Perry Work Report for the week of June 21, 2012

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June 21, 2012

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Health and Safety/Workplace Safety and Insurance Conferences

Lancaster House is pleased to announce that it is hosting the Health and Safety/Workplace Safety and Insurance Conferences in conjunction with the University of Toronto Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources on November 15 and 16, 2012, at the Park Hyatt Hotel in Toronto.

Register and pay by July 13 to save on the full registration fee.

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Air Canada Wins Its Latest Battle

An arbitrator has selected Air Canada’s final offer on a five-year contract for mechanics and airport workers over one proposed by the union. Pension worries are now once again at the top of Air Canada’s concerns as the airline seeks a new reprieve from retirement funding to avert a looming financial crisis.

Doorey's Workplace Law Blog, June 19, 2012: “Round 3 in Air Canada’s Labour Woes Goes to Air Canada. A Recap”, by David Doorey

The Globe and Mail, June, 18 2012: “Air Canada looks to Ottawa again for pension help”, by Brent Jang

The Globe and Mail, June, 17, 2012: “Arbitrator sides with Air Canada in contract dispute”, by Brent Jang

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Ontario Doctors Fight The Provincial Government

“Eight in 10 Ontario doctors see fault in the way the provincial government is handling ongoing labour negotiations, while nearly nine in 10 support bringing a conciliator into the process, a new survey suggests. ‘What’s interesting is that physicians tend to believe that the government is being irresponsible in its negotiating and would actually like to see a conciliator intervene in order to break the impasse,’ said Nik Nanos, the president and CEO of Nanos Research”. Ontario's doctors are taking the provincial Liberal government to court to fight its plan to cut $340 million worth of fees for services provided by doctors

CBC News, June 18, 2012: “Survey suggests Ontario MDs unhappy with labour talks: 5,596 doctors asked about negotiations with province”

The Ottawa Citizen June 14, 2012: “Doctors gaining the advantage in fight with the province”, by  
Randall Denley

The Globe and Mail, June 12, 2012: “Ontario doctors charge Liberals with using bad faith bargaining tactics”, by Karen Howlett

CBC News, June 12, 2012: “Ontario doctors take province to court over fee cuts”

And in the UK....

British Medical Association members across the UK are boycotting non-urgent care in a dispute over pensions.

BBC News, June 21, 2012: “Disruption to patients 'more limited than feared'”, by Nick Triggle

The Globe and Mail, June 21, 2012: “UK doctors protest pension cuts”. AP Video

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Human Resource Strategies for Labour Unions

“This paper addresses the question, ‘What are appropriate HR strategies for labor unions in this time of crisis?’ Research for this paper is largely inductive, qualitative and action research consisting of interviewing as well as some surveying and extensive literature review. Preliminary findings, pending research on broader samples of the labor movement and more prolonged review of emerging union HR strategies, suggest that unions are in great need of more effective HR strategies with a systems approach. Unions generally, by their own accounts, are lacking in the area of staff accountability and development; union officials generally resist embracing their management responsibilities; training for managers within unions is rare; and internal union politics play a significant complicating role in all aspects of HR within unions.

Cornell University, May 1, 2011: “Human Resource Strategy for Labor Unions: Oxymoron, Chimera or Contributor to Revival”, by Ken Margolies (PDF, 78 pages)

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Social Media On, and Off the Job - Not Always a Good Thing

“As social media continues to alter how people connect personally and professionally, its impact on building culture in the workplace is debatable, according to Deloitte’s new “Core Values and Beliefs” survey [...] Examining perspectives on culture and business strategy, 41 percent of executives participating in the study believe social networking helps to build and maintain workplace culture, while only 21 percent of employees have the same view. Moreover, business leaders and employees widely differ on whether social media has a positive effect on workplace culture (45 percent and 27 percent, respectively) or allows for increased management transparency (38 percent and 17 percent, respectively). ‘Our research suggests executives are possibly using social media as a crutch in building workplace culture and appearing accessible to employees’”.

Deloitte, June 13, 2012: The Social Divide - Employees, Executives Disagree on the Role of Social Media in Building Workplace Culture: Deloitte Survey

Deloitte, June 2012: Core Beliefs and Culture. Chairman’s survey findings

The Globe and Mail, June 19, 2012: “Social media conduct could get you fired”, by Tony Wilson

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Dads – New Roles For Some, But Same Stresses As Moms

“Stay-at-home dads are making a conscious choice and commitment to be home with their children to the benefit of their families, their wives’ careers, and their own personal fulfillment, researchers from the Boston College Center for Work & Family report in the new study, The New Dad: Right at Home. The center’s third report on fathers observed the impact of shifting gender roles through in-depth interviews with 31 at-home dads and surveys with 23 of their spouses. Counter to the viewpoint that more men are becoming at-home dads because they were laid off during the recession, men report choosing the role for pragmatic reasons ranging from income and career considerations to satisfying family life goals, according to center researchers”.

Boston College, June 2012: The New Dad: Right At Home: New study of At-home Fathers
(Full report, PDF, 52 pages)

CBC News, June 16, 2012: “Fathers feeling same work-life stresses as mothers”, by Andre Mayer

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The Race for “Immigrant Geniuses” in the US

The U.S. has already hit its annual cap on visas for educated immigrants (the H1-B), “which means that for the rest of the year, we're in the business of telling smart people from around the world that we don't have a place for them”. “It took only 10 weeks this year to reach the FY2013 visa cap of 85,000. Last year, it took more than three times longer, 33 weeks”. 

The Brookings Institute, June 13, 2012: “The End of the Race for H-1B Visas”, by Neil G. Ruiz and Jill H. Wilson

The Atlantic, June 13, 2012: “Give Us Your Geniuses: Why Seeking Smart Immigrants Is a No-Brainer”, by Adam Ozimek and Noah Smith              

The Atlantic, June 14, 2012: “Why Is the United States Telling Immigrant Geniuses to Get Lost?”, by Jordan Weissmann

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The World of Workers – Not a Pretty Picture

“Strains on the global labour market are becoming increasingly apparent. In advanced economies, demand for high-skill labor is now growing faster than supply, while demand for low-skill labor remains weak. Labor’s overall share of income, or the share of national income that goes to worker compensation, has fallen, and income inequality is growing as lower-skill workers—including 75 million young people—experience unemployment, underemployment, and stagnating wages.” Workers’ share of income in advanced countries -- the U.S., UK, France, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Spain -- has been declining for more than 35 years, and is down about 7 percentage points from its peak, according to a new report by the McKinsey Global Institute.

McKinsey Global Institute, June 2012: The world at work: Jobs, pay, and skills for 3.5 billion people”, by Richard Dobbs, Anu Madgavkar, Dominic Barton, Eric Labaye, James Manyika, Charles Roxburgh, Susan Lund, and Siddarth Madhav. 
Executive Summary (PDF, 20 pages), Full Report (PDF, 108 pages), Kindle, eBook, Podcast

The Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2012: "Up to 95 Million Low-Skill Workers in Danger of Being Left Behind", by Daniel Lippman

The Atlantic, June 20, 2012: “Workers of the World: Get Screwed”, by Jordan Weissmanns

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Best (Canada) and Worst (India) G20 Countries for Women

“Policies that promote gender equality, safeguards against violence and exploitation and access to healthcare make Canada the best place to be a woman among the world’s biggest economies, a global poll of experts showed. Infanticide, child marriage and slavery make India the worst, the same poll concluded. Germany, Britain, Australia and France rounded out the top five countries out of the Group of 20 in a perceptions poll of 370 gender specialists conducted by TrustLaw, a legal news service run by the Thomson Reuters Foundation”.

Trustlaw, a Thomson Reuters Foundation Service, June, 2012: G20 Countries: Best and worst for women

Trustlaw, a Thomson Reuters Foundation Service, June, 2012: “Canada best G20 country to be a woman, India worst - TrustLaw poll”, by Katherine Baldwin

The Globe and Mail, June 17, 2012: “Gender equity helps G-20 countries achieve sustainable development”

The Globe and Mail, June 12, 2012: “Canada gets top ranking in best place for women to live”.Infographic

The Globe and Mail, June 12, 2012: “Canada best in G20 for women – or is it?”, by Dakshana Bascaramurty

The Atlantic, July/August 2012: “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All: It’s time to stop fooling ourselves, says a woman who left a position of power: the women who have managed to be both mothers and top professionals are superhuman, rich, or self-employed. If we truly believe in equal opportunity for all women, here’s what has to change”, by Anne-Marie Slaughter

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Canadian Wages and Income Over the Past Three Decades

An article in Statistics Canada’s Economic Insights series “examines two questions: (1) Which groups of Canadian workers have experienced stronger real wage growth over the past three decades?; and (2) To what extent do individuals’ acquisition of education, general work experience, and seniority within firms, as well as their movements into higher-wage or lower-wage occupations and industries, account for differences in real wage growth observed across groups of workers? This article uses data from various Statistics Canada surveys and focuses on the real (hourly or weekly) wages earned by full-time workers. It is based on research carried out at Statistics Canada aimed at providing information on how wage rates of Canadian workers have changed over the past three decades. Wages are expressed in 2010 dollars”.

Statistics Canada, June 2012: “Analytical Paper: Wage Growth over the Past 30 Years: Changing Wages by Age and Education”, by René Morissette, Garnett Picot, and Yuqian Lu, Economic Analysis Division 
(Full paper, PDF, 12 pages)

“Median after-tax income for families of two or more people amounted to $65,500 in 2010, virtually unchanged from 2009. This was the third consecutive year without significant change in after-tax income”.
Statistics Canada, June 2012: Income of Canadians, 2010. (PDF, 4 pages)

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US Military Vets Fight Tough Battles At Home

“In 2007, nearly 1.5 million veterans had served in the United States Armed Forces since September 2001. By the end of 2007, the United States began a long recession, in which young workers faced particularly large employment losses. This analysis focuses on labor market, educational, and training experiences of young male veterans and nonveterans during the January 2008-to-June 2009 time period. This period coincides with the recent recession that began in December 2007 and continued through June 2009”.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Beyond the Numbers, June 17, 2012: Employment, college enrollment, and training of young male veterans and nonveterans during the recent recession (PDF version, 6 pages)

New York Times, June 21, 2012: “In Need, in New York”, by Alex Miller. “One in seven homeless people have previously served in the military. This year, at 25, I became one of those homeless veterans.”

Washington Post, June 20, 2012: “Labor awards grants for training homeless vets”, by Steve Vogel

The New York Times, June 16, 2012: “Yes, Wall Street Can Reach Out”, by Gretchen Morgenson

Center for a New American Security, June 15, 2012: Employing America’s Veterans: Perspectives from Businesses (PDF, 52 pages)

Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2010: Employment Situation of Veterans

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Enron Revisited

“The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission posted more than 500,000 emails from inside Enron in the years leading up to and including its collapse. These emails, sent by 151 people between 1997 and 2002, contain clues to how a modern (okay, modern-ish) office place functions, the way people communicate, and the paths along which information flows. A new study of these missives (pdf) from two researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, picks apart these emails to learn about how gossip is used and spread within a company”.

The Atlantic, June 14, 2012: “He Said, She Said: How Information Flows From You to Your Boss's Boss”, by Rebecca J. Rosen

Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Interactive Computing & GVU Center, June 2012: “Have You Heard?: How Gossip Flows Through Workplace Email”, by Tanushree Mitra and Eric Gilbert. (PDF, 8 pages)

The New York Times, June 19, 2012: “In Insider and Enron Cases, Balancing Lies and Thievery”, by Steven M. Davidoff

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Book of the Week

The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves, by Dan Ariely. New York : HarperCollins, 2012. 285 p. ISBN 9780062183590 (hardcover)

The New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality returns with thought-provoking work to challenge our preconceptions about dishonesty and urge us to take an honest look at ourselves.

  • Does the chance of getting caught affect how likely we are to cheat?
  • How do companies pave the way for dishonesty?
  • Does collaboration make us more honest or less so?
  • Does religion improve our honesty?

Most of us think of ourselves as honest, but, in fact, we all cheat. From Washington to Wall Street, the classroom to the workplace, unethical behavior is everywhere. None of us is immune, whether it's the white lie to head off trouble or padding our expense reports. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, award-winning, bestselling author Dan Ariely turns his unique insight and innovative research to the question of dishonesty.

Generally, we assume that cheating, like most other decisions, is based on a rational cost-benefit analysis. But Ariely argues, and then demonstrates, that it's actually the irrational forces that we don't take into account that often determine whether we behave ethically or not. For every Enron or political bribe, there are countless puffed rÉsumÉs, hidden commissions, and knockoff purses. In The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, Ariely shows why some things are easier to lie about; how getting caught matters less than we think; and how business practices pave the way for unethical behavior, both intentionally and unintentionally. Ariely explores how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional, and political worlds, and how it affects all of us, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards.

But all is not lost. Ariely also identifies what keeps us honest, pointing the way for achieving higher ethics in our everyday lives. With compelling personal and academic findings, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty will change the way we see ourselves, our actions, and others.

About the Author

Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, with appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, the Department of Economics, and the School of Medicine. Dan earned one PhD in cognitive psychology and another PhD in business administration. He is the founder and director of the Center for Advanced Hindsight. His work has been featured in many outlets, including The New York Time, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and others.

Visit the Recent Books at the CIRHR Library blog.

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Copyright © 2012 Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, University of Toronto. All rights reserved.

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