Non-Standard Employment and Worker Solidarity in Canada (original) (raw)

In this paper I trace the development of a “non-standard employment regime” in Canada in relation to the decline of the post-WWII ‘social contract’ and unions’ conceptions of solidarity up until the present. Non-standard employment has been widespread in recent decades, appearing in multiple forms of “precarious work.” To understand what is new, I will begin by showing the institutionalization of the “standard employment relationship” (SER) – full-time work with a single employer and with long-term security - under the post-WWII compromise between capital and labour, and the process by which this new “labour regime” established a legal framework of union recognition and paved the way for a welfare system of managed accumulation. The breakdown of the SER is associated with neoliberal restructuring, i.e., a shift to precarious employment under labour processes defined by flexibility, just-in-time manufacturing, as well as the contradictions of national state regulation. I will demonstrate the extent of non-standard employment by comparing the various forms of precarious labour - temporary, part-time, multiple-job-holding, and solo self-employment – and their associated lack of adequate wages, benefits, union representation, and job security, with reference to specific industries and sectors. By analyzing the permanent insecurity this seemingly new labour regime has established, I argue that emerging, diffused forms of solidarity are required by the labour movement, ones centred less on standard of living and legal recognition than on quality of life and community-building.