Suchergebnisse

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 precarity 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 precarity in the future. We argue that this hidden work of challenging precarity needs to be formally recognized and that concrete strategies for doing so might lead to more robust protection for workers, particularly within ESA enforcement practices.

AbstractIn Ontario, workers who face unfair working conditions have the option of filing an official complaint with the Ministry of Labour. Complaints making is characterized as a widely available, easily accessible, and free‐of‐cost avenue for workers who may have experienced a violation of the law. However, interviews with Ontario workers who have filed complaints tell a different story. This paper is based on a community‐university project on the enforcement of the Employment Standards Act in Ontario. We draw on 36 interviews with workers employed in precarious jobs in Sudbury, Toronto, and Windsor, who filed complaints to the Ministry. Workers characterize the complaints process as rife with bureaucratic complexity, risk, and unsuccessful payouts. Their experiences shed light on the efficacy of complaint‐based approaches that are often promoted as a form of "bottom‐up" enforcement of employment standards (ES). We demonstrate that the current ES complaints system requires workers to enact neoliberal entrepreneurialism (rather than agentic or collective entrepreneurialism) creating a highly stressful, enormously time‐consuming, and demoralizing experience. We document the increasingly individualized and contradictory avenues through which workers must act as entrepreneurs to navigate and self‐advocate when their rights have been violated. We argue that the current complaint processes limit the potentially empowering impact of this strategy.

Directly funded (DF) home care is a policy mechanism where individuals are given funds to arrange their own services by hiring people in their communities or by subcontracting to service provider organizations. In 2017, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care briefly established a crown agency called Self-Directed Personal Support Services Ontario (SDPSSO). The stated goal of the SDPSSO was to create a DF home care program to serve older people, expanding an existing Ontario program serving a small number of younger adults with disabilities. The development of SDPSSO was influenced by the then health minister's ideological belief, pressure to reform home care from multiple stakeholders, and positive (although sparse) international evidence of the efficacy of DF home care among older adults. Reaction to the policy shift included a judicial injunction brought forward by a coalition group of home care service providers, halting implementation. A SWOT analysis shows that the SDPSSO provided as many threats and unknowns as there were possible benefits. A change in provincial government resulted in the dissolution of the SDPSSO in 2018 and the introduction of a family-managed program that continues to exclude older people. It is unclear what future changes may be in store for home care in Ontario. Le programme de financement direct (FD) des soins à domicile consiste à transférer des fonds aux individus pour qu'ils mettent en oeuvre eux-mêmes les services dont ils ont besoin en recrutant au sein de leur communauté ou en sous-traitant à des organismes fournisseurs de services. En 2017, le Ministère de la Santé et des Soins de Long-Terme de l'Ontario a mis en place un éphémère organisme de la couronne appelé Services de Soutien à la Personne Autogérés de l'Ontario (SSPAO). L'objectif affiché de SSPAO était de créer un programme de FD pour les personnes âgées, par extension d'un programme déjà en place pour une population restreinte de jeunes adultes handicapés. Le développement de cet organisme peut s'expliquer par une préférence idéologique du ministre de l'époque, des pressions de multiples origines pour réformer le système des soins de long-terme à domicile et des éléments de preuve rares mais favorables sur l'efficacité des soins à domicile FD pour les personnes âgées. En réaction à ce changement de politique, une coalition de producteurs de services de soins à domicile a déposé une injonction en justice, freinant la mise en place de l'organisme. Une analyse FFOM (SWOT) montre que le SSPAO engendrait autant de menaces et d'inconnues que d'avantages possibles. Un changement de gouvernement provincial a conduit à la dissolution du SSPAO en 2018 et à l'introduction d'un programme de gestion familiale qui continue à exclure les personnes âgées. L'avenir des soins à domicile en Ontario est pour le moins incertain.

Directly funded home care provides funds to individuals to arrange their own services. We ask, what is unique about being a directly funded home care worker? Our qualitative case study in Manitoba, Canada, included an online survey of 95 directly funded workers and interviews with 13 key informants, 24 clients and/or family managers, and 23 workers. Framed by feminist and disability care theories, we found 'social task shifting', that is: work that keeps households running and supports socialising; front-line worker involvement in care administration; and blurred relationships. Some directly funded workers are empowered by social task shifting, though the expectations can feel limitless.