A.                 Introduction 

This project looks at the meaning of “precarious work” and the identity of those who perform precarious work, workers we are calling “vulnerable workers”. It explores the various dimensions and ramifications of “precarious” (or “contingent” or “atypical”) work, both with respect to working conditions and the degree of protection offered by legislation and processes for enforcement, and its effect on the daily and long-term lives of workers who are engaged in precarious work.

 

B.                  Precarious Work 

1.                  What is Precarious Work? 

“Precarious work” finds much of its meaning when it is compared to the “standard employment relationship”. The standard employment relationship is based on full-time, continuous and life-long or permanent work with decent pay and benefits. The assumption of the standard employment relationship was supplemented by “the social safety net”, intended to cover breaks in employment and to some extent the end of a person’s working life. Although the standard employment relationship did not cover all working relationships by any means, over time, it has become even less common. Increasingly, workers move more often from one job to another. More and more workers are employed in short-term work with few, if any, benefits, or work in a relationship that is treated as if they are (in)dependent contractors, even though the conditions of work in other ways resemble employment. There is little job security or influence over working conditions.[1] The Supreme Court of Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Labour have both recognized the concept of “vulnerable worker” as associated with particular types of work.[2] 

Precarious work can be identified through the structure of the work or the kind of work. Part-time employment, own account or self-employed work and temporary work of various kinds are common forms of precarious work.  

Part-time work usually takes the form of, for example, 20 or 24 hours a week, or it may overlap with temporary work such as when the same worker is regularly hired every Christmas. Workers may obtain temporary employment through temporary employment agencies, through direct contact with employers, on term limited contracts lasting from a few weeks to a year or so, or through federal migration schemes. While this work may be “temporary” for the worker, the work itself may be required by the employer on a permanent or regular basis. Protective legislation does not distinguish between full and part-time employees, but employers are not required to pay part-time workers the same rate or give them the same benefits as full-time workers. Women are disproportionately engaged in part-time work.[3] 

Own-account self employment accounted for 16% of employment in Canada in 2000. Most workers in this category do not have control over how work is done or benefit from an increase in the profits of the company; they are not like small business owners (“entrepreneurs”), but more like employees. Nevertheless, they may not be covered by protective legislation that applies to “employees” because they are not considered employees. This type of precarious work has increased over the last two decades, particularly among women.[4] 

Temporary employment constitutes 12.5% of all employment in Canada; many temporary employees receive about half the pay that full-time employees in the same kind of job receive; fewer than 10% receive extended health care and only 2% dental benefits.[5]  

Workers assigned by temporary employment agencies (or “temp agencies”) are temporary employees. (Temp agencies provide or assign employees to their “employer” clients for specific periods of time.) Since the 1990s, the number of temp agencies has increased from 1,300 to 4,200 in 2004, with revenues of $6 billion, 60% of which was generated in Ontario.[6] Many temp agency employees received new rights and benefits in November 2009 through Bill 139, the Employment Standards Amendment Act (Temporary Help Agencies), 2009, which amended the Employment Standards Act, 2000, although the new provisions do not apply to all temp agency employees, such as those who perform personal services under certain conditions. Bill 139 makes clear that the temp agency is the employer of the individual, rather than the entity to which the individual may be assigned. Temp agency employees now receive public holiday pay and termination and severance pay. 

Workers on federal migration schemes are given visas to work in Canada for specified periods of time and therefore both their employment and their immigration status are temporary. There has been an increase in temporary foreign workers of 125% since the 1990s. Workers who come to Canada under federal temporary migration schemes are often destined for precarious work. Other immigration programs target highly skilled or economically well-off workers or entrepreneurs for whom the terms of relevant programs are not so limiting, however. 

The federal Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) which began in 1966 permits workers (now mainly from Mexico) to work in Canada for up to eight months a year. These workers are not able to extend their stay or apply for permanent residence while in Canada.[7] 

The Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) began in 2003 to recruit workers for a variety of sectors, including agricultural, construction, hospitality and meat packing. These workers work for two years, but as with workers under SAWP, are not allowed to remain after that period. New regulations coming into effect in April 2011 provide that these workers may not remain in Canada for more than four years and must wait an additional four years before applying under the program again.[8]  

An important exception to the temporary immigrant status under the federal programs is the federal Live-in Caregiver Program (begun in an earlier form in 1910). It permits caregivers to serve as domestic workers in Canada for two years initially; it also allows them to extend their stay and to apply for permanent resident status.[9] 

The various forms of precarious work provide flexibility to the employer who may not require full-time workers all year or to perform certain tasks or they may have difficulty finding Canadian workers to perform certain kinds of work. They may also seek to avoid paying benefits they would pay to full-time workers, however. 

Workers also may wish to maintain flexibility in their work situation, although often they do not and would prefer full time work. For some workers, flexibility may provide opportunities to gain Canadian work experience, allow individuals time to engage in other pursuits or provide “added cash” at particular times. Migrant workers earn more than in their home countries and are able to “send money home”. For other workers, however, precarious work may mean that they must work at more than one job in order to earn enough to live and support a family (not an option available to migrant workers).  

There have always been workers who can be described as “vulnerable”, whose wages were low, who enjoyed few if any benefits and whose continued employment was constantly in doubt. In contrast, other workers have enjoyed a “standard employment relationship” with one employer for life or, at least, long periods of time.  Increasingly, work that was structured as permanent providing a “standard employment relationship”, has become more insecure. For some employees, the increased insecurity may be compensated for by opportunities for training or other benefits.[10] This is not the case for the workers who are the subject of this project. 

Many protective statutes do not explicitly distinguish between part-time or temporary employees and full-time employees, yet their benefits may not be available to part-time or temporary employees for a variety of reasons. For example, these workers may not be able to meet the length of service requirements that sometimes apply to receipt of benefits.

 

2.                  Measures of Precarious Work  

We are using four (often highly related) measures to determine whether work is “precarious”:

·                     Earnings: the relationship of earnings to the minimum wage or a specified level, such as a poverty line;

·                     Benefits or “social wage”:  such as pensions, dental benefits, extended medical coverage that can have implications for the circumstances of the whole family;

·                     Regulatory protection: whether covered by employment statutes or whether able to unionize and how well protections that do exist can be enforced; and

·                     Control: whether unionized or whether there are other indications the workers have the ability to affect their working conditions.[11]

In broad terms, using these factors, precarious work is work that is paid, but with low or unstable wages, with few if any benefits, weak or non-existent statutory protection that is difficult to enforce, that occurs in a non-unionized workplace and that offers little or no other opportunities to affect conditions within the workplace.

 

C.                  Vulnerable Workers
 

Workers engaged in precarious work who may be described as “vulnerable” are found among a full range of ethnic groups and other “cohorts” or populations, other than those of higher socio-economic classes. Workers whose employment relationships may still be considered “standard” may find themselves in more precarious work if they lose their current jobs, particularly if they are older. Nevertheless, vulnerable workers are found disproportionately among white women, among men and women of particular racialized groups and persons with a disability or disabilities. We are referring to these characteristics as workers’ “social location”, a term that includes gender, “race”, immigrant status, age, ability and other sources of marginalization.[12] Readers are also referred to the LCO’s projects on older adults[13] and persons with disabilities[14] which refer to these cohorts’ relationship to work for pay. 

1.                  Gender
 

Women are more deeply concentrated in the most precarious forms of work and this inequality has continued to exist even while the rate of female participation in the workforce has increased. This is at least in part because of the connection made between women’s role in the family and their role in the workplace and the continuing reality that, while men have become more involved in family life, women still assume a greater share of domestic responsibilities. Women are more likely to be engaged in part-time and temporary employment, whether from a “real” choice or otherwise, and to be concentrated in home care and child care and in service occupations.[15] 

 

2.                  “Racialization” and Immigrant Status 

The concept of “racialization” is complex and its meaning disputed. (Specifically, the issue is whether all persons should be considered “racialized” or whether the term should be restricted to those whose “race” attracts disadvantage. Thinking about racialization in the former sense recognizes that most of us can attribute our advantages and disadvantages at least in part to our ethnic or national origins and more specifically to our “colour”, just as we can to our class from childhood forwards.) We are using the term in its most commonly recognized meaning, however, to refer to a process by which physical or observable characteristics are assigned social significance, including those based on stereotyping.[16]  

Another issue raised by the concept of “racialization” is whether it is appropriate to include First Nations people as a “racialized” community, given their distinct status.[17] For this reason and the complexity of Aboriginal (un)employment, this project does not currently address the vulnerability of First Nations workers. Rather we ask for feedback on the following question: 

Are the experiences of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal persons with regard to precarious work sufficiently different to warrant distinct treatment?  

Because of the difficulty in finding jobs and the decline in certain employment sectors, lack of contacts, lack of ease with language and apparent preconceptions held by some employers, significant numbers of members of racialized communities, and specifically recent immigrants, are found in precarious work. Not unrelatedly, empirical data show that immigrants, particularly those who are not white, are more likely to live in poverty in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.[18] 

The pattern of immigration has changed over the past forty years or so in two overlapping respects. The first is that the source countries for permanent residents have changed from countries primarily inhabited by white people to those primarily populated by persons of colour[19] and the second is the increase in the number of temporary workers entering Canada every year, most of whom arrive from the latter countries. Many workers under TFWP come from Guatemala and Thailand, for example; many women entering Canada under the Caregiver Program are from the Philippines; and workers under SAWP, mostly men, come primarily from the Caribbean Commonwealth countries and Mexico.[20] A third aspect of immigrant status is that it includes persons who lack official status and thus are unable to work legally.[21]  

A not uncommon pattern for immigrants has been that they find short-term, low paid jobs when they arrive in Canada, but that within five years or even less, they have moved to more stable work that is better paid with benefits. At the macro level, this pattern has changed. A Statistics Canada study found that 54% of people in non-standard jobs in 1999 (five million workers) continued in this kind of work for the next two years.[22] 

These categories of social identity intersect. There is, therefore, a growing appreciation of the relationship between “women of colour” and precarious work.[23]

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