PowerShare Archives - Centre for Future Work

Webinar on Employment Transitions for Fossil Fuel Workers

Jim Stanford — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 03:19:04 +0000

The Centre for Future Work recently released a major report, as part of its PowerShare research project, on the role of collective voice and representation in facilitating more effective and fair employment transitions as most production and use of fossil fuels is phased out in line with reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. The full report is available here.

In a one-hour webinar, the report’s authors (Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett) discussed the methodology, key findings, and policy implications of the research. The webinar was hosted by John Woodside, Ottawa Bureau Chief for Canada’s National Observer.

The webinar also featured comments from Jessica McCormick, President of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour, and Megan Gordon, Manager of Equitable Transition for the Pembina Institute.

The webinar is available on YouTube.

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Transition Away from Fossil Fuel Jobs is Already Occurring: Here’s How to Manage it Better

Jim Stanford — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 06:25:57 +0000

A report from the Centre for Future Work presents new research on the ongoing decline of fossil fuel employment in Canada, and strategies for managing that decline more effectively and fairly. The report, Worker Voice and Effective Transitions for Fossil Fuel Workers in Canada (by Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett), also asks fossil fuel workers what sorts of supports they want as this decline continues, and lays out best practices to avoid unemployment during the transition.

Key findings of the report include:

- There were 177,000 jobs in direct fossil fuel work in Canada in 2024 (including oil and gas, coal, petroleum refining, pipelines, natural gas distribution, and the share of electricity generation tied to fossil fuel combustion). That is just under 1% of total payroll employment.
- Fossil fuel employment declined by 38,000 jobs over the previous ten years (mostly in upstream oil and gas) – despite a 35% increase in Canadian oil production, and a 24% increase in natural gas production.
- This long-term decline is set to continue for many reasons, not solely or mostly climate policy. New technologies, economic forces, resource depletion, and corporate outsourcing strategies are all eliminating fossil fuel jobs.
- Fossil fuel workers are older than average; most will reach normal retirement age before 2050 (when Canada has committed to achieving a net-zero economy).
- Most fossil fuel workers surveyed in the report acknowledge that employment in their industry will decline in coming decades. However, they are reasonably optimistic that pro-active planning and supports can manage that decline without mass displacement.
- The strongest findings from surveys and interviews with fossil fuel workers include: very strong interest in early retirement programs as the most appealing transition program; and greater confidence in trade unions (rather than companies or governments) to negotiate and enforce binding commitments around employment transitions.

The paper concludes with 8 recommendations for strengthening employment transition programs in the future, tied to long-run emissions reduction policies, resource depletion, and technological change.

In short, an employment transition away from fossil fuel jobs is occurring, and occurring quickly. Regardless of the twists and turns of climate policy debates, that decline will continue, driven by deeper economic and technological factors. The choice for Canadians is not whether a shift away from fossil fuel work will occur, but how we will manage it.

The new report comes as Canadian politicians start another major debate over new oil and gas pipelines. Even building a new pipeline won’t reverse the long-run decline in fossil fuel jobs. To be sure, building a pipeline creates medium-term construction work – but no more than equivalent amounts spent on other energy investments (like wind and solar energy, transmission lines, energy retrofits of buildings, or public transit). And the historic decline in direct fossil fuel employment will continue anyway.

Please see the full report here: https://centreforfuturework.ca/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Transitions-for-Fossil-Fuel-Workers.pdf

The report’s findings and implications will be discussed further in a one-hour webinar, on Wednesday December 10 at 1:00 pm Eastern (10:00 am Pacific). In addition to the report co-authors, speakers at the webinar will include:

- John Woodside, Ottawa Bureau Chief for Canada’s National Observer (moderator).
- Jessica McCormick, President of the Newfoundland & Labrador Federation of Labour.
- Megan Gordon, Manager of Equitable Transition for the Pembina Institute.

Registration for the webinar is free but essential, here.

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The Importance of Unions in Reducing Racial Inequality

Jim Stanford — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 14:00:03 +0000

The Centre for Future Work has released new research regarding union coverage and wages across different racialized categories of Canadian workers. The report also contains a review of efforts by Canadian unions to improve their representation of Black and racialized workers, and recommendations for strengthening the union movement’s practices.

The research confirms that racialized workers are under-represented in unions. New Statistics Canada data, which now disaggregates statistics on employment, wages, and union status according to a set of racialized categories, indicates that racialized workers are significantly less likely to be represented by a union or covered by a union contract. This lack of collective bargaining power contributes to racial gaps in job quality, wages, and employment benefits.

In 2022, racialized workers earned hourly wages almost 10 percent lower than non-racialized workers – and were 8 percentage points less likely to be covered by a union contract. Only one-quarter of racialized workers are covered by a union contract, compared to one-third of non-racialized workers. The gap is even worse for racialized women, reflecting the intersectional barriers they face in accessing decent work – and achieving collective representation to fight for improvements.

The correlation between lower union coverage and lower wages confirms unions need to become more effective at organizing with racialized workers, and engaging with them in collective action for better jobs and better pay. For that to occur, however, unions need to become more visible and more consistent in fighting for racial equality in everything they do: from organizing campaigns, to collective bargaining, to union education, to leadership development, and grassroots community engagement.

This report also shares insights from interviews with fifteen experienced racialized trade unionists, that shed important light on the experiences of racialized workers organizing within unions. These interviews reveal a mixture of hope and frustration: hope that unions can and must be vehicles for racial equality and overall economic justice, but frustration that negative attitudes, inertia, and systemic racism within unions hold back the labour movement’s engagement with anti-racism struggles.

The simple math of Canada’s labour force cannot be denied: if unions cannot become more representative of the growing racialized segment of Canadian workers, their power will inevitably shrink in future years. But to succeed in organizing among racialized workers, and lifting their wages, job quality, and living standards, unions must act as vehicles of racial justice at the same time as they fight for better jobs and wages. From the interviews, and a survey of research and documents on previous union anti-racist initiatives, the report identifies several best practices which can strengthen unions’ racial justice work – and enhance their visibility and credibility among racialized workers.

The report concludes with several recommendations for specific initiatives and reforms so that Canadian unions can rise to the challenge of organizing and mobilizing with racialized workers in the struggle for both better jobs and a racially inclusive and equitable society. The fundamental conclusion of this report is that those two struggles are inseparable.

Please see the full report, The Importance of Unions in Reducing Racial Inequality: New Data and Best Practices, by Winnie Ng, Salmaan Khan, and Jim Stanford.

This report was prepared as part of the Centre for Future Work’s PowerShare program, in partnership with the Atkinson Foundation and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

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Short Film Explores Benefits of Workers’ Collective Voice for Workplaces and the Economy

Jim Stanford — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 12:00:46 +0000

The Centre for Future Work is proud to announce the release of a new animated film dramatizing the many ways workers with collective voice, representation, and bargaining power can make workplaces safer, more productive, more stable, and more fair.

The 11-minute film is titled Having a Say at Your Job: Why Workers’ Voice Builds Better Workplaces, a Better Economy, and Better Lives.

It features narration by Jim Stanford, Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work, and innovative animation by renowned progressive graphic designer Tony Biddle. The film follows a worker at a logistics factory through her day at work, documenting the many ways her union, collective agreement, and representation enhance the quality, fairness, and satisfaction of her job.

The film considers ten concrete benefits of workers’ voice in a workplace, including: job security, working conditions, training, working hours, health and safety, representation, wages and benefits, equality, union democracy, and broader social well-being.

The film will be a valuable resource for union education courses, organizing drives, and high school or university courses in labour studies, business, and economics.

Stanford said the film’s release is timely, given the upsurge in unionization and strikes in Canada and other countries in the last two years. “Workers are demanding more security, more fairness, and more respect at their jobs since COVID,” he said.

“The pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, and the widening gap between corporate profits and social well-being make it clear that workers need the power of the collective workforce to create better, fairer workplaces.”

“Hundreds of thousands of workers, in all sectors and all provinces, are forming unions, demanding change, and winning it. This film shows their struggles are not just about money: they are about respect, security, and democracy.”

The film’s unique moving-hand animation motif was developed by Tony Biddle, founder of Perfect World Design, who has illustrated many progressive projects in the past (including illustrations for Stanford’s best-selling economics textbook, Economics for Everyone). Videographer Steve Hawkins also contributed to the film with video and editing services.

The film was released as part of the Centre for Future Work’s ‘PowerShare’ project – a partnership with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, with support from the Atkinson Foundation. Previous PowerShare reports (such as Speaking Up, Being Heard, Making Change: The Theory and Practice of Worker Voice in Canada Today, by Jim Stanford and Daniel Poon), have documented the benefits of workers’ collective organization and voice for wages, equality, staff retention, and other economic variables.

The new film can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCtv_d3CM08.

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Calling Canadian Energy Workers: Take Our Survey on Future Job Transitions

Jim Stanford — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 06:22:45 +0000

As part of our PowerShare research project on planning effective and fair transitions for workers through the coming transformation of energy systems, the Centre for Future Work has designed a survey for people currently working in any fossil fuel industry in Canada: including oil and gas production, oilfield services, coal mining, petrochemicals, natural gas distribution, and related sectors.

The survey takes about 5 minutes, and gathers information on energy workers’ priorities for what types of policies would best support a gradual, supported labour transition – and what stakeholders (governments, fossil fuel companies, unions, or others) are best placed to lead and fund such a transition.

If you work in a fossil fuel-related industry, please take the survey through this link.

And if you know others who work in one of these industries, please forward the link to them! Thank you for your participation, and watch this space for results of our research in mid-2023.

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Our Times Feature Article on PowerShare Voice Report

Jim Stanford — Mon, 19 Jul 2021 17:26:48 +0000

The Spring 2021 edition of the Canadian labour magazine Our Times features a cover article on workers’ voice: how Canadian workers can express their concerns, and win meaningful change, in their workplaces. The article is based on the recent Centre for Future Work report, Speaking Out, Being Heard, Making Change: The Theory and Practice of Workers’ Voice in Canada, by Jim Stanford and Daniel Poon. That report was published earlier this year as part of our PowerShare project.

With the kind permission of Our Times, we are reposting the feature article here. Please see the 5-page article, which is a useful resource for union educationals, train-the-trainer sessions, and other uses: “Workers’ Voice: Fighting for the Right to Speak Up, and Be Heard, in the Workplace.”

Our Times is an invaluable source of news and analysis for anyone interested in the movement for workers’ rights in Canada; please visit their website to subscribe.

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Media and Video Coverage of New PowerShare Report: “Bargaining Tech”

Jim Stanford — Wed, 14 Jul 2021 18:22:44 +0000

The Centre for Future Work recently released the third major paper in its PowerShare project, titled “Bargaining Tech: Strategies for Shaping Technological Change to Benefit Workers,” by Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett.

The report was launched with a special webinar, held in conjunction with the recent (online) convention of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). The webinar featured presentations by the authors, who were joined by two Canadian union leaders who have confronted the challenges of new technology with innovative collective bargaining strategies: Jan Simpson, National President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and Bob Dhaliwal, Secretary-Treasurer of ILWU-Canada (representing longshore workers and other transportation and logistics industries). The webinar was chaired by Barbara Byers, former Secretary-treasurer of the CLC.

Here is a one-hour video with highlights from the webinar; it is a useful educational resource for unions and other groups campaigning around technology and workplace issues.

Written versions of remarks from Jan Simpson and Bob Dhaliwal are also available:

Their experiences on how to educate and mobilize union members to negotiate better protections against harmful effects of technological change, and ensure that workers share in the upside of new technology, are crucial input for other unions and other advocates working for a more equal and inclusive high-tech future. Their specific case studies are included among 300 other examples of technology-related collective agreement language negotiated by Canadian unions in the detailed Appendix tables in the full report.

The launch of the new PowerShare report was also featured in several media outlets, including:

Feature story in the National Post.
An in-depth cover story dealing with technology and workers’ voice in Our Times, Canada’s labour magazine.
Feature radio interview on The Pulse.
Radio debate and national call-in show on the Evan Solomon show.
A video panel on technology and the future of work with journalist Kevin Carmichael of the National Post.

Jim Stanford also wrote about the main themes of the paper in this commentary article in the National Post.

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Bargaining Tech: Shaping New Technologies to Improve Work, not Devalue It

Jim Stanford — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 07:01:12 +0000

The Centre for Future Work has published another major paper in its PowerShare project, dealing with the impact of new technology on the quantity and quality of work in Canada – and strategies for ensuring that new technology produces more benefits for workers.

The paper is entitled Bargaining Tech: Strategies for Shaping Technological Change to Benefit Workers, co-authored by Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett. It provides an overview of the complex, contradictory ways that technological change is affecting jobs in Canada. It also discusses how technology could be better managed and implemented to achieve better, fairer, more inclusive high-tech outcomes.

The report reviews recent debates about whether new technology will lead to mass unemployment (with workers replaced by robots and other smart machines), or will degrade the quality and autonomy of work (exemplified by hyper-intense algorithm-directed jobs in high-tech warehouses or the gig economy).

The paper also reviews efforts by trade unions in Canada to shape and regulate the introduction of new technologies in their workplaces. It compiles a database of 350 collective agreement provisions, through which workers and their unions have tried to influence how technology rolls out.

Major findings include:

- - Fears that tech change will produce mass unemployment are not consistent with statistical evidence from Canada’s recent economic history. Instead, a bigger economic risk is that investments in innovation by Canadian businesses (both in tangible machinery and intangible research) have been too weak – weaker than at any time in the postwar era.
  - While fears of mass unemployment are misplaced, implementation of new technologies can certainly cause disruption and reallocation of work. And technology can also have negative effects on the quality of jobs: including speed-up of work, fragmentation of tasks, new health & safety risks, and the expansion of insecure employment (including gigs) through digital management tools.
  - For all these reasons, whether technology leads to better jobs or worse jobs is indeterminate: depending on whose interests prevail as new tech is unrolled. For that reason, giving workers more say in negotiating how technology unfolds is vital to enhancing the benefits and reducing the costs.
  - Canadian unions have been heavily engaged in negotiating technological change in their workplaces. There is no evidence unions are trying to “stop” technology. Instead, they are trying to shape and manage it: through measures like notice, adjustment supports, access to training and redeployment, limits on surveillance and digital discipline, provisions regarding work from home (which expanded under COVID), and more.
  - The authors’ survey of union bargaining strategies has identified one important shortcoming: the issue of reducing regular working hours has largely fallen off the union bargaining agenda. The authors urge unions to seek ways of revitalizing the campaign for shorter working hours as one key strategy for sharing the productivity gains of new technology, and avoiding unemployment.

The authors conclude with several policy suggestions aimed at both governments and unions, including strengthening collective bargaining systems (especially in the private sector, where just one worker in six is covered by a collective agreement); linking government support for business innovation activity with commitment to negotiate tech change with their workers; and developing ‘early warning systems’ whereby unions can get ahead of tech change before it rolls out. Those measures would help ensure faster, fairer tech change in Canadian workplaces – and a better sharing of its costs and benefits.

Please see the full report, Bargaining Tech: Strategies for Shaping Technological Change to Benefit Workers, by Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett.

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Media & Video Coverage of New Report on Workers’ Voice

Jim Stanford — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 17:26:01 +0000

The Centre for Future Work recently released a major report on the theory and practice of “workers’ voice,” as part of its ongoing PowerShare project.

The report is titled Speaking Up, Being Heard, Making Change: The Theory and Practice of Worker Voice in Canada Today, was co-authored by Jim Stanford and Daniel Poon. The full report is available here.

The report was launched with a special 50-minute webinar featuring presentations by:

- Shannon Daub, B.C. Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
- Co-authors Jim Stanford and Daniel Poon
- Christine Maclin, Director of Human Rights for Unifor, speaking on that union’s new Racial Justice Advocate program
- Pamela Charron, with the Worker Solidarity Network, who described that organization’s efforts to provide voice for exploited workers

A recording of the webinar is available here:

The report was covered in a major story in the Toronto Star, by Rosa Saba. The article cited several Canadian workplace experts (including Prof. Gregor Murray, Dr. Graham Lowe, and Deena Ladd) on the importance of organized systems of workers’ voice, and concrete measures to strengthen it. The report was featured in this special commentary in the Globe and Mail. The report was also covered in 83 other media stories.

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Strengthening Workers’ Voice in the Future of Work

Jim Stanford — Tue, 16 Mar 2021 12:00:39 +0000

The Centre for Future Work has published a major new report on the economic and social benefits of workers’ voice.

There is abundant evidence that jobs are better when workers can provide input, express opinions, and influence change in their workplaces. Providing workers with regular, safe channels of “voice” increases their personal motivation and job satisfaction. It benefits their employer, too, through reduced turnover, enhanced productivity, and better information flows. And it contributes to a range of positive economic and social outcomes: from stronger productivity growth, to less inequality, to improved health.

Given the dramatic changes occurring in Canadian workplaces (including automation, digital employment platforms, climate change, and pandemics), the need for thorough and effective channels of workers’ voice is more urgent than ever.

This major new report from the Centre for Future Work’s PowerShare project reviews the theory and practice of workers’ voice in Canada. It identifies several reasons we need stronger mechanisms of voice in workplaces – but shows that voice mechanisms have eroded in recent years, especially in the private sector. Finally, the report lists eight concrete strategies for strengthening workers’ voice into the future.

Please read the full report, Speaking Up, Being Heard, Making Change: The Theory and Practice of Worker Voice in Canada Today, by Jim Stanford and Daniel Poon.

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