Marian Binkley – författare

According to Labour Canada, workers in the offshore fishery are more likely to be injured than workers in mining, construction, or forestry. Yet until recently these casualties at sea have been largely ignored by government and labour organizations. Risks, Dangers, and Rewards in the Nova Scotia Offshore Fishery describes the hidden cost paid by workers in the Nova Scotia offshore fishery, a cost measured not in dollars and cents but in deaths and injuries. In this comprehensive study Marian Binkley documents the level of risk and assesses the general health and stress level of workers in the Nova Scotia offshore fishery. She considers shipboard working environment; stress; accidents, injuries, and general health; safety awareness; job satisfaction and family life; and the impact on working conditions of government resource policies and companies'' scientific management strategies. Using statistical analysis, participant observation, surveys, and interviews, Binkley establishes that factors such as technological developments, management changes, and home and community life affect the immediate work experience of fishers and can increase the dangers of an already hazardous occupation.

Set against the backdrop of the fisheries crisis of the 1990s, Set Adrift examines how coastal and deep-sea fishermen's wives in rural Nova Scotia have adapted to the extraordinary pressures put on their households by the reorganization of the fishing industry. Using in-depth interviews conducted with the wives of deep-sea and coastal fishermen, members of fishermen's wives' support groups, and fish company managers, Marian Binkley explores the role of social origins and family traditions, family and social networks, and the availability of employment opportunities and social services on fishing households.Comparing and contrasting the households of deep-sea versus coastal fishers, Binkley illustrates the daily dependence of husbands upon their wives' labour and ability to adapt to often difficult and precarious living conditions. Maintaining that women make the fishing industry sustainable with their unpaid household labour, Binkley argues that the failure of Canadian government officials and policy makers to recognize the centrality of women's labour to the industry has resulted in fishers' wives bearing the brunt of the large economic and social costs generated by the current fisheries crisis. Ultimately, she contends, any analysis of production for exchange must recognize the essential contribution that household domestic labour makes to the sustainability of economic activity.