Jason Foster

Bloody Lucky: the careless worker myth in Alberta, Canada

Abstract As the Canadian province of Alberta has adopted neoliberal prescriptions for government, it has increasingly attributed workplace injuries to worker carelessness. Blaming workers for their injuries appears to be part of a broader strategy (which includes under-reporting injury levels and masking ineffective state enforcement with public condemnation of injurious work) to contain the potential political consequences associated with unsafe workplaces. This reflects the state’s sometimes conflicting goals of maintaining the production process and the political legitimacy of the government and the capitalist social formation. This case study considers the political dynamics of occupational health and safety in Alberta to understand the escalating use of the careless worker myth over time. Alberta’s emphasis on employer self-regulation has resulted in a large number of annual workplace injuries. The 2008 “Bloody Lucky” safety awareness campaign intensified this attribution of blame via gory videos aimed at young workers. This case study examines the validity of this attribution to reveal that this campaign provides workers, particularly young workers, with inaccurate information about injury causation, which may impede their ability and motivation to mitigate workplace risks.

Training "Expendable" Workers: Temporary Foreign Workers in Nursing.

The purpose of this article is to explore the experiences of Temporary Foreign Workers in health care in Alberta, Canada. In 2007–2008, one of the regional health authorities in the province responded to a shortage of workers by recruiting 510 health-care workers internationally; most were trained as Registered Nurses (RNs) in the Philippines. However, the Association of RNs required them to complete an assessment, and in many cases, to complete further training leading to an examination before they could actually work as RNs in the province. Furthermore, economic recession and restructuring of the health authority meant that many of the short-term contracts were not renewed, despite initial promises made by recruiters. This article looks at the assessment of foreign credentials and processes that followed as a part of the vocational education and training system that is often ignored. Drawing on social closure theories, we look at the experiences of foreign workers whose positions are extremely precarious in terms of employment and residency status. Our analysis suggests that the use of temporary workers to address ‘short term’ labour demand has implications for the workers themselves as well as larger political, social and economic implications that need to be acknowledged.

History, field definition and management studies: the case of the New Deal

Purpose – The aim of this paper is threefold. First, to argue for a more historically engaged understanding of the development of management and organization studies (MOS). Second, to reveal the paradoxical character of the recent “historical turn,” through exploration of how it both questions and reinforces extant notions of the field. Third, to explore the neglect of the New Deal in MOS to illustrate not only the problem of historical engagement, but also to encourage a rethink of the paradigmatic limitations of the field and its history. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting the theory of ANTi-history, the paper conducts an analysis of historical management textbooks and formative management journals to explore how and why the New Deal has been neglected in management theory. Findings – Focussing on the New Deal raises a number of questions about the relationship between history and MOS, in particular, the definition of the field itself. Questions include the ontological character of history, context ...

The dynamics of union responses to migrant workers in Canada

This study examines how five unions in the Canadian province of Alberta responded to a sudden influx of temporary foreign workers (TFWs), as part of Canadian employers’ increased use of migrant workers in the mid-2000s. The authors find three types of response to the new TFW members: resistive, facilitative and active. Furthermore, these responses were dynamic and changing over time. The different responses are best explained not by the unions’ institutional context, but by internal factors shaping each union’s response. Drawing upon the concept of referential unionisms, the study explores how unions’ self-identity shapes their responses to new challenges such as the influx of migrant workers.

The Construction of Migrant Work and Workers by Alberta Legislators, 2000-2011

This paper uses narrative analysis to explore how Alberta government Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) “constructed” migrant work and migrant workers in legislature and media statements between 2000 and 2011. Government MLAs asserted that migrant work (1) was economically necessary and (2) posed no threat to Canadian workers. Government MLAs also asserted that international migrant workers (3) had questionable occupational, linguistic or cultural skills and (4) caused negative social and economic impacts in Canada. Taken individually, these narratives appear contradictory, casting migrant work as good but migrant workers as bad. Viewed together, these narratives comprise an effort to dehumanize temporary and permanent international migrant workers. This (sometimes racialized) “othering” of migrant workers justifies migrant workers’ partial citizenship and suppresses criticism of their poor treatment.Cet article utilise l’analyse narrative pour explorer comment les membres du gouvernement de l’Assemblée législative de l’Alberta (députés) ont « construit » le travail des migrants et des travailleurs migrants avec leur déclarations dans la législature et les médias entre 2000 et 2011. Les députés du gouvernement ont affirmé que le travail migrant (1) était nécessaire économiquement et (2) ne représentait aucune menace pour les travailleurs canadiens. Les députés du gouvernement ont également affirmé que les travailleurs migrants internationaux (3) avaient des compétences professionnelles, linguistiques ou culturelles douteuse et (4) avaient des impacts négatifs sociaux et économiques au Canada. Pris individuellement, ces récits semblent contradictoires, décrivant le travail migrant comme bon, mais les travailleurs migrants comme mauvais. Prises ensemble, ces récits constituent un effort pour déshumaniser les travailleurs migrants internationaux temporaires et permanents. Cette « altérisation » (parfois racialisé) des travailleurs migrants justifie la citoyenneté partielle des travailleurs migrants et supprime la critique de leur mauvais traitement.

Shades of Red: Cold War Influences on Canadian and U.S. Business Textbooks.

Textbooks are an important element in teaching management in higher education because of their assumed ability to disseminate key theories and debates in a seemingly objective fashion. However, a number of studies have questioned not only the scientific character of the textbook but also of management theory itself. More recent studies suggest that dominant notions of management theory in North America were shaped by the Cold War context. In this article, we examine the influence of sociopolitical context on the development of management textbooks in North America. In seeking a more nuanced approach to sociopolitical context that takes into account cross-cultural differences, we undertook a critical hermeneutic analysis on two sets of Cold War–era textbooks, one from the United States and another from Canada. We looked for important differences in how Cold War narratives are reproduced. Canadian textbooks were more likely to legitimize noncapitalist forms of organization, to allow for a more positive role for government, and to discuss communism and socialism more seriously and thoroughly. We argue that these differences are attributable to the divergent political context found in Canada during the Cold War era. The significance of this article is to recognize that discourses change geographically on a scale much smaller than anticipated.

Fear Factory: Retaliation and Rights Claiming in Alberta, Canada:

Fear of retaliation poses a significant barrier to workers exercising their employment rights and claiming statutory benefits. This study of 2000 workers in the western Canadian province of Alberta found modest overall levels of worker fear (16%) of retaliation. Much higher fear levels (>40%) are reported in the most dangerous workplaces. Fear levels also escalated as the exercise of rights became more active, concrete, and potentially costly and disruptive for the employer. Workers who did not claim workers’ compensation benefits or refuse unsafe work flagged fear of retaliation as a significant factor. These findings raise serious questions about the effectiveness of making workers primarily responsible for triggering the enforcement of employment rights.

Dead quiet in the hinterlands: the construction of workplace injuries in western Canadian newspapers, 2009–2014

ABSTRACT Media reports profoundly misrepresent the nature of workplace injuries and fatalities in Canada. This study uses a new dataset comprising 409 urban and rural newspaper reports in western Canada to confirm the over-representation of fatalities, injuries to men, acute physical injuries, and injuries in blue-collar occupations found in earlier exploratory work. This misleading social construction of injuries may skew public policy and management decision-making about injury prevention. The study also confirms the existence of three key media frames: injuries are “under investigation,” “human tragedies,” and “before the court.” Together, these frames cast workplace injuries as isolated events that happen to “others” for which no one is responsible (except maybe the worker), thereby suggesting that the public need not be concerned about workplace safety. Contrary to expectations, no significant differences were found between the reporting of urban and rural newspapers.