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The decline in the prevalence of the Standard Employment Relationship in Canada has created challenges for Canadian unions. Wayne Lewchuk discusses the available estimates of the prevalence of precarious employment and gig work in Canada.

Image courtesy of interviewee. July 16, 2024

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This video discusses significant changes in the labor market over the past 30 to 40 years, highlighting a shift from stable, full-time employment—often unionized—to more precarious work arrangements. By 2017, less than half of middle-aged Canadians were in full-time, year-round jobs, leading to a rise in part-time, self-employment, and other insecure employment forms.

This video shift has impacted how workers navigate their employment relationships, which can involve parties such as temp agencies or gig platforms (e.g., Uber), resulting in workers feeling like "free agents" without long-term job security. The changing nature of employment has posed challenges for unions, which traditionally supported permanent employees, as many workers now have multiple, short-term employers.

This video outlines various responses from unions and government to address these changes, including adapting union structures to support precarious workers and examining policy measures like minimum wage laws, pension enhancements, and universal basic income trials. Research indicates that precarious employment correlates with poorer health and household stability, affecting community participation as individuals feel unable to commit to social roles or further education due to the unpredictable nature of their jobs. Overall, the text stresses the need for a re-evaluation of labor market dynamics and the supporting structures around workers to address the ongoing crisis in employment stability.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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The labor market has undergone some pretty fundamental

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changes in the last 30 or 40 years.

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The whole process by which people, find work, keep work,

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and from time to time renegotiate the terms

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and conditions of work has changed.

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You know, we've moved from, a world where,

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many people had full year, full-time, employment,

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often unionized.

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So sort of once you, you know, as a young person, you kind

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of stumbled around a little bit, looked for

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what kind of a job you wanted.

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But once you got on a career path, you had a sense

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that you were, you were set for life,

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that you had a, a long-term job.

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Uh, you had some benefits. You often had a union who was,

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negotiating the terms of employment.

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Um, and you just had to keep putting in your time.

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And as long as you didn't do anything particularly

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egregious, you know, you, you kept your job.

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What we've seen in the last 30 years is,

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is a shift away from that model of, of employment

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in 2017, for the very first time in Canada,

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since this data was collected, less than half

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of middle-aged people were in what they described

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as full year, full-time employment.

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The other half were in something different.

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Part-time, self-employment, various forms

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of insecure employment.

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So what we've seen is this, this rise of, of a, of a,

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a more insecure model of the employment relationship,

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where, you know, people are employed through temp agencies.

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They're employed, through online, sites, such

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as Uber Drivers Mechanical Turk, you know, they,

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they're self-employed, sometimes incorrectly classified

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as self-employed, but the employer has called them

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self-employed often in the trucking industry, et cetera,

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to, you know, it gives people a kind of a different,

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perspective on tax, et cetera.

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And so increase what we've seen is that, you know,

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people are, they're very much on their own.

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They're, they're, they're now free agents.

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Uh, they don't have this long-term stability, and,

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and they're needing to sort out the,

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their employment relationships themselves.

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And so, as a result of this, you know, there's, there's a,

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there's a need to understand this

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shift in the nature of employment.

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I, I'm, I'm actually an economic historian.

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So these kind of long-term changes really quite fascinating.

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Uh, and so, you know, what we're, you know, what,

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what we're trying to understand now is how are,

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how are workers trying to replicate the kind

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of security they enjoyed After World War ii?

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Those were 30 glorious years.

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When employment became more secure,

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often better paid benefits improved.

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And that kind of ended in, in the, in the early,

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eighties, or or mid eighties.

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And so what are, how are workers responding?

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And, you know, there's a number of things that are going on.

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Um, one is, you know, unions are looking, what,

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how do they respond to this change in the labor market?

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And that's a real, that's a, you know, that's a real problem

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for unions because unions, are, are, were,

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were structured to provide,

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Uh, support to workers

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who are in permanent full-time employment.

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They had a, a long-term relationship with a single employer.

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That's increasingly not the case for,

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for, for workers anymore.

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They have, they now have

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multiple employers at the same time.

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They're moving between employers quite often.

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Um, and, and, you know, they don't have that kind

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of stability that, that unions can take advantage of.

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So there's, that's one area

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of interest that we wanted to look at.

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And, but the other is, what are,

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what are governments doing to respond to this?

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'cause in many ways, the kind of stability

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that workers enjoyed after World War II was in large part

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result of changes at, at the, at the state level.

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You know, the facilitation of unions, the spread

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of the welfare states, PE pension plans, government

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provide pension plans, et cetera.

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And so now, what is, what are,

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what's the state doing in order to respond

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to this fundamental change in the nature

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of labor market markets since, the 1980s?

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You know, there's been a, a, a lot

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of literature now on this whole issue

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of precarious employment.

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Uh, and it, it goes into a,

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a number of different categories.

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One, there's been a number of teams who are looking, trying

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to measure what this thing is,

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'cause it's, it's really, it's really complex.

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And we've, we've come to understand pretty clearly that

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what the governments have been collecting, kind

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of standard information they have is just not doing the job.

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'cause for the most part, what governments do is they

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collect information on the form

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of the employment relationship.

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Are people in part-time employment?

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Are they in permanent employment? Are they self-employed?

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I mean, that's relatively easy to do.

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It's a single question. You throw it out there

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and people respond back, respond.

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The problem we now understand is that that form

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of the employment itself has changed in the last 30 years.

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So what's permanent employment today is not as permanent

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as it was 30 years ago.

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And so you need to start really looking at the

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characteristics of employment within each

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of these different forms of employment.

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And that's given rise to a number of teams.

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Uh, you know, there's a, there's a group out of, Spain

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and Chile, that have been looking at this,

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this issue developed some indexes.

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Uh, my colleague Michael Quinlan in Australia has,

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has been studying this issue.

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Uh, I'm currently part of a, a team out of Sweden led

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by Theo Boden, who was also trying to, to measure this.

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And much of this work has focused on the relationship

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between precarious employment and individual health.

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Uh, you know, that's one, one of the big, the big issues.

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Um, another group of researchers,

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has been looking more at the response of the states to this,

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this change here.

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I'm thinking of David Wheel in the United States,

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who's been looking at this thing called the fied workplace.

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Uh, how the spread of, of contracting out

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and precarious employment has fundamentally changed the

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relationship between wages and employment

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and security and employment.

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Of course. Then there's the, the work, of,

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guy standing in in Britain

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and his, his book on,

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on the precarious is also looking at that.

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So those are kinda the two major two, directions.

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Our study was, you know, it was,

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it was a little bit different.

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Uh, my, our our, my study was, it was a joint piece of work

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with the United Way of Toronto,

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and their concern was not really occupational health.

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Their concern was the health of community

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of households and community.

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'cause what they were seeing is that there, there'd been a,

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a decline in, in the, in, in the, in large parts of,

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of the community around Toronto and Hamilton,

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and the ability to, to support themselves.

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And they, they had this sense

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that there was something going on in the labor market

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that was behind this crisis in households and community,

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but they weren't quite sure what it was.

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And so they came to me and said, can we kind

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of generate some hard data to convince policy makers that,

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you know, maybe we need, they need to make a change.

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Because they were having trouble getting policy makers to,

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to focus on this issue.

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They, they were focusing on low wages and,

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and certainly low wages are a problem,

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but there have always been low wages.

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And in many ways, the, the,

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the average wage hasn't really changed all

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that much in the last 30 years.

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You know, for some groups it's fallen.

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For other groups, it's gone up.

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But there hasn't been a really big shift in wages.

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Where there has been a big shift is in the variability

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of wages of, of, of, of your wage going up

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and down each week, each month, each year.

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So people are going from high wages to low wages,

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from low wages to high wages in a

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relatively short period of time.

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And it, and it's that issue that,

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that precarity really addresses

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and that we were really interested in looking at.

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So, so that's where our study fit in.

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But there's also sort of a, a now I, I think a fourth stream

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of research in this area,

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which I think is really quite interesting.

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And that, and that's sort of the response to precarity,

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and that's the growing interest in basic income

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that somehow is basic income, the solution

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to this highly variable income stream now as a result of,

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of precarious employment, sorry, guy standing is, has,

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has been advocating that.

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But also we've seen that, a real interest in

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that here in, in Canada, even at the government level,

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there's, there's bills before the Senate trying

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to encourage the federal government to move forward on,

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on, on a basic income.

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And I was part of a little study here in Hamilton when they

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did a pilot of a basic income project,

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and looking at that, that impact.

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So those are some of the main areas

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where people are working on

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this area of procures employment.

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This was a joint project.

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So there was actually two co-PIs myself at,

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from the university sector,

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but also the, the head

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of research at the United Way Toronto, which is,

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you know, basically they're, they're basically a,

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they raise funds,

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and then they distribute those funds to frontline agencies

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who are supporting people who in need in crisis, et cetera.

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Uh, and so it, it was really driven

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by those, those two groups.

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And it, and it shaped as a result, you know, the kind

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of questions we asked and, and, and,

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and what answers we were looking for.

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We were really looking for this issue of

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what was happening to our society.

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'cause there's this sense that somehow Procurious employment

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was not just about the individual,

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though it had effects there.

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It was also a, about what was going on in our society and,

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and, and, and crises in our society, in our community.

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And so that's what they were really interested in.

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So they, I had been writing, doing some work,

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previously on this issue.

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I'm curious what Employment and health published a book.

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And this came to the attention

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that people at the United Way.

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So they asked me, you know, would you, you know, work

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with us on a project to try and figure this out?

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And so we, we started doing, mass surveys.

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So we did three surveys, three waves

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of surveys starting in 2011, ending in 2017.

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And we, we inter

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or we interviewed over the phone, through a, a, a,

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a corporate polling agency, about 10,000 people.

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And we put together, you know, various reports, and,

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and tried and, and,

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and tried to understand really what was going on.

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And the key here is we didn't just

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interview people in precarious employment.

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This was a mass survey.

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So our, our real goal is to compare what's the difference

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between someone in a full year,

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full-time job versus someone in a precarious job?

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What's it doing to their household?

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What is it doing to the community?

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And so that's, you know, kind of

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how we put this, study together.

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I think not surprising, certain to myself

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and to, to anyone else, is that, you know,

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being in precarious employment has a number of downsides.

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Uh, certainly we saw, heightened health problems,

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general health problems

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for those people in precarious employment.

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We certainly saw much elevated mental health problems

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for people in, in precarious employment.

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So I think those things, weren't surprising.

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One thing about our study is we made a distinction between,

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the precarity of the employment relationship

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and income levels.

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So in, in economics terms,

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we are interested in both the mean income

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and the vari variance in the income.

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Those are two, to me, those are two separate factors.

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As I said earlier, the, the mean income hasn't changed all

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that dramatically for most people in the last 30 years.

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But what has changed is the variance in income.

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It's, it, it is much higher than it used to be.

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So we wanted to separate those two things out.

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And I think what we, what we, what we found is that, look,

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it is absolutely dreadful

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to be in a low wage precarious job.

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I mean, that's the worst situation

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to be, it's bad for your health.

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Um, it's, it's bad for your,

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for your household, it's bad for the community.

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But what's somewhat more surprising is how,

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how strong the results were for those people who were in,

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middle income jobs, but pr perhaps precarious.

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Um, so they were getting by, okay, they, you know,

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they had more than a living wage today,

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but they were always looking over their shoulder

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and saying, you know, this is a precarious job.

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It may be paying me 60 or $70,000 Canadian this year.

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I may not have that job in six months or a year.

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And so in a year, I may be the parking attendant, at,

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at minimum wage, at, at the local garage.

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And, and so what we found is that in, in many

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of the negative effects of precarious employment,

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were not just those low wage precarious people,

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it was also those middle income, precarious employment.

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And I think what that speaks

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to the precarious employment is, is not just a problem

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of the people at the bottom of the, of the,

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of the economic ladder.

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It's, it's those people, the vast majority of people

11:47.215 --> 11:48.735
who are in the middle, who to be frank,

11:48.835 --> 11:50.495
are always looking over their shoulder

11:50.555 --> 11:52.335
and thinking, will that be me?

11:52.565 --> 11:53.805
Will that be me next year?

11:54.225 --> 11:56.245
And, and, you know, how does, how is that gonna affect you?

11:56.625 --> 11:58.525
And so what, so what are some of those effects?

11:58.555 --> 12:00.725
What, what we've, what we've found is that

12:01.395 --> 12:04.085
there's a real crisis in terms of households

12:04.595 --> 12:06.205
when employment is precarious.

12:06.205 --> 12:08.965
There's a real crisis in terms of participation in

12:09.525 --> 12:11.045
participating in community when

12:11.115 --> 12:12.685
there's precarious employment.

12:12.825 --> 12:15.765
But people are saying, look, I I, I, I can't, I, I can't,

12:15.765 --> 12:18.805
say sign up to coach my kids' ball team or hockey team.

12:19.245 --> 12:21.005
'cause I never know when my, my employment is.

12:21.565 --> 12:24.405
I can't sign up to take another, a course to improve myself.

12:24.405 --> 12:26.525
Because, you know, the job that is, is,

12:26.525 --> 12:30.045
is they work this week, maybe evening work next week.

12:30.425 --> 12:33.125
So there's that real crisis in, in engaging in,

12:33.145 --> 12:35.325
in your family and your, and your society.

12:35.585 --> 12:37.205
And I think in some ways it's, it's those,

12:37.595 --> 12:39.285
it's those second generation effects,

12:39.465 --> 12:43.005
not just on the individual, but on their household and

12:43.005 --> 12:45.205
therefore their children and on the community.

12:45.545 --> 12:48.245
And therefore our, our political process and our,

12:48.245 --> 12:50.805
and our, our social stability that are as important

12:50.805 --> 12:52.205
as what's happening to individuals.

12:52.515 --> 12:54.525
Yeah. Well, here, you know, I think, you know, you could,

12:54.525 --> 12:55.525
you can look at unions

12:55.665 --> 12:57.525
and certainly you would wanna see a response

12:57.545 --> 12:59.085
by unions to this issue.

12:59.345 --> 13:01.725
And, and, you know, there have been some res some responses.

13:01.945 --> 13:04.925
So in certain, areas, you know, sort of in construction,

13:04.925 --> 13:08.925
at least in Canada, ii, who, helped, you know,

13:09.105 --> 13:11.045
put on a lot of the theater and the, and the, and the,

13:11.045 --> 13:12.365
and the shows on TVs

13:12.365 --> 13:14.845
and organize a lot of the, of the, of the support staff.

13:14.845 --> 13:18.385
And that they have found a way to build a union,

13:18.385 --> 13:19.545
basically contract workers.

13:19.945 --> 13:22.305
'cause in, in, in, in, in, in the arts, you know, you,

13:22.305 --> 13:25.185
you get a contract for, for, for three months while the,

13:25.185 --> 13:27.745
the show's in town, when that show leaves, that's it.

13:27.745 --> 13:29.265
You don't have another employer. So you, you look

13:29.265 --> 13:30.945
for another kind of a contract.

13:31.125 --> 13:34.665
So they've, they have found a way to, to fill in the gap

13:35.175 --> 13:38.105
that, many workers in procures employment are facing in

13:38.105 --> 13:39.705
terms of how do you organize a pension?

13:39.765 --> 13:40.825
How do you organize healthcare,

13:41.085 --> 13:42.705
how do you organize finding work?

13:42.885 --> 13:44.865
So I mean, they, they provide those functions.

13:45.085 --> 13:46.665
The employer contributes to the union,

13:46.885 --> 13:48.585
but then the union manages the pension

13:48.735 --> 13:50.025
fund, the health fund.

13:50.365 --> 13:53.385
Uh, they provide the mechanisms by which you find work so

13:53.385 --> 13:55.785
that those that works in those areas, a lot

13:55.785 --> 13:57.785
of other unions are, they're, they're struggling.

13:57.785 --> 13:59.385
They're, they're finding it difficult to,

13:59.605 --> 14:03.345
to move from a model which is really reliant on the full

14:03.345 --> 14:06.665
year, full-time employment, to a model

14:06.665 --> 14:10.225
where people are moving from job to job on a regular basis.

14:10.845 --> 14:13.505
And, you know, certainly some of them have been able

14:13.505 --> 14:15.105
to bring Procurious workers into the fold.

14:15.105 --> 14:17.305
But to be frank, our research shows, you know,

14:17.305 --> 14:20.145
they haven't really made a big impact on raising the

14:20.345 --> 14:21.825
standard, those workers,

14:21.985 --> 14:23.785
'cause it's, you know, often very difficult to, to,

14:23.885 --> 14:25.025
to, to bargain for them.

14:25.475 --> 14:27.385
Other unions have offered this a form

14:27.385 --> 14:29.305
of called unionization light.

14:29.845 --> 14:32.225
So, you know, they don't have a formal bargaining

14:32.225 --> 14:33.425
relationship for these workers

14:33.705 --> 14:35.225
'cause they don't have a formal employer,

14:35.445 --> 14:37.785
but they're offering the unions some of the union services,

14:37.835 --> 14:41.825
legal services, advice, advice on how to write contracts.

14:42.005 --> 14:43.985
You know, what happens if your employer doesn't pay the

14:43.985 --> 14:45.345
salary they, they provided you.

14:45.525 --> 14:47.425
So that kind of a model, again, it's helpful,

14:47.565 --> 14:50.305
but not perhaps, you know, what is, is, is really needed.

14:51.585 --> 14:54.405
The other area where we've, we have seen changes and,

14:54.405 --> 14:56.685
and I think we're gonna have to see more changes is in, in,

14:56.705 --> 14:59.445
in, in the role of, of the state of, of, of the government.

14:59.865 --> 15:03.765
Uh, you know, we've seen now a number of reviews as,

15:03.765 --> 15:04.925
governments have have said, look

15:04.925 --> 15:05.965
it, something's changing here.

15:06.185 --> 15:07.925
We need to reevaluate what we're doing.

15:08.155 --> 15:09.725
Changes in minimum laws.

15:09.815 --> 15:11.845
We've seen a lot of action in, in the states,

15:11.845 --> 15:14.565
particularly in California, where, you know,

15:14.565 --> 15:15.765
workers now, are,

15:15.785 --> 15:18.005
are guaranteed health benefits in the restaurant sector.

15:18.065 --> 15:19.205
So I dunno if you've ever been

15:19.205 --> 15:20.205
to a restaurant in California,

15:20.205 --> 15:22.685
there's a little addition onto your bill that says,

15:22.685 --> 15:23.925
this is for health benefits for workers.

15:24.145 --> 15:25.325
That's a fantastic idea.

15:25.325 --> 15:26.605
You know, it's, it's a, it's a good thing.

15:26.865 --> 15:30.245
You know, here in Canada we have extended the public pension

15:30.435 --> 15:32.485
plan, and mainly in responses.

15:32.485 --> 15:33.805
More and more people in procures employment

15:33.805 --> 15:35.085
don't have a company pension plan.

15:35.385 --> 15:38.085
So they've, they've, they've, they've enhanced that to, to,

15:38.185 --> 15:40.405
to make it closer to a living wage for people

15:40.405 --> 15:42.045
who enter their retirement years.

15:42.065 --> 15:44.445
So that's another area where there's been a lot of activity.

15:44.825 --> 15:47.085
And I said the third area is really this issue

15:47.085 --> 15:48.285
of, of basic income.

15:48.725 --> 15:51.565
I know we've, we're seeing pilots across the, the globe,

15:51.585 --> 15:53.405
as, as, as, as, as governments trying

15:53.405 --> 15:54.845
to figure out is this a solution?

15:55.145 --> 15:56.605
You know, there's still a lot of questions

15:56.625 --> 15:58.045
to be answered about that,

15:58.425 --> 16:02.005
but I think it certainly is one area we're quite fruitful in

16:02.005 --> 16:03.085
terms of future developments.

"Transformations in the Labor Market: From Stability to Insecurity Over the Past Four Decades"

00:00:00 - The labor market has undergone some pretty fundamental changes in the last 30 or 40 years. The whole process by which people, find work, keep work, and from time to time renegotiate the terms and conditions of work has changed. You know, we've moved from, a world where, many people had full year, full-time, employment, often unionized. So sort of once you, you know, as a young person, you kind of stumbled around a little bit, looked for what kind of a job you wanted. But once you got on a career path, you had a sense that you were, you were set for life, that you had a, a long-term job. you had some benefits. You often had a union who was, negotiating the terms of employment.
00:00:44 - And as long as you didn't do anything particularly egregious, you know, you, you kept your job. What we've seen in the last 30 years is, is a shift away from that model of, of employment in 2017, for the very first time in Canada, since this data was collected, less than half of middle-aged people were in what they described as full year, full-time employment. The other half were in something different. Part-time, self-employment, various forms of insecure employment. So what we've seen is this, this rise of, of a, of a, a more insecure model of the employment relationship,
00:01:28 - They're employed, through online, sites, such as Uber Drivers Mechanical Turk, you know, they, they're self-employed, sometimes incorrectly classified as self-employed, but the employer has called them self-employed often in the trucking industry, et cetera, to, you know, it gives people a kind of a different, perspective on tax, et cetera. And so increase what we've seen is that, you know, people are, they're very much on their own. They're, they're, they're now free agents. they don't have this long-term stability, and, and they're needing to sort out the, their employment relationships themselves.
00:02:07 - there's a need to understand this shift in the nature of employment. I, I'm, I'm actually an economic historian. So these kind of long-term changes really quite fascinating. and so, you know, what we're, you know, what, what we're trying to understand now is how are, how are workers trying to replicate the kind of security they enjoyed After World War ii? Those were 30 glorious years. When employment became more secure, often better paid benefits improved. And that kind of ended in, in the, in the early, eighties, or or mid eighties. And so what are, how are workers responding? And, you know, there's a number of things that are going on. one is, you know, unions are looking, what,
00:02:49 - And that's a real, that's a, you know, that's a real problem for unions because unions, are, are, were, were structured to provide, support to workers who are in permanent full-time employment. They had a, a long-term relationship with a single employer. That's increasingly not the case for, for, for workers anymore. They have, they now have multiple employers at the same time. They're moving between employers quite often. and, and, you know, they don't have that kind of stability that, that unions can take advantage of. So there's, that's one area of interest that we wanted to look at. And, but the other is, what are, what are governments doing to respond to this?
00:03:30 - that workers enjoyed after World War II was in large part result of changes at, at the, at the state level. You know, the facilitation of unions, the spread of the welfare states, PE pension plans, government provide pension plans, et cetera. And so now, what is, what are, what's the state doing in order to respond to this fundamental change in the nature of labor market markets since, the 1980s? You know, there's been a, a, a lot of literature now on this whole issue of precarious employment. and it, it goes into a, a number of different categories. One, there's been a number of teams who are looking, trying to measure what this thing is,

"Understanding the Evolving Landscape of Employment: Data Gaps and the Quest for Security in an Era of Precarity"**

00:04:09 - And we've, we've come to understand pretty clearly that what the governments have been collecting, kind of standard information they have is just not doing the job. 'cause for the most part, what governments do is they collect information on the form of the employment relationship. Are people in part-time employment? Are they in permanent employment? Are they self-employed? I mean, that's relatively easy to do. It's a single question. You throw it out there and people respond back, respond. The problem we now understand is that that form of the employment itself has changed in the last 30 years. So what's permanent employment today is not as permanent as it was 30 years ago. And so you need to start really looking at the characteristics of employment within each
00:04:50 - And that's given rise to a number of teams. you know, there's a, there's a group out of, Spain and Chile, that have been looking at this, this issue developed some indexes. my colleague Michael Quinlan in Australia has, has been studying this issue. I'm currently part of a, a team out of Sweden led by Theo Boden, who was also trying to, to measure this. And much of this work has focused on the relationship between precarious employment and individual health. you know, that's one, one of the big, the big issues. another group of researchers, has been looking more at the response of the states to this, this change here. I'm thinking of David Wheel in the United States,
00:05:33 - how the spread of, of contracting out and precarious employment has fundamentally changed the relationship between wages and employment and security and employment. Of course. Then there's the, the work, of, guy standing in in Britain and his, his book on, on the precarious is also looking at that. So those are kinda the two major two, directions. Our study was, you know, it was, it was a little bit different. my, our our, my study was, it was a joint piece of work with the United Way of Toronto, and their concern was not really occupational health. Their concern was the health of community of households and community.
00:06:13 - a decline in, in the, in, in the, in large parts of, of the community around Toronto and Hamilton, and the ability to, to support themselves. And they, they had this sense that there was something going on in the labor market that was behind this crisis in households and community, but they weren't quite sure what it was. And so they came to me and said, can we kind of generate some hard data to convince policy makers that, you know, maybe we need, they need to make a change. Because they were having trouble getting policy makers to, to focus on this issue. They, they were focusing on low wages and, and certainly low wages are a problem, but there have always been low wages. And in many ways, the, the, the average wage hasn't really changed all
00:06:51 - You know, for some groups it's fallen. For other groups, it's gone up. But there hasn't been a really big shift in wages. Where there has been a big shift is in the variability of wages of, of, of, of your wage going up and down each week, each month, each year. So people are going from high wages to low wages, from low wages to high wages in a relatively short period of time. And it, and it's that issue that, that precarity really addresses and that we were really interested in looking at. So, so that's where our study fit in. But there's also sort of a, a now I, I think a fourth stream of research in this area, which I think is really quite interesting. And that, and that's sort of the response to precarity, and that's the growing interest in basic income that somehow is basic income, the solution
00:07:36 - of precarious employment, sorry, guy standing is, has, has been advocating that. But also we've seen that, a real interest in that here in, in Canada, even at the government level, there's, there's bills before the Senate trying to encourage the federal government to move forward on, on, on a basic income. And I was part of a little study here in Hamilton when they did a pilot of a basic income project, and looking at that, that impact. So those are some of the main areas where people are working on this area of procures employment. This was a joint project. So there was actually two co-PIs myself at, from the university sector, but also the, the head of research at the United Way Toronto, which is, you know, basically they're, they're basically a,

Title: "Exploring the Societal Impacts of Precarious Employment: Insights from Collaborative Research"

00:08:15 - and then they distribute those funds to frontline agencies who are supporting people who in need in crisis, et cetera. and so it, it was really driven by those, those two groups. And it, and it shaped as a result, you know, the kind of questions we asked and, and, and, and what answers we were looking for. We were really looking for this issue of what was happening to our society. 'cause there's this sense that somehow Procurious employment was not just about the individual, though it had effects there. It was also a, about what was going on in our society and, and, and, and crises in our society, in our community. And so that's what they were really interested in. So they, I had been writing, doing some work, previously on this issue.
00:08:56 - And this came to the attention that people at the United Way. So they asked me, you know, would you, you know, work with us on a project to try and figure this out? And so we, we started doing, mass surveys. So we did three surveys, three waves of surveys starting in 2011, ending in 2017. And we, we inter or we interviewed over the phone, through a, a, a, a corporate polling agency, about 10,000 people. And we put together, you know, various reports, and, and tried and, and, and tried to understand really what was going on. And the key here is we didn't just interview people in precarious employment. This was a mass survey. So our, our real goal is to compare what's the difference
00:09:37 - full-time job versus someone in a precarious job? What's it doing to their household? What is it doing to the community? And so that's, you know, kind of how we put this, study together. I think not surprising, certain to myself and to, to anyone else, is that, you know, being in precarious employment has a number of downsides. certainly we saw, heightened health problems, general health problems for those people in precarious employment. We certainly saw much elevated mental health problems for people in, in precarious employment. So I think those things, weren't surprising. One thing about our study is we made a distinction between, the precarity of the employment relationship
00:10:20 - So in, in economics terms, we are interested in both the mean income and the vari variance in the income. Those are two, to me, those are two separate factors. As I said earlier, the, the mean income hasn't changed all that dramatically for most people in the last 30 years. But what has changed is the variance in income. It's, it, it is much higher than it used to be. So we wanted to separate those two things out. And I think what we, what we, what we found is that, look, it is absolutely dreadful to be in a low wage precarious job. I mean, that's the worst situation to be, it's bad for your health. it's, it's bad for your, for your household, it's bad for the community. But what's somewhat more surprising is how, how strong the results were for those people who were in,
00:11:03 - so they were getting by, okay, they, you know, they had more than a living wage today, but they were always looking over their shoulder and saying, you know, this is a precarious job. It may be paying me 60 or $70,000 Canadian this year. I may not have that job in six months or a year. And so in a year, I may be the parking attendant, at, at minimum wage, at, at the local garage. And, and so what we found is that in, in many of the negative effects of precarious employment, were not just those low wage precarious people, it was also those middle income, precarious employment. And I think what that speaks to the precarious employment is, is not just a problem
00:11:43 - of the economic ladder. It's, it's those people, the vast majority of people who are in the middle, who to be frank, are always looking over their shoulder and thinking, will that be me? Will that be me next year? And, and, you know, how does, how is that gonna affect you? And so what, so what are some of those effects? What, what we've, what we've found is that there's a real crisis in terms of households when employment is precarious. There's a real crisis in terms of participation in participating in community when there's precarious employment. But people are saying, look, I I, I, I can't, I, I can't, say sign up to coach my kids' ball team or hockey team. 'cause I never know when my, my employment is.

"The Crisis of Precarious Employment: Impact on Families, Communities, and Labor Responses"

00:12:24 - Because, you know, the job that is, is, is they work this week, maybe evening work next week. So there's that real crisis in, in engaging in, in your family and your, and your society. And I think in some ways it's, it's those, it's those second generation effects, not just on the individual, but on their household and therefore their children and on the community. And therefore our, our political process and our, and our, our social stability that are as important as what's happening to individuals. Yeah. Well, here, you know, I think, you know, you could, you can look at unions and certainly you would wanna see a response by unions to this issue. And, and, you know, there have been some res some responses.
00:13:04 - at least in Canada, ii, who, helped, you know, put on a lot of the theater and the, and the, and the, and the shows on TVs and organize a lot of the, of the, of the support staff. And that they have found a way to build a union, basically contract workers. 'cause in, in, in, in, in, in the arts, you know, you, you get a contract for, for, for three months while the, the show's in town, when that show leaves, that's it. You don't have another employer. So you, you look for another kind of a contract. So they've, they have found a way to, to fill in the gap that, many workers in procures employment are facing in terms of how do you organize a pension? How do you organize healthcare, how do you organize finding work?
00:13:45 - The employer contributes to the union, but then the union manages the pension fund, the health fund. they provide the mechanisms by which you find work so that those that works in those areas, a lot of other unions are, they're, they're struggling. They're, they're finding it difficult to, to move from a model which is really reliant on the full year, full-time employment, to a model where people are moving from job to job on a regular basis. And, you know, certainly some of them have been able to bring Procurious workers into the fold. But to be frank, our research shows, you know, they haven't really made a big impact on raising the standard, those workers, 'cause it's, you know, often very difficult to, to,
00:14:25 - Other unions have offered this a form of called unionization light. So, you know, they don't have a formal bargaining relationship for these workers 'cause they don't have a formal employer, but they're offering the unions some of the union services, legal services, advice, advice on how to write contracts. You know, what happens if your employer doesn't pay the salary they, they provided you. So that kind of a model, again, it's helpful, but not perhaps, you know, what is, is, is really needed. The other area where we've, we have seen changes and, and I think we're gonna have to see more changes is in, in, in, in the role of, of the state of, of, of the government. you know, we've seen now a number of reviews as, governments have have said, look
00:15:06 - We need to reevaluate what we're doing. Changes in minimum laws. We've seen a lot of action in, in the states, particularly in California, where, you know, workers now, are, are guaranteed health benefits in the restaurant sector. So I dunno if you've ever been to a restaurant in California, there's a little addition onto your bill that says, this is for health benefits for workers. That's a fantastic idea. You know, it's, it's a, it's a good thing. You know, here in Canada we have extended the public pension plan, and mainly in responses. More and more people in procures employment don't have a company pension plan. So they've, they've, they've, they've enhanced that to, to, to make it closer to a living wage for people who enter their retirement years. So that's another area where there's been a lot of activity. And I said the third area is really this issue
00:16:02 - I know we've, we're seeing pilots across the, the globe, as, as, as, as, as governments trying to figure out is this a solution? You know, there's still a lot of questions to be answered about that, but I think it certainly is one area we're quite fruitful in terms of future developments.

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