Perry Work Report: work&labour news&research, February 27, 2015

February 27, 2015

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This Is Contract Faculty Time

"This video addresses the experiences of contract faculty at York University, and what the administration can do to improve their working conditions - and the quality of education for everyone at York."

YouTube, February 15, 2015: “This is Contract Faculty time: York faculty in support of contract faculty,” by Canadian Union of Public Employees, local 3903

"Members of CUPE 3903 have voted almost 80 per cent in favour of a strike mandate, after conducting a poll from January 26 to 30."

The purpose of the strike mandate vote was to give the union more leverage at the bargaining table, as it negotiates a new contract with York University. We are bargaining for accessible, high quality education, a fair and equitable workplace, and a safe and healthy campus. But the university has been dragging its feet, and remains largely unresponsive. Now that we have a strong strike mandate, we hope it will kick-start the bargaining process -- and help us avoid a strike.”

betteryork.ca, January 31, 2015: “Is there going to be a strike at York?”

CNW, February 18, 2015: “Strike deadline set for March 3 at York University”

The Income Gap between Adjuncts & Tenures

"In Canada, climbing the Ivory tower has never been more difficult. It’s estimated that about half of all university teaching in the country is done by contract professors -- instead of permanent full time professors."

Click here to listen to the episode (audio, 24:00 min.).

CBC Radio’s The Current: with Anna Marie Tremonti, January 27, 2014: “The income gap between tenure faculty & adjunct contract professors in Canadian universities”

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The Cost and Quality Crisis in Higher Ed

"A college degree remains the most important vehicle for middle class attainment. But the quality crisis in higher education is draining the economy and chipping away at the American dream."

A new paper from David Brown and Kenneth Megan outlines:

"The Crisis in Higher Education -- Too many undergraduates leave college without an education worth their investment.”

  • Graduation rates are too low.
  • Student achievement lags.
  • Students aren’t prepared for the workforce.

"The Failure of Federal Policy -- While Washington was focused on defraying the cost of college for families, it has failed at a far greater task -- increasing the quality of college education while lowering the actual cost.”

  • Federal law prohibits students from accessing data on income and employment.
  • The federal government doesn’t do enough to hold colleges accountable.
  • Federal policy incentivizes research -- not teaching.
  • Federal funding does nothing to curb rising college costs.

"A New Compact with America’s Colleges -- We need a new compact with America’s colleges that will restore the promise of higher education. Here are the three steps policymakers should take:”

  1. Right to know law for college consumers.
  2. Re-prioritize teaching and student learning.
  3. Restructure federal financing to protect students.

Download the full report here (26 pages, PDF) or the executive summary here (3 pages, PDF).

Third Way, February 17, 2015: “A New College Compact: Addressing the Cost & Quality Crisis in Higher Ed,” by David Brown and Kenneth Megan 

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Academic Hiring Is an Uphill Battle

A new study that scrutinized more than 16,000 faculty members in the fields of business, computer science, and history at 242 schools found a “‘steeply hierarchical structure that reflects profound social inequality.’ The data revealed that just a quarter of all universities account for 71 to 86 percent of all tenure-track faculty in the U.S. and Canada in these three fields. While elite universities, with their deep resources and demanding coursework, surely produce great professors, the data suggest that faculty hiring isn’t a simple meritocracy.”

"One explanation for this skewed hiring system is that lower-prestige institutions are trying to emulate their high-prestige brethren. For a university, the easiest way to burnish your reputation is to hire graduates from top schools...."

"Another factor could be that it’s not easy for schools to evaluate job applicants on merit alone, because merit can be difficult to define or measure. In the tenure system, a professor might work at the same institution for 40 years. But when hiring for tenure-track positions, schools often have to guess about lifelong productivity based on just a few years of experience. Hiring faculty is therefore a high-stakes decision; while you can always deny someone tenure, doing so means you’ve wasted years nurturing talent that you don’t want to keep. With so much uncertainty involved in the process, it may be natural to go with what seems like a safe choice: an applicant trained at a high-prestige school, even at the expense of exciting candidates from slightly less elite institutions.”

Slate, February 23, 2015: “The Academy’s Dirty Secret,” by Joel Warner and Aaron Clauset

Wired, February 19, 2015: “Academic Hiring is an Uphill Battle,” by Samuel Arbesman 

Science Advances, February 12, 2015: “Systematic inequality and hierarchy in faculty hiring networks,” by Aaron Clauset, Samuel Arbesman, and Daniel B. Larremore

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From Hard Times to Better Times: New Report on Employment of Post-Secondary Graduates

"The job market for recent college graduates has continued to improve but individual graduates’ chances of finding a job depends on their major, according to a new report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. The report..., [From] Hard Times to Better Times, also analyzes changes in unemployment rates and annual wages for recent college graduates since 2009.”

Major findings from the report include:

  • "College remains very much worth the cost in the post-recession economy for most students: unemployment rates declined for recent graduates in most majors."
  • "College graduates maintained their wage advantage over high school graduates in the post-recession economy... though the size of the wage advantage depends on major" (engineering majors "earn 158 percent more than experienced high school graduates" but education majors "earn only 31 percent more than experienced high school graduates").
  • "Unemployment rates for recent college graduates are the lowest for agriculture and natural resources majors (4.5%), physical sciences (5%), and education (5.1%)" and highest for "architecture (10.3%) and arts (9.5%)."
  • Recent arts, social work, and psychology graduates “earn $31,000 per year, only $1,000 more than the average high school educated worker” compared to recent engineering graduates who “earn $57,000 per year.”

Georgetown University, February 19, 2015: “Recent college grads in almost every major are more likely to be employed than mid-career high school grads,” by Andrea Porter (1 page, PDF)

Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, 2015: “From Hard Times to Better Times: College Majors, Unemployment, and Earnings,” by Anthony P. Carnevale and Ban Cheah (52 pages, PDF)

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Will You Become an All-Star Athlete?

"The idea that the size of your birth group affects your chances of success in life is not a new one. In new research, Alex Bryson, Rafael Gomez, and Tingting Zhang find that this effect also influences the chances of someone becoming an All-Star Athlete. Analysing the National Hockey League (NHL), they find that players born in times of higher birth rates suffer significant earnings losses relative to those born into smaller birth cohorts, and that these lower earnings are concentrated in players’ early seasons. They also find that players born later in the year are likely to be more successful than their earlier-born counterparts, and are 5 percentage points more likely to be a team captain.”

London School of Economics and Political Science, February 16, 2015: “Will you become an All-Star Athlete? The answer may depend on when you were born.”

Social Science Research Network, November 22, 2015: “All-Star or Benchwarmer? Relative Age, Cohort Size and Career Success in the NHL,” by Alex Bryson, Rafael Gomez, and Tingting Zhang 

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Ladies, It's Okay to Lean Back

"After a week of intense speculation about who would be taking over ‘The Daily Show,’ Jessica Williams addressed the rumors that she was (or at least should be) the heir apparent for host" by stating via Twitter that she was "extremely under-qualified for the job."

"A little while later, a writer for the Billfold responded to Williams’ announcement with a piece that claimed she was a ‘victim’ of impostor syndrome, and that she needed to ‘lean in.’”

"Williams swiftly defended herself against the accusation:"

"Are you unaware, how insulting that can be for a fully functioning person to hear that her choices are invalid? ... I am a black woman and I am a feminist and I am so many things. I am truly honored that people love my work. But I am not yours."

"And this is the problem with ‘lean in’ applied as a universal feminist ethos. Like most supposedly universal narratives, it’s incredibly limiting. I’d also say that ‘lean in,’ particularly as it’s often rendered in media shorthand, has come to mean that women should ignore their instincts in favor of aggressively pursuing a specific career goal or opportunity at all costs. In a culture that already serially doubts women, this is, in its own way, just another way we doubt women. As though we can’t be trusted to narrate our own experiences, or as if making a choice that doesn’t match narrowly defined or hyper-specific expectations means we are somehow weak or self-defeating [(imposter syndrome)]."

"Such a one-size-fits-all narrative, whether it’s lean in or impostor syndrome, erases women’s agency and is its own form of erasure. Both can be a useful way to support women, but they have the opposite impact when used to police women’s choices and doubt their agency...."

Salon, February 18, 2015: “‘Lean the f*** away from me’: Jessica Williams, ‘impostor syndrome’ and the many ways we serially doubt women,” by Katie McDonough

Slate, February 18, 2015: “Jessica Williams Called Herself ‘Underqualified’ for the Daily Show Gig -- and It’s OK If She’s Right,” by L.V. Anderson

It is important to note that imposter syndrome is real, and it can and does hold women back.

Health, February 20, 2015: “3 Things You Should Know About Impostor Syndrome,” by Sarah Z. Wexler

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The American Dream for the Next Generation -- A MOOC from MIT

"The goal of this course is to explore and develop plans of action for improving the job and career opportunities for the next generation workforce."

“At this time, there aren’t enough good jobs or educational opportunities out there to maintain what we used to call the ‘American Dream’-- the idea that each generation should be able to achieve a higher standard of living for themselves and their families. It’s a fundamental ideal that drives people all over the world -- not just in the United States."

“To understand how we got here, and what we can do about it, we have to understand the world of work. In this course, we’ll trace the history of work and employment that has made the economy work so well in the past. And we’ll uncover what’s gone wrong, in order to figure out new solutions that fit today’s workforce, economy, and society.”

It’s free to audit this course, taught by Thomas Kochan. 

Click here to enroll. Classes begin March 23, 2015.

EdX -- The American Dream for the Next Generation [webpage]

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The New American Way: Work Harder for Less Pay

"The Federal Reserve has declared that the reason for ongoing economic weakness is because wages have not fallen enough. Wages have been stagnant for four decades while productivity has soared, but nonetheless orthodox economists believe the collapse of 2008 has been a missed opportunity."

"A paper prepared by two senior researchers with the San Francisco branch of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank attempts to explain the lack of wage growth experienced as unemployment has fallen over the past couple of years this way:”

“One explanation for this pattern is the hesitancy of employers to reduce wages and the reluctance of workers to accept wage cuts, even during recessions, a behavior known as downward nominal wage rigidity.”

CounterPunch, February 22, 2015: “Federal Reserve Says Your Wages are Too High The New American Way: Work Harder for Less Pay,” by Pete Dolack

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, January 2015: “Why Is Wage Growth So Slow?,” by Mary C. Daly and Bart Hobijn

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Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America

"Why hasn’t wealth inequality improved over the past 50 years? And why, in particular, has the racial wealth gap not closed? These nine charts illustrate how income inequality, earnings gaps, homeownership rates, retirement savings, student loan debt, and lopsided asset-building subsidies have contributed to these growing wealth disparities."

Urban Institute, February 20, 2015: “Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America”

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A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality

"The broad facts of income inequality over the past six decades are easily summarized:

  • The years from the end of World War II into the 1970s were ones of substantial economic growth and broadly shared prosperity.
  • Beginning in the 1970s, economic growth slowed and the income gap widened.
  • Wealth is much more highly concentrated than income. The best survey data show that the top 3 percent of the distribution hold over half of all wealth. Other research suggests that most of that is held by an even smaller percentage at the very top, whose share has been rising over the last three decades.”

Data from a variety of sources contribute to this broad picture; however, within these broad trends different data tell slightly different parts of the story.

"This guide consists of four sections. The first describes the commonly used sources and statistics on income and discusses their relative strengths and limitations in understanding trends in income and inequality. The second provides an overview of the trends revealed in those key data sources. The third and fourth sections supply additional information on wealth, which complements the income data as a measure of how the most well-off Americans are doing, and poverty, which measures how the least well-off Americans are doing."

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, February 20, 2015: “A Guide to Statistics on Historical Trends in Income Inequality,” by Chad Stone, Danilo Trisi, Arloc Sherman, and Brandon DeBot [download the PDF version here (19 pages)]

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The Politics of Envy and Vilification

“Last week’s New York Times reported that the Hillary Clinton campaign has tapped more than 200 experts to solve a problem: how to address the public’s anger over income and wealth inequality without ‘overly vilifying the wealthy.’”

But “the rich do not have to be vilified to support a policy that effectively addresses inequality of income and wealth. Inequality is bad for the whole economy and the current trajectory is unsustainable. The long-term increase in growth and equality that characterized developed economies for most of the 20th century inverted around 1980. Especially in the US, growth has slowed and inequality has increased. The OECD has studied the long-term effect of inequality on member state GDPs. The US is found to have lost cumulatively about 6% per annum in annual growth over the last two decades because of its drift toward inequality. That is more than GDP dropped in the Great Recession.”

"Thus, solving inequality is good in the long-term for the wealthy as well as for the rest of us. Nevertheless, it should surprise no one that most rich people do not want to give up a slice of their wealth right now for the future greater good. It is better if someone else gives up his or her wealth. Of course, the decision to redress income and wealth disparity is for government to make, not individuals."

"Remember government, that collective voice of the people with the job of taking decisions in the public’s interests?"

Demos, February 17, 2015: “The Politics of Envy and Vilification,” by Wallace Turbeville

Demos, February 10, 2015: “Financialization & Equal Opportunity,” by Wallace Turbeville      

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Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women: New Report and Roundtable

"An alarming study released [February 26, 2015] shows that governments in Canada have repeatedly ignored expert recommendations to stop violence against Indigenous women and girls."

"Researchers with the Legal Strategy Coalition on Violence Against Indigenous Women reviewed 58 reports dealing with aspects of violence and discrimination against Indigenous women and girls, including government studies, reports by international human rights bodies, and published research of Indigenous women’s organizations. The reports cover a period of two decades. Shockingly, researchers found that only a few of more than 700 recommendations in these reports have ever been fully implemented."

“‘The federal government has gotten it all wrong,’ said Cheryl Maloney, President of the Nova Scotia Native Women’s Association. ‘The fact that governments have been sitting on these reports, leaving important, life-saving recommendations unimplemented, is exactly why we need the intervention of an independent commission of inquiry.’”

A recommendation that has been consistently made but ignored states that the “federal government should take urgent action to address the chronic unemployment and poverty faced by Indigenous women and men both on and off reserve.” Unfortunately, indigenous women remain overrepresented amongst those engaging in survival sex work.

Available report resources:

rabble.ca, February 26, 2015: “Hundreds of expert recommendations on violence against Indigenous women and girls go unimplemented,” by the Legal Strategy Coalition on Violence Against Indigenous Women

The roundtable taking place on February 27, 2015 “is a closed meeting of families of the missing and murdered, indigenous organizations, premiers from 13 provinces and territories and federal ministers.”

"The Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde said the roundtable is meant to develop a co-ordinated action plan to combat violence against indigenous women and girls. Prevention and awareness, community safety, policing and justice will be on the agenda." But Bellegarde empathizes that the roundtable "is no substitute for a national inquiry."

CBC News, February 26, 2015: “Missing and murdered indigenous women roundtable to include families,” by Martha Troian

The Globe and Mail, February 25, 2015: “Aboriginal leaders want round table to end with increased funding, action,” by Gloria Galloway

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Surviving the Streets of New York

"A unique federally funded study offers a detailed look at the lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth in New York City who cope with homelessness and poverty by engaging in what the researchers call 'survival sex.'"

"In extensive interviews conducted over three years by the Urban Institute, 283 young people spoke about experiencing family rejection, establishing support networks with groups of their peers, and learning how to subsist on earnings from sexual encounters. Many said there were positive aspects to their lives, but a large majority expressed a yearning to get out of the sex business."

CTV News, February 25, 2015: "'Survival sex': how desperate LGBT youth get by in NYC," by David Crary

Urban Institute, February 26, 2015: "Surviving the Streets of New York: Experiences of LGBTQ Youth, YMSM, and YWSW Engaged in Survival Sex" [download the PDF version (96 pages) here]

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Book of the Week

Labor Relations in a Globalizing World, by Harry C. Katz, Thomas A. Kochan, and Alexander J.S. Colvin. Ithaca: ILR Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press, 2015. 248 p. ISBN 9780801479892 (pbk.)

From the publisher: "Compelled by the extent to which globalization has changed the nature of labor relations, Harry C. Katz, Thomas A. Kochan, and Alexander J. S. Colvin give us the first textbook to focus on the workplace outcomes of the production of goods and services in emerging countries. In Labor Relations in a Globalizing World, they draw lessons from the United States and other advanced industrial countries to provide a menu of options for management, labor, and government leaders in emerging countries. They include discussions based in countries such as China, Brazil, India, and South Africa which, given the advanced levels of economic development they have already achieved, are often described as ‘transitional,’ because the labor relations practices and procedures used in those countries are still in a state of flux."

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