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

This paper examines the relationship between precarious employment, legalstatus, and racialization. We conceptualize legal status to include theintersections of immigration and citizenship. Usingthe PEPSO survey data weoperationalize three categories of legal status: Canadian born, foreign-borncitizens, and foreign-born non-citizens. First we examine whether the characterof precarious work varies depending on legal status, and find that it does:Citizenship by birth or naturalization reduces employment precarity across mostdimensions and indicators. Next, we ask how legal status intersects withracialization to shape precarious employment. We find that employmentprecarity is disproportionately high for racializednon-citizens. Becoming acitizen mitigates employment precarity. Time in Canada also reduces precarity,but not for non-citizens. Foreign birth and citizenship acquisition intersect withracialization unevenly: Canadian born racialized groups exhibit higheremployment precarity than racialized foreign-born citizens. Our analysisunderscores the importance of including legal status in intersectional analyses ofsocial inequality.

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

This paper examines the impact of precarity on thenonprofit serviceproviding sector (NPSS). Using in depth qualitativeinterviews, recentempirically-based surveys of the Ontario nonprofitsector and key academic andgrey literature, we explore the deeper meaning of precarity in this sector. Wecontend that the NPSS is a unique, and in many respects, an ideal location inwhich to explore the workings and impact of precarity. Looking at the nonprofitsector reveals that precarity operates at various levels, the: 1) nonprofit labourforce; 2) organization structure and operation of nonprofit agencies; and, 3)clients and communities serviced by these nonprofitorganizations. By observingthe workings of precarity in this sector, precarityis revealed to be far more thanan employment based phenomenon but also a force that negatively impactsorganizational structures as well as vulnerable communities.

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

This paper examines the association between incomeand precariousemployment, how this association is changing and how it is shaped by gender andrace. It explores how precarious employment has spread to even middle incomeoccupations and what this implies for our understanding of contemporary labourmarkets and employment relationship norms. The findings indicate a need to refineour views of who is in precarious employment and aneed to re-evaluate the natureof the Standard Employment Relationship, which we would argue is not onlybecoming less prevalent, but also transitioning into something that is less secure.

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.

STRUGGLING WITH ‘SECURITY’: NATI ONAL SECURITY AND L A BOUR IN THE PORTS

Systems of social protection are being quickly and quietly recast by developments in a surprising policy area. The rapidly expanding infrastructure of national security policy in Canada compromises labour rights and social forms of security. Security clearance programs, under development for port workers, compromise employment security by making workers and their families subject to invasive screenings that violate privacy, allow for job suspension based on 'reasonable suspicion' of terrorist affiliation, and offer no meaningful independent appeals process. New security regulations threaten to institutionalize racial profiling and undermine collective bargaining. Moreover, there are plans to generalize these programs across the transport sector - a large part of the labour force that includes trucking, mass transit, airport, and rail workers. In this paper I look at ongoing struggles over port security in Canada. I suggest that national security policy as backdoor labour policy works to institutionalize 'anti-social' forms of security.