He’s a twenty-something with a university degree, working for a government agency on contract through a temporary employment agency. He does similar work to the other members of his team and reports to the same boss. The difference is that they get salaries, benefits, a collective agreement, and some measure of job security. He is paid only an hourly wage.

She worked in the financial services industry for 20 years and took a package offered during a corporate restructuring. Now she works from home, for the same bank, on contract, as a self-employed person with no benefits or job security.

He does heavy manual work for a manufacturing company for an hourly wage. He is ‘on-call’ and does not know from one week to the next how many hours he will be working. He and his wife find it very difficult to manage the budget and juggle the child care. The work is dangerous, but he doesn’t complain. He’s afraid of losing the work.