Canada has one of the highest rates of low-wage work among advanced industrial economies. In a labour market characterized by the ongoing fallout from COVID-19, deepening income inequality, job instability, and diluted union representation, the living wage movement offers a response. Rising Up traces the history and international context of living wage movements across Canada. In the 1970s, the balance of political and economic power began to shift in favour of business, as trade unions weakened and governments failed to check corporate power. By the 2000s, austerity measures had dismantled social spending, facilitating the growth of low-waged employment. Contributors to this astute collection of essays examine union- and community-based approaches to labour organizing, migrant labour, and media (mis)representations, among other key topics. Offering stimulating debate about living wages and social inequality, Rising Up promotes alternatives to a neoliberalized labour market.

Bryan Evans is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University. In addition to a PhD in Political Science from York University, he holds a Bachelor of Arts from Laurentian University and a Master of Arts from York University . His doctoral dissertation, defended in January 2008 at York University, explores the links between managerialism, neoliberalism and the restructuring of the Ontario public sector. His advisor, Gregory Albo, is an internationally respected Marxist analyst.

His teaching and research interests focus on public sector restructuring, public policy and public management as well as the politics of labour and work Currently he is a member of a university and community based team investigating Ontario ‘s workers’ compensation system. His publications reflect this research agenda and most notably, Shrinking the State , co-authored with Dr. John Shields , is regarded as a path-breaking contribution toward a critical understanding of the new public management and public sector restructuring.

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Carlo Fanelli is an associate professor of Work and Labour Studies, York University. He is the author of Megacity Malaise: Neoliberalism, Labour and Public Services in Toronto, co-author of From Consent to Coercion: The Continuing Assault Against Labour, and editor of Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research.

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Tom McDowell is an instructor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University.

Tom McDowell's profile page

This is an older, more classical, and well-informed political economy analysis.

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