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In this report, we, the research team, are going to consider the policies that come together to create an exploitative and precarious labour conditions for migrant care workers, who are predominantly financially challenged racialized women. We have conducted a systematic narrative synthesis analysis of the policies that are relevant to migrant care workers. In our consideration of these myriad policies, we will present a narrative that emerges in the coordinated design of these policies. The narrative that has emerged presented a journey to precariousness through a heightened likelihood of human rights violations that is facilitated by a network of policies and practices. We identify policies and practices that obscure care workers and the conditions of their labour, as well as the discriminatory impact of various policies and practices that support devaluing and delegitimizing the identities and labour of care workers. Finally, we consider the ways in which multiple policies and practices come together to create significant authorities with the capacity to surveil, restrict, and punish workers.... Executive summary

Canadian higher education has been critiqued for its inequitable structures and failure to change despite claiming to be inclusive. This paper considers the experiences of 15 academic developers who engage in varied forms of institutional equity work. By focusing on how their work takes place, why they pursue equity work and their relationships with co-workers, I open a critical discussion of how prepared Canadian teaching and learning centres are to support equity work. By examining equity work and how it is supported, I intend to contribute to ongoing dialogues about the urgency of structural change in Canadian academic development workplaces.

Temporary migrant workers on closed work permits are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. To address this precarity, the Government of Canada introduced the Open Work Permit for Vulnerable Workers (OWP-V) in June 2019. This permit allows migrant workers in abusive situations, or at risk of abuse, to leave their employers and find new work in Canada for up to 12 months. Drawing from secondary literature, policy analysis and qualitative interviews with migrant support workers and experts, this research assesses the implementation of the OWP-V policy in the Maritimes by examining its benefits and critiques. This research demonstrates that although some perceive the policy as a step in the right direction, significant barriers remain that hinder the effectiveness of the OWP-V in removing migrants from abusive conditions. Further findings demonstrate that even with systemic and technological improvements, stakeholders remain dissatisfied with the policy as it fails to protect migrant workers from re-entering cycles of abuse and exploitation, serving only as temporary relief. To improve the implementation of this policy, stakeholders provided several suggestions pertaining to accessibility, language options, processing times, and inspections. Overall, this thesis argues that while these changes could help improve the working conditions of temporary migrant workers in Canada, substantial systemic issues remain.

Using collective agreement and strike data from the Canadian Federal and provincial jurisdictions for the years 1978–2019, this study examines the effect that various legislative regimes that govern public‐sector bargaining disputes have on the incidence, duration and cost of conflict. This study seeks to replicate and improve previous estimates related to this topic but also extends the analysis to examine changes to the legal environment in Canada in which labour rights have been increasingly enshrined in constitutional law through the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This study finds, in contrast to previous studies, that the legislative regime impacts the way agreements are settled when disputes occur but not the likelihood of a directly negotiated agreement prior to impasse. It also highlights some differences in contract and wage settlements prior to and after the constitutionalization of labour rights in Canada.

Forced migration shaped the creation of Canada as a settler state and is a defining feature of our contemporary national and global contexts. Many people in Canada have direct or indirect experiences of refugee resettlement and protection, trafficking, and environmental displacement. Offering a comprehensive resource in the growing field of migration studies, Forced Migration in/to Canada is a critical primer from multiple disciplinary perspectives. Researchers, practitioners, and knowledge keepers draw on documentary evidence and analysis to foreground lived experiences of displacement and migration policies at the municipal, provincial, territorial, and federal levels. From the earliest instances of Indigenous displacement and settler colonialism, through Black enslavement, to statelessness, trafficking, and climate migration in today's world, contributors show how migration, as a human phenomenon, is differentially shaped by intersecting identities and structures. Particularly novel are the specific insights into disability, race, class, social age, and gender identity. Situating Canada within broader international trends, norms, and structures--both today and historically--Forced Migration in/to Canada provides the tools we need to evaluate information we encounter in the news and from government officials, colleagues, and non-governmental organizations. It also proposes new areas for enquiry, discussion, research, advocacy, and action. -- Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Shifting Gears: Canadian Autoworkers and the Changing Landscape of Labour Politics," by Stephanie Ross and Larry Savage.

This article contributes to understanding the relationship between mobilities and labour control. Focusing on the expansion of the Chinese/Asian restaurant industry in the United States during the last two decades and drawing from a multi-sited, multi-scalar ethnography, the concept of spatial labour control is employed to explicate the various forms of labour control and the mechanisms that contribute to the autogenous reproduction of the industry's out-of-state work arrangement. Specifically, a spatial lens reveals paternalistic control over workers' food and housing, spatial control over workers' morals and affect, and control over workers' mobilities. Moreover, workers' constant relocation to new work destinations to combat social isolation and feelings of restlessness unintentionally reproduces the circulation of atomized labour for the industry. Such conditions are inconducive to collectively addressing labour discontent.

During COVID-19, politicians and the media in North America spotlighted the contributions of essential workers. As many low-income essential services are performed by migrant workers, this study explores how the pandemic served as a critical moment to raise societal awareness of the disadvantaged circumstances faced by migrant workers and to garner public support for their rights and equality. Engaging with scholarly critiques of media representation of underprivileged migrant groups and migration and labor scholars’ work on migrant workers in Canada, the study examines mainstream media discourse and public discourse on essential workers and migrant workers in Canada during the pandemic. Adopting thematic and critical discourse analysis, the study reveals that nationalist ideology, intersected with capitalist and neoliberal ideologies, prevents the public from forming solidarity with migrant workers, although overt racist and xenophobic discourse diminishes, and advocacy voices begin to gain higher visibility in mainstream media. The study contends that mobilizing broader public support to tackle inequalities remains a crucial issue in the context of transnational labor migration.

This dissertation undertakes an affective reading of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Canadian primary sources through which to analyze the affective basis of judgments and narratives surrounding sexual commerce. Situated in the interdisciplinary subfield of the history of emotions, this dissertation centres sexual commerce as a site of colonial worldmaking in what are currently the southern regions of the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, and traces emotional through-lines across fields in social space. Beginning with a self-reflexive prologue drawing from a method feminist theorist Clare Hemmings (2011) terms “situated horror,” this dissertation then turns to the Dominion of Canada’s post-1867 westward expansion, its legal mechanisms, and affective mobilizations. Across the empire, Britain tied legislative powers to feelings that reflected its goals, ideal social order, and habitus of its peoples. Like a mathematical equation, peace in the colonies would emerge through order and good government and law-abiding citizens would be its beneficiaries. That equation was integral to the shift from a fur trade economy to a settler colonial one oriented toward a British imperial and Canadian economic disposition. The corollary effect of the equation was the normalization of British and Canadian views on what constituted peace, their conceptions of capital, and the conceptual transplant of disorderly figures, such as the “rebel,” the “vagrant,” and the “prostitute” – or, broadly, people defined as “outlaws.” Three main sites of colonial worldmaking are examined in this work: that of the journalistic field in chapter four, that of the political field in chapter five, and that of the juridical field in chapter six. By tracing emotion in oft-cited, and not-so-oft-cited, primary sources that discuss concerns about and responses to sexual commerce, the emotions underpinning narratives and judgments surrounding sexual commerce become evident. This method offers an emotions history of western Canadian colonial expansion, revealing how sex workers, histories of sex work, and feelings about sexual commerce were integral to Canadian worldmaking. Responses to sexual commerce were informed by the Dominion of Canada’s worldmaking mission, concerns over human unfreedom, and dynamic social positionings in emergent settler colonial society. British imperial and Canadian whiteness were produced through gendered-racialized processes of differentiation at the local, municipal, provincial, federal, and imperial levels. White men’s feelings of satisfaction dominated in this history, as they intensified their gendered monopoly on resources, space, and authority in a region that had been known as Indigenous peoples’ territories. This analysis of masculinized emotions contributes to the feminist theorization of colonialism and sexuality.

Canadian theatre has the potential to incite social change but inequitable working environments within theatre organizations have hindered this prospect. The sector needs new frameworks to improve conditions for arts workers. Inspired by several scholars such as José Esteban Muñoz, Jack Halberstam, and Lee Edelman, I look to the concept of queer utopia to address inequities within the theatre sector, with a focus on the role of theatre organizations. By defining Queer Utopian Theory (QUT), analyzing calls to action in the Canadian theatre sector, and employing three focus groups, I created a Queer Utopian framework for Canadian theatre organizations to answer the research question: What is the utility of the concept of queer utopia in addressing inequities in the Canadian theatre sector? My research found that relationship building, embracing fear, and subverting socio-political norms are aspects of QUT that are of utility to organizational leaders who wish to foster equitable environments.

Summary: Many young individuals now prioritize involvement in collective action as a means to instigate societal change. Crucially, they have access to social media platforms, which help them connect with like-minded peers and coordinate efforts. Some of them may be thus more inclined to favour less conventional collective action over formal union membership. In this study, which draws on data from young British workers during the period from December 2022 to March 2023, we endeavoured to ascertain this cohort’s preferred approach to collective action. We distinguished between an informal grassroots initiative and one led by a labour union as a means to advance the rights of gig economy workers. To this end, we conducted a controlled online experiment. We focused exclusively on a specific age cohort within a particular timeframe, thus limiting our ability to determine generational differences in preferences for collective action and in attitudes toward unions. Nevertheless, the results do offer insights into the forms of collective action preferred by Generation Z. British youth were found to view the informal grassroots initiative more positively than the union-led one. However, they viewed the latter as potentially having greater influence on government policy. Furthermore, they were not significantly more willing to join one initiative than the other. Nonetheless, they were more inclined to recommend the grassroots initiative. This paper contributes to the body of research on the relationship between labour unions and young people. It also provides insight into how members of Generation Z think about various ways of participating in collective action.