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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.

Discusses the efforts of the Sudbury local of the Mine-Mill union in the post-World War II era to develop a distinct political-cultural community including through a multi-purpose union hall, dance school, and theatre company. Concludes that Mine-Mill's social and cultural programming was eclipsed by Cold War anti-Communism and the bitter battle with the United Steelworkers of America to represent the workers.

The article reviews the book, "Désobéir : le choix de Chantale Daigle," by Daniel Thibault et Isabelle Pelletier.

This article analyzes nail technicians' occupational health experiences using body and hazard mapping – a visual, low-cost, and worker-centred approach. Thirty-seven Toronto-based nail technicians from predominantly Vietnamese, Chinese, and Korean communities identified various occupational illnesses, injuries, and symptoms on visual representations of human bodies (body mapping) and linked these to their hazard sources in the nail salon (hazard mapping). The impacts identified include musculoskeletal aches and pains, stress and mental health concerns, various symptoms linked to chemical exposure, and concerns about cancer and reproductive health. Rather than a conventional occupational health approach, this work draws on Vanessa Agard-Jones' expansion of the "body burden" as more than the bioaccumulation of chemical agents. As such, this article asserts that nail technicians' body burden encompasses various types of occupational illnesses and injuries. In addition, nail technicians are exposed to broader "toxic" systemic inequities and structural conditions that allow these workplace exposures to occur and persist. By illustrating the embodied and experiential knowledges of nail technicians and contextualizing this lived experience, the body and hazard maps illuminate vast layers of harm – or multiscalar toxicities – borne by nail technicians. Moreover, as a group-based method, body and hazard mapping allow collective reflection and can spur worker mobilization toward safer and fairer nail salons.

The article reviews the book, "To Live Is to Resist: The Life of Antonio Gramsci," by Jean-Yves Frétigné.

This paper examines the politics surrounding the construction, implementation, and administration of the Saskatchewan Trade Union Act (stua) between 1944 and 1950. The act is important because it reflects the first attempt by a social democratic government in North America to construct a system of labour law that ostensibly aligned socialist ideas with the rights of workers to form trade union freedoms. This makes the stua unique in Canadian labour and political history because the legislation demonstrated the policy priorities of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (ccf) and the Canadian Congress of Labour as both organizations were attempting to solidify their places in postwar Canada. This history reflects the fact that the ccf and the unions, like the left in general throughout the 1940s and 1950s, defined the working class narrowly, focusing attention on white and male breadwinners with women and racialized workers very much on the periphery. The history also demonstrates the inherent contradiction within social democratic reform politics, as the act extended numerous rights to workers to organize and collectively bargain but when those same workers pushed back against government decision-making during the province’s first public-sector strike in 1948, political tensions found many of those same social democrats acting in similar manners to their private-sector counterparts. These tensions within social democratic approaches to labour relations – so evident in the Saskatchewan experience – have become a central contradiction of the movement throughout the postwar period and continue today.

Discusses the early 20th century films on work that were produced under the auspices of the Canadian federal and Ontario provincial governments. Provides detail on a select number of films, which are a significant source for labour history. Concludes by noting that the films may be viewed on the website, "The Moving Past."

Pays homage to the feminist social and cultural historian, Natalie Zemon Davis (1928-2023).

The article reviews the book, "Why Canada Needs Postal Banking ," by John Anderson.

The article reviews the book, "Le marxisme et l'oppression des femmes. Vers une théorie unitaire," by Lise Vogel.

Non-profit work plays a vital role in connecting policy and community, as well as providing essential services in Canada. However, evidence suggests that despite being often engaged in equity seeking work, many non-profit organizations remain sites of inequity and marginalization among service provider staff. In this qualitative study, researchers conducted interviews with representatives from 60 organizations across the province of Alberta, Canada. Using intersectionality and thematic analysis, the study identified three key themes across issues related to the feminization of gender-equity seeking work in the third sector. First, economic exploitation, including low pay across the non-profit sector, and pay discrepancies across positions within non-profit work, impact staff in gendered and racialized ways. Second, uneven labour expectations compound exploitation through failures of performative Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI), unpaid labour expectations, and gender bias both within and outside of organizational structure. Third, service provider capacities are being restricted through staff mental health challenges and burnout, staff use of the services they provide clients, and challenges with worker retention. Organizations and funders may address these inequities by demanding transparency in promotion policies to ensure women and gender-diverse people, particularly those who are racialized, have fair access to management and leadership positions, as well as by reforming funding structures to encourage more equitable pay.

The article reviews the book, "L’HUMAIN plus qu’une ressource au coeur de la gestion," edited by François Bernard Malo, James D. Thwaites and Yves Hallée.

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.

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.

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.