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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.

  • 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.

Last update from database: 3/14/25, 4:10 AM (UTC)

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