Employment Standards Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

In October 2010, the provincial government of Ontario, Canada enacted the Open for Business Act (OBA). A central component of the OBA is its provisions aiming to streamline the enforcement of Ontario’s Employment Standards Act (ESA). The OBA’s changes to the ESA are an attempt to manage a crisis of employment
standards (ES) enforcement, arising from decades of ineffective regulation, by entrenching an individualised enforcement model. The Act aims to streamline enforcement by screening people assumed to be lacking definitive proof of violations out of the complaints process. The OBA therefore produces a new category
of ‘illegitimate claimants’ and attributes administrative backlogs to these people. Instead of improving the protection of workers, the OBA embeds new racialised and gendered modes of exclusion in the ES enforcement process.

- by and +3
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- Race and Racism, Law Enforcement, Precarious Labour, Employment Standards

- Government of Alberta’s current policy plan - Other jurisdictions in North America - Sky-is-falling claims and historical data - AB case and CFIB claims - BC case and Fraser Institute claims - Affects on small businesses - Affects on... more

- Government of Alberta’s current policy plan
- Other jurisdictions in North America
- Sky-is-falling claims and historical data
- AB case and CFIB claims
- BC case and Fraser Institute claims
- Affects on small businesses
- Affects on business, economy, & government
- Benefits of minimum wage increase

- by Ian Hussey
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- Business, Sociology, Economics, Political Economy

The spectrum of employment-related geographical mobility ranges from hours-long daily commutes to journeys that take workers away from home for an extended period of time. Although distance and travel conditions vary, there is a strong consensus within existing literature that mobility has physical, psychological, and social repercussions. However, is time spent traveling considered as working time? This question is crucial as it dictates whether or not workers can effectively access different sets of labor rights. The objective of this paper is twofold. First, contributing to a deeper understanding of travel time by offering a more sustained and complex representation of the various employment-related travel schemes. Second, assessing the circumstances under which travel time counts as work time with regard to the employment standards legislation in force in four Canadian provinces: Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and British Colombia.

- by Delphine Nakache
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- Labour Law, Mobilities Studies, Employment Standards

This article explores the hidden work of workers employed in precarious jobs which are characterized by part-time and temporary contracts, limited control over work schedules, and poor access to regulatory protection. Through 77 semi-structured interviews with workers in low-wage, precarious jobs in Ontario, Canada, we examine workers' attempts to challenge the precar-ity they face when confronted by workplace conditions violating the Ontario Employment Standards Act (ESA), such as not being paid minimum wages, not being paid for overtime, being fired wrongfully or being subject to reprisals. We argue that these challenges involve hidden work, which is neither acknowledged nor recognized in the current ESA enforcement regime. We examine three types of hidden work that involve (1) creating a sense of positive self-worth amidst disempowering practices; (2) engaging in advocacy vis-à-vis employers, sometimes through launching official claims with the Ontario Ministry of Labour; and (3) developing strategies to avoid the costs of job precarity in the future. We show that this hidden work of challenging job precarity needs to be formally recognized and that concrete strategies for doing so would lead to more robust protection for workers, particularly within ESA enforcement practices.

- by Mary Jean Hande
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- Emotional Labour, Identity Work, Employment Policy, Precarious Work, Precarity