Perry Work Report, April 17, 2014

April 17, 2014

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'Express Entry': Fast Track Your Way into Canada

"Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander today [April 8, 2014] announced that Canada’s active recruitment model for economic immigration will officially be called ‘Express Entry.’ Set to launch in January 2015, ‘Express Entry’ is a major step forward in the transformation of Canada’s immigration system into one that is fast, flexible and focused on meeting Canada’s economic and labour needs."

“‘Express Entry’ will allow for greater flexibility and better responsiveness to deal with regional labour shortages, and help fill open jobs for which there are no available Canadian workers. ‘“Express Entry’ candidates who receive a valid job offer or nomination under the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) will be quickly invited to apply for permanent residency -- a key distinction between ‘Express Entry’ and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which is only used to fill temporary labour and skill shortages.”

"Qualified applicants can expect faster processing times of six months or less when invited to come to Canada in four key economic streams: the Federal Skilled Worker Program, Federal Skilled Trades Program, Canadian Experience Class, and a portion of the PNP."

"With ‘Express Entry,’ employers will have a key role in selecting economic immigrants and providing advice to the Government of Canada."

The Government of Canada, April 8, 2014: “Offering ‘Express Entry’ to Qualified Economic Immigrants: Actively Recruiting Talented Newcomers For the Benefit of Canada’s Economy”

Sun News, April 13, 2014: “Ottawa funds plan to employ skilled immigrants,” by Terry Davidson

workpermit.com, April 15, 2014: “Canadian immigration announces new and quicker ‘Express Entry’ system”

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Alberta Federation of Labour Sounds Alarm on Expansion of Child Labour

"Alberta’s largest worker organization is asking the province to take the expansion of child labour off the table."

"[Friday April 11, 2014 was] the deadline for submissions to the review of the Employment Standards Code launched in March by Jobs Minister Thomas Lukaszuk. The first question that the government asks in its discussion guide for the review has to do with expanding the variety of jobs that 12-14 year olds are permitted to do."

"In their written submission to the review, the Alberta Federation of Labour expressed strong opposition to any such expansion."

“‘Albertans don’t want 12-year-olds working in restaurant kitchens. They don’t want 13-year-olds working as janitors and handling hazardous cleaning materials,’ Alberta Federation of Labour president McGowan said.”

"The AFL recommendations on Employment Standards are contained in a detailed analysis of provincial work standards."

Alberta Federation of Labour, April 11, 2014: “AFL Sounds Alarm on Expansion of Child Labour”

Alberta Federation of Labour, April 11, 2014: “Executive Summary: Alberta Federation of Labour Submission to the Employment Standards Review” (7 pages, PDF)

Alberta Federation of Labour, April 11, 2014: “Submission by the Alberta Federation of Labour to on the Employment Standards Review” (34 pages, PDF)

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Enbridge Lines up Union Support for Northern Gateway Pipeline

"Enbridge has gone a long way to ensure labour peace for its controversial Northern Gateway pipeline even as residents of Kitimat -- the proposed oil pipeline’s western terminus -- expressed their opposition to the $6.5-billion project."

"Northern Gateway leader Janet Holder told The Province that a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with the Pipe Line Contractors Association of Canada and four large unions with 2.5 million members means good jobs, good paycheques and training opportunities."

"...[T]he agreement calls for 2,100 person-years of union employment during the three-year construction phase for members of the Laborers’ International Union of North America; the International Union of Operating Engineers; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; and the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada."

The Province, April 15, 2014: “Enbridge lines up union support for Northern Gateway pipeline,” by Ian Austin

Canada NewsWire, April 15, 2014: “Trade Unions and Northern Gateway announce MOU to Benefit Working Families and Communities”

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Unionizing in 2014: Let's Stop Comparing Efforts

"Almost every story about the attempt by Unifor to organize two Toyota plants in Cambridge, as well as one in Woodstock, raises the specter of a failed organization drive by United Auto Workers (UAW) at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee."

"However, Cambridge and Woodstock are not Chattanooga."

"The comparison is an easy one to make because it relies on what has become a familiar narrative in the media at large: unions are dying. Each time a plant goes unorganized or a certification is not obtained, it is spoken about as another nail in the union coffin."

"Whether or not you believe that to be true, to compare the two organizing drives directly ignores the complexities behind each situation."

"The UAW drive in Chattanooga was motivated by a demoralized workforce who were eager to put German style work councils in place, which would give employees a chance to chime in on work rules... Toyota: deteriorating relationships, wages and benefits. [Also,] there is no interference on the scale of that seen in Chattanooga in Cambridge or Woodstock."

"...[W]hile a direct comparison between the situations in Chattanooga and Cambridge-Woodstock can’t be made, these two drives can shed important light on what it means to organize a unionization drive in North America in 2014."

"These organizing drives exist on a spectrum -- on one end, the Volkswagen plant where organizers were faced with organizing in a culture where forming a union was always going to be an uphill battle, and at the other, the Toyota plants, where the goal is to stop the Canadian auto industry, and Canada in general, from sliding into the low unionization rates and hostile environments that are found throughout the U.S."

rabble.ca, April 11, 2014: “Unionizing in 2014: Let’s stop comparing efforts,” by H.G. Watson

rabble.ca, April 4, 2014: “Unifor withdraws Toyota certification after underestimating worker numbers,” by H.G. Watson

The Financial Post, April 3, 2014: “Unifor to delay Toyota union vote after underestimating number of employees at plants,” by Scott Deveau

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Massaging the Law: Canada's Body-Rub Parlours

About this 3-part series from Metro News:

"Walk down the streets of any large Canadian city, and sooner or later, you’ll come across that ubiquitous flashing neon sign advertising ‘massage’. Inside, the masseuses may offer a lot more. In light of the void in sex-for-sale legislation, Metro Canada is taking a look at what the current climate means for massage parlours."

"These are the stories of the women who work in body-rub parlours, the people who own them, the people who regulate them and the people who use them."

Metro News feature, April 15-17 2014 -- Massaging the law: Canada’s body-rub parlours

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Power in Numbers -- Adjuncts and Unionization

Deborah O’Toole, a senior lecturer at Northeastern University, fed up by the treatment she and her fellow adjuncts receive, believes that their “hope is in the union.”

"Such sentiments have put Boston at the center of a nationwide labor-organizing effort bent on changing the lives of all adjunct faculty members, unionized or not. Rather than simply try to establish unions of adjunct faculty at individual colleges, it seeks to unionize them throughout entire metropolitan areas, to drive broader improvements in their pay, benefits, and working conditions."

"The approach seeks to shift labor-market dynamics, turning a buyer’s market in which colleges have broad leeway to set employment terms into a seller’s market in which adjuncts can take the highest bid for their services. The strategy assumes that college administrations will be less resistant to the formation of unions, and to union demands, if officials are assured that competing institutions are in the same boat."

"The thinking behind the approach holds that sufficient union saturation of a given local labor market will not only produce big gains at unionized colleges, but put nonunionized ones under pressure to treat adjuncts better, too. Those colleges might be prompted to improve pay or working conditions to be able to compete for talent or, in some cases, to discourage potential unionization drives on their own campuses."

The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2014: “Power in Numbers, ” by Peter Schmidt

Service Employees International Union -- Adjunct Action website

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The New Academic Celebrity

 “Back in 1991, a New York Times Magazine writer, Anne Matthews, described Andrew Ross, a doyen of American studies, strolling through the Modern Language Association conference in his ‘pale mango wool-and-silk Commes des Garcons blazer’ on his way to a session on gangsta rap and censorship, as admiring graduate students gawked and murmured, ‘That’s him!’”

"That was academic stardom then. Today, we are more likely to bestow the aura and perks of stardom on speakers at ‘ideas’ conferences like TED, which held its 30th-anniversary gathering last month, in Vancouver."

"A TED talk (the acronym stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design) is one of the routes to academic stardom that didn’t exist a decade ago. (The 30th-anniversary celebration aside, curators only began posting fame-making free online videos in 2006.) Although TED plays an inordinate role in setting the tone for how ideas are conveyed -- not only because of the reach of its videos but also through spinoffs like regional ‘TEDx’ events and the TED Radio Hour, one of the few places nonpolicy intellectuals get substantial on-air time -- it’s just one of a number of platforms that are changing the ecology of academic celebrity. These include similar ideas-in-nuggets conclaves, such as the Aspen Ideas Festival and PopTech, along with huge online courses and -- yes, still -- blogs. These new, or at least newish, forms are upending traditional hierarchies of academic visibility and helping to change which ideas gain purchase in the public discourse."

The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 18, 2014: “The New Academic Celebrity,” by Christopher Shea

Click here to view the interactive version of this article and the entire April 18, 2014 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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Why Don't Lower-Income Individuals Have Pensions?

"The brief’s key findings are:

  • Obtaining an employer pension involves four steps: 1) having a job; 2) working for a firm with a plan; 3) being eligible for the plan; and 4) taking up the plan.
  • For lower-income individuals, the weakest links in this chain are a lack of employment and employment with firms that do not offer a plan.
  • Take-up rates are less of a factor, but will become increasingly important as voluntary 401(k)s continue to replace mandatory defined benefit plans.
  • The most effective policy solution for boosting pension participation would be to provide all workers with access to a plan and automatically enroll them."

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, April 2014: “Why Don’t Lower-Income Individuals Have Pensions?,” by April Yanyuan Wu, Matthew S. Rutledge, and Jacob Penglase

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, April 2014: “Why Don’t Lower-Income Individuals Have Pensions?,” by April Yanyuan Wu, Matthew S. Rutledge, and Jacob Penglase (7 pages, PDF)

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Thought Secure, Pooled Pensions Teeter and Fall

"The pensions of millions of Americans are being threatened because of trouble in a part of the retirement world long considered so safe that no one gave it a second thought."

"The pensions belong to people in multiemployer plans -- big pooled investment funds with many sponsoring companies and a union. Multiemployer pensions are not only backed by federal insurance, but they also were thought to be even more secure than single-company pensions because when one company in a multiemployer pool failed, the others were required to pick up its ‘orphaned’ retirees."

"Today, however, the aging of the work force, the decline of unions, deregulation and two big stock crashes have taken a grievous toll on multiemployer pensions, which cover 10 million Americans."

"So far, efforts to keep multiemployer plans from toppling, and taking the federal insurance program down with them, are giving rise to something that was supposed to have been outlawed 40 years ago: cuts in benefits that workers have already earned."

The New York Times, April 12 2014: “Thought Secure, Pooled Pensions Teeter and Fall,” by Mary Williams Walsh

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Beta Release of Workforce Statistics Analysis Tool

"The U.S. Census Bureau is unveiling a new Web-based analysis tool that provides access to the full Quarterly Workforce Indicators dataset. The tool -- named QWI Explorer -- includes measures on employment, job creation and destruction, hires and wages from the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics program. QWI Explorer allows users to compare, rank and aggregate indicators across time, geography and/or firm and worker characteristics. Potential analyses include a look over time at wages by worker sex and age across counties, ranking job creation rates of young firms across NAICS (North American Industry Classification System) groups, and comparing hiring levels by worker race and education levels across a selection of metropolitan areas. More information about this new tool is available here and a video tutorial is available here. Visit QWI Explorer to use the tool.”

United States Census Bureau, April 14, 2014: “Beta Release of Workforce Statistics Analysis Tool”

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The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths

"For example, she shows in detail that, while Steve Jobs brilliantly imagined and designed attractive new commercial products, almost all the scientific research on which the iPod, iPhone, and iPad were based was done by government-backed scientists and engineers in Europe and America. The touch-screen technology, specifically, now so common to Apple products, was based on research done at government-funded labs in Europe and the US in the 1960s and 1970s."

"These later breakthroughs were almost completely dependent on government-sponsored research. ‘While the products owe their beautiful design and slick integration to the genius of Jobs and his large team,’ writes Mazzucato, ‘nearly every state-of-the-art technology found in the iPod, iPhone and iPad is an often overlooked and ignored achievement of the research efforts and funding support of the government and military.’"

New York Review of Books, April 24, 2014: “Innovation: The Government Was Crucial After All,” by Jeff Madrick

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The Confidence Gap

"For years, we women have kept our heads down and played by the rules. We’ve been certain that with enough hard work, our natural talents would be recognized and rewarded.”

"We’ve made undeniable progress... Our competence has never been more obvious. Those who closely follow society’s shifting values see the world moving in a female direction."

"And yet, as we’ve worked, ever diligent, the men around us have continued to get promoted faster and be paid more."
"Some observers say children change our priorities... Other commentators point to cultural and institutional barriers to female success. There’s truth in that, too. But these explanations for a continued failure to break the glass ceiling are missing something more basic: women’s acute lack of confidence."

"Compared with men, women don’t consider themselves as ready for promotions, they predict they’ll do worse on tests, and they generally underestimate their abilities. This disparity stems from factors ranging from upbringing to biology."

"[This] shortage of female confidence is increasingly well quantified and well documented.”

Read the remainder of this article, written by the authors of Womenomics and The Confidence Code, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, to learn more about this confidence gap, the evidence, and the consequences, and what to do about it.

How confident are you? Click here to take the confidence quiz.

The Atlantic, April 14, 2014: “The Confidence Gap,” by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman

Institute of Leadership & Management, February 2011: “Ambition and  gender at work” (16 pages, PDF)

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Occupy was Right: Capitalism has Failed the World

"[French economist Thomas] Piketty... explains that income is a flow -- it moves and can grow and change according to output. Capital is a stock -- its wealth comes from what has been accumulated ‘in all prior years combined’. It’s a bit like the difference between an overdraft and a mortgage, and if you don’t ever get to own your house you’ll never have any stock and always be poor. Student protests against tuition fee increases in 2010. Piketty says: ‘It is a perfect example of how to inflict debt on the public sector.’”

"In other words, in global terms what he is saying is that those who have capital and assets that generate wealth (such as a Saudi prince) will always be richer than entrepreneurs who are trying to make capital. The tendency of capitalism in this model is to concentrate more and more wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people. But didn’t we already know this? The rich get rich and the poorer get poorer? And didn’t the Clash and others sing about it in the 1970s?"

“‘Well actually, we didn’t know this, although we might have guessed at it,’ says Piketty, warming to his theme. ‘For one thing this is the first time we have accumulated the data which proves that this is the case. Second, although I am not a politician, it is obvious that this movement, which is speeding up, will have political implications -- we will all be poorer in the future in every way and that creates crisis. I have proved that under the present circumstances capitalism simply cannot work.’”

The Guardian, April 13, 2014: “Occupy was right: capitalism has failed the world,” by Andrew Hussey

"Capital, [Piketty] argues, is blind. Once its returns... exceed the real growth of wages and output, as historically they always have done (excepting a few periods such as 1910 to 1950), then inevitably the stock of capital will rise disproportionately faster within the overall pattern of output. Wealth inequality rises exponentially."

"The process is made worse by inheritance and, in the US and UK, by the rise of extravagantly paid ‘super managers’. High executive pay has nothing to do with real merit, writes Piketty -- it is much lower, for example, in mainland Europe and Japan. Rather, it has become an Anglo-Saxon social norm permitted by the ideology of ‘meritocratic extremism’, in essence, self-serving greed to keep up with the other rich. This is an important element in Piketty’s thinking: rising inequality of wealth is not immutable. Societies can indulge it or they can challenge it."

The Guardian, April 12, 2014: “Capitalism simply isn’t working and here are the reasons why,” by Will Hutton

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Book Review -- The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910-2010

"Selina Todd understands the people to be not simply the working class but those who are aware of themselves as a working class. Her book is an ambitious attempt to put together a history that is more than nostalgia. There is a slow-burning anger just beneath the chattiness of the individual stories she tells. Inevitably she sweeps through the decades, but she is always asking how much things really changed for ordinary people. Too often the answer is ‘not much.’"

"How does a class become ‘present’ to itself? Not by romanticising the past as a time of lovely camaraderie but by understanding at which points in history the people did manage to push forward to make their lives better -- actually better in the everyday. This book is part of that project. Working-class culture is now celebrated only in its ability to let go. "They know how to have a good time.""

The Guardian, April 11, 2014: “The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910-2010 -- review,” by Suzanne Moore

“The People offers a clear, compelling, broadly persuasive narrative of a century of British history as seen through working-class eyes and from a working-class perspective. Todd avoids hectoring, but by the end one is left suitably angry: the people have been screwed.”

The Guardian, April 13, 2014: “The People review -- how the working class got screwed,” by David Kynaston

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Book of the Week

Academic Freedom in Conflict: the Struggle Over Free Speech Rights in the University, edited by James L. Turk. Toronto: James Lorimer, 2014. 368 p. ISBN 9781459406292 (pbk.)

From the publisher: "For more than a century academics have had unique rights not enjoyed by other citizens -- to speak, teach, and write freely. Central to the case for academic freedom is that scholars must be able to voice their views free of fear in order for society to gain a better understanding of ourselves and our world. Academic freedom has always faced challenges. Professors have been pressed to alter their work because it offends powerful interests -- both inside and outside the university. Some have been fired or denied jobs for their political views, their criticisms of colleagues and administrators, and their refusal to buckle under corporate pressures to hush up research findings. The sixteen contributors to this volume cite many such instances in Canada and the U.S. More significantly, they point out how governments, corporations, and university administrators today are seeking to narrow academic freedom. Among them: major donors are acquiring control over university teaching and even hiring decisions; university administrators are firing professors with unpopular political views, while pretending that the reasons for their decisions lie elsewhere; governments are using funding mechanisms to force-feed research in some areas, while shutting down inquiry in others; campus-wide policies enforcing civility rules are preventing criticism and debate within a university; judges are issuing decisions which reverse previous rulings supporting academic freedom in the U.S. and Canada. Together the contributors to this book document the many arenas in which academic freedom is in jeopardy and explore its legitimate limits."

Visit the Recent Books at the CIRHR Library blog.

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