Digital Reading Room 2.0 -- LBST 325: Labour mobility and migrant workers (Rev. 1)

LBST 325: Labour mobility and migrant workers (Rev. 1) Report a Broken Link

Labour mobility examines the geographic mobility of workers. Approximately 44% of Canadians regularly cross at least one municipal, provincial, territorial, or national boundary on their way to and from work. About 10% of these workers work in transient or mobile workplaces. There are also over 300,000 foreign nationals working temporarily in Canada today, and approximately 270,000 new immigrants to Canada each year.

Labour mobility can result in complex, cascading, and often gendered patterns of mobility and immobility. Labour mobility also entails significant policy and regulatory complexity. This course examines these various forms of labour mobility and how they affect workers, their families, and the sending and receiving communities. The course particularly emphasizes labour mobility in western Canada.

Unit 1

Alberta Stories. (n.d.). Edward Cardinal: Blending school and work with Métis traditional lifeways. On the Move Partnership. Retrieved 6 April 2020 from http://albertastories.onthemovepartnership.ca/edward-cardinal

Backhouse, C. (2005). Legal discrimination against the Chinese in Canada: The historical framework. In D. Dyzenhaus & M. Moran (Eds.), Calling power to account: Law, reparations, and the Chinese Canadian head tax case (pp. 24–59). University of Toronto Press.

Note: To access this reading, you will have to scroll to page 24 of the eText.

Thompson, J. H. (1978). Bringing in the sheaves: The harvest excursionists, 1890–1929. Canadian Historical Review, 59(4), 467–489. https://doi.org/10.3138/CHR-059-04-04

Laliberte, R. (2006). The "Grab-a-Hoe" Indians: The Canadian state and the procurement of Aboriginal labour for the southern Alberta sugar beet industry. Prairie Forum, 31(2), 305–324. Retrieved 6 April 2020 from https://iportal.usask.ca/index.php?sid=383988243&id=22624&t=details&having=484859

Unit 2

Haan, M., Walsh, D., & Neis, B. (2014). At the crossroads: Geography, gender and occupational sector in employment-related geographical mobility. Canadian Studies in Population, 41(3–4), 6–21. https://doi.org/10.25336/P6G60D

Newhook, J. T., Neis, B., Jackson, L., Roseman, S. R., Romanow, P., & Vincent, C. (2011). Employment-related mobility and the health of workers, families, and communities: The Canadian context. Labour / Le Travail, 67, 121–156. Retrieved from http://www.lltjournal.ca/index.php/llt/article/view/5632

Cresswell, T., Dorow, S., & Roseman, S. (2016). Putting mobility theory to work: Conceptualizing employment-related geographic mobility. Environment and Planning Analysis A: Economy and Space, 48(9), 1787–1803. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X16649184

Unit 3

Alberta Stories. (n.d.). Rachel Connors: Ironworker. On the Move Partnership. Retrieved 6 April 2020 from http://albertastories.onthemovepartnership.ca/rachel

Alberta Stories. (n.d.). Harold McLeary: Construction worker. On the Move Partnership. Retrieved 6 April 2020 from http://albertastories.onthemovepartnership.ca/harolds-story

Premji, S. (2017). Precarious employment and difficult daily commutes. Industrial Relations/Relations Industrielles, 72(1), 77–98. https://doi.org/10.7202/1039591ar

Fitzpatrick, K., & Neis, B. (2015). On the move and working alone: Policy implications of the experiences of unionized Newfoundland and Labrador homecare workers. Policy and Practice in Health and Safety, 13(2), 47–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/14774003.2015.11667817

Storey, K., & Hall, H. (2018). Dependence at a distance: Labour mobility and the evolution of the single industry town. The Canadian Geographer, 62(2), 225–237. https://doi.org/10.1111/cag.12390

Markey, S., Ryser, L., & Halseth, G. (2015). “We’re all in this together”: Community impacts of long-distance labour commuting. Rural society, 24(2), 131–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/10371656.2015.1060717

Unit 4

Unit 5

Barnetson, B. (2018). Immigration Policy and Foreign Workers. In Canada’s Labour Market Training System (pp. 83–89). Athabasca University Press.

Note: To access this reading, you will have to scroll to page 83 of the eText.

Alberta Stories. (n.d.). Gabriela Garcia Torres: Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). On the Move Partnership. Retrieved 6 April 2020 from http://albertastories.onthemovepartnership.ca/sawp

Alberta Stories. (n.d.). Ashok Kumar: Hospitality. On the Move Partnership. Retrieved 6 April 2020 from http://albertastories.onthemovepartnership.ca/hospitality

Alberta Stories. (n.d.). Anong Na Ayuthaya: Experiencing trafficking. On the Move Partnership. Retrieved 6 April 2020 from http://albertastories.onthemovepartnership.ca/trafficking

Preibisch, K., & Hennebry, J. L. (2012). Buy local, hire global: Temporary migration in Canadian agriculture. In P. T. Lenard & C. Straehle (Eds.), Legislated inequality: Temporary labour migration in Canada (pp. 48–72). McGill-Queen's University Press.

Torres, S., Spitzer, D. L., Hughes, K. D., Oxman-Martinez, J., & Hanley, J. (2012). From temporary worker to resident: The LCP and its impact through an intersectional lens. In P. T. Lenard & C. Straehle (Eds.), Legislated inequality: Temporary labour migration in Canada (pp. 227–244). McGill-Queen's University Press.

Foster, J., & Barnetson, B. (2017). Who’s on secondary? The impact of temporary foreign workers on Alberta construction and employment patterns. Labour/Le Travail, 80, pp. 27–53. Retrieved from http://www.lltjournal.ca/index.php/llt/article/view/5867

Alberta Stories. (n.d.). Carlos Alarcon: Meatpacking. On the Move Partnership. Retrieved 6 April 2020 from http://albertastories.onthemovepartnership.ca/meatpacking

Bucklaschuk, J. (2016). A temporary program for permanent gains? Considering the workplace experiences of temporary foreign workers in Manitoba’s hog-processing industry. In S. A. McDonald & B. Barnetson (Eds.), Farm workers in western Canada (pp. 101–119). University of Alberta Press.

Note: To access this reading, you will have to scroll to Chapter 5 (page 101) of the eText.

Unit 6

Bauder, H. (2003). “Brain abuse”, or the devaluation of immigrant labour in Canada. Antipode, 35(4), 699–717. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1467-8330.2003.00346.x

Singh, C. S. (2020). Floating to the lure of the promised land: Tamil refugees in Canada [Draft]. In G. Melynk and C. Parker (Eds.), Finding Refuge in Canada: Narratives of Dislocation. Athabasca University Press.

Alberta Stories. (n.d.). Eugene Pavlovych: Manufacturing. On the Move Partnership. Retrieved 6 April 2020 from http://albertastories.onthemovepartnership.ca/manufacturing

Dauvergne, C. (2008). On being illegal. In Making people illegal: What globalization means for migration and law (pp. 9–28). Cambridge University Press.

Saad, S. (2013). The cost of invisibility: The psychosocial impact of falling out of status. In L. Goldring & P. Landolt (Eds.), Producing and negotiating non-citizenship: Precarious legal status in Canada (pp.137–153). University of Toronto Press.

Luciano, M., & Foster, J. (2020, April 29). In the shadows: Living and working without status in Alberta. Parkland Institute. Retrieved from https://www.parklandinstitute.ca/in_the_shadows

Unit 7