From Employee to Homo Faber? Considerations About Union Renewal and Informal Workers in Brasil and India

For the purpose of trade union renewal, it is suggested that trade unions need to convert themselves from being institutions centred on employer-employee relations to open source ones engaged with broader social justice issues. In this article, we offer two elements to the debate on trade union revival: first, we focus on two rapidly emerging economies with a corporatist and state-centered union structure (i.e., Brazil and India); second, in the context of these two countries, we challenge the idea that informal workers are a burden for trade union organizations. We consider the possible contributions that informal workers could make towards the renewal of trade unions in these two countries. We argue that trade unions could take advantage of these contributions if they overcome the employee horizon, which originated in Western countries and excludes millions of workers from its purview in Brazil and India. We propose the concept of “homo faber” as a new horizon for trade union organization, which is inclusive of both formal as well as informal workers

Shall Wagnerism have no Dominion?

The Wagner Act Model has formed the basis of Canada’s collectivebargaining regime since World War II but has come under intense scrutiny inrecent years because of legislative weakening of collective bargaining rights,constitutional litigation defending collective bargaining rights and decliningunion density. This article examines and assesses these developments, arguingthat legislatively we have not witnessed a wholesale attack on Wagnerism, butrather a selective weakening of some of its elements. In the courts, it brieflyappeared as if the judiciary might constitutionalize meaningful labour rights andimpede the erosion of Wagnerism, but recent judicial case law suggests theprospects for this outcome are fading. While the political defence of Wagnerismmay be necessary when the alternatives to it are likely worse, holding on to whatwe’ve got will not reverse the long-term decline inunion density. The articleconcludes that at present there are no legal solutions to the labour movement’sproblems and that innovative efforts to represent workers’ collective interestsoutside of formal collective bargaining provide a more promising alternative

Precarious Work Experiences of Racialized Immigrant Woman in Toronto: A Community- Based Study

Despite their high levels of education, racialized immigrant women in Canada are over-represented in low-paid, low-skill jobs characterized by high risk and precarity. Our project documents the experiences with precarious employment of racialized immigrant women in Toronto. We conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with racialized immigrant women. Participants were recruited through posted flyers, partner agencies, peer researcher networks and snowball sampling. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using NVivo software. The project followed a community-based participatory action research model. Participants faced powerful structural barriers to decent employment and additionally faced barriers associated with household gender relations. Their labour market experiences negatively impacted their physical and mental health as well as that of their families. These problems further constrained women’s ability to secure decent employment. Our study makes important contributions in filling the gap on the gendered barriers racialized immigrant women face in the labour market and the gendered impacts of deskilling and precarity on women and their families. We propose labour market reforms and changes in immigration and social policies to enable racialized immigrant women to overcome barriers to decent work

Health and Safety for Canadian Youth in Trades

This article examines occupational health and safety (OHS), with a particular focus on youth apprentices. It uses quantitative and qualitative data to examine the incidence of injuries among youth apprentices, and their experiences related to health and safety at work in Canada. Analysis of large-scale national surveys suggests a high incidence of work-related injuries among youth and low participation rates of younger workers in formal OHS training. A survey of 173 former Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program (OYAP) and Registered Apprenticeship Program in Alberta (RAP) participants finds that one-fifth suffered serious occupational injuries, which required time off work. The results from this study have important implications for youth apprenticeship programs, particularly the OHS- and trade-specific knowledge required for youth to work safely during and following their apprenticeship training

Up Against the Wall: The Political Economy of the New Attack on the Canadian Labour Movement

The Canadian labour movement faces an existential crisis. State and business hostility to unions is not new, but the attack has recently intensified as conservative political forces and major employer groups have embraced the agenda of the US Republican right. Mirroring anti-union US labour law would lead to the precipitous decline of union density in Canada, which is already eroding due to the manufacturing crisis and the long-standing failure of unions to organize in private services. The new attack is more a product of labour movement weakness than strength, and will be most effectively resisted by increasing union density and bargaining power in the private sector

Incidence of Work and Workplace Injury Among Alberta Teens

Utilizing a convenience sample of nearly 2000 respondents drawn from administrative data, this study finds 43.7 percent of adolescents (aged 12-14) and 61.5 percent of young persons (aged 15-17) in the Canadian province of Alberta reported employment in 2011/12. Of those employed, 49.7 percent of adolescents and 59.0 percent of young persons reported at least one work-related injury in the previous year. This study also identifies widespread non-reporting of workplace injuries and seemingly ineffective hazard identification and safety training. These results add to the growing evidence that the regulation of teenage employment in Alberta fails to adequately protect these workers from injury