Labour Rights as Human Rights? A Response to Roy Adams

Savage, Larry

doi:10.25071/1705-1436.80

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…In addition, researchers in the field of labour relations ignore the impacts that informal labour relations legislations have on workers in the industries that they regulate. Researchers such as Roy Adams (2006) and Savage (2008) focus on the legal structures of the Agricultural Employees Protection Act, however, neglect to explore how these structures impact migrant workers in Ontario's agricultural industry. Migrant workers are different from most workers in Ontario because they lack legal citizenship.…”

Section: Difficulties In Organizing Migrant Workers In Ontariomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Social Organization of Labour Rights in Ontario: Governing Migrant Agricultural Workers Through the Agricultural Employees Protection Act

Raphael¹

2023

Preprint

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This research study is an introduction to the understanding of how labour rights are socially organized in Ontario. It uses a combined method of Institutional Ethnography and Foucauldian Critical Discourse Analysis to locate the historical, social, economic and political events that shape how the labour rights of migrant workers in the Ontario agricultural industry are governed. Migrant workers in the Ontario agricultural industry are not protected under formal labour relations legislation. Their employment relationship is currently governed through the Agricultural Employees Protection Act (2002) (AEPA). This study examines the legal structures of the AEPA and the provincial parliamentary debates leading to the legislation of Bill 187- The Agricultural Employees Protection Act. This investigation points to the discovery that the AEPA provides no adequate protection to migrant workers and sustains the current practices that exist in Ontario’s agricultural industry.

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Section: Difficulties In Organizing Migrant Workers In Ontariomentioning

confidence: 99%

The Social Organization of Labour Rights in Ontario: Governing Migrant Agricultural Workers Through the Agricultural Employees Protection Act

Raphael¹

2023

Preprint

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“…In recent years, there has certainly been a push by labor to rely on the legal system to constitutionally protect its rights, a point conceded by both its supporters (Adams, 2006;Fudge, 2006) and its detractors (Savage, 2008). Statutory protections, such as concerted activity, even if eventually won, are then subject to the whims of a newly elected government, which can either repeal them or simply choose to ignore them.…”

Section: Improved Labor Law Without Constitutional Protection For Minority Unionismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pitfalls of Embracing Minority Unionism

Walchuk

2016

SAGE Open

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In a series of recent cases involving the right to bargain collectively, the Supreme Court of Canada asserted that Wagner Act model, or a model of unionism which is both exclusive and majoritarian, need not be the only model available to workers in Canada (as is currently the case). Although the possible move away from Wagner Act unionism toward some form of minority unionism has received some support, this article argues that there are far too many dangers associated with minority unionism, namely, that it will be a corollary for right-to-work laws, will cause infighting between unions, and will divide and fragment workers' sense of solidarity, and that the supposed benefits that may be attained through constitutionally protected minority unionism can, and should, be attained without it.

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“…While, on the surface, an attractive option for trade unions that have been weakened by 25 years of neoliberal policies, there are serious drawbacks to the human rights approach for the labour movement. As Larry Savage argues, it ‘threatens to undermine class-based responses to neoliberal globalization by contributing to the depoliticization of the labour movement’ (Savage, 2008: 68). Class power does not flow from human rights and nor does the liberal human rights regime really address the glaring inequalities of wealth and power which characterize neoliberal globalization.…”

Section: Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Migration, regional integration and social transformation: A North–South comparative approach

Munck

Hyland

2013

Global Social Policy

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Migration flows, regional integration and social transformation are increasingly interlinked. This article seeks to provide some clarification of these processes through a global North-South comparative approach. The authors problematize regional integration and regionalization but also the legal or rights-based approach to migration, now emerging as the dominant progressive paradigm. They propose a social transformation perspective that foregrounds the role of social movements -in this case the trade unions -in relation to migration in a regional context. This would pose an alternative form of promoting the cause of migrant workers within a mobilizing perspective which prioritizes the agency of non-state actors such as trade unions. In brief, migrants can be viewed from a citizenship optic and as bearers of individual rights but also, the authors propose, as workers who can organize collectively to pursue their objectives.

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Labour Rights as Human Rights? A Response to Roy Adams

Cited by 14 publications

References 0 publications

The Social Organization of Labour Rights in Ontario: Governing Migrant Agricultural Workers Through the Agricultural Employees Protection Act

The Social Organization of Labour Rights in Ontario: Governing Migrant Agricultural Workers Through the Agricultural Employees Protection Act

The Pitfalls of Embracing Minority Unionism

Migration, regional integration and social transformation: A North–South comparative approach

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