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In the present context of labour shortages and skills gaps in Canada, it has been acknowledged that the country cannot afford to keep going without the talents of entire groups of populations that are currently underrepresented in the labour market. Among those groups are people with disabilities. This group is far from homogenous, and therefore not easy to define. Data in this paper helps to show a picture of the employment situation of people with disabilities. This paper also addresses some of the barriers that people with disabilities face, and provides an overview of certain federal programs that can help them. Finally, this paper discusses the Canadian legislative framework, with a focus on measures that prevent discrimination against people with disabilities, allowing them to join the workforce and engage fully in their communities. [Introduction]

The article reviews the book, "Making Feminist Politics: Transnational Alliances Between Women and Labour," by Suzanne Franzway and Mary Margaret Fonow.

Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) represent a complex and multi-faceted challenge, requiring multi-disciplinary, multi-perspective research approaches ranging from fundamental, basic science research to studies of applied workplace-based interventions. Members of the MSD Research Axis of the Quebec Occupational Health and Safety Research Network have been actively engaged in WMSD research across this full spectrum, contributing to significant knowledge advances on WMSD. Despite this, many facets of WMSDs remain insufficiently understood, and WMSDs remain a considerable problem for our society. Advances on interventions to decrease risk and improve workers' health are notable, although the level and quality of evidence about the effectiveness of ergonomic interventions must be improved. This paper highlights contributions of the group towards the advancement of understanding and prevention of WMSDs.

Retail workers are a significant but largely unorganized group in Canada and the United States. However, in recent years, there has been a marked increase in efforts to organize retail workers, including pursuit of innovative structures and strategies. The author focuses on the dominant threads of contemporary retail organizing work in Canada and the United States, outlining three current organizing vehicles: unionization, store-based networks, and occupation or sector-based associations. The author then reflects on the strengths, weaknesses, and possibilities of these approaches, independently and collectively, and emphasizes the need to confront the social and cultural as well as the economic devaluation of retail workers.

L’élaboration du droit de l’emploi au Québec : ses sources législatives et judiciaires, by Fernand Morin, is reviewed.

Mexican migrant workers have been coming to Canada since 1974 to work in agriculture as participants of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Presently, Mexicans constitute the majority of SAWP workers. As well, Ontario is the main receiver of these workers followed by British Columbia and Quebec. Accordingly, the scope of this thesis mainly encompasses Mexican workers in Ontario. However, the thesis also includes Mexican SAWP workers in Quebec and British Columbia. This thesis reveals two main issues: (1) that all SAWP workers, particularly Mexican workers, lack key legal rights and protections relating to labour relations, employment, health and safety standards at the structural level of the SAWP; and at the federal, provincial, and international levels. (2) Even when they have rights under legislation relating to the above-mentioned subject matters, Mexicans, especially, lack the capacity to access them. Thus, they become 'unfree labourers' who are placed in a perpetual state of disadvantage, vulnerable to abuse and exploitation once in Canada.To describe the issues above, the thesis is divided into five chapters addressing the following: Chapter 1 presents the historical context behind the SAWP as well as the Mexican workers' circumstances that attract them to participate in the Program. Chapter 2 examines the applicable constitutional and federal framework for SAWP workers. In addition, it highlights key federal exclusions placed on them, which originate in the federal immigration and employment insurance legislation. Chapter 3 concludes that Ontario does not protect its agricultural workers from unfair treatment and exploitation in the workplace; rather, it perpetuates such practices. This reality is intensified for SAWP Mexican workers. Particularly, chapter 3 analyses a constitutional challenge to the Ontario legislation excluding agricultural worker from its labour relations regime; said challenge is based on ss. 2(d) and 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Chapter 4 maintains that similarly to workers in Ontario, SAWP workers in Quebec and British Columbia also face extreme disadvantages due in great part to the lack of or limited legal protections. Finally, chapter 5 asserts that due to its implementation in the Canadian framework, international law is inadequate to protect domestic and SAWP workers' rights. While each chapter identifies tangible drawbacks or anomalies, which affect SAWP workers negatively, the thesis also provides recommendations to alleviate said weaknesses.

Contemporary migration has become increasingly transnational as migrants maintain linkages with their place of origin and, in many cases, with multiple places. Transnational practices and identities highlight the complex ways that contemporary immigrants negotiate home. This dissertation explores the ways in which transnational Filipina care workers construct home and a sense of belonging, here and elsewhere. In order to examine these experiences of belonging, I investigate the linkages between paid and unpaid work in various workplaces and places of residence. This research weaves together experiences of paid and unpaid work and the locations that (re)create their feminized, racialized and classed circumstances. . To capture the intricacies of home for transnational Filipina care workers, I analyze the 2006 Canadian Census and Statistics Canada's Ethnic Diversity Survey. I elaborate on these data with in-depth interviews and focus groups with three groups of Filipinas: recent health care workers, recent live-in caregivers and well-established residents. The analysis takes place in the inner suburbs of Scarborough, ON and the outer suburbs of Markham, ON; two locations that are key immigrant reception zones. My methodology investigates how various qualitative and quantitative methods can be employed to better understand how the complex relations between paid and unpaid work in various places of residence and workplaces influence the construction of home for transnational care workers.

Dans un contexte où la qualité de vie au travail, le bien-être et la santé psychologique des employés sont actuellement au coeur des préoccupations des gestionnaires et des milieux de travail, les enjeux de santé organisationnelle deviennent incontournables. Or, malgré l’intérêt grandissant des chercheurs et des praticiens, la notion de santé organisationnelle a été l’objet de diverses conceptualisations et représente encore aujourd’hui un objet d’étude en pleine évolution. Dans cet ordre d’idées, cet article propose de faire une synthèse des approches contemporaines de la santé organisationnelle et d’investiguer comment cette thématique est abordée par les chercheurs québécois. Pour ce faire, une recension des écrits a d’abord été effectuée afin d’établir un portrait des connaissances acquises à ce jour. Ensuite, une enquête consultative a été réalisée auprès d’experts scientifiques québécois. À la fois les écrits et les experts consultés rapportent que la santé organisationnelle est un concept qui prend plusieurs sens, qui nécessite l’adoption d’une perspective plus globale et qui s’élargit à d’autres sphères que le travail. Or, contrairement à la documentation, les experts abordent surtout les aspects de la santé psychologique et moins la santé physique, et ils considèrent essentiellement les facteurs organisationnels comme des préoccupations de recherche future dans le domaine. Les résultats obtenus permettent de dresser un état des connaissances sur le concept de santé organisationnelle et son évolution, tout en identifiant les tendances émergentes susceptibles d’influencer les orientations scientifiques futures pour le regroupement stratégique en santé psychologique au travail du Réseau de recherche en santé et sécurité du travail du Québec.

The article reviews and comments on the books, "Caring For America: Home Health Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State" by Eileen Boris and Jennifer Klein, "Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America" by Evelyn Nakano Glenn and "Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter" by Joan C. Williams.

Revealing how Canada's first Prime Minister used a policy of starvation against Indigenous people to clear the way for settlement, the multiple award-winning Clearing the Plains sparked widespread debate about genocide in Canada. In arresting, but harrowing, prose, James Daschuk examines the roles that Old World diseases, climate, and, most disturbingly, Canadian politics-the politics of ethnocide-played in the deaths and subjugation of thousands of Indigenous people in the realization of Sir John A. Macdonald's "National Dream." It was a dream that came at great expense: the present disparity in health and economic well-being between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, and the lingering racism and misunderstanding that permeates the national consciousness to this day. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Gouverner les fins de carrière à distance. Outplacement et vieillissement actif en emploi," by Thibauld Moulaert.

This paper provides a careful review and analysis of employment-based pensions and other post-retirement benefits that may be available to Canadian workers when they retire, with particular emphasis on the extent to which such benefits are vulnerable to unilateral employer alteration or cancellation, or to the risks which arise in the event of the employer's insolvency. Taking stock of key differences between the rights of unionized employees and non-unionized ones, the author argues that the legal regimes governing common law employ- ment, collective bargaining and pensions offer varying degrees of security for post-retirement benefits, depending on the type of regime applicable to the work- place and the type of benefit. However, as the paper goes on to explain, the situ- ation changes dramatically if the employer becomes insolvent - all the more so because the federal legislation which regulates creditors' rights in an insolvency enjoys paramountcy over the provincial legislation that deals with employment, collective bargaining and pensions (including any provision made in that prov- incial legislation for so-called "deemed trusts"). The author sets out and weighs the numerous risks confronting employees' pension and post-retirement benefit entitlements in both an insolvency proceeding and in a restructuring, again drawing attention to the different dynamics that may come into play in unionized and non-unionized workplaces. In general, he finds, the security of pensions is stronger than that of non-pension benefits, but will still depend on the adequacy of the pension plan's funding before insolvency.

This thesis consists of three self-contained essays examining the link between Aboriginal identity and economic success in the Canadian labour market. The analytical approach encompasses mixed methods research, with two empirical tests and one qualitative inquiry. Both the neoclassical and institutional economics approaches to labour market analysis are considered, as discussed in the introduction to the thesis. Essay I employs monthly Labour Force Survey data and examines the difference in the impact of the 2008-2011 economic downturn on Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal workers. The main findings in this essay indicate that the economic downturn had a markedly more negative impact on Aboriginal than on non-Aboriginal workers. For one subgroup of Aboriginal workers - Métis - a large portion of the difference in the impact can be attributed to the difference in endowments while for the other subgroup of Aboriginal workers - North American Indian - only a small portion of the difference in the impact can be attributed to the difference in endowments, much remains unexplained. Essay II employs the 2006 Census and Aboriginal Peoples Survey data and examines the relative impact of various sources of capital -- human, social and cultural -- on the employment success of Aboriginal labour force participants living on-reserve, off-reserve, in urban and in rural areas across Canada. The single most important finding in this essay is that the predictions of human capital theory do not hold up when the associated empirical models are applied to different Aboriginal groups. Another important finding is that for some subgroups of Aboriginal population social capital and cultural factors are potentially important omitted variables in the associated equations. Essay III employs primary data collected from knowledgeable key informants working in the area of Aboriginal labour force development and investigates the role institutional and other constraints, not observable in the statistical information, play in the labour market experience of Aboriginal people. Findings here suggest that many paradoxes and puzzles that persist in the empirical literature can be better understood once the institutional arrangements related to the investment in human and other capital, the legacy of historical disadvantage, and the experience of workplace discrimination are taken into account.

Dans un important arrêt rendu en 2007 dans l’affaire Health Services and Support, la Cour suprême du Canada a reconnu pour la première fois que la liberté d’association énoncée à la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés protégeait la «capacité des syndiqués d’engager des négociations collectives sur des problèmes reliés au milieu de travail». Pour conclure ainsi, la Cour trouve appui dans le droit international du travail. Avec cette décision, la Cour renverse sa position établie une vingtaine d’années plus tôt voulant que la négociation collective ne soit pas une activité bénéficiant d’une protection à titre de droit fondamental. Suite à ce changement de paradigme, nombre d’auteurs ont été d’avis que la constitutionnalisation du droit de négociation collective pourrait avoir des effets sur la validité de différentes mesures législatives et sur l’interprétation des lois encadrant les régimes de relations de travail. De plus, la négociation collective étant historiquement indissociable de la grève, il y avait tout lieu de croire que la protection de la Charte pourrait être étendue au droit de grève. Par la suite, en 2011, la Cour suprême a rendu la décision Fraser portant sur l’accès à un régime de représentation collective, précisant la portée du droit de négociation collective tel qu’envisagé dans Health Services. Le présent mémoire recense la jurisprudence qui a abordé la protection constitutionnelle de la négociation collective en droit public canadien et en droit privé québécois depuis l’arrêt Health Services afin d’identifier ses effets sur la validité des restrictions au droit de grève, sur la validité des restrictions au contenu des négociations et sur l’imposition de conditions de travail, sur la validité des exclusions de certaines catégories de travailleurs des régimes de représentation collective, et sur l’interprétation des dispositions de ces régimes. Les résultats de la recherche nous permettent de conclure que la constitutionnalisation du droit de négociation collective a engendré un certain volume de contestations de la part d’organisations syndicales. Ces procédures ont porté fruit dans des situations où l’atteinte aux droits était similaire aux précédents de la Cour suprême ainsi que dans un cas lié au droit de grève. Les effets plus vastes envisagés dans la recension de la littérature ne se sont pas matérialisés. Par ailleurs, nos résultats en droit privé indiquent que la constitutionnalisation du droit de grève n’a pas eu d’impact sur l’interprétation des régimes de relations industrielles. Enfin, le recours ou non au droit international par les tribunaux n’a pas d’effet sur nos résultats.

Editorial introduction to the issue.

This paper contributes to current debates around neoliberalism and subnational developments in Canadian immigration policy. In response to critiques of neoliberalism’s “promiscuity,” scalar and governmentality frameworks are used to analyze Nova Scotia’s failed economic nominee category experiment. The competing choices, calculations, and commitments at stake at “meso”- and “micro”-scales reveal a more complex and compelling reality that underscores the contributions and challenges of a range of political actors. This, in turn, suggests possible disruptions to neoliberalization and seeks to strike a better balance between structure and agency, as well as economic and social immigration priorities.

The article reviews the book, "Offshore Petroleum Politics: Regulation and Risk in the Scotian Basin," by Peter Clancy.

The nanotechnology field is a growing industry, particularly in Quebec: occupational exposure risks already exist and should increase exponentially. In recent years, work has been undertaken in Quebec to develop knowledge for improving the prevention of nanomaterial-related risks. In particular, a group of researchers, professionals and students involved in the nanotechnology field was created in 2006 under the aegis of the Quebec Occupational Health and Safety Research Network. Its aim is to share the expertise of the different stakeholders in this field in order to promote multidisciplinary collaboration and more rapid advancement in research.

The article reviews the book, "Emotionalizing Organizations and Organizing Emotions," edited by Barbara Sieben and Asa Wettergren.