Commentary Archives - Understanding Precarity in BC

Canada’s broken promises to migrant care workers

Alicia Massie, Anita Minh, Jennifer E. Shaw June 18, 2024

Despite the government’s promise to offer permanent residency to migrant care workers applying to the new pilot programs, there currently remains a large number of unprocessed applications from migrant care workers who will continue to be drawn from the Global South and classified as temporary labour. Canada’s care worker programs have largely drawn from the

Why BC needs sectoral bargaining now

Iglika Ivanova, Véronique Sioufi April 4, 2024

Sectoral bargaining represents a different approach to labour law than the worksite-based certification model prevalent in BC. Instead of channeling all organizing and bargaining efforts at the individual workplace, sectoral bargaining provides ways to bring together workers across an industry or occupation within a designated region to negotiate minimum standards for the entire sector.

Budget fails to fund enough supports for newcomers to BC

Véronique Sioufi March 26, 2024

New immigrants, temporary foreign workers and international students are bearing the brunt of the blame for the housing crisis and strain on public services. The real issue, however, is the provincial budget failing to keep up with demand to match the increased growth of newcomers and international students to BC.

New labour legislation to continue gig worker precarity

David Fairey, Pamela Charron February 1, 2024

The BC government has announced Bill 48 to provide better working conditions and rights for app-based ride-hail and food-delivery gig workers. Even with existing BC labour legislation, the central question is whether app-based workers employed by platform companies should be classified as “employees” entitled to all the rights and protections of BC labour laws.

New protections for BC platform workers entrench racism

Iglika Ivanova, Véronique Sioufi December 13, 2023

BC Ministry of Labour announced new employment standards that claim to “bring fairness” to the estimated 40,000 ride-hail and food-delivery workers in BC, after a year of public engagement with platform workers, platform companies and labour experts, which brought to the fore the precarious working conditions of platform workers.

Raising the bar: Our recommendations for equitable gig work in BC

Iglika Ivanova, Véronique Sioufi November 2, 2023

This is excerpted from the CCPA-BC response to the BC Ministry of Labour Discussion Paper, Proposing Employment Standards and Other Protections for App-Based Ride-Hail and Food-Delivery Workers in British Columbia.

Raising the bar: Our recommendations for equitable gig work in BC

Véronique Sioufi, Iglika Ivanova November 2, 2023

Hundreds of thousands of Canadian workers now participate to varying degrees in app-based work. Ride hail and food delivery workers are only the most visible examples of this growing workforce. There is a small but growing number of other app-based workers providing location-specific services in BC who need the same workplace rights and protections.

Fires and farmworkers: Climate justice means improving protections for migrant farmworkers

Véronique Sioufi September 15, 2023

The impacts of the climate crisis are socially and geographically uneven: the wealthiest regions contribute disproportionately to the destruction of the planet while the poorest regions suffer the heaviest consequences. In this context, migrant farmworkers find themselves doubly displaced, facing droughts and inundations in their home countries, then heatwaves, fires and floods where they come

Here’s how BC should protect app-based workers

Iglika Ivanova September 6, 2023

Despite their high-tech image, digital platform firms employ practices that are familiar from centuries of insecure work, including compensating workers on a per-task basis, offering no guarantee of continuing work, requiring them to provide tools and equipment and classifying them as ‘contractors’ not employees.

Open letter on regulating platform work from BC experts in labour law, policy and economics

CCPABC June 20, 2023

Digital platforms can offer valuable services to consumers and decent work for those providing those services. But the current practices of these firms, shirking normal employment obligations and standards, imposes unacceptable costs and risks on platform workers, other businesses and the broader public.

Work at a cafe hands paper bags to someone across a counter.

It’s time for a robust precarious work strategy for BC

Iglika Ivanova, Kendra Strauss April 17, 2023

Opinion: The B.C. government has the power to improve the lives of these workers and their families right away with the long-promised provincial precarious work strategy. The rise of the “gig economy” and on-demand work through platforms like Uber has ignited public debate about precarious work and what makes a “good job.”

New survey data shines light on the extent and impacts of precarious employment in BC

Iglika Ivanova, Kendra Strauss April 13, 2023

The government efforts to develop an effective precarious work strategy for BC—as promised in the 2020 election—are hampered by the lack of data on the scale and impacts of precarious work. To fill this gap, we embarked on our own data collection project, the pilot BC Precarity Survey.

Will 2023 be the year BC farmworkers finally receive basic minimum wage protections?

David Fairey January 26, 2023

BC’s cost of living—measured by the BC Consumer Price Index—has increased by 11.5 per cent since 2019. And a 2019 Ministry of Labour report shows that some blueberry pickers are still legally paid less than minimum wage. Many farmworkers excluded from standard BC labour protections are highly exploited, racialized recent immigrants.

British Columbian workers in the public sector, transit and transportation have voted to take job action in recent weeks to fight for their right to earn livable wages. (Shutterstock)

A summer of discontent? Why public sector workers are preparing to strike in B.C.

Kendra Strauss August 10, 2022

Statistics Canada announced a rise in consumer inflation to 8.1 per cent in June 2022. Skyrocketing inflation is the major cause behind worker unrest and collective action. The main driver of inflation is the price of gasoline, but even excluding gas the consumer price index rose 6.5 per cent in June. Hourly wages, on the

A win for BC workers: single-step union certification

UP-BC Partnership May 4, 2022

The BC government recently introduced legislation that allows a majority of workers in a workplace to organize a union a little more easily, making it harder for employers to intimidate and interfere in organizing drives. That’s good news both for working people and for the quality of our democracy.

Employment rights justice denied to thousands of BC Workers

David Fairey, Pamela Charron April 14, 2022

For decades, the BC Employment Standards Branch has not effectively enforced the Employment Standards Act, meaning thousands of workers are denied their legal rights, a new report that we co-wrote with the BC Employment Standards Coalition shows.

COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for a living wage

UP-BC Partnership January 11, 2022

With the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, news stories sounding the alarm over worker shortages are once again on the rise. And, like previous waves, these news stories are focused almost exclusively on workers in low-wage, precarious jobs. These jobs service large parts of the Canadian economy that are now being recognized as

Legislated Paid Sick Leave – A Historic Moment for Worker Rights

UP-BC Partnership October 6, 2021

The BC government will implement the right for all employees to have a minimum number of employer-paid sick days on January 1, 2022. BC will become just the third province in Canada to do so—and has an opportunity to make history by bringing in the strongest, most well-designed program in the country.

Commentary

Canada’s broken promises to migrant care workers

Why BC needs sectoral bargaining now

Budget fails to fund enough supports for newcomers to BC

New labour legislation to continue gig worker precarity

New protections for BC platform workers entrench racism

Raising the bar: Our recommendations for equitable gig work in BC

Raising the bar: Our recommendations for equitable gig work in BC

Fires and farmworkers: Climate justice means improving protections for migrant farmworkers

Here’s how BC should protect app-based workers

Open letter on regulating platform work from BC experts in labour law, policy and economics

It’s time for a robust precarious work strategy for BC

New survey data shines light on the extent and impacts of precarious employment in BC

Will 2023 be the year BC farmworkers finally receive basic minimum wage protections?

A summer of discontent? Why public sector workers are preparing to strike in B.C.

A win for BC workers: single-step union certification

Employment rights justice denied to thousands of BC Workers

COVID-19 pandemic highlights the need for a living wage

Legislated Paid Sick Leave – A Historic Moment for Worker Rights

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