The future of work in Canada will see intensified debates between business and workers, pitting Canada’s growing small business and corporate class against the working class. Even at a time when more Canadians are entrepreneurs, independent contractors, working from home, and working on more favorable, convenient terms, one can still see every day Canadians having difficulty achieving fair wages and fair conditions as the business class does not want to provide benefits, does not want to provide increased wages, and does not want to provide employees anything beyond what is minimally expected. The future of work will unquestionably be in favor of corporations and the business class, exposing Canadians to reduced benefits and increasingly unfavorable work conditions.
Inequality, Insecurity, and the Health Impact of Work
There is a real insecurity to work in Canada right now as workers are being negatively impacted by the wages offered to them, loyalty to an employer is not necessarily what it once was decades ago, and there is an impact being felt predominantly on mental health which is something that the business class rarely discusses. The media refuses to really delve into such issues, particularly in television and film and entertainment-related media, where consumption and popular culture is more likely to be focused on rather than uncovering the dynamics of workers trying to make sense of a system where they are perpetually in equal (Foster, 1998). For example, assuming one chooses to work a custodian’s job which is not skilled work. This person is never going to see their income rise or get a promotion however what they will receive is steady work and steady pay. Some Canadians accept this because it gives them and their families stability (Sennett, 1998). Unfortunately, as the work environment changes, people in these types of positions can lose their positions and not have any path forward on obtaining employment.
There is also the technology dynamic which has the potential to revolutionize work by creating new jobs or potentially taking away jobs through automation and AI. It is unclear the full extent of tech’s impact on work in Canada however what’s being seen today is technology creating a ‘ball and chain’ effect on some workers, which keeps them attached to the workplace through their cell phones, emails, and laptops. Unless one unplugs completely from the Internet, anything linked has the potential to keep a person connected – resulting in exacerbated stress and feelings of being overworked (Fraser, 2001). Workers in Canada are likely to continue tolerating this sort of connection as they do not know what the alternative is. This is precisely what the future of work in Canada looks like. Employees and workers do not know what equality in the workplace looks like nor how to achieve it.
Organization of Work and the Question of ‘Post-Industrialism’
In post-industrialism and the organization of work, one is seeing a clear difference between unskilled work and work requiring an educational background component. If one goes to university or college to achieve a degree in a trade or field, they are usually able to achieve higher wages and more favorable terms in employment than Canadians who have not gone to school. For Canadians who have not pursued post-secondary – either due to lack of interest, lack of funds, or lack of opportunity – it is going to be tremendously difficult for them to find meaningful work. This is nothing new, however. Byerman (2000) spoke of Loretta, a 45-year-old woman who wanted to be an archaeologist but who did not have the education to pursue this work as her personal circumstances did not provide her the time, financial backing, or support she needed to move forward. Unless there are more upward mobility programs, job programs, and ways in which Canadians can obtain post-secondary education, such circumstances are going to continue to be duplicated over and over again, thereby creating second tier citizens.
Globalization of Work
Canada is having to compete with other nations as it pertains to things like technological developments, the installation of manufacturing facilities, importing and exporting dynamics, and more. In addition to competing with other nations, the other side of globalization is that some Canadians are leaving Canada to find work elsewhere in addition to workers from all over the world filtering into Canada for work. Mobility between countries and the movement of global communications, supported by the ever-expanding Internet, is certainly resulting in more connections worldwide between individuals, companies, corporations, and countries. While this has created a more global feel to work, it has increased the competition for jobs in every sense of the word – between prospective employees, on prospective contracts, and more.
The speed of globalization development has also meant every component of Canadian society focusing on turning out as many workers as it can as fast as possible, deriving the most profit at the expense of the population if need be. Education institutions are being subject to external auditing that threatens these institutions with negative financial consequences if they do not turn out enough skilled graduates with efficiency and effectiveness, in its simplest form described as a ‘McDonaldization of society’ (Hartley 1995). The high level of competition has put pressure on everyone to product. Although worker support groups have called for international unions as a means of defense against multi-national corporations exploiting regions, this request has largely fallen on deaf ears and will prove to be no doubt incredibly difficult to organize ('Chapter 7: Unions, Industrial Relations, and Strikes’, 2011). Instead, globalization has allowed corporations to shop around their facilities and work to the most vulnerable, political weak, and deregulated countries where they can pay out the lowest wages possible and avoid having to give more as they would be required to do so in Europe and North America (2008). Although globalization could have positive consequences, at this time, the effects are primarily negative and this paper predicts that will not change anytime soon.
Work and the Environment
A positive to the future of work in Canada is environmental resources. It is a country with a lot of natural resources which can be exploited in a number of ways. It is also better protected than other countries as it pertains to climate change.
The Impact of Unions on Work and Workers
It is unclear on what the future of unions will be in Canada. In the past century, unions have continually fallen by the wayside and in some cases, are negatively depicted in media through contract disputes, refusals to work, and more. By the business class, unions are generally seen as getting in the way of productivity and negatively impacting industry. Considering Canada arguably values its business class more than its working class, the interests of business come first which, if believed, would mean unions are unlikely to populate any more than they already have. Just looking at attempts to unionize at some of North America’s larger employers – such as Walmart – these efforts have not been allowed to proceed as the corporation has not cooperated. Although a Windsor, Ontario location was able to successfully negotiate a union at their Walmart in 1997, they gave up bargaining rights and the ability to negotiate a first collective agreement, and subsequently any other attempts at unionization in North America has even resulted in stores being shut down (‘Introduction’, 2011). Anything which threatens a business model with a reliance on low labor costs, such as the Walmart example, is unlikely to lead to anything favorable in the employees’ favor (Adams, 2005). Therefore, the corporations win.
There are also plenty of workplaces and employment situations which are able to get around the presence of unions and any sort of regulation. Independent contractors struggle with this. Trucking is as another example, an industry which has continually pushed its workers beyond the point of what one might consider ‘healthy’ in the name of efficiency and without any sort balance in favor of the truckers (Belzer, 2000). In the face of more industries deregulating and looking for ways to increase efficiency while minimizing what they need to provide to workers, organizations are encouraging core labor standards and human rights in the workplace something which unsurprisingly needs to define in a world so focused on turning a profit (International Institute for Environment and Development, 2001). Again, the corporations win.
Conclusion
Each of the issues analyzed in this paper boils down to the dynamic of the business class versus the working class. Although there are more workers than there are business owners, corporations hold more power politically, socially, and economically. The ones who hold power are those who rule and get to choose what sort of regulations or policies they follow. Until Canadians come together, in a union or non-unionized format, nothing’s going to change. It remains to be seen if that sort of ‘coming together’ is even possible in today’s fragmented society.
References
Adams, R. J. (2005). Organizing Wal-Mart: The Canadian Campaign. Just Labour.
Belzer, M. H. (2000). What if the Rest of the World Looked Like Trucking? Winners and Losers in Trucking Deregulation (pp. 158-174). Toronto: Oxford University Press.
Byerman, A. (2000). Loretta: Overwhelmed and Undertrained at the Insurance Company.
Women in the Office: Transitions in a Global Economy (pp. 52-58). Toronto: Sumach Press.
Chapter 7: Unions, Industrial Relations, and Strikes (2011).
Foster, J. B. (1998). Introduction to the New Edition. Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Fraser, J. A. (2001). White-Collar Sweatshop: The Deterioration of Work and Its Rewards in Corporate America (pp. 75-96). New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
Hartley, D. (1995). The ‘McDonaldization' of Higher Education: Food for Thought. Oxford Review of Education, 21(4), 409-423.
International Institute for Environment and Development. (2001). Core Labour Standards and Human Rights in the Workplace. International Institute for Environment and Development.
Introduction. (2011). Unions, Industrial Relations, and Strikes: Introduction.
Sennett, R. (1998). The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. W. W. Norton & Company, inc.
Spilerman, S. (2009). How Globalization has Impacted Labour: A Review Essay. European Sociological Review, 25(1), 73-86.