Perry Work Report: work&labour news&research, March 13, 2015

March 13, 2015

Announcement:

Inaugural Sefton-Williams Memorial Lecture: NEW LOCATION

The inaugural Sefton-Williams Memorial Lecture will take place on Thursday, March 19th at 7p.m. at the Intercontinental Hotel, Willard Room, 220 Bloor Street West, directly across from the Royal Conservatory of Music. Previously known as the Sefton Memorial Lecture (this was the 32nd year of this lecture), the event was renamed in honour of Lynn Williams, who passed away in 2014, to reflect the contributions that Mr. Williams made to the labour movement. The lecture is entitled Inequality and its Discontents: A Canadian Perspective. The speakers are Armine Yalnizyan, Senior Economist for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Miles Corak, Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa.

Please register here for this free lecture.

 

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Professor Morley Gunderson Receives the Carolyn Tuohy Impact on Public Policy Award

"Professor Morley Gunderson has dedicated much of his career toward making his research relevant to public policy. His success has led him to be called the most accomplished and influential labour economist and industrial relations scholar in Canada. He is the 2015 winner of the Carolyn Tuohy Impact on Public Policy Award at the University of Toronto."

"Gunderson, who holds the CIBC Chair in Youth Employment and is a faculty member of the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources as well as the Department of Economics at U of T, said in an interview the award 'means a lot. Some people downplay such awards but I feel especially privileged about this because it illustrates that my work is policy relevant.'"

"His work has had a meaningful impact on ordinary Canadians. He has worked with economist Arthur Donner on two federal task forces, including one on working time and the distribution of work, and worked with Rosalie Abella on her Task Force on Employment Equity."

"Gunderson designed both the Masters and PhD programs in industrial relations and human resources -- the first of their kind in English-speaking Canada. He is very proud of the fact that more than 500 students have graduated from those programs."

"He has been involved in the supervision of 37 of the 42 PhD students who have graduated from the programs. They are teaching throughout the world, including U of T, Queens, McGill, Cornell and the London School of Economics. The programs have been 'tremendously successful.'"

University of Toronto, Alumni, March 2015: “Professor Morley Gunderson receives the Carolyn Tuohy Impact on Public Policy Award”

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What the University of Toronto Isn't Telling You about the TA Strike

"Cheryl Regehr, the Vice-President and Provost of the University of Toronto, is telling you a lot about the Teaching Assistant strike."

"Cheryl is telling you that PhD students received an average level of financial support worth $35,109 last year. But she is not telling you about the financial inequality and inconsistency between departments and faculties. She is not telling you that while graduate students in some faculties might receive a funding package of $17,000 plus full tuition waiver (total funding package = $25,000), graduate students in other faculties (like those in her own Faculty of Social Work) will receive $15,000 and NO tuition waiver. She isn’t telling you that after tuition those social works students are actually receiving $7,000. She isn’t telling you that the guaranteed minimum funding package shrinks to $10,000 with no tuition waiver by year five."

rabble.ca, March 10, 2015: “What the University of Toronto isn’t telling you about the TA strike” 

rabble.ca, March 5, 2015: “Media: Get the story straight on U of T strike,” by Christina Turner

Information on the CUPE 3902 Unit 1 strike at the University of Toronto is available on the website We Are U of T.

The letters of endorsement from University of Toronto departments and faculties, signed by faculty, are available here.

Here is the link to the open letter from the Vice President & Provost Cheryl Regehr and Vice President, Human Resources & Equity Angela Hildyard.

Here is the link to the CUPE 3902 Unit 1 open letter from Chief Negotiator Ryan Culpepper in response to the administration’s open letter.

We have also attached to this Perry Work Report a PDF version of a letter from a University of Toronto English Department professor to his department.

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World's Most Prestigious Universities: Reputation Rankings

This year the University of Toronto rose to the number 16 spot, up four spots from 2014. McGill University and the University of British Columbia ranked 35 and 37, respectively.

"The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2015 employ the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey to provide the definitive list of the top 100 most powerful global university brands.”

“Times Higher Education offers in-depth analysis and commentary on the results of the World Reputation Rankings 2015:”

Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2015 results [website]

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CAUT Response to Industry Canada's Science and Technology Strategy

“At the beginning of December 2014, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Minister of State (Science and Technology) Ed Holder released their science, technology and innovation strategy and launched the Canada First Excellence Research Fund (CFERF). This brief looks at the implications of the proposed policy on academic research and on research and development performed in Canada, and proposes a new direction in science policy.”

“By making it mandatory to evaluate projects based on potential commercial outcomes, the science and technology strategy will continue to shift resources from discovery-driven research to businesses research and development (R&D). Discovery-driven or basic research refers to experimental and theoretical work undertaken with the primary aim of acquiring new knowledge, and not necessarily with any particular application or use in view. The objective of basic research is to gain more understanding of the subject under study. Although basic research may not have specific applications as its goal, the most important scientific discoveries have typically come from basic research driven by a quest for knowledge.”

CAUT, February 15, 2015: "CAUT Response to Industry Canada’s 2014 S&T Strategy"

Industry Canada, December 2014: “Seizing Canada’s Moment: Moving Forward in Science, Technology and Innovation 2014”

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The CIBC Canadian Employment Quality Index in Dispute

"The CIBC Canadian Employment Quality Index (EQI), measure three key areas:

  • the distribution of part-time vs. full-time jobs;
  • self-employment vs. paid employment;
  • and the compensation ranking of full-time paid employment jobs in more than 100 industry groups”

Benjamin Tal, deputy chief economist and author of CIBC's Employment Quality Index "notes that the since the late 1980s, the number of part-time jobs has risen much faster than the number of full-time jobs, which is often seen as the most important measure of employment quality."

"The damage caused to full-time employment during each recession was, in many ways, permanent. That is, full-time job creation was unable to accelerate fast enough during the recovery to recover lost ground. The good news is that for the past year, the number of full-time jobs rose twice as fast as the number of part-time jobs -- a factor that worked to offset some of the recent softening in our index."

The Globe and Mail, March 5, 2015: “Canadian job quality sinks to record low - low-paying jobs becoming the norm: CIBC”

"The CIBC job quality index drew reams of attention last week because it hit an all-time low. If Statistics Canada had made such a claim, alarm bells would have gone off across the country; seriously, is it possible today’s quality of jobs is the worst ever?”
Financial Post, March 10, 2015: “Why CIBC’s so-called job-quality index just doesn’t measure up,” by Phillip Cross

CIBC, March 5, 2015: “Canadian Employment Quality Index, Employment Quality - Trending Down,” by Benjamin Tal

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Attack on CHL Players' Rights Expands

"The state of Washington is currently considering amending its labour law to exempt Western Hockey League (WHL) players from existing legislation. House Bill 1930  and Senate Bill 5893, acts ‘addressing the nonemployee status of athletes in amateur sports,’ would exempt the players on Washington’s four WHL teams from laws defining state minimum wage and work conditions.”

"The League is also facing a class action lawsuit from former players for minimum wage violations. The lawsuit was filed last October and came days after another class action suit was brought against the Canadian Hockey League (CHL), the umbrella organization for the WHL, Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, and the Ontario Hockey League. The class action suit against the CHL alleges the league owes players $187 million in unpaid wages."

"While CHL commissioner David Branch refers to players as ‘student-athletes,’ Hockey Canada by-laws describe a professional player as ‘compensated more for his ice hockey player activity ... than the expense he directly incurs through playing ice hockey,’ which seems to apply to most CHL players."

rankandfile.ca, March 10, 2015: “Attack on CHL Players’ Rights Expands Into Washington State,” by Ryan Lum

TSN, February 23, 2015: “CHL should pay $187M for ‘illegal’ conspiracy, former players say,” by Rick Westhead

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No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project

"No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project is a Clinton Foundation initiative led by Secretary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton to inspire and advance the full participation of women and girls around the world. Even today, persistent stereotypes and barriers keep women from equal access, representation, and compensation in our communities and around the world. No Ceilings is convening global partners to build a data-driven evaluation of the progress women and girls have made and the challenges that remain to help chart the path forward to full participation in the 21st century."

Project resources:

No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project [website]

While women have made great strides in recent decades, significant gaps still remain. Especially when it comes to women’s economic participation. Participation “has virtually stagnated since 1995, with 55 percent of women in the workforce compared with 82 percent of men. Often working in the informal economy, women still earn less than men in almost every country. More than 150 countries lack laws guaranteeing equal access to capital and property ownership while nine nations legally restrict women’s freedom of movement.”

The World Economic Forum, March 9, 2015: “Gains and gaps in 20 years of fighting for gender equality,” by Lisa Anderson

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The Racial Wealth Gap: Why Policy Matters

"To create a more equitable and secure future, we must shift away from public policies that fuel and exacerbate racial disparities in wealth. But which policies can truly begin to reduce our country’s expanding racial divergences? This paper pioneers a new tool, the Racial Wealth Audit, and uses it to evaluate the impact of housing, education, and labor markets on the wealth gap between white, Black, and Latino households and assesses how far policies that equalize outcomes in these areas could go toward reducing the gap."

Main Findings:

  • The U.S. racial wealth gap is substantial and is driven by public policy decisions.
  • Eliminating disparities in homeownership rates and returns would substantially reduce the racial wealth gap.
  • Eliminating disparities in college graduation and the return on a college degree would have a modest direct impact on the racial wealth gap.
  • Eliminating disparities in income -- and even more so, the wealth return on income -- would substantially reduce the racial wealth gap.

Demos, March 10, 2015: “The Racial Wealth Gap: Why Policy Matters,” by Amy Traub and Catherine Ruetschlin [download the full report here (40 pages, PDF)]

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Both Discrimination and Differences in Human Capital Contribute to Racial Economic Inequality

"Racial inequality in economic outcomes, particularly among the college educated, persists throughout US society. Scholars debate whether this inequality stems from racial differences in human capital (e.g., college selectivity, GPA, college major) or employer discrimination against black job candidates."

"The results show that although a credential from an elite university results in more employer responses for all candidates, black candidates from elite universities only do as well as white candidates from less selective universities. Moreover, race results in a double penalty: When employers respond to black candidates, it is for jobs with lower starting salaries and lower prestige than those of white peers. These racial differences suggest that a bachelor’s degree, even one from an elite institution, cannot fully counteract the importance of race in the labor market. Thus, both discrimination and differences in human capital contribute to racial economic inequality."

Social Forces, March 2015: “Discrimination in the Credential Society: An Audit Study of Race and College Selectivity in the Labor Market,” by S. Michael Gaddis [download the PDF version (29 pages) here]      

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Richer & Poorer: Accounting for Inequality

"What’s new about the chasm between the rich and the poor in the United States, then, isn’t that it’s growing or that scholars are studying it or that people are worried about it. What’s new is that American politicians of all spots and stripes are talking about it, if feebly: inequality this, inequality that.... [However, t]he causes of income inequality are much disputed; so are its costs. And knowing the numbers doesn’t appear to be changing anyone’s mind about what, if anything, should be done about it."

"Robert Putnam’s new book, ‘Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis’ (Simon & Schuster), is an attempt to set the statistics aside and, instead, tell a story."

"Numbers depersonalize; that remains one of their chief claims to authority, and to a different explanatory force than can be found in, say, a poem. ‘Quantification is a technology of distance,’ as the historian of science Theodore Porter has pointed out. ‘Reliance on numbers and quantitative manipulation minimizes the need for intimate knowledge and personal trust.' It’s difficult to understand something like income inequality across large populations and to communicate your understanding of it across vast distances without counting. But quantification’s lack of intimacy is also its weakness; it represents not only a gain but also a loss of knowledge.”

The New Yorker, March 16, 2015: “Richer and Poorer: Accounting for inequality,” by Jill Lepore

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Segregated Cities & Their Changing Shape

"Americans have become increasingly sorted over the past couple of decades by income, education, and class.... [and] Americans are sorting not just between cities and metro areas, but within them as well. While most previous studies of economic segregation have generally focused on income, this report examines three dimensions of economic segregation: by income, education, and occupation. It develops individual and combined measures of income, educational, and occupational segregation, as well as an Overall Economic Segregation Index, and maps them across the more than 70,000 Census tracts that make up America’s 350-plus metros. In addition, it examines the key economic, social, and demographic factors that are associated with them."

Report resources:

Martin Prosperity Institute, February 23, 2015: “Segregated City: The Geography of Economic Segregation in America’s Metros,” by Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander

"The last two decades have brought dramatic changes to many American cities. Most cities in the United States in 1990 had a ‘donut’ shape, with wealthier residents in a booming suburban ring surrounding a decaying core. Today cities are increasingly resembling what has been called a new donut -- with three, rather than two rings." The center has grown much more desirable to educated, higher-income residents, poverty has migrated outwards, creating an ‘inner ring’ of urban and early suburban neighborhoods around the core, and beyond lies an ‘outer ring’ of newer and larger suburbs which continues to add population.

Demographics Research Group, March 2015: “The Changing Shape of American Cities,” by Luke J. Juda [download the PDF version, 20 pages, here]

Additionally, new research from the think tank City Observatory finds that over “the past few years, urban populations in America’s cities have grown faster than outlying areas, and [their] research shows that jobs are coming with them.“

City Observatory, February 2015: “Surging City Center Job Growth,” by Joe Cortright (39 pages, PDF)

So, How Do Americans Feel about Where They Live?

"The most recent Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll asked Americans to assess how they feel about the cities and towns that they call home. The poll … found that about two-thirds of respondents said that they felt like their little corners of the world are, in fact, improving. Class and income seemed to have some bearing on how positively -- or negatively -- people felt about local conditions ... Being employed helped too ... [and] race also factored into how people viewed the status and future of their communities.”

See the detailed results here.

The Atlantic, March 11, 2015: “How Do Americans Feel About Where They Live?,” by Gillian B. White

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The 2015 Manning Clark Lecture: What Economists in Canada Can Also Learn

"Is it possible to plan 100 years into the future? What are enlargers and punishers and what influence have they had on Australia’s past, present and possible futures? Richard Denniss delivers the 2015 Manning Clark lecture and asks what can economists learn from one of this country’s most influential historians."

Click to listen now or download the audio.

RN, March 10, 2015: “The 2015 Manning Clark lecture”

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Book of the Week

Migration, Precarity, and Global Governance: Challenges and Opportunities for Labour, edited by Carl-Ulrik Schierup, Ronaldo Munck, Branka Likic-Brboric, and Anders Neergaard. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2015. 302 p. ISBN 9780198728863 (hardcover)

From the publisher: "Migration, Precarity, & Global Governance explores an understudied, but central, area within contemporary studies of globalisation and precarisation. It relates to the interface between migration, global governance and the role of civil society, with particular focus on the dilemmas and options of trade unions, too often left off the agenda. The volume suggests that the trade union movement is undergoing a fundamental debate about revitalisation, which could play an important role in terms of the economic, political and social integration of migrant workers, with implications for the transformation of contemporary societies in general. The volume adopts an interdisciplinary and comparative approach, emphasizing the complexity of historically grounded social relations. It examines international migration as it is impacted by, and impacts on, globalization, social and political struggles, and the recurring crisis of capitalism. The first part of the book presents five complementary perspectives on the political economy of migration, labour, and citizenship. Part Two offers analyses of the relationship between labour unions and migrant workers. Part Three explores the way trade unions, migrant organisations, and other civil society groupings interact with an incipient global governance regime relating to migration. It also examines issues of state and non-state actors' accountability in relation to human rights claims as well as the impact of the norm of corporate social responsibility."

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