Perry Work Report: work&labour news&research, February 5, 2016

February 5, 2016

Announcement:

Day of Action around Precarious Academic Work

OCUFA's contract faculty committee is planning a day of action on February 11, 2016, to call attention to the growing issue of precarious academic work in Ontario. Visit the website for more details. The Day of Action is part of OCUFA's We Teach Ontario. 

Follow us on the CIRHR Library Tumblr and on the CIRHR Library Twitter.

City of Toronto Labour Disruption Looms

“More than 26,000 Toronto municipal workers could be locked out or on strike [in February] after negotiations between the city and two unions failed to show progress.”

“The city asked for a ‘no board report’ from the provincial Ministry of Labour on Friday after failing to reach an agreement with CUPE Local 416, a union that represents 6,000 outdoor workers, including garbage collectors and water and parks staff.”

“If approved by the ministry, a no-board report allows either side to initiate a labour disruption after 17 days.”

“Just hours after the city’s announcement, CUPE Local 79, the inside workers’ union, also filed a no board request. This union has more than 20,000 members, including public health workers and workers in city-run daycares, recreation and community centres.”

“Workers in both unions have voted for strike mandates.”

The Globe and Mail, January 29, 2016: “Strike or lockout possible for 26,000 municipal employees in Toronto,” by Allison Ridgway

The Globe and Mail, January 29, 2016: “Video: CTV Toronto: City workers ready to strike”

"... [A] no-board report was requested by the city but has not yet been issued by the province" 

CBC News, February 3, 2016: "City, workers could be 3 weeks away from labour stoppage”

What the Union Wants

CUPE 79 President Tim Maguire told reporters on Wednesday [January 27, 2016]:

“The city would have us believe that all city jobs are secure with access to good benefits and that they are stable but over half of our members are either full-time temporary or indeed part-time workers and the lack of stability in their jobs affects the people who receive services in Toronto’s communities. Today is about bringing light to the condition that part-time workers at the city work under. We think the city can be a model employer in providing more stable employment.”

“We are just talking about a minimum commitment to hours of work. The city hires X number of part-time workers and it is just a question of how they distribute and organize those hours. They can organize those hours so they give their workers stability and there ought not to be a huge financial impact from that.”

CP24, January 27, 2016: “Union says city should give part-time workers a minimum number of hours,” by Chris Fox

Back to top

Precarious Employment Violations in Ontario

“A Ministry of Labour inspection blitz focusing on precarious employment has found 78 per cent of workplaces in violation of the Employment Standards Act, according to a detailed breakdown requested by the Star. These include household names like Goodlife Fitness, G4S Security, and Bowlerama, who were caught for a variety of infractions including shoddy record keeping, excess hours of work, and failure to shell out overtime pay.”

“A total of 304 workplaces were inspected in the province-wide blitz, which targeted sectors like cleaning, security services, and recreation facilities. Some 238 were breaking the law. The most common monetary infractions being overtime, public holiday, and vacation pay. The ministry collected $361,000 in unpaid wages for workers following the inspections, according to its website.”

“Overall, 96 per cent of law-breaking employers voluntarily fixed problems that were identified, according to the ministry. But labour activists say the inspection results reveal the widespread nature of rights violations in precarious workplaces.”

The Toronto Star, January 20, 2016: “Inspection blitz finds three-quarters of bosses breaking law,” by Sara Mojtehedzadeh

Ontario Newsroom, May 9, 2015: “Inspection Blitzes Target Precarious Employment Violations in Ontario“

How to Organize Labour in a Precarious World

“Employers don’t like to make commitments to employees anymore. The idea of a full-time job with job security and benefits is becoming more and more a thing of the past.  And we’re all being encouraged to start our own businesses, without the recognition that self employment isn’t for everybody.  It’s an increasingly precarious world.”

“[Rabble Radio takes] a look at the world of precarious work, and specifically, a couple of campaigns that are demonstrating that if we stick together, we can shore up those shaky foundations that so many of our incomes are built on these days.”

  1. “The Street Labourers of Windsor (SLOW) down in Canada’s most southern city, the International Workers of the World are organizing people who make their living off the street.  This includes street musicians, panhandlers, people who pick up recyclables, and even security guards. Andrew Nellis of SLOW talks to Scott Neigh of Talking Radical Radio.” 
  2. “We’ve heard a lot of stories about poor working conditions in the restaurant industry.  We’ve also heard that it’s hard to do anything about it for a whole host of reasons. Fred is one person who tried to do something about it by organizing his coworkers to get the overtime pay that they were legally entitled to.”
  3. “One of the big trends in post-secondary education these days is internships. But there it’s also a practice that is highly criticized because many, if not most of these internships, are unpaid. Zahra Islam is a fourth year nursing student at Ryerson University and is also the director of community services with the Ryerson Students Union. She’s involved in a campaign called Stop Paying to Work.”

Rabble Radio, January 29, 2016: “Organizing a precarious world,” by Victoria Fenner (34 minutes)

Back to top

U of T Sexual Violence Report & the Ghomeshi Trial

In late 2014, the University of Toronto established an Advisory Committee to the President and Provost on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Violence.

“The committee has completed its work and presented the President and the Provost with the report on February 2, 2016.”

“The committee was created in an effort to review the University’s approach to sexual violence and maintain safe campus environments. The committee’s mandate was to put forward recommendations for the President and Provost for consideration.  The committee, supported by three working groups, has made recommendations regarding an institutional framework that ensures reports of sexual violence are addressed appropriately, that those who have experienced sexual violence receive available support, and that efforts to prevent sexual assault from occurring are identified.”

Feedback may be sent to reportfeedback@utoronto.ca.

University of Toronto, February 2, 2016: “Sexual Violence Report Released”

University of Toronto, February 2016: “Final Report Presidential and Provostial Committee on Prevention and Response to Sexual Violence” (37 pages, PDF)

Recommendations from U of T’s Committee on Sexual Violence:

  • Create a sexual violence policy and protocol with a clear affirmation that sexual assault and harassment will not be tolerated at U of T;
  • Establish a sexual violence centre with a tri-campus presence to assist in triage, reporting and providing support for individuals who have experienced sexual violence;
  • Review existing policies and procedures to ensure they reflect the institutional commitment and provide mechanisms appropriate for resolving the full range of complaints of sexual harassment and assault;
  • Establish university-wide education and training programs, including prevention programs, professional development and education for faculty and staff, and communication and awareness strategies targeted to students, staff and faculty;
  • Regularly review the report’s recommendations and principles to ensure progress is made and institutional commitment remains strong.

The Toronto Star, February 3, 2016: “U of T urged to create centre for victims of sexual violence,” by Kristin Rushowy

... And What Happens When Cases Go to Court?

“Mr. Ghomeshi’s trial is the latest in a series of high-profile sex-crime cases across North America that have galvanized a discussion in the legal community and beyond about how to reconcile justice for victims without trampling the procedural rights of the accused."

“Everyone agrees the stakes are high. On the one hand, many defence lawyers fear that excessive concern for the feelings of witnesses could erode the high standard of proof required in criminal cases and undermine the presumption of innocence. Other legal scholars say there’s a need for new norms in defence law, to reduce the prevalence of gender stereotypes and legal tactics that can traumatize accusers and perhaps discourage women from reporting rape in the future -- broadly known as 'whacking' the complainant.”

“Until recently, such aggression from defence counsel was tolerated and even encouraged. In a 2015 paper titled ‘‘Whack’ No More,’ University of Windsor law professor David Tanovich writes that defence lawyers in Ottawa 15 years ago were told that 'you’ve got to attack the complainant with all you’ve got so that he or she will say, ‘I’m not coming back in front of 12 good citizens to repeat this bullshit story that I’ve just told the judge.’'"

The Globe and Mail, February 3, 2016: “Jian Ghomeshi’s sexual assault trial fuels debate over defence’s tactic,” Eric Andrew-Gee

Ottawa Law Review, 2015: “Whack” No More: Infusing Equality into the Ethics of Defence Lawyering in Sexual Assault Cases, by David M. Tanovich (31 pages, PDF) (abstract)

Back to top

The Language of Policy: Why Focusing on Gender Matters

“Applying a gender perspective to public policy is integral in improving the lives of women and girls -- especially in ending violence against them, say experts.”

“Quality of life for women has been in the political headlines this week -- from the NDP call for equal pay to the Auditor General releasing his 2015 Fall Report, which found a lacklustre effort on the part of the government to implement gender-based analysis -- a tool used to examine gender differences when crafting policy.”

“Previously, one of the few ways the federal government addressed violence against women was through its grant program run out of the Status of Women department. It provided $15 million a year to non-profit organizations .... [But t]he funding seems insufficient given that the World Health Organization says one in four Canadian women will experience sexual violence or intimate violence in their lifetime, with the latter costing the economy $4.8 billion per year, according to the 2009 Justice Canada report: An Estimation of the Economic Impact of Spousal Violence in Canada.”

“‘Those programs all touched upon in some ways aspects of violence that disproportionately affect women, but they were not designed to concentrate on the causes and consequences of violence against women, which is a specific kind of public safety phenomenon. The best way to reduce violence is to understand those specificities,’ said senior CCPA researcher Kate McInturff at the CCPA.”

“... [T]he issue of violence against women must be addressed through the overarching structure of how societies function. Martin will be presenting the  [Blueprint for Canada’s National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Girls] -- which aims to ensure that women and children have access to equitable care across the country -- to Status of Women Minister Patricia Hajdu later in February.”

iPolitics, February 3, 2016: “The language of policy: Why focusing on gender matters,” by Selina Chignall

iPolitics, February 2, 2016: “Gender impact analysis largely ignored by Ottawa: Ferguson,” by Selina Chignall

Office of the Auditor General of Canada, February 2, 2016: “2015 Fall Reports of the Auditor General of Canada”

For key finding from the report see: 

CBC News, February 2, 2016: “Highlights from the federal auditor general’s fall report”

Back to top

Report on CAF's New Sexual Misconduct Response Centre

“Canada’s top general says the Canadian Armed Forces’s new sexual misconduct response centre has fielded more than 100 complaints of sexual assault or harassment since it opened in September, resulting in eight investigations.”

“Gen. Jonathan Vance, chief of the defence staff, said the centre has heard from 247 people over the past five months -- including 64 allegations of sexual assault and 44 reports of sexual harassment. Of the 247, 189 were members of the Canadian Forces and the rest were civilians working at the Department of National Defence.”

“’The fact that people are calling the centre is a tremendous -- great -- step forward,’ said Lt.-Gen. Christine Whitecross, the commander of military personnel, calling the centre’s creation the first part of the military’s efforts to root out harmful and inappropriate sexual misconduct.”

“The centre was created in the wake of last year’s damning Deschamps report that documented just how ‘endemic’ sexual harassment is in the military.”

“Vance could not say whether the number of people using the centre was a high figure because the military does not have ‘baseline data’ to make that sort of comparison.”

CBC News, February 1, 2016: “Canadian Forces investigating 8 sexual misconduct complaints,” by John Paul Tasker

Canadian Armed Forces, February 1, 2016: “Canadian Armed Forces Progress Report on Addressing Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour” (34 pages, PDF) or (html)

Canadian Armed Forces, April 20, 2015: “External Review into Sexual Misconduct and Sexual Harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces,” by Marie Deschamps (102 pages, PDF)

“Michel Drapeau, a former military colonel and a lawyer who had represented military victims of sexual assault, said he was not encouraged by what he read in the report.”

“He pointed out that, according to the report, the military has so far been unable to meet Ms. Deschamps’s recommendation that it develop simple, broad definitions of sexual assault and sexual harassment. And, he said, the Canadian Forces are still leaving the job of investigating sexual assaults in the hand of the military police when he argues that they are far better handled by civilian officers who have the appropriate expertise and training.”

“In addition, Mr. Drapeau said his clients have indicated they would not be willing to contact the new sexual-response centre to report an assault or harassment because they do not know who is on the other end of the line and they fear that it could negatively affect their military career.”

The Globe and Mail, February 1, 2016: “Sexual-misconduct centre received dozens of complaints: military report,” by Gloria Galloway

Back to top

Call for Investigation of WSIB Practices

“Following up on a bombshell report released last November, the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) and the Ontario Network of Injured Workers’ Groups (ONIWG) filed a formal complaint with Ontario Ombudsman Barbara Finlay, calling for a full investigation into the practices of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB). Backed by over 20 medical professionals and substantiated with 45 case examples, the submission alleges that the WSIB ‘systematically ignores the advice of medical professionals for the purpose of rejecting and limiting otherwise legitimate injury claims.’"

“The complaint builds on evidence collected in the 2015 report: Prescription Over-Ruled: Report on How Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board Systematically Ignores the Advice of Medical Professionals. It was submitted to the Ontario Ombuds office as a last resort, after concerns were dismissed by the senior management of the WSIB. The collection of case examples document the WSIB’s failure to heed medical advice regarding readiness to return to work, insufficient treatment, blaming ‘pre-existing’ conditions for ongoing illness, and using independent medical reviews which proclaim patients to be healed, despite the evidence of treating practitioners. Instead, the complaint accuses the WSIB of routinely rejecting the advice of treating physicians in favour of the contradictory diagnoses of 'paper doctors,' who review the claim file without ever examining the patient.”

EIN News, January 29, 2016: “OFL, Injured Workers and Medical Professionals File Official Request for Ombuds Ontario Investigation Into the WSIB"

The Toronto Star, February 3, 2016: “Ontario watchdog urged to investigate WSIB,” by Sara Mojtehedzadeh

Ontario Federation of Labour, January 29, 2016: “Submission to the Ontario Ombuds Office: From the Authors of the 'Prescription Over-Ruled: Report on How Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board Systematically Ignores the Advice of Medical Professionals'"

Ontario Federation of Labour, November 5, 2015: “Prescription Over-Ruled: Report on How Ontario’s Workplace Safety and Insurance Board Systematically Ignores the Advice of Medical Professionals” (16 pages, PDF)

Back to top

Mental Health, Poverty, and Unemployment

“Those who suffer from mental illness or addiction are much more likely to be poor, unemployed and living in inadequate housing, especially when they also suffer from other forms of disability, a new report finds.”

“Compiled using federal data and published by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, data from the report suggests that regarding several factors -- housing, income, employment, and attainment of education -- those who suffer from mental illness or addiction don’t just face worse outcomes when compared to the general population, they also fare worse than those who report other forms of disability.”

CP24, January 28, 2016: “OHRC report strongly links mental illness to poverty, unemployment,” by Chris Herhal

Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2015: “By the Numbers: A statistical profile of people with mental health and addiction disabilities in Ontario” (58 pages, PDF) or (html)

The Impact in the Workplace

“From feelings of hopelessness to chronic sleep problems and headaches, mental health issues are increasingly affecting how we live and how we work.”

Rochelle Morandi, a partner in the Vancouver office of Morneau Shepell, the HR firm behind the study, explains: “We asked employees, those with mental health issues, if they felt it impacted their work. I don’t think it’s surprising that 82 per cent found it impacted their work. We also found that 67 per cent of employees who struggled with stress symptoms -- things like an inability to sleep or chronic headaches -- also felt it impacted their work.”

“The stigma around mental health issues also remains apparent in the workplace. ... [T]he research found employees are not completely comfortable acknowledging the problems at work. Two thirds (66 per cent) of employees who took time off work for a mental health issue did not report it, but almost one third (31 per cent) of employers said support for mental wellness in their organization has improved over the last two to three years.”

News 1130, January 27, 2016: “Mental health issues growing, affecting more people at work,” by Mike Lloyd and Bruce Claggett

Let’s Talk... About How My Job at Bell Gave Me Mental Health Issues and No Benefits

“In 2014, [Karen K. Ho] was hired as a broadcast associate at the specialty television channel Business News Network, also known as BNN. [She] was officially a freelance employee, paid $15.25 an hour, with no sick days, vacation days, or benefits. As a permalancer, [she] worked 40 hours per week:”

“I worked at Bell, in their media division. I needed help after working there. The terms of my job meant I was lucky I was able to access it at all.”

“My contract did not grant me access to Bell Media’s Employee Assistance Plan, meaning I had no access to mental health care through Bell. Luckily, my executive producer was able to grant me special permission. I’m grateful to her, but critical of Bell. What if I didn’t feel comfortable telling my boss I was suffering? Mentioning her name was the only way I could access both counselling services by phone and then in-person as a contract staffer.”

“What frustrated me most about being inside the company was knowing that my work situation wasn’t unique. I knew other BNN contractors who were deeply involved in producing Bell Let’s Talk programming, but who also did not have health benefits, including mental health care, because they were contract workers.”

Canadaland, January 28, 2016: “Let’s Talk About How My Job at Bell Gave Me Mental Health Issues and No Benefits,” by Karen K. Ho

Back to top

The Cost of Free Information

“It has been a bad week for journalism: 200 jobs lost in the broadcast and publishing wings of Rogers Media, and the closing of one of the nation’s oldest daily newspapers.”

“The Guelph Mercury would have celebrated its 150th anniversary along with Canada next year, and its demise set off a flurry of comments from shocked and saddened members of its staff, past as well as present.”

The Globe and Mail, January 29, 2016: “Public Editor: Media hurting but still producing memorable journalism,” by Sylvia Stead

“Most Canadian journalists working for private media would make little distinction between themselves and colleagues at the CBC: In every newspaper where I’ve worked, there has been some tension between journalists who felt their job was to gather and disseminate information in the public interest and publishers who felt their job was to make money. And whether it’s in the public realm or the commercial one, the creators of knowledge and gatherers of information have to eat. Citizens may discover that, in the case of local news, free information means no information at all.”

The Globe and Mail, January 29, 2016: “Kate Taylor: Cost of free information could be end of local news knowledge,” by Kate Taylor

The Globe and Mail, January 29, 2016: “When a newspaper dies, a community is lesser for it,” by Roy MacGregor

What We Lose When Local Papers Close

‘Three things helped me put down roots here. First, marrying a Guelphite. That was the big one. Second, the support I’ve received, as an artist, from the community. They’ve really embraced me over the years and made me one of ‘their own.’’
“And third, reading the Guelph Mercury.”

“That daily experience of seeing your local places, names and events creates a kind of resonance and connection and investment with where you live. Canadians pay a lot of lip service to the importance of telling Canadian stories. We are so used to seeing American references that just watching a movie, for example, set in a Canadian place will ‘charge us up’ with local feeling. A sense of seeing ‘ourselves’ portrayed.”

“That’s the daily charge of a local paper. Investing you with news and culture of YOUR PLACE. Take that away and you genuinely diminish that feeling in a community.”

"That is a real loss. Especially in a world where people are increasingly living in a central abstract space. A ‘no place.'’’

The Globe and Mail, January 29, 2016: “Guelph Mercury’s demise: Graphic novelist Seth on what we lose when local papers close,” by Seth

Journalism Ethics in the Digital Age: An Open Source Online Course

“This course will acquaint students with important ethical principles and professional norms that they can employ in the practice of reporting. Students will develop their knowledge of theories and frameworks, gain knowledge of important journalistic failures and mistakes, as well as emerging areas of professional challenge, and learn how to apply this knowledge during reporting, publication and audience engagement processes.”

Harvard Kennedy School, Shorenstein Center, Journalist’s Resource, January 21, 2016: Journalism Ethics in the Digital Age: A Model/Open Source Syllabus

Back to top

C.D. Howe: Job One is Jobs

“The country is losing medium-skilled jobs at an alarming rate and the system is ill-equipped to move workers to where they are needed, including high-skilled positions in other industries, according to a new report ... [released] Tuesday by the C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based economic think tank.”

“'Globalization and technical change is depressing demand for middle-skilled jobs, which are likely to come under further pressure in the years ahead due to weaker prospects in the resource sector and cooling in real estate-related construction activity,' the report said.”

“Mr. Alexander said the solutions include overhauling employment insurance (EI) to eliminate regional differences in eligibility rules as well as a renewed effort to 'up-skill' the work force.”

“He also called for putting much better labour-market data into the hands of employers and policy makers, while helping to bring “underutilized pools of labour” into the work force, including young workers, immigrants and aboriginals.”

The Globe and Mail, February 2, 2016: “Canada’s labour market not keeping up with ‘changing times’: report,” by Barrie McKenna

“Drawing on C.D. Howe Institute research, the report recommends four key policy priorities that will prepare Canada’s labour market for tomorrow. They are:

  1. Support for Displaced Workers: EI reform is badly needed.
  2. More Detailed and Accessible Labour Data: Canada needs more timely, accessible and relevant labour market data to diagnose vulnerabilities in labour markets and provide evidence based solution
  3. Upskilling: Canada needs more and better skills development to boost productivity, raise employment and fuel stronger income growth for workers.
  4. Barriers to Success: Beyond the general call for more and better skills development, it is evident that there are underutilized pools of labour. Tapping these pools -- including youths, immigrants, and aboriginals -- more effectively requires removing barriers to success.”   

C.D. Howe Institute, February 2, 2016: Media Release: Four Priorities to Spur Growth in Canada’s Struggling Labour Markets

C.D. Howe Institute, February 2, 2016: Job One is Jobs: Workers Need Better Policy Support and Stronger Skills, by Craig Alexander (12 pages, PDF)

Back to top

Finding Dignity in Work in the Age of Amazon

“The basis for [Booker T.] Washington’s entire outlook is the idea that people can find dignity in work. But how does work offer dignity to the worker? On Washington’s account, dignity is not inherent in the mental or physical activity that comprises our work; it is conferred on the person by those in the community who benefit from the work.”

“[But w]hat happens to your dignity once the world no longer wants done what you can do? This is exactly the question faced by millions of workers -- factory laborers,waiters and waitresses, even anesthesiologists -- whose jobs are being automated, or those, like cabdrivers, who are being replaced by 'cloud' labor.”

“Unless you can be confident in your continued employment and in the willingness of others to recognize your merits, it is risky to depend on work as your source of dignity.”

“Amazon’s workers offer a sobering example. From warehouse pickers to software engineers, they all contribute to the effort to ‘do something which the world wants done’: sell and deliver any product cheaply and conveniently. But because the world wants it done faster and faster, these workers are expected put in long hours and are subjected to withering performance evaluations....”

“It’s bad enough for an employer to expect a software engineer to give all of her time and effort to her work; at least, in addition to the promise of dignity, she’s earning a good wage. It’s a far worse abuse of the language of dignity to expect a poorly paid, harried temp running through a warehouse ... to exhibit Christ-like levels of self-sacrifice for the sake of someone else’s profit. This is the tragedy of seeking dignity through recognition for your work. Unless your community is already disposed to recognize you, then you may lose not only your dignity, but much more besides.”

“In this world, doing a good job is often not enough to secure your employment or your dignity. Academics have rejected Washington, but how many of us ... believe the exact same thing he did? Scholars like me tell ourselves that the academy rewards merit; after all, we have blind peer review and systems of citation to assign each other status. But the system is, in fact, grossly unfair. Many thousands of good scholars and teachers labor in obscurity, if not poverty.” 

“I’m concerned that my students believe the American myth that Washington espoused and I wish were true, and that they will end up toiling for an insufficient reward, always hoping that things will break their way eventually, while their more privileged peers, whose dignity was never in question, prosper without having to crucify themselves.”

The Wilson Quarterly, Winter 2016: “Reconsidering Booker T. Washington in the Age of Amazon,” by Johnathan Malesic

Back to top

Want to Achieve More? Easy -- Do Less.

“Our brains are designed to focus on one thing at a time, and bombarding them with information only slows them down. When we complete a tiny task (sending an email, answering a text message, posting a tweet), we are hit with a dollop of dopamine, our reward hormone. Our brains love that dopamine, and so we’re encouraged to keep switching between small mini-tasks that give us instant gratification. This creates a dangerous feedback loop that makes us feel like we’re accomplishing a ton, when we’re really not doing much at all....”

“Multitasking makes it more difficult to organize thoughts and filter out irrelevant information, and it reduces the efficiency and quality of our work.”

“A study at the University Of London showed that subjects who multitasked while performing cognitive tasks experienced significant IQ drops. For men, multitasking can drop IQ as much as 15 points, essentially turning you into the cognitive equivalent of an 8-year-old.”

“The lesson? Multitasking is not a skill to add to the resume, but rather a bad habit to put a stop to. Turn off notifications, create set email checking time slots throughout the day (rather than constant inbox refreshing), and put your mind to the task at hand.”

Medium, January 27, 2016: “Multitasking is Killing Your Brain,” by Larry Kim

The Guardian, January 18, 2016: “Why the modern world is bad for your brain,” by Daniel J. Levitin

“[Our] routines seem to get busier all the time, as modern technology allows us to perform more and more tasks ourselves, quickly, on our tablets and smart phones. But at what cost? MIT neuroscientist Professor Earl Miller is an expert on divided attention. He argues our addiction to technology is actually making us less efficient.”

Listen to the interview here [audio, 9:24 min.]

MIT’s The Picower Institute, January 21, 2015: “Multi-tasking and technology -- Professor Earl Miller”

Back to top

Do Workers Slack Off More When the Economy's Better?

“Theoretically, when the economy is doing badly, employees would work harder in order to hold onto their jobs. Following that logic, workers are more relaxed when the economy is healthy because there are more jobs out there and employers have to fight to hold onto talented workers. ‘That is classic economics, goes back to Marx,’ explains Dan Hamermesh, the co-author of a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper on whether effort at work responds to changes in the economy."

“Hamermesh, along with the economists Michael Burda and Katie Genadek, looked at time-use data from 2003 to 2012 in order to see what people did when they weren’t working at work, and how that varied as the state of the economy changed. From the dataset -- which includes over 35,000 diaries of daily activities of employed people during weekdays -- Hamermesh and his colleagues found that employees self-reported an average workday of eight hours and 20 minutes, with 7 percent of that time spent not working. That 7 percent -- about 34 minutes -- was mostly spent eating, but also on leisure, exercise, cleaning, and other non-work activities.”

“As for how the economy affected these numbers, the researchers looked at  unemployment figures. They found that generally, the number of workers who reported not working at work decreased during bad economic times. But during down times, the workers that did loaf at work did a lot more of it.”

The Atlantic, January 27, 2016: “Do Workers Slack Off More When the Economy’s Better?,” by Bourree Lam

The National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2016: “Not Working at Work: Loafing, Unemployment and Labor Productivity,” by Michael Burda, Katie R. Genadek, and Daniel S. Hamermesh (51 pages, PDF)

Back to top

Modernizing Labor Laws for the 21st Century -- The Online Gig Economy

ILR Online Webcast Series:

“In a paper recently presented at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., Seth Harris ‘83 and Alan Krueger ‘83 propose ways to modernize labor laws for work in the 21st century. The paper proposes a new legal category for workers, ‘independent workers,’ those who occupy the gray area between employees and independent contractors. By extending many of the legal benefits and protections found in employment relationships to independent workers, the proposal would protect and extend the social compact between workers and employers, and reduce the legal uncertainty and legal costs that currently beset many independent worker relationships. In this program, Harris will offer an inside glimpse to the proposal as well as take questions from our online audience.”

View PowerPoint Slides (18 slides, PDF)

View the Webcast (1 hour)

Cornell University ILR School, February 2, 2016: “Modernizing Labor Laws for the 21st Century -- The Online Gig Economy“

Back to top

Burnin' it Down or Just Watching it (Walmart) Leave Town

“Two weeks ago, Walmart announced that it would be closing a hundred and fifty-four locations across the country, the majority of them Walmart Expresses -- what the company refers to as its ‘smallest format’ branches. Of the hundred and thirty-six stores that it shuttered yesterday, Fairfield’s was one of only a dozen so-called Supercenters. ... For them, Walmart provides not just food but a pharmacy, an optician, a money center, an auto center, and a mobile-services provider. Absent its Supercenter’s well-stocked produce aisles, Fairfield now fits the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s definition of a ‘food desert,’ meaning that its residents lack ready access to a source of healthy food.”

“According to Michele Ver Ploeg, an economist with the U.S.D.A., that’s not quite as dire as it sounds, at least for those who can drive. ... (There is a Walmart in Hueytown, a ten-minute drive away.) For those without cars, though, the Supercenter’s closure will hit harder, especially given that a bus stop sits within view of the store’s entrance. Nearly twenty per cent of Fairfield’s eleven thousand residents are sixty or older. One in four lives below the poverty line.”

“...Fairfield is in an especially untenable position. It’s a city with a declining population. It’s a city that had to release inmates from its jail last spring because it couldn’t afford to feed them. It’s a city that already lost eleven hundred jobs when U.S. Steel, by far the largest employer in town, permanently closed a blast furnace last fall.”

‘Think of Walmart’s closure here and elsewhere, then, less as a cause of ruin than as a symptom. ‘Walmart’s pulling out of places that are doing poorly,’ Hicks said. ‘Its decision to leave doesn’t really precipitate bad times as much as it does accelerate bad times.’”

The New Yorker, January 30, 2016: “When Walmart Leaves Town,” by Brian Barrett

Steve Earle -- Burnin’ It (Down Live on KEXP)  

Back to top

India's Missing Women

“The Indian Constitution guarantees equality under the law. But for women facing a patriarchal social order, strict caste rules and centuries of traditions, that guarantee means little.”

“In India, women’s participation in the labor force stands at around 27 percent, lower than any other country in the G-20, except for Saudi Arabia. Standard models suggest that a lucky confluence of factors -- economic expansion, rising education levels and plummeting fertility -- would draw women swiftly into India’s economy.”

“Instead, the opposite is happening: From 2005 to 2012, women’s participation rates slid to 27 percent from 37 percent, largely because rural women were dropping out of the work force. Of 189 countries studied by the International Labour Organization, India ranks 17th from the bottom.”

“This is terrible news for India, as it strains to become a competitive producer for world markets. Economists have put forward two theories to explain the decline. The first is that India’s boom has created jobs in segments that are generally not accessible to women, like construction. The second has to do with culture: Unless their choices are dictated by destitute poverty, Indian families seek the status that comes from keeping women at home.”

The New York Times, January 30, 2016: “Indian Women Seeking Jobs Confront Taboos and Threats,” by Ellen Barry; photographs by Andrea Bruce

The New York Times, January 30, 2016: “’We Will Not Apologize’: Chronicling the Defiant Women of India,” by Ellen Barry

The New York Times, February 2, 2016: “From ‘Bold’ to ‘Bastard,’ Readers Debate Role of Working Women in India”

Hindu Women Can Now Legally Head Households

“Women can legally head households, a court in India ruled this week in a monumental verdict for women’s rights. The decision will allow the eldest female in a family to formally occupy a role traditionally inherited by men through a patriarchal system of lineage that stems from Hindu beliefs.”

“This is the second notable decision on gender roles in traditional legal systems out of the Indian judicial system in recent months. In November, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that women will maintain rights to keep any gifts she receives before or after marriage if she separates from her husband.”

ThinkProgress, February 2, 2016: “New Court Ruling is Massive Shift For Gender Rights In India,” by Beenish Ahmed

Back to top

The "Fourth Industrial Revolution's" Threat to Traditional Livelihoods

“... [T]he World Economic Forum spent the entire summit doing its best to make the case that this coming revolution is somehow more new, more different, and more threatening than any we have previously experienced.”

“Emerging technologies have a profound power to transform society, for good or evil -- this is well-understood, well-recognized, and a theme of 21st-century discourse in technology studies. What lies ahead in our future technological development is clearly uncharted territory, replete with its own set of unique snares and dragons, regardless of the words we use to describe it. The coming decades of human technological innovation represent a social and political problem, not just a technological one, and demand expertise in finding social and political solutions...."

Slate, January 29, 2016: “This Is Not the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” by Elizabeth Garbee

One of the issues accompanying this so-called “fourth industrial revolution” is the threat that it poses to traditional livelihoods.
Three recent pieces from the Global Oneness Project serve to highlight this issue.

Yukon Kings, by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee -- “Set in the remote Alaskan Yukon Delta, Yukon Kings follows Yup'ik fisherman Ray Waska as he teaches his grandkids how to fish during the summer salmon run. With environmental and cultural forces threatening their subsistence way of life, Ray holds onto the hope that his grandsons will one day pass on the traditional knowledge to their children.” [video, 7:14 min.]

Santa Cruz del Islote, by Luke Lorentzen -- “Santa Cruz del Islote is a three-acre island about fifty miles off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia. In this short documentary, we meet two islanders -- a fisherman and a ten-year-old boy -- who are contemplating their future. While one mourns the decreasing fish population, the other dreams of an education off the island. Both are at the nexus of change, with forces beyond their control likely to extinguish their traditional way of life.” [video, 19:22 min.]

Mongolia’s Nomads, by Taylor Weidman -- “Mongolian pastoral herders make up one of the world’s last remaining nomadic cultures. For millennia they have lived on the steppes, grazing their livestock on the lush grasslands. But today, their traditional way of life is at risk on multiple fronts. Alongside a rapidly changing economic landscape, climate change and desertification are also threatening nomadic life, killing both herds and grazing land. Due to severe winters and poor pasture, many thousands of herders have traded in their centuries-old way of life for employment in mining towns and urban areas. Most herders who stay on the steppe push their children to pursue education and get jobs in the cities believing that pastoral nomadism is no longer a secure or sustainable way of life.” [photo essay]

Back to top

The Future of Work in a Post-Capitalist World

After Capitalism: Where We’re Going We Don’t Need Roads

“Automation isn’t a neutral, inevitable part of capitalism. It comes about through the desire to break formal and informal systems of workers’ control -- including unions -- and replace them with managerially controlled and minutely surveilled systems of piecework. An entire political and legal infrastructure has been built up to make these so-called tendencies seem like the natural progression of capitalism, rather than the effects of fights -- sometimes simple, sometimes violent -- to deprive people of whatever sense of control they have over their work. The only reason such work has ever not been totally shitty is that some attempt to preserve such control was made. This -- not some implausible notion of a fully automated postwork future -- still remains the surest of utopian impulses, the one most likely to deliver the things we want.”

“The accelerationists insist that the future will be one in which, thanks to computer assisted advances in automation, wage labor is a condition guaranteed to very few, and ‘surplus populations,’ already large, will dominate the planet. Prior socialists imagined that victory would come through the workplace; the accelerationists argue that, in the future, the workplace won’t exist in anything like the form we have now, and in any case it will have very few permanent workers. Assuming this position, they ask: What would be the social vision appropriate to a jobless future? What, after the end of working-class socialist dreams, should the left propose?”

Is What We Are Living Now the More Probable Future of Work?

“Workers could shut down the entire supply chain by pulling a few switches; hackers could take over production and release everything in the world for free. But does that mean, given the opportunity to resist, workers will? The past in this regard is not as reassuring as we would like. Let us imagine the future promises much worse: that instead of an end to capitalism succeeded by a society run by not-for-profit versions of Mark Zuckerberg (and Mark Ruffalo), there is an economy marked by persistent sluggishness and stagnant or declining demand.”

“The familiar cycle -- workers continue to go into debt to make up for weak income; this debt is turned into lucrative financial instruments by downtown wizards; these instruments collapse when their basis is revealed to be valueless; eventually new instruments are founded on new kinds of debt -- continually reasserts itself.”

“New technology makes old work obsolete, throwing millions into precarious work but guaranteeing salaried jobs for fewer numbers of highly skilled workers. The hegemony of these workers -- the tech elite, financed by venture capital, resisting the dispossessed ‘network’ -- suffers setback after setback, as bubble after bubble bursts, but nonetheless is never dethroned. Stagnation remains general, but no solution appears on the horizon. This is, in fact, pretty much the world we live in. Until the eventual collapse of its fossil-fuel basis -- and who knows, even this might be survived, if not happily -- there is no reason for it not to go on endlessly.”

N+1, January 2016: “After Capitalism: Where we’re going we don’t need roads”

The Guardian, July, 2015: “The end of capitalism has begun,” by Paul Mason

Back to top

Book of the Week

The Industries of the Future, by Alec Ross. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2016. 304 p. ISBN 9781476753652 (hardcover)

From the publisher: "Leading innovation expert Alec Ross explains what’s next for the world: the advances and stumbling blocks that will emerge in the next ten years, and how we can navigate them. While Alec Ross was working as Senior Advisor for Innovation to the Secretary of State, he traveled to forty-one countries, exploring the latest advances coming out of every continent. From startup hubs in Kenya to R&D labs in South Korea, Ross has seen what the future holds. In The Industries of the Future, Ross shows us what changes are coming in the next ten years, highlighting the best opportunities for progress and explaining why countries thrive or sputter. He examines the specific fields that will most shape our economic future, including robotics, cybersecurity, the commercialization of genomics, the next step for big data, and the coming impact of digital technology on money and markets. In each of these realms, Ross addresses the toughest questions: How will we adapt to the changing nature of work? Is the prospect of cyberwar sparking the next arms race? How can the world’s rising nations hope to match Silicon Valley in creating their own innovation hotspots? And what can today’s parents do to prepare their children for tomorrow? Ross blends storytelling and economic analysis to give a vivid and informed perspective on how sweeping global trends are affecting the ways we live. Incorporating the insights of leaders ranging from tech moguls to defense experts, The Industries of the Future takes the intimidating, complex topics that many of us know to be important and boils them down into clear, plainspoken language. This is an essential book for understanding how the world works -- now and tomorrow -- and a must-read for businesspeople in every sector, from every country.”

TechRepublic, February 2, 2016: "6 ways the robot revolution will transform the future of work," by Hope Reese

Back to top

This information is provided to subscribers, alumni of the Centre for Industrial Relations & Human Resources (CIRHR), friends, interested faculty and students from across the country and around the globe. The Perry Work Report, formerly the Weekly Work Report 2002 – 2006, is a weekly e-publication of the CIRHR Library, University of Toronto.

The content is intended to keep researchers, companies, workers, and governments aware of the latest information related to IR/HR disciplines for the purposes of research, understanding and debate.

The content does not reflect the opinions or positions of the University of Toronto, CIRHR, or that of the editors, and should not be construed as such. The service provides links to the primary documents and research behind the news stories of the day.

This publication is protected by Canadian copyright laws and may not be copied, posted or forwarded electronically without permission. All individual subscriptions, and complimentary copies for students and alumni are not to be redistributed - organizational subscription information is available at: Perry Work Report. The Perry Work Report was named in honour of Elizabeth Perry, editor 2002 to 2006.

Questions or comments: cirhr.library@utoronto.ca

For past issues see our Archives (there is a three month embargo on available issues).

Editors: Vicki Skelton and Melissa Wawrzkiewicz
Designer: Nick Strupat

Copyright © 2016 Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources Library, University of Toronto. All rights reserved.