Tom McDowell – författare

Canada has one of the highest rates of low-wage work among advanced industrial economies. In a labour market characterized by the ongoing fallout from COVID-19, deepening income inequality, job instability, and diluted union representation, the living wage movement offers a response. Rising Up traces the history and international context of living wage movements across Canada. In the 1970s, the balance of political and economic power began to shift in favour of business, as trade unions weakened and governments failed to check corporate power. By the 2000s, austerity measures had dismantled social spending, facilitating the growth of low-waged employment. Contributors to this astute collection of essays examine union- and community-based approaches to labour organizing, migrant labour, and media (mis)representations, among other key topics. Offering stimulating debate about living wages and social inequality, Rising Up promotes alternatives to a neoliberalized labour market.

Canada has one of the highest rates of low-wage work among advanced industrial economies. In a labour market characterized by the ongoing fallout from COVID-19, deepening income inequality, job instability, and diluted union representation, the living wage movement offers a response. Rising Up traces the history and international context of living wage movements across Canada. In the 1970s, the balance of political and economic power began to shift in favour of business, as trade unions weakened and governments failed to check corporate power. By the 2000s, austerity measures had dismantled social spending, facilitating the growth of low-waged employment. Contributors to this astute collection of essays examine union- and community-based approaches to labour organizing, migrant labour, and media (mis)representations, among other key topics. Offering stimulating debate about living wages and social inequality, Rising Up promotes alternatives to a neoliberalized labour market.

In Neoliberal Parliamentarism, Tom McDowell provides an alternative approach to understanding the decline of parliament at the Ontario legislature, an approach that highlights the politics of neoliberalism and the significant impact it has had over the last four decades.Throughout, McDowell offers a structural critique of parliament, claiming that restrictions on the legislature cannot be separated from the ascendance of neoliberalism as the dominant social and policy paradigm in the province. Tracking the evolution of procedure at the Ontario Legislature from 1981 to 2021, McDowell shows that, beginning in the early 1980s, the establishment of increasingly restrictive procedural rules was critical to securing the passage of controversial neoliberal restructuring policies. Further, he argues that the decades-long shift towards de-democratization and the concentration of political power in the executive ought to be understood in the context of neoliberalism’s rejection of parliamentary sovereignty and legal positivism.As an in-depth study of the implementation of neoliberalism policy on the political apparatus of Ontario, Neoliberal Parliamentarism is critical reading for scholars and students interested in the relationship between neoliberalism and de-democratization, the politics of Ontario, and parliamentary procedure more broadly.