"The nature of employment is changing: low wage jobs are increasingly common, fewer workers belong to unions, and workplaces are being transformed through the growth of contracting-out, franchising, and extended supply chains. Closing the Enforcement Gap offers a comprehensive analysis of the enforcement of employment standards in Ontario.
Adopting mixed methods, this work includes qualitative research involving in-depth interviews with workers, community advocates, and enforcement officials; extensive archival research excavating decades of ministerial records; and analysis of a previously untapped source of administrative data collected by Ontario's Ministry of Labour. The authors reveal and trace the roots of a deepening ""enforcement gap"" that pervades nearly all aspects of the regime, demonstrating that the province's Employment Standards Act (ESA) fails too many workers who rely on the floor of minimum conditions it was devised to provide. Arguably, there is nothing inevitable about the enforcement gap in Ontario or for that matter elsewhere. Through contributions from leading employment standards enforcement scholars in the US, the UK, and Australia, as well as Quebec, Closing the Enforcement Gap surveys innovative enforcement models that are emerging in a variety of jurisdictions and sets out a bold vision for strengthening employment standards enforcement.
Closing the Enforcement Gap Research Group
Leah F. Vosko Guliz Akkaymak Rebecca Casey Shelley Condratto John Grundy Alan Hall Alice Hoe Kiran Mirchandani Andrea M. Noack Urvashi Soni-Sinha Mercedes Steedman Mark P. Thomas Eric M. Tucker
International/Quebec Contributors
Nick Clark Dalia Gesualdi-Fecteau Tess Hardy John Howe Guylaine Valle David Weil"
By:
Leah Faith Vosko
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions:
Height: 235mm,
Width: 165mm,
Spine: 33mm
Weight: 820g
ISBN: 9781487506391
ISBN 10: 1487506392
Series: Studies in Comparative Political Economy and Public Policy
Pages: 472
Publication Date: 03 March 2020
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Primary
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Graphs, Tables, and Figures Authorship Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Mapping the Enforcement Gap: Historical and Contemporary Dynamics Part One: Charting the Employment Standards Enforcement Gap in Ontario 2. Responsibilization, Reprisal, and (Non)Remediation: Interrogating the Role of an Individualized Complaints System 3. Administering Complaints: Dilemmas of Accountability 4. Recovering Employees' Wages? 5. The Contradictory Role of Workplace Inspections 6. The Deterrence Gap: Towards an Explanation 7. Strengthening Participatory Approaches to Enforcement Part Two: Views from Elsewhere: Contextualizing the Employment Standards Enforcement Gap in Ontario 8. Enforcement of Wage Recovery in Britain 9. Out of the Shadows and into the Spotlight: The Sweeping Evolution of Employment Standards Enforcement in Australia 10. Enforcing Employment Standards in Quebec: One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward? 11. Strategic Enforcement to Confront Wage Theft in the US: An Insider Account 12. Improving Protections for People in Precarious Jobs Notes Supplementary Information on Quantitative and Qualitative Methods: Ontario Component Appendix A: Quantitative Data A.1. Administrative Data A.2. National Surveys Appendix B: Qualitative Data B.1. Worker Interviews B.2. MOL Interviews B.3. Community Representative Interviews Appendix C: Archival Research Bibliography Secondary Sources Primary Sources Government Documents Statistics Archival Sources Index Glossary
Leah F. Vosko is a professor of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in the Political Economy of Gender & Work at York University.
Reviews for Closing the Enforcement Gap: Improving Employment Standards Protections for People in Precarious Jobs
A must-read for everyone who wants to understand why violations of basic workplace laws are everyday occurrences and how vulnerable employees can be better protected. - Gerhard Bosch, Institut Arbeit und Qualifikation, Universitat Duisburg-Essen, Fakultat fur Gesellschaftswissenschaften
- Winner of Best Book Prize in Work and Labour Studies The Canadian Association of Work and Labour Studies 2021 (Canada)
