Perry Work Report, February 14, 2013
- MIRHR Profiles Now Available on LinkedIn
- Craig Bromell Heads New Construction Industry
- PC Proposal to Change Post-Secondary Education
- History of the Trade Union Research Bureau (TURB)
- An Out-of-Work Time Line
- Understanding Inequality and Why it is Important
- Avoiding the Curse of the Oil-Rich Nations
- Minimum Wage Debate
- Blue Green Canada: Oil's Bad Math
- Green Jobs USA
- Free Online: Vault Guide to the Case Interview 2008 edition
- Internships Are a Rich-Girl Problem—and Also a Real Problem
- The Nature of Leadership
- Why Are Recent College Graduates Underemployed?
- Book of the Week
MIRHR Profiles Now Available on LinkedIn
We invite employers to view the LinkedIn profiles of some of the MIRHR candidates who are available for full-time and contract work. These can be viewed alphabetically or by areas of interest.
The Master of Industrial Relations and Human Resources is designed to train professionals in the latest innovations and best practices within human resources management, industrial relations and labour and social policy. Admission is highly competitive and students are carefully selected for their academic excellence and achievements. Through interdisciplinary study MIRHR graduates acquire:
- An advanced understanding of strategic HR management, organizational dynamics, labour and employment law, negotiation and conflict management, and global economic trends.
- The essential analytical skills to make effective business decisions.
For more information, or to post your human resources or labour relations position to the MIRHR alumni group (at no charge), please contact c.canzano@utoronto.ca
Craig Bromell Heads New Construction Industry Union
"The controversial and outspoken Bromell has quietly formed the Building Union of Canada, and its arrival is already making waves in the country’s construction industry. In addition to organizing workers at non-union sites, BUC has started raids on locations where the heavyweight Labourers’ International Union of North America represents employees."
“It will take time,” said Bromell, who is personally providing most of BUC’s initial funding. “It’s a 10-year commitment. But we’re really surprised about how much concern there is about us in other unions. I’m something they haven’t seen before.”
BUC, whose slogan is “rebuilding confidence everywhere,” has gone to the Ontario Labour Relations Board in the past few weeks seeking a “cease and desist” order against Labourers’ Local 183. It alleges that Local 183 has engaged in “unlawful intimidation, coercion and threats” to prevent workers from legally joining BUC.[Toronto Star]
The Toronto Star, February 12, 2013: "Former Toronto police union leader Craig Bromell heads new union in construction industry," by Tony Van Alphen
PC Proposal to Change Post-Secondary Education
"Ontario’s opposition Progressive Conservatives have offered up a sweeping new road map for post-secondary education, advocating teaching-only professors, higher tuition fees for “elite programs,” and a “colleges first” culture aimed at getting graduates jobs." [The Globe and Mail]
The Globe and Mail, February 12, 2013: “Ontario PCs call for dramatic change in postsecondary education,” by James Bradshaw
PC Party February 12, 2013: Paths to Prosperity: Higher Learning for Better Jobs
Paths to Prosperity: Higher Learning for Better Jobs (27 pages, PDF)
History of the Trade Union Research Bureau (TURB)
“A special event was held at the Vancouver and District Labour Council last week to commemorate the history and contributions of the Trade Union Research Bureau. After 75 years of professional, high-quality and passionate service to the labour movement (on everything from costing collective agreements to managing pension plan databases to conceiving and executing issue-based political campaigns), TURB has now concluded its operations. David Fairey, who was its last director, will continue to provide consulting services to unions in B.C. and elsewhere from his new office in Burnaby: Labour Consulting Services,david@labourconsultingservices.com He has prepared a very interesting and important summary of TURB’s history, which I present below as a guest blog entry.” [Rabble]
Rabble, January 22, 2013: David Fairey on the history of the Trade Union Research Bureau, by Jim Stanford David Fairey
An Out-of-Work Time Line
“The general employment picture may be improving, but the length of time it takes for the jobless to find work does not provide a reason for optimism.” [The Globe and Mail]
The Globe and Mail, February 11, 2013: An Out-of-Work Time Line
“More than one-quarter of a million Canadians were unemployed for 27 weeks or longer last year, almost double the levels of five years ago. The average duration of unemployment was 20.2 weeks in 2012, its second-highest in 13 years.” [The Globe and Mail]
The Globe and Mail February 11, 2013: Long-term unemployment a blight despite solid gains since recession, by Tavia Grant
Understanding Inequality and Why it is Important
“My presentation to the All Party Anti-Poverty Caucus of the Canadian House of Commons addressed three questions: (1) has inequality increased in Canada; (2) what explains the changes; and (3) why is it important for public policy? I pointed out to the members of the Caucus that:
- Inequality has been rising in Canada since the early 1980s, driven by stagnant and declining incomes in the middle and lower half during the 1980s and 1990s, and rising top shares throughout the last 30 years.
- The tax-transfer system plays an important role in reducing inequality, but has not kept pace after about the mid 1990s.
- Rising inequality is a global phenomenon. The change in Canada has been above average when compared to other rich countries, and particularly notable for the increase in top shares." [Miles Corak]
Presentation to the All Party Anti-Poverty Caucus: House of Commons, Ottawa, February 12th, 2013: Understanding inequality and what to do about it, by Miles Corak, University of Ottawa, Ottawa Canada
Avoiding the Curse of the Oil-Rich Nations
"Oil-dependent countries, writes the Stanford professor Terry Karl, “eventually become among the most economically troubled, the most authoritarian, and the most conflict-ridden in the world.” This phenomenon is called the resource curse.
Do these countries have a way out of the resource curse?
Todd Moss, a senior fellow and vice president for programs at the Washington-based Center for Global Development, believes they might. He points to an unlikely source of inspiration: Alaska. The state of Alaska is bound by law to put at least a quarter of its revenues from oil into the Alaska Permanent Fund, which was established in 1976.
These payments stimulate the economy and reduce income disparities. They have contributed (pdf, p. 12) to a large reduction in poverty in Alaskan Natives, the state’s poorest group.
This is the big advantage of cash payouts — they are much easier for an ill-governed country to do well, and there are fewer opportunities for politicization or corruption. There isn’t a long track record with oil-to-cash programs, but more than 40 countries have some kind of cash transfer programs for the poor. The best known ones, like Bolsa Familia in Brazil and Oportunidades in Mexico, make recipients meet conditions — they need to have their children in school and take their families for regular health checkups to get the money." [New York Times]
New York Times Opinionator, February 14, 2013: “Avoiding the Curse of the Oil-Rich Nations,” by Tina Rosenberg
Minimum Wage Debate
“The wage debate raged on as the U.S. National Federation of Independent Business said the move could be a job killer, while the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, said the proposed wage increase will benefit 21 million workers and boost wages by $22-billion by 2015.”
The Globe and Mail, February 14, 2013: Obama’s Labour Pains: minimum wage debate flares up, by Richard Blackwell and Tavia Grant
Infographic How the U.S. poverty rate compares to minimum wage
Chart: A breakdown of the hourly minimum wage rate in OECD countries
Blue Green Canada: Oil's Bad Math
“Canada’s increasing reliance on the oil sands is not the best strategy for the economy or our environment. This report shows if the $1.3 billion in government subsidies, now given to the oil and gas sector, were instead invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency, Canada would create more jobs: 18,000 more. We also discuss in detail the economic risks of relying increasingly on the volatile oil market. A graphic illustrating the job growth potential is available here.”
Blue Green Canada, November 2012: More Bang for our Buck: how Canada can crete more energy jobs and less pollution (26 pages, PDF)
“But the truth is the vast majority of benefits from the oilsands accrue to Alberta. The federal government collects little in taxes from oil and gas companies. According to analysis by the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI), whose figures are often cited in support of oilsands expansion, 94 per cent of the projected GDP benefit of oilsands investment and operation will flow to Alberta. Very little goes to the rest of Canada.”
Blue Green Canada, February 8, 2013: Oil’s Bad Math
Green Jobs USA
BLS green jobs overview
Dixie Sommers
Summary | Full text in PDF
The Green Goods and Services Occupational survey: initial results
Zack Warren
Summary | Full text in PDF
Green technologies and practices: a visual essay
Audrey Watson
Summary | Full text in PDF
Workplace safety and health profiles of occupations with green technology jobs
Aaron Parrott and William Wiatrowski
Summary | Full text in PDF
Monthly Labor Review, January 2013: Special Issue: Green Jobs
FREE online: VAULT GUIDE TO THE CASE INTERVIEW 2008 EDITION
VAULT GUIDE TO THE CASE INTERVIEW 2008 EDITION is freely available online - posted by Duke University under the sponsorship of Gallup and Mitchell Madison Group (209 pages, PDF)
Internships Are a Rich-Girl Problem—and Also a Real Problem
“While many understand the intern to be well-off and female, the issue has traditionally been discussed in terms of class, not gender. But that’s begun to change since Schwartz’s essay. Schwartz draws a connection between unpaid office workers today and unpaid housework of mid-century married women—even when they worked outside the home, women were underpaid back then, too, and for a similar reason. They were “secondary breadwinners; they didn’t need full-time jobs,” she writes. “Any financial compensation—’pin money’—was incidental to their crucial place within the household.” And like yesterday’s housewives, according to Schwartz, today’s interns must demonstrate “flexibility, submission, gratitude.”“
The Atlantic, February 13, 2013: Unpaid Internships Are a Rich-Girl Problem—and Also a Real Problem
“Studies of precarious work vary in their estimation of the change in work patterns in recent years, but even modest assessments give a sense of growing instability. A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2000 calculated that when one added contract workers, temps, the self-employed and part-time workers, the total percentage of contingent workers in the United States came to almost 30 percent of the workforce. With the financial crises of 2008, this instability has been compounded. According to one study, job separation for workers between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four increased by 33 percent between 2007 and 2009. In 2010, the Department of Labor calculated that up to 30 percent of companies routinely misclassified regular employees as independent contractors in order to avoid paying benefits.”
Dissent Magazine, January 2013: Opportunity Costs: The True Price of Internships, by Madeleine Schwartz
The Nature of Leadership
“The Nature of Leadership is the Third Volume in the Innovative Strategies Leadership Series for locally elected leaders. Inspired by conversations at our Centre for Civic Governance forums (Vancouver, BC), this handbook is intended as a resource for your own innovative and inspiring work.”
“The Centre for Civic Governance works to support community leadership meeting today’s social and environmental challenges: global warming, Canada’s increasing equity gap, the impact of technology and changing social trends.”
a sample of articles available online:
PART FIVE: Equality Leadership
5.1 First Nations Education: Identity as a Foundation for Success – Robert Matthew
5.2 Maamawe: All Together - Andrew Foulds and John Hannam
5.3 Safer Schools – Charley Beresford
5.4 Sexual and Gender Minorities: Respected and Included – Sarah Hoffman and Christopher Spencer
5.5 Leadership Isn’t Always Easy – Larry Hayes
Why Are Recent College Graduates Underemployed?
”This study uses empirical evidence relating to labor markets to argue that a growing disconnect has evolved between employer needs and the volume and nature of college training of students, and that the growth of supply of college-educated labor is exceeding the growth in the demand for such labor in the labor market.”
Center for College Affordability and Productivity, January 2013: Why Are Recent College Graduates Underemployed? University Enrollments and Labor-Market Realities By Richard Vedder, Christopher Denhart, and Jonathan Robe (38 pages, PDF)
Book of the Week
Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher?: How Government Decides and Why, by Donald J. Savoie. Montréal : McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013. 324 p. ISBN 9780773541108 (hardcover)
UTLibraries link to catalogue record: http://go.utlib.ca/cat/8702841
Savoie argues that the traditional role of public servants advising governments on policy has been turned on its head, and that evidence-based policy making is no longer valued as it once was. Policy making has become a matter of opinion, Google searches, focus groups, and public opinion surveys, where a well-connected lobbyist can provide any answers politicians wish to hear. As a result, public servants have lost their way and are uncertain about how they should assess management performance, how they should generate policy advice, how they should work with their political leaders, and how they should speak truth to political power - even within their own departments. Savoie demonstrates how recent management reforms in government have caused a steep rise in the overhead cost of government, as well as how the notion that public administration could be made to operate like the private sector has been misguided and costly to taxpayers.
About the Author:
Research Chair in public administration and governance at the Université de Moncton and is the author of numerous books.
Visit the Recent Books at the CIRHR Library blog.
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Editor: Vicki Skelton
Designer: Nick Strupat
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