Perry Work Report, January 31, 2014

January 31, 2014

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Minimum Wage Advisory Panel Report 2014

"Ontario’s Liberal government is raising the minimum wage to $11 an hour effective June 1. The increase of 75 cents an hour was announced [January 30, 2014] by Premier Kathleen Wynne."

CBC News, January 30, 2014: “Ontario raising minimum wage to $11 an hour”
 

Anil Verma, the chair of Ontario’s new Minimum Wage Advisory Panel is a professor of human resource management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and the director of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, University of Toronto. He comments:

"The Ontario Government is to be commended for its prompt decision to increase the minimum wage in response to the [Minimum Wage] Advisory Panel's Report. [January 30, 2014's] announcement of an increase to $11/hr is in line with the report's analysis and findings. To put the $11/hr in a comparative perspective: the US might move to US$10.10 (C$10.20); Germany will move to €8.50 (C$12.88 at today's exchange rates); and, among Canadian provinces Ontario would be among the highest. So, Ontario's [minimum wage] relative to these jurisdictions would remain almost the same as it has been in recent years, i.e., higher than the US, lower than Germany and among the highest in Canada."

2014 Minimum Wage Advisory Panel, January 27, 2014: Report and Recommendations to the Minister of Labour

You may also view the PDF version here (91 pages, PDF).

 

"The move [to raise the minimum wage] follows a report earlier this week from an advisory panel calling on the government to peg future minimum wage increases to inflation and pointing out inflation has risen 6.7 per cent since then. The panel said businesses should get four months’ warning that the minimum wage will go up annually on April 1."

"Making up that gap with an $11 minimum wage would still leave people working for that hourly rate 16 per cent below the poverty line, according to the Workers’ Action Centre, which has been advocating for a hike to $14."

The Toronto Star, January 29, 2014: “Premier to announce minimum wage indexed to inflation,” by Rob Ferguson

Global News, January 27, 2014: “Ontario will hike $10.25 minimum wage retroactively to 2010, when it was frozen,” by Keith Leslie

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Accommodation is not a Trump Card

“The furor around York University’s recent decision to overrule a professor’s attempt at balancing competing human rights has largely missed a crucial point -- accommodation isn’t a trump card.”

The Ontario Human Rights Commission actually anticipated this sort of clash years ago and started preparing for it back in 2005. In 2012, the commission introduced a groundbreaking policy on just how institutions, organizations and individuals should interpret the Human Rights Code to prevent a ‘hierarchy’ of rights from developing."

The Globe and Mail, January 28,  2014: “Lost in the York U furor: Accommodation isn’t a trump card,” Amira Elghawaby

"The issue of accommodation of a student at York University has been portrayed as a clash of human rights, but Raj Anand, former chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, questions this characterization."

The Toronto Star, January 18, 2014: “Accommodation issue shows human rights principles are working,” by Raj Anand

"The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, provincial human rights legislation (including the Ontario Human Rights Code) and the courts recognize that no rights are absolute and no one right is more important than another right. Our laws guarantee rights such as freedom of expression as well as protection against discrimination and harassment based on gender, creed, sexual orientation and disability, among other grounds. They require we give all rights equal consideration. The law also recognizes that rights have limits in some situations where they substantially interfere with the rights of others."

Ontario Human Rights Commission, January 26, 2012: The Policy on Competing Human Rights (67 page, PDF)

Summary of the Policy on Competing Human Rights

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Social Media from an Employment Law Perspective Including Recruiting Employees

“These are notes from a panel discussion by George Waggott, Partner, McMillan LLP, Toronto, Nina Barakzai, Sky Media, UK, Lyndsey Wasser, Partner, McMillan LLP, Toronto, and Lewis Gottheil, Counsel, CAW Canada, Toronto, on April 16, 2013 at the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association National Spring Conference 2013 in Toronto.”

Papers available from the CCCA Spring Conference workshop’s page.

SLAW, April 2013: “Social Networking From an Employment Law Perspective -- a CCCA Spring Conference Panel,” by Connie Crosby

McCarthy Tetrault, September 16, 2013: “Your Organization Needs a Social Media Policy,” by Daniel Pugen 
"What are the pros and cons of employers using social media to obtain information about prospective or existing employees? This article addresses the potential benefits and downsides of employers collecting information from social media and the legislative landscape which governs this area."

Davis LLP Privacy Law Bulletin, November 4, 2013:  “Facebook, Twitter, YouTube: Using Social Media in Recruiting and Managing Employees,” by Larry Page, Maggie Campbell, and Martina Zanet

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Non-Union Employee Representation in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Resistance and Revitalization

"Employee workplace representation for members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) has been a contentious issue for much of the organization's history. In recent decades the Staff Relations Representation Program or SRRP) has been subject to a series of legal challenges, including constitutional claims that it violates RCMP members' Charter freedoms, including freedom of association."

"This chapter outlines development of non-union representation in the RCMP, explaining how evolution of the SRRP has reflected grassroots RCMP member and legal pressures. This is followed by an explanation of the current RCMP non-union representation system (the Staff Relations Representation Program or SRRP) and its interaction with the RCMP's broader labour relations system, including Pay Council, the Mounted Police Members' Legal Fund, and the grievance and discipline systems. The chapter closes with some thoughts on the current state and future of non-union representation in the RCMP."

SSRN, January 25, 2014: "Non-Union Employee Representation in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Resistance and Revitalization," by Sara Slinn (Forthcoming in P. Gollan, B. Kaufman, D. Taras, and A. Wilkinson, eds., Voice and Involvement at Work [Routledge].

Conversations on Work, June 6, 2012: "Setback for Mountie Unionization in Freedom of Association Decision," by Sara Slinn

Conversations on Work, November 24, 2011: "A Union for Mounties: the Latest Round," by Sara Slinn

The Supreme Court of Canada case on the issue of union access for Mounties, the appeal of Mounted Police Association of Ontario v. Canada, 2012 ONCA 363 (CanLII) (leave to appeal to SCC granted 20 Dec 2012) is scheduled for hearing 18 February 2014.

Click this link for SCC Case Information.

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Strikes at the University of New Brunswick & Mount Allison; A New Union for University of Victoria Faculty

"The University of New Brunswick and its striking faculty have reached a tentative agreement, according to a statement issued by the union on Thursday."

"Both sides are recommending the suspension of the strike and lockout, the Association of University of New Brunswick Teachers said."

"'The parties agree to jointly announce further details within the next 24 hours,' it states."

CBC News, January 30, 2014: "UNB and striking faculty reach tentative agreement"
 

"The Alward government... ordered striking University of New Brunswick faculty and the administration back to the bargaining table."

"Minister of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour Jody Carr made the announcement in Fredericton on Monday [January 27, 2014], Day 15 of the strike."

"The government has appointed Brian Keller, a long-serving Canadian expert in labour relations, as a special, outside mediator. He will lead non-binding talks between the two sides on Wednesday [January 29, 2014] and Thursday [January 30, 2014], Carr said."

“About 550 full-time professors, teaching staff and librarians walked off the job on Jan. 13 over wages and working conditions.”
CBC News, January 27, 2014: “UNB and striking faculty ordered back to bargaining table”

Faculty at Mount Allison University are also on the picket lines as of Monday January 27, 2014.

"The union says workload and the need to provide greater support to the core academic mission of the university are the key issues in the dispute."

"Salaries, pensions and benefits for full-time and part-time members are also areas of contention, it says."

CBC News, January 26, 2014: “Mount Allison faculty on strike, all classes suspended”

University of Victoria Faculty Vote to Form Union
 

"Professors and librarians at the University of Victoria have voted to certify the faculty association as a labour union."

"The administration and the union will now begin negotiating a first contract."

"The two sides issued a joint statement saying they are ‘committed to continue our mutual efforts to maintain a positive and supportive working environment for faculty members and librarians within our collegial governance structure.’"

Times Colonist, January 24, 2014: “University of Victoria faculty vote to form union”
 

“Over the last month, some individuals opposed to certification at the University of Victoria have repeatedly made several claims regarding the impact of unionization, the state of university finances, the allegedly nefarious intentions of the Faculty Association’s Executive and officers, and the negotiating positions the Association has taken and will take in the future. We do not intend to respond to each and every one of these claims, but we do think it is important to address four major assertions that have been made, three of which have appeared repeatedly in emails sent to listservers, in a flyer which was distributed across campus and/or in materials posted on websites, and the other of which we consider to be particularly pernicious...”

University of Victoria Faculty Association, January 22, 2014: “Four myths about unionization at UVic” (2 pages, PDF)

UVic Faculty Association website

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The Income Gap Between Tenure Faculty & Adjunct Contract Professors in Canadian Universities

"If you’ve got a university student in the family, increasingly they may be being taught by a highly educated professional who can’t get full time work. Or make a living wage. [Monday, January 27, 2013], Project Money looks at impoverished professors.”

"Many people who’ve earned advanced degrees are astonished at how little some universities value their graduates."

CBC’s The Current, January 28, 2014: “The income gap between tenure faculty & adjunct contract professors in Canadian universities,” Shannon Higgins and Sarah Grant

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The Just-in-Time Professor

"...[T]he House Committee on Education and the Workforce issued a 36-page report chronicling the low salaries, long hours, and lack of benefits and job security that “contingent faculty” face. (The report puts an adjunct’s average annual pay at just under $25,000.)"

Slate, January 26, 2014: “The New Old Labor Crisis,” by Tressie McMillan Cottom

House Committee on Education and the Workforce, January 2014: “The Just-in-Time Professor: A Staff Report Summarizing eForum Responses on the Working Conditions of Contingent Faculty in Higher Education” (36 pages, PDF)

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DWYL -- Only if You Can Afford it!

“’Do what you love’ is the mantra for today’s worker. Why should we assert our class interests if, according to DWYL elites like Steve Jobs, there’s no such thing as work?”

"By keeping us focused on ourselves and our individual happiness, DWYL distracts us from the working conditions of others while validating our own choices and relieving us from obligations to all who labor, whether or not they love it. It is the secret handshake of the privileged and a worldview that disguises its elitism as noble self-betterment. According to this way of thinking, labor is not something one does for compensation, but an act of self-love. If profit doesn’t happen to follow, it is because the worker’s passion and determination were insufficient. Its real achievement is making workers believe their labor serves the self and not the marketplace.”

“Nowhere has the DWYL mantra been more devastating to its adherents than in academia. The average PhD student of the mid 2000s forwent the easy money of finance and law (now slightly less easy) to live on a meager stipend in order to pursue their passion for Norse mythology or the history of Afro-Cuban music.”

"The reward for answering this higher calling is an academic employment marketplace in which around 41 percent of American faculty are adjunct professors -- contract instructors who usually receive low pay, no benefits, no office, no job security, and no long-term stake in the schools where they work.”

"There are many factors that keep PhDs providing such high-skilled labor for such extremely low wages, including path dependency and the sunk costs of earning a PhD, but one of the strongest is how pervasively the DWYL doctrine is embedded in academia. Few other professions fuse the personal identity of their workers so intimately with the work output. This intense identification partly explains why so many proudly left-leaning faculty remain oddly silent about the working conditions of their peers. Because academic research should be done out of pure love, the actual conditions of and compensation for this labor become afterthoughts, if they are considered at all.”

Jacobin, January 2014: “In the name of love,” by Miya Tokumitsu

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More 27-Year-Olds Live With Parents than Roommates

"A recently published study from the Department of Education casts new light on the State of the 27-Year-Old Today. The report, which in 2002 began following roughly 15,000 young men and women from their sophomore year in high school through their mid-20s, draws a picture of educated, debt-saddled young adults, more than half of whom are in some kind of committed relationship. It shows, incredibly, that around 10 percent of 27-year-olds feel they have already fulfilled their career goals. (Dear Lord -- either these Americans have set scanty goals or that is a lot of leaning in.) But perhaps the most surprising factoid is this: There are more men and women at age 27 living with their parents than with roommates. "
Slate, January 29, 2014: “More 27-Year-Olds Live With Parents Than Roommates,”

U.S. Department of Education, January 2014: “Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002): A First Look at 2002 High School Sophomores 10 Years Later: First Look,” by Erich Laugh, Steven J. Ingels, and Elise M. Christopher (59 pages, PDF)

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The Impact of Age-Inclusive HR Practices on Firm-Level Outcomes

From the abstract: “This study investigates the emergence and the performance effects of an age-diversity climate at the organizational level of analysis. Building upon Kopelman and colleagues’ (Kopelman, Brief, & Guzzo, 1990) climate model of firm productivity as well as Cox’s (1994) interactional model of cultural diversity, we hypothesize a positive influence of age-inclusive HR practices on the development of an organization-wide age-diversity climate, which in turn should be directly related to collective perceptions of social exchange and indirectly to firm performance and employees’ collective turnover intentions. The assumed relationships are tested in a sample of 93 German small and medium-sized companies with 14,260 employees participating. To circumvent common source problems, information for the various constructs was gathered from 6 different sources. To test our assumed relationships, we applied structural equation modeling and executed bootstrapping procedures to test the significance of the indirect effects. We received support for all assumed relationships. The paper concludes with practical recommendations on how to establish and make use of a positive age-diversity climate.”

Personnel Psychology, September 2013: “Spotlight on Age-Diversity Climate: The Impact of Age-Inclusive HR Practices on Firm-Level Outcomes," Stephan A. Boehm, Florian Kunze, and Heike Bruch (38 pages, PDF)

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Only in America? Ask a Canadian Walmart Manager for their Scripts

Sharing a fact about unions (a script for associates)

"Female Associate: Hey I have a quick question for you

Male Associate: Sure

Female Associate: Hey I was talking to one of the guys in my area and they told me that we could get an automatic increase in pay if we got a union in the store. Is that true?

Male Associate: Hmm, well that’s a good question LaTonya, and thanks for asking, but you know our company doesn’t feel that associates should have to spend their hard earned money to have someone represent them and neither do I. But to answer your question, through the collective bargaining process, there’s no telling what they will end up with. They can end up with more, the same or even less.

Female Associate: Hmm you gave me a lot to think about I appreciate it. Thank you

Male Associate: You’re welcome.”

Gawker, January 22, 2014: “Walmart’s Leaked Anti-Union Scripts Are Great, ‘You Bet!!’”

Gawker, January 14, 2014: “Walmart’s Anti-Union Training Documents Demand ‘Loyalty’”

Occupy Wall Street, January 21, 2014: Walmart Advises Against Unions

"Labor advocates scored two legal victories this week in their multi-pronged campaign against retail giant Walmart: at the National Labor Relations Board, and in a federal court in Southern California. In both cases, Walmart has pledged to fight the charges."

“...'Retaliation is usually an individual-by-individual matter,’ says Rubin. ‘It is a big deal if a company had a nationwide policy or practice, established, implemented, or overseen from corporate headquarters, to retaliate against on-the-ground employees.’”

Market Place, January 18, 2014: “Labor wins two rulings, Walmart vows to fight back,” by Mitchell Hartman

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Pete Seeger: "Turn Turn Turn"

“Pete Seeger's tools were his songs, his voice, his enthusiasm and his musical instruments. A major advocate for the folk-style five-string banjo and one of the most prominent folk music icons of his generation.”

“Seeger was also a political and environmental activist. He died Monday January 27th, 2014 at age 94.”

“How did Pete Seeger become an American folk icon? These five songs help tell the story.”

NPR, January 28, 2014: “5 Pete Seeger Songs To Sing Together,” by Kim Ruehl

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Global Clothing Giants and Trade Unions Unite in Opposition to Cambodia's Attack on Garment Workers

"Seldom do trade unionists find common ground with big-name brands like Nike, Walt Disney, The Gap, and Walmart. But these retail giants, along with 23 other global brands, including Canada’s Lululemon, have joined forces with at least three international labour groups -- IndustriALL Global Union, the International Trade Union Confederation and UNI Global Union -- in opposing the attacks on garment workers and civil liberties in Cambodia.”

"The coalition of brands and trade unions signed a joint letter to Cambodia’s Prime Minister on January 17, 2014 demanding action in response to the government’s violent crackdown on garment workers and civil liberties earlier this month.”

Labour Law Blog, January 17, 2014: “Global Clothing Giants and Trade Unions Unite in Opposition to Cambodia’s Attack on Garment Workers,” by Mandy Wojcik

"Cambodia’s garment factory workers will return to holding strikes next week if the government fails to make a decision on their demands for a doubling of minimum wages and refuses to release 23 people arrested in a recent bloody labor crackdown, a union leader warned Tuesday."

Radio Free Asia, January 28, 2014: “Union Leader Warns of a Return to Strike by Cambodian Workers”

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Public Eye Awards

"Between November 26, 2013 and January 22, 2014 over 280,000 people voted for their favorite in the race for the renowned award of shame, the Public Eye People’s Award. We would like to say thanks to everyone who voted and all of you who spread the word about the Public Eye.”

And the winners are...

People’s Award -- Gazprom: “In December 2013, Gazprom became the first company in the world to start drilling for oil in the Arctic Barents Sea. Since the drilling began, the corporation has already violated several federal safety and environmental regulations.”

Jury Award -- Gap: “Fashion giant Gap has refused to sign the binding agreement Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Instead, it is actively undermining serious reform by promoting a non-binding corporate-controlled program.”

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Book of the Week

Sex Workers Unite!: a History of the Movement from Stonewall to Slutwalk, by Melinda Chateauvert. Boston : Beacon Press, 2013. 263 p. ISBN 9780807069097

From the publisher: "A provocative history that reveals how sex workers have been at the vanguard of social justice movements for the past fifty years while building a movement of their own that challenges our ideas about labor, sexuality, feminism, and freedom. Documenting five decades of sex-worker activism, Sex Workers Unite is a fresh history that places prostitutes, hustlers, escorts, call girls, strippers, and porn stars in the center of America's major civil rights struggles. Although their presence has largely been ignored and obscured, in this provocative history Melinda Chateauvert recasts sex workers as savvy political organizers-not as helpless victims in need of rescue. Even before transgender sex worker Sylvia Rivera threw a brick and sparked the Stonewall Riot in 1969, these trailblazing activists and allies challenged criminal sex laws and 'whorephobia,' and were active in struggles for gay liberation, women's rights, reproductive justice, union organizing, and prison abolition. Although the multibillion-dollar international sex industry thrives, the United States remains one of the few industrialized nations that continues to criminalize prostitution, and these discriminatory laws put workers at risk. In response, sex workers have organized to improve their working conditions and to challenge police and structural violence. Through individual confrontations and collective campaigns, they have pushed the boundaries of conventional organizing, called for decriminalization, and have reframed sex workers' rights as human rights."

Visit the Recent Books at the CIRHR Library blog.

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