SPATIAL SHIFTS, WORKER RIFTS: LABOUR CONTROL AND RESISTANCE AMONG MIGRANT REMOTE WORKERS IN NORTHEASTERN ONTARIO AND THE MARITIMES

Abstract

The rise of remote work during and after the COVID-19 pandemic drove many workers to migrate from large metropolitan areas to smaller, more rural regions, enabled by the detachment of work from the physical office. Using interview data from 27 Canadian remote workers who migrated to northeastern Ontario or the Maritimes between 2020-2024, this study contributes to the larger body of remote work literature by investigating how working remotely, and at a distance, affects labour control and resistance dynamics. This thesis contributes a worker-centered perspective to remote work literature, which is often shaped by a productivity bias rooted in employer-focused fields. It also fills key gaps by exploring effects of internal migration on control and resistance among white-collar, non-unionized remote workers—topics that remain largely underexamined. Data from participant interviews yielded several key insights about migrant remote workers. They often use spatial distance as a tool to avoid employer control. However, their employers also utilize remote workplace technologies to increase surveillance and exert casual control from afar. Many migrant remote workers also indicate that when their spatial autonomy is threatened, they may respond with acts of individual or collective resistance. Finally, while many workers describe feeling highly productive and “in control” of their work, these accounts reveal a fallacy in perceived control, as this sense of autonomy often masks deeper forms of employer oversight.