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This thesis examines two intimately related topics. First, it analyzes the practices of temporary employment agencies and employers in using the vulnerabilities of migrant and immigrant workers across different precarious labour sectors in Montreal. Second, it aims to understand the knowledge production, learning and non-formal education linked to action that occur in the course of organizing im/migrant agency workers by the Immigrant Workers Centre (IWC) and the Temporary Agency Workers Association (TAWA). The discussion of agencies is located in a broader context of the global and Canadian neoliberal model which includes attending to racism and racialization, flexible labour and labour deregulation, labour precarity, the defensive position of trade unions, austerity and immigration policies. The study uses longitudinal research and interviews with 42 im/migrant agency workers in precarious jobs, as well as interviews with IWC and TAWA activists and members. It employs an ethnographic and activist approach informed by Global Ethnography and the Extended Case Method. The analysis entailed the description of local experiences of im/migrant agency workers and the ways that agencies manage their vulnerabilities to optimize labour exploitation. It relates IWC and TAWA organizing processes to the growing activity and importance of workers' centres as alternative organizations to traditional trade unionism. The study found that systematic violations of im/migrants' labour rights through agencies also impact their private lives. It argues that the Canadian and Quebec states are complicit in structuring this super-exploitation through their immigration policies and their disengagement from the conditions of im/migrants in the labour market. In response, the IWC and the TAWA have developed an organizing model for agency workers based on five pillars: community organizing, knowledge production, popular education, and leadership development. This includes provision of services infused with education for collective action, arts-based activism, and diverse ways of spreading information and knowledge. Participation in bigger campaigns and partnership with engaged academics has also resulted in important strategies leading to the IWC and the TAWA organizing workers and making visible the problems associated with agencies.

This article examines three popular renditions of female flight attendants in Canadaand the United States in teen fiction, film, and advertising, with attention to representational shifts fromthe1940s to the1970s.Our analysis demonstrates that the more sexualized image of the 1960s was a significant departure from the more complicated immediate postwar presentationof the flight attendant as a resourceful and capable career girl, albeit one still constrained by dominant notions of white, middle-class femininity. Created by management decisions in the face of increased capitalist competition, in concert with the influence of popular culture and gender ideology, the sexy stewardess altered the workplace environment for female flight attendants,but the legacyof earlier popular culture may well have aided their resistance to sexualization.

This case study of a union campaign to organize personal trainers and fitness instructors at GoodLife Fitness, the world's fourth-largest fitness chain, is used to highlight the challenges and possibilities of organizing precarious workers in the multi-billion-dollar fitness industry. Drawing on the broader literature on union organizing and strategic corporate campaigns, primary documents related to the organizing drive, media coverage of the campaign, and in-depth interviews with union officials and fitness workers, the case study reveals how the workers were successfully, yet unconventionally, able to leverage institutional, symbolic, and associational power to build union muscle in an industry that is virtually union-free.

Most extant studies on the relationship between workforce diversity and employment inequalities focus on the impact of a single disadvantaged identity on a single employment outcome such as pay or promotion at the organizational level. Thus, the relation between workers’ multiple identities and different dimensions of employment inequalities within the broader social context remains unclear. The goal of this thesis is to start filling this gap. I start with developing a multilevel model of employment inequalities for workers with multiple identities by integrating the social identity theory, double jeopardy hypothesis, intergroup contact theory, and theory of minority group threat. I test this model with two empirical studies using Statistics Canada’s nationally representative Canadian Survey on Disability (2012) linked with the National Household Survey (2011). Labour force participation, employment, and employment income are the dependent variables of this thesis. I examine the intersection of immigrant and disability identity dimensions by focusing on immigrants with disabilities (IwD) as compared to immigrants with no disabilities, Canadian-born with disabilities, and Canadian-born with no disabilities. Study 1 demonstrates that while immigrant and disability identities are independently negatively associated with employment and employment income, having both identities simultaneously has a positive effect on employment and employment income. Furthermore, with the increase of the residential area diversity (RAD), which is determined by the number of immigrants and people with disabilities in a community, IwD’s likelihood of employment increases but employment income decreases. Study 2 shows that the proportion of immigrants in a residential area (RA) is negatively associated with the likelihood of being in the labour force for IwD. Furthermore, perceived work discrimination is negatively associated with labour force participation for IwD. Moreover, perceived work discrimination mediates the relationship between the proportion of immigrants in an RA and labour force participation for IwD. This thesis contributes to theory by (i) developing a multi-level theoretical framework that demonstrate the complex relationship between individuals with multiple identities, organizations, and society, (ii) extending the intergroup contact theory and the theory of minority threat using empirical evidence from individuals with multiple identities rather than focusing on a single identity, (iii) examining multiple employment outcomes at once and demonstrating how employment outcomes might differ based on intersecting identities, and (iv) demonstrating the impact of societal context by incorporating RAD into analysis and showing how the employment outcomes of individuals with multiple identities differ by where they reside. I discuss practical implications of the findings for workers, employers, policymakers, and society.

The labour movement's inability to effectively respond to neoliberalism has resulted in reduced union membership and declining public status and influence of labour unions. This is having a cascading effect on other institutions that are at least peripherally linked with the working class, from the rightward march of social democratic parties to the move away from class as the foundation of labour history. I suggest that the absence of revolutionary unions, those fighting for a future beyond capitalism, is one of the key underlying causes of labour's current malaise. By revolutionary unions, I mean unions that are explicitly pro-socialist and anti-capitalist in intent and that, by their actions and by the response of capital and state to those actions, foster an awareness of the class nature of society, the specific interests of working people as a class, and possibilities for collectively pursuing a better future. --Introduction

As a dark side of leadership, scholars have shown that abusive supervision (AS) has negative consequences for subordinates work, organizations and society. This study focuses on the detrimental effects of AS on employee turnover intention, which is one of the major concerns for firms in China. We examined the underlying psychological mechanism between AS and turnover intention, specifically by focusing on the mediational role of psychological capital (Luthans et al., 2007) based on the conservation of resources theory (COR, from Hobfoll, 2002). By explaining the process of how AS can deplete individuals’ resources, which leads to protective behaviour and attitudes, we attempt to integrate COR theory into the existing AS literature. We also investigated the moderating role of broader organizational contexts represented by organizational justice perception in the relationship between AS and turnover intention, showing boundary conditions where the effects of AS can be amplified with regard to overall organizational justice perception. Based on survey data collected from young factory workers in northern China, this study finds that abusive supervision is positively correlated with turnover intention. Psychological capital, especially optimism, mediates this relationship. In addition, when workers perceived high levels of procedural and distributive organizational justice, this association between abusive supervision and turnover intention was even stronger. Furthermore, the perception of procedural organizational justice also moderated the mediation mechanism of optimism between abusive supervision and turnover intention. This paper enriches the extant studies by considering the relationship between abusive supervision and its negative consequences for manufacturing workplaces in a non-western country, a context that has been little studied. In addition, by showing how psychological capital and the perception of organizational justice affect the AS-turnover intention relationship, this paper provides a nuanced and deeper understanding of the psychological mechanism and organizational context of abusive supervision.

À partir de l’enquête Santé et itinéraire professionnel (SIP) retraçant la trajectoire de salariés français entre 2006 et 2010, cet article étudie les liens entre la qualité des conditions de travail et d’emploi, et la forme prise par la mobilité professionnelle : volontaire, subie ou négociée. D’un côté, les enquêtes sur les conditions de travail en France montrent que l’intensité du travail demeure à un niveau élevé, le travail répétitif augmente et l’autonomie des salariés diminue; et, de l’autre, les succès de la rupture conventionnelle — modalité de rupture négociée du contrat à durée indéterminée, introduite en 2008 —, et des plans de départs volontaires dans des entreprises en difficultés économiques, interrogent dans un contexte économique peu favorable ces dernières années. L’un des facteurs pouvant conduire un salarié à décider ou accepter de quitter son emploi peut alors renvoyer à la manière dont s’est déroulée cette relation d’emploi, et, en premier lieu, au niveau de qualité de ses conditions de travail. Pour tester cette hypothèse, l’article propose, à l’aide de modélisations logistiques multinomiales, d’estimer les corrélations statistiques entre plusieurs indicateurs de conditions de travail et caractéristiques de l’emploi, et cinq types de mobilité (fin de contrat, licenciement, démission, rupture conventionnelle, autres). Les résultats montrent une corrélation positive entre des conditions de travail difficiles et des départs négociés via la rupture conventionnelle, ainsi que subis via des licenciements et fins de contrat. Par ailleurs, de faibles salaires ou un temps partiel sont des caractéristiques de l’emploi reliées positivement avec les mobilités volontaires. Cela mène à trois conclusions : 1- la rupture conventionnelle constituerait une voie supplémentaire de sortie pour des salariés mécontents de leurs conditions de travail; 2- des conditions d’emplois peu favorables inciteraient les salariés à démissionner; et enfin, 3- certaines entreprises pratiqueraient des modes de gestion de la main-d’oeuvre peu soucieuses de la fidélisation des salariés, associant précarité du travail et précarité de l’emploi via les mobilités et non seulement le type d’emploi.

Notre étude cherche à comprendre la militance dans de très petites entreprises en France. Plus précisément, nous cherchons à cerner la forme prise par la militance dans ce contexte et les motivations du militant. Pour cela, nous nous appuyons sur 29 entretiens semi-directifs réalisés auprès de conseillers du salarié des deux principales entités syndicales. Mobilisant la littérature sur l’engagement et le travail militant, nous avons dégagé trois profils : le « bon soldat », le « défenseur des droits » et le « combattant ». Le « bon soldat » a une stratégie de valorisation de son syndicat. Sa militance s’exprime par un accueil soigné au salarié et un alignement sur sa position dans sa relation avec l’employeur. Son engagement militant montre qu’il cherche à préserver un équilibre entre son engagement syndical et sa vie privée. Le second profil, le « défenseur des droits », est attiré par les dimensions juridiques de son engagement auprès des salariés. Le conseiller du salarié ayant ce profil cherche à construire une stratégie de partenariat avec le salarié afin d’obtenir le moins de sanctions pour ce dernier. Pour lui, sa militance est d’abord motivée par la défense des droits du salarié. Le dernier profil, « le combattant », est très expérimenté syndicalement et il s’intéresse davantage à la relation interpersonnelle. Le conseiller du salarié de ce profil met en place une stratégie de conflits. Il s’engage auprès du salarié sans condition. Il lui propose une prise en charge totale jusqu’à le substituer et il ira jusqu’à mobiliser son syndicat, cela sans hésitation. L’étude met en exergue la diversité de la militance dans les très petites entreprises grâce à des conseillers du salarié qui restent fidèles à leur organisation syndicale et qui s’engagent auprès des salariés en s’appropriant la militance. Cette dernière vient questionner globalement les pratiques syndicales dans les très petites entreprises.

Wagnerism has been at the centre of Canadian labour relations since the end of World War II. Wagnerism rests on a so-called balance between workers and employers. Between 2007 and 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the constitution includes protections for good faith collective bargaining and to strike. In these cases, the Court stated that it is not constitutionally enshrining Wagnerism, yet it also leaned heavily on Wagner principles in arriving at its decisions. Building on interviews with national union leaders, I argue that the ambiguity between the Court's decisions and Wagnerism has left workers uncertain about how these rights alter the material conditions of unions. I conclude that the court's embrace of labour freedoms will only have material benefit if workers are willing to use these newfound freedoms to build working class capacities to directly confront ongoing attacks by governments and employers on core union freedoms.

Editorial on three conferences held in 2018-19 that examined the past, present and future of the study of working-class history.

Over the past four decades, governments have backed away from the promotion of collective bargaining in Canada resulting in a tendency towards anti-unionism. Examining this new reality, this article investigates two interrelated trends in Canadian anti-unionism over the last two decades in an effort to conceptualize the role of the state in regulating labour relations. First, we investigate legislative attempts to undermine or eliminate the ability of workers to collectively bargain and strike. Second, the article unpacks the political economy of anti-unionism in the private sector by focusing on the role of lobby groups that have shaped labour legislation. These two interrelated threads allow us to expose the relationship between employers and governments, which has threatened the strength of organized labour in the private and public sector and shaped a uniquely Canadian anti-unionism. Finally, we conclude by examining both the strengths and limitations of the unique fight-back strategies used by the labour movement, which has sought to elevate aspects of Canadian labour law to be protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This, we argue, offers restrictive possibilities for advancing collective bargaining rights in the existing labour relations framework.

A number of mechanisms contribute to the gender earnings gap – both its level and trends in it. We focus on three of them: occupational demand, the cumulation of disadvantage that originates in the unequal domestic division of labour, and labour market statuses which also may originate in the domestic division of labour. We show that changes in occupational demand associated with the dot-com boom and what followed it have caused substantial shifts in the relative earnings of young male and female university graduates. We provide evidence of how one consequence of the domestic division of labour – differences in hours worked by gender - contribute to the size and growth of the female earnings disadvantage. And, even in our generally young sample, human capital accumulation is more likely to be disrupted for women than for men. We identify several methodological and substantive implications of our results.

With Masters and Servants, Scott P. Stephen has revealed startling truths about the men of the Hudson's Bay Company. Rather than dedicating themselves body and soul to the Company's interests, these workers hired out like domestic servants, joining a 'household' with its attendant norms of duty and loyalty. Through painstaking documentary research, Stephen shines welcome light on the lives of these largely overlooked historical actors. The household system produced a remarkably stable political-economic entity, connecting early Canadian resource extraction to larger trends in British imperialism and its emerging social relations. An essential book for labour historians, Masters and Servants will appeal to scholars of early modern Britain, the North American fur trade, Western social history, or business history, and anyone intrigued by the reach of the HBC. -- Publisher's description

The article reviews the book, "The Labour Church: The Movement and Its Message," by Neil Johnson.

Saskatchewan's migrant workers rights regime has been characterized as a "positive national standard" for the rest of the country. Introducing the legislation in 2012, then-Minister of the Economy Bill Boyd argued it would "position Saskatchewan as having the most comprehensive protection for newcomers of any province in Canada." In Safe Passage: Migrant Worker Rights in Saskatchewan, Dr. Andrew Stevens reviews the impact of Saskatchewan's Foreign Worker Recruitment and Immigration Services Act (FWRISA) since its implementation. Using cases of employers and recruiters investigated under the FWRISA, this report explores how the government has addressed the exploitation of migrant workers in Saskatchewan. Dr. Stevens argues that the FWRISA deserves recognition as an important piece of legislation that has strengthened migrant worker protections and explicitly recognizes foreign labour’s unique vulnerabilities in the workplace. However, despite the strengths of the legisltion, Dr. Stevens argues that enforcement still remains a problem, with the complaints-based system too often putting the onus on precariously employed workers to self-report violations. Moreover, there is no requirement for employers to demonstrate comprehension of the province’s migrant labour regime in advance of accessing workers from abroad, resulting in employers that are ill-informed or ignorant of their responsibilities. Dr. Stevens concludes that Saskatchewan's existing migrant worker rights regime could be further improved by investing in a more rigorous audit and inspectorate system and through an expansion of community supports for newcomers.

This article reviews and comments on "Precarious Employment: Causes, Consequences and Remedies," edited by Stephanie Procyk, Wayne Lewchuk, and John Shields, "Precarious Lives: Job Insecurity and Well-Being in Rich Democracies," by Arne L. Kalleberg, "Remaking the Rust Belt: The Postindustrial Transformation of North America, by Tracy Newmann, and "Working the Phones: Control and Resistance in Call Centres," by Jamie Woodcock.

The article reviews the book, "Biography of an Industrial Town, Terni, Italy, 1831–2014," by Alessandro Portelli.

This article examines the political economy of nutrition as a state-sponsored strategy to extract greater productivity from industrial workers in both wartime and peacetime. During World War II, the state, together with its munitions-industry allies, broadly considered workers’ nutritional health as a critical component to achieving maximum wartime industrial production. Following the war, both the state and industry imagined the nutritional health of workers’ bodies as crucial to Canada’s postwar prosperity. Facilitating as well as frustrating these largely state-directed nutrition agendas was a combination of medico-scientific knowledge, the sometimes uncertain and unpredictable participation of both employers and workers, and wider national and international historical contexts.

For decades Canadian trade unionists have expressed frustration with the grievance arbitration system, but this tends to be limited to criticisms of the legalistic nature of the process and the costs and delays involved in getting a judgement. There is little discussion or debate about the denial of the right to strike, which is the central feature of the system. Nor is there much discussion about approaches to contract enforcement that situate legal strategies in broader political strategies to use worker power effectively, including the withdrawal of labour. This study investigates how the United Electrical Workers (ue), a left-led union, defended workers' rights at Canadian General Electric (cge) and Westinghouse in the early years of the new legal regime. pecifically, it charts the North American origins of grievance arbitration systems, sketches the development of personnel policies in the electrical industry, surveys the ue Canadian district's struggle to establish contractual relations and codify workplace rights at these two corporations, reconstructs the elements of ue's approach to contract enforcement, and reviews a number of mid-contract work stoppages at cge and Westinghouse between 1946 and 1966 to determine how the union, workers, employers, and arbitrators negotiated the ban on grievance strikes as they adjusted to new legislation and new collective agreement language.

In a period characterized by growing social inequality, precarious work, the legacies of settler colonialism, and the emergence of new social movements, Change and Continuity presents innovative interdisciplinary research as a guide to understanding Canada's political economy and a contribution to progressive social change. Assessing the legacy of the Canadian political economy tradition — a broad body of social science research on power, inequality, and change in society — the essays in this volume offer insight into contemporary issues and chart new directions for future study. Chapters from both emerging and established scholars expand the boundaries of Canadian political economy research, seeking new understandings of the forces that shape society, the ensuing conflicts and contradictions, and the potential for social justice. Engaging with interconnected topics that include shifts in immigration policy, labour market restructuring, settler colonialism, the experiences of people with disabilities, and the revitalization of workers' movements, this collection builds upon and deepens critical analysis of Canadian society and considers its application to contexts beyond Canada. --Publisher's description.