Perry Work Report: work&labour news&research, September 19, 2014

September 19, 2014

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Announcements:

2014 Bora Laskin Award Recipient: Kevin Burkett

“Formerly the alternate Chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board, Kevin Burkett is one of Canada's most respected labour arbitrators. A member of the National Academy of Arbitrators, he has been appointed as a permanent adjudicator under a number of collective agreements in both public and private sectors. Mr. Burkett has also acted as a mediator and arbitrator in a variety of high-profile labour disputes across Canada and has recently served as the President of the Ontario Labour-Management Arbitrators Association. It is a reflection of the regard in which he is held that his awards have been reported more often in Labour Arbitration Cases than any other Canadian arbitrator. He has written extensively on the importance of preserving an independent dispute resolution process (see Volume 6 of the Canadian Labour & Employment Law Journal), and in championing this cause he has made a major contribution to Canadian labour relations law.”

You are invited to: Employment and the Law in Australian Policing: Options for the Development of a New Police Industrial Relations Law Model Speaker: Prof. Giuseppe Carabetta, The University of Sydney.
This seminar forms part of a larger research projectexamining options for the development of a new dispute resolution model for police, by identifying best-practice methods for police collective bargaining and dispute resolution; and making recommendations on when and how those methods can be adapted to the existing Australian system.

Where: York University, Osgoode Hall, Room 2027 When: Monday, September 22, 2014, 12:30pm to 2:00pm (lunch provided)

 

No Outside Advice Sought For Drafting of Canadian Prostitution Bill

"The federal government’s prostitution bill is vulnerable to a constitutional challenge, a Canadian lawyers group says -- a warning that comes as Justice Minister Peter MacKay revealed the government wrote the bill without outside legal opinions but expects it to pass muster."

"MPs returned to Ottawa Monday [July 7, 2014] for hearings on Bill C-36, tabled after the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s existing prostitution laws seven months ago because they violated the Charter rights of sex workers. Monday’s testimony included calls to amend or scrap the bill entirely, including those from sex workers’ rights advocates, and support of the bill. C-36 largely criminalizes the purchase of sex, rather than the sale, but also places restrictions on where sex workers can advertise or solicit clients."

"Much of the debate dealt with the bill’s constitutionality. Mr. MacKay, who on Monday dismissed calls to refer the bill pre-emptively to the Supreme Court, said he’d sought no outside legal opinions on the matter..."

"The question of Charter compliance looms large in that it would leave the government once again rewriting the law. Leonardo S. Russomanno, speaking on behalf of Canada’s Criminal Lawyers’ Association, told the committee the bill is vulnerable to a challenge."

“‘It really comes down to whether [C-36] would survive a section one [Charter] challenge. And, in my view, it would fail to do so on the basis it’s not proportionate at all,’ Mr. Russomanno told MPs, adding the bill will drive sex workers underground and ‘utterly fails’ to protect them.”

The Globe and Mail, July 7, 2014: “No outside advice sought when drafting prostitution bill, MacKay says,” Josh Wingrove

Pivot Legal Society, July 07, 2014: “Hundreds of legal experts call on federal government to reconsider proposed prostitution laws,” by Kevin Hollett

Global News, July 9, 2014: “Canada prostitution bill likely unconstitutional: Swedish expert”

CBC News, July 15, 2014: “Prostitution bill back in the spotlight at Justice committee,” byKady O’Malley

Prostitution and the Internet

"The most striking trend our analysis reveals is a drop in the average hourly rate of a prostitute in recent years (see chart 1). One reason is surely the downturn that followed the 2007-08 financial crisis. Even prostitutes working in places that escaped the worst effects have been hit. Vanessa, a part-time escort in southern England, finds that weeks can go by without her phone ringing. Men see buying sex as a luxury, she says, and with the price of necessities rising it is one they are cutting back on. Even when she offers discounts to whip up interest, clients are scarcer than they were. In places where the job market slumped, the effect is more marked (whether prostitution is legal may affect prices, too, but the wide variation between American cities shows that this is not the only factor). The cost of an hour with an escort in Cleveland, Ohio, where unemployment peaked at 12.5% in 2010, has tumbled."

The Economist, August 9, 2014: “Prostitution and the internet: More bang for your buck: How new technology is shaking up the oldest business”

The Economist, August 11, 2014: “Why the price of commercial sex is falling”

Also in the Economist:
Why governments should stop trying to ban prostitution (August 2014)
How the internet is shaking up the oldest business (August 2014)
A sex worker explains why criminalisation is bad for her industry (August 2014) 

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B.C. Teachers Vote on Tentative Agreement

“B.C.’s 40,000 public-school teachers will cast their votes today [September 18, 2014] on the collective agreement achieved by the union and the government after marathon bargaining sessions over the weekend. Results of the vote will be released at 9:30 p.m. in a news conference by BCTF president Jim Iker (streaming link here), and we’ll have them available in a story on our B.C. teachers’ strike topic page.” [from The Globe and Mail Politics Live]

“But the union ultimately had to accept the same modest wage package that other public-sector unions have settled for, which isn’t going to move B.C. teachers any further ahead of their peers in other parts of the country – always a sore point. Teachers will likely vote to accept the deal because few can afford to be out any longer. But when they assess the pact in its entirety, it’s difficult to believe most won’t conclude that the financial hardship and sacrifice they made wasn’t worth it ultimately.”

“The government’s decision to let this strike go on and not use the legislative hammer to force teachers back to work immediately may have fundamentally changed the dynamics of labour relations in the province between the government and teachers. The government showed, for the first time, it wasn’t afraid to let teachers stand on a picket line for weeks if need be. That was the single biggest game-changing decision either side made in this dispute.’

The Globe and Mail, September 16, 2014: “B.C.'s teachers are the losers in tentative deal,” by Gary Mason
"We have … reached an historic six-year agreement with teachers," Clark said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. "This has never been been done before in British Columbia's history. That means five years of labour peace ahead of us."

CBC News, September 16, 2014: “B.C. teachers' strike: BCTF recommends accepting 6-year deal: Length of deal tentatively reached with teachers unprecedented in B.C., premier says”
The final wording of the new contract proposal has not yet been publicly released, but CBC News has obtained a letter outlining the highlights sent by the B.C. Teachers' Federation (BCTF) to its members.

CBC News, September 17, 2014: “B.C. teachers' strike: BCTF letter outlines tentative agreement: Teachers will vote on the new contract Thursday, meaning most schools could reopen Monday”

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Statistics Canada and Canadian Jobs Data

“Assuming the figures are still valid as you read this, Statistics Canada’s August 2014 Labour Force Survey (LFS) release finally drew attention to Canada’s increasingly DIY labour market.”

“It took no less than a record monthly self-employment bump of 86,900 to do so -- nearly 1.5 times the previous (post-1976) record of 62,000 (revised up from 56,000) that was reported in the May, 2007, release. Which is unfortunate, since self-employment has had a far greater impact on the Canadian labour market in recent years than the headline figures suggest.”

The Globe and Mail, September 9, 2014: “Canada’s labour data fail to shine proper light on self-employed,” by Sam Boshra

Statistics Canada’s The Daily, September 5, 2014: “Labour Force Survey, August 2014”

"Ever since the global meltdown of 2008, it’s been an article of faith in Canadian economics that we somehow handled the whole mess better than the rest of the world... [But t]he argument that Canada outperformed the rest of the world was overstated at the best of times... Far from leading, we now lag other countries, and our relative underperformance is getting worse."

"Friday’s [August 8, 2014] dismal jobs report is just the latest evidence confirming Canada’s fall from economic grace. In July, 60,000 full-time jobs disappeared (replaced by part-time work). The official unemployment rate fell by a notch (to 7 per cent), but only because the labour force shrank substantially. Labour force participation is falling quickly, and is now lower than any time since 2001. Measured as a share of the working-age population, employment in Canada is no better than in the summer of 2009 -- the worst point of the recession.

"In short, the Canadian labour market is mired in a recession-like funk, five full years after the recovery officially began. Growth and job-creation can’t even keep up with population, let alone repair lingering damage from the downturn. The partial progress made during the initial, stimulus-fired years of recovery ground to a halt in 2011. That’s when government -- led by Ottawa -- took its foot off the gas, and put it firmly on the fiscal brake."

The Globe and Mail, August 11, 2014: “That strong recovery? It was just a myth,” by Jim Stanford

The Globe and Mail, August 8, 2014: “Surprisingly negative jobs report supports low-rate stance,” by Kevin Carmichael
PressProgress, August 8, 2014: “Just how bad are Canada’s new job numbers?”

The Globe and Mail, August 4, 2014: “Canadian job data point toward demographic shifts,” by David Hains

Statistics Canada’s The Daily, August 15, 2014: “Labour Force Survey, July 2014 (corrected)”

Statistics Canada’s The Daily, August 28, 2014: “Labour Force Survey: Review of the July 2014 release”

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Health Officials Starved of Census Data Pay for Local Info of Their Own

“Public health bodies across Canada, starved of census data, are paying for pricey surveys to collect their own local info but say they’re still flying blind on decisions that affect public health and taxpayer dollars.”

"As predicted, the national household survey that replaced Statistics Canada’s long-form census had flawed data that becomes more flawed the more granular you get."

“‘As you start looking at some of these results for smaller populations, the smaller areas, you might see a little bit more volatility in the information. So we are cautioning users,’ Marc Hamel, Director General of Statistics Canada’s Census Management Office... ‘We don’t have [comparative] sources at the small level, very small towns. So we can’t say if the information is in line with reality in these locations.’”

"That leaves local governments and health officials in the lurch. In many cases they’re still relying on eight-year-old data from the 2006 census, because that’s the most recent, reliable data they have."

"They need these numbers to evaluate existing programs and plan new ones; to determine how to reach marginalized populations and decide who needs targeting for which services."

"Some public health bodies are collecting their own info in an attempt to fill that gap -- even though they know it’s still not as good and the costs are so prohibitive they can’t keep it up indefinitely."

For example, “British Columbia’s Fraser Health Authority is in the midst of analyzing data it collected from 15,000 people within the Lower Mainland health region (its partner, Vancouver Coastal Health, collected data on a similar sample size in its own area). The health bodies hope to use the information to create an interactive ‘health atlas’ with everything from diabetes to immunization information.”

Global News, August 27, 2014: “Health officials starved of census data pay for local info of their own,” by Anna Mehler Paperny 

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Temporary Foreign Worker Program Misuse Sanctioned by Harper government, Union Says

"Documents show the Harper government allowed Alberta companies to pay thousands of foreign workers less than Canadians in 2013, the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) says."

"Details of the internal government documents, obtained through an Access to Information request, were shared by the group at a news conference Friday [August 15, 2014] morning in Calgary."

"The labour group says the goal of sanctioning the underpayment of thousands of workers helped drive down wages in many industries, especially in fast food services."

“‘The truth is that for many, or perhaps even most employers, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program has never only been about filling vacant jobs. It’s also been about driving down wages, not only for temporary foreign workers, but for Canadians broadly speaking,’ [said AFL president Gil McGowan]."

"For part of 2013, the TFWP allowed employers to pay foreign workers five to 15 per cent less than the prevailing wage in the sector. That was changed partway through the year, making it illegal to pay them less than what a Canadian would earn in the same position."

"McGowan would not say how many of the thousands of cases the AFL highlighted Friday morning took place during the time when underpaying foreign workers was legal, and how many took place after the practice was banned."

"For that reason, it’s not clear at this point how many temporary foreign workers may have been illegally underpaid. But the AFL says the documents show rampant misuse of the program."

CBC News, August 15, 2014: “Temporary Foreign Worker Program misuse sanctioned by Harper government, union says”

Government of Canada, July 21, 2014: “Overhauling the Temporary Foreign Worker Program: Putting Canadians First” (41 pages, PDF)

 

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Guaranteed $20K Income for all Canadians Endorsed by Academics

"A group of academics and activists is trying to drum up interest in an ambitious plan to provide every Canadian with a guaranteed minimum level of income -- whether or not they have a job."

"Rob Rainer, a campaign director for the Basic Income Canada Network, envisions a country where everyone is assured a minimum of $20,000 annually to make ends meet. ‘For many of us, we think the goal is no one should be living in poverty,’ Rainer said at a conference on the issue over the weekend at McGill University. ‘That’s essentially what we’re striving to achieve.’”

“‘The idea is not new, it’s not really radical,’ Rainer said, pointing out that seniors and families with children receive a form of guaranteed income from the government.”

“‘Where it does become more radical is when you get into the area of the working age population, and the idea that people should receive some income whether they are in the labour market or not. That’s a fairly radical idea in our culture, because most of us were brought up to believe that in order to survive you have to work.’”

CBC News, June 30, 2014: “Guaranteed $20K income for all Canadians endorsed by academics”

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Report Warns That Ontario's Hydro Pensions Are 'Not Sustainable'

"Rich pensions for employees of provincial electricity agencies are ‘not sustainable’ and Ontarians may be forced to pay higher hydro prices to subsidize them, a government-commissioned report warns."

"The province’s Liberal administration kept the report secret for nearly five months before quietly posting it online Friday [August 1, 2014] before the long weekend."

"The review, by pension expert Jim Leech, found that the vast majority of provincial hydro employees contribute less than a quarter of the cost of their defined benefit pensions. Four Crown corporations -- and by extension hydro ratepayers -- pay the rest of the freight, and are on the hook for any shortfalls."

“‘It’s at the high end of even the public sector plans in Ontario. They’re pushing the limits,’ Mr. Leech, former chief executive officer of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, said in an interview. ‘It’s not sustainable the way it is.’”

The Globe and Mail, August 5, 2014: “Report warns that Ontario’s hydro pensions are ‘not sustainable,” by Adrian Morrow

Ontario Ministry of Finance, March 18, 2014 (released August 1, 2014): “Report on the Sustainability of Electricity Sector Pension Plans to the Minister of Finance,” by Jim Leech (45 pages, PDF)

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Minds That Matter

"A new policy, released today [July 18, 2014], aims to provide user-friendly guidance on how to define, assess, handle and resolve human rights issues related to mental health and addiction disabilities. The Policy on preventing discrimination based on mental health disabilities and addictions was released by the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC).”

"The Ontario Human Rights Code (the Code) protects people with mental health disabilities and addictions from discrimination and harassment under the ground of “disability.” The Code makes it public policy in Ontario to recognize the inherent dignity and worth of every person and to provide for equal rights and opportunities without discrimination."

OHRC, July 18, 2014: “New OHRC Policy addresses human rights for people with mental health or addiction disabilities”

Ontario Human rights Commission, July 18, 2014: “Minds that Matter: Report on the consultation on human rights, mental health and addictions” (150 pages, PDF)

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Dispute Resolution: Working Together Toward Conflict Resolution on the Job and at Home

"Relationships impact disputes. Whether you have a long term relationship with your counterpart or no relationship at all, it’s important to understand how to manage conflict and negotiate for success."

"In this special report -- Dispute Resolution: Working Together Toward Conflict Resolution on the Job and at Home -- we offer advice from the Negotiation Briefings newsletter to help you:

  • Foster relationships by building rapport -- Rapport is a powerful tool in negotiation. When two negotiators share rapport, they feel in synch with each other and focused on the interaction, which leads to more productive, collaborative negotiation. Find out the three steps for increasing rapport in your negotiations.
  • Manage conflict in long-term relationships -- It can be tempting to avoid conflict when dealing with difficult employees. Yet, managers need to be willing to communicate openly to get the information they need and to impart the information others need from them. Learn the three levels of conversation required to better manage difficult interactions.
  • Negotiate business decisions with family members -- When family members enter business together, history, emotions, and competing visions often complicate matters. Yet, avoiding conflicts can further jeopardize both family and business relationships. To resolve disputes with family, learn the four guidelines that make negotiations easier and more successful."

Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, August 2014: “Dispute Resolution: Working Together Toward Conflict Resolution on the Job and at Home” (12 pages, PDF) [if the link does not work, click here to download the report directly from Harvard Law School]

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Transforming Performance Measurement for the 21st Century

"During the latter part of the 20th century considerable progress was made in gaining widespread acceptance for performance measurement as an ongoing part of performance management -- at all three levels of government and increasingly within private nonprofit organizations. This is a good thing. However, for the most part, the information provided by performance measurement systems has been both shallow and not always as timely as is needed to help managers operate throughout the year."

"Major advancements have occurred in the first decade or so of the 21st century that show great potential for enhancing the value of the performance information provided by these management systems. The opportunities for public and private service organizations to provide more timely and substantive information for managers are exploding. Major advances have occurred, and continue to occur, in areas currently being labeled with terms such as ‘Data Analytics,’ ‘Data Visualization,’ and ‘Big Data.’ The availability of such tools presents government and private for profit organizations with tremendous opportunities to improve the information provided by their performance measurement systems."

"This report provides a number of recommendations for making use of such tools to help speed up the development and use of modern technology. Technology-related problems exist, especially the need to provide user-friendly devices that can enable the manager of the 21st century to download at any time and in any location, from some form of electronic device, information that enables them to drill down into the latest available data. This is data that in the past would have required an excessive amount of time and resources to obtain. And, all of this achieved without requiring more than a basic knowledge of analytical methods."

"We hope this report will encourage implementation and use of these great opportunities for performance measurement and performance management in the 21st century."

Urban Institute, July 2014: “Transforming Performance Measurement for the 21st Century,” by Harry P. Hatry (91 pages, PDF)

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Say on Pay

"Major shareholders are becoming more sophisticated in their use of say-on-pay votes, increasingly casting their ballots with a close eye on the alignment between a company’s executive pay and its stock market performance, a new review has found."

The Globe and Mail, September 5, 2014: ”Say-on-pay votes increasingly tied to performance.”

BNN, Business News Network, September 2014: Video: “Canadian Investors Say More on Pay.”

BNN, Business News Network, September 2014: Video: ”Executive Pay becoming more Transparent.”

Global Governance Advisors, September 2014: With the launch today of the second annual CEO Pay for Performance Survey with the Miami Herald, GGA’s three major surveys of Pay for Performance can now be viewed interactively.

"The interactive results for the Calgary Herald, focused on the top 100 Calgary companies by market cap, can be viewed here.”

The Globe and Mail, June 1, 2014: ”How does Canadian CEO pay compare to their performance?”

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The Price We Pay

"Arriving so soon after the first reports of Burger King’s corporate maneuvering to enjoy a whopping big tax break by establishing a new legal address in Canada, “The Price We Pay” seems all the more timely, if not prescient. This well-crafted documentary from director Harold Crooks (“Surviving Progress”) offers a concise, engrossing and occasionally infuriating overview of the ways multinationals avoid taxes by stashing profits in offshore havens — and in the process, according to several onscreen interviewees, seriously undermine the ability of governments to provide services and safety nets for citizens.” 

“To provide background, connect dots and, yes, stoke outrage, Crooks has assembled an impressively diverse array of talking heads, many of whom repeatedly emphasize that the tax-dodging and loophole-exploiting practices examined here are, for the most part, perfectly legal. With the system so cunningly rigged, an interviewee pointedly asks, “Why bother with illegalities?”

Variety, September 5, 2014: Toronto Film Review: ‘The Price We Pay’

"Crooks is trying a tricky thing: telling a story with many competing voices and no consistent narrator. The only overarching voiceover intones at the beginning of the documentary, as beautifully ominous storm clouds float by: “Throughout the world, inequality is soaring to new heights, and the wealth of nations that once provided prosperity for the majority has gone missing.”

BNN Business Network, September 5, 2014: “‘Price We Pay’ film puts focus on tax avoidance in inversion age.”

“While Canada stalls, other countries are moving ahead with various efforts to preserve their tax base and block multinationals from shifting profits offshore, including Britain and the United States. The United States, for example, has signalled that it may retroactively clamp down on so-called tax inversions. That’s the strategy of purchasing a company in a lower-tax jurisdiction, and then moving to the home country of the acquired business.”

"It’s a trade-off between what’s good for companies and what’s good for the the country. Get the balance wrong and Canada risks becoming a big open-pit mine, surrounded by a hollowed-out shell of an economy."

The Globe and Mail, September 14, 2014: “Corporations vs. Canada: The threat of treaty shopping,” by Barrie McKenna

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The New Climate Economy

"The report from the international commission concludes that making progress on the climate would not come at the expense of the global economy, but that there will have to be a sharp shift away from carbon-intensive fossil fuels if the world is going to avoid the worst impact of a changing climate. Those impacts would in turn impose devastating costs on the global economy."

The Globe and Mail, September 16, 2014: Oil-reliant firms at risk as world moves toward low-carbon future: report

Tackling climate change can be a boon to prosperity, rather than a brake, according to the study involving a roll-call of the globe’s biggest institutions, including the UN, the OECD group of rich countries, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and co-authored by Lord Stern, one of the world’s most influential voices on climate economics.

The report comes ahead of a UN-convened summit of world leaders on global warming next week at which David Cameron has pledged to lead calls for strong action.

"Reducing emissions is not only compatible with economic growth and development – if done well it can actually generate better growth than the old high-carbon model," said Stern.

It is his most significant intervention in climate politics since the landmark 2006 Stern review of the economics of climate change, which made the case that tackling climate change as a matter of urgency will be cheaper than attempting to deal with the effects of the problem decades in the future. That report marked a revolution in thinking on global warming, and was a major factor in the agreements forged in Copenhagen in 2009 by which developed and major developing countries for the first time set out joint measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Guardian, September 16, 2014: Climate change report: prevent damage by overhauling global economy: Reducing emissions can generate better growth than old high-carbon model, says co-author of report, Lord Stern

The New Climate Economy Report

The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, September 16, 2014: Better Growth, Better Climate: The New Climate Economy Report: The Synthesis Report (71 pages, PDF)

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Book of the Week

The Price of Rights: Regulating International Labor Migration, by Martin Ruhs. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2013. 254 p. ISBN 9780691132914 (hardcover)

http://go.utlib.ca/cat/9028825

The Price of Rights analyzes how high-income countries restrict the rights of migrant workers as part of their labor immigration policies and discusses the implications for global debates about regulating labor migration and protecting migrants. It comprehensively looks at the tensions between human rights and citizenship rights, the agency and interests of migrants and states, and the determinants and ethics of labor immigration policy.

Martin Ruhs is university lecturer in political economy at the University of Oxford, where he is also director of studies in economics at the Department for Continuing Education; senior researcher at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society; and a fellow of Kellogg College.

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