Your search

This dissertation examines the experiences of Indigenous women engaged in precarious and seasonal salmon cannery work. The dissertation argues that to grasp the nature of the women's work, which is exceedingly precarious, it is necessary to consider how it is shaped by a host of social, political, environmental and economic forces. In particular, the dissertation illustrates how provincial and Canadian neoliberal policies that developed during the past few decades have amplified the vulnerable status of Indigenous women cannery workers. Neoliberal discourses of active (worthy) and passive (unworthy) citizens embedded in social policies powerfully shape qualification requirements to programs such as Employment Insurance and Income Assistance while individualizing social inequalities experienced by Indigenous women. The dissertation employs both decolonizing and feminist methodologies to examine the everyday experiences of Indigenous women and to map out the social relations that shape their experience as precarious workers. Overall the dissertation contributes to making Indigenous women worker's lives more visible, to showing their significance in the salmon canning industry, to highlighting how their precarious labour undermines their well being and that of their families, and to demonstrating their resilience in the face of major obstacles.

This study presents a qualitative cross-case analysis of the discourses of teacher professionalism amongst union active teachers in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario. Data collection included interviews with 11 members of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario and 13 members from the Alberta Teachers’ Association, which were grounded in a document analysis of various reports, member magazines, news articles, and press releases dating back to the 1990s. The study reveals a triad of influences on the professionalism discourses of union-active teachers: engagement in teacher associations, the larger policy environment, and teacher agency. More specifically, participants’ inner drive to affect change, coupled with the capacity building experiences gained through their teacher association, saw many participants enacting and espousing discourses that positioned teachers as learners, leaders, advocates, and autonomous experts. That being said, member discourses were also impacted by the organizational priorities of their teacher associations and the extent to which the associations had been able to sway discourses within the larger policy environment to be supportive of teachers. These discursive influences are not static, however, nor are they mutually exclusive. Rather, a complex, mutually reinforcing relationship exists between these elements that change over time as teachers, their unions, and governments respond to each other in new and evolving ways. This results in discourses of teacher professionalism “from within” and “from without” that are more akin to two sides of the same coin than they are to the juxtaposed manner which they are often conceived of. In this way the study illustrates the power of teachers and their unions to alter the balance between democratic discourses which position teachers as advocates, agents, and policy actors; and neoliberal portrayals of teachers as the objects of educational reform.

This dissertation is a history of an idea, a retelling of a simple story about an idea as a complicated one, and an explanation of the effects of believing the simple story. From 1869 to 1985, to be an Indian in the eyes of the Canadian state—to be a “status Indian”—a person had to have a status Indian father. The Canadian government registered a population of Indigenous people as status Indians and decided that Indian status passed along the male line. If an Indian man married a non-Indian woman, his wife gained status and their children were status Indians. In contrast, if a status Indian woman married a non-Indian man, she lost her Indian status, and her children were not status Indians. This rule exiled women from their families of birth and tore them from the political fabric of their communities. The Indian status system is a keystone in Canada’s colonizing governance of Indigenous life. The rules in the Indian Act for the transmission of Indian status came under heavy criticism and, in 1985, the federal government amended the law. Because the 1985 amendments perpetuated sex discrimination by conferring an advantage to those who traced Indian status along the male line, the rules for Indian status were the object of decades of subsequent campaigning and litigation. In 2008 and 2015, landmark judgments in McIvor and Descheneaux declared the rules to be in breach of the gender equality guarantees in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In overturning the Indian Act’s status rules, the courts have relied on the government’s explanation of the history of these rules. The legislative history told by the government mirrors commonly held views about the history of the 1985 amendments to the Indian Act. According to this canonical history, the core explanation for the Indian Act amendments is a tension between individual rights to gender equality and collective rights to Indigenous self-governance, embodied in a conflict between Indigenous women and Indigenous communities (often represented by male Indigenous leaders). According to the canonical history, the opposition between these groups yielded an intractable political stalemate—a Gordian political knot that could only be sliced by the equality rights offered in constitutional and international human rights law. This dissertation unseats the canonical history by advancing an alternative account, one with both a wider aperture on the political and social context and a sharper focus on detail, complexity, and contingency. The dissertation asks how individual equality rights and Indigenous self-governance became juxtaposed to one another in a relationship of tension and dichotomous opposition and explains the discursive, political, and social forces that came together to create this idea of opposition. It situates the history of the Indian Act amendments in the context of negotiations for the re-founding of Canadian sovereignty and the passage of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Indigenous demands for recognition as a third order of government in Canada’s federal state, changing understandings of equality in Canadian law, and shifts in the categorization of the problem of Indian women’s loss of status as a political, social, or cultural problem. It traces the role of Indigenous political organizations, Indigenous women’s political organizations, and the white-led women’s movement in shaping the debate. It tracks how an issue transformed from a political problem into a question of fundamental rights. Debates about amending the Indian Act showed a consensus among Indigenous people about the importance of Indigenous self-governance and the need to end sex discrimination in the Indian Act. Conflict among Indigenous groups arose about the mechanisms for recognizing Indigenous self-governance and the definition of self-governing polities. Rather than a pitched battle among Indigenous people, the central threads running throughout the history of reforms to the Indian Act are the federal government’s steadfast refusal to recognize inherent Indigenous self-governance and a desire to limit government spending on status Indians, all in service of a project of constructing and defending Canadian sovereignty. The dissertation exposes the government’s share of responsibility in creating a conflict between gender equality rights and Indigenous self-governance. It reveals the law’s hand in shaping the discourses of rights through which this idea of tension became articulated, labeling those rights as fundamental, pitting those rights against one another as intrinsically opposed, and then balancing them in the name of justice and fairness. In contemporary litigation over the Indian Act, the Canadian government deploys a story about competing interests of Indigenous women and Indigenous communities as a justification for continued discrimination in the Indian Act. (Abridged abstract)

This dissertation explored the relationship between individual-level value differences and workplace attitudes. Using data from a sample of Canadian workers whose co-workers were currently using flexible work arrangements, the relationship between allocentrism and workers' job satisfaction and organizational commitment was explored. A workplace-allocentrism scale was developed and validated. The scale showed adequate validity and reliability and thus was used in the main study. The Co-Worker Model was developed and tested on a sample of adults in Canada who work in organizations where flexible work arrangements are used. Data were collected from an online research panel and then tested using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that allocentric value orientations were positively related to reported organizational commitment, mediated by job satisfaction. This study sheds light on the importance of understanding individual-level value differences when examining the effectiveness and/or ineffectiveness of organizational policies and practices.

There has been a long-time debate over whether issues conclusively decided at labour arbitration should be subject to a subsequent proceeding before a human rights tribunal. The author examines Supreme Court of Canada decisions dealing with re-litigation of issues before multiple decision-makers, and demonstrates how they are interpreted by the human rights tribunal. This paper identifies principles from cases before other decision-makers that can be applied to the problem of shared jurisdiction between labour arbitration and human rights.

My dissertation, Housework and Social Subversion: Wages, Housework, and Feminist Activism in 1970s Italy and Canada, presents a history of the Wages for Housework movements in Italy and Canada (1972-1978), looking at the parallel development of autonomist feminist politics in these locations. Based on a series of interviews with feminists involved in the movement, my dissertation highlights the significant political value in the way the groups theoretical perspective influenced our current understanding of social reproduction. Social reproduction refers to the unpaid activities associated with family and societal maintenance procreation, socialization, and nurturance as well as paid work in social sectors such as health care, education, childcare, and social services. In the context of Wages for Housework, my dissertation re-examines the movements understandings of wages, housework, and the gendered relations of production in the home. In critiquing the capitalist, patriarchal, imperialist nuclear family, they re-conceptualized wages and housework in a way that allowed for the uncovering of the most hidden aspect of housework: emotional labour and care. Looking at the parallel development of Wages for Housework movements in Italy and Canada, I also highlight the emergence of similar tensions regarding the demand for wages and the role of the working class housewife in their analyses. As Nicole Cox and Silvia Federici wrote, Our power as women begins with the social struggle for the wage, not to be let into the wage relation (for we were never out of it) but to be le out of it, for every sector of the working class to be left out of it (1975, 11). In light of the continued pervasiveness of care as work, this dissertation contributes to building a better understanding of social reproduction in a global context.

Job Developers have complex and demanding jobs that require balancing the needs of organizations, employers, and job seekers. Job Developers must meet new employers and potential employees every day, earn their trust, and learn their needs. A common role Job Developers play is helping people find jobs and helping employers find employees. Job Developers attempt to learn what employers and job seekers need and what each can offer to match the right applicants to the right employers.Competent Job Developers must have organization, research, marketing, selling, communication, and negotiation skills. Job development has become a high growth occupation. Because the nature of their jobs changes constantly, Job Developers must also stays updated on employment trends and labor market information. While these changes provide opportunities for practitioners to expand their roles, they also impose increased demands and challenges to build their skills and capacity to perform their jobs. The job developer profession (also known as employment specialist) is a recently new concept in the nonprofit sector. Job Developers' potential as advocates for the unemployed, those with disabilities, and new immigrants is fundamental in today's competitive job market and in the context of equitable opportunity for employment. Informal and nonformal learning are well-recognized and well-used in the job development field. Job Developers rely on informal and nonformal learning for professional development and occupational autonomy.

This thesis examines the life stories of six Indigenous civil servants who worked in the Canadian federal public service from the late 1960s until today. To contextualize these lived experiences, this thesis also explores the development of a culture of merit, representation, and employment equity within the federal civil service in the twentieth century. Stories of work were provided within the frame of larger life stories, allowing narrators to speak to both their perceptions of the civil service as an employer and also the role and meaning of this work within their lives. As a result, this thesis argues that the complexity of individual experiences, identity formation, and memory make it difficult to generalize about “the Indigenous civil servant” in any meaningful way. Relatedly, this thesis also emphasizes both the enriching possibilities and the unique challenges of conducting life story oral interviews and “sharing authority” in collaborative research projects.

This paper aims to discover the theatrical relationship between the working class and the factory of war. In that, it strives to prove that the lower income labourer is the cog of the machine: a nameless entity with an inescapable destiny. Through the paper and the subsequent production of Oh, What A Lovely War! I intend to give a voice to the worker and will struggle with my own blue collar identity, just as Joan Littlewood did in years past. This production and paper therefore is one of self-discovery and acceptance. In addition, it aims to prove that without the heroic efforts of the laboring class, there would be no war, as the cowardice of capitalism would fall without its soldiers.

In 1932, coal miners inside of Alberta's Crowsnest Pass struck for 195 days over working conditions. I use a multi-perspective approach and found my analysis on the basis of community to increase our understanding on industrial disputes. I explore the strike from the viewpoint of coal operators, miners, union organizers, women, the RCMP, and other residents inside the region to contextualize the experience of the strike. By using the starting point of community, I add to the ‘labour versus capital’ paradigm often employed in writings on industrial disputes. The Mine Workers Union of Canada represented the striking miners but it became clear that community consensus to support for the union was never reached. Resistance against the union formed on several fronts and often pitted strike supporters against those who disagreed. The strike is a reminder that tensions not only existed between classes but also within classes.

The emergence of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in the 1970s as the largest union in Canada was a major development in Canadian labour history and the result of extensive efforts to organize unorganized civil servants and public employees. Public sector union growth has often been thought to have differed fundamentally from the experience of private sector unions, on the grounds that union rights were extended to public sector workers without struggle. The history of CUPE New Brunswick, established in 1963, and its predecessor unions in the 1950s demonstrates the complex struggles of civil servants and public employees to acquire and then to apply collective bargaining rights in the province of New Brunswick. While the enactment of the Public Service Labour Relations Act (PSLRA) in 1968 provided a legal means for civil servants to join a union and bargain collectively, public sector workers continued to struggle for improved wages and working conditions throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These conflicts, which drew on both membership mobilization and legal strategies, are shown in detail in the experience of CUPE members in Local 963, New Brunswick Liquor Store Workers, and Local 1252, New Brunswick Council of Hospital Unions, the umbrella organization representing hospital support workers. While locals within CUPE New Brunswick worked independently of one another, the more than 200 CUPE locals in the province joined together in 1992 to resist measures introduced by the provincial Liberal government. While this was essentially a defensive struggle to protect existing rights, it also represented a challenge to the emerging policies of neo-liberalism and a culmination of a tradition of collective action within the union.

This thesis is concerned with understanding the relationship between labour law and triangular employment growth, and particularly in "staffing services" contexts. A review of alternative explanations for growth in triangular employment within three theoretical paradigm (neoclassical, institutionalist, and critical) illustrates the theoretical space for conceiving of a relationship between the particularities of labour law and triangular employment growth. To this end, the thesis develops the concept of a regulatory differential, or ways in which a legal regime may produce differential regulatory effects as between direct and triangular forms of employment. A typology of regulatory differentials is outlined. Further, a discussion of the relationship between these differentials and employer-status rules is provided, and it is suggested that the logic of the framework may helpfully inform analysis of triangular employment growth within a given jurisdiction, as well as comparative analysis of this phenomenon. The theoretical framework is then applied towards examining diverging growth rates in triangular employment as between Canada and the U.S. Legal analysis examining two key sub-fields of labour suggests that the presence (and expansion) of key regulatory differentials in the U.S., absent in Canada, may help explain the observed patterns of triangular employment growth in these countries.

The contemporary precarious condition, ‘precarity,’ in life, work and culture parallels transformations in national and global economies, in part through the rise of immaterial production. Precarity has led to destabilization and reconfiguration of a class /class system and the creation of a new majority precarious class including domestic and farm workers, academic workers, care givers, part-timers and more. The thesis identifies how a historical moment of the Canadian Farmworkers Union (1979-1999) experienced marginal social protection, racial discrimination, limited legal rights, short-term contracts, vulnerable working conditions and precarious life without health care. The transnational lessons of the CFU include a better understanding organizing precarious citizens today — including what has not worked; importance of visual cultural analysis and counter-visuality to inform resistance. Theories of immaterial labour; porousness of international borders; lack of social protections; shorter career cycles; challenges to traditional craft unions; shift in social values as citizens organize across sectors, geographies and borders; and, migrant experiences as central to the experience of precarity. Confronted with the difficult task of re-imagining old ‘modernist’ visions of ‘class,’ ‘people,’ ‘nation-states’ and many established perspectives of resistance that have been stalemated. The thesis also includes a short survey of visual cultural expressions from twenty-first century precarious citizen groups. [This] The Master of Arts - Cultural Studies major project includes a 96-page illustrated history book entitled "Fields of Power: The Canadian Farmworkers Union," with photographs and text by [the author].

This thesis investigates different statutory models Canadian legislatures have enacted to address workplace harassment. It adopts a qualitative, comparative case study approach, providing an in-depth comparative analysis of legislation from Québec, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. Through this analysis, this thesis outlines the ways in which workplace harassment has been regulated in Canada, why that model was adopted by the jurisdiction and how that model measures against other models for legislating workplace harassment. Through an examination of existing literature relating to workplace harassment stemming from three theoretical paradigms and an analysis of a model legislative framework, this thesis creates a tool for scholars and lawmakers to use for future research and enactments of workplace harassment legislation. Overall, this thesis demonstrates that the varying and complex nature of the enacted legislation in the aforementioned Canadian jurisdictions leaves room for improvement for future enactments and amendments of workplace harassment legislation.

The goal of this research was to challenge notions of “contributing” in active citizen discourse. This was done by exploring how individuals experiencing homelessness give back to their communities while surviving through social exclusion and life on the streets. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with individuals who experienced homelessness between the ages of 40-64. This research found that respondents gave back to others through various forms of labour in ways that were mutually beneficial. Contributing to the well being of others helped respondents to cope with homelessness by gaining opportunities, resources, information, networks and developing a sense of well being, confidence or support. The findings suggest a need to re-conceptualize “contributing” in ways that recognize alternative forms of citizenship activities and participation. By doing so, all people, including people without homes, can be recognized as contributing citizens in their communities.

This thesis adopts a socialist feminist perspective to explore women’s experiences with occupational gender segregation in unionized grocery stores across Southwestern Ontario. The thesis draws conclusions about the devaluation of women’s labour and how this devaluation impacts their economic and social status. Socialization theory and human capital theory, as well as explanations based on biology, are critiqued in this thesis, as these explanations do not fully account for occupational gender segregation. The results of this study suggest that occupational gender segregation is deeply entrenched in unionized grocery stores and the trend towards increasing profit by replacing full-time labourers with part-time labourers is further exacerbating the marginalization of women in paid labour. It is concluded that women’s labour has been steadily devalued and that class and patriarchy severally limit women’s overall upward mobility by concentrating women in highly gendered part-time low skilled jobs in grocery stores.

Current studies of regional integration in North America claim that this process is limited to the entering of intergovernmental agreements that aim to expand and enhance crossborder flows of goods and capitals between Mexico, Canada and the US. Such studies claim that the political effects of the process on nation-states are limited and constrained by the decisions of the national governments. In contrast, this thesis argues that the actions of transnational actors have increased the policy interdependence between the three countries in the arenas of environmental protection, labour cooperation and protection of foreign direct investment. Transnational actors have used, applied and interpreted the rules originally created by the intergovernmental agreements –NAFTA, NAAEC, BECA and NAALC– and have subsequently demanded additional and improved rules. Regional institutions have in turn responded to these demands by supplying new and improved regional rules. In doing so, transnational actors and regional institutions have furthered the policy interdependence between the three countries. This phenomenon, known in other contexts as institutionalisation, demonstrates that the process of regional integration in North America is more substantial than previous studies claim. In addition, it illustrates the relevance of the theories of Liberal Intergovernmentalism and Supranational Governance to the analysis of the emergence and development of the North American integration process.

The 1971 Burgeo strike was a central moment in the development of working-class consciousness in Newfoundland. Combining archival sources with the author‘s own field interviews, this thesis illustrates how the development of industrial production during the two and a half decades after the Second World War generated a corresponding shift in the society and culture of rural Newfoundland. The resulting narrative demonstrates a model of class formation in the "industrial villages" of outport Newfoundland.

This dissertation argues that work significantly shaped the experience of disability during this period. Barriers to mainstream employment opportunities gave rise to multiple disability movements that challenged the social and economic framework which marginalized generations of people with disabilities. Using a critical analysis of disability in archival records, personal collections, government publications and a series of interviews, I demonstrate how demands for greater access among disabled people to paid employment stimulated the development of a new discourse of disability in Canada. Including disability as a variable in historical research reveals how family advocates helped people living in institutions move out into the community and rehabilitation professionals played an increasingly critical role in the lives of working-age adults with disabilities, civil rights activists crafted a new consumer-led vision of social and economic integration. Separated by different philosophies and bases of support, disability activists and allies found a common purpose in their pursuit of economic integration. The focus on employment issues among increasingly influential disability activists during this period prompted responses from three key players in the Canadian labour market. Employers embraced the rhetoric and values of disability rights but operated according to a different set of business principles and social attitudes that inhibited the realization of equity and a ‘level playing field.’ Governments facilitated the development of a progressive discourse of disability and work, but ultimately recoiled from disability activism to suit emergent political priorities. Labour organizations similarly engaged disability activists, but did so cautiously, with union support largely contingent upon the satisfaction of traditional union business first and foremost. As disability activists and their allies railed against systematic discrimination, people with disabilities lived and worked in the community, confronting barriers and creating their own circles of awareness in the workplace. Just as multiple sites of disability activism found resolution in the sphere of labour, the redefinition of disability during this period reflected a shared project involving collective and individual action.

This thesis looks at the politics of labor market policy in the postwar period in the advanced industrialized democracies. Specifically, the dissertation seeks to explain stark cross-national differences in unemployment benefit systems and employment protection legislation. The theory advanced in this thesis emphasizes significant differences in union organization across the rich democracies. This view, “Varieties of Unionism”, shows how the varying political capacities and policy preferences of labor movements explain most of the cross-national policy differences. In particular, the research points to union movements’ ideological traditions and varying rates of union density, union centralization, and involvement in unemployment benefit administration as crucial explanatory forces. Each feature of union movements captures an important part of why they might choose to advocate on behalf of the unemployed and to their differential ability to have those policy preferences realized, as well as indicating the kinds of preferences they will have for employment protection legislation. In the case of policies directed at the unemployed (or so-called labor market ‘Outsiders’), these insights lead to the construction of an index of “Outsider-oriented Unionism”, which correlates very closely to cross-national variations in unemployment benefit generosity as well as to active labor market policy spending. The thesis also introduces a new fourfold typology of unionism that helps to explain the different combinations of employment protection legislation and ‘Outsider policy’ generosity that exist among the rich democracies, or labor market policy ‘regimes’. The thesis makes this argument with multiple regression analysis of fifteen rich democracies and with detailed historical case studies of Britain, The Netherlands, and Sweden. In making this case, the thesis strongly challenges the explanations of labor market policy put forward by the Varieties of Capitalism literature and Insider-Outsider theory. In addition, the thesis reformulates the traditional Power Resource view by introducing a more rigorous theory of labor movements’ policy preferences and thereby qualifies recent statements that have emphasized partisanship almost alone. Most broadly, the theory challenges the “individualist turn” in recent comparative political economy scholarship and suggests that the field needs to return its gaze far more toward organized interests.