Perry Work Report for the week of April 11, 2013

Perry Work Report, April 11, 2013

work&labour  news&research

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Problems with the Temporary Foreign Worker Program

“Reports of RBC outsourcing jobs to temporary foreign workers to replace existing Canadian employees should prompt a broader debate about the massive expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in recent years. Is this program addressing genuine “labour shortages” or undermining job opportunities and wages in Canada?”[The Globe and Mail]

“An econometric study based on data through 2007 published last year in Canadian Public Policy concludes, “The expansion [of the Temporary Foreign Worker program] in Canada to all low-skill occupations without limit has had an adverse effect on the Canadian labour market.” There is reason to fear that adding more vulnerable workers to weak labour markets since 2008 has further worsened unemployment and undermined wages.”[The Globe and Mail]

“Before importing temporary labour, employers should have to meet a much higher burden of proof that they cannot find Canadian workers. Those temporary foreign workers who are admitted should have a clear path to permanent residency and citizenship, so that they can fully contribute to our economy and exercise the same workplace rights as other Canadians.”[The Globe and Mail]

The Globe and Mail, April 10, 2013: “Temporary foreign workers are a temporary fix,” by Catherine Connelly 

CBC, April 9, 2013: ”Outsourcing bank jobs is common practice, say employees CIBC, TD, Scotiabank and BMO replaced Canadians with temporary foreign workers, claim hundreds of emails.”

The Globe and Mail, April 9, 2013: ”RBC plus IT equals a hard lesson in PR,” by SOPHIE COUSINEAU 

The Globe and Mail, April 9, 2013:  “It’s not just RBC. The foreign-worker program needs reining in,” by Erin Weir

The Globe and Mail, April 8, 2013: “RBC CEO Gord Nixon’s letter to staff regarding temporary foreign workers,”  

The Globe and Mail, April 8, 2013: “Why Ottawa is pushing for answers over RBC move to outsource jobs,” by Bill Curry, Grant Robertson and Sophie Cousineau 

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Making Temporary Permanent

“This week’s brouhaha over Royal Bank of Canada’s latest outsourcing move is a sideshow to a larger issue: Canada’s exploding temporary foreign worker population. The federal government promised reforms in this area in its recent budget. Let’s hope the feds are serious – much needs to be fixed.

Canada’s temporary foreign worker program has fallen into the trap of similar short-term guest worker programs. Stop-gap efforts to fill temporary job shortages typically “last longer and grow larger than intended … developing structural labour market dependencies among employers” and creating job ghettos that are dominated by foreign workers, writes Athabasca University industrial relations expert Jason Foster in an excellent recent paper.”

It should come as no surprise, then, that employers have quickly made a mockery of the accelerated process. An access to information request by the Alberta Federation of Labour shows that of the close to 5,000 employers who have applied, many are fast-food chains, gas retailers “and other businesses that almost exclusively employ low-skilled workers,” AFL president Gil McGowan says.

If the government is serious about fixing the temporary foreign worker program, it should kill or fix the accelerated process. Other changes are needed, such as better documentation of how long workers stay, what sectors employ them and who their employers are – information now lacking from public disclosures. The data published by the federal government now “doesn’t answer key questions Canadians want answered,” says Sharry Aiken, associate dean with the Queen’s University faculty of law.” [The Globe and Mail]

The Globe and Mail, April 11, 2013: Behind the foreign-worker brouhaha lies a far bigger question, by Sean Silcoff

Just Labour: A Canadian Journal of Work and Society, Volume 19, Autumn 2012: "Making temporary permanent: the silent transformation of the temporary foreign worker program," Jason Foster  Academic Coordinator (Industrial Relations),  Faculty of Business,  Athabasca University,  Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

A guide to government’s controversial Temporary Foreign Worker Program

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Daphne Taras: labour codes are behind the times

“As dean of the Edwards School of Business at the University of Saskatchewan, Daphne Taras has to deal with four separate unions. So it’s probably a good thing the former ballet dancer has not only a master’s degree in political science and an MBA, but also both a master’s in law and a PhD in labour and employment relations. We talked to Dr. Taras about a Conference Board of Canada report that says our inflexible labour code is hurting our ability to compete globally.”

That’s the ideal, right? As long as I get my stuff done, it shouldn’t matter how many hours I work.

“It shouldn’t matter how many hours you work, where you work, how you work. I’m seeing more of that, but I’m also seeing a real tension between the old model of employment and this boundaryless world.”

So will the labour code ever catch up?

But what I would like to see is some opening up of the rigidities of labour codes that allow modern employees and modern employers to reach consensual deals that are good for both of them. If an employee says, “I want to work 12 hours a day when I don’t have custody of my kid – provided I’m not violating health and safety, and provided I’m not creating a risk to my fellow employees, and I can do it productively – and I want to work less when I have to pick up my kid from school at 3:30,” and if the employer can accommodate that, why should the labour code stop it?” [The Globe and Mail]

The Globe and Mail, April 11, 2013: Daphne Taras: labour codes are behind the times,” by Dawn Calleja 

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Labour and Productivity

“Morley Gunderson, FRSC, CIBC chair of youth employment at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources agrees that the productivity argument can get exaggerated, depending on the perspective one applies. “The scare tactics are vastly overrated about unions having a huge negative impact. If there is a negative one, it’s not large.”

“However, one thing is clear, he says. It is increasingly challenging for unions to increase wages, simply because of very real threats from non-union sector operations and offshoring. “Union impact on wages is dissipating over time, largely because of  those threats. They’re simply being disciplined by a market that can no longer go for huge wage increases.”

“Jim Stanford cites a concept developed by U.S. economist Richard Freeman called the voice effect. The argument goes that employees who are protected by a union feel safer in raising concerns and whistle blowing for a more productive workplace. This is known as the Inside-Voice Effect. Non-unionized environments experience the Exit-Voice Effect, in which dissatisfied workers will simply leave leading to higher turnover.” [The National Post]

The National Post, April 9, 2013: “Why flexibility and adaptability will become critical to the future of organized labour,” by Denise Deveau

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Unions, Inc.

American union membership hit a 96-year low last year. In the rich countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the unionised proportion of paid workers nudged down from a low base of 17.8% in 2008 to 17.5% in 2011 (the latest figures available). In the large OECD economies most exposed to globalisation—America, Britain, Germany, France and Japan—unions’ share of the workforce has dropped steadily to roughly half its level in 1980 (see chart below).

The Economist, April 6, 2013: “ Unions, Inc.: Unions are in trouble. But some are learning new tricks—from the bosses."

Video: The Economist Talks about Trade Unions

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Bill 85, Saskatchewan Employment Act, Erodes Union Power, Sets New Tone For Labour Relations In Canada

“Those changes include mandating union transparency, redefining a “supervisory position”, and the introduction of voluntary employer recognition of unions that will not be protected under several sections of the act. The bill also proposes other amendments, such as expanding the maximum amount of hours allowed in a standard work day to 10 from eight and indexes minimum wage to inflation.

Bill 85 consolidates 12 disparate pieces, or about 900 pages, of labour legislation that the governing Saskatchewan Party says were outdated and made laws difficult to find and follow.

Premier Brad Wall’s government proposed the overhaul after legislation to limit strikes by public sector employees was struck down by the Court of Queen’s Bench in February 2012.”

“Dionne Pohler, a business professor at the University of Saskatchewan, said the bill appears to be “pro-business” but not as “anti-union” as she had expected after reading some of the proposals contained in the consultation document.

“They posed them as questions, but there was a lot of very, very obvious right-to-work stuff in it.” she said.

Still, Pohler said, the new bill contains elements that could weaken unions, although the effects remain unclear, as many of the more difficult details of the bill (including the section dealing with the essential services bill still before the courts) have yet to be worked out. Her biggest problem with the legislation is how quickly the government has moved to push the complex set of laws through.

Some of the bill’s elements, such as voluntary recognition of unions by employers, could be a slippery slope that leads to an erosion of union power, Pohler said.” [Huffington Post]

Huffington Post, April 9, 2013: “Bill 85, Saskatchewan Employment Act, Erodes Union Power, Sets New Tone For Labour Relations In Canada”

The Saskatchewan Way: Help us protect Saskatchewan workers and their families: Government is rushing through labour changes in this spring’s legislative session that will tilt the playing field drastically in favour of employers.

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Right or Left?

Who makes more money in Canada — public sector employees or private sector employees?

from the “conservative” and “right-libertarian” Fraser Institute think tank:

Fraser Institute, April 4, 2013: Comparing Public and Private Sector Compensation in Canada (49 pages, PDF)

and from the Left:

CUPE, December 2011: Battle of the Wages: Who gets paid more, public or private sector workers?(33 pages, PDF)

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American University Professors Salary Survey

“The AAUP has released its new salary survey, Here’s the News: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2012-13. The AAUP’s annual report is the premier source for data on full-time faculty salaries, and this year’s report also provides updates on pay and working conditions for colleagues in contingent appointments.”

American Association of University Professors (AAUP), April 8, 2013:  Salary Survey, 2012-2013

Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, 2012 - 2013 (16 pages, PDF)

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To a Questionable Degree

“Well, what if I told you that by “five hours” I mean “80 hours,” and by “summers off” I mean “two months of unpaid research sequestration and curriculum planning”? What if you’ll never have time to read books, and when you talk about them, you’ll mostly be using made-up words like “deterritorialization” and “Othering”—because, as Ron Rosenbaum pointed out recently, the “dusty seminar rooms” of academia have the chief aim of theorizing every great book to death?

And I can’t even tell you what kind of ass you have to kiss these days to get tenure—largely because, like most professors, I’m not on the tenure track, so I don’t know.”

Slate, April 5, 2013: ”Thesis Hatement Getting a literature Ph.D. will turn you into an emotional trainwreck, not a professor,” by Rebecca Schuman

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Top 10 Reasons Our Readers Didn’t Finish a Massive Open Online Course

…the best for the last: “10.) You’re There to Learn, Not for the Credential at the End: Sometimes you do everything (watch the videos, do the readings, etc.) but take the final exam. In a certain way, you’re auditing, which suits many of you just fine. It’s precisely what you want to do. But that, too, makes the low completion rates look worse than they maybe are."

Open Culture, April 5, 2013: MOOC Interrupted: Top 10 Reasons Our Readers Didn’t Finish a Massive Open Online Course

"Thanks to everyone who took the time to participate. We really appreciate it! And if you’re looking for a new MOOC, don’t miss our list, 300 Free MOOCs from Great Universities (Many Offering Certificates)”

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The Great Reversal in the Demand for Skill and Cognitive Tasks

“Prof. Beaudry is quick to stress that having a BA is still a lot better than not having one. After all, he says, “it’s better to be at the top of the cascade than at the bottom.” But it’s unlikely that the return on investment for a degree will ever be as good as it was 15 years ago.” [The Globe and Mail]

“…we go on to show that, in response to this demand reversal,high-skilled workers have moved down the occupational ladder and have begun to perform jobs traditionally performed by lower-skilled workers.

This de-skilling process, in turn, results in high-skilled workers pushing low-skilled workers even further down the occupational ladder and, to some degree, out of the labor force all together.[The Great reversal...]

The Globe and Mail, April 9, 2013: “Fries with that BA? The declining value of a degree,” by Margaret Wente 

The Great reversal in the demand for skill and cognitive tasks, by Paul Beaudry, David A. Green, Ben Sand, January 2013 (71 pages, PDF)

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Collecting the World's Most Dangerous Jobs, 1890

"Cigarette cards, packaged with tobacco and intended to incentivize purchases among collectors, were familiar bits of everyday ephemera between the late nineteenth century and the middle of the twentieth. This set of cards, “50 Scenes of Perilous Occupations,” came with cigarettes manufactured by W. Duke Sons & Co, and was probably printed around 1890."

The “occupations” are legal and illegal, thankless and glamorous. In the collection, a “safe robber” finds his place alongside a policeman working a “tough beat” in an immigrant neighborhood. The romantic “Indian Scout” and the lowly picket standing watch both get their due. Most of the “occupations” are male, with a female circus rider the one woman to be found.” [Slate]

Slate, March 26, 2013:  ”Yesterday’s “Deadliest Catch”: Collecting the World’s Most Dangerous Jobs, 1890,”    By Rebecca Onion

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Where Women Worked in 1920

“There is a persistent but erroneous belief that before the 1970s American women stayed out of the workforce. Here are two charts that bust that myth. They were published by the Women’s Bureau of the US Department of Labor in 1928, summarizing data from the 1920 Census on the number of women, single and married, in particular professions.”

Slate, March 11, 2013: Vintage Infographics: Where Women Worked in 1920

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Global Information Technology Report 2013

Can Digitization Kick-Start Growth?

For those who lag behind, the incentives for digitization remain strong. An analysis by Booz & Company has found that ICT could help lift millions out of poverty.

Digitization has boosted world economic output by US$ 193 billion over the past two years and created 6 million jobs during that period, according to the study. Using a Digitization Index that ranks countries on a scale from zero to 100, Booz & Company found that an increase of 10% in a country’s digitization score fuels a 0.75% growth in its GDP per capita. That same 10% boost in digitization leads to a 1.02% drop in a state’s unemployment rate. 

World Economic Forum, April 10, 2013: Global Information Technology Report 2013: Growth and Jobs in a Hyper Connected World

Explore the interactive map

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Book of the Week

Down the Up Escalator: How the 99 Percent Live in the Great Recession, by Barbara Garson. New York : Doubleday, 2013. 271 p. ISBN 9780385532747 (hardback)

TomDispatch.com: a regular antidote to the mainstream media, April 9, 2013: Barbara Garson, Going Underwater in the Long Recession

“Between 1971 and 2007, real hourly wages in the U.S. rose by only 4%.  (That’s not 4% a year, but 4% over 36 years!)  During those same decades, productivity essentially doubled, increasing by 99%.  In other words, the average worker’s productivity rose 25 times more than his or her pay.”

“Here’s the real news, as U.S. corporations rake in record profits (and shift record amounts of money into offshore tax havens): nearly half a million workers “disappeared” last month. Yes, disappeared. The Labor Department tracks what it calls the “labor force participation rate” — wonk-speak for the percentage of people working or actively hunting for a job. In March, that number slumped to 63.3%, the lowest point since 1979. That means there are millions of people out there who have lost their jobs, stopped interviewing or even applying, who have packed it in, given up. The government excludes them when it calculates the main unemployment rate.  They have entered the invisible workforce.”

About the Author:

BARBARA GARSON is an award-winning play­wright, journalist, and the author of three books, All the Livelong Day: The Meaning and Demeaning of Routine Work, The Electronic Sweatshop, and most recently Money Makes the World Go Around: One Investor Tracks Her Cash Through the Global Economy. Her play MacBird was the literary open­ing shot of the sixties, and The Dinosaur Door won an Obie. Her writing has appeared in Harper’s, the New York Times, Newsweek, and theNation.

Visit the Recent Books at the CIRHR Library blog.

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