Government withholds secret report on farm worker injury insurance

Last week, the Journal of Workplace Rights published an article I wrote entitled “'Fortis et Liber’ unless you are a farm worker: Workers’ compensation exceptionalism in Alberta, Canada.” The article is open access so you can download the full text from the link above.

The gist of the article is that farm workers and firefighters have a lot in common in terms of workplace injuries. Neither group can refuse unsafe work (for different reasons). Both groups have a heightened incidence of occupational cancers.

Yet, while firefighters have exceptionally good access to workers’ compensation (including presumptive status for many forms of cancer), farm workers have effectively no access. The article goes on to suggest Alberta’s conservative government is excluding farm workers to curry political favour among rural voters.

On a related note, last fall Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development put out a call for proposals for a study on the types of levels of farm worker injury insurance currently in use in Alberta. The risk associated with (possibly) low levels of liability insurance, according to the request for proposals, is that “many farm businesses may be at significant financial risk without really knowing it.”

The study (which was concluded early this spring) was designed to investigate various insurance products available to Alberta farmers (including private insurance offerings), quantify the level of use and reporting requirements, and compare the top three private offerings to the (public) WCB offering. Sounds interesting! The government has a history of sitting on farm safety reports so I FOIPped it to see if I could jolly along the release.

Last week, I got notice that, after a delay to allow third-party consultation, the government has decided to deny my request to see this (now) “secret report”. There is no real explanation for the denial, just sections of the FOIP Act (harmful to business interests, invasion of third party privacy, a slew of “might embarrass or pre-emptively disclose government intentions” sections).

I’m going to appeal the government’s decision to keep this taxpayer-funded report a secret. I sure do wonder what this secret report might contain! If someone wants to post me a copy on the QT, my mailing address 10303 138th Street, Edmonton T5N2J2.

-- Bob Barnetson

Friday Tunes: Boss Man

This week’s installment of labour themes in popular culture is Gordon Lightfoot’s Boss Man. I thought I knew all of Lightfoot’s songs but this one was new on me. Lightfoot writes this song from a miner to his boss, but its no love song!

Boss Man Boss Man what do ya say
Gonna get you alone in the mine some day
Push your face down in the coal
'Cause you got no heart you got no soul

The miner’s anger stems from the constant tension he feels between his needs and the demands of the boss. The boss, likely responding to the profit imperative of capitalism, is only too happy to exploit the miner’s need to commodify his labour in order to access the necessities of life.

Holes in my pockets and holes in my shoes
If you're ready for me I'm ready for you
The company plan takes all my pay
Got a child in July and another last May

It is easy to dismiss Lightfoot’s lyrics about the undercurrent of violence in the workplace as hyperbole or from another time. Yet the threat of co-worker violence exists in all workplaces. When I worked at the Labour Board, I was surprised how forthright workers sometimes were about the power they could derive from the threat of violence.

I remember one day some workers explaining how they weren’t worried about retaliation for a union drive because “if the foreman did that, we’d kick the shit out of him behind the trailer.” Which is pretty much exactly what the supervisor said later on. At the time, I dismissed this as an aberration (I saw a lot of crazy shit at the Labour Board). Yet have a look at the spread of draconian workplace violence policies, wherein even the hint of violence brings immediate termination. 

That tells you employers fear violence.

Often such policies are couched in terms of mitigating the employer’s liability. But, deep down, I suspect employers have done the math about who are the many and who are the few. That’s why private security shows up whenever there are layoffs and the threat of getting fired for punching out your boss no longer holds much power.




Boss Man Boss Man what do ya say
I gotta get you alone in the mine some day
Boss Man Boss Man turn it around
If you don't look away how can I sit down

Look at this load upon my back
Gotta get this wheel back on the track
I can't hold on but I can't let go
And I can't say yes I can't say 'no'

Holes in my pockets and holes in my shoes
If you're ready for me I'm ready for you
The company plan takes all my pay
Got a child in July and another last May

Boss Man Boss Man what do ya say
Gonna get you alone in the mine some day
Push your face down in the coal
'Cause you got no heart you got no soul

Country life's the life for me
In ten more years I'll a pensioner be
The younger lad knows when the girls are out
But you might say he's a rural sprout

Boss Man Boss Man what do ya say
Gonna get you alone in the mine some day
Boss Man Boss Man clear the track
You're gonna tear the skin right offa my back

Boss Man, Boss Man what do ya say
If you can't lend a hand then get outta my way
It'll be murder in the first degree
If you ever lay your hands on me

Boss Man Boss Man pay my rent
A dollar I've earned is a dollar I've spent
The company plan takes all my check
For breakin' my back and riskin' my neck

Boss Man Boss Man what do ya say
I gotta get you alone in the mine some day
I can't hold on but I can't let go
And I can't say yes I can't say 'no'

-- Bob Barnetson

April 28: Day of Mourning

The International Day of Mourning for workers injured and killed on the job is Tuesday, April 28th. In Edmonton, there will be a ceremony and reception at Grant Notley Park from 4-6 pm. It looks like there were about 120 fatalities accepted by the WCB in 2014, down slightly from 2013.

Among the dead (but not counted in the statistics above) are farm workers. Farm workers are left  out because Alberta excludes farm workers from most workplace rights (e.g., occupational health and safety, workers’ compensation) thus their deaths are not recorded in WCB stats. 

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has released preliminary stats for 2015, noting the OCHE investigated 25 farming fatalities. It is unclear how comprehensive this list is. The absence of deaths due to occupational disease suggest not every death is captured in this list. And, of course, deaths represent only a small fraction of all injuries (if you toss in minor injuries and occupational disease, deaths represent perhaps a few as one in 3000 injuries).

Of these 25 deaths, 15 were owner operators and 5 were employees. Two were under 18. These deaths are not broken out by work-related or non-work-related. Machinery, animals, falls, struck/crush injuries and MVA lead the way in terms of cause.

On a related note, last weekend the Alberta Federation of Labour held its annual convention in Calgary. Among the motions were ones directing the AFL to file a complaint about the statutory exclusion of farm workers with the International Labour Organization as well as under the North American Free Trade Agreement. More interest was a motion to set up a compensation fund for the families of farm workers killed on the job.

Edit: I'm now told none of the farm worker motions were voted on at the AFL convention due to lack of time.

-- Bob Barnetson

Friday Tunes: We Are The Many

This week’s installment of labour these in popular culture is Makana’s We are the Many, a song that became popular during the occupy movement. While it is tempting to dismiss the occupy movement, the discussion of the 1% and the 99% recurs with surprising frequency and injects an unexpected (and perhaps sometimes unconscious) class critique into everyday discourse.

The song talks about exploitation and wages (“to steal from us the value of our wage”) and the growing hopeless of the waged class (“Our nation was built upon the right/Of every person to improve their plight”). The more important theme, though, is how growing corporate influence over the state sits uneasily with (or in opposition to) the basic premise of political democracy and, over time, undermine the legitimacy of the state.

You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none

The notion that contemporary economic and political systems lack legitimacy is a potentially explosive one because society is basically a shared social construction. We all agree to be bound by certain rules and conventions and norms (e.g., currency has value, possessions can be owned, we ought not to kill the rich). Until, one day, we don't agree to that any more. Then all bets are off and numbers (e.g., 99 v 1) suddenly count.

One of the more interesting experiences of working with workers is the moment they realize that, while employers have immense power, employers are also out numbered and vulnerable to (and are indeed scared by) collective action. This is the point that the song ends on: “We are the many/You are the few.”



Ye come here, gather 'round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who've trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage

From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won't withdraw

[chorus]
We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight

They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free

[chorus]

You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none

So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest

[chorus]

You can't divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can't buy

Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail

[chorus]

[chorus]

We are the many
You are the few

-- Bob Barnetson

Research: Construction of migrant work and migrant workers

The journal Canadian Ethnic Studies recently published a paper written by my colleague Jason Foster and me entitled “The construction of migrant work and workers by Alberta legislators, 2000-2011”. Basically, we analyzed statements made in the legislature by Tory MLAs about migrant workers and migrant work.

What we found were two contradictory view. Migrant work was generally framed positively, with government MLAs asserting it was economically necessary and posed no threat to Canadian workers. By contrast, government MLAs asserted that international migrant workers had questionable occupational, linguistic or cultural skills and caused negative social and economic impacts in Canada.

Essentially, Tory MLAs asserted migrant work is good but migrant workers are bad. Taken individually, these narratives appear contradictory. Viewed together, however, these narratives can be understood as an effort to dehumanize temporary and permanent international migrant workers. This “othering” of migrant workers justifies migrant workers’ partial citizenship and suppresses criticism of their poor treatment.

-- Bob Barnetson

Friday Tunes: JCB

This week’s installment of labour themes in popular culture is Nizlopi’s "JCB". The song is written from the perspective of a young boy travelling with his dad in his JCB (a “front-end loader” in Canada). I picked it because it speaks to the role that parents play in exposing their children to work.

In the song, the singer is recollecting how much he enjoyed spending the day with his father and away from school. Such an opportunity is relatively rare today. But the strict segregation of kids into age-stratified cohorts where learning occurs with little interaction with the real world is (historically speaking) a recent phenomenon.

I recall spending six weeks on the road with my dad (who collected hydrometric data for Water Survey Canada) during the teacher strike of 1980. Seeing what he actually did for a living while he was “on the road” (and driving through the ash cloud from the Mount St Helen’s eruption) made a powerful impression.

Thirty-five years later, the compromises (e.g., hours of work and safety) that necessary for him to complete his job at remote worksites also helps ground my academic study of work. The picture above is a cable-way: you ride in the car out over the river to do flow rate calculations. This is a pretty tame example—the ones I recall from southern Alberta were way, way, waaaaay higher up, there was no safety harness and usually they were working alone long before there were cell phones!



Well I'm rumbling in this JCB,
I'm 5 years old and my dad's a giant,
Sitting beside me,

And the engine rattles my bum like bazzerk,
While we're singing,
Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work.

And my dad's probably had a bloody hard day,
But he's been good fun and bubblin and joking away,
And the procession of cars stuck behind,
Are getting more impatient and angry but we don't mind.

And we're holding up the bypass,
Oh-oh,
We and my dad havin' a top laugh
Oh-oh-oh,
And I'm sitting on the tool box,
Oh-oh,
And I'm so glad I'm not in school boss,
So glad I'm not in school,
Oh no-oo.

And we pull over to let cars past,
And pull off again speeding by this summer green grass,
And we're like giants up here in our big yello digger,
Like zoids or transformers or maybe even bigger,
I wanna transform into a Tyrannosaurus Rex,
And eat up all the bullies and the teachers and their pets,
And I'll tell all my mates,
My dad's B.A.Baracus,
Only with a JCB, and Bruce Lee's numchuckers...

And we're holding up the bypass,
Oh-oh,
me and my dad having a top laugh,
Oh-oh-oh,
And I'm sitting on the tool box,
Oh-oh,
And I'm so glad I'm not in school boss,
So glad I'm not in school,
Oh no.

And we're holding up the bypass,
Oh-oh,
me and my dad having a top laugh,
Oh-oh-oh,
And I'm sitting on the tool box,
Oh-oh,
And I'm so glad I'm not in school boss,
So glad I'm not in school,
Oh no.

Said I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around-

And we're holding up the bypass,
Oh-oh,
Me and my dad having a top laugh,
Oh-oh-oh,
And I'm sitting on the toolbox,
Oh-oh,
And I'm so glad I'm not in school boss,
So glad I'm not in school,
Oh no.

Said I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB,
I'm Luke I'm 5 and my dad's Bruce Lee,
Drives me around in his JCB.

-- Bob Barnetson

Research: Union responses to migrant workers

My colleague Jason Foster has just co-authored a new article in Work, Employment and Society entitled “The dynamics of union responses to migrant workers in Canada.” It examines how five unions in Alberta responded to the influx of temporary foreign workers (TFWs) beginning in the mid-2000s.

Unions were found to (variously) resist the use of TFWs, facilitate employer efforts to hire them, or actively engage with TFWs and their specific issues. An important lesson from the article is that union responses entail trade-offs. For example, actively engaging TFW issues may be an effective way to engage TFWs, but runs the risk of angering the employer and potentially triggering employer responses in other areas of the relationship. The article also usefully engages the relationship between unions’ responses to TFWs (which changed over time) and the union’s self-identity.

-- Bob Barnetson

Friday Tunes: Bells of Rhymney

This week’s installment of labour themes in pop culture is the Bells of Rhymney (“Rum-ney"). Various artists (include Cher and the Byrds) seem to fiddle the lyrics to suit them so I have reprised the original Welsh poem (“Gwalia Deserta XV”) from which they were drawn below. This Oysterband version is a bit muddy but seems a bit more authentic than the vocally crisper John Denver version.

This song’s lyrics were inspired by a coal-mining disaster and a 1926 British general strike over wages and working conditions in the coal mines. The song touches on the unfettered exploitation of miners, also seen in eastern Canada:

Who made the mineowner?
And who robbed the miner?
They will plunder willy-nilly,
They have fangs, they have teeth

Part of the song’s charm is its structural parody of “Oranges and Lemons” and the jaunty music juxtaposed with the rather dark lyrics.



O what can you give me?
Say the sad bells of Rhymney.

Is there hope for the future?
Cry the brown bells of Merthyr.

Who made the mineowner?
Say the black bells of Rhondda.

And who robbed the miner?
Cry the grim bells of Blaina.

They will plunder willy-nilly,
Say the bells of Caerphilly.

They have fangs, they have teeth
Shout the loud bells of Neath.

To the south, things are sullen,
Say the pink bells of Brecon.

Even God is uneasy,
Say the moist bells of Swansea.

Put the vandals in court
Cry the bells of Newport.

All would be well if — if — if —
Say the green bells of Cardiff.

Why so worried, sisters, why
Sing the silver bells of Wye.

-- Bob Barnetson