Perry Work Report for the week of June 03, 2013

Perry Work Report, June 3, 2013

Click here to get a head start on the PWR: work&labour  news&research

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CAW and CEP Merger: New Name, New Logo Finally Revealed

Two large Canadian unions--the Canadian Auto Workers union and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union--have formed a new union, Unifor.

"Today, we are proud to introduce our new union as Unifor, a union that will fight for working people in every sector of the economy and in every community in Canada," said CEP National President Dave Coles. "Unifor will be a union for young workers, those struggling to piece together part-time work and contract jobs, and other precarious working conditions. It will be a union for everyone."

"All together, Unifor will be: 800 local unions, 3,000 bargaining units, in more than 20 different sectors, and we're here to show that we will be a strong voice and a positive force for change for working people across this nation," said CAW National President Ken Lewenza.

Watch the CAW-CEP new union name and logo revealed here. [video]

Canada Newswire, May 30, 2013: "Unifor: A strong, new, bold union for Canadian workers"

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75% of Canadians Believe Income Inequality Getting Worse

And rightly so (although Canada has fared better than most other industrialized countries).

According to an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report, income inequality is growing across the industrialized world, including Canada, with the global financial crisis deepening the divide between the rich and the poor.  And the rate of change is quickening. The income gap increased at a faster pace in the three years to 2010 than it had in the previous 12 years.

The Globe and Mail, May 27, 2013: “Canadians believe income inequality getting worse,” by Tavia Grant

OECD, real-time data: Income Distribution and Poverty

The Globe and Mail, May 24, 2013: “Income inequality data still giving off worrisome economic signal,” by Linda Nazareth

Pew Research Center, May 23, 2013: “Economies of Emerging Markets Better Rated During Difficult Times” (93 pages, PDF)

The Globe and Mail, May 14, 2013: “Income inequality in industrialized world continues to grow, says OECD,” by Tavia Grant

OECD, December 5, 2011: “Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising” (390 pages, PDF)

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B.C. Mine's Temporary Foreign Workers Case Dismissed

The Federal Court of Canada has dismissed a challenge launched by two unions against HD Mining, a company that hired 201 temporary workers from China for its coal mine in northeastern B.C., after rejecting 300 Canadian applicants deemed ‘unqualified’ by HD.

“In his decision, Justice Russel Zinn concluded that the federal officer who approved the temporary foreign work permits made a reasonable assessment, based on the labour market conditions and the company’s efforts to hire Canadians.”
HD Mining International issued a statement applauding the decision.

CBC News, May 21, 2013: “B.C. mine’s temporary foreign workers case dismissed”

CBC News, April 9, 2013: “B.C. mine’s temporary foreign workers case in Federal Court”

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No-Vacation Nation Revisited

“This report reviews the most recently available data from a range of national and international sources on statutory requirements for paid vacations and paid holidays in 21 rich countries (16 European countries, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States). In addition to our finding that the United States is the only country in the group that does not require employers to provide paid vacation time, we also note that several foreign countries offer additional time off for younger and older workers, shift workers, and those engaged in community service including jury duty.”

Centre for Economic andPolicy Research (CEPR) May  2013: No Vacation Nation revisited, by Rebecca Ray, Milla Sanes, and John Schmitt (22 pages, PDF)

Press Release,May 24, 2013: “The United States is the only advanced economy that does not guarantee its workers any paid vacation time, according to a new review of international labor laws by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). As a result, almost 1-in-4 Americans do not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays, trailing far behind most of the rest of the world’s rich nations.”

“Even if the vast majority of full-time employees do ultimately get time off here, only 40 percent of part-time workers get paid vacation, and only 35 percent get paid holidays. This might seem like common sense--why should a part-timer be given extra days off?--unless you remember that many low-wage employers, especially in retail, cut worker hours down just below the full-time mark in order to avoid paying out benefits. In the end, among the bottom 25 percent of all earners, both full-time and part-time, just about half get paid holidays or vacation. Among the top 25 percent of earners, about 90 percent do. Vacation inequality, it turns out, is an actual problem.

Don’t you just love American exceptionalism?”

Atlantic Monthly, May 24, 2013: “America: Where the Poor Don’t Get Holidays Off: Vacation inequality, it turns out, is an actual problem in the United States,” by Jordan Weissmann.

CBC News, May 24, 2013: “Canada ranks 3rd last in paid vacations”

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Executive Compensation

“A fevered pace of CEO turnover at Canada’s largest companies is leading to high compensation bills as firms pay millions in severance to former executives while also shelling out to attract new leaders. A review of CEO pay at Canada’s 100 largest companies shows at least 21 firms on the list have had CEO changes since the start of 2012, and many of the arriving and departing executives are filling the top of the pay charts.

For departing chief executive officers, severance amounts are high because CEOs are typically entitled to payments worth a multiple of not just their salaries, but also their cash bonuses--and in some cases even a multiple of the “target” bonuses they would have been eligible to earn if they had hit their financial targets, even if they missed them. In addition, CEOs typically receive the value of their unvested share units and have their stock option vesting accelerated.”

Table: How much Canada’s top 100 CEOs got paid last year

Interactive: Compare top CEOs’ pay and performance

See The Globe’s full report on executive compensation in 2012 for more articles as well as photo galleries of Canada’s top-paid CEOs.

The Globe and Mail, May 27, 2013: “In Canada’s executive suites, hirings and firings don’t come cheap,” by Janet McFarland

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Ottawa Ties a Tight Leash, Kicks the CBC

“In the midst of recent onrushing and attention-grabbing events, the president of the CBC, Hubert Lacroix, sent a letter to the Commons finance committee requesting an amendment to a budget-implementation bill.

The bill in question would oblige the CBC (along with other government agencies) to “submit to the minister responsible a draft document setting out the general components of a policy on remuneration and conditions of employment.” Lacroix’s letter warned of inevitable court battles, as the bill appears to contravene the broadcaster’s guaranteed independence as it is outlined in the Broadcasting Act. Possibly the new level of interference by the federal government would lead to court challenges, based on the Broadcasting Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This concern was dismissed by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty: “The CBC may think it is a special, independent, Crown agency. This is wrong,” he said, according to news reports. “All Crown agencies have a responsibility through ministers, back to Parliament, to the people of Canada. They can’t do whatever they want, particularly with taxpayers’ money. They can’t just go off and pay their executives and pay everybody else whatever they want to pay them.”

...The great myth is that CBC is an out-of-control spending machine. Any outfits in receipt of taxpayer money to operate--Crown corporations, that is--are already studied closely by the government to guard against the misuse of funds. The CBC’s budget, ever dwindling, is set by Parliament, and CBC provides detailed financial reports, which also go to the Auditor-General. Further, the CBC answers to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission in matters of spending and policy. And, by the way, the government appoints the CBC president and names the CBC’s board of directors.

Thus, the CBC is already on a leash, one held by the government. It is a wounded critter on the end of that short leash and, really it is now being given a vicious kick, to make sure it knows who’s boss.”

The Globe and Mail, May 29, 2013: “Ottawa kicks the CBC, a wounded critter on a short leash,” by John Doyle

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Despite All the Above... We're Happy and We Know it. Clap Your Hands Canada!

“Canada is among the best places in the world to live, according to a new quality of life measure from a leading international organization that compared rich industrialized nations.

The Better Life Index from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) launched Tuesday finds Canada among the leaders in most of the 24 indicators measured, everything from hard data dealing with jobs and income, to perceptions of something the OECD calls ‘life satisfaction.’”

Calculate your own formula for ‘A Better Life’ with OECD’s interactive tool.

The Globe and Mail, May 28, 2013: “The good life: Canada one of the best places to live in the world” [video]

The Globe and Mail, May 27, 2013:“Canadians have ‘better life’ than most, new comparison finds,” by Juliane Beltram

OECD, Better Life Index: Canada

Buzzfeed.com, May 14, 2013: “38 Reasons Everything is Way Better in Canada”

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The Budget in Focus: A Forum on the Changing Nature of Federal Budgets

“A panel discussion was held entitled “The Budget in Focus: A forum on the changing nature of federal budgets.” Moderated by Althia Raj (Ottawa bureau chief, The Huffington Post Canada), panellists Peter Devries (former senior official at the Department of Finance), Mario Seccareccia (University of Ottawa economics professor), Sylvain Schetagne (chief economist, Canadian Labour Congress) and David MacDonald (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives) evaluate the 2013 federal budget and whether it addresses the big macroeconomic challenges facing the country.”

CPAC, April 25, 2013: The Budget in Focus: A forum on the changing nature of federal budgets [video]

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Kevin Page at the Podium

"Kevin Page, Canada’s former parliamentary budget officer, addresses an event titled “The Budget in Focus: A forum on the changing nature of federal budgets.” Page discusses his experiences as the first parliamentary budget officer."

CPAC, April 25, 2013: Kevin Page at the Podium [video]

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Now Moving South of the Border... Making It in America

Although this tale is over a year old, it is still reflective of current times.

“In the past decade, the flow of goods emerging from U.S. factories has risen by about a third. Factory employment has fallen by roughly the same fraction.The story of Standard Motor Products, a 92-year-old, family-run manufacturer based in Queens, sheds light on both phenomena. It’s a story of hustle, ingenuity, competitive success, and promise for America’s economy. It also illuminates why the jobs crisis will be so difficult to solve.”

The Atlantic, December 20, 2011: “Making It in America,” by Adam Davidson

Bloomberg Businessweek, May 16, 2013: “Why U.S. Manufacturing Can’t Get Off the Mat”

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Underage Labour Finds a New Frontier in Cambodia

“While employing girls as young as 15 isn’t necessarily a violation of Cambodia’s weak labour laws, their employment is supposed to be capped at a maximum of eight hours a day. The girls making leather boots and shoes inside the Ying Dong plant say they all work 13 hours a day during the week, plus another eight hours on Saturdays, in a country where the minimum wage is $80 a month.

A report published last month by Better Factories Cambodia, a monitoring group established by the International Labour Organization, hints that the problem of underage workers in Cambodian footwear factories may be widespread. “Five factories [out of nine that were visited] were found to not use reliable documents to verify applicants’ age prior to hiring,” the report reads. “In one factory, the hiring of workers under the age of 15 was confirmed.”

The Globe and Mail, May 30, 2013: “Underage labour finds a new frontier in Cambodia,” by Mark MacKinnon and Marina Strauss

The Globe and Mail, May 16, 2013: “Ceiling collapse at Cambodian factory shows extent of safety issues,” by Mark MacKinnon

Better Factories Cambodia, April 11, 2013: “Twenty-Ninth Synthesis Report on Working Conditions in Cambodia’s Garment Sector” (22 pages, PDF)

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Women Earning More -- AND Doing More Housework

"According to a new study, entitled “Breadwinner Moms”, couples in which the wife earns more than her husband report being less happy with their marriage and have higher rates of divorce. These couples, in fact, tend to revert to stereotypical domestic roles, in which women also take on the bulk of the housework and childcare, presumably to prop up their husbands' self-esteem.

So not only are women bringing home bigger pay cheques, they are also the ones doing the dishes and cleaning up after the kids after coming home from work. An earlier U.S. study had arrived at the same conclusion: working women also do more around the house to help their lower-earning husbands retain their 'masculine privilege.'"

The Globe and Mail, May 30, 2013: "Women are earning more--and doing more housework too," by Wency Leung

Pew Research Center, May 29, 2013: "Breadwinner Moms," by Wendy Wang, Kim Parker and Paul Taylor (29 pages, PDF)

Spring Science, August 19, 2012: "The Construction of Gender Among Working-Class Cohabiting Couples," by Amanda Jayne Miller and Sharon Sassler (20 pages, PDF)

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The Case for Still More Diversity

"The Ontario government has decided to prod companies and organizations into increasing the presence of women on boards and in senior management positions through a “comply or explain” approach. Rather than set hard quotas, the government has opted to let companies improve their performance--but if they fail, they will be obligated to explain why."

The Globe and Mail, May 31, 2013: "The case for still more diversity," by Alan Broadbent and Ratna Omidvar

The Globe and Mail, May 29, 2013: "Corporate leaders urge tougher Ontario approach to boost number of women directors," by Janet McFarland

The Globe and Mail, May 28, 2013: "New rules aim for equality in Ontario’s corporate boardrooms," by Janet McFarland

The Globe and Mail, May 28, 2013: "Boardroom boys’ club needs an intervention," by Sophie Cousineau

The Conference Board of Canada, May 2013: "Women in Leadership: Perceptions and Priorities for Change," by Donna Burnett Vachon and Carrie Lavis [must have an e-Library account with the Conference Board of Canada to access this report]

Women On Board is a website that promotes the appointment of women to Canadian corporate boards. They support a more competitive corporate Canada by linking companies with our valuable network of skilled and experienced women to serve on boards, and foster growth in the number of experienced, board-ready potential female directors.

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The Future of Work: Clerks and Cashiers an Endangered Species

“Canada’s “middle-skill” employment sector continues to erode alongside the growth of high-skill jobs, an indication that the labour market is splintering between well-paid, interesting, permanent job--and the rest.”

The Globe and Mail, June 3, 2013: “The continuing decline of the ‘middle-skill’ worker”, by Tavia Grant

“Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reported by the Financial Times, divide the U.S. work force into 821 jobs from dishwasher to librarian. They show rapid structural shifts amid the Great Recession that are likely to further increase income inequality, which has already been growing for decades.”

“Lawrence Mishel, president of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute think-tank in Washington, questioned whether technology was the main cause of income inequality, noting that even high-skill job growth has slowed in the past decade.
“People focus a lot on occupational trends but it’s not clear to me that they are what’s driving wage outcomes,” he told the Financial Times. “What I think is going on is much bigger: It’s that employers have the upper hand in every area of work.”

The Globe and Mail, May 30, 2013: The Future of Work: Clerks and cashiers an endangered species International Business Times

McKinsey Global Institute, March 2012: Help wanted: The future of work in advanced economies, byJames Manyika, Susan Lund, Byron Auguste and Sreenivas Ramaswamy

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Book of the Week

 

A Primer on American Labor Law, by William B. Gould IV. Cambridge University Press, July 2013. 480 p. ISBN 9781107683013

A Primer on American Labor Law is an accessible guide for non-specialists and labor lawyers – labor and management representatives, students and general practice lawyers, and trade unionists, government officials and academics from other countries. It covers topics such as the National Labor Relations Act, unfair labor practices, the collective bargaining relationship, dispute resolution, the public sector and public-interest labor law. This updated fifth edition contains extensive new materials covering developments that include the repeal or change in public employee labor law and the development of case law relating to wrongful dismissals and pension reform in the public sector; bankruptcy in both the private and public sector; ADA litigation and 2008 amendments of that statute; new cases on all subjects, but particularly Bush and Obama NLRB decisions, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, and retaliation; and the globalization of labor disputes in labor-management relations in the United States, with particular reference to professional sports disputes and the extraterritoriality of American labor law generally.

How to Order: Visit www.cambridge.org/us/9781107683013 or Call 1.800.872.7423. Enter Discount Code GOULDLAW13 at
checkout to receive a 20% discount. Offer expires 12/31/2013.

About the Author:

A prolific scholar of labor and discrimination law, William B. Gould IV has been an influential voice on worker-management relations for more than 40 years and served as chairman of the National Labor Relations Board. Professor Gould has been a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators since 1970 and has arbitrated and mediated more than 200 labor disputes, including the 1992 and 1993 salary disputes between the Major League Baseball Players Association and the Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee. He served as Independent Monitor for FirstGroup America, addressing freedom of association complaints (2008-2011). Professor Gould has acted as Special Advisor to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (2011-2012).

A critically acclaimed author of 10 books and more than 60 law review articles, Professor Gould’s work includes his historical record of the experiences of his great-grandfather in Diary of a Contraband: The Civil War Passage of a Black Sailor, and his own Washington story, Labored Relations: Law, Politics and the NLRB: A Memoir. A 10th book,Bargaining with Baseball: Labor Relations in an Age of Prosperous Turmoil appeared in 2011.

Professor Gould is the recipient of five honorary doctorates for his significant contributions in the fields of labor law and labor relations. Before joining the Stanford Law School Faculty in 1972, he was a professor of law at Wayne State University Law School and was an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board, as well as for United Auto Workers.

Visit the Recent Books at the CIRHR Library blog.

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Editor: Vicki Skelton and Melissa Wawrzkiewicz
Designer: Nick Strupat

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