As global competitiveness and labour market flexibility continue to be dominant features of government policy, new forms and arrangements of precarious employment continue to emerge. This dynamic has led to greater complexity in employment relationships affecting persons born in Canada, permanent residents and “new” citizens and migrant workers which existing labour market policy and regulation are not yet prepared to address. It is clear that precarious employment gives less protection against unpaid wages and poorer working conditions, for example, but there are a variety of perspectives on what reforms are necessary to address these problems, and there are a variety of evaluative criteria upon which we may judge those proposed reforms.
This section reviews policy and legislative responses to the impact of precarious work on workers that have been proposed by others, but are not LCO recommendations at this stage (and may not be recommendations).
A. Policy Considerations
1. Establishing Evaluative Criteria
There are a myriad of potential regulatory responses to the problem of precarious employment. An initial task in moving forward is to generate a set of criteria by which we may evaluate various options. The LCO seeks feedback specifically as to what these evaluative criteria should be. For example, we might look to stated policy objectives of the provincial government such as the Ontario Government’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. Alternatively, or in addition, we could look to the goal of “flexibility” as expressed by members of the business community or the desire of employees collectively or individually. Finally, criteria could be generated by drawing on outside sources, such as the international conception of “decent work” as articulated by the International Labour Organization.
The internationally-recognized norm of decent work may assist in efforts to construct evaluative criteria. In the federal employment context the “decency principle” has been stated as follows:
Labour standards should ensure that no matter how limited his or her bargaining power, no worker … is offered, accepts or works under conditions that Canadians would not regard as ‘decent’. No worker should therefore receive a wage that is insufficient to live on; be deprived of the payment of wages or benefits to which they are entitled; be subject to coercion, discrimination, indignity or unwarranted danger in the workplace; or be required to work so many hours that he or she is effectively denied a personal or civic life.[201]
The concept of decent work takes a positive approach to employment, in that it sets out desired characteristics, whereas the concept of precarious employment, at least in this respect, can be termed a negative approach.[202]
2. Ontario Government Policy: Poverty Reduction
There is a longstanding association between legal regulation of employment and poverty reduction initiatives in Ontario,[203] including the Poverty Reduction Strategy, launched in December 2008.[204] In May 2009, the Poverty Reduction Act, 2009, received Royal Assent.[205] “The Government’s poverty reduction strategy”, according to the Act’s preamble, “is guided by the vision of a province where every person has the opportunity to achieve his or her full potential, and contribute to and participate in a prosperous and healthy Ontario”. The Act “[r]ecogniz[es] that the reduction of poverty supports the social, economic and cultural development of Ontario”. A central feature of the provincial strategy is an acknowledgement of “the heightened risk among groups such as immigrants, women, single mothers, people with disabilities, aboriginal peoples and racialized groups”.[206] Poverty reduction was a key public policy objective behind the legislation to extend statutory protections to low-income temporary help agency workers passed in May 2009.
3. Need for Flexibility
The proliferation of precarious employment in Canada and elsewhere sometimes is regarded as a product of market forces which impose demands on employers for, most notably, flexibility in human resource allocation. From this perspective, flexibility is used to characterize the perceived human resource needs of employers during contemporary economic restructuring. The emphasis here is on how labour flexibility facilitates competitiveness in hyper-competitive globalized markets of goods, services and labour.
Labour flexibility may also help people who do not want full-time or permanent employment. For example, part-time and self-employment is sometimes regarded as a choice made by employed women to facilitate a better work/life balance, by assisting with the fulfillment of household responsibilities such as childcare. Labour flexibility has developed in response to the desire to exercise greater independence in the performance of paid work, or to juggle household and job responsibilities. While this may be a real choice for some women, others may feel compelled to limit their workplace involvement in order to satisfy their domestic responsibilities, particularly when their children are young, perhaps because of the lack of alternate childcare options or a parental helpmate.[207]
Those who see part time work as the employee’s choice tend to view concern for the impact of labour flexibility as overstated; they are concerned that policy intervention may conflict with labour market strategies to enhance the economic prospects of firms. The fear is that regulatory adjustments will be stifling, to economic and employment growth, and to adaptability of firms and workers within the labour market.
From a contrasting perspective, labour flexibility is regarded as largely beneficial to employers, not employees.[208] Although diverse forms of flexible labour exist, some of which are beneficial to individual workers, most of these arose primarily to fullfil the needs of employers. Proponents of this view point to intensifying pressures and incentives to either overwork or underwork. Moreover, they note a strong shift in the allocation of risks within the labour market. The costs, liabilities and overall risks within the employment relationship have shifted more considerably onto workers and especially onto those who least can afford it.
Labour flexibility may be described more aptly as a question not about whether or not to regulate labour markets. Even the most flexible labour markets require legal rules.[209] Rather, the fundamental issue is what form of legal regulation best suits broader public policy objectives. In recognizing the importance of both employer and employee flexibility and employee security, Arthurs set out the provisions need for what he calls “flexicurity”: “contributions from the employer, from social insurance programs…and from public or employer-funded programs designed to prepare workers for new jobs”.[210]
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