Perry Work Report for the week of March 01, 2010

March 1, 2010

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Federal Budget 2010

With the federal budget being delivered in just a few days, several organizations have released reports which propose suggestions and alternatives to the budget. 
The C.D. Howe Institute has released a Shadow Budget which urges Ottawa to return to budgetary balance by fiscal year 2014/15. They also suggest that the employee share of federal pension contributions should be raised from 32 to 50 percent, as well as recommending areas for spending reduction that will help to develop an environment that can better tackle the challenges of our aging population.

Report, Back to Balance: A Shadow Federal Budget for 2010, February 2010 (20 pages, PDF)

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has also released their Alternative Federal Budget, suggesting that rather than cutting public spending, investment should be made in public infrastructure and services that will create jobs and improve communities across Canada. Their plan would create/sustain a total of 330,000 jobs, dropping unemployment to 6.7% in two years.

Full Report, Alternative Federal Budget 2010: Getting the Job Done Right, March 2010 (162 pages, PDF)

Report Highlights, Budget in Brief, March 2010 (13 pages, PDF)

The Fraser Institute has released the Fraser Alert which examines the source of current and future deficits, explains why the federal government should not continue its stimulus spending, and offers recommendations for a fiscally prudent 2010 federal budget.

Budget Balance should be the Federal Government's Focus, March 1, 2010 (8 pages, PDF)

The Government may be planning one more year stimulus and then all will be well but according to Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page tax increases and spending cuts are needed to eliminate the deficit and the economy will not be bouncing back.

The Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer Fiscal Sustainability Report, February 18, 2010

Toronto Star, February 22, 2010: Think long-term on budget issues

 

Lagging productivity levels in Canada

The Centre for the Study of Living Standards has released two new reports examining Canada’s poor productivity growth since 2000. In the first report, “the perplexing fact that Canada's lagging productivity growth has occurred in an increasingly market-oriented economic policy environment” is investigated. The second report assesses Canada’s productivity and develops a framework for future research.

Report 1: The Paradox of Market-Oriented Public Policy and Poor Productivity Growth in Canada, February 2010 (69 pages, PDF)

Report 2: Unbundling Canada’s Weak Productivity Performance: The Way Forward, February 2010 (57 pages, PDF)

 

Welfare Reform – New Brunswick leads the way

In an article in the Globe and Mail three members of the Caledon Institute on Social Policy look at how New Brunswick is reforming its welfare system: “The way to break down the welfare wall is to extend income supports and services traditionally reserved for those on welfare to the working poor – Canada's forgotten poor. New Brunswick, which is taking important steps to do exactly this in its ambitious reform, may well provide the bold leadership in social policy that this country so urgently requires.”

New Brunswick’s “Overcoming Poverty Together” Plan Earns Praise and Creates Hope by Anne Makhoul Caledon Institute on Social Policy, February 2010 (8 pages, PDF)

Globe and Mail, February 28, 2010: The working poor's best hope: New Brunswick may well provide the bold leadership in social policy that this country so urgently requires by Ken Battle, Sherri Torjman and Michael Mendelson

New Brunswick Government press release February 19, 2010: Economic and Social Inclusion Act introduced

Canadian Social Research Links – New Brunswick

 

Criminal charges laid in workplace death

Criminal charges have now been laid in relation to the April 16th, 2009 death of a city worker in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. This is the second time criminal charges have been laid in a worker’s death since Bill C-45, or the corporate killing law, was enforced.

For the most current statistics available on work-related injuries and death in Ontario, please visit the WSIB website.

For statistics on other provinces, please visit CanOSH’s website.

Canadian HR Reporter, February 26, 2010: Criminal charges laid in worker's death.

Criminal Liability of Organizations: a plain language guide to Bill C-45 - amendments to the criminal code affecting the criminal liability of organizations (11 pages, PDF) or (html)

 

Dangerous workplaces: the dairy industry

An article titled “Dairy Dangers Not Just a Western Thing” from the current issue of the Utne Reader looks at illegal immigrant labour in the dairy industry in the eastern United States. This article was featured in the Globe and Mailarticle “On the stand / a weekly roundup of the best magazine reads,” by James Adams, February 27, 2010.

Utne Reader, March-April, 2010: Dairy Dangers Not Just a Western Thing

Utne Reader, March-April 2010: The Dark Side of Dairies: Every day, agricultural workers risk their lives to produce America’s milk by Rebecca Clarren, from High Country News

 

2010 Health Care Cost Survey

Towers Watson has released the 2010 Health Care Cost Survey: Workforce Health: New Deal, New Dividend. This is the 21st annual report which profiles the nation’s largest employers, representing over $57 billion in annual spend on medical and dental benefits to approximately 10.3 million employees, retirees and dependents. According to the report average health care costs will increase 7% in 2010.

2010 Health Care Cost Survey: Workforce Health 2010: New Deal, New Dividend 21st Annual U.S. Results Report, February 2010 (36 pages, PDF)

Press release (you can download the report from this page as well)

 

From recession to recovery

Towers Watson has released the results of a survey of US and Canadian companies on the effects of the economic crisis in the workplace. Employers surveyed said that future hiring will be selective, there will be ‘selective’ layoffs, and that worker productivity has increased during the recession although employee engagement has declined.

From Recession to Recovery How Far, How Fast, How Well Prepared? January 2010 (16 pages, PDF)

Press release (you can also link to study here)

Globe and Mail, February 27, 2010: Despite signs of a renewed focus on growth, companies worldwide remain cautious on workforce investments by Wallace Immen.

 

21 hour work week

nef --the new economics foundation -- economics as if people and the planet mattered
nef is a registered UK charity founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit , which forced issues such as international debt onto the agenda of the G8 summit meetings. It has taken a lead in helping establish new coalitions and organisations such as the Jubilee 2000 debt campaign; the Ethical Trading Initiative; the UK Social Investment Forum; and new ways to measure social and economic well-being.
Recent research includes:

21 hours: Why a shorter working week can help us all to flourish in the 21st century, February 2010 (36 pages, PDF)

Globe and Mail, March 2, 2010: The office: a weekly look at work culture: Friending your boss on Facebook, how less work can be productive, and what every office needs: more high fives

National Accounts of Well-being: ‘The Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and … the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl… Yet [it] does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play… the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages… it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.’ [Robert Kennedy, 1968]

National Accounts of Well-being: bringing real wealth onto the balance sheet (January 2009)

 

Mergers and acquisitions on the upswing

Towers Watson has released a study that discusses the experiences of senior Canadian finance executives in addressing key “people issues” in mergers & acquisitions. The study, which includes research and interviews, also tackles how M&G activity is becoming a key part of business strategies once again.

Report, People Issues in Mergers and Acquisitions: Learning from Experience, February 2010 (38 pages, PDF)

 

Immigrants assess their life in Canada

In this paper, the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada (LSIC) is used to examine how immigrants in the 2000-2001 landing cohort subjectively assess their life in Canada. The paper provides a useful complement to other studies of immigrant outcomes that often focus on employment, income or health. Four years after landing, about three-quarters of LSIC respondents said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their life in Canada, and a comparable proportion said their expectations of life in Canada had been met or exceeded. Nearly 9 out of 10 said that, if given the chance, they would make the same decision again to come to Canada. A broad range of demographic, social and economic characteristics are associated with subjective assessments.

Statistics Canada, February 18, 2010: Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series: New Immigrants' Assessments of Their Life in Canada, by René Houle and Grant Schellenberg (33 pages, PDF)

 

Immigrant wages and job source information

The Toronto Immigrant Employment Data Initiative has released TIEDI Analytical Report 7: Immigrant and Canadian-born wages by source of job search information. One finding of the report was that employed immigrants who found their current job through news stories, union postings, and recruitment agencies had the highest average hourly wages.

TIEDI Analytical Report 7, March 2010: Are Immigrant Wages Affected by the Source of Job Search Information? By Tony Fang, Nina Damsbaek, Philip Kelly, Maryse Lemoine, Lucia Lo, Valerie Preston, John Shields, Steven Tufts (11 pages, PDF) – a link to all seven reports

 

Alternative Dispute Resolution in Europe

The European Industrial Relations Observatory has released a report that examines the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as a means of settling individual workplace disputes before they go to a court hearing. A brief discussion of ADR is provided, as well as trends in ADR use and an overview of people providing ADR services in Europe.

Report, Individual disputes at the workplace: Alternative Disputes Resolution, February 2010 (26 pages, PDF)

 

The Court – the OZZIES

The Court has created the OZZIES – for the (Supreme Court of Canada) Dissenting Opinion of the Year the nominees are Abella J. in Alberta v. Hutterian Brethren of Wilson Colony; Abella J. in Plourde v. Wal-Mart Canada Corp and Binnie J. in R. v. Suberu . I may have given you a hint but as the author of the OZZIES says, “A strong dissent can be as worthy of acclaim as a strongly written majority opinion.”

And the Winner is…”: the First Annual OZZY Awards February 24th, 2010 by James Yap

 

Pension Plans in Europe

The European Trade Union Institute released a working paper that discusses the changing interplay between state, market institutions, and social partners in relation to supplementary pension schemes, the importance of which is growing across Europe. This paper analyzes the responsibilities shared among these three actors to protect against the risk of old age by developing the provision of privately managed fully-funded schemes.

Report, October 2009 (34 pages, PDF)

 

Book of the Week

The Value of Nothing: Why Everything Costs So Much More Than We Think, by Raj Patel. 1st Canadian ed. Toronto : HarperCollins, 2009. 250 p. ISBN 9781554686223

As retirement funds shrink, savings disappear and houses are foreclosed on, now is a good time to ask a question for which every human civilization has had an answer: why do things cost what they do? The Value of Nothing tracks down the reasons through history, philosophy, neuroscience and sociology, showing why prices are always at odds with the true value of the things that matter most to us.

Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull sold for a record $100 million at auction. But if we account for the possibility that blood diamonds were used (as many suspect), the human cost is even greater. A Big Mac might seem like the best deal in these economic times, but after analyzing the energy to produce each burger, from field to Happy Meal, Patel argues the real price tag is a whopping $200. But it is easiest to see the gap between price and value by looking at things that are so-called free. Examining everything from Google to TV, from love to thoughts, The Value of Nothingreveals the hidden social consequences of our global culture of “freedom.”

About the Author:

RAJ PATEL is a Fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy (also known as Food First), a leading food think tank, and a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian and The Observer, is a regular contributor to NPR and independent media outlets, and though he has worked for the World Bank, WTO and the UN, he's also been tear-gassed on four continents protesting them. Visit his website at www.rajpatel.org

 

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