Perry Work Report, May 23, 2013
work&labour news&research -- follow us on the CIRHR Library Tumblr and on Twitter
- Rafael Gomez: The Jobless Youth
- Bill C-377 Goes to the Senate
- How Economic Dogma has Thrown the World out of Balance
- Reality Check: Unions Build Equality for Everyone
- Saskatchewan Appeal Court Ducks Issue of Right to Strike under Charter
- Social Media and the Workplace
- A Graduation Speech: Life Lessons in Fighting the Culture of Bullshit
- Evolve or Die: Workplace Flexibility and the Next Generation
- Who Succeeds in Integrating Muslim Immigrants: France, Quebec, or Canada?
- Credential Recognition in the United States for Foreign Professionals
- Canada Losing Ground in Global Science Race
- In the long run, we'll live to 300 and ... work
- Book of the Week
Rafael Gomez: The Jobless Youth
Jobs lost. Unemployment up. The Agenda asks: Where are future jobs going to come from? And who is being left behind.
No shades required: University of Toronto industrial relations professor Rafael Gomez speaks on the economic cost and problem of high youth unemployment.
TVO, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, May 16, 2013: Jobs Then, Jobs Now
Bill C-377 Goes to the Senate
“Senators are preparing to debate and likely pass Bill C-377, which would have big policy implications for Canada’s unions.
Bill C-377 is Conservative private member’s bill that has already passed the House of Commons and is on track to become law by summer after Senate hearings that will begin this week. The bill would force unions to make a wide range of financial disclosures to the Canada Revenue Agency that would then be posted online...
Critics of the bill question why it singles out unions, pointing out that other groups that benefit from tax exemptions – such as the Law Society and the Chamber of Commerce – would not be affected. U.S. labour disclosure law also requires statements from employers, but Bill C-377 would not impose such obligations in Canada.”
The Globe and Mail, May 21, 2013: “Bill forcing unions to disclose finances comes up for Senate’s scrutiny,” by Bill Curry
House of Commons Canada: Bill C-377 (10 pages, PDF)
How Economic Dogma has Thrown the World out of Balance
“The answer we hear is corporate social responsibility and I applaud corporate social responsibility but responsible corporations are not going to make up for irresponsible corporations – it is swinging completely the other way.
The Globe and Mail, May 14, 2013: ”How economic dogma has thrown the world out of balance,” [Management thinker Henry Mintzberg argues that governments and societies are now dominated by economic forces, and not for the better]
The Globe and Mail, May 14, 2013: Transcript: How economic dogma has thrown the world out of balance
The Social Economy Initiative (SEI) is an important vehicle through which the Desautels Faculty of Management integrates social entrepreneurship and social innovation more formally into its teaching, research and outreach activities.
Across the globe, social entrepreneurs are applying innovative approaches to addressing social problems that have not been satisfactorily addressed by the public or private sectors.
The outcome is social value creation, social impact and social change.
The SEI is an undertaking of the Marcel Desautels Institute for Integrated Management (MDIIM). The Institute’s mandate is to foster an integrated approach to management - one that breaks down disciplinary barriers, embraces multiple perspectives and encourages holistic, context-sensitive thinking about organizations and the economy.
Reality Check: Unions Build Equality for Everyone
“Unions and the public sector – and public sector unions especially – are no strangers to criticism. In the wake of the Great Recession, perhaps it should be no surprise that attacks are more vociferous than when times are better for everyone. It is important not to lose sight of the contributions unions and the public sector have made to progress, not least for women.
Two recent publications point to the good that unions do. In its report, the Broadbent Institute includes a Canadian version of a chart showing that higher rates of unionization are accompanied by a decline in income inequality. The Canadian Foundation for Labour Rights illustrates the same fact using the Gini coefficient as a measure of inequality. Both studies point to the positive influence unions have beyond the workplace in ensuring fairer wages, social programs, and public services that benefit everyone.”
OCUFA Report, May 21, 1013: "Reality Check: Unions build equality for everyone When a pundit or politician attacks unions, they’re really attacking equality for everyone, and for women in particular."
Saskatchewan Appeal Court Ducks Issue of Right to Strike under Charter
“It is difficult to take seriously the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal’s assertion that, since the Supreme Court did not address the right to strike in B.C. Health Services and Fraser, its earlier ruling in the 1987 Labour Trilogy is still binding. If one thing is clear in B.C. Health Services, it is that the Labour Trilogy ratio, i.e. that freedom of association is confined to the right to join a union and does not extend to any union activities, has been repudiated.”
“It could be said that it makes no difference what the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal says about the right to strike since the Supreme Court is likely to take the matter up in any event. But one cannot escape the feeling that Saskatchewan’s appellate court ducked the issue when it did not have to, and ventured its views gratuitously when it should not have done so.”
Lancaster House, May 23, 2013: “Sask appeal court ducks issue of right to strike under Charter “
Social Media and the Workplace: Legal, Ethical, and Practical Considerations for Management
Given the popularity, prevalence, sophistication, and ever-growing use of social media, it is no surprise that social media in an employment context raises many difficult, as well as novel, legal, ethical, and practical issues. This article,therefore, is a legal, ethical, and practical examination of social media in employment. The legal section of this article is a very substantive one where the authors extensively address the legal ramifications of social media in the private employment context.
Journal of Law, Policy and Globalization, V.12, 2013: "Social Media and the Workplace: Legal, Ethical, and Practical Considerations for Management," Frank J. Cavico, Bahaudin G. Mujtaba, Stephen C. Muffler, Marissa Samuel (46 pages, PDF)
International Institute for Science, Technology and Education: The IISTE, a U.S. publisher, is currently hosting the academic journals listed here. These academic journals are peer reviewed and OPEN ACCESS — content free to all.
A Graduation Speech: Life Lessons in Fighting the Culture of Bullshit
“So, I’m going to skip the platitudes, OK? I want this to be a practical commencement address. And I’m going to do my best to tell the truth — even when it’s uncomfortable to say, even when I probably shouldn’t say it. Because you’re already swimming in half-truths, in people telling you what they think you want to hear. And in this next phase of your life, I promise you, you will encounter more.”
“One of the greatest threats we face is, simply put, bullshit. We are drowning it. We are drowning in partisan rhetoric that is just true enough not to be a lie; in industry-sponsored research; in social media’s imitation of human connection; in legalese and corporate double-speak. It infects every facet of public life, corrupting our discourse, wrecking our trust in major institutions, lowering our standards for the truth, making it harder to achieve anything.
The Atlantic, May 21, 2013: “Life Lessons in Fighting the Culture of Bullshit What politics taught me that current graduates need to know.” by Jon Lovett.
Evolve or Die: Workplace Flexibility and the Next Generation
This two-year research undertaking finds that the Millennial generation, those born between 1980 and 1995, seek more workplace flexibility, better balance between their work and home life, and opportunity for overseas assignments as keys to greater job satisfaction.
How should organisations adapt their companies to fit the demands of both Millennial and non-Millennial employees? Are stereotypes of Millennials accurate? Do Millennials and non-Millenials have anything in common?
PwC, May 21, 2013: PwC’s NextGen: A global generational study Millennial Workers Want Greater Flexibility, Work/Life Balance, Global Opportunities (16 pages, PDF) - or download here
PwC, May 21, 2013: Evolve or Die: workplace flexibility and the next generation
Who Succeeds in Integrating Muslim Immigrants: France, Quebec, or Canada?
“Canada’s relative success in integrating large numbers of immigrants – so striking in a global context that some have begun to speak of it as a case of ‘Canadian exceptionalism’ – has spawned an important debate. Is Canada’s success mainly a result of judicious immigrant selection? Or does it owe something to distinctive integration policies, such as multiculturalism, or other immigrant settlement policies it has developed based on its experience as a “nation of immigration”?”
Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, December 2013: Who Succeeds in Integrating Muslim Immigrants: France, Quebec, or Canada? A New Study by Jeff Reitz
Credential Recognition in the United States for Foreign Professionals
"Because of the United States’ decentralized federal system, no single structure governs professional certification in regulated occupations. A profusion of overlapping, sometimes contradictory, local, state, or national rules, procedures, and examinations makes it complicated, time-consuming, and expensive for immigrants and refugees to become recertified in the United States. The vast patchwork of organizations involved in the credential-recognition process — from professional associations and state or federal regulatory bodies to credential assessment services and private- or public-sector employers — requires considerable effort to understand and work with."
Migration Policy Institute, May 2013: Credential Recognition in the United States for Foreign Professionals, by Lynda Rabben (22 pages, PDF)
Canada Losing Ground in Global Science Race
“Without more support for industry investment in research and development, Canada will be hard-pressed to keep up with international competitors and will risk an erosion of its economic well-being, a benchmark report on the state of the nation’s science and technology landscape has revealed.
The Globe and Mail, May 22, 2013: “Canada losing ground in global science race: report” by, Ivan Semeniuk
The Globe and Mail, May 21, 2013: Infographic: Report warns of Canada's waning investment in research and development
The Science, Technology and Innovation Council: State of the Nation 2012 - Canada’s Science, Technology and Innovation System: Aspiring to Global Leadership (120 pages, PDF)
In the long run, we'll live to 300 and ... work
John Maynard Keynes's contention that “in the long-run, we’re all dead”, is hard to dispute. Niall Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard, raised hackles recently by suggesting that Keynes’s seeming indifference to the welfare of future generations had something to do with the fact that he was childless and gay. As it happens, Keynes wasn’t at all unconcerned with the long run and was actually making a point about the danger of economic theorems that encouraged governments to believe that short-run economic interventions, such as goosing the money supply during a downturn, are futile. Keynes’s keen interest in futurity is on full display in his famous essay, “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, in which the economic conditions of the long run is probed with great insight.
The Economist, May 10th 2013: “In the long run, we’ll live to 300 and work.”
Book of the Week
The Business of Human Rights: an Evolving Agenda for Corporate Responsibility, edited by Aurora Voiculescu and Helen Yanacopulos. London : Zed Books, 2011. 245 p. ISBN 9781848138636
UTLibraries link to catalogue record: http://go.utlib.ca/cat/7460909
In a time when multinational corporations have become truly globalised, demands for global standards on their behaviour are increasingly difficult to dismiss. Work conditions in sweatshops, widespread destruction of the environment, and pharmaceutical trials in third world countries are only the tip of the iceberg. This timely collection of essays addresses the interface between the calls for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and the demands for an extension of international human rights standards. Scholars from a vast variety of backgrounds provide expert yet accessible accounts of questions of law, politics, economics and international relations and how they relate to one another, while also encouraging non-legal perspectives on how businesses operate within and around human rights. The result is an essential incursion for a wide range of scholars, practitioners and students in law, development, business studies and international studies, in this emerging area of human rights.
About the Author:
Aurora Voiculescu is Senior Lecturer in Socio-Legal Studies and Human Rights in the Department of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Law, the University of Westminster (London). After her PhD in Law at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, she held a British Academy Post-doctoral Fellowship, at Lincoln College, Oxford University
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