Perry Work Report: work&labour news&research, April 29, 2016

April 29, 2016

Announcement:

The Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources 50th Anniversary Celebration

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the CIRHR and the 40th anniversary of the MIRHR join us for a day of learning from top IR/HR experts and thoughtleaders, network with CIRHR alumni and colleagues, and enjoy a day of informative discussions and innovative speakers. Click here to see the event program. To register please send an email to cirhr.alumni@utoronto.ca. Be sure to include your full name and RSVP by May 30, 2016.

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National Day of Mourning

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted Thursday morning: “On this #NationalDayofMourning, we pay tribute to those who’ve lost their lives on the job. May their deaths not be in vain.”

Across Canada, April 28 has been designated the Day of Mourning. Every year workers, families, employers, and others come together at ceremonies held around the province to remember those who have lost their lives to work-related incidents or occupational disease, and re-new our commitment to creating safe workplaces.

“As Canada marks the National Day of Mourning, with ceremonies held throughout the country on April 28 to remember workers that have died on the job, [the CBC spoke] to a bereaved father, six years on.”

“’It’s not over. It’s six years now and we still deal with it daily,’ [Phil] Huxley told The Early Edition’s Rick Cluff. 

Huxley said workplaces need better follow through for safety training, and workers need to have ways to follow up if they feel they are ill-equipped to safely perform tasks. Huxley said the National Day of Mourning has also helped him connect with other families who have lost people to workplace accidents, and has helped them move past the tragedies together.
“‘If I can help just one more young person stay alive, I feel I’ve done something positive to make it work.’”

To hear the full interview with Phil Huxley, listen to the the audio here.

CBC News, April 28, 2016: “On National Day of Mourning, let’s stop workplace deaths, says bereaved father”

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Ontario Ministry of Labour Collective Agreement e-Library Portal

“The Collective Agreement e-Library Portal houses public and private sector collective agreements in Ontario. Search collective agreements and their associated generations via the self-serve, online portal.”

“The Ministry of Labour is making it easier for Ontarians to find the information they want, when they want, as part of Ontario’s Open Government commitment and in support of the recommendations from the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Service.” 

“Collective agreements are searchable by the following sectors, which have been organized by the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)”:

  • Construction;
  • Health and Social Services;
  • Manufacturing;
  • Education and Related Services;
  • Agriculture and Natural Resources;
  • Public Administration;
  • Trade and Finance;
  • Transport;
  • Communications and Utilities;
  • Other services

Ontario Ministry of Labour, April 2016: “The Collective Agreement e-Library Portal: Collective Agreements Home”

The Collective Agreements e-Library Portal [website]

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Ottawa's Workers' History Museum

“The Workers’ History Museum (WHM) ... is dedicated to the development and preservation of workers’ history and heritage in the National Capital Region and Ottawa Valley. [Their] goal is to present, promote, interpret, and preserve workers’ history, heritage, and culture. Workers’ history examines social changes surrounding working culture, working people, and the workplace in all sectors of the economy.”

Resources are also available for purchase from the museum’s online boutique, such as The Rand Formula, a documentary which traces the evolution of a uniquely Canadian approach, generally known as the Rand Formula, to modern Canadian Labour law.

Workers’ History Museum [website]

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AFL President Testifies Against Trans-Pacific Partnership

“In a presentation to the House of Commons’ International Trade Committee, Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan took aim at how the TPP would allow corporations to hire exploitable foreign workers, while ignoring qualified and unemployed Canadian workers.”

“’As faulty as it is, the current TFW program at least requires some evidence that the employer couldn’t hire a Canadian to do the job ...,’ McGowan said. ‘[The TPP] would fundamentally transform the Canadian labour market for the worse by creating an underclass of exploitable workers with fewer rights.’”

“... [T]he Alberta Federation of Labour hired top labour and trade lawyers to examine the deal. The strongly-worded brief is available at the following link: Legal Opinion Regarding TPP Labour Rights.”

“Chapter 12 of the TPP ... is certain to make things much tougher for many Canadian workers by allowing both domestic and foreign companies to bring foreign workers to Canada to take jobs that Canadians are ready, willing, and able to fill,’ says the legal opinion prepared for the AFL by the law firm Goldblatt Partners. ‘If implemented, these effects will likely be immediate, severe in times of high unemployment, and because they will be entrenched in a multi-party international treaty, effectively irreversible.’”

Labour Bytes, April 22, 2016: “AFL Pres Testifies against Trans-Pacific Partnership”

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Finnish Schools' Success: From the Classroom to the Middle Class

“Finnish schools have been obsessively and singularly re-engineered, in three decades of radical reforms, to ensure that ['difficult'] kids are at the centre of everything, that they receive as much intensive education as the wealthiest and most fluent students, and that they all have the chance to make it through to higher education. Other countries have made education changes, but only Finland has altered its entire system to improve the odds of poor kids entering the middle class.”

“Remedial or gifted classes, special classes for learning-disability or second-language kids, are all but absent. Standardized testing doesn’t happen. There is no 'ability grouping' at all -- not by schools or classes or streams -- until age 16. Everyone gets the same lessons in the same classes, whether they’re a troubled student in a poor rural area or a university-bound kid from a professional family; differences in ability are handled by individual attention, not by separation.”

“What seems unfamiliar to educators from other countries with high-achieving systems is the lack of emphasis on what most places would call 'education.' School does not begin until age 7 (there are two years of preschool, but they don’t include reading, writing or arithmetic). Only a third of the school day is devoted to 'core' subjects such as science, math and Finnish; another third is for music, art and gym; and the final third is for second languages (Swedish and English are compulsory). There is a lot of time for recreation and socializing. It’s not an intensive or competitive pedagogical experience.”

“The results of the changes, after a generation had elapsed, were startling. In 2006, a team led by Finnish economist Tuomas Pekkarinen, then based at Oxford, conducted a detailed analysis of the population -- looking at the same counties before and after the reforms kicked in -- and found that the average chance of Finns’ being stuck with their parent’s income had declined by seven percentage points, a huge increase in social mobility.”

The Globe and Mail, April 23, 2016: “Finland’s social climbers: How they’re fighting inequality with education, and winning,” by Doug Saunders

Social Science Research Network, July 2006: “Education Policy and Intergenerational Income Mobility: Evidence from the Finnish Comprehensive School Reform,” by Tuomas Pekkarinen Aalto, Roope Uusitalo and Sari Pekkala

“A big rise in social mobility -- as when billions of people in Asia and South America escaped poverty in the two decades after 1990 -- usually produces an increase in a nation’s inequality (because the economic forces that end poverty are even more beneficial to the country’s property-owning and shareholding classes). On the other hand, the countries with the consistently highest rates of social mobility are also the countries with the highest measures of economic equality.”

“Schools and education systems keep appearing in studies of social mobility. An influential paper by University of Toronto economist Philip Oreopoulos, for example, found that compulsory-schooling laws have a huge effect: With each extra year of required schooling, the lifetime wealth of individuals increases by about 15 per cent.”

The Globe and Mail, April 23, 2016: “What does ‘social mobility’ really mean? The schools of thought,” by Doug Saunders

Journal of Public Economics, 2007: “Do dropouts drop out too soon? Wealth, health andhappiness from compulsory schooling,” by Philip Oreopoulos

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Where Ontario's PhDs End Up

“Almost a third of recent PhD graduates from Ontario universities are working as tenured or tenure-track university professors within a few years of finishing their degrees, a new study has found, with students in the humanities and social sciences much more likely to stay in academia than engineering or science grads.”

“The study from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario shows that half of doctoral graduates from 2009 have found jobs as professors or university administrators, with 50 per cent of them working in Canada, and the rest divided between North America and elsewhere.”

“The study suggests there are many paths to a career after graduation and wide differences in outcomes between fields. Only a fifth of PhDs in engineering are working as professors, but that number doubles for those in social sciences.”

“The study gathered its data through social media, an increasingly popular, if labour-intensive, way to get at labour market outcomes in the absence of Statistics Canada data. It found the 2,310 people who graduated with a PhD in 2009 from Ontario universities through convocation lists, and then traced their careers on LinkedIn and university websites. A similar study, called Trace, is under way for humanities graduates at 24 universities across Canada.”

The Globe and Mail, April 26, 2016: “Engineering, science PhDs least likely to work as professors, study finds,” by Simona Chiose

Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, April 26, 2016: “Ontario’s PhD Graduates from 2009, where are they now?,” by Linda Jonker (32 pages, PDF)

Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario, April 26, 2016: “Ontario’s PhD Graduates from 2009, where are they now? Infographic,” by Bill McLean

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Ontario's Gender Wage Gap Strategy Consultation

“The province has received thousands of ideas from Ontarians throughout the province about how to address the gender wage gap in Ontario after 18 weeks of engaging with the public in-person, online, and in writing.”

“Ontario’s Gender Wage Gap Steering Committee presented Minister of Labour Kevin Flynn and Minister Responsible for Women’s Issues Tracy MacCharles with a summary report of what they have heard.”

“The steering committee held public and stakeholder meetings across the province last fall and winter and will report back later this year with recommendations that will help shape the province’s Gender Wage Gap Strategy.”

Ontario Newsroom, April 19, 2016: “Ontario Receives Public Input on the Gender Wage Gap Strategy”

“The gender wage gap consultation gave women and men across the province a chance to share their views and concerns about work, home and pay. Through meetings and discussions, Ontarians told us what they think is causing the gender wage gap and solutions they would like to see.”

Government of Ontario, April 19, 2016: “Gender wage gap strategy consultation”

“Women still earn much less than men and it’s an issue that both the private sector and the government need to address, according to a recent report from the Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA).”

“Although women tend to be well educated, they work in a narrower range of occupations and have a higher representation than men in the 20 lowest-paid jobs, according to the report Closing the Gender Wage Gap.”

The Financial Post, April 25, 2016: “Despite being well educated many women still fall behind in terms of pay,” by Martin Birt

Human Resources Professionals Association, 2016: “Closing the Gender Wage Gap” (22 pages, PDF)

“At the national conference of the Canadian Association of Corporate Counsel in April, it was widely touted that 52 per cent of members are now women. It confirmed what has been known for a while -- there is basically a 50/50 split of women and men in the in-house bar.”

“A new survey from the CCCA and The Counsel Network shows that female in-house counsel are earning 15-per-cent less than their male peers.”

“The survey stated that salaries of female in-house counsel tend to be clumped at the lower end of the pay scale. At the low end, five per cent of male in-house counsel earn less than $100,000 compared to 10 per cent of female in-house counsel. At the high end, 26 per cent of male in-house counsel earn more than $200,000 compared to only 15 per cent of female in-house counsel. As the survey stated: ‘For in-house counsel, the gender wage gap is real and it is not shrinking.’”

Canadian Lawyer Magazine’s InHouse, April 25, 2016: “Why are women earning less?,” by Jennifer Brown

The Financial Post, April 18, 2016: “Female in-house counsel earning less than male counterparts, survey says,” by Julius Melnitzer

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The Future of Canada's Oil and Gas Industry

“A new labour market outlook forecasts a sluggish recovery for Canada’s oil and gas industry over the next few years, with an estimated loss of up to 24,000 direct jobs in 2016, which would bring the total number of losses to roughly 52,000 since the start of 2015.”

“When companies finally do emerge from the downturn they’ll be leaner and slow to rehire, according to the latest report from Enform’s Petroleum Labour Market Information division.”

“Enform is an arm of six lobby groups representing the oil and gas industry, including the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association.”

“Enform’s data-crunchers looked at two labour market scenarios for 2016-2020 based on different oil price forecasts. They predict that if prices remain below US $60 per barrel until 2020, the industry will need to hire 46,435 workers. If oil prices reach the US $60-80 per barrel range by 2020, hiring requirements could reach 55,305 jobs. Even then, the industry wouldn’t hit pre-downturn employment levels.”

CBC News, April 23, 2016: “1000s more oil and gas job losses in 2016, new report predicts,” by Allison Hempster

Careers in Oil and Gas, 2016: “Labour Market Outlook 2016 to 2020: Canada;s Oil and Gas Industry” (62 pages, PDF)

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The Latest on the Sharing Economy

Unions Come to Airbnb

“Airbnb is in negotiations to cut a deal with one of the nation’s biggest unions that would employ unionized home cleaners who are paid at least $15 per hour, according to people familiar with the discussions.”

“Under the terms being discussed, Airbnb, which has previously been at odds with unions, will endorse the union’s Fight for $15 and encourage vendors who provide services to homeowners on the Airbnb platform to pay their staff at least $15 per hour. The platform will also direct Airbnb hosts to cleaners who have been given a seal of approval from SEIU. The cleaners will be trained, certified and provide green home cleaning services to Airbnb hosts, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post.”

The Washington Post, April 18, 2016: “Airbnb is forming an alliance with one of the nation’s biggest labor unions,” by Elizabeth Dwoskin

Sharing Your Kitchen

“Nadya Khoja grinds pepper over brussels sprouts sizzling on the stove. Her roommate, Sarah Lee, mashes feta, butter and parsley in a bowl. The evening’s menu was carefully planned ... But tonight’s two dinner guests are largely a mystery. ‘Complete and total strangers,’ admits Lee.”

“Yes, the sharing economy is now serving dinner. There’s Airbnb for people to run a hotel in their residence and Turo for folks who want to rent out their own cars. And now multiple websites are popping up where people advertise takeout food services or restaurants run out of their homes.”

"And for those who are hungry but can’t stay for dinner, there’s a growing number of websites where people can order homemade takeout. The site MealSurfers promotes Toronto home cooks who showcase meals available for pickup.”

CBC News, April 27, 2016: “Restaurants in private homes -- sharing economy’s latest trend,” by Sophia Harris

Joyriding in Car2Go, a Sharing-Economy Experiment

“Pacing the sidewalk, I ordered and cancelled and ordered and cancelled the same Uber Pool, hoping to pay a discounted fare without splitting a Hyundai Sonata with some guy named Craig. Meanwhile, my friends walked one block over, retrieved a two-person [Car2Go] Smart car, and whizzed by, waving. The next day, I sent an e-mail to the press office at Car2Go, asking to try out the service, and was granted a free membership, plus a thousand driving minutes.”

“Car2Go is a ‘point-to-point’ system: you can reserve a car on a whim, tire of it at any point, and park it in any baby-sized space, anywhere within the two boroughs. The proposition feels like high-school joyriding, except urban and legal.”

“I ... thought of Car2Go as the ultimate lifehack for city dwellers. The trick of Car2Go is offering a true feeling of dominion without any of the pains of true ownership, such as repairing the cars or filling them with gas. Yet entitlement without responsibility is a hazardous prospect. Perhaps it was the diminutive size of my new friends, or the simplicity of booking and driving them, but more than once I wondered whether I couldn’t just skip traffic by hopping up onto the sidewalk.”

“In the end, Car2Go is sharing as snarfing, a rebuke to the sharing-economy notion that selfishness can be indulged in spirit but overcome in practice.”

The New Yorker, April 27, 2016: “Joyriding in Car2Go, a Sharing-Economy Experiment,” by Daniel Wenger

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Why Work is Much Easier Than Love

“As a culture we are highly attuned to what is beautiful and moving about love; we know its high points and celebrate its ecstasies in films and songs. By comparison, work is the dull, tedious bit -- the thing we have to do to pay the bills. And yet what’s striking is how often work, despite its lack of glamour, in fact turns out to be the easier, more enjoyable and ultimately more humane part of life. There are a number of reasons for this.”

  1. You have to be professional: At work, you can’t really be yourself and nor can others around you -- which could sound a little fake and therefore inauthentic. But this lack of honesty may in fact be an extremely welcome development compared to a home life where everyone feels a duty to be an utterly frank, uncensored correspondent of their every inner mood and qualms.
  2. You get trained: Fatefully for our chances of happiness, in the romantic ideology, love is understood to be an enthusiasm, rather than what it really is: a skill that needs to be learned.
  3. Feedback is more sensitive: Everyone hates reviews at work, but what deeply kind phenomena they actually are compared with what goes on at home. Reviews are steeped in a culture of tact. One rather tough remark has to be wrapped in at least seven compliments. Work culture knows that people don’t improve and can’t take new ideas on board if they are feeling threatened and humiliated.
  4. You depend on a job less: We rely on work of course, but we’d survive, somehow, if it came to an end. That’s not the feeling we often get around love, especially when there are a couple of kids and a mortgage in common.
  5. Work is just easier: Running a nuclear power station or landing large jets is hardly simple but still very much easier than trying to be happy around another human being in a sexual relationship over many decades. There is simply nothing harder in this world, so complicated are we, so high are our expectations and so very poor is our romantic culture at helping us to raise the quality of our levels of patience, our insights, our feedback sessions and our training manuals.

“No wonder we’re often really quite happy when it’s finally Monday morning again and we can leave the house and do something properly simple with our lives once more.”

The Guardian, April 25, 2016: “Why work is much easier than love,” by Alain de Botton

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Making it in American & The People of Clouds

Making it in America

“The short film Making it in America documents the life and worldview of a Salvadoran immigrant and her experience transitioning to life in the United States. Alma Velasco fled to the U.S. as a teenager during the Salvadoran Civil War. She works in a clothing factory in Los Angeles, striving to build a future for her children.”

Making it in America, by Joris Debeij, a short film [8:44 min.]

The People of Clouds

“It was in the late 1990s when I first began to see Mixtec migrants in the farm fields around my hometown in California’s Central Valley. The Mixtecs, or Nuu Savi, were once one of the great civilizations of meso-America, but they were pushed out by collapsing corn prices and severe land erosion. Now, they were here ... coming like so many groups before them, to provide the labor that fuels California’s multi-billion dollar agricultural machine.”

“In Mexico, I have visited dozens of Mixtec communities that have lost so many people to migration; they have become ghost towns.”

“There are plenty of villains to blame for the disappearance of this ancient culture -- the Green Revolution, NAFTA, or the unrelenting march of globalization. As I have watched this exodus unfold, I keep coming back to the land. As the People of Clouds scatter to the wind, it’s that connection to the land. That’s what we’re losing.”

The People of Clouds, by Matt Black, a photo essay

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Book of the Week

Views From the Steel Plant: Voices and Photographs From 100 Years of Making Steel in Cape Breton Island, by Ronald Caplan. Wreck Cove, N.S.: Breton Books, 2005. 216 p. ISBN 9781895415691

From the publisher: "Interviews and photos keep alive our story of steelmaking. From the Boom days of construction, through women in the steel plant during World War Two, to the march to save the plant after Black Friday -- immigrants, skilled steelworkers, union organizers -- the voices of a powerful community.  New processes were developed here. Steel from Cape Breton helped win two world wars, produced rails for the trains of the world and, as the song says, ‘made Cape Breton what it is.’ "

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