| This thesis examines employment standards in the Canadian labour market, with a particular emphasis on the relationship between employment standards legislation and labour flexibility. Within patterns of economic restructuring in advanced capitalist economies, one of the most noted recent trends is an emphasis on the need for greater ‘flexibility’ within both production processes and employment relationships. While the term flexibility holds multiple meanings in this context, sociological research has linked labour flexibility with increased levels of employment insecurity and labour market polarization. As employment standards legislation establishes minimum standards for a labour market, an analysis of employment standards provides an indication of the dynamics of flexible employment.; This thesis focuses on employment standards legislation in the province of Ontario. An analysis of provincial minimum standards from the late 19 th century to 1968, the year of the enactment of the Ontario Employment Standards Act, provides historical background. The thesis then examines the relationship between employment standards legislation and workplace and labour market restructuring in the contemporary context. In each historical period, changes to employment standards are examined in relation to patterns of labour market change, and changing relations between employers, the state, and workers (unionized and non-unionized), in order to account for the various social forces that have shaped legislative developments. Drawing from feminist political economy scholarship, the research takes into account not only the class dimensions of workplace/labour market/state relations, but also the ways in which these relations are simultaneously gendered and standards legislation to explore the relationships between the state, the labour market, and the workplace in both historical and contemporary contexts. The thesis argues that the Ontario Employment Standards Act constitutes a central component in the social organization of flexible employment, and thus examines the role of employment standards legislation in creating, promoting, and reproducing ‘labour flexibility’. In so doing, the thesis explores the dynamics of the politics of flexible production. An analysis of the Ontario Employment Standards Act reveals the segmented and insecure nature of flexibility in the contemporary labour market. |
