Your search

The title of CIRA's 50th anniversary conference -- From Theory and Research to Policy and Practice in Work and Employment -- has a nostalgic ring to it. You will recall, perhaps, that large numbers of people, who used to be known as "workers", were "employed" in something called "industry". Significant numbers of these workers joined organizations called "unions" that established collective "relations" with employers. Implausible as it now seems, governments were once so concerned about "industrial relations" (IR) that they sponsored a great deal of IR research and even conducted their own. The Task Force on Labour Relations, appointed in 1966, enlisted virtually every industrial relations and labour law scholar in the country; compiled shelves-full of ambitious studies; and made scores of recommendations, a surprising number of which ended up being adopted by one or another Canadian jurisdiction. --From author's keynote address

The article reviews the book, "Autonomous State: The Struggle for a Canadian Car Industry from OPEC to Free Trade," by Dimitry Anastakis.

Since the mid-1980s, the nonprofit social services sector has been promoted as an option for cheaper and more flexible delivery of services. In order to comply with government standards and funding requirements, the sector has been subject to ongoing waves of restructuring and the introduction of new private market-like, outcomes-based management models, such as New Public Management. This article explores ways in which nonprofit social services sector workers experience their work as highly fragmented. Drawing on case studies completed as part of a larger project addressing restructuring in the nonprofit social services sector in Scotland, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, we examine three key aspects shaping work in the nonprofit social services sector: 1) workers’ experience of managerialism; 2) gendered strategies drawn on by workers in the agencies studied; and 3) union strategies in the nonprofit social services sector, as well as within individual workplaces. Conclusions focus on contributions to understanding managerialism as a strong but fragmented project in which even weak union presence and the willingness of the predominantly female workforce to sacrifice to provide care for others ensure that some level of social solidarity endures.

This paper examines the impact of precarity on the nonprofit service providing sector (NPSS). Using in depth qualitative interviews, recent empirically-based surveys of the Ontario nonprofit sector and key academic and grey literature, we explore the deeper meaning of precarity in this sector. We contend that the NPSS is a unique, and in many respects, an ideal location in which to explore the workings and impact of precarity. Looking at the nonprofit sector reveals that precarity operates at various levels, the: 1) nonprofit labour force; 2) organization structure and operation of nonprofit agencies; and, 3) clients and communities serviced by these nonprofit organizations. By observing the workings of precarity in this sector, precarity is revealed to be far more than an employment based phenomenon but also a force that negatively impacts organizational structures as well as vulnerable communities.

In this study, we examine the effect of licensing requirements on the occupational mobility of highly skilled new immigrants in Canada using longitudinal data. We find that immigrants who worked in regulated professions in their home country, but unregulated fields in Canada, experienced significantly greater occupational downgrading than those who worked in unregulated professions prior to migration. Immigrants who worked in regulated fields in their home country who were able to find work in regulated fields in Canada did not experience any occupational downgrading after migration. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.

The article explores Canadian press coverage of the Paris Commune movement in France in 1871. Emphasis is given to the moral aspects of the insurrection in relation to Canadian nationhood and the political development of Canadian Confederation. The author examines newspaper accounts on topics such as the separation of church and state, the appropriation of church property, and the social behavior of women. Other topics include the differences between Anglophone and Francophone newspapers, the popularization of socialism, and moral condemnation.

In [this book], Jean Barman rewrites the history of the Pacific Northwest from the perspective of French Canadians involved in the fur economy, the indigenous women whose presence in their lives encouraged them to stay, and their descendants. Joined in this distant setting by Quebec paternal origins, the French language, and Catholicism, French Canadians comprised Canadians from Quebec, Iroquois from the Montreal area, and metis combining Canadian and indigenous descent. For half a century, French Canadians were the largest group of newcomers in this region extending from Oregon and Washington east into Montana and north through British Columbia. Here, they facilitated the early overland crossings, drove the fur economy, initiated non-wholly-indigenous agricultural settlement, eased relations with indigenous peoples, and ensured that, when the Pacific Northwest was divided in 1846, the northern half would go to Britain, giving today's Canada its Pacific shoreline. In the generations that followed, Barman argues, descendants did not become Metis, as the term has been used to describe a people apart, but rather drew on both their French Canadians and indigenous inheritances to make the best possible lives for themselves and those around them. --Publisher's description. Contents: Pt. 1. French Canadians And The Fur Economy. To Be French Canadian -- Facilitating the Overland Crossings -- Driving the Fur Economy -- Deciding Whether to Go or to Stay. Pt. 2. French Canadians, Indigenous Women, And Family Life In The Fur Economy. Taking Indigenous Women Seriously -- Innovating Family Life -- Initiating Permanent Settlement -- Saving British Columbia for Canada. Pt. 3. Beyond The Fur Economy. Negotiating Changing Times -- Enabling Sons and Daughters -- To Be French Canadian and Indigenous -- Reclaiming the Past. Includes bibliographical references (pages 404-430) and index.

Considering a series of oil-driven economic booms, the use of inter-provincial and international migrant labour has become an important part of labour market policy in the Canadian province of Alberta. The increased use of temporary foreign workers is controversial. Narrative analysis of legislators’ statements in the legislature and the press between 2000 and 2011 reveals the government using three narratives to justify policies encouraging greater use of foreign migrant workers: (1) labour shortages require migrant workers, (2) migrants do not threaten Canadian jobs and (3) migrants are not being exploited. Close scrutiny of each narrative demonstrates them to be largely invalid. This suggests a significant disconnect between the real and espoused reasons for the significant changes to labour market policy, changes that advantage employers and disadvantage both Canadian and foreign workers. The findings are relevant to understand the political dynamics of economically related migration.

[Examines] the three main doctrinal approaches adopted by Canadian courts to determine the scope of freedom of association, suggesting that under each approach, there is strong support for the conclusion that the right to strike is constitutionally protected. --Introduction

This thesis is concerned with understanding the relationship between labour law and triangular employment growth, and particularly in "staffing services" contexts. A review of alternative explanations for growth in triangular employment within three theoretical paradigm (neoclassical, institutionalist, and critical) illustrates the theoretical space for conceiving of a relationship between the particularities of labour law and triangular employment growth. To this end, the thesis develops the concept of a regulatory differential, or ways in which a legal regime may produce differential regulatory effects as between direct and triangular forms of employment. A typology of regulatory differentials is outlined. Further, a discussion of the relationship between these differentials and employer-status rules is provided, and it is suggested that the logic of the framework may helpfully inform analysis of triangular employment growth within a given jurisdiction, as well as comparative analysis of this phenomenon. The theoretical framework is then applied towards examining diverging growth rates in triangular employment as between Canada and the U.S. Legal analysis examining two key sub-fields of labour suggests that the presence (and expansion) of key regulatory differentials in the U.S., absent in Canada, may help explain the observed patterns of triangular employment growth in these countries.

Review of: Les avocates, les avocats et la conciliation travail-famille by Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay and Elena Masocva.

Income inequality has risen rapidly over the past three decades. In Canada it is now at its highest level since 1928. One of the root causes: the consistent chipping away of labour rights. The labour movement has been left unable to maintain membership levels and incapable of narrowing the income gap through collective bargaining, with profound implications for Canadians. Labour rights are human rights. They provide a powerful democratic counterweight to the growing power of corporations and the wealthy, and are key to a functioning democracy. Unions Matter affirms the critical role that unions and strong labour rights play in creating greater economic equality and promoting the social wellbeing of all citizens. --Publisher's description

This article reviews the book, "A Small Price to Pay: Consumer Culture on the Canadian Home Front, 1939-45," by Graham Broad.

This article examines the determinants of public attitudes towards labour policy. Using public opinion data on labour standards and essential services legislation from a 2011 Saskatchewan survey, it finds that both self-interest factors (employment in the public sector, and union membership) and symbolic political factors (feelings towards the labour movement and partisanship) structure attitudes toward labour policy in Saskatchewan. Interestingly, the evidence indicates that self-interest may actually trump solidarity within the labour movement, as unionized private sector workers are no more likely than the general public to oppose essential services legislation. The results suggest that researchers should pay attention to both self-interest and symbolic political factors when attempting to understand the relationship between public policy and public opinion.

A small area procedure for a two-way table of proportions is developed, where the estimated proportions are from a complex survey. Estimation is difficult because the observed proportions do not have multinomial distributions, the observed proportions are correlated with estimated variances, benchmarking is required, and mean models are nonlinear. A predictor based on a nonlinear mixed model is specified for the proportions. No transformation of the observations is involved, and the estimation procedure gives predictions that are in the parameter space. A bootstrap estimator of the mean squared error of a benchmarked predictor is suggested and performed well in simulations. The procedure is applied to the proportions in the two-way table defined by occupations crossed with Canadian provinces. The direct estimators are from the Canadian Labour Force Survey (LFS), and the corresponding two-way table from the previous Canadian Census of Population provides auxiliary information. The application of the prediction procedure to the LFS data leads to gains in estimated mean squared errors relative to the direct estimators between approximately 30 percent and 80 percent. A comparison of the predictors to the Census 2006 proportions further supports the suggested procedures.

Working-time practices across the developed world have exploded with diversity during the past few decades. The once standard 8-hour day and 40-hour workweek that emerged and reigned throughout much of the 20th century have given way to an increasing variety of working-time arrangements. Flexible schedules, in which hours can vary daily or weekly, and nonstandard work arrangements, such as fixed term, on-call, temporary, or part-time, are widely used at the workplace. In addition, we have witnessed the growth of zero-hour contracts that make no guarantee to provide workers with weekly working hours or a reliable income, while requiring employees to work on very short notice with very unpredictable schedules; annualized hours contracts that allow for work hours to vary over a year; and working-time accounts that allow employees to bank hours worked over a set weekly standard and to then draw on these accounts for paid time off.

The contemporary precarious condition, ‘precarity,’ in life, work and culture parallels transformations in national and global economies, in part through the rise of immaterial production. Precarity has led to destabilization and reconfiguration of a class /class system and the creation of a new majority precarious class including domestic and farm workers, academic workers, care givers, part-timers and more. The thesis identifies how a historical moment of the Canadian Farmworkers Union (1979-1999) experienced marginal social protection, racial discrimination, limited legal rights, short-term contracts, vulnerable working conditions and precarious life without health care. The transnational lessons of the CFU include a better understanding organizing precarious citizens today — including what has not worked; importance of visual cultural analysis and counter-visuality to inform resistance. Theories of immaterial labour; porousness of international borders; lack of social protections; shorter career cycles; challenges to traditional craft unions; shift in social values as citizens organize across sectors, geographies and borders; and, migrant experiences as central to the experience of precarity. Confronted with the difficult task of re-imagining old ‘modernist’ visions of ‘class,’ ‘people,’ ‘nation-states’ and many established perspectives of resistance that have been stalemated. The thesis also includes a short survey of visual cultural expressions from twenty-first century precarious citizen groups. [This] The Master of Arts - Cultural Studies major project includes a 96-page illustrated history book entitled "Fields of Power: The Canadian Farmworkers Union," with photographs and text by [the author].

Cet article analyse les effets possibles des dépenses de formation formelle sur la productivité des entreprises canadiennes. Si certains travaux mesurent l’intensité de la formation en entreprise à partir de données longitudinales, les résultats obtenus demeurent partagés. Les différences observées dans les résultats antérieurs peuvent être expliquées notamment par les données disponibles, le type de formation, la mesure de formation et les biais techniques influençant cette relation. Cette recherche s’appuie essentiellement sur la théorie du capital humain.Notre étude s’appuie sur les données de l’Enquête sur les milieux de travail et les employés (EMTE) de Statistique Canada de 1999 à 2005, auprès d’un échantillon de 1621 emplacements où, nous modélisons la relation entre la formation et la productivité à l’aide d’une fonction de production Cobb-Douglas, en intégrant les investissements en capital physique et une variable technologique. Ceci nous permet de montrer que les dépenses de formation contribuent à accroître la performance des établissements, via la productivité, de façon progressive dans le temps. Ces dépenses effectuées au cours d’une année donnée influent significativement sur la productivité jusqu’à trois années plus tard, là où elles atteignent leur maximum d’effet, pour se stabiliser par la suite. Toutefois, ces résultats permettent de soulever un paradoxe : celui de la rentabilité observée des dépenses de formation d’un côté, mais, de l’autre, l’hésitation du monde des affaires à investir en cette matière pour leurs propres employés. Nos résultats suggérent également que les investissements en formation au sein des entreprises devraient être considérés davantage comme un atout, plutôt qu’une simple obligation financière à l’appui d’une stratégie globale de développement des compétences au sein des entreprises.

Repenser la responsabilité sociale de l'entreprise : l'École de Montréal by Corinne Gendron and Bernard Girard is reviewed.

This paper provides a discussion and analysis of the situations in which an employee will be found to stand in the position of a fiduciary vis-a-vis his or her employer, and therefore be under an obligation to act solely in the employ- er's interests, Focusing on the English common law, with comparisons to the Canadian as well as the American and Australian law, the author notes that the employment relationship has not been viewed as inherently fiduciary, even though there is broad acceptance of the principle that an employee owes to the employer duties of trust, confidence and fidelity. However, an employee will be characterized as a fiduciary in two fairly exceptional circumstances: where the employee acts as the employer's agent, or where a fiduciary obligation is implicit in the terms of the employment contract or, alternatively, in the employ- ee's position, powers and responsibilities. With respect to the latter category, some courts have affixed fiduciary responsibility not only where the employee was a de facto director or member of top management, or was otherwise "key" to the enterprise, but also where the employer was said to be "vulnerable" to the employee's misuse of his or her position - an approach which the author criticizes as being too broad in its application to rank-and-file employees. More generally, the author maintains that it is the particular facts underlying an employment relationship, not the existence of the relationship itself that may give rise to fiduciary duties on the part of the employee, and that even high-level or senior employees should be not be considered fiduciaries unless their employ- ment contract or explicitly assigned duties justify such a finding.