The papers presented here originated at a wonderful conference held at Middlesex University in London attended by experts on the subject of vulnerable workers and precarious work from all over the world. The aim here is to examine different aspects of these topics, showing the need for developing further research in connection with these areas of study.

The leading academic authorities contributing to this book have been involved in major studies carried out for international organisations, individual governments, and national trades' union organisations; in Vulnerable Workers they consider the growth of job insecurity, the prevalence of flexible or temporary work, and the emergence of precarious forms of self-employment. They look at the new market economies of post-communist Eastern Europe and China, where economic development may occur at the expense of workers' lives and health; 'misclassification' by employers of workers as 'contractors', denying them access to rights; and the plight of migrant, transient and 'invisible' workers. The impact of supply chain business strategies on the most vulnerable workers; and on the complex relationships between levels of job security and the presence of different kinds of risks are similarly assessed. The contributors also propose responses to the challenges they highlight. The role of employee representatives is examined, together with the potential to enhance worker capability through organisational change. New legislative approaches, and changes to traditional compensation and social security systems are considered. Academics and researchers, policy makers, regulators, trades unionists and occupational health professionals - and wise employers - will all find a use for this book.

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Precarious Claims tells the human story behind the bureaucratic process of fighting for justice in the U.S. workplace. The global economy has fueled vast concentrations of wealth that have driven a demand for cheap and flexible labor. Workplace violations such as wage theft, unsafe work environments, and discrimination are widespread in low-wage industries such as retail, restaurants, hospitality, and domestic work, where jobs are often held by immigrants and other vulnerable workers. How and why do these workers, despite enormous barriers, come forward to seek justice, and what happens once they do? Based on extensive fieldwork in Northern California, Gleeson investigates the array of gatekeepers with whom workers must negotiate in the labor standards enforcement bureaucracy and, ultimately, the limited reach of formal legal protections. The author also tracks how workplace injustices—and the arduous process of contesting them—carry long-term effects on their everyday lives. Workers sometimes win, but their chances are precarious at best.

'Precarious Employment' explores the nature and dynamics of precarious employment in contemporary Canada.

The shifting nature of employment practice towards the use of more precarious work forms has caused a crisis in classical labour law and engendered a new wave of regulation. This timely book deftly uses this crisis as an opportunity to explore the notion of precariousness or vulnerability in employment relationships. Its logical structure situates vulnerability in its developmental context before moving on to examine the goals of the regulation of labour law for vulnerability, its current status in the law and case studies of vulnerability such as temporary agency work and domestic work.

This volume presents original theory and research on precarious work in various parts of the world, identifying its social, political and economic origins, its manifestations in the USA, Europe, Asia, and the Global South, and its consequences for personal and family life.

In the mid-1980s, the Abella Commission on Equality in Employment and the federal Employment Equity Act made Canada a policy leader in addressing systemic discrimination in the workplace. More than twenty-five years later, Employment Equity in Canada assembles a distinguished group of experts to examine the state of employment equity in Canada today. Examining the evidence of nearly thirty years, the contributors – both scholars and practitioners of employment policy – evaluate the history and influence of the Abella Report, the impact of Canada’s employment equity legislation on equality in the workplace, and the future of substantive equality in an environment where the Canadian government is increasingly hostile to intervention in the workplace. They compare Canada’s legal and policy choices to those of the United States and to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and examine ways in which the concept of employment equity might be expanded to embrace other vulnerable communities. Their observations will be essential reading for those seeking to understand the past, present, and future of Canadian employment and equity policy.

The leading academic authorities contributing to this book have been involved in major studies carried out for international organisations, individual governments, and national trades' union organisations; in Vulnerable Workers they consider the growth of job insecurity, the prevalence of flexible or temporary work, and the emergence of precarious forms of self-employment. They look at the new market economies of post-communist Eastern Europe and China, where economic development may occur at the expense of workers' lives and health; 'misclassification' by employers of workers as 'contractors', denying them access to rights; and the plight of migrant, transient and 'invisible' workers. The impact of supply chain business strategies on the most vulnerable workers; and on the complex relationships between levels of job security and the presence of different kinds of risks are similarly assessed. The contributors also propose responses to the challenges they highlight. The role of employee representatives is examined, together with the potential to enhance worker capability through organisational change. New legislative approaches, and changes to traditional compensation and social security systems are considered. Academics and researchers, policy makers, regulators, trades unionists and occupational health professionals - and wise employers - will all find a use for this book.

The papers contained in this booklet were presented at the transnational conference “Employment/Working Conditions, Occupational Safety and Health of Posted Workers” in Ljubljana, Slovenia (15 February 2017). The conference brought together experts (researchers and practitioners) from several European countries to discuss the existing and new challenges related to OSH (occupational safety and health), labour, and working conditions of posted workers. The conference served as the launch event of the POOSH project, financed by the European Comission (Programme EaSI PROGRESS) and led by Dr. Kristina Toplak from the Slovenian Migration Institute at ZRC SAZU. The booklet is covering the topic of the OSH of posted workers from several angles. The first part is framed around contributions given by researchers working in the field of labor mobility, with the focus on the occupational safety and health of posted workers. The second part contains contributions from practitioners working in NGOs, trade unions or Ministries of Labour who presented their work as well as discussed national and transnational legislations related to the OSH of posted workers. / V knjižici so predstavljeni prispevki z mednarodne konference »Zaposlitveni/delovni pogoji ter varnost in zdravje pri delu napotenih delavcev«, ki se je odvijala 15. februarja v Ljubljani. Na konferenci so sodelovali raziskovalci in strokovnjaki iz več evropskih držav, ki so razpravljali o obstoječih in novih izzivih povezanih z varnostjo in zdravjem pri delu ter o delovnih pogojih napotenih delavcev. Konferenca je del POOSH projekta, ki ga vodi Dr. Kristina Toplak iz ISIM ZRC SAZU, financira pa ga Evropska komisija (Program EaSI PROGRESS). V knjižici je tematika napotenih delavcev osvetljena z več zornih kotov. Prvi del temelji na prispevkih raziskovalcev, ki se ukvarjajo z mobilnostjo in delovnimi migracijami, s poudarkom na tematiki varnosti in zdravja pri delu napotenih delavcev. Drugi del vsebuje prispevke strokovnjakov, predvsem predstavnikov nevladnih organizacijah, sindikatov ali ministerstev, ki so v prispevkih predstavili svoje delo in razpravljali o nacionalnih in nadnacionalnih zakonodajah, ki se nanašajo na napotene delavce ter na področje varnosti in zdravja pri delu.

This edited collection introduces and explores the causes and consequences of precarious employment in Canada and across the world. After contextualizing employment precarity and its root causes, the authors illustrate how precarious employment is created amongst different populations and describe the accompanying social impacts on racialized immigrant women, those in the non-profit sector, temporary foreign workers and the children of Filipino immigrants.