The global landscape, along with mergers, acquisitions and insolvency, are making the notion of full-time job security an illusion. When it comes to labour, companies only have a few options available to them. They can resist increases to the pay rates for their employees. Where those companies are unionized they can risk strikes or close their doors. They can automate, replacing jobs with machines. They can send all or part of their operation off shore.
Or they can engage labour under contract in order to be more responsive to economic change.
However, our government does not appear to be engaged on this issue. On one hand they are leaving workers at the lower pay rates to their own devices while targeting knowledge-based workers who offer their services under contract through a corporation.
We must require that out government get ahead of this change and adopt rules of engagement that protect our workers from unscrupulous employers while deterring them from going offshore to meet labour needs.
In this global workplace, we need to accept the reality of change. In the meantime, small steps can be taken by government to mitigate abuse and turn contract work into something much less “precarious.”