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The International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted the Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention on June 16, 2011, an act deemed in the literature to be an innovation in regulatory measures. This chapter discusses the ILO’s production of a newly visibilized and highly idealized domestic worker, specifically the Asian migrant/immigrant woman domestic worker in the context of Canada’s gendered, racialized, and capitalist management of multiculturalism and citizenship. This chapter asks, how does this paradoxical embodiment of the domestic worker continue to leave her estranged, or in other words, to leave her persistently needed, but not welcomed? And it further asks, in what ways is the woman domestic worker both a ‘useful’ body and a body that refuses its own usefulness?

The author explores the influence of human rights campaigns on Canadian labour leaders' views of immigration in the 1940s. From the start of the labour movement from 1870s to the 1930s, unionists were among the most vocal and energetic opponents to large-scale immigration to Canada. By the 1940s, labour leaders abandoned most of this opposition and especially their racist and exclusionary rhetoric. Goutor shows that human rights activists - many of whom came from within the labour movement itself in the new wave of organizing during the Second World War - played a key role in driving this change. In particular, human rights campaigns convinced labour leaders that racism and anti-immigrant sentiment were social forces that mostly benefited conservatives and would empower social and political forces hostile to the mass unions emerging during the 1940s. --From editors' introduction

...I offer this chapter to new and current faculty members who are interested in learning more about the role of faculty unions, what it means to be a faculty union member, and union activism as a part of an academic identity and career. I begin with a brief history of faculty unionization in Canada, followed by a discussion of the union continuum, and the relevance of faculty unions. Throughout the chapter I share my experiences and a-ha moments as a union member and conclude with lessons learned that I hope readers will find of value as they navigate their own relationship with their faculty union. --Introduction

Examines the anti-labour legislation of the the Doug Ford-led Conservative government in Ontario that saw the rollback of workers' rights. Discusses court challenges to the government's Bill 124, which restricted public sector pay increases to 1 percent. Documents the exponential growth of wealth accumulation by the very rich while most Ontarians' wages have stagnated or fallen. Concludes that organized workers and unions must become more militant to combat these trends. The Ontario Council of School Board Unions is cited as an example.

Indigenous resistance to colonization can intersect uncomfortably and often violently with a fight by workers to access Indigenous lands for extraction and jobs. Jobs have always been a literal frontier of settler colonial conflict because, simply put, colonization takes work. When immigrants began to settle through recruitment programmes en masse in Canada, they benefitted from a scale of colonial land seizure unknown anywhere else in the world at that time. The means by which to settle was the work—both required and provided—by corporations like the railroads, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and colonization enterprises. By the late 19th century, the market for wage labour on farms and in the central manufacturing regions was underway as industrialization took hold; the emergence of capitalism was born through its deep reliance on colonial land policy. For this reason, the political economy of colonialism can be studied through a long history of intersecting class formation and colonial land policy in Canada. We might call this dynamic the wages of settlement.

This chapter delves into the retention of long-tenured care workers in Canada. While turnover is a critical challenge for organisations dependent on care workers, profoundly affecting both recipients of care and their families, this chapter shifts focus to the factors that encourage retention. Through in-depth interviews with 15 long-term personal support workers in Ontario, Canada, the chapter uncovers a diverse array of motivations that sustain these workers in their roles. Additionally, it reveals the complex pressures and barriers that may compel care workers to remain in their positions even when they might otherwise consider leaving. This exploration provides valuable insights into the dynamics of retention in the care sector, shedding light on both the incentives and constraints that shape workers’ decisions to stay.

An unflinching examination of the impacts of settler colonialism from first contact to the contemporary nation state. On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples is the first installment in a comprehensive collection investigating settler colonialism as a state mandate, a structuring logic of institutions, and an alibi for violence and death. The book examines how settler identities are fashioned in opposition to nature and how eras of settler colonialism have come to be defined. Scholars and thinkers explore how settlers understood themselves as servants of empire, how settler identities came to be predicated on racialization and white supremacy, and more recently, how they have been constructed in relation to multiculturalism. Featuring perspectives from Indigenous, Black, mixed-race, and other racialized, queer, and white European-descended thinkers from across a range of disciplines, On Settler Colonialism in Canada: Lands and Peoples addresses the fundamental truths of this country. Essays engage contemporary questions on the legacy of displacement that settler colonialism has wrought for Indigenous people and racialized settlers caught up in the global implications of empire. Asserting that reconciliation is a shared endeavor, the collection’s final section exposes the myth at the heart of Canada’s constitutional legitimacy and describes the importance of affirming Indigenous rights, protecting Indigenous people (especially women) from systemic violence, and holding the Canadian settler nation state—which has benefited from the creation and maintenance of genocidal institutions for generations—accountable. -- Publisher's description

This chapter provides an extensive but not exhaustive overview of gender equality indices. Two key concerns emerge: frst, the conflation of measures of gender equality and assessments of women’s rights and status; and second, the focus on individual empowerment used in almost all international indices, the indicator for which is frequently political representation.The chapter proposes an alternative frame of collective agency as a measurable dimension that shifts attention from those institutions that reproduce gender inequality to those that promote gender equality. The second part of this chapter argues that trade unions are a key institutional vehicle for women’s collective agency and voice. Union membership increases women’s income and reduces the gender pay gap, a central dimension in all gender equality indices. It also improves the quality and conditions of working life. Union membership, then, helps progress women’s status, supports gender equality, and offers a valuable measure of women’s collective agency. --Introduction

The Canadian university system closely parallels the northern European and British systems which were inherited through the process of colonization in the 18th century. Universities are grappling with the legacy of colonialism and continue to make efforts toward reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous peoples. Fiscal restraint dominates the discourse across publicly funded universities, which rely increasingly on contingent staff. Meanwhile, the increasing number of PhD graduates are finding it difficult to find permanent work in the academy. Labour unrest is on the rise across a fractured labour market. Canada faces a period of uncertainty and potential structural change in its higher education sector as it deals with these challenges.

Environmental racism is a structural, historical and ongoing fact of life for many Indigenous, Black and racially marginalized communities in Canada. Yet climate change discussions, lacking an anti-racism and intersectional lens, have largely ignored how Indigenous, Black and racially marginalized communities are inequitably impacted by the climate emergency. At the same time, policies to promote a just transition to a sustainable economy provide an opportunity for the creation of good green jobs. Such pathways into the green economy will only be inclusive if the voices of Indigenous, Black and racialized people and their communities are heard. Otherwise, the green economic transformation will only further reinforce the structural racial economic inequalities present in Canadian society and the genocidal impacts of the climate emergency will continue. In the end, we believe that worker power guided by a critical race, class, gender and intersectional analysis is an essential component in a strategy to win and secure a just transition to a green, sustainable and inclusive economy. The scale of the engagement must involve the entire movement working in genuine partnership with community coalition partners to ensure that the new green economy does not look like the old White economy.

New research on the workings of the ‘web of empire’ have revealed that the British Empire was not only sustained by raw materials from India but depended significantly on its manpower working as ‘coolies’, or indentured labourers, in distant plantations in Mauritius, Fiji, West Indies, East and South Africa, and the Straits Settlements. The white dominions of Canada, Australia and the United States (US) similarly depended on low-paid labourers from the East for much of their work of opening up and colonising the prairie wastes. Initially, the bulk of migrants from India in North America came from among the strong and hard-working Sikhs of the Punjab province of India, who found it lucrative to work in these places, lured by the comparatively higher wages than they could obtain at home. However, as the market for labour became saturated by the first decade of the twentieth century, these countries began to erect legal barriers to the free entry of these Indian migrants under pressure from domestic workers, unwilling to face competition from migrants. This came as a great shock to migrant Indians, who had until then been thinking of the empire as a vast field of ‘shared opportunities’. In 1908, Canada tried to exclude Indian migrant labour by legislation, which insisted on ‘continuous passage’ for entering into the ports of the country. This would automatically disable Sikh migrants, who had to change ships to reach Canada. Gurdit Singh’s attempt to charter a Japanese ship, Komagata Maru, in June 1914 to ensure continuous passage for the Sikh migrants to Canada was a challenge to this legal barrier against the migrants. The turning back of this ship from Vancouver shattered the belief of the migrants in an equal imperial citizenship, and it became incendiary material for the revolutionary nationalist propaganda of the Ghadr conspirators, based in San Francisco. Student radicals in Canada and America, such as Lala Har Dayal, Kartar Singh Sarabha, G. D. Kumar and Husain Rahim tried to contact radicals all over the world, in India House in the United Kingdom (UK), France, Egypt, Turkey and Switzerland, and tried to spread their message through journals, like the Ghadr and the Hindustanee from San Francisco and the Al Kasas from Egypt. They even linked their efforts with German imperialist conspirators to gain funding and guidance in their common mission against British imperialism. --Publisher's summary

Spaces of work and economic activity cause the most significant and widespread harm to animals so are particularly significant when thinking about how to both understand and promote solidarity with animals. This chapter begins by establishing what ‘animals at work’ means and then reestablishes the importance of the concept of interspecies solidarity as both a process and goal. It expands on earlier analyses and suggests that the principles of equity and care offer complementary and compelling guidance and impetus to deepen and enrich the application of the concept of solidarity. There are three levels within which these ethical priorities can be translated into meaningful, material changes: the interpersonal, the organizational, and the governmental/legislative (or, the micro, meso, and macro level). Some workplace contexts are ethically indefensible and should be replaced through just humane jobs transitions. Others have more positive potential, and, in these cases, interspecies solidarity could result in meaningful changes.

This collection presents critical and action-oriented approaches to addressing food systems inequities across places, spaces, and scales. With case studies from around the globe, Radical Food Geographies explores interconnections between power structures and the social and ecological dynamics that bring food from the land and water to our plates. Through themes of scale, spatial imaginaries, and human and more-than-human relationships, the authors explore ongoing efforts to co-construct more equitable and sustainable food systems for all. Advancing a radical food geographies praxis, the book reveals multiple forms of resistance and resurgence, and offers examples of co-creating food systems transformation through scholarship, action, and geography. --Publisher's description

...Some shocking statistics underpin Adrian Murray's examination of COVID-19 in Canada: underfunded and poorly regulated for-profit care homes for the aged experienced a death rate four times that of public care homes. Murray details the uneven impacts of the pandemic in Canada, with the burden falling hardest on those in precarious work, women, black, Indigenous and other racalised groups - as shaped by Canada's colonial history of dispossession and racism, now exacerbated by neoliberal economic policies. Murray highlights the contradictions of Canadian exceptionalism, suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic be read through the lens of a colonial present epitomised by internal inequalities and internationally by hoarding of vaccines. --From Editors' Introduction

This chapter traces the development of unionisation and collective bargaining beginning in the mid-1970s amongst university and college academics with a focus on Canada. It examines the early reluctance of faculty to pursue unionisation and explores how this hesitancy was overcome. It is argued that unionisation was driven not just by concerns about pay and benefits but also by a growing awareness of the weak legal protections in Canadian law for academic freedom and tenure. Today, largely in the absence of any statutory recognition, these rights are embedded in and enforced legally through collective agreements. The chapter concludes by considering emerging issues facing faculty unions in Canada and internationally and suggests how they can adapt to meet these challenges.

In this book, independent experts analyze the performance of Justin Trudeau's years in power in over 20 important areas of government policy. The record of what has been done-and what hasn't-will surprise even well-informed readers. The focus is on six policy areas: Indigenous rights, governance and housing; the environment and energy; taxes and spending; healthcare and social benefits; foreign policy, immigration, and trade; and social policy including drug reform, labour rights, and racism. Editors Katherine Scott, Laura Macdonald, and Stuart Trew of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives have recruited Canada's most knowledgeable experts in their areas to contribute to this volume. --Publisher's description

A close reading of the report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada (RCSW 1970) makes visible its views on women’s organizing for social justice and strategies to this end. These issues have garnered little attention, but as this chapter shows, the report comments on the role of unions in Canada, the importance of demographic representation of women in positions of power, the lobbying work of professional women’s organizations, and the advocacy of the emerging community-based women’s movement. My focus is on the fndings of the RCSW ( 1970 ) on women and unions, and on union women’s organizing in recent decades. This examination is framed by four proposals for elaborating new feminist paradigms to promote justice for women. --Introduction

The mention of the Okanagan Valley conjures images of orchard fruits and golden yellow sunsets. Mainstream narratives of “the valley” construct the idea of the “family farmer” (read: white), who puts food on our table ensuring a plentiful farm-to-table bounty. These stories become so recycled, they do not even have to be mentioned in order to make invisible the experiences and struggles of the thousands of migrant farmworkers who exist on the margins of these mythical notions of “the valley.” In this chapter, we consider how the constructions of “valley” are enforced both formally and informally. We also consider the mechanisms of struggle and resistance undertaken at the margins, and why these subtle actions have the power to undo the construct of the Okanagan Valley.

The presence of migrant workers has become a central feature of labour markets in highly developed countries. The International Labour Organisation estimates that in 2013 there were 112 million resident migrant workers in the 58 highest-income countries, who made up 16% of the workforce. Non-resident workers have also increasingly become part of the labour available for employment in other states, often on a temporary basis. This work takes a thematic and comparative approach to examine the profound implications of contemporary labour migration for employment law regimes in highly developed countries. In so doing, it aims to promote greater recognition of labour migration-related questions, and of the interests of migrant workers, within employment law scholarship. The work comprises original analyses by leading scholars of migration and employment law at the European Union level, and in Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. The specific position of migrant workers is addressed, for example as regards equality of treatment, or the position in employment law of migrant workers without a right to work. The work also explores the effects of migration levels and patterns upon general employment law - including the law relating to collective bargaining, and remedies against exploitation. --Publisher's description

This thematic chapter connects the ever-present “social question” (struggles on remuneration and hours of work, exploitation of wage workers) with the “socio-ecological question”. The “waged jobs vs the environment” trade‐off is a point of tension in the relationship between trade‐unions and green movements. Trade unions need an assurance regarding the jobs that would be lost in a transition away from fossil fuels. However, this chapter questions the myth that working-class people do not care about the environment and health, showing examples in Morocco, Zambia, Italy, Peru, Canada, Colombia, South Africa, Kazakhstan, and Argelia. In mining conflicts, in factories and in plantations, trade unions fought for a long time for the rights of exploited workers in struggles linking grievances on low wages and bad conditions of work with health issues. Much before there was a discussion on Just Transitions, there was a working-class environmentalism on issues of health and safety at work, such as asbestosis.