Construction-phase extended commuting and uneven regional development: Work, households and communities in Newfoundland and Labrador’s new extractive economy

Abstract

Construction activity is intrinsic to the development of extractive industries infrastructure, requiring significant capital investment and large and varied workforces. The transience and temporary nature of this work, and the fact that local labour supplies do not meet demands in many resource-rich regions, have necessitated the development of a range of mobile labour practices. The specificity of such arrangements for construction phases remains underexplored. In particular, given that jobs requiring long commutes are framed as regional "industrial benefits" in resource development policy, the question of who can access these jobs is important. Focusing on Newfoundland and Labrador's construction workforce, this paper seeks to answer this question by reporting findings from qualitative research on the social and economic impacts of construction industry worker engagements with long-distance commuting in relation to industrial benefits objectives. Situating construction labour as a key upstream element in the Global Production Network (GPN) of the volatile Canadian resource sector, the article considers the logics that underpin participation in this type of employment. Building on recent work that develops a connection between long-distance commuting, global production and regional development, the article goes on reveal the gendered household-level dynamics of these arrangements.

Re-Inscribing Gender Relations through Employment-Related Geographical Mobility: The Case of Newfoundland Youth in Resource Extraction

“…This case differs somewhat from the rural youth literature on migration described above in that it is men, not women, who are more directly engaged in mobilities related to resource extraction, particularly as skilled trades workers and 'unskilled' labourers. Research shows that women's underrepresentation in skilled trades is linked to the tension between the gendered double standard related to child and domestic work, and the expectation of long hours (Wright 2017) and long commutes (Barber, 2016). Further, men's mobility in resource extraction is enabled by the unpaid care work women do back home (Pini & Mayes, 2012).…”

“…John, an apprentice introduced earlier, told us that while he prefers not to travel outside the province for work because he has a young family, he wouldn't mind long-distance commuting for work on the island: For John, family responsibilities do not close mobility options, even if he personally desires to work closer to home. It's worth noting here that John's preference for work closer to home still relies on his ability to be mobile and away from home for extended periods of time, and this requires the labour of somebody else to do the care and domestic work required in the reproduction of families (see Barber, 2016 for an argument about the difficulty men experience in terms of opting out of mobile work). On the other hand, the structure of employment in industrial resource extraction -characterized by temporary work, long hours, shift and rotational work, long commutes, and fly-in/fly-out operations -impedes women's ability to combine employment and child care responsibilities.…”

Works in Favor of Extraction: Labor in Land-Use Competition

“…Large agricultural developments require especially high labor input in preparing the extraction site, again, through deforestation, as well as in the construction of buildings (some shelter for laborers, storage of machinery and, especially, silos) and further transport infrastructure [57]. The building of roads to the mining site, as well the initial construction of the mine (both also potentially associated with some form of land clearing), are also associated with some of the highest labor requirements in non-agricultural extraction [58,59].…”

“…In countries of the global North, labor migration tends to be more strongly associated with financial benefits and is commonly referred to as long-distance commuting [58,73], allowing to semantically differentiate these dynamics from the plight of migrants in the global South. Temporary settlements for long-distance commuting workers are a common feature in the extractive industries of the global North [58,73,74] with comparatively high wages making this form of employment attractive for those who do not have binding obligations at their place of residence (dependent family members, for example). Competitive wages associated with long-distance commuting and not the economic distress of migrant workers from the global South are perhaps also what Leite and Weidmann [75] had in mind when they described in a report for the International Monetary Fund how resource booms "lure workers .…”

The politics of stuckness: Waiting lives in mobile worlds

“…Mobile work, for our purposes, is a socio-spatial practice where employees regularly travel over 100 km from their primary residence to work and live for a period ranging from one week to several months. Our geographic context is Australia where mobile work is characterised by starkly gendered power relations, owing partly to the gendered dynamics of commuting (Sandow and Westin, 2010) in addition to the prevalence of the male-dominated resource sector, a leading employer of mobile workers (Barber, 2016). In short, mobile work facilitates high levels of mobility for men which entrenches traditional heterosexual gender roles (Barber, 2016).…”