January 24, 2010
- 2010 LERA Award Winners
- Bill 138, An Act Respecting the Human Resources Professionals Association
- What Do Unions Do to Innovation?
- Career Satisfaction: A Look behind the Races
- Unions looking for Wage Hikes
- W3 -- Working in a Warming World
- Excuses excuses…
- Global Talent Risk
- OSFI release
- Education and earnings of childhood immigrants: 1986 to 2006
- World Economic Forum – Don Tapscott calls it a “do” tank
- International Monetary Fund Global Growth projections
- Youth Employment – a world priority
- Book of the Week
2010 LERA Award Winners
The U.S.-based LERA Awards for the Best Doctoral Dissertation had two CIRHR connections this year. The award was won by Chika Oka of the London School of Economics under the supervision of Dr. Rafael Gomez, who is now a professor at the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources (CIRHR). The external examiner for the thesis was CIRHR professor, Anil Verma.
Another doctoral dissertation from the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources also won an honorable mention. It was Jing Wang’s dissertation, Work-life balance programs in Canadian workplaces : factors affecting availability and utilization, under the supervision of Professor Anil Verma. Jing is now a professor at St Mary’s University in Halifax.
Bill 138, An Act Respecting the Human Resources Professionals Association
Are HR Professionals to be regulated by receiving a CHRP designation? Read David Doorey’s response below
Mr. David Zimmer introduces the private members bill to the House: “HRPA is celebrating its 75th year and is currently guided by a 20-year-old private act. Today, I’m proud to introduce the Registered Human Resources Professionals Act, 2010. The association and its members are seeking a new act to enhance its current regulatory authority to ensure that the quality of the HR profession in Ontario will serve the interests of all employers and employees in Ontario by ensuring greater public transparency.”
“Certainly, you don’t have to have any special expertise in IR or employment regulation to obtain a CHRP designation, something that has always baffled me, given how important it is for HR people to have knowledge of workplace law. I know you have to take an undergraduate IR course to get the CHRP designation, but that is very basic introductory stuff. I looked on HRPA website, and Employment Law is not even listed as one of the required courses to obtain a CHRP designation. Unbelievable.” [David Doorey]
David Doorey on Doorey’s Workplace Law Blog offers his analysis of this bill: Bill 138: The HR Police Are Coming to Get Ya! (January 20, 2011)
What Do Unions Do to Innovation?
This article uses Canadian national data to examine the union effect on product innovation, a firm outcome which is widely researched in the management literature but has been less prominent in Industrial Relations scholarship. Using a longitudinal sample from the employer survey of the Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey, the union effect on a firm's ability to create or improve a product is examined. According to the commonly held view that unions impede firm performance, the results should point to a negative relationship between unions and product innovation.
Interestingly, a strong negative effect is not observed. In fact a small statistically significant positive union effect is reported. This result is considered to be robust. Across various specifications the presence of a union and the intensity of the presence (firm union density) have significant and positive effects on a firm's ability to innovate new products over a seven year period (1999-2005) [from the abstract]
Relations Industrielles, 65-4, Fall 2010: “What Do Unions Do to Innovation? An Empirical Examination of the Canadian Private Sector,” by Scott Walsworth, Associate Professor and Hanlon Scholar in International Business, Edwards School of Business, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
Scott Walsworth received his PhD. from the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources (CIRHR) at the University of Toronto in 2006.
Career Satisfaction: A Look behind the Races
Previous studies have largely focused on the career success of white employees (Heslin, 2005). Using recent survey data, this paper examines the career satisfaction levels of white/Caucasian and visible minority managerial, professional and executive employees in the information and communications technology [ICT] and financial services sectors in corporate Canada. Findings from this paper showed that the average career satisfaction scores were lower for visible minority employees than for white/Caucasian employees. In addition, variations were found between white/Caucasian employees and Chinese, South Asian and Black visible minority employees. [from the abstract]
Relations Industriielles, 65-4, Fall 2010: Career Satisfaction: A Look behind the Races by Margaret Yap, Wendy Cukier, Mark Robert Holmes, and Charity-Ann Hannan.
Margaret Yap is Associate Professor, Human Resources Management, Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario.
Margaret Yap received her PhD from the Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources , (CIRHR) at the University of Toronto in 2004
Unions looking for Wage Hikes
“Economic recovery “changes the tone at the negotiating table,” said Maurice Mazerolle, director of the Centre for Labour Management Relations at Ryerson University in Toronto. Unions start pressing for wage increases, he said, while during recessions the focus is on job security. However, Mr. Mazerolle doubts the economy is strong enough yet for unions to win major wage gains.”
“In a report released Monday, the U.S. Department of Labour said rate of union membership has fallen to a 70-year low. By contrast, the portion of Canadian workers belonging to a union increased … Nearly 71 per cent of public-sector workers belong to a union, compared with 16 per cent of private-sector employees.” [from the Globe and Mail]
Globe and Mail, January 25, 2011: Unions step up pressure for wage hikes by Paul Waldie
BLS Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, January 21, 2011: UNION MEMBERS — 2010 (12 pages, PDF)
W3 -- Working in a Warming World
Work in a Warming World (W3) addresses the challenge of climate change for Canadian employment and work. This Social Science & Humanities Research Council Community-University Research Alliance is affiliated with the Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) at York University.
W3 Work in a Warming World website
Work in a Warming World Report, December 2010: WHAT DO WE KNOW? WHAT DO WE NEED TO KNOW? The State of Canadian Research on Work, Employment and Climate Change, With support from: York University, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) (290 pages, PDF)
Retired CIRHR head librarian, Elizabeth Perry, is part of the Work in a Warming World Research Programme which is led by Carla Lipsig-Mummé.
Excuses excuses…
“It doesn’t fit the business case,” or “How are we supposed to measure the impact?” are just two of the most common excuses corporations offer for not drawing up and implementing sustainability initiatives in all aspects of their operations. These authors met with some of the leading practitioners of sustainability and identified how organizations can stop making excuses and start building sustainability into everything from supply chain activities to HR practices.” [From Ivey Business Journal]
Ivey Business Journal online, January/February 2011: Top ten reasons why businesses aren’t more sustainable, by Pamela Laughland and Tima Bansal
Ivey Business Journal: current issue: January / February 2011 In Focus: the neuroscience of leadership by Stephen Bernhut
Global Talent Risk
A new report titled, Global Talent Risk – Seven Responses, prepared by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with The Boston Consulting Group argues that industries and countries worldwide will require major increases of highly educated people in their workforces to sustain economic growth. The report analyses projected talent shortages by 2020 and 2030 in 25 countries, 13 industries and 9 occupational clusters. The seven responses the report suggests to provide solutions are:
- Introduce strategic workforce planning
- Ease migration
- Foster brain circulation
- Increase employability
- Develop a talent "trellis"
- Encourage temporary and virtual mobility
- Extend the pool
World Economic Forum, Global Agenda Council on Skills and Talent Mobility, January 24, 2011: Global Talent Risk – Seven Responses (47 pages, PDF)
OSFI release
The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada (OSFI) is the primary regulator and supervisor of federally regulated deposit-taking institutions, insurance companies, and federally regulated private pension plans. OSFI has issued its Guide to Intervention for Federally Regulated Private Pension Plans, which outlines the interventions administrators can expect from OSFI and summarizes the circumstances under which interventions may be taken.
Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada (OSFI), January 21, 2011: Guide to Intervention for Federally Regulated Private Pension Plans (3 pages, PDF)
Education and earnings of childhood immigrants: 1986 to 2006
Immigrants who arrived in Canada at age 12 or younger were more likely than their Canadian-born counterparts to obtain a university education by the time they were aged 25 to 34. Furthermore, this difference increased successively from those who arrived in the 1960s to those who arrived in the 1980s.
Statistics Canada, Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series, January 25, 2011: Reversal of Fortunes or Continued Success? Cohort Differences in Education and Earnings of Childhood Immigrants, by Aneta Bonikowska and Feng Hou (37 pages, PDF) or (html)
World Economic Forum – Don Tapscott calls it a “do” tank
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum is being held in Davos Switzerland, Januuary 26 – 30, 2011.
“It has evolved from an organization that convenes meetings to become a year-round network of leaders and leading thinkers tackling global problems. It gets people acting constructively, in sharp contrast to the recent failures of other bodies such as the Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organization, and the Cancun or Copenhagen conferences on climate change. It also fills a special role in bringing together the leaders of the Asian “tiger countries” into dialogue with the West – something no one else is doing well.” [From the Globe and Mail] by Don Tapscott
World Economic Forum Davos 2011 website
Globe and Mail, January 24, 2011: While think tanks abound, Davos has become a ‘do’ tank by Don Tapscott (author of Macrowikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World)
International Monetary Fund Global Growth projections
The global economy will grow by about 4½ percent in 2011, but action is still needed to address key problems, including high unemployment and banking issues in advanced economies and risks of overheating in emerging markets, according to new analysis released by the IMF
IMF Survey magazine, January 25, 2011: World Still Needs to Fix Key Economic, Financial Problems – includes details of the Latest IMF Projections by country in chart form: Canada’s growth figures projections are: 2.3 in 2011 and 2.7 in 2012
World Economic Outlook Update: Global Recovery Advances but Remains Uneven, January 25, 2011(html) or (9 pages, PDF)
Youth Employment – a world priority
With global unemployment at record highs for the third straight year since the start of the economic crisis, the International Labour Office (ILO) warned in its annual employment trends survey that weak recovery in jobs is likely to continue in 2011, especially in developed economies.
The ILO Report points to a highly differentiated recovery in labour markets, with persistently high levels of unemployment as well as growing discouragement in developed countries, and with employment growth and continued high levels of vulnerable employment and working poverty in developing regions. These trends stand in stark contrast to the recovery seen in several key macroeconomic indicators: global GDP, private consumption, investment, and international trade and equity markets have all recovered in 2010, surpassing pre-crisis levels.
ILO, January 24, 2011: ILO report warns weak jobs recovery to continue through 2011 - youth employment a world priority
ILO Report, January 24, 2011: Global Employment Trends 2011: The challenge of a jobs recovery (107 pages, PDF)
Globe and Mail, January 25, 2011: Global unemployment stuck at 205 million
Book of the Week
Working Without Commitments: the Health Effects of Precarious Employment, by Wayne Lewchuk, Marlea Clarke and Alice De Wolf. Montréal : McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011. 335 p. ISBN 9780773538283 (pbk.)
From the end of the Second World War to the early 1980s, the North American norm was that men had full-time jobs, earned a "family wage," and expected to stay with the same employer for life. In households with children, most women were unpaid caregivers. This situation began to change in the mid-1970s as two-earner households became commonplace, with women entering employment through temporary and part-time jobs. Since the 1980s, less permanent precarious employment has increasingly become the norm for all workers.
Working Without Commitments offers a new understanding of the social and health impacts of this change in the modern workplace, where outsourcing, limited term contracts, and the elimination of pensions and health benefits have become the new standard. Using information from interviews and surveys with workers in less permanent employment, the authors show how precarious employment affects the health of workers, labour productivity, and the sustainability of the traditional family model.
About the Authors:
Wayne Lewchuk is a professor of labour studies and economics at McMaster University.
Marlea Clarke is an assistant professor in political science at the University of Victoria and a research associate of the Labour and Enterprise Policy Research Group (LEP) at the University of Cape Town.
Alice de Wolff is a research coordinator who has managed projects and organizations related to equity, employment, adult education, and international development. She was a member of York University's Alliance on Contingent Employment.
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