Bishops say use of part-time workers is destabilizing

National Catholic Reporter, June 6, 2003

CANADA: Employment trends such as the growing use of part-time employees and short-term contracts have a destabilizing impact on society, Quebec's bishops said. In their annual May Day message, released by the bishops' Social Affairs Committee, the Quebec bishops said a drop in the province's and country's unemployment rates was due to the creation of more part-time jobs and the proliferation of short-term contracts, a worrying source of job insecurity.

"The number of full-time jobs available continues to fall, and those jobs are often short-term contracts calling for highly specialized skills and are thus accessible to a limited number of people," the bishops said. "Is access to stable and well-paid employment becoming the privilege of a minority?"

The bishops lamented the fact that 60 percent of Quebec's workers are not unionized, and within this category, some 200,000 earn the Canadian minimum wage of $7 (US$5) per hour. Provincial labor laws do not guarantee equal rights to those without a regular full-time job, which can lead to conditions "akin to slavery," the bishops said, observing that often employers avoid providing benefits by taking on free-lance workers.