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  • While precarious work is a phenomenon often associated with non-professional workers, the emerging case of non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) calls for a new framework building on scholarship on both precarious work and the professions. An in-depth case study of NTTF in southern Ontario shows how a new phenomenon of ‘precarious professionals’ is emerging. Drawing on sixty semi-structured interviews with faculty members, university administrators and union representatives across southern Ontario, I analyze workers’ experiences in temporary contract work in the academic profession, and their views on the way certain types of professional work are valued. Building off previous literature on precarious work, gender and work, and professional work, this thesis defines precarious professionals as highly skilled workers who do professional work that is valued and devalued along lines of gender. Their experiences in temporary contract work marginalize them economically and professionally in complex and compounding ways that trap them between identifying as precarious workers and as professionals. Union organizers and activists draw on a two-pronged approach that addresses both dimensions of precarious worker and professional identities. This thesis shows variation in workers’ experiences, suggesting that not all temporary contract workers become precarious professionals, and shows how that variation can be explained.

  • This article examines workers’ experiences with a union characterized by a social unionist framing and repertoire in the political realm and bureaucratic servicing of problems in the workplace realm. It analyzes interviews with members and officials about union strategies within privatized homecare predominately provided by immigrant women in Toronto. Workers report both consensual and tense relations with clients prompting them to praise their union’s political strategies yet criticize its limited workplace support. Findings indicate the importance of framing and repertoire that connect quality work with quality care, yet indicate a complex labor process that requires more conceptual and strategic attention.

Last update from database: 6/9/25, 4:10 AM (UTC)

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