Perry Work Report for the week of October 19, 2011

October 19, 2011

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University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) Forum on Fair Bargaining

UTFA is seeking a stronger voice for faculty and librarians at the University of Toronto.  Currently, a limited set of issues pertaining to compensation and workload are negotiable subject to provision for good faith bargaining and mediation/arbitration (when necessary).  Other conditions of employment at the University of Toronto are dealt with as a set of frozen policies, and remaining terms and conditions of academic employment may be unilaterally determined by the Administration.  

UTFA is also seeking to negotiate a policy on governance in academic planning as it applies to faculty and librarians.  This is consistent with and inseparable from the promotion and preservation of academic freedom and professional autonomy, as well as peer-based and shared governance.

The Administration has raised objections to the involvement of a professional arbitrator in negotiations over academic matters, but in doing so has perhaps mischaracterized the way interest arbitration works, and more importantly, has offered no alternative way to ensure negotiations are fair, rigorous and accountable, including provision for dispute resolution.

UTFA is holding a forum at each of the three campuses to discuss UTFA’s current bargaining proposals with Faculty and Librarians (see also www.utfa.org ) Everyone is welcome!  It promises to be very informative.

Forum on Fair Bargaining – Thursday October 20, 2011.  3-5pm, Bahen Centre, 40 St. George St, Room 1130. Click on the arrow for the YouTube presentation and here for the poster.

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Conversations on Work & Labour: Panel on “The Future of Public Sector Collective Bargaining”

Please read the attachment in the Perry Work Report for an examination of the changing legal and economic contexts and recent events affecting public sector bargaining – links to documents and legal decisions are provided

When:        Wednesday, October 26, 12:30-2:30

Where:       Room 2003, Osgoode Hall Law School, Kaneff Building

Panellists:  Steven Barrett, Partner, Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP
                   Dr. Robert Hebdon, Professor, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University
                   Dr. Timothy Bartkiw, Associate Professor, Ted Rogers School of Business, Ryerson University

The world now looks a bit different than it did five or ten years ago, before the Health Services decision and before the financial crisis.  Key questions surrounding the main question of what might public sector collective bargaining look like five or ten years from now include:

  • Are centralization of bargaining structures and privatization of public services likely to be continuing trends, and what does this mean for collective bargaining?
  • What implications do predicted demographic trends have for public sector collective bargaining? 
  • Given the lack of effective dispute resolution mechanisms lacking in much of the public sector, and governments’ newly fettered ability to directly intervene in bargaining and outcomes, what are the likely prospects for public sector dispute resolution?  Return to unfettered strikes and lockouts?  Work stoppage restrictions paired with interest arbitration? Implementing government intervention through consultation processes?
  • Similarly, in the post Health Services and Fraser legal environment, how are governments able to limit costs of public sector collective agreements?
  • Finally, what is the legitimacy of government intervention in “imagined” public sector disputes, involving private sector employers such as Air Canada?

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@#$%^&*  Taxes

“So how did “taxes” become a bad word?”

“Our mistrust of government and preoccupation with uncovering waste led to expensive layers of control and oversight that made government no more accountable or transparent but certainly more risk-averse and inefficient and therefore less worthy of our trust: a self-fulfilling prophecy.

… government seems more opaque than ever – with almost no debate, for example, on the cuts to the goods and services tax which took more than $13-billion annually out of government coffers, or almost no information on the costs of the omnibus crime bill or how it is supposed to make us safer rather than just meaner. That is not transparency.”

Globe and Mail, Oct. 14, 2011: Tax isn't a four-letter word by Alex Himelfarb

TVO Video: Alex Himelfarb on the consequences of tax cuts: Alex Himelfarb, former clerk of the Privy Council, looks at how tax cuts became a bad word in Canada. He argues that a continued commitment to tax cuts will lead to greater inequality, the erosion of services, and to a meaner and less just society. This is an excerpt from his full lecture that will air on Big Ideas on November 12th. The lecture was produced in collaboration with the Literary Review of Canada

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Lockout Ends – U.S. Steel Wins

On Saturday October 15, members of Local 1005 USW ratified a three-year contract with U.S. Steel. With 612 of 733 eligible voters casting a ballot, 61 per cent voted in favour of the contract and 39 per cent were opposed.
“The agreement excludes new employees from the defined benefit pension plan; instead new hires will have a group RRSP administered by the union. Indexing for current pensioners ends. The cost-of-living allowance will pay only about a third of what it once did.”

Hamilton Spectator, October 17, 2011: Bittersweet end to U.S. Steel lockout: It is good news for our community that the longest labour-management confrontation in Hamilton steel history has ended.

Local 1005, Information Update # 37 October 18, 2011 Tentative Agreement Ratified

Tentative Settlement, October 12, 2011 – now ratified

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Generation Y’s Rules of Engagement

Mercer’s What’s Working™ survey, conducted among nearly 30,000 employees in 17 markets around the world from Q4 2010 to Q2 2011, offers insights into the minds of today’s global workforce. The survey findings provide a particularly intriguing view of the youngest workers – Generation Y, or millennials – a group that tends to have wholly different views and expectations regarding work. This analysis examines two particularly compelling insights about these young workers and the implications for their current and future employers.

Generation Gap Extends to Work Views

Mercer, October 2011: Inside Employee’s Minds: Navigating the new rules of engagement 14 pages, PDF) you will come to an intermediary page just click on Downlood

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The Myth of the Ideal Worker

This report, fourth in the series The Promise of Future Leadership: A Research Program on Highly Talented Employees in the Pipeline, tackles persistent myths about the gender gap. Career advancement strategies used by women and men were compared to determine if using the same strategies ultimately leads to the same career outcomes. Findings revealed that:   

  • Men benefited more from adopting proactive strategies.
  • When women did all the things they have been told will help them get ahead—using the same tactics as men—they still advanced less than their male counterparts and had slower pay growth.

Catalyst, September 2011: The Myth of the Ideal Worker: Does Doing All The Right Things Really Get Women Ahead? by Nancy M. Carter and Christine Silva (24 pages, PDF)

PR release

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Mining Knowledge Workers

Dual-career development paths are being adopted by mining companies to retain knowledge workers as the global competition for talent becomes more  fierce, according to a new study, released by the Mining Industry Human Resources Council, in partnership with the Canada Mining Innovation Council.

Mining Industry Human Resources Council, October 17, 2011: Making the Grade Human Resources Challenges and Opportunities for Knowledge Workers in Canadian Mining Report (95 pages, PDF) orExecutive Summary (23 pages)

Mining Industry Human Resources Council, October 17, 2011: Unearthing Possibilities: Human Resources Challenges and Opportunities in the Canadian Mineral Exploration Sector (92 pages, PDF)or Executive Summary (28 pages)

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Canada’s Apprenticeship Community

A national survey of apprenticeship stakeholders provides valuable insights into current perceptions about the state of apprenticeship training in Canada. A recent report from the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum (CAF-FCA) outlines how the community's efforts to address apprenticeship barriers are perceived among stakeholders

Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, August 20111: Insights from Canada’s Apprenticeship Community: Impacts and Next Steps: Final Report (36 pages, PDF)

Press release, September 8, 2011:  National Stakeholder Survey released

Canadian Apprenticeship Forum reports

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What Stresses You Out?

In 2010, about 27 percent of working adults, roughly 3.7 million people, described their lives on most days as 'quite a bit' or 'extremely' stressful, meaning that they went through a regular day feeling a high level of stress.  Another 46 percent said they were 'a bit' stressed.

About 62 percent of those highly stressed workers, mostly men aged 35 to 49, identified work as the main source of their stress. These individuals were generally well-educated and were employed in white-collar occupations. They also reported household incomes of $100,000 or more. Women accounted for two-thirds of highly stressed workers who identified family as their main source of stress.

Canadian Social Trends, Statistics Canada, October 13, 2011: "What's stressing the stressed? Main sources of stress among workers"(10 pages, PDF)

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How’s Life? Do you Like Your Job? ...

A new OECD publication How’s Life? looks at these questions and others, offering a comprehensive picture of what makes up people’s lives in 40 countries worldwide. The report assesses 11 specific aspects of life – ranging from income, jobs and housing to health, education and the environment – as part of the OECD’s ongoing effort to devise new measures for assessing well-being that go beyond Gross Domestic Product.

OECD, October 2011: How’s Life, Measuring Well-being lots of links to follow up here

Create your Better Life Index

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Worsening Youth Employment Crisis

“The report presents the latest global and regional labour market trends for youth and examines whether or not the situation that young people face in the labour market has improved or worsened over the year and a half since the release of the special edition of the Global Employment Trends for Youth, August 2010 on the impact of the economic crisis. 
One year later, with an environment of growing uncertainty in the economic recovery and stalled recovery in the job market, the report draws the unfortunate conclusion that the situation facing youth in the labour market has not improved and that prospects for the future are not much better.”

ILO, October  19, 2011: Global Employment Trends for Youth: 2011 update (17 pages, PDF)

ILO Press release, October 19, 2011: ILO warns of a generation “scarred” by a worsening global youth employment crisis: The International Labour Organization (ILO) has warned of a “scarred” generation of young workers facing a dangerous mix of high unemployment, increased inactivity and precarious work in developed countries, as well as persistently high working poverty in the developing world.

Macleans.ca, On Campus, October 18th, 2011: Why our leaders shouldn't dismiss the Occupy Movement, By Jacob Serebrin

Montreal Gazette, October 19, 2011: Behind Occupy Montreal: an absence of jobs, and thus of hope By L. Ian MacDonald, Special to The Gazette October 19, 2011 12:21 PM

Huff Post, October 19, 2011: Global Jobs Crisis Takes Biggest Toll On Struggling Youth

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Trade Unions and the Global Crisis: Labour’s Visions, Strategies and Responses

The essays here, by trade unionists and academics from around the world, explore the state of labour in Brazil, China, Nepal, South Africa, Turkey, North America and Europe. The authors offer a rich range of short-term strategies and actions, medium- and long-term policies, and alternative visions that challenge the current development paradigm. This book makes a stimulating contribution to the continuing debate on labour’s role as an economic, political and social force in building a more democratic and just society.

ILO, September30, 2011: Trade Unions and the Global Crisis: Labour’s Visions, Strategies and Responses (304 pages)

ILO Press release, September 30, 2011

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Book of the Week

So You Want To Be a Professor?: How to Succeed in Academia, by Peter C. Hughes and Roderick C. Tennyson. [S.l. : s.n.], 2010. 344 p. ISBN 9781456405328

If the prospect of being a professor seems interesting, this book is for you. If you have already committed yourself to an academic career, then find out what options are available to you now, before time runs out! This book is a primer on how to succeed in this challenging — yet rewarding — vocation. The following target audiences will discover the fascinating world inhabited by professors, and for those already in the profession, a multitude of career options that are available to you: graduates, contingency faculty, new tenure-track professors, newly tenured professors, and mature tenured professors. This book first describes the range of academic careers, their opportunities and pitfalls, including the concept of tenure, the long sought goal of most aspiring academics. One of the benefits to an undergraduate reader is an opportunity to get inside the world of the academic and examine the many different career paths that are available, once the tenure hurd! le is overcome. This book also includes much advice from detailed interviews with other academics who have achieved ‘stardom’ as leaders, scholars, researchers, entrepreneurs and teachers. Among our interviewees are the presidents of four leading universities (two American, two Canadian). Importantly, the authors and most of the interviewees have, in addition to their academic achievements, substantial experience in the public sector and private business; they can see from the outside as well as from the inside. Still, not all of such pre-tenure counsel has the professor as client. Much of the pre-tenure advice, on the contrary, is based instead on what the university wants. While not suggesting that an employee who wishes to pursue a successful career should aim to do the opposite of what his or her employer prefers, it would equally be folly to suggest that the employer’s interests and the employee’s interests are identical! In contrast with the pr! e-tenurial context, what one should do post-tenure is more mysterious. It is less written about (from the professor’s viewpoint); less discussed; less codified; more based on cryptic insinuations, private discussions with mentors, and just plain guesswork — hardly a solid framework within which to plan a successful career. There is much more to consider, as we shall see. Thus this book then assists with the post-tenure career period — hardly a brief interlude, more like virtually all one’s life as an academic and most of one’s life on Earth. For academics to treat their post-tenure professional life as a black art is simply not acceptable. We see the achievement of tenure as the grand (creaking?) opening of very large, very heavy doors, revealing an exciting post-tenure world beyond. As for the “black art,” effectively equivalent to ignorance, we hope to shed light on the many exciting possibilities that can bloom in the post-tenure world; to broaden the options seriously available; and to suggest stra! tegies for choosing and pursuing these options. The authors recognize that in most North American universities there exists a two-tier academic system: those on a path to tenure, and those hired on contingency contracts (non-tenure stream). It is important to the graduate student contemplating an academic career to realize that, unlike his professors who are close to retirement, tenure stream appointments are no longer the norm and are becoming less frequent. However, this book will still be of value to contingency faculty, virtually all of whom aspire to tenure stream appointments. The authors’ objectives for this book include the following: Help readers gain a better insight into the world of academe; Define issues relevant to choosing an academic career and provide guidance in reflecting on these issues; Assist other professors to broaden their perspectives; and, most of all, Help our fellow academics to plan their careers.

Visit the Recent Books at the CIRHR Library blog.

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Questions or comments: cirhr.library@utoronto.ca

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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