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This dissertation explores the evolution and politics behind the concept of the ‘dependent contractor’ in Ontario, from its earliest incarnations in the late 1970s to its current usage in the gig economy, as interpreted and applied by the Ontario Labour Relations Board (OLRB). It examines how the Board’s interpretation and application of dependent contractor provisions has impacted workers whose employment status falls somewhere between traditional notions of independent contractor and employee, i.e. the ‘grey area’ as the Board has referred to it, over a period of changing employment relationships and of increasingly precarious work. The research tracks these changes over time, examining how previous OLRB jurisprudence on dependent contractors can be seen to impact its decisions in more contemporary contexts (e.g Foodora, 2020) and what this might tell us about the Board’s understanding of employment relations in a changing capitalist economy. The analysis seeks to place the actions of the OLRB into a broader social context to assess what factors have influenced the Board’s decisions and gauge how it understands both its potential to address employment inequities and the limits it faces in doing so within a capitalist economy. This dissertation argues that the OLRB operated with an implicit industrial pluralist understanding of labour-capital relations and made decisions informed by that approach and, in doing so, lacked an appreciation of how capitalist workplaces were changing over time in a way that evaded control via that understanding. It further argues that while bodies such as the OLRB have some autonomy from capitalists and the capitalist state, they are unable to, nor are they designed to, overcome or dramatically alter the power imbalances that exist in capitalist civil society.

Are shifting party-union relationships impacting the vote intentions of union members in Canada? By analyzing voting intentions within the Canadian labour movement, the findings illuminate the complexity of union members’ electoral behaviour and the strategic opportunities for parties vying for their votes. The authors find that while union members continue to be more likely than the average voter to support the NDP, this support is nuanced by factors such as union type, gender, education, age, and income. Notably, the study finds that the Conservatives have made significant inroads among construction union members and those with college education, challenging traditional assumptions about Canadian labour politics.

Les migrations forcées ont façonné la création du Canada en tant qu'État colonisateur et de peuplement. Elles constituent une caractéristique déterminante de nos réalités nationales et mondiales contemporaines. De nombreuses personnes au Canada ont une expérience directe ou indirecte de la réinstallation et de la protection des réfugiés, de la traite des personnes et des déplacements causés par le changement climatique. La migration forcée au Canada est une ressource d'envergure dans le domaine en plein essor des études sur les migrations. L'ouvrage s'appuie sur des perspectives disciplinaires multiples. Des auteures et auteurs issues des mondes de la recherche, de la pratique et des savoirs autochtones mettent en lumière les expériences vécues de déplacement et les politiques migratoires à tous les paliers -- municipal, provincial, territorial et fédéral -- avec une attention particulière portée à l'expérience québécoise et aux minorités francophones du Canada. Depuis les premiers déplacements d'Autochtones et le colonialisme de peuplement, en passant par l'esclavage des Noirs jusqu'à l'apatridie, la traite des personnes et la migration climatique, les chapitres montrent comment la migration humaine est façonnée par des identités et des structures qui se recoupent. Les discussions sur le handicap, la race, la classe, l'âge social et l'identité de genre sont particulièrement novatrices. Situant le Canada dans le cadre de tendances, de normes et de structures internationales plus larges -- à la fois passées et présentes -- La migration forcée au Canada fournit des outils incontournables pour évaluer les informations émanant des journalistes, des représentants du gouvernement, des collègues et d'organisations non gouvernementales. L'ouvrage propose également de nouvelles pistes d'enquête, de discussion, de recherche et d'action. -- Résumé de l'éditeur

Working class politics in Canada is at a disturbing junction. There has been a shift in voting patterns, sometimes referred to as “dealignment,” in which working class voters have moved away from traditional class-based loyalties towards right-wing populist parties and movements. In the recent US election, an estimated 56 percent of working class voters cast their ballot for Trump. In Canada, through most of 2023 and 2024, a significant plurality of working class voters indicated their preference for the Conservative Party under the leadership of Pierre Poilievre. There are multiple theses competing for narrative leadership to explain dealignment and surging working class support for right-wing populism: geopolitical and environmental crises that put tens of millions of people in motion as migrants pour across borders; a rise of individualism and rebellion that took root in the trauma of the COVID crisis; an inflation and affordability crisis after the COVID recession; a cultural backlash to identity politics and advances for women, especially among young men; disinformation and social media; a growing political divide between those with and without post-secondary education, and; the failures of social democratic and liberal parties that associated themselves with neoliberal globalization and abandoned the working class. But there is another less discussed yet important factor in the drift of working class voters away from traditional values and politics—the problematic role and capacity of trade unions and the labour movement to influence working class political outlooks and choices....

The article suggests possible explanations for the variation in the effects of labour shortages on union bargaining power. To this end, a new conceptual model centred on the effectiveness of power is proposed, which lies at the intersection between ‘power to’ and ‘power over’: it therefore combines both the unions' ability to construct collective strategies and use their resources (power to) and their ability to exert a decisive influence on the other party to generate results that are beneficial to them (power over). In an attempt to avoid the determinism often associated with ‘power over’, this model proposes the integration of elements specific to the negotiation process, thus recognising the importance of actors' strategies. By means of interviews with experienced union negotiators, this article demonstrates that the same phenomenon, in this case the labour shortage, produces differentiated effects depending on the subjects of negotiation and the strategies deployed by the players, by affecting both the quality of the strategic leverages, the challenges posed to the unions' organizational capacity and the nature and strength of the employer resistance in negotiation. Furthermore, this theoretical model facilitates an enhanced dialogue between literature focusing on the unions' agentivity and that focused on negotiation strategies and processes, while providing an analytical framework for labor relations practitioners to understand the effects of environmental changes on their bargaining power.

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 dissertation examines economic justice and employment precarity faced by educators in both K-12 and post-secondary education systems. While literature explores themes of changing demographics in union membership, collective bargaining, labor activism, and gendered and intersectional inequities in academia, and women in leadership in unions, a critical gap of disabled women’s voices and solutions to the inequities remains. This study highlights how job insecurity, unequal pay, hiring biases, limited recognition of prior learning, and inadequate institutional support exacerbates mental health challenges, professional invisibility, and economic instability. In the K-12 unionized system, systemic barriers such include disregard for substitute teaching as a viable career and challenges for experienced teachers to get hired over cheaper, inexperienced teachers. In post-secondary education, shifting immigration policies, funding cuts, and undervaluation of non-traditional scholarship deepen instability. This research advances equity-focused strategies. By integrating lived experience with structural and systemic critique, the study calls for reforms that prioritize stability, recognition, and inclusive pathways for all educators navigating precarious employment and economic justice. The study contributes to broader conversations on improving women’s engagement and addressing the inequalities inherent in current labor systems.

In recent decades, China's rapid economic expansion has been accompanied by a rise in corporate ethical scandals, which have drawn increasing attention to unethical pro-organizational behaviour (UPB)—actions intended to benefit the organization but violating ethical norms. While often justified by employees as organizationally beneficial, UPB carries significant psychological and behavioural consequences. Using cognitive dissonance theory, we examine how UPB leads to time theft through the chain mediation of ego depletion and moral sensitivity, with managerial recognition serving as a key boundary condition. We collected data from 432 randomly selected retail employees through a structured questionnaire, including demographic data and measures of UPB, ego depletion, moral sensitivity, managerial recognition and time theft. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS 27.0 for preliminary analyses (e.g., reliability, correlation) and MPLUS 8.3 for path analysis and hypothesis testing, including confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and mediation analysis. The results show that UPB increases ego depletion and directly promotes time theft, while also reducing moral sensitivity indirectly through ego depletion. Ego depletion and moral sensitivity sequentially mediate the relationship between UPB and time theft. Importantly, managerial recognition moderates the mediation path by strengthening the positive relationship between ego depletion and time theft. These findings reveal not only the underlying psychological mechanism of UPB but also how organizational feedback can unintentionally reinforce deviant behaviour. We conclude that organizations should carefully evaluate recognition practices and implement ethics-oriented support systems to mitigate the hidden costs of UPB.

This article reflects on the managerial challenges associated with the day-to-day management of subcontractors. Based on a survey of site managers working for large Belgian construction companies, we show how the day-to-day management of subcontractors leads to numerous arbitration situations aimed at ensuring the successful execution of projects. We detail the evolution of everyday management practices, which are increasingly aimed at attracting and retaining subcontractors who have become particularly scarce and indispensable in the context of structural shortages of skilled local labor. This analysis leads us to a discussion highlighting 1) the importance of local management in the management of subcontractor relationships, 2) the interdependences generated by the current state of the labor market, and 3) the risks of these developments for local management professions.

This article explores the challenges facing injured migrant farm workers in the workers’ compensation system in Canada's province of Ontario, with a focus on their fight for return to work justice. Told from the perspective of one of the lawyers who represented the workers, it highlights a recent victory achieved by 4 workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program in defending their rights to workers’ compensation support. The workers’ compensation tribunal decided that the workers’ compensation board must evaluate these workers’ ability to return to work, access retraining, and receive compensation based on their labor markets in Jamaica—instead of based on fictional job prospects in Ontario. The tribunal also called out the need to consider systemic anti-Black racism in workers’ compensation law and policy. The article analyzes how this legal victory could reshape workers’ compensation policy in Ontario for injured migrant farm workers. It also discusses the implications of the win for injured workers in other temporary work programs and precarious employment sectors.

Grounded in occupational justice and sociotechnical perspectives, this focused ethnographic study explored how immigrant platform workers construct meaning through diverse forms of occupational engagement—doing, being, becoming, and belonging—within sociotechnical contexts. Drawing on interviews with 30 immigrant platform workers in Vancouver, Canada, the study highlights the heterogeneity of platform labour, moving beyond commonly studied sectors such as ride-hailing and food delivery to challenge conventional narratives that frame platform-mediated employment solely as income-generating activity. The findings, organized into four interrelated themes, provide an in-depth account of how workers engage in, make sense of, and reconfigure their occupations within sociotechnically mediated contexts. The first theme, Doing Within and Beyond Sociotechnical Boundaries, examines how participants’ everyday occupations are shaped by both the technical demands of platforms and the social negotiations required to maintain client relationships, reputations, and relevance. The second theme, Being at the Edge of Visibility, explores how the interplay of social and technical systems renders workers simultaneously visible, through metrics, ratings, and platform profiles; and invisible, through lack of recognition and relational connection. The third theme, Boundless Becoming, reveals the fluid and aspirational nature of participants’ occupational trajectories, shaped by transnational opportunities and sociotechnical structures. Finally, Belonging Beyond the Bubble highlights how these workers cultivate inclusion within platform-specific communities while navigating broader structures of marginalization. This paper contributes to a more inclusive understanding of occupational engagement in platform-mediated labor, emphasizing the importance of supporting diverse occupational needs, rights, and aspirations beyond economic outcomes.

Analyzes the state of trade unionism in France with particular reference to union participation in the pensions movement of 2023 and the formation of a left-wing popular front during the 2024 national election. Argues that this return to the political sphere by unions during a time of crisis is in contrast to their narrow, industrial relations focus (called "démocratie social") that has predominated over the past 30 years. Concludes that political unionism and a class-based focus on the broader representation of work are the strategic challenges. The text is an address originally given by the author at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies, Université du Québec à Montréal, on June 19, 2024.

The Employment Standards Database is a research database for comparing employment standards, awareness and violations across national/regional context. It brings together a library of relevant sources, unique user-friendly statistical tables, and a thesaurus of concepts – designed to facilitate research on labour market insecurity in a comparative industrialized context. Users can analyze multidimensional tables to explore and compare the contours of precarious employment in Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. --Website description

Digital content creation is a growing area of labour in Canada. Alongside the development of this labour market, it has been reported there are rising issues of harassment, racism, and racial representation. Research germane to this area has provided rich qualitative accounts of how harassment and social oppression impact marginalized content creators. This study builds on this scholarly area to demonstrate quantitatively the ways in which harassment manifests in a Canadian setting. Using data from an online survey targeting Canadian content creators (N = 103), I specifically examine the incidence of harassment and racism among this population. Drawing on critical race theories, I argue that although online harassment is a widespread workplace hazard for content creators – regardless of identity, the consequences of this harassment are qualitatively different for those who have been historically marginalized. I expand on these findings to articulate how these impacts have downstream effects for marginalized creators, which may hinder their ability to sustain their labour in this environment. Finally, I situate these findings in the platformized environment within which these workplace hazards exist and problematize the arms-length approach that platforms take in regulating these hazards.

Labour shortages have become increasingly widespread across Europe and other advanced economies since the post-2008 recovery, due to rising demand and structural labour market transitions—digital, green and demographic. They further worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, through shifts in worker preferences, and again during the post-pandemic economic rebound. While policymakers and academics often attribute the shortages to skill gaps, which may be reduced via training or increased migration, there is growing recognition that unattractive wages and poor working conditions are also hindering recruitment.

...Lead author Dr. Catherine Bryan, Associate Professor in the Dalhousie School of Social Work, had this to say about the report, “This report draws on voices and experiences of child protection social workers in Nova Scotia to describe how they understand and manage the conditions of child protection work in Nova Scotia. More precisely, it details a growing set of concerns about the conditions of child welfare work in the province and, in turn, about the ability of child protection social workers to effectively, compassionately, and justly meet the needs of children and families.” This report is an effort to uncover the key concerns and daily struggles of those tasked with “protecting” children, while also making both short-term and long-term recommendations for changes to address those challenges, from improving training, mentoring, and professional recognition to reducing poverty. --From website description

Retirement security is the dream of every Canadian, but employers, particularly those in the private sector, are moving away from providing the gold standard of a workplace pension plan. In 2023, 6.9 million working Canadians—34 per cent of all employed people—were covered by a registered pension plan. The retirement income those plans contribute to national and local economies, to government budgets and to equalizing retirement security for equity-seeking groups is underappreciated. This report puts that value in context. --Website description

Discusses the CHL class actions and the settlement in Ontario and Alberta as well as the failure to settle in Quebec. Concludes that the present state of affairs is very unsatisfactory.

Discusses injury rates of warehouse workers at Amazon, with particular reference to Ontario. Concludes that workers must organize to counterbalance the management priorities of the world's second largest corporation.

This article is a minimum filmography about the fundamental issue of mobility. The films reviewed here represent Mexican workers who travel to Canada as temporary workers, thus, who are legal economic migrants. ...This article seeks to introduce the main problems of SAWP [Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program] in the framework of an approach that takes place in the 2020’s; presenting the activists’ struggle, pointing out SAWP’s problems for the families affected and with regard to the process of temporary workers soliciting Canadian citizenship. I analyze five films produced over the last 15 years and present them chronologically to discover how seasonal agricultural workers’ participation in the programs signed by Mexico and Canada is documented.