Racialized Precarious Employment and the Inadequacies of the Canadian Welfare State

Abstract

Although the rise in precarious employment within Canada is tied to the ascendancy of neoliberalism, racialized persons have long been marginalized within the Canadian workforce and relegated to precarious workforce participation. Through an exploration of the relationship between precarious employment and racialized power structures, it will be demonstrated that while the moderate Keynesian welfare policies of the post-World War II era served to mitigate the experiences of those excluded from the workplace, racialized power structures were not fundamentally altered in that era. This critique offers a response to scholarship on the impact of neoliberalism that valorizes the welfare state without paying sufficient attention to its history of racial exclusions. It proposes new strategies to address these underlying inequalities within the existing structures of the Canadian workforce.

Factors Associated with the Prevalence of Precarious Positions in Canadian Libraries: Statistical Analysis of a National Job Board

“…The prevalence of precarity among entry-level jobs and jobs requiring lower levels of education also raises questions about pipeline, hiring, and retention issues with implications for equity, diversity, and inclusion in libraries. It is already known that precarious workers are more likely to be racialized, women, LGBTQ+, or have a disability (Cranford & Vosko, 2006;Bernhardt, 2015;CUPE, 2017). These results make clear that, whether through education or years of experience, the jobs that are the most accessible to the most people are also more likely to be precarious.…”

The uneasy alliance of organisational culture and equal opportunities for ethnic minority groups: A British example

“…Thus, postcolonial theories provide insights into how the ethnocentric and orientalist assumptions that underpin popular conceptions of culture are designed to facilitate hegemony and control such that those of non-Western origin have a greater struggle to establish their credibility and legitimacy (see Cooke, 2003;Frenkel & Shenhav, 2006;Prasad, 2003). This can be understood alongside the discrimination in the external organisational context, where recent discourses in Britain and other parts of Europe and North America have contributed to the reinvigoration of wider societal processes of othering in ways that have pernicious consequences for EM groups (e.g., Bernhardt, 2015;Bobo, 2017;DeGenova, 2010;Pitcher, 2009;Virdee & McGeever, 2017).…”

“…Indeed, as is the case with many other management constructs, organisational culture is commonly conceptualised as a neutral and benign construct, which has the primary aim of facilitating understanding of the dynamics of organisational life (see discussions of different conceptualisations in the study of Giorgi et al, ; Smircich, ). However, unlike many other concepts, organisational culture is an offshoot of societal culture, and it is logical to contend that the distinguishing characteristics of societies (for example, rites, norms, rituals, myths, and symbols) and the racism that is common in many societies (e.g., Bernhardt, ; Bobo, ; Virdee & McGeever, ) will become more salient as these are played out in the smaller confines of organisations. Thus, organisational interventions that are derived from the underlying values of the wider society are likely to privilege members of the dominant ethnic group who have an inherent familiarity with the underpinning beliefs and assumptions (see Frenkel & Shenhav, ; Keller, Loewenstein, & Yan, ).…”

Perceptions and Experiences of Precarious Employment in Canadian Libraries: An Exploratory Study

“…This growing precarity is producing a widening gap between many Canadians' working conditions and labour policy's ability to address such conditions (Procyk et al, 2017;Zhang & Zuberi, 2017), and it is affecting workers everywhere from fast food restaurants to academia. While the current attention given to precarious work in Canada has partly been a response to its growth among white middle-class workers since the 1970s and 1980s, it also existed before World War II (Quinlan, 2012) and has always been more likely to affect marginalized groups (Bernhardt, 2015). Indeed, labour scholars have shown that precarious workers in Canada are more likely to be racialized, women, or immigrants, and that precarity's effects are intersectional and based on social location (Cranford & Vosko, 2006;Fuller & Vosko, 2008;Vosko et al, 2009;Bernhardt, 2015).…”

“…While the current attention given to precarious work in Canada has partly been a response to its growth among white middle-class workers since the 1970s and 1980s, it also existed before World War II (Quinlan, 2012) and has always been more likely to affect marginalized groups (Bernhardt, 2015). Indeed, labour scholars have shown that precarious workers in Canada are more likely to be racialized, women, or immigrants, and that precarity's effects are intersectional and based on social location (Cranford & Vosko, 2006;Fuller & Vosko, 2008;Vosko et al, 2009;Bernhardt, 2015). Such tendencies may result in additional pressures on those who are already subject to systemic forms of oppression such as sexism and racism.…”