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This article reviews the book, "Caring for America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State," by Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein.

The article reviews the book, "Precarious Lives: Job Insecurity and Well-Being in Rich Democracies," by Arne L. Kalleberg.

Contingent Work: American Employment Relations in Transition, edited by Kathleen Barker and Kathleen Christensen, is reviewed.

The factors that might influence career opportunities for unionized part-time professionals in comparison with their full-time counterparts are analyzed. The results suggest the following conclusions. First, the career opportunities of part-time professionals are influenced by: 1. employers' less favorable perceptions of part-time professionals, 2. the differences in career goals and interests of full- and part-time professionals, and 3. the constraints that operate in collective agreements. Second, although part-time professionals are in highly skilled and well-paid occupations, their overall work environment exhibits the typical employment characteristics of the periphery: there exists little opportunity for filling full-time vacancies and little access to training programs. The results raise an important practical question for part-time professionals of how progress is possible in their organizations.

A questionnaire developed to learn employer reasons for hiring part-time workers who are covered by collective agreements was sent to 258 organizations in Ontario, Canada, in 1988. The majority of the 172 respondents were human resources or labor relations directors or specialists. Of these, 50% were in health care, 37% were in education and education-related work, 8% were in retail trade, and 5% were from the hospitality sector. Results revealed that, in the health care, education, and retail trade sectors, flexibility in scheduling work was considered the most important reason for hiring part-time workers. In the hospitality sector, the unavailability of full-time labor was the most important reason for hiring part-time help. While the health care and education sectors considered employees' preference for part-time work to be relatively important, the hospitality and retail sectors placed more emphasis on flexibility in employment decisions and savings in wages and benefits.

Focusing on 117 union locals that had collective agreements for part-time and full-time workers in Ontario, a study showed that negotiation issues varied for part-time workers depending on their occupation. Those in non-professional occupations wanted to limit the number of percentage of part-time work in the bargaining units, while for professionals this was an unimportant negotiation issue. Negotiating the same wages and benefits for part-time and full-time workers, and equality in filling full-time vacancies, were similarly important for both groups of workers. Equality in access to employer-sponsored training programs to prepare for advancement to higher grades and other job opportunities was the least important negotiation issue for all respondents.

The article reviews the book, "The Diary Of A Shirtwaist Striker," by Theresa S. Malkiel.

The author analyzes the impact of the International Labour Organization 's Freedom of Association Standards on Canadian labour legislation in the last decade.

The article reviews the book, "Women and Unions : Forging a Partnership," edited by Dorothy Sue Cobble.

This review article critically analyzes and synthesizes the academic literature on nonstandard work and its gender, race and class dimensions. We argue that it is important and crucial to understand these dimensions of nonstandard work in order to develop appropriate labour policies. We present our discussion in a conceptual framework of duality within which nonstandard workforms are located. We discuss the role the unions could play in achieving equity in labour markets and conclude the paper with recommended labour policy changes to respond to the needs of women, particularly those racial minority and low economic class women employed in nonstandard jobs.

This paper examines whether there has been improvement in benefits coverage for non-standard workers since the Wallace Report in 1983. This study uses Statistics Canada's Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) 1999 data. Results show significant differences in the receipt of benefits among non-standard workers, suggesting heterogeneity within this group of workers in terms of benefits coverage. Regular part-time and temporary full-time workers receive fewer benefits than regular full-time workers. Temporary part-time workers have significantly less likelihood of receiving benefits than the other three groups of workers. Overall, results show that since the Wallace Report findings, there has been little improvement in benefits coverage for non-standard workers, and they continue to be relatively disadvantaged in comparison to regular full-time workers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there are differences in satisfaction with pay and benefits between Canadian-born and immigrant workers, and if differences exist, to examine the factors associated with immigrants' pay and benefits satisfaction. Using Statistics Canada's 2005 Workplace and Employee Survey (WES), immigrants are examined both as a single group, and in four cohorts based on the year of arrival. Results show significantly lower pay and benefits satisfaction for immigrant cohorts, with the exception of the pre-1965 cohort, compared to Canadian-born workers. Our findings also suggest that existing theories and conceptual models on pay and benefits satisfaction may not be appropriate when examining them as they relate to immigrants.

Using Statistics Canada’s Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) data for 2003 and 2004, this research note addresses an important component of labour market retention by investigating whether the presence of workplace child care and elder care programs influences employees’ decision to quit. The key findings are as follows: (a) workplace elder care support is almost non-existent in Canada; (b) employees are more likely to remain with an organization that offers workplace child care support programs; and (c) those employees who actually use the workplace child care support are even more likely to stay with the organization. We suggest that future research should assess whether the particular support programs themselves ‘cause’ employees to stay, or whether there are other factors (within organizations offering these support programs) that account for the retention.

This paper examines the availability of employer offered childcare and eldercare support in Canada. In addition, the associations between these support programs, gender and voluntary and involuntary part-time work are also examined. Using Statistics Canada's 2003 Workplace and Employee Survey, results show that employer offered childcare programs exist in a very small number of workplaces, and eldercare support programs are almost nonexistent. Moreover, women are less likely than men to be offered family support programs. Voluntary and involuntary part-time workers are less likely to be offered family support programs than full-time workers. We argue that if individuals are going to receive assistance for childcare and eldercare, that assistance is more likely going to come from the government as opposed to employers. We suggest publicly funded universal family support programs to assist workers.

This paper examines whether flexible work schedules in Canada are created by employers for business reasons or to assist their workers achieve work-life balance. We focus on long workweek, flextime, compressed workweek, variable workweek length and/or variable workweek schedule. Statistics Canada's 2003 Workplace and Employee Survey data linking employee microdata to workplace (i.e.. employer) microdata are used in the analysis. Results show that more than half of the workers covered in this data have at least one of the five specified types of flexible work schedules. Employment status, unionized work, occupation, and sector are factors consistently associated with flexible work schedules. Personal characteristics such as marital status, dependent children, and childcare use are not significantly associated with flexible work schedules, and females are less likely to have a flexible work schedule than are males. Overall, results suggest that flexible work schedules are created for business reasons rather than individual worker interests.

The purpose of this article is to examine the effects of working conditions in part-time and casual work on worker stress and the consequences for their workplaces. Data were collected through interviews with occupational health and safety representatives, and focus groups and interviews with workers in retail trade. Results show that job insecurity, short- and split-shifts, unpredictability of hours, low wages and benefits in part-time and casual jobs in retail sector, and the need to juggle multiple jobs to earn a living wage contribute to stress and workplace problems of absenteeism, high turnover and workplace conflicts. Gendered work environments and work-personal life conflicts also contribute to stress affecting the workplace. Equitable treatment of part-time and casual workers, treating workers with respect and dignity, and creating a gender-neutral, safe and healthy work environment can help decrease stress, and in turn, can lead to positive workplace outcomes for retail workers.

This paper provides evidence of on-the-job training for low-paid workers in Canada and examines workplace and individual factors associated with their on-the-job training. The study uses Statistics Canada's Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) 2001 data. Results show that less than a quarter of low-paid workers received on-the-job training in 2001 as compared to one third of higher-paid workers. A decomposition of regression models indicated that this substantive gap is statistically significant. With the shrinking labour force, ongoing skills development is needed to enable workers to earn a decent living, fulfill their work-related goals, and contribute to the current and future productivity of their workplaces and the economy. We recommend governments provide support for low-paid workers' on-the-job training.

Demand for home and community care services has continuously increased in Canada and elsewhere in the last few decades due to aging of the population and healthcare policy changes shaped by budgetary limitations. As a result, home and community care organizations are having trouble hiring adequate numbers of healthcare workers to meet the escalating demand, the result being increased workload on these workers. Another stream of literature has shown that care recipients and their family members, frustrated with the limited ability of healthcare workers to provide adequate care because of increased workload, might resort to violence and harassment. Bringing these two streams of literature together, we examined the relationships among three variables : workload ; workplace violence and harassment ; and well-being of personal support workers (PSWs). Using structural equation modeling, we analyzed a 2015 Ontario-wide survey of 1,347 PSWs employed in the home and community care sector. The results indicate that workload is negatively associated with extrinsic and intrinsic job satisfaction, and this relationship is mediated by violence and harassment and by stress. Specifically, workload is positively associated with violence and harassment at work, which in turn is positively associated with stress, which in turn is negatively associated with extrinsic and intrinsic job satisfaction. Our study contributes to the literature by examining the impact of a work environment factor, workload, on the well-being of PSWs. This approach makes it possible to expand the current literature’s focus on psychological processes at the individual level to a more contextual approach. Furthermore, the results have important implications for home and community care organizations as well as for the healthcare sector in general. The well-being of PSWs is critical to retaining them and to ensuring the quality of care they provide their clients. Thus, their workload should be lowered to a more manageable level to help minimize the violence and harassment they experience.

Health sector reform of the 1990s affected most health care workers in Ontario and in other provinces. As a result of organizational changes, many workers experienced work intensification. This paper examines the associations between work intensification, stress and job satisfaction focusing on nurses in three teaching hospitals in Ontario. Data come from our 2002 survey of 949 nurses who worked in their employing hospital since the early 1990s when the health sector reform era began. Results show that nurses feel their work has intensified since the health sector reform of the 1990s, and work intensification contributed to increased stress and decreased job satisfaction. Results provide empirical support to the literature which suggests that work intensification has an adverse effect on workers’ health and well-being, and work attitudes.