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The rapid influx of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) into Canada in the early 2000s posed significant challenges to Canadian unions. Using narrative analysis, this paper examines how union leaders constructed narratives about TFWs in the period 2006 to 2012. It finds three temporally sequential narrative arcs: prioritizing of Canadian workers' interests and portrayal of TFWs as employer pawns; TFWs as vulnerable workers needing union advocacy for their employment and human rights; and post-economic crisis conflicted efforts to integrate Canadian and TFW interests. The narrative arcs are shaped by tensions between internal pressures on union leaders and their external contexts. The analysis reveals that union leaders' responsibility to represent members can clash with their broader values of social justice and equality. By linking the contemporary reaction to TFWs to labour's historical approach to immigration and race, the paper also reveals important continuities and interruptions in labour's relationship with migrants.

The article reviews the book, "A Company of One: Insecurity, Independence and the New World of White-Collar Unemployment," by Carrie M. Lane.

The 2005 first-contract strike at Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alberta was one of the largest private sector labour victories in that province in over twenty years. At the time, the strike made national headlines for violence and animosity on the picket line. The strike is also noteworthy because African and Asian immigrant and refugee workers played a central role in the dispute. The union involved, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, adopted a series of innovative tactics which also contributed to the outcome. This article examines the events of the 2005 strike and explores the role played by immigrant activism in catalyzing and anchoring the struggle. It also analyzes which strategies employed by the union were most effective in organizing this group of workers. The article concludes by contemplating possible lessons for the labour movement today for organizing immigrant workers.

In October 2005, Jason Foster, then a staff member of the Alberta Federation of Labour, was walking a picket line outside Lakeside Packers in Brooks, Alberta with the members of local 401. It was a first contract strike. And although the employees of the meat-packing plant—many of whom were immigrants and refugees—had chosen an unlikely partner in the United Food and Commercial Workers local, the newly formed alliance allowed the workers to stand their ground for a three-week strike that ended in the defeat of the notoriously anti-union company, Tyson Foods. It was but one example of a wide range of industries and occupations that local 401 organized over the last twenty years. In this study of UFCW 401, Foster investigates a union that has had remarkable success organizing a group of workers that North American unions often struggle to reach: immigrants, women, and youth. By examining not only the actions and behaviour of the local’s leadership and its members but also the narrative that accompanied the renewal of the union, Foster shows that both were essential components to legitimizing the leadership’s exercise of power and its unconventional organizing forces. -- Publisher's description

This article reviews the book, "Unfree Labour? Struggles of Migrant and Immigrant Workers in Canada," edited by Aziz Choudry and Adrian A. Smith.

Over the past 20 years, the Alberta-based United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 have revitalized their union through organizing diverse groups of workers in hard-to-organize occupations, increasing involvement in political and community matters and adopting innovative organizing and representation strategies. They have done so with a stable leadership that exhibits autocratic and populist tendencies. The apparent contradictions of autocratic structures and innovative reforms are difficult to explain using existing explanations of union renewal and concepts of union forms. This in-depth study examines Local 401 in an effort to explain the unexpected patterns. Using a variety of methods, including Critical Narrative Analysis, the study reveals that unions may be more fluid and dynamic than the existing literature acknowledges. The study concludes the business union-social union duality common in industrial relations theory needs to be replaced by a more flexible, more multi-layered conceptualization of union behaviour. Unions exhibit elements of both social and business unionism at the same time because they are organizations created at the intersection between structure and action and are always in flux. The study also highlights a possible third path for union renewal, coined “accidental revitalization”, where local-initiated renewal can occur without planned intention and within a context of stable local leadership. Third, the study explores the role narratives play in resolving apparent contradictions in union behaviour by constructing internal logics and how narratives contribute to the production and re-production of power dynamics within unions.

During the mid–2000s the number of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) present in Canada increased dramatically, more than tripling in eight years. The bulk of the increase was due to an expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) to include lower–skilled occupations. The stated reason for the expansion was to address short–term labour shortages. Contrary to expectations, upon the onset of the economic downturn in 2008, the number of TFWs did not decrease significantly, and appears to be increasing again in 2010 and 2011. This paper tracks the evolution of the TFWP from a stable program designed to address short–term labour needs in high–skilled occupations into a broader labour market tool. The paper examines the most recent available statistical data for the TFWP and other documentary evidence to argue the role of the TFWP in Canada´s labour market has quietly shifted, becoming a permanent, large–scale labour pool for many industries, reminiscent of European migrant worker programs. The paper also examines the potential labour market implications of an expanded, entrenched TFWP.

Considering a series of oil-driven economic booms, the use of inter-provincial and international migrant labour has become an important part of labour market policy in the Canadian province of Alberta. The increased use of temporary foreign workers is controversial. Narrative analysis of legislators’ statements in the legislature and the press between 2000 and 2011 reveals the government using three narratives to justify policies encouraging greater use of foreign migrant workers: (1) labour shortages require migrant workers, (2) migrants do not threaten Canadian jobs and (3) migrants are not being exploited. Close scrutiny of each narrative demonstrates them to be largely invalid. This suggests a significant disconnect between the real and espoused reasons for the significant changes to labour market policy, changes that advantage employers and disadvantage both Canadian and foreign workers. The findings are relevant to understand the political dynamics of economically related migration.

Workplace injuries happen every day and can profoundly affect workers, their families, and the communities in which they live. This textbook provides workers and students with an introduction to effective injury prevention. It pays particular attention to how issues of precarious employment, gender, and ill-health can be better handled in Canadian occupational health and safety (OHS). Health and Safety in Canadian Workplaces offers an extensive overview of central OHS concepts and practices and provides practical suggestions for health and safety advocacy. It attempts to bring OHS into a twenty-first century context by discussing contemporary workplaces and the health effects of new work processes and structures while recognizing that safety has gendered and racialized dimensions. Foster and Barnetson contend that the practice of occupational health and safety can only be understood if we acknowledge that workers and employers have conflicting interests. Who identifies what workplace hazards should be controlled is therefore a product of the broader political economy of employment and one that should be well understood by those working in the field. -- Publisher's description. Contents: Workplace injury in theory and practice -- Legislative framework of injury prevention and compensation -- Hazard recognition, assessment and control -- Physical hazards -- Chemical and biological hazards -- Psycho-social hazards -- Health effects of employment -- Training and injury prevention programs -- Incident investigation -- Disability management and return to work -- The practice of health and safety.

In 2007, the Alberta government and the Alberta construction industry developed a ten-year strategy to increase the participation of women, youth, Indigenous peoples, and immigrants in construction occupations. At the same time, construction employers began turning to temporary foreign workers (tfws) as an alternative labour supply, and the number of tfws working in Alberta construction jumped dramatically. This article examines the labour market effects of the influx of tfws on employment rates of other marginalized groups in construction occupations. Alberta is a valuable case study because it employed greater numbers of tfws in construction between 2003 and 2013 than any other province. Drawing upon labour market segmentation theory, this study finds that the proportion of traditionally underrepresented workers in construction occupations was essentially unchanged over the study period. These groups of workers experienced higher-than-average employment volitility and remain a secondary source of labour supply. This study also finds that tfws have become a new, hyperflexible source of secondary labour. The article discusses possible explanations for the findings and evaluates the effectiveness of the government's ten-year strategy.

Background: How the media frames and presents a subject influences how society sees and responds to that issue. Analysis: This study uses frame analysis to examine how Canadian English language newspapers portrayed workplace injuries between 2009 and 2014. Three frames emerge: Under Investigation, Human Tragedy, and Before the Courts. There is also a meta-frame casting injuries and fatalities as isolated events happening to “others” with no cause, thus the public ought not be concerned about workplace safety. Conclusion and implications: The article concludes that media frames obscure issues of cause and fault, thereby denying workers a full understanding of why injuries happen in the workplace. These frames serve the interests of employers by obfuscating the employer’s role in creating workplace injury and death.

This case study explores a union organizing drive that revolved in large part around a group of temporary foreign workers. The impact of this group of workers on the union’s organizing strategy and the implications of the workers’ limited residence and labour rights are examined. This article also considers the factors that appeared to make the Justice for Janitors organizing model effective in this case as well as the potential risks associated with this approach.

The rapid expansion of the oil sands in northern Alberta in the early 21st century led to the use of significant numbers of temporary foreign workers. These foreign workers became a part of the region’s so-called “shadow population.” This paper examines how the presence of foreign workers affects conceptions of community and social cohesion through the experiences of foreign workers employed in oil sands construction. The study finds foreign workers are excluded from the life of the community due to their differential exclusion, vulnerable and precarious connection to the labour market, experiences of discrimination, and conflicted transnational community identities. The paper discusses the shortcomings of community and social cohesion approaches in addressing temporary foreign workers and considers the policy limitations of a widespread temporary foreign worker program.

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.

This study examines how five unions in the Canadian province of Alberta responded to a sudden influx of temporary foreign workers (TFWs), as part of Canadian employers’ increased use of migrant workers in the mid-2000s. The authors find three types of response to the new TFW members: resistive, facilitative and active. Furthermore, these responses were dynamic and changing over time. The different responses are best explained not by the unions’ institutional context, but by internal factors shaping each union’s response. Drawing upon the concept of referential unionisms, the study explores how unions’ self-identity shapes their responses to new challenges such as the influx of migrant workers.

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