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This report presents an analysis of key findings from a survey completed by gym and fitness club workers in Ontario over several weeks in February and March 2019. The survey data, which is both quantitative and qualitative, offers important insights into gym and fitness club work, including levels of job satisfaction, opinions about fairness and respect at work, impressions of relationships between workers, clients, and supervisors, and views about how best to improve working conditions in the industry. -- From Summary

[This report is] based on interviews we conducted with 11 workers from the Chinese and Eritrean communities. The report details the migration and work stories of newcomer workers in this industry, as well as their concerns, hopes and dreams. OHC has made 21 recommendations in this report to improve the health and well-being of newcomer workers in the food processing industry. --MFL Occupational Health Centre website

Canada’s unions are proud to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination with the release of a ground-breaking report on the impacts of Islamophobia in the workplace. [This report] explores the rise of anti-Muslim attitudes and discrimination in Canada. It provides recommendations for employers, trade unions, and government on how to address this pernicious phenomenon. --Website description

This report describes experiences of extreme employment precarity and impacts on health and well-being among South Asians in Toronto. In 2018, community advocates from the South Asian Women’s Rights Organizations (SAWRO), Injured Workers Community Legal Clinic (IWC), and researchers from McMaster University came together to develop a health and safety workshop for South Asian workers. The initiative grew from a need identified at the community level for more information and advocacy around health and safety in the South Asian community, and among South Asian women in particular. It was funded by a Multicultural Community Capacity Grant from the Government of Ontario. Advocates and researchers developed a 2-hour training workshop on precarious employment, employment rights and workers’ compensation. They trained 10 outreach workers from SAWRO on these topics, and the outreach workers went into their community to share the knowledge they gained and advertise the workshop. The workshop, held in February 2019, was attended by 53 men and women. In March 2019, researchers held two focus groups with a total of 20 South Asian men and women to discuss and document experiences of work and health. This report is ased on the stories shared with us during the training session for outreach workers, the workshop, and the focus groups. --From Introduction

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.

On February 6, 2018, the Minister of Labour appointed us as a Labour Relations Code Review Panel with a broad mandate to review the B.C. Labour Relations Code, RSBC 1996, c 244 (the “Code”) and to provide recommendations for any amendments or updates to the Code. The terms of reference directed us to consult with the community, consider labour law developments in other Canadian jurisdictions and to: "….assess each issue canvassed from the perspective of how to “ensure workplaces support a growing, sustainable economy with fair laws for workers and business” and promote certainty as well as harmonious and stable labour/management relations. The conceptual and structural framework for the Code was established 45 years ago and there have been significant changes in the B.C. workforce, workplaces and economy in theintervening decades. --Introduction

In times of economic growth, it is fair to expect that wages and job quality will improve with positive benefits being experienced throughout society. But between 2011 and 2017—a period when Ontario’s economy experienced significant gains—our research found that these expectations did not come true: the adage that a rising tide will lift all boats proved to be false in Ontario.

A specialized agency of the United Nations that predates both the United Nations and the establishment of the Bretton Woods institutions, the International Labour Organization (ILO) was founded at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, and was part of the Treaty of Versailles. This paper is a deliberate exercise in remembering the history of the ILO. It recalls the historical ideal of international labour law (ILL) in the ILO’s founding to explain the renewed relevance of ILL in the midst of global restructuring. The paper traces a similar trajectory through the story of ILL in the Canadian courts. Throughout, the paper suggests that the evolution of ILL, internationally and in Canada, constitutes a crucial basis upon which to build ILL’s transnational futures.

Have Indigenous people in Canada been active as wage labourers and union members? If so, what have been the circumstances? When and where and for what reasons have Indigenous people worked for wages and been union members and how have they fared in these roles? In this short paper we examine a wide range of recent studies that have looked at various aspects of these questions.

Indigenous people have worked for wages for more than 150 years in Canada, and before that in what was to become Canada. They have often been members of unions and in some cases actively. They have been known to engage in strike actions even when not represented by a union. However, relations between Indigenous people and unions have often been difficult. In many cases unions have failed to serve the interests of Indigenous wage workers. --Introduction

The Generation Effect shows that employment precarity is penalizing a generation. Precarious employment has become an unwanted, unnecessary and not-by-choice, new reality of our workforce and economy. Despite the recent changes to Ontario employment regulations, most legislation remains outdated and provides for a workforce and economy that no longer exists. Our social support systems are outdated and currently unable to support the growing ranks of the working poor and people living in poverty. The continued adherence to neoliberalism, an economic philosophy and ideology that has made it easy for corporations to trade and enhance their profits and, at the same time, eliminate full-time permanent jobs, has made life more difficult for millennial workers. The Generation Effect provides a snapshot of the lives of Hamilton-area millennials working in a labour market that differs significantly from that of their parents. It is a starting point for a long overdue conversation about the current nature and structure of work, its impact on millennial workers and their families, our communities and society at large. --From authors' summary

Canadian universities are relying heavily on precariously-employed faculty on campus. Once among the most secure professions in the country, by 2016-17 contract jobs in the sector accounted for the majority (53.6 percent) of all university faculty appointments, according to data obtained through Freedom of Information requests to all 78 publicly-funded Canadian universities. The findings show that reliance on contract faculty is a foundational part of the system, and has been for at least a decade. This report is the first-ever snapshot of the prevalence of university contract jobs, where they’re located, and what departments are more likely to offer contract work instead of permanent, secure academic appointments.

While post-secondary institutions are places of learning, they also employ thousands of people across a broad spectrum of job classifications. This report explores the extent to which workers in Canada’s post-secondary institutions are experiencing precarity. More precisely, it asks whether employment on university and college campuses in Ontario is becoming more precarious, for whom and for what reasons. This report combines quantitative analysis of Labour Force Survey (LFS) data with qualitative accounts of the lived experience of precarity from post-secondary employees. Overall, the LFS data analysis suggests that 53% of post-secondary education workers in Ontario are, to some extent, precariously employed. Specifically, the report identifies a rise in work categories that are more precarious (e.g., research assistants and teaching assistants) alongside a decline in others that have traditionally been less precarious (e.g., librarians).

The Living Wage for Families Campaign advocates for employers to sign on to pay a living wage to all direct and contract service staff as well as does policy advocacy on issues that impact working families. Since 2008, we have partnered with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives to calculate the living wage in Metro Vancouver. Additionally, we support 20 communities across BC in calculating a local living wage. The living wage is a bare bones calculation that, through a methodology established in consultation with academics, employers, and low-wage workers, determines how much a family needs to earn to meet their expenses in a particular region. Living wages across BC vary from $20.62/hr in the lower mainland to $18.77 in Revelstoke to $15.90 in the Fraser Valley. There is no community in BC that has a living wage that is lower than $15/hr.

In June the Ontario government announced its intention to raise the province’s minimum wage by the most in 50 years: 23% this January 1 and another 7% a year later. This move would raise the ratio of minimum wage to average hourly earnings in Ontario from the current 44% to 53% on January 1 and 55% a year later. There is only one precedent among the four largest provinces in Canada for an increase of the minimum wage to such ratios, the experience of Quebec in 1975. Two years after its introduction, this increase was found to be counterproductive. The segments of the labour force most likely to be affected by a surge in the minimum wage are youth (people aged 15-24) and recent immigrants (those landed less than five years ago).

hey are young and highly educated, but many “sharing economy” workers in the GTA are selling their services under precarious working conditions. Read the first comprehensive look at workers who sell “sharing economy” type services and the consumers who buy them in this new report.

In this paper, Fay Faraday explores how to provide workers in the on-demand service economy protection under the Employment Standards and Labour Relations Acts. Ontario’s Bill 148 – the Fair Workplace Better Jobs Act, 2017 – should provide protections to workers in precarious employment in the 21st century labour market. Workers in the on-demand service sector are at the forefront of both precarity and technological change. This paper provides guidance on how Bill 148 could be amended to extend protections to these workers. --Website description

Families who work for low wages face impossilbe choices--buy food or heat the house, feed the children or pay the rent. The result can be spiralling debt, constant anxiety and long-term health problems. This reports breaks out the differences in actual costs for single parent and two-parent families in three locations in the province of Manitoba: Winnipeg, Brandon, Thompson. And with these real costs proposes a living wage for these families.

Have Indigenous people in Canada been active as wage labourers and union members? If so, what have been the circumstances? When and where and for what reasons have Indigenous people worked for wages and been union members and how have they fared in these roles? In this short paper we examine a wide range of recent studies that have looked at various aspects of these questions. In particular, we examine the role that unions have played with Indigenous wage workers, and with Indigenous people who have sought to work for wages, and we consider some recent initiatives that unions have taken to meet the needs of Indigenous workers. Such efforts are especially significant in an era when the numbers of Indigenous workers entering the labour market are growing rapidly, and when the labour force as a whole is becoming increasingly diverse. --Introduction

The Ontario government has committed to raise its minimum wage to $14 on January 1, 2018 then to $15 on January 1, 2019. This paper examines who in the province will get a "raise" from the $15 minimum wage, and finds it will largely benefit the province’s most marginalized—a broad and diverse swath of workers including contract, seasonal, and casual workers, part-time workers, women, and immigrants. The report also finds that the vast majority of workers who will benefit from a higher minimum wage are over the age of 20, and that they work for big companies (those with 500 or more employees), not small businesses. The study comes as the Ontario government consults the public about its decision to raise the minimum wage to $15 by January 2019. Although the data source for these findings, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) public use microdata file (PUMF), did not specify Indigenous identify, additional research has shown the benefits of a $15 minimum wage to Indigenous Ontarians would be significant, particularly for First Nations women and families. --Website description