September 12, 2013

Perry Work Report, September 12, 2013

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The Centre for Industrial Rrelations and Human Rresources library has a new website; here you'll find links to the Perry Work Report archive, Focus on Research (where you can find all of the research done by professors at CIRHR), Archive-It (a database of major Canadian labour union websites from 2006 to present), Sefton Lectures, an archive of Ontario Labour Relations Board reports, and subject/course research guides.

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Dude, Where's My Future?

During the week of September 9, 2013, The Agenda with Steven Paikin examined the Millennial Generation’s anxieties about their future economic prosperity.

Rafael Gomez, a professor at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto, is a panelist in this series, entitled “Dude, Where’s My Future?”.

You can also read stories related to this series on The Agenda’s blog.

The Agenda, September 10, 2013: “What Can You Do with a BA?” [video, 54:29 min.]

The Agenda, September 9, 2013: “The Agenda with Steve Paikin: The Young People's Agenda” [video, 54:49 min.]

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Announcing Ontario's New Minimum Wage Advisory Panel

"Ontario’s new minimum wage advisory panel will look at more than just inflation when it considers how to calculate future increases, says the University of Toronto professor who will lead the initiative."

"Economic growth and job productivity should also be factors, said Anil Verma, who teaches human resource management at the university’s Rotman School of Management [and heads U of T’s Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources].”

"Ontario Labour Minister Yasir Naqvi named Verma chair of the Liberal government’s long-awaited advisory panel of business, labour and youth representatives Wednesday [July 17, 2013].”

"The six-member panel will hold public consultations across the province, engage Ontarians through the Internet and social media and conduct an in-depth review of how minimum wages are calculated in other provinces and around the world, he said. It will report in six months."

The Star, July 17, 2013: “Ontario minimum wage panel to look at more than just inflation,” by Laurie Monsebraaten

Ontario Ministry of Labour, July 17, 2013: “New Advisory Panel to Examine Ontario’s Minimum Wage System”

Ontario Ministry of Labour, July 2013: “A Consultation Paper On Ontario’s Minimum Wage” (7 pages, PDF)

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Paul Cavalluzzo Appointed to the Order of Canada

“Cavalluzzo is one of Canada's leading constitutional and labour lawyers. He is a senior partner with Cavalluzzo, Hayes, Shilton, McIntrye & Cornish LLP. He has represented several unions at the Supreme Court of Canada. One of his most noted cases was when he acted as legal counsel in a series of Charter challenges brought by the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada in the continuing struggle to overturn Ontario's ban on farm unions."

"During his distinguished 40 year legal career, Cavalluzzo has been a strong advocate and advisor on a host of legal and public policy issues impacting on the lives of Canadians. He has served as counsel on several public inquiries including the Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar, the Walkerton Inquiry, the Air India Inquiry and the Inquiry into Pediatric Forensic Pathology in Ontario.”

National Union of Public and General Employees, July 22, 2013: CFLR Board member, Paul Cavalluzzo, appointed to Order of Canada

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National Household Survey Third Release -- Income and Housing

"Statistics Canada’s latest release of 2011 National Household Survey data illustrates, among other things, how much Canadians have been earning and where they have been living. Some highlights:"

"Housing costs weigh heavily: One-quarter of Canadian households, about 3.3 million, spent 30 per cent or more of their total income on shelter, exceeding the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s ‘affordability threshold.’”

"The ‘one per cent’: The top one per cent among earners averaged $381,300, and 64 per cent of them lived in Ontario and Alberta.”

"The low income: 4.8 million Canadians, or 14.9 per cent, lived in low-income households in 2010.”

"Transfer nation: In 2010, 70 per cent of Canadians received some government transfers -- Canada Pension Plan, employment insurance, or old age security benefits, for example. Of those receiving government transfers, 13 per cent reported it as their sole source of income.”

"Most and least dependent: Employment income accounted for 87.8 per cent of total income in the Northwest Territories, the highest in the country. At the other end of the spectrum was Prince Edward Island at 68.6 per cent of total income.”

The Globe and Mail, September 11, 2013: “National Household Survey: What Canadians earned and where they lived”

The Globe and Mail, September 11, 2013: “National Household Survey finds top 1 per cent earn 7 times Canadian median,” by Bill Curry

The Globe and Mail, September 11, 2013: “Boomers’ condo exodus still a long way off, say experts,” by Romina Maurino

The Globe and Mail, September 12, 2013: ”The Wealth of the Nation: A Snapshot of What Canadians Earn,” by Tavia Grant and Bill Curry

The Huffington Post, September 11, 2013: “National Household Survey: Highlights From The Income And Housing Release”

Statistics Canada, September 11, 2013: National Household Survey -- Topics, 2011: Income and Housing

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The Maddening, Unmoving Economic Gap Between Blacks and Whites

"President Obama’s powerful address [on August 28, 2013], on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 'I Have a Dream' speech, included a beautiful turn of phrase linking social and economic progress for blacks in America. ‘For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can’t afford the meal?’ Without equality of economic opportunity, legal equality can only accomplish so much."

"Social and economic progress since King’s speech has been slow but spiky. Here’s a brief tour."

"We’ll start with the good. The life-expectancy and high-school completion gap between blacks and whites has shrunk tremendously, according to Pew Research. [But gaps are little changed in regard to poverty and homeownership]… Blacks experience the same disadvantage in poverty and homeownership that they witnessed in the 1960s. Meanwhile, in the last half-century, [although] the median income of families with black heads-of-household has grown, but the gap between black families and white families has expanded.”

The Atlantic, August 28, 2013: ” The Maddening, Unmoving Economic Gap Between Blacks and Whites,” by Derek Thompson

Pew Research, August 22, 2013: “King’s Dream Remains an Elusive Goal; Many Americans See Racial Disparities” (46 pages, PDF)

Facts about the black and white economic gap:

"1) The black unemployment rate has consistently been twice as high as the white unemployment rate for 50 years
2) For the past 50 years, black unemployment has been well above recession levels
3) The gap in household income between blacks and whites hasn’t narrowed in the last 50 years
4) In fact, the wealth disparity between whites and blacks grew even wider during the Great Recession
5) The black poverty rate is no longer declining
6) Black children are far more likely than whites to live in areas of concentrated poverty
7) Our schools are more segregated today than in 1980
8) The marriage gap has widened over the past 50 years -- Why does any of this matter? Here's Pew: 'Marriage is considered an indicator of well-being in part because married adults are economically better off, although that may reflect the greater propensity of affluent adults to marry.'
9) Blacks are still far more likely to be uninsured than whites. That’s true for both adults and children
10) The racial disparity in incarceration rates is bigger than it was in the 1960s”

The Washington Post, August 28, 2013: “These ten charts show the black-white economic gap hasn’t budged in 50 years,” by Brad Plumer

The Washington Post, August 28, 2013: “Fifty years after March on Washington, economic gap between blacks, whites persists,” by Michael A. Fletcher

Brookings, August 28, 2013: “The Other American Dream: Social Mobility, Race and Opportunity,” by Richard V. Reeves

On the Economy: Facts, Thoughts, and Commentary, August 28, 2013: “Dr. King, Full Employment, and Some Provocative Wage Trends,” by Jared Bernstein

Pew Research, August 22, 2013: “Race in America: Tracking 50 Years of Demographic Trends”

U.S. Census Bureau, August 2013: “America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2012,” by Jonathan Vespa, Jamie M. Lewis, and Rose M. Kreider (34 pages, PDF)

Economic Policy Institute, June 18, 2013: “The Unfinished March: An Overview,” by Algernon Austin (13 pages, PDF)

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, March 2013: “Health Coverage by Race and Ethnicity: The Potential Impact of the Affordable Care Act” (12 pages, PDF)

U.S. Census Bureau, September 2012: “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011,” by Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith

The Urban Institute: “The Racial Wealth Gap Is Three Times Greater Than the Racial Income Gap” [website, interactive graphic]

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OECD Urges Action on Canada's Long-Term Unemployed

“Almost 175,000 Canadians are watching the economic recovery from the sidelines.”

"While Canada’s labour market has rebounded sharply from the depths of the recession, the number of long-term unemployed has refused to budge, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has found."

"[The] OECD stated in its report...‘the number of long-term unemployed has yet to decline. A possible reason ... is that employers recruiting new workers often prefer to hire new labour-market entrants and the short-term unemployed.’”

"A skills mismatch in the labour market caused by the shifting composition of the Canadian economy has also contributed to the climb in long-term unemployment rates, said Avery Shenfield, chief economist at CIBC World Markets Inc."

The Globe and Mail, July 17,2013: “OECD urges action on Canada’s long-term unemployment,” by Thandiwe Vela

The Globe and Mail, July 5, 2013: “Canada’s jobless rate in June”

The Globe and Mail, July 5, 2013: “Better U.S. job numbers good news for Canada’s stagnant labour market”

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Employment Outlook, July 2013: “How Does Canada Compare” (2 pages, PDF)

OECD Indicators of Employment Protection

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How Long-Term Unemployment Affects the Job Search

"What is the only thing worse than unemployment? Long-term unemployment, apparently. If you lose your job, there are a bunch of hardships you are inevitably going to endure until you find a new one. If you do not find a new one in a hurry, you may face the additional hardship of not finding one for an increasingly long period of time. Employers, it seems, view people who have not held a job with an eye that increases in wariness in proportion to their joblessness."

“The insights come from an upcoming paper by Swedish economists Stefan Eriksson and Dan-Olof Rooth, which is to be published in the American Economic Review and was quoted in a blog in this week’s Wall Street Journal ... What they found was that being unemployed for a short period of time made no difference at all to job seekers’ prospects, but that being unemployed for longer did.”

“Actually, it made a difference for workers who were applying for jobs that did not require a college degree, who saw their returned calls decline by 20 per cent. Workers who were applying for jobs that did need more education did not see the same decline in response, although it is difficult to know why...”

“...[Furthermore, O]ver this business cycle, long-term unemployment has been a considerably less severe problem in Canada than it is in the United States. According to Statistics Canada, as of June, 2013 ... the average duration of unemployment in Canada was 18.3 weeks. In contrast, the average duration of unemployment in the U.S. was 35.6 weeks.“

The Globe and Mail, August 9, 2013: “How long-term unemployment is affecting the job search,” by Linda Nazareth

The Institute for the Study of Labor, Discussion Paper Series, December 2011: “Do Employers Use Unemployment as a Sorting Criterion When Hiring? Evidence from a Field Experiment,” by Stefan Eriksson and Dan-Olof Rooth (click on ‘Download This Paper’ to access the paper)

The Atlantic, August 2, 2013: “Is Falling Long-Term Unemployment Good News?,” by Matthew O’Brien

Urban Institute, August 20, 2013: “Who Are the Long-Term Unemployed?" by Josh Mitchell (20 pages, PDF)

The Atlantic, August 23, 2013: “Who Are the Long-Term Unemployed?,” by Matthew O’Brien

The Atlantic, August 28, 2013: “The Tragic Trap of Longterm Unemployment,” by Jordan Weissmann

Bureau of Labour Statistics, August 2013: “Long-term unemployment over men’s careers,” by Donna S. Rothstein [9 pages, PDF]

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Gender Equity: A Harvard Business School Case Study

"When the members of the Harvard Business School class of 2013 gathered in May to celebrate the end of their studies, there was little visible evidence of the experiment they had undergone for the last two years. As they stood amid the brick buildings named after businessmen from Morgan to Bloomberg, black-and-crimson caps and gowns united the 905 graduates into one genderless mass."

"But during that week’s festivities, the Class Day speaker, a standout female student, alluded to ‘the frustrations of a group of people who feel ignored.’ Others grumbled that another speechmaker, a former chief executive of a company in steep decline, was invited only because she was a woman. At a reception, a male student in tennis whites blurted out, as his friends laughed, that much of what had occurred at the school had ‘been a painful experience.’"

"He and his classmates had been unwitting guinea pigs in what would have once sounded like a far-fetched feminist fantasy: What if Harvard Business School gave itself a gender makeover, changing its curriculum, rules and social rituals to foster female success?"

Read the full case study to find out.

The New York Times, September 7, 2013: “Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity,” by Jodi Kantor

And just another reason to embrace corporate diversity... women make better directors!

From the abstract of "Why Women Make Better Directors":

"The positive correlation between the presence of female directors on boards and corporate performance suggests that women appear to make better directors than men. But why? Using the Defined Issues Test (DIT) instrument (Rest, 1979, 1986), 624 board directors (75% male; 25% female) were surveyed to determine their reliance on three reasoning methods (i.e., ‘Personal Interest’, ‘Normative’ and ‘Complex Moral Reasoning’ or ‘CMR’) to make decisions. The results showed that female directors achieved significantly higher scores than their male counterparts on the CMR dimension which essentially involves making consistently fair decisions when competing interests are at stake. Since directors are compelled to make decisions in the best interest of their corporation while taking the viewpoints of multiple stakeholders into account, having a significant portion of female directors with highly developed CMR skills on board would appear to be an important resource for making these types of decisions and making them more effectively."

International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2013: “Why women make better directors,” by Chris Bart and Gregory McQueen (7 pages, PDF)

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Leadership, Feminism, and Equality in Unions in Canada

"[The] project Leadership, Feminism and Equality in Unions in Canada explores the current climate and attitudes to women, feminism, leadership and equality in Canadian unions through the insights, voices and experiences of women union leaders, activists and staff in Canadian unions.”

To learn more about some of their findings, click here. Also, see the articles below have been published in Our Times magazine, by the project’s leaders.

Our Times, June/July 2013: “How to Revitalize Union Women’s Committees: Six Challenges and Six Strategies for Change,” by Linda Briskin, Sue Genge, Margaret Mcphail, and Marion Pollack (10 pages, PDF)

Our Times, April/May 2013: “Under the Rainbow: Equality during Times of Austerity,” by Linda Briskin, Sue Genge, Margaret McPhail, and Marion Pollack (6 pages, PDF)

Our Times, February/March 2013: “Making Time for Equality: Women as Leaders in the Canadian Labour Movement,” by Linda Briskin, Sue Genge, Margaret McPhail, and Marion Pollack (8 pages, PDF)

Visit the project website or contact them by email at lbriskin@yorku.ca for more information.

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How Globalization and Technology Teamed Up to Crush Middle-Class Workers

"In a sentence: Globalization (in particular, increased trade with China) has opened the doors to more consumers and more cheap workers while labor-saving technology has created more efficient ways to serve those consumers. As a result, the businesses are bigger, but the workers’ share is getting smaller. Fifty years ago, the four most valuable U.S. companies employed an average of 430,000 people with an average market cap of $180 billion. These days, the largest U.S. companies have about 2x the market cap of their 1964 counterparts with one-fourth of the employees. That’s what doing more with less looks like.”

"In macro explanations of the economy, globalizationandtechnology are often served up together in one big mixture... But they don’t have a monolithic effect. These are two distinct forces with distinct implications for distinct cities, according to new research by David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson… Here’s the bumper sticker version of their conclusion: Globalization increases unemployment; technology increases inequality.”

"... With globalization replacing American workers with Chinese labor and computers replacing middle-class workers with software programs, labor costs have fallen for companies while demand has grown all over the world. The result has been higher profits, not just for the finance companies who make up a growing share of domestic corporate earnings, but also for manufacturing companies and other multinational firms. It’s a sad, inescapable truth that many international companies are thriving, not despite the incredible shrinking American worker, but because of him.”

The Atlantic, August 13, 2013: “Bash Brothers: How Globalization and Technology Teamed Up to Crush Middle-Class Workers,” by Derek Thompson

The National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2013: “Untangling Trade and Technology: Evidence from Local Labor Markets,” by David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson.

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Study: Changing Labour Market Conditions for Young Canadians

"Over the past three decades, the employment outcomes of young Canadians aged 15 to 34 evolved differently across periods, gender, age groups and provinces."

"Women aged 25 to 34 had more favourable employment outcomes in 2012 than did their counterparts in 1981. They had lower unemployment rates, greater incidence of full-time employment, and higher wages in 2012 than in 1981."

"Men aged 25 to 34 living in the oil-producing provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador had mixed results. They had lower full-time employment rates in 2012 than in 1981. However, their wages were higher in 2012 and their unemployment rate was relatively low in both years."

“Among men and women under 25, employment conditions also deteriorated between 1981 and 2012, but less so in oil-producing provinces.”

Statistics Canada’s The Daily, July 4, 2013: “Study: Changing labour market conditions for young Canadians”

Statistics Canada, July 2013: “What has changed for young people in Canada?,” by by Diane Galarneau, Rene Morissette, and Jeannine Usalcas (14 pages, PDF)

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Temporary Foreign Workers Flood into Canada as Youth Can't Find Work: Conference Board Asks Why

“The Conference Board of Canada can’t fully answer the question, but it does wonder why Canada is importing so many temporary foreign workers when its own young people can’t find jobs.”

“In the final piece of a three-part look at the post-crisis labour market , the group cites the fact that the number of temps from outside the country reached almost 340,000 by December of last year, up from 150,000 in 2006.”

"This, as Canada’s unemployment rate continued to climb, particularly among young people."

“‘Canadian youth are struggling to secure employment,’ Pedro Atunes, the Conference Board’s director of forecasting and analysis, and senior economist Alicia Macdonald wrote in their latest report. This, justifiably, raises the question: if the unemployment rate remains relatively high and so many young and able Canadians are unable to find work, why are still bringing in so many people under the TFW program?’”

"They cited three possible factors: a skills mismatch; ‘labour market rigidities,’ the suggestion being that higher jobless benefits in some regions of the country stop people from moving to areas where there may be work; and the ‘perception’ that employers can pay less for foreign workers."

The Globe and Mail, July 23, 2013: “Temporary foreign workers flood into Canada as youth can’t find work: Conference Board asks why,” Michael Babad

The Conference Board of Canada, July 22, 2013: [Part 3] “Temporary Foreign Workers: Filling a Void?,” by Pedro Antunes and Alicia Macdonald

The Conference Board of Canada, July 15, 2013: [Part 2] “The Young and the Jobless,” by Pedro Antunes and Alicia Macdonald

The Conference Board of Canada, July 09, 2013: [Part 1] “The Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services Industry,” by Pedro Antunes and Alicia Macdonald

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North American Bangladesh Factory Plan Derided as 'Toothless'

“North American retailers unveiled a five-year safety plan for Bangladesh garment factories on [July 10, 2013] that would include inspecting within a year every factory they use, following tragedies such as April’s deadly garment building collapse.”
“The North American plan was immediately criticized by groups that think a European-led plan is stronger.”

"The plan, [was] announced in Washington by the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety...”

"A larger number of mainly European retailers that have signed what is known as the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh announced a similar plan on [July 8, 2013]. Both plans include factory inspections, worker training and ways for workers to report safety concerns. The two groups also agreed not to use factories considered to be unsafe...”

However, “European unions involved in the other accord, industriALL and UNI Global Union, called the North American alliance “another toothless” auditing program.”

The Globe and Mail, July 11, 2013: “Bangladesh factory plan derided as ‘toothless’,” by Jessica Wohl and Doug Palmer

industriALL, July 10, 2013: “Walmart/Gap Bangladesh safety plan: pale imitation of Accord”

Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety: Bangladesh Worker Safety Initiative

industriALL & UNI Global Union: Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh

Click here to read all of our tumblr posts on Bangladesh factory labour.

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Book of the Week

Global Anti-Unionism: Nature, Dynamics, Trajectories and Outcomes, edited by Gregor Gall and Tony Dundon. Basingstoke, Hampshire : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 245 p. ISBN 9780230303348 (hardcover)

From the publisher: "One of the major obstacles, if not the major obstacle, unions face in building their influence in the workplace is the opposition and resistance from those that own those workplaces, namely, the employers. Global Anti-Unionism examines the nature and form of this anti-unionism, and in doing so explains the ways and means by which employers have successfully maintained their right to manage. The role of the state is also considered at length as part of the process by which employer domination has been maintained. Set in the context of the global north and south, this volume provides an introduction to the key theories and concepts, followed by historical and contemporary sections examining different countries."

Visit the Recent Books at the CIRHR Library blog.

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This information is provided to subscribers, alumni of the Centre for Industrial Relations & Human Resources (CIRHR), friends, interested faculty and students from across the country and around the globe.The Perry Work Report, formerly the Weekly Work Report 2002 – 2006, is a weekly e-publication of the CIRHR Library, University of Toronto.

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