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This paper proposes novel natural language methods to measure worker rights from collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) for use in empirical economic analysis. Applying unsupervised text-as-data algorithms to a new collection of 30,000 CBAs from Canada in the period 1986-2015, we parse legal obligations (e.g., “the employer shall provide...”) and legal rights (e.g., “workers shall receive...”) from the contract text. We validate that contract clauses provide worker rights, which include both amenities and control over the work environment. Companies that provide more worker rights score highly on a survey indicating pro-worker management practices. Using time-varying province-level variation in labor income tax rates, we find that higher taxes increase the share of worker-rights clauses while reducing pre-tax wages in unionized firms, consistent with a substitution effect away from taxed compensation (wages) toward untaxed amenities (worker rights). Further, an exogenous increase in the value of outside options (from a leave-one-out instrument for labor demand) increases the share of worker rights clauses in CBAs. Combining the regression estimates, we infer that a one-standard-deviation increase in worker rights is valued at about 5.7% of wages.

Wage theft is the number one issue workers bring to the Workers’ Action Centre. For people in low-wage and precarious work, being offered subminimum wages, not getting all their wages, or paid late, are common occurences. While the problems giving rise to wage theft are not new, the crisis has become dire due to a combination of factors, including chronic under-enforcement of our labour laws, our current cost of living crisis, and the weakening of Canada’s social safety net. In the last 10 years, almost $200 million dollars has been assessed as owing to workers in Ontario through the Employment Standards Act (ESA) complaint process. ...In 2024 we surveyed 513 workers in Toronto about the problems they experience at work. The survey was done in English, Spanish, Tamil, Bengali, Somali, and Chinese (Mandarin). We targeted our surveymethodology to reach recent immigrants, racialized workers, non-status and low-wage workers who are often missed in standard labour force surveys. Our goal was to document the extent of employment standards’ violations that people in precarious work face and the impact of violations on these workers. The result of that survey paints a stark picture of what workers are up against in Ontario. --From Executive summary

In this first part of our two-part report on Canadian modern slavery law, we introduce Canada’s Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act and situate it in its international legal and doctrinal context.

We draw upon the commentaries introduced in the first part of this two-part report to analyze current Canadian modern slavery law and then continue by evaluating the potential legislative and jurisprudential avenues through which Canadian law on this subject could further develop.ention.

Despite widespread concerns that gig work is becoming a dominant part of our economy, most studies find it is not an important part of Canada’s labour market and its growth is embraced by most workers. While there is no consensus on its precise definition, most research shows gig work involves less than 10 percent of the labour force. Moreover, most definitions of the gig economy—as with related concepts such as nonstandard and precarious work—include well-off people, such as self-employed professionals as well as people who prefer flexible work, such as truckers, dockworkers, and students and older people looking to supplement their incomes. Many participants in the gig economy are attracted by its flexibility and freedom, rather than being forced into such jobs by a weak labour market. This contradicts the narrative that these jobs are inherently inferior. Most data point to a much different assessment of the state of Canada’s labour market. Job tenure has risen steadily, quit rates remain near historic lows, and surveys show most Canadians are content with their working conditions. This implies little need for governments to legislate and regulate the labour market to help vulnerable workers, and such initiatives may limit the opportunities for people to earn extra income and stay active in the labour force. The disconnect between the relatively benign reality of Canada’s labour market and advocates who insist work is becoming more precarious reflects fundamental problems in the agenda for labour economics, with much of this narrative reflecting Europe’s experience with regulations that end up marginalizing youths and immigrants trying to find their footing in a sclerotic economy. --Executive Summary

Higher unionization rates don't just benefit workers, evidence suggests they also offer broad social benefits like a cleaner environment and better health. [Includes tables.] --Website description

Tens of thousands of migrant workers travel every year to Canada in the hope of providing a better life for their families. They are promised labour opportunities and working conditions that very often they cannot enjoy in their countries of origin. Yet, many find a different reality upon arrival: they are made to work long hours without rest, are underpaid, suffer physical and psychological abuse, and are often subjected to stereotypes and assumptions about their skills, behaviours or identities. Their visas are tied to one employer, making it difficult for them to leave their job and change employers, or report abuses and access effective remedies. This report investigates the human rights impact of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), a temporary migration scheme that allows employers to hire migrant workers, primarily in low-pay occupations. Amnesty International’s research finds that Canada’s migration policy has designed, regulated and implemented the TFWP in such a way as to inherently increase racialized workers’ risk of labour exploitation and other abuses, creating discriminatory outcomes and violating its international human rights obligations.

The pandemic clearly illustrated the precarity that many racialized workers experience, disproportionately represented on the front lines, in jobs lacking the job protections, benefits or paid sick days. The recovery has proven to be equally challenging. One of the most notable changes in Canada’s labour market was the sharp reduction in low-waged service sector employment and the simultaneous increase in several higher-paying industries such as professional services and finance. The change in the industrial structure of employment in the context of a very tight labour market helped to narrow the employment gap between racialized and white workers between 2019 and 2022. At the same time, other racialized workers were caught on the wrong side of the recession. This report provides a detailed examination of the fallout of the pandemic and its recovery focusing in on the experiences of racialized workers in the key age group 25 to 54 years, drawing on custom data from Statistics Canada on employment, wages and industrial sector. --Introduction

...Lead author Dr. Catherine Bryan, Associate Professor in the Dalhousie School of Social Work, had this to say about the report, “This report draws on voices and experiences of child protection social workers in Nova Scotia to describe how they understand and manage the conditions of child protection work in Nova Scotia. More precisely, it details a growing set of concerns about the conditions of child welfare work in the province and, in turn, about the ability of child protection social workers to effectively, compassionately, and justly meet the needs of children and families.” This report is an effort to uncover the key concerns and daily struggles of those tasked with “protecting” children, while also making both short-term and long-term recommendations for changes to address those challenges, from improving training, mentoring, and professional recognition to reducing poverty. --From website description

Retirement security is the dream of every Canadian, but employers, particularly those in the private sector, are moving away from providing the gold standard of a workplace pension plan. In 2023, 6.9 million working Canadians—34 per cent of all employed people—were covered by a registered pension plan. The retirement income those plans contribute to national and local economies, to government budgets and to equalizing retirement security for equity-seeking groups is underappreciated. This report puts that value in context. --Website description

In June 2024, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada announced impending new pilot programs for migrant care workers. While the announcement brings hope that “new pilot programs will provide home care workers with permanent residence on arrival in Canada,” this report identifies persistent problems with Canada’s migrant care worker programs and demonstrates why permanency upon arrival is a requisite for necessary program changes. Given the ongoing and structural issues of Canada’s migrant care worker programs, the newest pilot programs will also need other critical improvements to ensure dignified work and meaningful inclusion for much-needed care workers in Canada. --Website summary

The 2024 review of the Labour Relations Code, only the second in more than two decades, comes at a critical juncture for labour relations in British Columbia. It is imperative that this review bring a comprehensive package of reforms to markedly improve workers’ abilities to meaningfully exercise their statutory rights to organize and engage in collective bargaining in the current context of fissured workplaces and increasingly insecure work arrangements in many sectors of the BC economy. --Website summary

A detailed look at the experiences of migrant and immigrant women’s working conditions in low-wage essential sectors in Nova Scotia before, during, and following the most acute periods of the COVID-19 pandemic, this report draws on 27 in-depth, qualitative interviews.... --Website summary

The evidence presented in this report runs counter to arguments that card-check and anti-scab legislation give excessive power to workers over employers. Rather, card-check certification and a replacement worker ban are fundamental to upholding workers rights within Canada’s labour relations system. The right to join a union and the right to strike are two foundational aspects of Canadian labour relations. Testimonials from workers in this report make clear that mandatory votes suppress workers’ freedom to join a union without coercion from anti-union employers. --Website summary

Falling Short is the third community report released by the Migrant Workers in the Canadian Maritimes Partnership. The report follows the publication of Safe at Work, Unsafe at Home: COVID-19 and Temporary Foreign Workers in Prince Edward Island in 2021 and Unfree Labour: COVID-19 and Migrant Workers in the Seafood Industry in New Brunswick in 2023. The report is based on desk research and worker interviews. Data was obtained from freedom of information requests to Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) and Nova Scotia’s regulatory bodies responsible for work safety, employment standards, and housing. 15 interviews with migrant workers in Nova Scotia employed under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) were also conducted. Fourteen of these workers were employed under the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) stream of the TFWP, and one worker was employed under the low-wage stream of the TFWP. Falling Short found that in Nova Scotia, migrant workers frequently encounter a lack of regulatory implementation. Rules exist, but governments are failing to adequately enforce them to create a safe and dignified work environment for migrant workers. The report provides recommendations to both the federal and provincial governments aimed at improving the working and living conditions of the temporary migrant workforce in the province. --Website description

This report examines the ways governments, and specifically the Government of Alberta, interfere in public-sector collective bargaining through both legislative measures and non-legislative actions. It also explores how this growing interference may impact the 2024 bargaining round in Alberta.

The Progressive Labour Agenda is intended to provide Manitoba policy makers with a set of clear policy measures to improve the conditions of work for Manitobans while promoting overall well-being in our province. These policy measures respond directly to issues in labour and employment such as the proliferation of low-wage work, gaps in employment standards and health and safety enforcement, declining private sector union coverage, and inequities experienced by women and migrant workers, among other issues. The policy options outlined in the Progressive Labour Agenda cover three major themes: 1) ensure access to unions and fair collective bargaining; 2) modernize labour legislation to close gaps in employment standards and improve conditions for non-unionized workers; and 3) improve workplace health and safety. These are ideas that are well supported by public policy research and that are actionable at the provincial level. --Website description

We generally take for granted that everyone has the right to a say—and certainly a vote—in what our governments do. But in the workplaces that rule many of our waking hours, these democratic rights are largely absent. In a time of extreme inequality, deteriorating social cohesion and reduced trust in our institutions, why shouldn’t workers have more control over the firms they work in? Enabling employees to take more ownership and control in their working lives is a promising antidote. With advocacy from a broad coalition of supporters—including many business owners—the federal government has tabled legislation to create a new Employee Ownership Trust legal structure that makes it easier for business owners to sell firms to their employees. However, to tap the full potential of employee ownership, a much broader suite of policies is needed. This report examines what an ambitious public policy agenda would look like to unleash the promise of democratic employee ownership in Canada. --Website description

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.

This report provides an assessment of Canada’s progress in meeting the goals for gender equality set out in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Adopted unanimously by 189 countries including Canada in 1995, the Beijing Declaration is the most progressive global blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights. The report examines Canada’s progress over the last 30 years in areas ranging from reproductive health to women’s economic standing and the status of marginalized women in Canada. The report was produced by the Beijing +30 Network which represents more than 70 women’s rights and equality-seeking organizations, trade unions and independent experts representing millions of members from across the country.