Sociology

The article focuses on the issues regarding the problems pension plans due to poor management and limitations of Canada's voluntary private pension system. It mentions security of defined benefit (DB) plans and acceptance of defined contribution (DC) plans for future hires and part-time workers, the self-employed and independent contractors usually have no pension coverage. It also mentions challenges of providing retirement income security for Canada's labour force.

By way of introducing this special issue of Affinities, I would like to ask, what can anarchism and antiracism learn from one another? Attempts to critically reflect on the two traditions have certainly been made in the past (Evrin 1993; Adams 2000; Alston 2003; Aragorn! 2007). As writers who have pursued this task point out, a crossing-over of the two currents of thought makes certain intuitive sense: the anarchist tradition of kicking against every imposed hierarchy is incomplete without a challenge to racism, and, in the same vein, antiracism can only go so far without approaching racism as a problem of authority. And yet, it seems that the task of having both traditions learn from and challenge one another has hardly gotten off the ground.

Based on research involving an overview of 44 policies at Canadian universities and 21 interviews with anti-harassment practitioners across the country, this thesis explores the challenges faced by anti-harassment practitioners working with legally defined institutional harassment discrimination policies. Anti-harassment work at Canadian universities is complex because practitioners must negotiate institutional demands set out in policy as well as politicized demands from members of marginalized groups both inside and outside the institution. Interviews with practitioners reveal that their daily work in reactive investigation and mediation of complaints as well as their proactive work in educating campus communities may support the less powerful parties to complaints, rather than focusing only on limiting the institution's legal liability. Therefore, although anti-harassment practitioners occupy a boundary role as defined by Fraser (1989), their work is not entirely "ìdepoliticizing". Practitioners' identities, sense of marginalization, and commitment to activist politics contribute to their position as tempered radicals as defined by Meyerson and Scully (1995), helping to explain their commitment to both institutional prerogatives and to empowering marginalized members of the institution. The thesis illustrates how neutralizing neoliberal discourses are infiltrating the equity project and how the work of practitioners intersects with these broader social changes. The origins of harassment and discrimination policies in Canadian universities can be traced to the political activism of groups focusing on feminist, anti-racist, gay and lesbian rights issues, among others. As a result of the work of activist groups to have human rights issues dealt with under human rights law, institutions are legally obligated to institute and enact policies to deal with harassing and discriminatory behaviours and changes to policy are viewed in the context of developments in case law. Institutional policies are currently embedded in a social and political context that is very different from the social context in which sexual, racial, and homophobic discrimination was originally challenged, politicized, and publicized. The advent of neoliberalism sets the stage for the shift of discourses and practices away from those which value equity to those that underscore traditional divisions of power and challenge the demands of so-called "special interest groups". This shift is underscored by concerns about "political correctness" that arise within institutional communities and the broader social context. Perhaps the most obvious of the changes relates to the shift from a focus on equity and human rights to what is termed the "respectful workplace model". The inclusion of personal harassment issues in human rights policies shifts the focus of the policies to issues that are not tied to historical oppressions and can potentially deflect attention from the human rights component of these policies. The challenge is to move beyond a legalistic perspective regarding policy development and to consider changes in the broader social context that influence policy change and the work of anti-harassment practitioners.