Perry Work Report for the week of March 28, 2013

Perry Work Report, March 28, 2013

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CIRA@2013:Canadian Industrial Relations Association Conference

The 50th anniversary of CIRA offers an opportunity to reflect on the enormous changes that have taken place in patterns of employment, the role of the state in the workplace, the role of unions and other institutions, the role of employers and third parties since 1962 when CIRA held its first conference. The research process has also evolved in terms of methods, frameworks and the interaction among different disciplines that focus on employment. We invite you to help us celebrate CIRA’S 50 years by joining us in Toronto, a city widely regarded for its diversity and as a meeting place for people with different perspectives.

CIRA@2013: From Theory and Research to Policy and Practice in Work and Employment

Date: May 29 - May 31, 2013 
Where: Ted Rogers School of Management, Ryerson University ,55 Dundas Street West, Toronto, ON Canada, M5G 2C5
Contact: clmr@ryerson.ca

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Labour Rights and Their Impact on Democracy, Economic Equality and Social Justice

“More than 160 people are gathered in Toronto this week to discuss the critical role labour rights and unions play in reducing income inequality, advancing democracy, and promoting the social well-being of all Canadians.

The three-day conference(March 26 - 28, 2013: “Labour Rights and Their Impact on Democracy, Economic Equality and Social Justice,” is organized by the Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights (CFLR) and sponsored by the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW Canada) and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF).

The Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights (CFLR) has also released a research report which shows that regressive labour laws in Canada have reduced unionization rates which in turn has led to increasing income inequality.

Canadian Foundation for Labour Right, March 27, 2013: International conference on labour rights in Toronto

Click here For a summary of each of the 200 pieces of restrictive labour legislation passed by the Canadian Parliament and provincial legislatures between 1982 and 2013.

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Ontario Salary Disclosure 2013 (Disclosure for 2012)

"The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, 1996 (the act) makes Ontario's public sector more open and accountable to taxpayers. The act requires organizations that receive public funding from the Province of Ontario to disclose annually the names, positions, salaries and total taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more in a calendar year."

The Globe and Mail, March 28, 2013: Interactive: Which civil servants make more than $1-million? Explore this year's 'Sunshine List'

The Globe and Mail, March 28, 2013: Ontario Power Generation CEO tops 'sunshine' list

Ontario Salary Disclosure 2013 (Disclosure for 2012) website

  • Introduction [HTML], [PDF]
  • Ministries [HTML], [PDF]
    • Individuals Seconded to Ministries from Public Sector Organizations [HTML], [PDF]
  • Legislative Assembly and Offices [HTML], [PDF]
  • Judiciary [HTML], [PDF]
  • Crown Agencies [HTML], [PDF]
  • Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation [HTML], [PDF]
  • Municipalities and Services [HTML], [PDF]
  • School Boards [HTML], [PDF]
  • Universities [HTML], [PDF]
  • Colleges [HTML], [PDF]
  • Hospitals and Boards of Public Health [HTML], [PDF]
  • Other Public Sector Employers [HTML], [PDF]
  • Organizations with No Salaries to Disclose [HTML], [PDF]

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Voice & Influence: Clayman Institute at Stanford University

Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University creates knowledge and seeks to implement change to promote gender equality. Our current focus is Moving Beyond the Stalled Gender Revolution. We are bringing together an intellectually diverse group of scholars to provide new insights into the barriers to women’s advancement and to propose novel and workable solutions to advancing gender equality.

The Voice & Influence program aims to empower women and men to be as effective as possible and to create organizations where all people can thrive.

The online curriculum features never-before-offered education modules with faculty from leading universities. Each education module provides a MindShift, or an essential change of perspective to allow people to be creative in using and applying the material, along with one tangible action people can take in their own lives. 

To bring the material to life, each video module features women and men sharing their personal experiences. Over 100 people volunteered their time to produce the educational series.

Voice & Influence, VIDEOS: Clayman Institute Gender Research at Stanford University

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The Persistence of Male Power and Prestige in the Professions

“The Persistence of Male Power and Prestige in the Professions Gender inequality maintains a tenacious grip on the American workplace. Post-recession, men continue to be more likely than women to retain the lion’s share of power. This holds true even within the professions requiring the most education, where some might imagine the potential for parity would be greatest. This social scientific report and set of three case studies from the UC San Diego Center for Research on Gender in the Professions show that, among those at the pinnacle of power, women still lag behind men.”

“Recent claims by journalists and pundits have exaggerated the strides women have made in recent years. In contrast, this report documents the spectrum of power in the service economy. Women are common in the lower-paying service occupations, while men continue to dominate the professions. There are many interlocking reasons for these patterns and no simple solution to this problem. We conclude with practical steps that could help move our country toward a more positive future.” 

UC San Diego, March 2013: The Persistence of Male Power and Prestige in the Professions: Report on the Professions of Law, Medicine, and Science & Engineering (13 pages, PDF)

UC San Diego News, March 2013: ‘End of Men’? Not Even Close, Says UC San Diego Report on Gender in the Professions

Individual Case Studies:

Legal Professions: The Status of Women and Men

Medical Professions: The Status of Women and Men

Science and Engineering Professions: The Status of Women and Men

The Decline of Men? Not So Fast! Links

Recent media reports sensationalize the gains women have made in the labor force, while exaggerating the difficulties men are facing. We have listed the writings by the loudest voices here.

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Men Benefit more from Authority in the Workplace in a Canadian Study

"Schieman sees these findings as relevant for the current debate stirred up by Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead."

“Our findings shed new light on an age-old question: Who benefits more from authority in the workplace? The patterns we discover suggest that even when women ‘lean in’ and attain greater authority at work, the structural features of power have different consequences for the subjective experience of autonomy and influence in ways that favour men. This corroborates Sandberg’s claims about the differential distribution of access to, and the rewards of, higher-status positions.”

U of T News, March 26, 2013: Go ahead, lean in if you like but it still helps to be male:

The study, "The Rewards of Authority in the Workplace: Do Gender and Age Matter?," is published in the Spring 2013 issue of the journal Sociological Perspectives.

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Feeling Overloaded? Balancing Family Care with Work is a Struggle

"Duxbury said when she and Higgins began the study, researchers had barely analyzed the socio-economic impacts of paid employees “sandwiched” between child-rearing while caring for elderly parents. She said even Statistics Canada’s General Social Survey begins its tracking of elder care at age 45, and their study confirmed a rapidly growing number of workers between 30 and 45 are squeezed by caring for their kids and parents."

"The study, supported by Desjardins Insurance, surveyed 25,000 highly educated employees who work for large employers in the public and private sectors. About 8,000 of them also took an in-depth survey on caregiving and 111 agreed to personal interviews. Duxbury is a business professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business and Higgins is at the University of Western Ontario."

 

Ottawa Citizen, March 27, 2013: More younger Canadians, including men, facing child and elder care responsibilities

The Globe and Mail, March 27, 2013: “‘Sandwich generation’ increasingly trapped by work-life overload,” by Tavia Grant 

[study not currently available online as of March 28, 2013]

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Jian Ghomeshi's Opening Essay on Library and Archives Canada

Jian’s take on the controversial new code of conduct at Library and Archives Canada. For podcast click on:Listen

“Jian, as one of the hundreds of librarians across Canada who rely on the hard work of our national library and archives colleagues in order to do our own jobs for our patrons, I’d like to thank you for this eloquent summary of one portion of the disaster that looms. Your listeners (and readers here) should know that the reason for this muzzling is that the LAC is being ruined by extreme budget and staff cuts which correspond to massive collection-building and service cuts. Management doesn’t want those who know most about it, the LAC staff, talking about it with anyone, even in that most dry and technical context, the professional library conference. LAC has been one of the very best national libraries in the world, something for all Canadians to be proud of. What’s happening to it now is enough to make anyone proud of Canadian history and culture weep.”

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Expenditure Analysis of Criminal Justice in Canada

“Government spending on courts, prisons and policing has increased significantly in Canada over the past decade, squeezing provincial budgets at a time Canada’s crime rate is falling, a report by the Parliamentary Budget Office has found.

The report, released Wednesday, says overall spending on the justice system rose 23 per cent between 2002 and 2012. During the same period, Canada’s crime rate fell by exactly the same proportion.”

The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, March 20, 2013: Justice spending rising sharply as crime rates fall, budget watchdog warns, by Kim Macrael  

MARCH 20, 2013 Expenditure Analysis of Criminal Justice in Canada

Office of the Parliamentary Budget Office: Access to Publications

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Class Actions Against Banks for Unpaid Overtime Can Now Proceed

"The Supreme Court of Canada has paved the way for thousands of employees at the CIBC and the Bank of Nova Scotia to proceed with multi-million dollar class action claims for unpaid overtime. Rejecting the banks' applications for leave to appeal the decisions of the Ontario Court of Appeal certifying the class action lawsuits, the employees are now free to pursue their claims for compensation against the banks, which they allege required them to perform work that necessitated extra hours while refusing to authorize the payment of overtime."

Lancaster House, March 22, 2013: Class Actions Against Banks for Unpaid Overtime Can Now Proceed, Supreme Court rules

The Globe and Mail, March 21, 2013: Supreme Court clears way for employees’ overtime suits against banks,” by Jeff Gray

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Graphic Novels on Wage Workers

THE HOUSING MONSTER

The Housing Monster takes one seemingly simple everyday thing—a house—and looks at the social relations that surround and determine it. Starting with the construction site and the physical building of houses, the book slowly builds and links more and more issues together: from gentrification and city politics to gender roles and identity politics, from subcontracting and speculation to union contracts and negotiation, from intensely personal thoughts and interactions to large-scale political and economic forces. What starts as a look at housing questions, broadens into a critique of capitalism as a whole. (152 pages, first printing in 2012)

[text only version] | [print quality PDF]

image

ABOLISH RESTAURANTS
a worker’s critique of the food service industry

A 60-page illustrated guide to the daily misery, stress, boredom, and alienation of restaurant work, as well as the ways in which restaurant workers fight against it. Drawing on a range of anti-capitalist ideas as well as a heaping plate of personal experience, it is part analysis and part call-to-arms. (first printed in 2006)

[text only version]
[online click thru version]
[print quality PDF]

[further reading]

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WORK COMMUNITY POLITICS WAR

A 28-page comic book introduction to the world as we know it
and class war manifesto. (first printed in 2005)

[text only version]
[online click thru version]
[print quality PDF]

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The Williams Institute: rigorous, independent research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy

"The Williams Institute is dedicated to conducting rigorous, independent research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.  A national think tank at UCLA Law,  the Williams Institute produces high-quality research with real-world relevance and disseminates it to judges, legislators, policymakers, media and the public."

Most recent publications:

Williams Institute, March 2013: LGBT Adult Immigrants in the United States, By Gary J. Gates

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BRIC, BRICS or BRICSI? The Growing Challenge

"For now, though, it’s called BRICS, known in Chinese as “Gold Bricks” (and China is a major, perhaps the major, driving force behind it, some commentators say). The concept of BRICS has been viewed skeptically by some who are asking what these nations actually have in common. But there is a sense it may be strengthening as a group – and growing as a challenge to the established world financial order, crafted principally by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

New York Times Global Edition, March 28, 2013: BRIC, BRICS or BRICSI? The Growing Challenge, By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW

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China's Economic Rise - US and Canadian points of view

China’s economic rise has significant implications for the United States and hence is of major interest to Congress. On the one hand, China is a large (and potentially huge) export market for the United States. Many U.S. firms use China as the final point of assembly in their global supply chain networks. China’s large holdings of U.S. Treasury securities help the federal government finance its budget deficits. However, some analysts contend that China maintains a number of distortive economic policies (such as an undervalued currency and protectionist industrial policies) that undermine U.S. economic interests. They warn that efforts by the Chinese government to promote innovation, often through the use of subsidies and other distortive measures, could negatively affect many leading U.S. industries. This report surveys the rise of China’s economy, describes major economic challenges facing China, and discusses the implications of China’s economic rise for the United States

CRS Report for Congress, March 4, 2013: China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States Wayne M. Morrison Specialist in Asian Trade and Finance

 

This paper examines the impact of China’s rapid economic development on global and Canadian economic interests and considers some of the concerns raised by China’s emergence as the world’s second-largest producer and largest trader and the challenges and opportunities for Canadian policy makers and business leaders.

Canadian Council of Chief Executives, February 2012: Ambiguity and Illusion in China’s Economic Transformation: Issues for Canadian Policy Makers and Business Leaders, by Michael Hart (47 pages, PDF)

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Book of the Week

 

Enough is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources, by Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill. San Francisco : Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 20132. 240 p. ISBN 9781609948054 (pbk.)

UTLibraries link to catalogue record: http://go.utlib.ca/cat/8805746

It’s time for a new kind of economy

We’re overusing the earth’s finite resources, and yet excessive consumption is failing to improve our lives. In Enough Is Enough, Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill lay out a visionary but realistic alternative to the perpetual pursuit of economic growth – an economy where the goal is enough, not more.

They explore specific strategies to conserve natural resources, stabilize population, reduce inequality, fix the financial system, create jobs, and more – all with the aim of maximizing long-term well-being instead of short-term profits. Filled with fresh ideas and surprising optimism, Enough Is Enough is the primer for achieving genuine prosperity and a hopeful future for all.

 

About the Authors:

Rob Dietz is editor of the Daly News and the former executive director of CASSE (the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy).

Dan O'Neill is a lecturer in ecological economics at the University of Leeds, UK and the chief economist for CASSE.

 

Visit the Recent Books at the CIRHR Library blog.

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The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various authors and organizations on this e-publication do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the CIRHR, the CIRHR Library or the University of Toronto

This publication is protected by Canadian copyright laws and may not be copied, posted or forwarded electronically without permission.

Questions or comments: cirhr.library@utoronto.ca

Editor: Vicki Skelton
Designer: Nick Strupat

Copyright © 2013 Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, University of Toronto. All rights reserved.

Date posted