1,721,010 research outputs found
COMPARING PUBLIC SECONDARY TEACHERS IN ONTARIO
Get PDFThis dissertation compares the work and life of secondary public-school teachers in Ontario with different labour contracts during a time of crisis. The COVID public health crisis along with neoliberalism, the defunding of public education, and a climate crisis have all influenced governmental policies and the labour process of public secondary teachers in Ontario. The influences that different contracts can have on the labour process of teachers, how they feel towards their union, and the impacts on their individual health and household wellbeing before and during the first year of the COVID pandemic is the focus of this dissertation.
To help explore these contexts and the influences on the life and labour of public secondary teachers in Ontario with different contracts, I have used research from studies in Labour Process Theory, precarious work, and educational labour to inform my analysis. Along with those areas of discourse, I have also used insights from research into Critical Realism and Thematic Analysis to think through and discuss the differences between the teachers I interviewed and connect their experiences with work, their union, and their individual health and household well-being to larger systems, structures, and histories.
The interviews conducted revealed three points of interest: that precarious labour contracts can function as a disciplinary device, that larger contexts outside the contract shaped how the contract was experienced, and that teachers’ unions can act as a source of solidarity and security during a crisis and when there are certain associations with its purpose. This exploratory research aims to open up future areas of research into educational labour and differences between the experiences of educators with different contracts.DissertationDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)This project explored the differences between public secondary teachers with different contracts in Ontario before and during the COVID pandemic. It involved an online survey to help recruit participants and interviews with 36 teachers who were recruited from the online survey. Of the 36 teachers, 13 had permanent contracts, 16 had long term occasional (LTO) contracts, and 7 had occasional teaching (OT) contracts. The interviews and analysis revealed three points of interest: that precarious labour contracts in a tiered relationship with secure contracts can function as a disciplinary device, that larger contexts outside the contract shaped how the contract was experienced, and that teachers’ unions can act as a source of solidarity and security during a crisis and when there are certain associations with its purpose. Teachers with different contracts had uniquely different experiences with their work, their union, and their individual health and household wellbeing before and during COVID
Professorial Workloads and Emotional Labour
Get PDFThe neoliberal university has transformed professors into front-line workers and their students into consumers of higher learning. Research has shown there is a positive correlation between a student’s perception of supportive faculty and the completion of a degree. Professors are expected to support their students and to engage in emotional labour, labour that tends to be invisible and, thus, often unrewarded for faculty members. An online survey of professors - contract, tenure-track and tenure at three southwestern Ontario universities - indicates that many professors perform affective work as they mediate increasing institutional and student demands on their time and emotions. Data, from the survey and semi-structured interviews, highlights how emotional labour is not just about meeting student expectations, but also about dealing with job insecurity and institutional pressure to provide an educational product where the emphasis is on student satisfaction. The result is that many professors experience high levels of stress and burnout.ThesisMaster of Arts (MA)This study examines the workloads of professors at three Ontario universities. Through the use of an online survey and in-depth interviews, the working conditions of professors are revealed as well as the emotional labour professors perform in order to cope with the intensity of both institutional and student demands. It is hoped that these findings would be useful to faculty associations to better working conditions through contract negotiations and to increase public awareness of the changing and challenging environment of academia
"Prepare for the worst": Rite of passage of Filipino women's settlement and integration in Canada, from the 1960's to the present
Get PDFThis thesis explores the settlement and integration of Filipino women. It identifies the migration waves of women from the Philippines from the 1960's to the current period and uses these periods of migration as a framework for understanding the barriers and integration processes of different immigrant groups. Sixteen Filipinas were interviewed and were asked about their immigration entry to Canada, prior expectations, migration process and their settlement and integration experiences. Demographic characteristics such as marital status, level of education, social networks and employment history were also gathered to provide a profile of the sample. Data on the periods of the immigration entry to Canada, housing accommodation and settlement organizations that assisted them enabled comparisons between the various immigration waves of Filipino women. Differences and similarities in labour market integration emerged. Initial findings illustrate that the settlement and integration of Filipinas are conditioned by their entry status in Canada. Filipinas' identities are grounded not only in their various ethnic heterogenous backgrounds but also in their global position as a group of workers in the social reproduction of caring labour. This comprises their labour diaspora and transnational identity and influences their cultural perception of work, adaptation labour strategies and the tension between their occupational and social status in Canada and their homeland.Master of Arts (MA
Class Action: Class, Politics and Union Activists in Alberta
No full textThis study explores the link between class and political activism by examining the union and political participation of union activists in Alberta. Through a survey and selected in depth interviews, the study finds union activists are more politically active than average Canadians. It arrives at three core conclusions. First, union activists who possess a relational sense of class consciousness are more likely to engage in political activity. This class consciousness is formed and articulated out of lived experience, rather than intellectual understanding, and can be seen as an expression of a "culture of solidarity". Second, union activists experience a perceptible class divide separating them from middle class institutions of the political system. This divide can inhibit political participation. Union activists who cross the divide into middle class politics can be seen as "bridge builders", linking working class activists with middle class political culture. Third, unions can play an important role in fostering political activism among their members. Unions can influence the decision to act politically through concrete local action and framing the nature of union work in a class relational fashion. Recommendations for union strategies are offered, as well as suggestions for revitalizing progressive political organizations.Master of Arts (MA
Crisis of Control: OHS and Workers' Compensation in Canada's Migrant Agricultural Workers' Programs
Get PDFWhile agricultural work is hazardous for all workers, migrant workers face additional challenges that make them more vulnerable than domestic workers. The lack of access to permanent immigration status in the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) and the agricultural stream of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) makes workers’ jobs hinge on retaining their employers’ favour and creates a particular type of job insecurity that overshadows their behaviour, decisions, and agency to assert their rights for safe and healthy workplaces and workers’ compensation. While researchers argue that the TFWP competes with the SAWP as employers search for the cheapest and most docile workers, less research has examined whether workers’ health and safety exposures and experiences differ within the two programs. Drawing primarily from interviews with advocates and system stakeholders and participant observation at advocate-organized events, this research will offer preliminary answers to discovering whether the programs pose different obstacles to improving health and safety and access to compensation that affect migrant workers’ experiences in Ontario before and after injury. The research will help gather information about possible avenues to improve the health and safety of migrant workers given how the two programs operate within both federal and provincial frameworks. Advocates’ experience assisting workers in both programs offers important insights about whether differences between the programs create particular vulnerabilities for some migrant workers.
ThesisMaster of Arts (MA)This research identifies opportunities and barriers that migrant agricultural workers and their advocates face in improving occupational health and safety and access to workers' compensation in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) and the agricultural stream of the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP). Through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and document review, the research will help identify whether interplay between the programs causes additional vulnerabilities for some workers. The research will help gather information about possible avenues to improve the health and safety of migrant workers given how the two programs operate in a federal and provincial framework
'Continuous Improvement' and the Team Model at Honda of Canada Manufacturing
Get PDFThis study examines how workers experience Japanese inspired manufacturing practices at Honda of Canada Manufacturing (HCM), Alliston assembly operations and associated parts suppliers. To address how lean production methods are changing production workers responsibilities and impacting job satisfaction, the nature of production work, and the implementation of the Kaizen philosophy are investigated. I predicted that production work at HCM and its suppliers consists of some of the same alienating working conditions as experienced by workers in traditional operations with less job rotation or formal employee participation schemes. The data revealed that despite job rotation production work at these operations is alienating: workers reported that their jobs were "mind-numbing" and that they were simply there for the pay-cheque. Interestingly, some of the same individuals also reported job satisfaction when their Kaizen suggestions were implemented-but most participants noted the difficulty in actually getting their suggestions to be acted on, and the arbitrary way in which managers can administer the participation programs. Secondly, it was predicted that lean production model would result in more alienating relationships between co-workers. The relations constructed through teamwork and total quality management, can combine to create situations where employees are encouraged to point out the inferior performance of their co-workers. Data demonstrating this hypothesis is more suggestive and less conclusive. While finding the answer to this question, two other issues that warrant attention were observed. Initially, production work at HCM is stratified into an informal hierarchy of jobs, beginning with assembly work and ending with final vehicle inspection. Intertwined with the stratification of jobs is a segmented internal labour market in which 'contract' and temporary help agency employees provide a just-in-time workforce. A secondary conclusion is made that suggests the team model results in more alienating relationships between co-workers when there is a two-tier employment system.Master of Arts (MA
‘Because It Was Hardcore and It Was Cool’: Masculinity as the Basis of Consent in Geochemical Sampling
No full textGeochemical samplers carry out manual labour in difficult and dangerous conditions while largely unsupervised. This paper explores questions regarding the labour effort provided by these workers which often goes above and beyond the level necessary to maintain employment and at times endangers their personal safety. This extra effort is provided despite relatively high levels of worker autonomy, low levels of supervision, and little apparent economic incentive. Analysis of worker-level interviews using a number of possible theoretical frameworks indicates that more coercive factors such as direct managerial control and employment insecurity are unable to fully explain sampler behaviour and, instead, participant accounts indicate a form of active worker consent to increased labour effort and risk taking. This is a gendered worker consent based on a form of contingent upon the specific context of geochemical sampling. These specific contingent factors are: a working class masculinity derived from the hard manual labour of the work; the wilderness context that facilitates tropes of ‘man versus nature’ reinforcing the masculine workplace culture and obscuring the appropriation of surplus by more easily allowing the workplace to be interpreted as non-capitalist; and a fraternal masculinity resulting from the crew-based workplace organization and highly male dominated workforce composition, intensified by the conforming pressure of isolated camp life. This specific masculinity forms a basis of consent by which the autonomy afforded to workers by the labour process of geochemical sampling helps rather than hinders the imperative of management to encourage workers to exert the maximum effort.ThesisMaster of Arts (MA
Joe-Job, McJob, Not a Real Job: A Study of Working Post-Secondary Students in the Greater Toronto Area
No full textUnpredictable schedules, low pay and poor treatment are all too often central characteristics of the types of employment post-secondary students are able to find. Coupled with rising tuition many students face increased pressure to balance paid employment with their studies. The largest proportion of working students are found in the retail, hospitality and food services industries, where employer demands for flexibility are high. This thesis aims to understand how student working conditions affect their ability to pursue their education. The study posits the question as to whether the employment 'opportunities' available to students, where scheduling demands are high, risk affecting the very education they are working to pursue. How then do students navigate the difficult decision about whether to seek out paid employment or rely on student loans? The thesis also works to briefly examine if and how neo-liberal restructuring has exasperated conditions for student workers.Master of Arts (MA
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
- …
