Precarity, Agency, and Unsustainability: The Mobility of Young Adult Tourism Workers in Banff National Park, Canada

Abstract

This article focuses on young adults who travel to work and live in the Rocky Mountain resort destination of Banff National Park in western Canada. This is usually an early work experience in the lives of these young workers, often their first. I discuss the patterns and the impact of the work mobility of young adult tourism workers using three different frames of understanding: (a) the precarious employment associated with the tourism industry itself; (b) the specific place and community of Banff and how it shapes particular conditions of precarity and agency within the tourism industry and for young tourism workers’ experiences; and (c) the young adult tourism workers themselves — their motives for work and travel, their experiences of work, and their agency in navigating the tourism industry in Banff. Using these three frames, I examine the impact of precarity and agency on the transfer of work knowledge, on the sustainability of the tourism industry work and the community, and on the young adult tourism workers’ future work experiences. It is critical to examine work precarity, worker agency, and job and community sustainability in order to understand more fully the experiences of mobility of young adult tourism workers, and their early work experiences. This is all the more important as, in a climate of economic change and restructuring, young adult workers are becoming central to the consideration of employment policy issues.

Occupational Health and Safety and the Mobile Workforce: Insights from a Canadian Research Program.

“…Other On the Move research not included here has focused on the OHS and other issues associated with mobility among precariously employed immigrant workers in Toronto, 6 seasonally employed migrant inter-provincial and international seafood processing workers in Atlantic Canada, 7,28,43 among differently mobile health care workers in Nova Scotia on Canada's east coast, 10,44,45 and tourism workers in Banff, Alberta. 8 A core message from this work is that protecting the health and safety and dignity of workers requires attention to not only conditions at work, but also at home and on the road, as well as to how these intersect to affect risk, recognition and compensation. Some On the Move researchers have argued for the existence of work-related 'mobility regimes' which encompass such things as immigration and health and safety and compensation laws, hiring practices, work scheduling and mobility options, costs and time investments, and the discourses associated with differently mobile groups.…”

“…Many Canadians and some international migrant workers work in mobile workplaces such as those in trucking, fishing, shipping, or the airline sector. Others come from local regions, different parts of Canada, or internationally to work in the service sector including in a hotel or outfitting lodge in rural areas or in major tourism centers like Banff in Alberta, 8 as health care and live-in caregivers, 9,10 or as high or lowskilled workers in occupations in such sectors as construction, agriculture, seafood, and meat processing in urban and rural areas. 11 The challenges to effective OHS protections and for fair access to workers' compensation differ according to the specific situation.…”