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For more than fifty years, Jamaican farm workers have been seasonally employed in Canada under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). In Canada, these workers live and work in conditions that make them vulnerable to various health issues, including poor mental health. This ethnographic study investigated Jamaican SAWP workers’ mental health experiences in Southern Ontario. Several common factors that engender psychological distress among Jamaican workers, ranging from mild to extreme suffering, were uncovered and organised into five themes: (1) family, (2) work environments and SAWP relations, (3) living conditions and isolation, (4) racism and social exclusion, and (5) illness and injury. I found that Jamaican workers predominantly use the term ‘stress’ to articulate distress, and they associate experiences of suffering with historic plantation slavery. Analysis of workers’ stress discourses revealed their experiences of psychological distress are structured by the conditions of the SAWP and their social marginalisation in Ontario. This article presents and discusses these findings in the context of SAWP power dynamics and concludes with policy recommendations aimed at improving the mental health of all SAWP workers. In foregrounding the experiences of Jamaican workers, this study addresses the dearth of research on the health and wellbeing of Caribbean SAWP workers.

Given the importance of the fishing industry to the Newfoundland economy and identity, understanding the realities of fish work in the province allows for a deeper understanding of labour practices, safety regulations, and the health of the many fisheries the bolster that Newfoundland economy and identity. Initially designed to assess the working experiences of migrant workers on Canadian fishing boats, this thesis turns to domestic workers to unpack labour realties and address the potential of exploitative and abusive practices that help chart fishing among one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. This research took place in Newfoundland in October of 2022, where crew members, boat captains, their owners, and industry and union representatives were approached to gather work experiences and opinions on the broader regional fishing industry in the province. From these experiences, an assessment of how and if exploitative working conditions can be improved utilizes existing and proposed international labour conventions, understandings of unionization, and the political economy, to represent exploitative labour conditions along a continuum. The evolving and changing economic and environmental realities of fishing both globally and in eastern Canada highlight how an already risk-taking, masculine, and community focused industry lives with, is shaped by, and can work towards limiting, the more damaging forms of exploitation. This thesis utilizes qualitative data to inform its assessment of precarious labour realities at sea in the Newfoundland fishing industry to further advocate for the move towards regionalized and industry specific seafarer support mechanisms. Through promoting these mechanisms, such as a seafarer support centre and the ratification of the Work in Fishing Convention (C188), this research calls for Newfoundland's fishing industry to lead the way towards better practices nationally.

Critiques Bryan Palmer's essay, "The Past is Before Us," published in the same issue. The paper was originally presented as a set of comments at the conference, Challenging Labour conference/Le défi du travail, Mount Royal University, Calgary, October 2022. Author hagwil hayetsk is also known as Charles Menzies.

The article reviews the book, "Théories féministes voyageuses. Internationalisme et coalitions depuis les luttes latinoaméricaines," by Mara Montanaro.

Although counterintuitive for many academics and lay people alike, the Canadian environmental movement has long included significant engagement from organized labour. More surprising, perhaps, the most dedicated labour environmentalists came from unions representing workers in the auto, steel, mining, chemical, and oil industries. This was certainly the case in Alberta during the 1970s. There, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers (ocaw) used their outsized influence within the Alberta Federation of Labour (afl) to conjoin growing concern about occupational health and safety with developing awareness about air and water pollution beyond the workplace. Drawing on fonds at the University of Calgary Glenbow Archives, Provincial Archives of Alberta, and Library and Archives Canada, this article chronicles and assesses efforts by ocaw officials within the afl to introduce and sustain a labour environmentalist agenda. It also makes an argument for historians interested in the origins and evolution of the Canadian environmental movement to pay closer attention to organized labour.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, public officials, reformers, journalists, and other elites have referred to “the labour question.” The labour question was rooted in the system of wage labour that spread throughout much of Europe and its colonies and produced contending classes as industrialization unfolded. Answers to the Labour Question explores how the liberal state responded to workers’ demands that employers recognize trade unions as their legitimate representatives in their struggle for compensation and control over the workplace. Gary Mucciaroni examines five Anglophone nations – Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, and the United States – whose differences are often overlooked in the literature on political economy, which lumps them together as liberal, “market-led” economies. Despite their many shared characteristics and common historical origins, these nations’ responses to the labour question diverged dramatically. Mucciaroni identifies the factors that explain why these nations developed such different industrial relations regimes and how the paths each nation took to the adoption of its regime reflected a different logic of institutional change. Drawing on newspaper accounts, parliamentary debates, and personal memoirs, among other sources, Answers to the Labour Question aims to understand the variety of state responses to industrial unrest and institutional change beyond the domain of industrial relations. --Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "Questioning the Entrepreneurial State: Status-Quo, Pitfalls, and the Need for Credible Innovation Policy," by Karl Wennberg and Christian Sandström.

Some shocking statistics underpin Adrian Murray's examination of COVID=19 in Canada: underfunded and poorly regulated for-profit care homes for the aged experienced a death rate four times that of public care homes. Murray details the uneven impacts of the pandemic in Canada, with the burden falling hardest on those in precarious work, women, black, Indigenous and other racalised groups - as shaped by Canada's colonial history of dispossession and racism, now exacerbated by neoliberal economic policies. Murray highlights the contradictions of Canadian exceptionalism, suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic be read through the lens of a colonial present epitomised by internal inequalities and internationally by hoarding of vaccines. --From editor's introduction

The article reviews the book, "After Populism: The Agrarian Left on the Northern Plains, 1900-1960," by William C. Pratt.

The Centre for Future Work has released new research regarding union coverage and wages across different racialized categories of Canadian workers. The report also contains a review of efforts by Canadian unions to improve their representation of Black and racialized workers, and recommendations for strengthening the union movement’s practices. ---Website, 2024/08/13

Precarious Employment (PE) is characterized by job, income, and benefit insecurities. Studies surrounding PE and well-being have been predominantly quantitative, leaving a gap in rich descriptions of employment experiences. We recruited a sample of 40 adults aged 25-55 who were involved in PE during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic or lost employment due to the pandemic. Semi-structured interviews were administered. Employment and income insecurities were common and had negative impacts on the well-being of participants and their families. Uncertainty about future employment prospects and job and income loss resulted in chronic distress. Other insecurities—access to benefits, violation of worker rights, worker safety—was also reported as impacting well-being. The COVID-19 pandemic deepened insecurities, hardships, and distress among workers with PE conditions. Given the myriad insecurities experienced by those engaged in PE, the focus of precarious work research should also include working conditions, violation of worker rights, and managerial domination.

The Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, Tomoya Obokata, visited Canada from 23 August to 6 September 2023. During his visit, he travelled to Ottawa, Moncton, Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver.

The article reviews the book, "Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times: Living the British Empire in Jamaica, 1756," by Sheryllynne Heggerty.

In December 2021, the Ontario government passed into law Bill 88, the Working for Workers Act, 2022. Among other developments, the Working for Workers Act, 2022 introduced the Digital Platform Workers’ Rights Act, 2022, establishing a number of rights for platform workers. This Article is a brief, non-exhaustive evaluation of the provisions of the Act, with particular emphasis on how it impacts the salient issues associated with the regulation of platform work. The article concludes that, notwithstanding its limitations, the Act is a major step in the right direction towards effective regulation of the working conditions for platform workers.

As discourse on transnational labor migration continues to highlight the influence of structures on the experiences and existence of caregivers, Canada’s economic immigration and status regularization programs are not excluded from the discussions. Particularly, the Canada (Live-in) Caregiver Program (henceforth LCP) introduced in 1992 has gained attention from popular and scholarly cycles despite being the only economic immigration program that guarantees permanent residency status to applicants after fulfilling the mandatory program requirements. Drawing from 19 empirical studies, this systematic literature review discussed some emerging themes from the LCP. From the studies reviewed, it was found that both current and former caregivers continue to bear the direct brunt of caregiving given their positionality as mostly racialized women from low-income countries. Moreover, among the range of issues discussed, homelessness, food insecurity, and the deteriorating health conditions of care workers are some pressing issues that need urgent scholarly and policy attention. These findings underscore the need for periodic reassessments of the LCP to understand the intersectionality of current and emerging issues—as the program has greater potential to meet rising care needs in Canada, but only if the living conditions of caregivers are addressed.

Responds to hagwil hayetsk/Charles Menzie's paper, "Capitalism and Colonialism," published in the same issue.

At the "Challenging Labour" / «Le défi du travail» conference held at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, in October 2022, two plenary sessions invited scholars to engage in a dialogue on important historical and theoretical issues in the field of labour and working-class history/studies. One of these, on the entanglement of capitalism and colonialism, featured a paper delivered by Bryan D. Palmer and a response from hagwil hayetsk (Charles Menzies). These presentations are revised for publication here along with a rejoinder from Palmer in what is Labour/Le Travail's first "Forum" section. The aim of this section is to foster conversation, with scholars meaningfully engaging with each other's work across disciplinary, methodological, theoretical, or other kinds of differences in approach and understanding. The merit of this kind of dialogue is well demonstrated here by Palmer and hayetsk, and the editors would invite more such conversations for publication in this section in future issues. --Editors' introduction

En raison de leur statut prééminent, les droits fondamentaux se sont introduits dans le droit du travail. Les regards se sont vite tournés vers la confrontation normative qui résulte de l'assemblage de ces deux domaines du droit aux logiques distinctes. Les droits de la personne ont alors été appréhendés davantage dans un rapport de confrontation plutôt que de complémentarité avec le corpus du droit du travail. Cette étude historico-juridique cherche à démontrer que le construit du droit du travail recoupe pourtant les trois traits structurants des droits de la personne, soit la fondamentalité, l'universalité et l'inaliénabilité. Cette complémentarité devrait être prise en compte dans l'interprétation des droits fondamentaux au sein de la relation d'emploi, ce qui devrait accentuer le degré de protection de la personne au travail.

Advertising tools used by sex workers for solicitation and client screening have been identified as supporting occupational health and safety (OHS); however, sex work legislation continues to criminalize advertising by third parties. We explored how the criminalization of third-party advertising and online censorship shapes indoor sex workers’ access to OHS measures such as client screening, and negotiation of prices and services, in addition to income security.

This thesis investigates the role of Kelowna’s public transit union (the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1722 – ATU 1722) and a youth-led environmental group (Fridays for Future Kelowna) in the formation of the Okanagan Transit Alliance (OTA). The OTA is a grassroots movement for better public transit in the Central Okanagan. The central research question is, "how can transit unions engage in climate activism?". A participatory activist methodology is employed to study the joint campaign for more accessible, publicly managed, and community-driven transit. The findings are organized into three themes. The first theme is ecosocialism – a political ideology which centers ecological concerns in socialist thought – because the campaign advocates for an ecosocialist goal of ending the private management of Kelowna’s transit. The findings in this area highlight the importance of organizing around people’s basic needs, uncertainty about the role of the government in the campaign, and that engaging in collective struggle is important for developing working-class power. The campaign was co-led by the ATU 1722, and so the second theme, unions, examines their role in the campaign. Under this theme are the findings that the two leading organizations developed a mutually beneficial collaboration, and that the public facing role of bus drivers helped the union build connections with the community. At the same time, contemporary union challenges impacted the ATU 1722’s ability to engage in effective advocacy. Finally, under the third theme of organizing, the research broadly explores organizing tactics to develop the climate justice movement. We found that a welcoming environment and co-creation led to high participation levels, and that relationships were fundamental to the campaign. This thesis highlights the potential of unions to play a pivotal role in climate activism, bridging the gap between labor and environmental concerns. The case of ATU 1722, Fridays for Future Kelowna, and the OTA serves as an inspiring example of how labor organizations can actively contribute to the broader movement for environmental justice and ecosocialist transformation. This study not only informs the ongoing discourse on the intersection of labor and climate activism but also inspires future collaborations for anti-capitalist climate justice.