Your search
Results 4 resources
-
This study uses a Delphi analysis to identify significant barriers to the development of sustained and meaningful pressure on the Alberta government to increase the enforcement of its laws regulating the employment of teenagers. In addition to general employment laws (e.g., wage payment, occupational health and safety) that appear to go broadly unenforced, Alberta also appears not to enforce laws specifying the hours during which teens may work, the occupations in which they may work and the job tasks they may perform. The result is wage theft, workplace injury and illegal forms of employment among teens. The seven Delphi panelists—a mixture of academics, trade unionists and staff members in not-for-profit agencies with an interest in employment matters—identify a tight business-government relationship as an important limit on the political opportunities available to insurgents seeking change. Insurgents must also grapple with a framing that minimizes concerns around teen employment, i.e. by framing illegal or injurious work as an educational rite of passage and complaints as whining. Together, these barriers significantly limit the opportunities to pressure the state to enhance enforcement. Panelists also noted that there is no mobilizing structure in place that teenage workers and their allies can access. Alberta’s labour movement has had limited success organizing the service sector (where most teens are employed). Some panelists suggested leveraging the widespread sexual harassment of female teen workers as a way to access existing networks and resources in feminist and labour organizations. Other panelists argued that focusing on sexual harassment would emphasize individual employers’ misbehaviour and obscure the class-based nature of inadequate enforcement. Most panelists suggested that highlighting the socially inappropriate nature of the death or serious injury of teen workers would be the best way to destabilize the existing barriers to better enforcement of employment laws. The opportunity to do so is (fortunately) rare and may be difficult to leverage. Indeed, research on high profile occupational fatalities in Canada (e.g., the Westray Mine disaster) suggests that such fatalities do not have a significant effect on state enforcement efforts. In the meantime, advocates such as organized labour and community groups may also work to alter conventional views of teen employment by supporting educational or artistic endeavours that problematize teen employment. This could include identifying the risks and consequences of the non-enforcement of laws regulating the employment of teens (such as injury and wage theft) as well as highlighting the reasons why teen workers warrant the enforcement of their workplace rights by the state.
-
This paper uses narrative analysis to explore how Alberta government Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) “constructed” migrant work and migrant workers in legislature and media statements between 2000 and 2011. Government MLAs asserted that migrant work (1) was economically necessary and (2) posed no threat to Canadian workers. Government MLAs also asserted that international migrant workers (3) had questionable occupational, linguistic or cultural skills and (4) caused negative social and economic impacts in Canada. Taken individually, these narratives appear contradictory, casting migrant work as good but migrant workers as bad. Viewed together, these narratives comprise an effort to dehumanize temporary and permanent international migrant workers. This (sometimes racialized) “othering” of migrant workers justifies migrant workers’ partial citizenship and suppresses criticism of their poor treatment.
-
Prior to May 2015, the oil-rich jurisdiction of Alberta had, for over four decades, been a one-party state. During that time, the rule of the Progressive Conservatives essentially went unchallenged, with critiques of government policy falling on deaf ears and Alberta ranking behind other provinces in voter turnout. Given the province’s economic reliance on oil revenues, a symbiotic relationship also developed between government and the oil industry. Cross-national studies have detected a correlation between oil-dependent economies and authoritarian rule, a pattern particularly evident in Africa and the Middle East. Alberta Oil and the Decline of Democracy in Canada sets out to test the “oil inhibits democracy” hypothesis in the context of an industrialized nation in the Global North. In probing the impact of Alberta’s powerful oil lobby on the health of democracy in the province, contributors to the volume engage with an ongoing discussion of the erosion of political liberalism in the West. In addition to examining energy policy and issues of government accountability in Alberta, they explore the ramifications of oil dependence in areas such as Aboriginal rights, environmental policy, labour law, women’s equity, urban social policy, and the arts. If, as they argue, reliance on oil has weakened democratic structures in Alberta, then what of Canada as whole, where the short-term priorities of the oil industry continue to shape federal policy? In Alberta, the New Democratic Party is in a position to reverse the democratic deficit that is presently fuelling political and economic inequality. The findings in this book suggest that, to revitalize democracy, provincial and federal leaders alike must find the courage to curb the influence of the oil industry on governance.--Publisher's description.
-
In this case study, we examine why the use of Temporary Foreign Workers increased in Alberta, how the former Conservatives government of Alberta encouraged and justified the use of migrant workers, and how a petroleum-based economy affects labour markets and the democratic health of a region. This study also explores how Alberta’s use of migrant workers is consistent with labour-market dynamics in an oil-exporting economy. --Authors' introduction
Explore
Resource type
- Book Section (2)
- Journal Article (2)