April 5, 2010
- When public-sector salaries become public knowledge
- Media coverage of the sunshine salary list
- Queen’s University Staff certification vote undecided
- New Teaching Universities in British Columbia face possible union busting
- New Health & Safety Organization in Ontario
- What does a Workplace Injury really Cost?
- Taking a break from Social Media
- Youth Values in Canada
- Educational and Labour Market Outcomes of Young Canadians
- Measuring Green Jobs in the US
- Migrant Workers
- International Labour Comparisons
- Social Exclusion in Europe
- Book of the Week
When public-sector salaries become public knowledge
A paper published in the March online edition of the Canadian Public Administration, examines the implications of Ontario’s Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act with respect to university-sector salaries.
From the Abstract: “The main conclusions are that salary disclosure, in general, and in the academic sector in particular, has never fully accounted for proper comparability issues and has not been updated to reflect adjustments for inflation. The act also raises important questions of privacy that have not been fully addressed. Perhaps most notably, there is no evidence suggesting that salary disclosure has much of an influence in off-setting other factors affecting salary growth.”
“When public-sector salaries become public knowledge: Academic salaries and Ontario's Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act.” Canadian Public Administration. (p 107-126) Rafael Gomez, Steven Wald Published Online: Mar 28 2010 available on Wiley InterScience (scroll down to article)
The authors: Rafael Gomez is associate professor, Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources and Woodsworth College, University of Toronto. Steven Wald is sessional lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Toronto.
Media coverage of the sunshine salary list
Globe and Mail, April 1, 2010: Number of highly paid public workers climbs in Ontario: List shows 18 per cent increase in provincial employees making $100,000 and up
Globe and Mail, April 1, 2010: Sunshine salary list poses a problem for McGuinty: Public sector compensation demands account for more than half of provincial spending
Globe and Mail, April 1, 2010: Strike drove up numbers of city managers on Sunshine List: Toronto saw the number of managers on list of public-sector workers making over $100,000 increase by 519 -- 428 because of overtime, city official says
Toronto Star, April 1, 2010: Taxpayers duped on sunshine list, critics charge
Globe and Mail, April 2, 2010: Ontario to limit hospital executives’ pay: New rules an attempt by Liberals to curb soaring health-care costs
Public Sector Salary Disclosure 2010 (in case you missed the link to the list last week)
Public Sector Disclosure – Too much sunshine
An editorial in the Globe and Mail comments on how inflation has affected who appears on Ontario’s list of public sector employees, and employees of publicly funded institutions, making over $100,000 per year – frontline workers and middle managers now appear. The threshold for inclusion in the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act has not been revised since it was passed in 1996. It has become a question of privacy as the individuals on the list are not CEO’s of their companies.
Globe and Mail, April 2, 2010: Too much sunshine
Queen’s University Staff certification vote undecided
The result of a certification vote by Queen’s University staff is not final as the appropriate bargaining unit has not yet been established. The Ontario Labour Board counted the ballots cast by staff whose positions both the University and the union agree should be included in the staff bargaining unit --from a total of 1339 ballots cast, there were 688 ballots counted. The results were: 381 yes votes, 306 no votes and one spoiled ballot
Queen’s University Staff Union – USW Campaign updates April 1, 2010
Queen’s Staff Union campaign - UPDATE, April 1, 2010
New Teaching Universities in British Columbia face possible union busting
“At Kwantlen Polytechnic University, the University of the Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island University (formerly Malaspina College) Capilano University and Emily Carr University of Art and Design, administrators informed their faculty in similarly worded letters that they now believed, on the basis of legal advice, that the schools' Senates might be able to unilaterally strike down agreed upon provisions in existing university collective agreements. At Vancouver Island University, the letters went to CUPE and BCGEU locals as well as to the faculty association.”[quoted from The Tyee, March 31, 2010]
The Tyee, March 31, 2010: Will BC's New Teaching Universities Try to Break Their Unions? Administration letters have faculty associations worried by Tom Sandborn
New Health & Safety Organization in Ontario
Ontario Service Safety Alliance (OSSA), Farm Safety Association (FSA), and Industrial Accident Prevention Association (IAPA) have amalgamated as of January 1, 2010 into a new health and safety organization in order to continue to bring innovative and cost-effective health & safety solutions to firms across Ontario. Take a look at theOSSA website (scroll down to an article on Workplace Violence that provides links to information on Bill 168 as well as interpretation of the Bill for employers.
What does a Workplace Injury really Cost?
The Ontario Service Safety Alliance has made the Health and Safety Calculator, which calculates company costs when there is a workplace injury, available online. “The calculator assists those in the office, restaurant, retail, tourism, vehicle and wholesale industries in understanding the costs associated with a workplace injury. It takes into account both the direct costs — such as premium costs and fines — as well as the indirect costs — such as re-training and time spent investigating an accident.”
Canadian Occupational Safety March 25, 2010: Service sector gets safety calculator Health & Safety Calculator: What does a workplace injury really cost?
Taking a break from Social Media
An article in the Globe and Mail features Malcom Gladwell, talking about some of the negative aspects of social networking. A second article looks at why some Facebook users are becoming “digital dropouts”.
Globe and Mail, April 4, 2010: Malcolm Gladwell: The quiet Canadian Author Malcolm Gladwell owns a BlackBerry - "like any good Canadian," he says - but he is not a prolific tweeter or user of social media at all. The chronicler of 21st-century social trends explains why he’s cut himself off from the blogosphere
Globe and Mail, April 5, 2010: RIP digital me: Saying good-bye to Facebook Hal Niedzviecki reduced his posts after starting to feel his life was a product. Tired of your every move being tracked by hundreds of ‘friends?’ You’re not alone. Thousands of Facebook users taking back their privacy by becoming digital dropouts
Youth Values in Canada
The Policy Research Initiative’s report titled The Values of Youth in Canada, discusses youth values in the face of globalization, urbanization, and transformations affecting the family and labour market. Current research finds that it is more important for youth to find a job that is interesting than one that is well-paid or stable. Education, family, and political participation are also discussed within this paper.
Report, The Values of Youth in Canada, March 2010 (53 pages, PDF)
Educational and Labour Market Outcomes of Young Canadians
Pathways to Success is a joint OECD/HRSDC research project on the effects of early competencies on educational and labour market outcomes of young Canadians.
OECD : Pathways to Success - How knowledge and skills at age 15 shape future lives in Canada webpage
Measuring Green Jobs in the US
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has announced that they are soliciting public comments on the definition to be used in measuring green jobs. These comments are due by April 30, 2010. It is hoped that this information will assist policymakers in planning policy initiatives and understanding their impact on the labour market.
BLS, Notice of Solicitation of Comments, March 16, 2010 (3 pages, PDF)
Migrant Workers
The International Labour Organization has released a report entitled “International Labour Migration: A rights-based approach”. This new study “examines trends in international labour migration, its impacts on origin and destination countries, and conditions of work experienced by migrant workers.” This study also highlights the positive contributions migrant workers have made, but also discusses the deficits these workers face with regard to workplace safety and protection.
Report, March 31, 2010 (324 pages, PDF)
International Labour Comparisons
The United States Department of Labour has released the 2010 edition of Charting International Labor Comparisons.This chartbook features data on industrialized countries for the most recent year available, as well as trends over time. Data included looks at indicators such as GDP, hourly compensation, labor force, prices, and productivity.
Chartbook, April 2010 (63 pages, PDF)
Website, Charting International Labor Comparisons
Social Exclusion in Europe
Eurofound recently released a report that discusses social exclusion in Europe, which provides background information and policy pointers for those interested in the European debate on the future of social policy. The report finds that eight percent of the adult working population is at risk of in-work poverty; however the issue of the “working poor” does not seem to be an explicit priority of policymakers.
Report: The Role of Social Partners in Fostering Social Inclusion, March 29, 2010 (20 pages, PDF)
Book of the Week
A New New deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement, by Amy B. Dean and David B. Reynolds ; foreword by Harold Meyerson. Ithaca, N.Y. : ILR Press, 2009. 275 p. ISBN 9780801448386 (hbk.)
Globalization, technological change, and deregulation have made the American marketplace increasingly competitive in recent decades. This "new economy" has resulted in heightened job insecurity, lower wages, and scarcer benefits for many workers. As the job market has grown more volatile, a variety of public and private labor market intermediaries--organizations that help job seekers find employment--have sprung up. The authors investigate what approaches are most effective in helping workers secure jobs with decent wages and benefits, and they provide specific policy recommendations for how job-matching organizations can better serve disadvantaged workers.
About the Authors:
Amy B. Dean served from 1993 to 2003 as the youngest elected leader of the AFL-CIO in Silicon Valley. She is founder of two national nonprofits, Working Partnerships USA and Building Partnerships. Dean served on the California Community College's Board of Governors and the California Secretary of Commerce's Economic Strategy Panel and has received awards from the American Leadership Forum, the Labor Education Research Association, and the Ms. Foundation. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and The Economist, among other publications
David B. Reynolds is Labor Extension Coordinator at the Labor Studies Center of Wayne State University and a field organizer for Building Partnerships USA. He is the author of Taking the High Road, Partnering for Change, and Living Wage Campaigns: An Activist's Guide to Building the Movement for Economic Justice. Harold Meyerson is Editor at Large of The American Prospect, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a member of the editorial board of Dissent.
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