt a living wage ordinance. This report reviews the scholarly research on living wage laws from the United States and concludes that the US experience should make us cautious about adopting this policy more widely in Canada. -- Publisher's description