Perry Work Report for the week of May 12, 2011

May 12, 2011

 

Nominations for Bora Laskin Award 2011

The University of Toronto, Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, is inviting nominations for its annual Bora Laskin Award for Outstanding Contributions to Canadian Labour Law. More information about the Bora Laskin Award can be found at the Centre's website.

The award is named after the late Chief Justice Bora Laskin (1912-1984) who, before joining the Supreme Court of Canada, was pre-eminent as a labour law scholar and labour arbitrator. Previous recipients of the Bora Laskin Award include Professor Harry Arthurs (2003), Professor Pierre Verge (2004), Professor Paul Weiler (2005), Roy Heenan and Mel Myers (2006), Ontario's Chief Justice Warren K. Winkler (2007), Professor Innis Christie (2008), Michel Picher (2009), and Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella (2010).

Nominees will be considered from all fields relating to labour law, including, for example, academia, private practice, courts, tribunals and arbitration. The Awards Committee will consider nominations received on or before Tuesday, May 31, 2011.

To submit a nomination, please fill out the following online form.

 

CRIMT International Conference in Montreal

As part of its Major Collaborative Research Initiatives project, the Interuniversity research centre on globalization and work (CRIMT) will host an international conference on multinational companies, their global value chains and emerging forms of labour regulation. This conference will take place from June 6th to 8th 2011 in Montréal (HEC Montréal), Canada.
Registration now open
Program                                                                                      

Site

 

The Voisey Bay Report, seen as Victory for Workers

An Industrial Inquiry Commission released the Voisey report after an 18-month labour dispute between the Brazilian owned company, Vale, and its Voisey Bay employees. The Commission recommends that Newfoundland and Labrador “adopt new mechanisms to “take account of the need to ensure that (multinational) corporations respond to Canadian labour relations values.” [USW, May 11, 2011)

Voisey Bay Report, May 11, 2011: Report of the Industrial Inquiry Commission (132 pages, PDF)

Newfoundland Labrador, Labour Relations Agency, Updated May 11, 2011: Full overview of the Voisey Bay Industrial Inquiry, including Reports, Stakeholder Submissions and News Releases

The Canadian Press, May 11, 2011: “Report on bitter strike at Voisey's Bay recommends labour law changes”, by Sue Bailey

 

Canadian Labour of Congress Turns to Social Media to Deliver Message

“Labour can’t organize with 8-tracks when workers are listening to podcasts on their iPods,” says Canadian Labour Congress President Ken Georgetti. Delegates at the Congress’s 2011 convention embraced this new approach to expressing labour solidarity on Wednesday when they formed a “text mob” by sending hundreds of text messages to Canada’s Mexican and Colombian ambassadors.

The texts are said to have “overwhelmed” the ambassadors’ phone lines in Ottawa, the message: “Respect Workers’ Rights in Mexico!” and “Stop killing trade unionists in Colombia!”

The Congress has turned to social media in an effort to deal with the many challenges it and unions face—a majority Conservative government, smaller workplaces, a decline in manufacturing jobs, and young workers skeptical of what unions have to offer them.

Globe and Mail, May 09, 2011: “Joy and trepidation at the Canadian Labour Congress”, By Rod Mickleburgh

The Province, May 10, 2011: “Social media spreads the word, Cdn Labour Congress tells delegates” By Frank Luba.

Canadian Labour Congress, May 11, 2011: “Text Mob for Workers’ Rights”, CLC

26th Constitutional Convention Website: For full coverage of the Convention

 

The Rich and the Rest of Us: Canadian Economists Discuss Income Inequality in Canada

In her recent lecture “Economics, Equality and Democracy”, Economist Armine Yalnizyan, discusses Canada’s growing income gap. Yalnizyan joins the voices of Tory Senator Hugh Segal and Toronto-Dominion Bank CEO Ed Clark to argue that, counter to the economic dogma of the days of yore, wealth is simply not trickling down. According to a recent Globe and Mail article “there’s an increasing awareness, among even the country’s most wealthy, that poverty reaches beyond the tables of the hungry and digs into their own pocketbooks.”

Canada's Centre for Policy Alternatives, May 09, 2011: “Economics, Equality and Democracy”, video of Senior Economist Armine Yalnizyan’s lecture

Globe and Mail, May 06, 2011: “How paying people’s way out of poverty can help us all”, by Anna Mehler Paperny and Tavia Grant

Globe and Mail, May 05, 2011: “Q&A with Ed Clark, CEO of TD Bank”, By Tavia Grant

 

Survey of CEO Compensation

The Wall Street Journal CEO Compensation Study was conducted by management consults, the Hay Group. The study analyzes CEO pay from the biggest 350 U.S. public companies by revenue between May 1, 2010, and April 30, 2011.  Highlights of the study include:

  • performance outweighs governance concerns as CEO pay increases markedly
  • companies emphasize long-term performance and balance in their equity portfolios
  • perquisites continue their fall
  • pay levels will continue to increase when company performance improves

The Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2011: “The Wall Street Journal Survey of CEO Compensation.” (Chart)

Press release, May 9, 2011: “The Wall Street Journal/Hay Group CEO Compensation Study reveals increase in CEO pay levels in 2010.”

 

How to Manage Employer Drug Plans

Ontario Public Drug Programs’ former Executive Officer Helen Stevenson has just released a white paper to help employers who “are hurt by the inefficiency of [drug] plans.” According to the paper, companies spend $200 million per week on prescription drugs, an amount that “there is little evidence…is justified.” The paper asks that employers begin to actively manage their drug plan costs and, as suggested in the title, stop writing blank cheques for drug insurance plans.

An End to Blank Cheques: Getting more value out of employer drug plans, May 2011: By Helen Stevenson with a foreword by Don Drummond, Economics Advisor to TD Bank (16 pages, PDF)

HR Reporter, May 12, 2011: “Canadian companies spending $200 million per week on drugs: White paper”

CBC News: Politics, May 11, 2011: “Private sector must help keep lid on drug costs, report argues”, By David McKie

 

Retirement Inadequacy

“Projections show that half of middle-earning Canadians born between 1945 and 1970 will experience a drop in living standards of at least 25 percent when they retire, and that the phased-in options under discussion to improve Canada/Québec Pension Plan benefits would have modest effects, so governments will have to look at more ambitious and novel reforms than the ones currently under consideration.”

IRPP Study, April 2011:  Projecting the Adequacy of Canadians’ Retirement Incomes: Current Prospects and Possible Reform Options, by Michael C. Wolfson (48 pages, PDF)

 

Meet The Workers Who Make Your iPad

The Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) conducted a comprehensive study of practices at several Foxconn factories, supplier to companies such as Apple and HP. For the duration of March and April, the study found that a number of shocking policies are in place:

  • workers are being asked to work 80-100 hours of overtime
  • workers are being forced to sign ‘No-Suicide’ pacts
  • employees regularly are forced to stand for 14 hours a day
  • employees are crammed together in dormitories with squalid living conditions

ThinkProgress, May 10, 2011: “Meet The Workers Who Make Your iPad: 100 Hours Of Overtime, No-Suicide Pacts, Standing For 14 Hours A Day,” by Zaid Jilani.

SACOM, May 6, 2011: Foxconn and Apple Fail to Fulfill Promises: Predicaments of Workers after the Suicides (20 pages, PDF)

 

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

“Disney runs one of the world’s largest internship programs. Each year, between 7,000 and 8,000 college students and recent graduates work full-time, minimum-wage, menial internships at Disney World.” The interns work entirely at the company’s will without: sick days or time off, grievance procedures, guarantees of workers’ compensation or protection against harassment or unfair treatment.

Pinko Commie Rag, May 7, 2011: “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom”

Guernica, May 2011: “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom,” by Ross Perlin

 

Group rights v individual rights

“Among the world’s liberal democracies, Canada stands out for the entitlements it grants to one group of citizens and for its open acknowledgment that there are hard trade-offs between individual rights and group rights…Critics of the Canadian system say … it creates two levels of citizen by excluding indigenous people from conservation rules, and by exempting tribes from the accountability rules that other groups must follow. It is one thing to offer benefits to citizens who are felt to need them, another to water down the principle of equal citizenship.” [The Economist]

The Economist, May 12th 2011: “Group rights v individual rights:  Me, myself and them: From indigenous peoples to newly installed migrants, governments face awkward demands for collective exemptions and entitlements.”
“Amnesty still thinks rights are interlinked, according to Widney Brown, one of its directors: the cry on the Arab streets is against police repression and torture, but also against economic mismanagement that blights societies. The report rejects a “false dichotomy” between civil and political rights on one hand, and social, economic and cultural ones on the other; but its general tone suggests a renewed emphasis on the ability of individuals to force change in the name of noble ideals.” [The Economist, “Group rights v individual rights”]

Amnesty International, to be released May 12, 2011:  Special Report: Demanding Change in the Middle East and North Africa:  As mass anti-government protests flare across several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, Amnesty International is urging all state authorities in the region to respect human rights, including the rights of those now demanding change.

 

Transgender Employment Rights Make Headway in the United Sates

Recently, “ Hawaii lawmakers voted to protect transgendered people from public and private workplace discrimination, making the state the 13th (in addition to Washington, DC) to do so.” 
“A survey of 6,450 trans and gender non-conforming people released by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force revealed some disturbing numbers:

  • Ninety percent of responders reported facing discrimination at work.
  • Unemployment rates were double the national average.
  • More than a quarter said they had been fired due to their gender identity.
  • Those who had lost their jobs were four times as likely to be homeless and 70 percent more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.”

Mother Jones, April 22, 2011: Map: Transgender Employment Rights Make Headway, by Gavin Aronsen

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, February, 3, 2011: Executive Summary: Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (8 pages, PDF)  or Full report (228 pages, PDF)

 

Made in the USA, Again?

“According to the BCG, manufacturing will soon come back to the US as pitiful wages, anti-union policies and corporate welfare are making America competitive with China, which leads me to conclude that eventually, workers in both countries will make about the same.”[Globe and Mail : World 3.0: Pankaj Ghemewat on globalization and international trade]

Boston Consulting Group, May 5, 2011: Made in the USA, Again: Manufacturing Is Expected to Return to America as China’sRising Labor Costs Erase Most Savings from Offshoring

Globe and Mail, May. 09, 2011: “Globalization and knocking down trade barriers.”

 

Recent CIRHR Library Tweets

Don’t miss:  Roy Adams on the potential of Ontario v. Fraser via @DooreyBlog : http://bit.ly/iGAqAD

Revamp regional bargaining, B.C. report says tgam.ca/CYFT /via @globeandmail

We have a second chance to make history with the census tgam.ca/CXJM /via @globeandmail

Tapping Canada's immigrant capital tgam.ca/CX4s /via @globeandmail

RT @slaw_dot_ca: Needed: A Repository for Canadian Legal Scholarship http://bit.ly/mPJt1P

Commission finds judges need cost of living adjustments after wage freeze http://goo.gl/fb/hQDG2#bced

Forum to keep forestry industry accountable tgam.ca/CNII /via @globeandmail

Job-seeking graduates give it the old college try tgam.ca/CXKQ /via @globeandmail

NDP being offered the cream of Canada's unions tgam.ca/CXKk /via @globeandmail

Most Canadians with workplace pension plans are government employees tgam.ca/CWle /via @globeandmail

Air Canada head pitches pact to pilots theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor… via @globeandmail

When a university degree just isn’t enough theglobeandmail.com/news/national/… via @globeandmail

The Tories stomped us, but we shouldn't make sour grapes into whine tgam.ca/CVPk /via @globeandmail

The new world of business tgam.ca/CWc9 /via @globeandmail

When a Players Union Doesn’t Help the Players: http://nyti.ms/k1pgP8

Toronto police would be country's highest-paid under contract offer tgam.ca/CUgY /via @globeandmail

Employers up in arms over Ontario's 'secret' wage deal tgam.ca/CTbo /via @globeandmail

Kevin Page: Bean-counter with a backbone tgam.ca/CPaB /via @globeandmail

 

Book of the Week

In and Out of Crisis: the Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives, by Greg Albo, Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch. Oakland, Calif. : PM, 2010. 140 p. ISBN 9781604862126 (pbk.)

Our world is in the grips of the most calamitous economic crisis since the Great Depression – and its epicenter is the imperial United States, where hallowed investment banks have disappeared overnight, giants of industry have gone bankrupt, and the financial order has been shaken to the core.  

While many around the globe are increasingly wondering if another world is indeed possible, few are mapping out potential avenues – and flagging wrong turns – en route to a post-capitalist future. In this groundbreaking analysis of the meltdown, renowned radical political economists Albo, Gindin and Panitch lay bare the roots of the crisis, which they locate in the dynamic expansion of capital on a global scale over the last quarter century – and in the inner logic of capitalism itself.  

With an unparalleled understanding of the inner workings of capitalism, the authors of In and Out of Crisis provocatively challenge the call by much of the Left for a return to a largely mythical Golden Age of economic regulation as a check on finance capital unbound. They deftly illuminate how the era of neoliberal free markets has been, in practice, undergirded by state intervention on a massive scale. With clarity and erudition, they argue persuasively that given the current balance of social forces – as bank bailouts around the globe make evident – regulation is not a means of fundamentally reordering power in society, but rather a way of preserving markets.

Contrary to those who believe US hegemony is on the wane, Albo, Gindin and Panitch contend that the meltdown has, in fact, reinforced the centrality of the American state as the dominant force within global capitalism, while simultaneously increasing the difficulties entailed in managing its imperial role.      

In conclusion, the authors argue that it’s time to start thinking about genuinely transformative alternatives to capitalism – and how to build the collective capacity to get us there. We should be thinking bigger and preparing to go further. In and Out of Crisis stands to be the enduring critique of the crisis and an indispensable springboard for a renewed Left. 

About the Authors:

Leo Panitch teaches Political Economy at York University in Toronto and is co-editor of the Socialist Register.

Sam Gindin teaches Political Economy at York University in Toronto and is the former research director at the Canadian Autoworkers Unions.

Greg Albo teaches Political Economy at York University in Toronto and is co-editor of the Socialist Register.

Visit the Recent Books at the CIRHR Library blog.

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Editor: Vicki Skelton
Designer: Nick Strupat

Copyright © 2010 Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, University of Toronto. All rights reserved.

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