Full Description
Canada has one of the highest rates of low-wage work among advanced industrial economies. In a labour market characterized by the ongoing fallout from COVID-19, deepening income inequality, job instability, and diluted union representation, the living wage movement offers a response. Rising Up traces the history and international context of living wage movements across Canada. In the 1970s, the balance of political and economic power began to shift in favour of business, as trade unions weakened and governments failed to check corporate power. By the 2000s, austerity measures had dismantled social spending, facilitating the growth of low-waged employment. Contributors to this astute collection of essays examine union- and community-based approaches to labour organizing, migrant labour, and media (mis)representations, among other key topics. Offering stimulating debate about living wages and social inequality, Rising Up promotes alternatives to a neoliberalized labour market.
Contents
1 Resisting Low-Wage Work: The Struggle for Living Wages / Bryan Evans, Carlo Fanelli, and Tom McDowell
Part 1: The "Standard" Employment Relationship: Low-Wage Work
2 The Comparative Political Economy of Low Wages / Stephen McBride, Sorin Mitrea, and Mohammad Ferdosi
3 Labour Justice: Assessing the Politics of the American Labor Movement / Biko Koenig and Deva Woodly
4 Media (Mis)Representations and the Living Wage Movement / Carlo Fanelli and A.J. Wilson
Part 2: The Fight for Living Wages in Canada
5 The Emergence of the Living Wage Movement in Canada's Northern Territories / Kendall Hammond
6 Getting By but Dreaming of Normal: Low-Wage Employment, Living in Toronto, and the Crisis of Social Reproduction / Meg Luxton and Patricia McDermott
7 The Living Wage and the Extremely Precarious: The Case of "Illegalized" Migrant Workers / Charity-Ann Hannan, John Shields, and Harald Bauder
8 Working for a Living, Not Living for Work: Living Wages in the Maritimes / Mary-Dan Johnston and Christine Saulnier
9 The BC Living Wage for Families Campaign: A Decade of Building / Catherine Ludgate
10 Challenging the Small Business Ideology in Saskatchewan's Living Wage Debate / Andrew Stevens
Part 3: Resistance and Alternatives
11 The Living Wage Campaign in Hamilton: Assessing the Voluntary Approach / David Goutor
12 Why Business-Led Living Wage Campaigns Fail: The Case of Calgary, Alberta 1999-2009 / Carol-Anne Hudson
13 The Low-Wage Economy in the Age of Neoliberalism: What Can be Done? / Tom McDowell, Sune Sandbeck, and Bryan Evans
List of Contributors; Index
