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Controversy shrouds sharing economy platforms. It stems partially from the platforms’ economic impact, which is felt most acutely in certain sectors: Uber drivers compete with taxi drivers; Airbnb hosts compete with hotels. Other consequences lie elsewhere: Uber is associated with a trend toward low-paying, precarious work, whereas Airbnb is accused of exacerbating real estate speculation and raising the cost of long-term rental housing. While governments in some jurisdictions have attempted to rein in the platforms, technology has enabled such companies to bypass conventional regulatory categories, generating accusations of “unfair competition” as well as debates about the merits of existing regulatory regimes. Indeed, the platforms blur a number of familiar distinctions, including personal versus commercial activity; infrastructure versus content; contractual autonomy versus hierarchical control. These ambiguities can stymie legal regimes that rely on these distinctions as organizing principles, including those relating to labour, competition, tax, insurance, information, the prohibition of discrimination, as well as specialized sectoral regulation. This book is organized around five themes: technologies of regulation; regulating technology; the sites of regulation (local to global); regulating markets; and regulating labour. Together, the chapters offer a rich variety of insights on the regulation of the sharing economy, both in terms of the traditional areas of law they bring to bear, and the theoretical perspectives that inform their analysis. --Publisher's description

The BC tradition of fighting back against unfair pay and unsafe working conditions has been around since before the colony joined Confederation. In 1849 Scottish labourers at BC's first coal mine at Fort Rupert went on strike to protest wretched working conditions, and it's been a wild ride ever since. For years the BC labour movement was the most militant in the land, led by colourful characters like Ginger Goodwin, murdered for his pains, and pull-no-punches communist Harvey Murphy, who brought the house of labour down on himself with his infamous "underwear speech." Through years of battles with BC's power elite and small victories followed by bitter defeats, BC unions established the five-day work week, the eight-hour day, paid holidays, the right to a safe, non-discriminatory workplace and many more taken-for-granted features of the modern work landscape. But unions' enemies never sleep and, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, battles still go on, like that of BC teachers in their long and ultimately successful struggle to improve classroom conditions. On the Line also highlights the role played by women, Indigenous and minority workers in working toward equality and democracy in workplaces and communities. In prose that is both accessible and engaging, accompanied by over two hundred archival photos, Mickleburgh tells the important story of how BC's labour organizations have shaped the economic, political and social fabric of the province--at a cost of much blood, sweat, toil and tears. This volume is the most comprehensive overview of labour's struggle in BC and will be of particular interest to union members, community activists, academics and readers of regional history. -- Publisher's description

Les lois d'exception, ou lois « spéciales », ont été au cœur de l'histoire politique québécoise des cinquante dernières années. Depuis le milieu des années 1960, entre luttes sociales et crises économiques, tous les gouvernements y ont eu recours pour interdire et réprimer l'exercice du droit de grève dans les secteurs public et privé. Ces atteintes répétées visant un droit reconnu par l'Assemblée nationale ont suscité un fort mouvement de contestation syndicale, voire de désobéissance civile dans les années 1970. Affaibli par l'adoption de lois spéciales particulièrement sévères, de décrets imposant les conditions de travail et de réformes sociales draconiennes à partir du début des années 1980, le mouvement syndical peine toujours à retrouver sa combativité. Au moyen d'une documentation inédite, Grève et paix montre pour la première fois comment les lois d'exception ont bouleversé non seulement le monde du travail, mais la société québécoise dans son ensemble. --Résumé de l'éditeur

Bringing together a multidisciplinary group of experts from the fields of labour studies, public health, ergonomics, epidemiology, sociology and law, Sick and Tired examines the inequalities in workplace health and safety. Using an anti-oppressive framework, chapters interrogate a wide range of issues, including links between precarious employment and mental health, the inverse relationship between power and occupational health through the experiences of women, immigrants and older workers, and the need for creative strategies that promote health and safety in ways that support empowerment and equity. --Publisher's description

Encore invisible, le travail des femmes? La question peut faire sourciller tant les féministes ont obtenu des gains sur ce front au cours des dernières décennies. Or, si les femmes ont massivement intégré le marché de l'emploi, le travail dit invisible, majoritairement effectué par celles-ci, n'a fait que croître et se complexifier. En plus du strict travail ménager, il se présente sous de multiples visages: la charge mentale de l'organisation familiale, le travail invisible d'intégration des femmes immigrantes, le travail des proches aidantes, celui des aides familiales venues d'ailleurs, des femmes autochtones et racisées, des étudiantes stagiaires, ou encore, des travailleuses du sexe. Comment se décline l'enjeu du travail invisible dans différents milieux, et où en sont les revendications pour faire reconnaître ce travail et le sortir de l'ombre? Rassemblant des militantes féministes et des intellectuelles engagées sur ces questions, cet ouvrage collectif entend remettre le sujet du travail invisible à l'ordre du jour politique tout en proposant des pistes de réflexion et de mobilisation concrètes. Encore invisible, le travail des femmes? La question peut faire sourciller tant les féministes ont obtenu des gains sur ce front au cours des dernières décennies. Or, si les femmes ont massivement intégré le marché de l'emploi, le travail dit invisible, majoritairement effectué par celles-ci, n'a fait que croître et se complexifier. En plus du strict travail ménager, il se présente sous de multiples visages: la charge mentale de l'organisation familiale, le travail invisible d'intégration des femmes immigrantes, le travail des proches aidantes, celui des aides familiales venues d'ailleurs, des femmes autochtones et racisées, des étudiantes stagiaires, ou encore, des travailleuses du sexe. Comment se décline l'enjeu du travail invisible dans différents milieux, et où en sont les revendications pour faire reconnaître ce travail et le sortir de l'ombre? Rassemblant des militantes féministes et des intellectuelles engagées sur ces questions, cet ouvrage collectif entend remettre le sujet du travail invisible à l'ordre du jour politique tout en proposant des pistes de réflexion et de mobilisation concrètes. Des textes de Stella Adjokê, Sandrine Belley, Sonia Ben Soltane, Annabelle Berthiaume, Jenn Clamen, Hélène Cornellier, Irène Demczuk, Myriam Dumont Robillard, Claudia Foisy, Monica Forrester, Elizabeth James, Elene Lam, Widia Larivière, Valérie Lefebvre-Faucher, Linda Li, Camille Robert, Annabelle Seery, Valérie Simard et Louise Toupin. -- Résumé de l'éditeur

This multi-disciplinary edited collection critically examines the causes and effects of anti-unionism in Canada. Primarily through a series of case studies, the book’s contributors document and expose the tactics and strategies of employers and anti-labour governments while also interrogating some of the labour movement’s own practices as a source of anti-union sentiment among workers. -- Publisher's description

Through a combination of historical and contemporary analysis this book shows how settler colonialism, as a mode of racial capitalism, has made and remade Winnipeg and the Canadian Prairie West over the past one hundred and fifty years. It traces the emergence of a 'dominant bloc, ' or alliance, in Winnipeg that has imagined and installed successive regional development visions to guarantee its own wealth and power. The book gives particular attention to the ways that an ascendant post-industrial urban redevelopment vision for Winnipeg's city-centre has renewed longstanding colonial 'legacies' of dispossession and racism over the past forty years. In doing so, it moves beyond the common tendency to break apart histories of settler-colonial conquest from studies of urban history or contemporary urban processes. --Publisher's description