Sustaining Precarious Transnational Families: The Significance of Remittances From Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program

Accelerating flows of remittances are dwarfing global development aid. This study deepens our understanding of remittance impacts on the families of workers who come to Canada annually for several months under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Interviews with SAWP workers, their spouses, adult children and teachers in Mexico deepen our understanding of the impacts of these remittances. They demonstrate that the remittances are often literally a lifeline to transnational family survival, allowing them to pay for basic needs such as shelter, food, and medical care. Yet, at the same time, the remittances do not allow most of these workers and their families to escape deep poverty and significant precarity, including new forms of precarity generated by the SAWP. Instead, SAWP remittances help reduce poverty, at least temporarily, to more moderate levels while precarious poverty expands through globalneoliberal underdevelopment

Resisting Precarity in Toronto's Municipal Sector: The Justice and Dignity for Cleaners Campaign

This paper examines a relative rarity in recent Canadian labour-state relations: the successful resistance by public sector workers and their allies to government-driven employment precarity. At stake was Toronto mayor Rob Ford’s determination to contract out a thousand jobs held by city cleaners. In response, the cleaners and the city’s labour movement launched a Justice and Dignity for Cleaners campaign to preserve these jobs as living wage employment. Effective coalition building behind a morally compelling campaign, together with some fortuitous political alignments, has forestalled city efforts to privatize a significant yet undervalued segment of the workforce. Our examination of the Justice and Dignity for Cleaners campaign reveals that resistance to precarity is not futile, notwithstand ing some attendant ambiguity of what constitutes a labour victory

Is Precarious Employment Low Income Employment? The Changing Labour Market in Southern Ontario

This paper examines the association between income and precarious employment, how this association is changing and how it is shaped by gender and race. It explores how precarious employment has spread to even middle income occupations and what this implies for our understanding of contemporary labour markets and employment relationship norms. The findings indicate a need to refine our views of who is in precarious employment and a need to re-evaluate the nature of the Standard Employment Relationship, which we would argue is not only becoming less prevalent, but also transitioning into something that is less secure

Not Profiting from Precarity: The Work of Nonprofit Service Delivery and the Creation of Precasiousness

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

Interest in unions and associations in a knowledge-base economy: Canadian evidence

oai:justlabour.journals.yorku.ca:article/1This study analyzes the results of a 2010 national survey of Canadian non-managerial employees' membership and interest in worker organizations. This is the first general survey to include associations as well as unions. Profiles of membership and interest in unions and associations are presented, then demographic, organizational and attitudinal factors related to interest in joining these worker organizations are examined. The findings suggest that, in spite of some recent decline in union density, most Canadian non-managerial workers who are interested in collective representation are members of at least one of these organizations. The strongest interest in joining is expressed by those who are highly educated, poorly paid and feel underemployed-even if allowed some workplace "voice". The limited prior focus on unions needs to be expanded to attend to both unions and associations as worker-controlled vehicles of representation, particularly to identify strategic alliances with the growing numbers of professional employees.

Immigration, Citizenship and Racialization at Work: Unpacking Employment Precarity in Southwestern Ontario

This paper examines the relationship between precarious employment, legal status, and racialization. We conceptualize legal status to include the intersections of immigration and citizenship. Using the PEPSO survey data we operationalize three categories of legal status: Canadian born, foreign-born citizens, and foreign-born non-citizens. First we examine whether the character of precarious work varies depending on legal status, and find that it does: Citizenship by birth or naturalization reduces employment precarity across most dimensions and indicators. Next, we ask how legal status intersects with racialization to shape precarious employment. We find that employment precarity is disproportionately high for racialized non-citizens. Becoming a citizen mitigates employment precarity. Time in Canada also reduces precarity, but not for non-citizens. Foreign birth and citizenship acquisition intersect with racialization unevenly: Canadian born racialized groups exhibit higher employment precarity than racialized foreign-born citizens. Our analysis underscores the importance of including legal status in intersectional analyses of social inequality

Negotiating the 'Catch 22': Transitioning to Knowledge Work for University Graduates with Learning Disabilities

This paper examines the experiences of graduates with learning disabilities (GLD) transitioning into knowledge-based work in Ontario, Canada. The purpose of this paper is to identify and discuss the messiness in the university-to-work transition for GLD. To do so, this paper draws from interviews conducted with GLD in university and in the labour market. This paper first discusses the rise of the smart worker standard, a standard sensitive to socio-culture norms, in recruitment of knowledge workers. The analysis of this paper examines three key stages of transition, namely: interviewing, employment testing and probationary period. This study’s analysis demonstrates a ‘catch-22’ for GLD where they fear stigmatization through either disclosing their disability and non-disclosure where they risk being perceived as ‘lazy’ or ‘incompetent’. The conclusion provides recommendations to support the transition experiences of GLD

Becoming and Remaining an Independent Union: A Comparative Case Study of Two University Faculty Unions

Although workplace unions have many options when it comes to affiliating with a central labour body, some unions decide to remain independent or to disaffiliate after an experience of affiliation. To our knowledge, the literature has not widely examined the reasons behind the decision of some unions to remain independent. Based on a comparative case study of two university faculty unions in Quebec, this article aims to partly fill this gap in analysis. The results show that the particularities of the work of professors and the types of expertise needed to perform their duties influence their choice for union independence

The Destruction of the "House": Changing Social Relations in a Restructured Factory

This article explores the social changes within a dairy-products factory in Montevideo, Uruguay. Applying sociological research tools from ethnography and grounded theory, the data was collected through employment at the factory. My position as a temporary worker allowed me to interact with the many different individuals and social actors that made up the factory’s social universe. I observed major organizational shifts within the human resources department, such as the hiring of younger and more educated prospects for supervisory roles, as opposed to filling those positions with the older and more experienced workers. This shift towards “productive re-arrangement” was a consequence of the regional and commercial challenges which encouraged strategic changes to keep the company competitive. The most obvious and significant changes were found in the hiring process, when the factory began increasingly targeting temporary workers for employment. In this article, I argue that these changes were largely responsible for a new spirit and emotionality that began to emerge amongst the current working pool; one of uncertainty and mistrust. When the dairy factory altered its operating philosophy, so did its labourers. This study looks to capture the relations that developed between them