Your search

Migrant workers in China are a distinctive group due to the existence of the hukou system under which they continue to face restrictions on housing, education, and health care in urban areas. The equal employment legislation does not solve the discrimination problems. Compared with their urban counterparts, migrant workers are more vulnerable, in terms of both precarity of employment and the occupational hazards that they are exposed to, and badly need OHS protection. Any weakness of OHS regime will have a disproportionately adverse effect on migrant workers.China’s OHS regime has been through constant evolution. The old prevention structure, which separated occupational health from occupational safety, was proved to be less effective in protecting migrant workers. In recognition of its deficiencies, China’s top legislature made adjustments to the OHS legal framework by enacting and updating a series of laws. The new prevention structure, unifying the occupational health administration and the occupational safety administration, represents a step forward in terms of OHS protection for migrant workers.According to worker citizenship theory, China’s OHS regime can be categorized as a direct state regulation model. It carries with it both the strengths and weaknesses of direct state regulation models. On the participation rights dimension, the lack of consultative joint OHS committees and the lack of effective collective bargaining shut migrant workers out from the decision-making process on OHS matters. On the social rights dimension, the gendered and aged-based approach becomes a hindrance for female migrant workers and young migrant workers. Furthermore, levels of enforcement vary considerably across different periods and areas, subject to the ever-changing priorities on the government’s agenda. Migrant workers are still facing tremendous obstacles and challenges in obtaining access to adequate protection under the current OHS regime in China. Future reform measures should focus on delivering OHS protection for migrant workers in the informal sector, strengthening participation, and centralizing OHS administration, especially enforcement.

This article reviews the book, "Alien Nation: Chinese Migration in the Americas from the Coolie Era through World War II," by Elliott Young.

Introduces the special issue featuring articles on precarious employment, workers' compensation, and occupational health and safety issued from the International Conference on Regulation, Change and the Work Environment held at the University of Ottawa (Ontario) in December 2015. Includes brief bibliography.

The article reviews the book, "Soldiers as Workers: Class, Employment, Conflict and the Nineteenth-Century Military," by Nick Mansfield.

This article reviews the book, "The Moral Mapping of Victorian and Edwardian London: Charles Booth, Christian Charity, and the Poor-but-Respectable," by Thomas Gibson-Brydon.

The article reviews the book, "Smokestacks in the Hills: Rural Industrial Workers in West Virginia," by Lou Martin.

Thiis article reviews the book, "Recruitment and Selection in Canada," by Victor M. Catano, Willi H. Wiesner, and Rick D. Hackett.

The article reviews the book, "The Fate of Labour Socialism: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Dream of a Working-Class Future," by James Naylor.

This article reviews the book, "Educating the Neglected Majority: The Struggle for Agricultural and Technical Education in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec," by Richard A. Jarrell.

This article reviews the book, "La crise des emplois non qualifiés," edited by Samir Amine.

Thiis article reviews the book, "Finding a Voice at Work? New Perspectives on Employment Relations," edited by Stewart Johnstone and Peter Ackers.

This article reviews the book, "Toronto's Poor: A Rebellious History," by Bryan D. Palmer and Gaétan Héroux.

Under Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), migrant workers come to Canada for up to eight months each year, without their families, to work as temporary foreign workers in agriculture. Using a ‘whole worker’ industrial relations approach, which emphasizes intersections among work, family and community relations, this article assesses the impacts of these repeated separations on the wellbeing and cohesion of Mexican workers’ transnational families. The analysis is based primarily on 74 in-depth, semi-structured interviews that were conducted in Spanish with male workers, their spouses and children, and with the children’s teachers. Assessment criteria include effects on children’s health and educational success, children’s behaviour, mothers’ abilities to cope with added roles and work, and emotional relations among workers, children and spouses. The study findings suggest that families are often negatively impacted by these repeated separations, with particular consequences for the mental and physical health of children. Children’s behavioural challenges often include poor school performance, involvement in crime, drug and alcohol abuse (especially among sons), and early pregnancies among daughters. As temporary ‘single moms,’ wives often have difficulty coping with extra functions and burdens, and lack of support when their husbands are working in Canada. Typically, there are profound emotional consequences for workers and, frequently, strained family relations. The article concludes by offering practical policy recommendations to lessen negative impacts on SAWP workers and their families, including higher remittances; improved access to labour rights and standards; and new options for family reunification.

The article reviews the book, "A Town Called Asbestos: Environmental Contamination, Health, and Resilience in a Resource Community ,"by Jessica Van Horssen.

Given the growing trend towards "fissured" employment structures char- acterized by the use of subcontractors and supply chains, the lack of any mech- anism for imposing third-party liability is a serious gap in employment standards legislation. By limiting liability to the direct employer, traditionally conceived, the legislation as it has been interpreted can leave victims of wage theft without recourse against a judgment-proof subcontractor. This paper seeks to address that deficiency by focusing on Ontario's successful experience with various statutory regimes that provide for third-party liability, including construction liens and trusts, the internal responsibility system under occupational health and safety legislation, and "cause or permit" regulatory liability in environmental and other public welfare legislation. Building on the key principles of these schemes, all of which create non-delegable responsibilities in the face of arm's- length subcontracted relationships, the author proposes the adoption of a system of joint and several liability for entities that "cause or permit" violations of employment standards. This would require lead companies to take some of the responsibility for compliance by subcontractors down the supply chain, thereby providing vulnerable workers with stronger protections against non-payment of wages. At the same time, the author argues, this approach would strike an appropriate balance with the needs of employers, because a number of low-cost tools would be available to lead companies to spread risk, and third-party lia- bility would not capture subcontracting arrangements that do not jeopardize the wage entitlements of vulnerable workers.

The article reviews the book, "Coxey's Army: Popular Protest in the Gilded Age," by Benjamin F. Alexander.

The article reviews the book, "Race, Nation, and Reform Ideology in Winnipeg, 1880s–1920s," by Kurt Korneski.

Thiis article reviews the book, "Réguler l’économie : l’apport des organisations patronales," edited by Danièle Fraboulet, Michel Margairaz and Pierre Verrus.

This article reviews the book, "A Place in the Sun: Haiti, Haitians, and the Remaking of Quebec," by Sean Mills.