This report examines how, in a time when workers’ Charter-protected associational rights appear to be expanding, the rate at which governments interfere with collective bargaining has skyrocketed.
It specifically looks at Alberta’s ongoing use of secret bargaining mandates, which turn public-sector bargaining into a hollow and fettered process.
This report is relevant because both UNA and AUPE have exchanged opening proposals with the government in the last few weeks and will be bargaining against secret mandates. The government opener in both cases was, unsurprisingly, identical and there is a huge gap between what workers are asking for and what the government is offering.
In November, Andrew Stevens and Angele Poirier released a report that examined the union effect on wages and benefits across Canada to 2022, with the data for Saskatchewan also broken out.
Nationally, unionized workers earned an average of 11% more than non-unionized workers. There was significant provincial, gender, age, and sectoral variation. The union advantage appeared particularly pronounced for workers aged 15 to 24 (+26%) and part-time workers (+41%).
Unionized workers were also more likely to have paid sick time (80% versus 555 for nonunionized). Unionized workers were also much more likely to have employment-related pension plans (825 versus 37%) as well as other supplementary benefits.
Interestingly, non-unionized workers experienced slightly higher wage increases between 2020 and 2022. This might reflect pressure on non-union employers to improve wages in order to attract and retain staff (i.e., is a union spill-over effect). It might also reflect that union contracts (which fix compensation for a period of time) may delay increases (e.g., inflationary bumps) or unionized workers (who are very often in the public sector) may have been subject to mandated wage freezes and rollbacks by the state.
The journal Labour/Le Travail recently published a very interesting case study about the experiences of workers at Casino Windsor. You can read the full text of the article here.
Casinos are often mooted as tools of economic diversification, providing relatively high-waged service industry jobs. This was a part of the back story of the opening of Casino Windsor and, initially, the casino did provide good jobs, particularly to women. Over time, though, economic pressure resulted in declining working conditions.
The workers at the casino faced labour immobility due to high unemployment and the absence of comparable wages elsewhere. This dynamic essentially creates a captive labour market, argues author Alissa Mazar, where the workers are stuck in their job. The employer knows this and uses aggressive disciplining to pressurize workers to perform.
Few options and fear of job loss has meant workers have internalizing the need to provide high quality customer service, despite poor treatment. Essentially, they exert discretionary effort in the hope that it will keep their livelihood intact and the employer uses this extra effort to reduce labour costs.
Mazar’s case study raises numerous questions about the value of casinos as economic engines, particularly when the state constraints the number of casinos and thus creates a captive labour force for the employer.
This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Minimum Wage Strike” by David Rovics. The song moots what would happen if minimum-wage workers decided to withhold their labour en masse and, in doing so, highlights how prevalent low-wage work has become.
In 2015, about 300,000 of Alberta's 1.8 million non-managerial workers earn $15 an hour or less. That same year, in some US cities (such as Los Angles), half of workers earn less than $15 per hour. Over time, there has been growing momentum to bring the minimum wage up towards a living wage.
Alberta will hit the $15 target this fall. So far, the job losses catastrophized by conservative politicians and business groups have not materialized. This gives credence to supporters’ assertion that higher minimum wages stimulate the economy because they are almost immediately spent on necessities by low-wage workers.
When I awoke one mornin', there was a feelin' in the air Everything was quiet, things were different everywhere The Wobblies were back again with Joe Hill at the mic When all the minimum wage workers went on strike
There was no one pumpin' gasoline, no one drivin' from town to town
No one at the registers, all the highways were shut down The cars were stuck in the garage, CEOs on bikes When all the minimum wage workers went on strike
There was no one flippin' burgers, all the grills were cold Onion rings were in their bags, fries were growin' mold There were no baristas at Starbucks askin', "How many shots would you like?" When all the minimum wage workers went on strike
The fruit was fallin' off the trees, no one to load the truck Corn was rotting on the stalks, no farmhands to shuck The Workfare workers were hangin' at home, spendin' the day with their tykes When all the minimum wage workers went on strike
Yuppie parents were housebound, their nannies left the job Wal-Mart workers said, "Enough of our labor has been robbed" The Foot Locker was locked up, the boss had to take a hike When all the minimum wage workers went on strike
When I awoke one mornin', there was a feelin' in the air Everything was quiet, things were different everywhere The Wobblies were back again with T-Bone at the mic When all the minimum wage workers went on strike, When all the minimum wage workers went on strike
This week's instalment of Labour & Pop Culture looks at incentive-pay systems as portrayed on the television show The Office. I'm currently revising AU's introductory human resource management course and incentive pay is one of the topics we touch on.
The basic idea, as noted by one of the workers in the sketch, is that the employer wants more production out of the workers without paying them more. So manager Andy sets up a points system whereby workers can win low-value prizes for achieving performance targets.
Incentive-based pay sounds like a good idea, but it is fraught with peril for employers because designing an effective system is tricky. Set rewards too low and they have no effect. Set rewards too high and they can drive all sorts of perverse behaviour, such as increasing quantity at the expense of quality.
The Office does a nice job of noting that the interests of workers and employers conflict in such systems and that workers can, if they work collectively, subvert these systems. This is a good lesson for wannbe managers.
This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture examines employer interference in union organizing efforts. Earlier this week, I wrote about how changes in Alberta’s labour laws are making it harder for employers to interfere with workers deciding whether or not they want to be represented by a union.
An episode of the TV show Superstore examined corporate “union avoidance” campaigns. While I can’t find a free version of the entire episode, the three key scenes about union avoidance are set out below.
Employer discovers union organizing may be occurring and freaks out:
Union-avoidance consultant shows up on job site:
Workers realize employer doesn’t care about them:
While obviously embellished for comedic purposes, this is pretty much how it goes with anti-union employers. The only thing missing was the union organizer getting terminated to put a chill on the campaign.
