Job insecurity: the corrosive new normal

Toronto Star - Carol Goar

Historic shifts catch people off-guard. Something feels askew. Their friends and colleagues seem to be losing their footing. But they don't know what's wrong.

Finally, someone sounds the alarm.

This week, an international coalition of unions sounded the alarm: Precarious work has reached epidemic proportions.

Around the world – in developed and emerging nations – employers are replacing full-time workers with part-timers, contract staff and temporary personnel. These "non-standard" employees have no job security and no benefits. Their wages usually are low. Their bargaining power is negligible.

"While the impact may be different depending on each country's social and economic conditions, the goal of employers is the same: cheap, flexible labour that can be brought in and dropped at will," says the International Metalworkers' Federation, which is spearheading the global call for action. "This is everybody's problem – today's secure job could be tomorrow's temporary contract."

In Canada, 37 per cent of work is part-time, short-term or casual. Almost everyone has a friend, relative, colleague or neighbour who lives from contract to contract. Almost every family has members who can't find a lasting job.

The proportion of non-standard workers has been inching up since the 1980s. It is hard to pinpoint the beginning of the trend because Statistics Canada didn't differentiate between permanent and temporary employment until the 1990s.

Now that it does track the nature of work, the shift is unmistakable. A decade ago, 68 per cent of working Canadians had jobs that produced a steady income and provided health and retirement benefits. Now it's down to 63 per cent.

And the real jolt is still to come, labour analysts say. Most of the full-time jobs lost in this recession won't come back. Most of the employees laid off in the past year won't find permanent work. When the statistics catch up to the reality, people will be forced to confront the new normal.

"This raises big societal questions," says Peggy Nash of the Canadian Auto Workers union, which is leading the public awareness campaign in this country. Precarious work not only strips people of a decent living, she points out. It undermines the country's social arrangements. Pensions, employment insurance, drug coverage, dental care, maternal and other benefits are all tied to a worker's job.

She doesn't place all the blame on employers. They outsource jobs to survive. Governments lower employment standards to compete. International economic agencies promote labour flexibility.

What Nash and her union colleagues do find troubling is the widespread denial in Canada that anything is amiss.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his finance minister, Jim Flaherty, insist new jobs are being created as the old ones disappear.

The trouble is, most of the new jobs are part-time, temporary or self-made.

Since the recession began, 485,000 Canadians have lost their livelihood and 155,000 have found work. But almost all the gains are in self-employment (which could mean anything from a laid-off bureaucrat becoming a consultant to a laid-off truck driver buying a rig and becoming an independent owner-operator.)

The primary focus of the Canadian campaign is to mobilize citizens to demand better employment standards and labour laws.

The international campaign calls on unions themselves to rethink their role. This won't be easy, the metalworkers' federation acknowledges. Regular workers aren't eager to make common cause with people who threaten their jobs. Labour leaders aren't eager to take risks for people they don't represent.

But if the massive expansion of precarious work is to be stopped, all working people must stand together, it maintains.

It has declared today "World Day for Decent Work."

In Europe, it will be a day of labour solidarity. In Canada, with luck, it will be the beginning of a badly needed debate.