April 13, 2011
- Workshop on Collective Bargaining
- Pensions, Retirement and Older Workers
- 2011 Best Workplaces in Canada -- the real thing
- Women on Bank Boards
- Corporate Tax Cuts: windfalls for corporations
- Reframing this Election
- Free Trade?
- Unions Make the Middle Class
- Electronic Monitoring and Control at Work
- European Economic Restructuring
- Society at a Glance 2011 - OECD Social Indicators
- Book of the Week
Workshop on Collective Bargaining
The Ontario Ministry of Labour and The Centre for Labour Management Relations at Ryerson University will be conducting a workshop on Collective Bargaining on June 9 and 10, 2011, and you are invited!
Taking place at Ryerson University, this workshop will examine some of the significant pressures facing negotiators in the collective bargaining process. Topics to be discussed include:
- Dealing with mandates that are an obstacle to settlement.
- Determining strategies when a strike or lockout is inevitable.
- Managing media and outside influences while at the bargaining table.
- Discuss other critical issues raised by participants in an open forum with panel members.
This is your opportunity to work with other professional negotiators to share experiences and knowledge. This event is open to anyone and promises to be an opportunity to engage in an open discussion on how to face these challenges.
The cost of the workshop including taxes is $350.00, and covers continental breakfast, lunch, dinner and all materials. Register by June 1, 2011. Register early as space is limited.
To register, please click the following link: http://www.clmr.ryerson.ca/events/workshop/
Pensions, Retirement and Older Workers
The Economist subheading Make Them Pay just about says it all…
The Economist, April 7, 2011: “70 or bust! Why the Retirement Age Must Go Up”: Current plans to raise the retirement age are not bold enough
The Economist, April 7, 2011: A Special report on pensions: A nudge and a wink: How to persuade employees to provide for their old age
The Economist, April 7, 2011: Age shall not wither them: Companies should start seeing older workers as assets rather than liabilities
The Economist, April 7, 2011: Media's ageing audiences: Peggy Sue got old: Viewers, listeners and readers are ageing fast. Oddly, media companies don’t regard that as a catastrophe
The Economist, April 7, 2011: A New state pension: A simpler dotage: The government signals the end of means-testing for pensioners
Financial Post, April 8, 2011: 70 or bust! The Economist’s case for raising the retirement age to 70
2011 Best Workplaces in Canada -- the real thing
Other surveys, such as Canada’s Top Employers by Media Corp., are based upon what employers say about their organizations. But the Great Places to Work Institute selects companies for its Best Workplaces on the basis of their employees' responses to the Great Place to Work® Trust Index®, a proprietary employee survey developed by the Great Place to Work® Institute.
Globe and Mail, April 12, 2011, A special national report for the Great Place to Work Institute Canada: The results of this year’s Best Workplaces survey have arrived. Inside, a look at some of the innovative workplace practices that helped earn these employers their rank (16 pages, PDF)
2011 100 Best Workplaces in Canada website
Women on Bank Boards
MacLeans, April 6, 2012: Is 30 per cent representation the new gender-equality dream?
The Globe and Mail, April 5, 2011: Shareholders vote no to more women on bank boards
The Financial Post, April 7, 2011: How women will save us all
Corporate Tax Cuts: windfalls for corporations
“Does lowering corporate taxes increase job creation or make the economy more productive? Would leaving the rates where they are so enrich federal coffers that we can pay for any social program we want? No one seems to agree on any of this. And one of the reasons we can't seem to agree is that no one seems to have a clear handle on how corporations, or the folks that own and run corporations, take corporate tax rates into account.” [Michael Enright, CBC Radio]
(This is a great podcast and easy to listen to -- just move the pointer to the centre to avoid the first segment of the program)
CBC Radio, April 10, 2011 (at 29:41): Podcast: Conversation with Michael Enright and Henry Mintzberg (to avoid listening to the yodeling segment – I have nothing against yodeling -move the arrow timer to 29:41 for the start of the Enright /Mintzberg talk.)
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, April 13, 2011: Having Their Cake and Eating It Too: Business Profits, Taxes, and Investment in Canada: 1961 Through 2010, by Jim Stanford (38 pages, PDF)
Doorey’s WorkplaceLaw Blog, April 7, 2011: Do Corporate Tax cuts create jobs”
Reframing this Election
“I have prepared this page because I believe the Canada we know is at risk. Please feel free to circulate it and replicate it on other websites, etc. By the way, I have never been a member of any political party in Canada, although one once listed me mistakenly.”
Reframing this Election by Henry Mintzberg
Globe and Mail, March 31, 2011: Conserving Canada or a Conservative Canada? By Henry Mintzberg
The Economist, December 3, 2010: Management: Henry Mintzberg on how the enterprises trashed the economy
Oxford Leadership Journal, March 2010: Developing Leaders Developing Countries, By Henry Mintzberg
MIT World Video, September 20, 2005: Managers Not MBAs: Debating the Merits of Business Education Ricardo Semler and Henry Mintzberg SM '65, PhD '68
Free Trade?
Council of Canadians, April 12, 2011: Canada-EU trade negotiations go ahead this week in further contempt of Parliament
EU-Canada SIA draft Final Report: Summary Report (81 pages, PDF)
A Trade SIA relating to the Negotiation of a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU andCanada (430 pages, PDF) – start with the Economic Assessment on PDF page 386
EU-Canada Trade SIA website (Trade Sustainability Impact Analysis)
Globe and Mail, April 13, 2011: Free trade is not a ‘measly’ concept, by Neil Reynolds
Pace and Character of Oil Sands Development A Legal opinion prepared by Steven Shrybman (Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP) (27 pages, PDF)
European Commission: Trade – Canada website
Unions Make the Middle Class
“Critically, the benefits of workers having a voice in the economy and in democracy spill over to all of society. In these ways, unions make the middle class. The challenge of rebuilding the middle class will take a long time, but would be impossible without a clear understanding of what makes the middle class strong. This paper will explore in detail why we need to do this and how we need to go about it. To rebuild America’s middle class, we need to rebuild the labor movement. It’s that simple—and that challenging.”
Centre for American Progress Action Fund, April 2011: Unions Make the Middle Class: Without Unions, the Middle Class Withers, by David Madland, Karla Walter, and Nick Bunker, Introduction and Summary (6 pages, PDF) or Full report (44 pages, PDF)
Centre for American Progress Action Fund, April 4, 2011:Interactive Map: Stronger Unions Create A Stronger Middle Class Unions Lead to Higher Income for the Middle Class: Click on a state, or on "all states," to see unionization rates.
Electronic Monitoring and Control at Work
“In this article, I focus on the strategies and outcomes of performance-monitoring based on the research literature and a recent multi-year study of call centers in seventeen countries in the United States, Europe, and emerging market economies.1 This is a useful context to examine this question because call centers are at the forefront of developing ever more sophisticated “innovations” in monitoring, which have then spread to a much wider range of occupational groups and workplaces.” [Perspectives on Work]
Perspectives on Work, Summer 2010/Winter 2011: Electronic Monitoring and Control at Work: What Is It Good For? By Rosemary Batt (4 pages, PDF)
European Economic Restructuring
“How can firms restructure themselves in a socially responsible way? Which public policies can effectively buffer the effect of an economic downturn on workers? Coordinated by the Centre for Employment Relations Innovation and Change (CERIC) at Leeds University and funded by the World Universities Network, teams from thirteen countries are exploring various aspects of restructuring in the current crisis.” [Perspectives on Work]
Perspectives on Work, Summer 2010/Winter 2011: Restructuring and Public Policy in “Social Europe”: An Overview by Mark Stuart and Ian Greer (3 pages, PDF)
Society at a Glance 2011 - OECD Social Indicators
“How are OECD societies progressing? How effective are their actions in promoting social progress? Society at a Glance provides a basis for addressing these twin questions. It offers a concise overview of quantitative social trends and policies across the OECD. This 2011 edition includes a wide range of information on social issues – such as demography and family characteristics, employment and unemployment, poverty and inequality, social and health care expenditure, and trust and tolerance –as well as a guide to help readers understand the structure of OECD social indicators.”
Includes : Who’s busiest: working hours and household chores across OECD
Cooking and caring, building and repairing: Unpaid work around the world: Chapter 1 (29 pages, PDF)
Unpaid Work Around the World (2 pages, PDF)
Key findings : Canada (2 pages, PDF)
OECD(2011), Society at a Glance 2011 - OECD Social Indicators( all data available in Excel files)
Book of the Week
A Company of One: Insecurity, Independence, and the New World of White-Collar Unemployment, by Carrie M. Lane. Ithaca : ILR Press, 2011. 194 p. ISBN 9780801477270 (pbk.)
Following the experiences of individual jobseekers over time, Lane explores the central role that organized networking events, working spouses, and neoliberal ideology play in forging and reinforcing a new individualist, pro-market response to the increasingly insecure nature of contemporary employment. She also explores how this new perspective is transforming traditional ideas about masculinity and the role of men as breadwinners. Sympathetic to the benefits that this "company of one" ideology can hold for its adherents, Lane also details how it hides the true costs of an insecure workforce and makes collective and political responses to job loss and downward mobility unlikely.
About the Author:
Carrie M. Lane is Assistant Professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton.
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