Revitalizing Union Action: The Impact of Youth Committees in a Public Sector Labour Federation in Quebec

This article examines the revitalization of a union federation’s capacity to represent young workers. It presents a qualitative study of the role and impact of one of the most developed forms of youth involvement in a union, youth committees. It first analyzes the extent to which these committees helped put the concerns of members under the age of 30 on the union federation’s agenda and fostered their participation in its internal life. Second, it examines the ways in which these committees initiated a degree of change in the federation at the institutional level. Overall, our findings indicate that youth committees were able to question existing practices and initiate a degree of union change. However, the disagreements expressed by the young workers tended to remain confined within these parallel structures, thus limiting their potential to change the representative capacity of the federation

Making Temporary Permanent: The Silent Transformation of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program

During the mid-2000s the number of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) present in Canada increased dramatically, more than tripling in eight years. The bulk of the increase was due to an expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) to include lower-skilled occupations. The stated reason for the expansion was to address short-term labour shortage s. Contrary to expectations, upon the onset of the economic downturn in 2008, the number of TFWs did not decrease significantly, and appears to be increasing again in 2010 and 2011. This paper tracks the evolution of the TFWP from a stable program designed to address short-term labour needs in high-skilled occupations into a broader labour market tool. The paper examines the most recent available statistical data for the TFWP and other documentary evidence to argue the role of the TFWP in Canada’s labour market has quietly shifted, becoming a permanent, large-scale labour pool for many industries, reminiscent of European migrant worker programs. The paper also examines the potential labour market implications of an expanded, entrenched TFWP

Alliance Building to Create Change: The Women's Movement and the 1982 CUPW Strike

Social movements are significant to change mainstream ideologies and values over what is seen to be critical for society. The women’s movement helped to change ideas about women and their roles in society . One significant change, for more universal maternity, only occurred through the alliance with CUPW. This paper will illustrate that the alliance between the women’s movement and CUPW was significant to change public opinion and help to gain paid maternity leave for the majority of working women in Canada. In sum, the power these two groups generated in alliance produced one of the most important social benefits we currently enjoy as Canadian citizens. As a result, alliances are powerful and should be used to further any movement to towards equality

The Validity of Alberta Safety Statistics

This study examines the validity of injury statistics used to monitor workplace safety in the Canadian province of Alberta. These indicators were found to significantly under-report the rate of injury and to be vulnerable to gaming by both employers and the workers’ compensation board. These threats to the validity of the measures should limit the inferences drawn from the measures. Injury-based statistics were also found to be inadequate proxies for the broader construct of workplace safety. The political feasibility of alternative measures is also discussed

What Does the New Economy Mean to Malaysian Tellers?

The rise of the New Economy has restructured work, necessitated changing skills requirements, as well as spurred new training needs amongst employees. Such new skills and training needs are prerequisites to survive and thrive in the New Economy. Importantly, these skills and training are also prerequisites for upward mobility in a system of inequality. This paper illustrates the case of Malaysian tellers as the Malaysian banking industry operates in the New Economy. Although the New Economy and the emergence of the sales culture requires Malaysian tellers to be more knowledgeable, this paper argues that due to their unionised status and given their positions at the bottom rung of the occupational hierarchy, tellers in Malaysia are disadvantaged and often excluded in the process of training and knowledge acquisition

Children Working Alone in Alberta: How Child Labour and Working Alone Regulations Interact

The Canadian province of Alberta does not effectively enforce its child labour laws. This non-enforcement interacts with the working-alone regulations in Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety Act to deny workers under age 15 meaningful solo work protection. As a result, children and adolescents are exposed to the hazards adults face while working alone as well as hazards unique to children and adolescents working alone. This suggests that failing to enforce child labour laws has both obvious and subtle effects. The subtle effects are difficult to identify and remediate, in part because of the initial regulatory failure is politically difficult to acknowledge

The Transformation of International Trade Unionism in the Era of Globalization

Following the Second World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) held from June 21 to 25, 2010 in Vancouver, this article examines the changes undergone by international trade unionism in recent years. The increasing power of multinational corporations, as a result of globalization, has led to a transformation in international trade unionism which has produced a reorganization of its structures and the emergence of new forms of action to ensure the protection of workers’ rights worldwide. The key argument of this article is that the evolution of the structures and practices of international trade union organizations over the last two decades has been characterized by the implementation of strategies aimed, on the one hand, at reinforcing trade union unity and, on the other hand, at targeting multinational corporations. Lastly, although the transformation of international trade unionism has given rise to important structural changes, international trade union organizations continue to face formidable challenges in their efforts to effectively contribute to the regulation of the global economy

Recovering Marx’s Theory of Alienation: Theoretical Considerations from a Case Study with Community Activists in Scarborough, Ontario

The expansive literature on alienation demonstrates how various treatments emphasize different parts of human estrangement. This recovery focuses on demonstrating how Marx’s theory of alienation can prove fruitful in understanding social movement activity and promoting social justice. At the centre of collective action is a hope and vision for an alternative future, an imagination of communities based on mutual reliance and a strategy for de-alienation. In this paper, I begin with a review of Marx’s theory with an emphasis on a philosophy of internal relations, followed by an application to a recently completed case study with housing activists in Scarborough, Ontario. By posing questions for further development, I conclude that social alienation and responses to it can be developed further when seen as a learning process; that is, to understand the learning processes of one’s own estrangement as central to taking positive steps to overcome alienation