Climate change and safety: treeplanters and wildfire smoke

A few weeks back, the Tyee ran a story on the effect of increasing levels of wildfire smoke on tree planter OHS. This story is interesting because it looks at the effect of climate change on worker safety.

There are several reasons why this particular hazard and worker group are worth examining:

• Intensity of exposure: Tree planters often work in close proximity to wildfires and their work is physically demanding (increasing respiration and heart rate). Consequently, they are likely to have one of the highest intensities of exposure to wildfire smoke.
• Duration of exposure: In addition to long working days, most tree planters live in camps (e.g., tents) and lack any respite from the smoke in their off hours. This means these workers have a much longer duration of exposure than, say, a worker who might face dust in the workplace but then go home to clean air at the end of the day.
• Lack of specific controls or OELs: There are no specific occupational exposure limits (OELs) for wildfire smoke and general OELs for dust were not designed with wildfire smoke (which has very tiny particles) in mind.
• Latency: Injuries due to inhalation often have long latency periods and murky causality, thus the link between the work exposure and the ill-health can be hard to see.
• Proxy for nonworkers: The exposures experienced by tree planters can be useful in predicting larger population effects caused by increased wildfire effects (essentially the dangerous working conditions experienced by these workers create a natural experiment).
• Compliance: PPE slows tree planting work. Tree planters are generally paid on piece-rate basis. This pay structure basically forces tree planters to trade off their own health against their need to earn an adequate income and almost certainly reduces compliance. Contractors also have production targets, which means they too have an incentive to trade worker safety for profit.

A notable take-away from the article is the complete lack of a regulatory response to the risk posed by wildfire smoke. WorkSafeBC acknowledges the risk but can’t be arsed to issue any directives. Alberta’s OHS minister couldn’t even be bothered to respond to the reporter. This likely reflects regulatory capture of regulators by the forestry industry.

By contrast, Oregon and California require air quality monitoring and the availability of respirators when air quality gets to a specific point. This doesn’t mean these controls are adequate, but they are at least something.

-- Bob Barnetson

Podcast: Vriend 25 Years On

The Well Endowed Podcast is publishing a series on the 25th Anniversary of the Vriend decision. While sexual orientation had been deemed an analogous ground under s.15 of the Charter, Alberta had refused to include sexual orientation as a prohibited ground in its human rights legislation. This permitted discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by private actors. In Vriend, the Supreme Court found that this exclusion offended the Charter and should be read into human rights legislation.

Vriend was ground-breaking litigation and this multi-part podcast begins by examining how Canada and Alberta treated members of the LGBTQ2+ community in the decades leading up to 1991 (when Vriend was fire by an Alberta college because of his sexual orientation). The degree of discrimination faced by the LGBTQ2+ detailed in the first episode is, frankly, shocking.

This decision has had significant impacts for labour relations, including the Charter, human rights, immigration, and sex work.

-- Bob Barnetson

The Porter on CBC

CBC has an interesting new series on called The Porter. It is set in the 1920s (in Montreal, mostly) and follows a group of Black railway porters who seek to unionize. The result is the world’s first Black union.

I’m two episodes in and quite enjoying it. There is a pretty readable introduction to this topic available here.

 

-- Bob Barnetson

Trucker shortages about jobs quality, not worker shortage

Time magazine recently ran a short analysis of the cause of America’s shortage of truck drivers. Presently, supply chain shortages are compromising Christmas shopping (Bob clutches pearls) and, according to employers and the government, the key factor is a lack of qualified truck drivers. This same narrative operates in Alberta and has been met with truck driver-training initiatives by the province.

What is interesting, according to the article, is that there is no shortage of people qualified to drive big rigs or interested in the doing so. In fact, the labour market is so flooded, employers are able to pick and choose who to hire. Naturally, employers use this loose labour market to grind wages and working condition.

Not surprising, the quality of the jobs on offer  is so poor that people quit. Annual turnover in big US trucking firms is an astounding 92%. The poor quality of jobs was triggered by the de-regulation of American trucking in the 1980s (thanks Reagan!).

I have not seen a similar study in Alberta. What I hear anecdotally is that the difficult nature of the job and low wages makes them unattractive jobs. Further, employers are often reluctant to hire new drivers (especially young ones) because of the high insurance costs associated with such drivers.

Spending tax dollars to train more drivers effectively subsidizes employer’s poor working conditions without necessarily improving the employment prospects of Albertans. Since the UCP has largely given up on evidence-based decision making and instead just shovels subsidies at their donor base (perhaps leavened with loosening the rules around hiring temporary foreign workers), I doubt we’ll see any change in this approach soon.

-- Bob Barnetson

Early Chinese worker militancy in BC

The autumn issue of Our Times magazine contained a very interesting examination of early Chinese worker militancy in BC, written by Winnie Ng. The article traces the history of these workers from 1881 to 1947.

Ng documents several instances of militancy among these workers, including a strike to protest and resist head tax collection in Victoria in 1878, efforts to reduce working hours and improve wages in laundries in 1906 and kitchens in 1907 and the formation of various Chinese unions.

Of particular interest is Ng’s discussion of co-operation between Chinese and White shingle-worker unions. Employers used Chinese workers to suppress wages and the more privileged white workers recognized in 1917 that they needed the support of Chinese workers to make progress. Ng’s translation of Chinese-language newspaper coverage demonstrates the savvy of the Chinese workers. Several strikes ensued to resist wage rollbacks and increase compensation.

Ng also chronicles Chinese workers mobilizing against racist relief programs during the Great Depression. This history challenges conventional historical views about Chinese workers as docile and strikebreakers. Overall, this is a very good read, particularly for students in LBST 325.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Always Brave, Sometimes Kind

I received a recent (2020) novel for Christmas entitled Always Brave, Sometimes Kind that was written by Katie Bickell. The novel is essentially a collection of loosely related short stories that follows a group of people who live in and around Edmonton between 1990 and 2016. All of the characters have what might be described as rough lives, often made worse by the political economy of Alberta.

There are four stories with a clear labour-related element to them. The first story is set against the backdrop of the laundry workers' strike of 1995 and the Klein cuts to the health care and income support systems. Health-care workers struggle to deliver care, the social services system is falling apart (which particularly affects Indigenous characters), and a social worker is laid off.  Overall, an emotionally difficult story to read if you lived through the era.

Later, we meet a social studies teacher who is grappling with the effects of Klein's budget cuts and unfulfilled promises (circa 2002). There is mention of the teacher's strike and frustrations that it left classroom teachers with. I won't spoil the story for you, but he eventually exits the professional and makes ends meet rather creatively. This very much reminds me of my buddy Rob who was an elementary teacher. After getting three layoff notices in successive years and less and less support to deal with increasing classroom challenges, he eventually quit in frustration. The author really captures public-sector despair of the late Klein years.

One of the characters is a camp worker in Fort McMurray who does the long commute back to Sherwood Park (I think). In a pair of related stories, we see the stress that this approach to staffing extraction industries places on marriages and families.

Finally, there is a story set in a hospital where one of the characters encounters one of the many temporary foreign workers recruited to Alberta to work in the service industry during the 2006-2012 period. While the character is not particularly sympathetic to these workers, the author writes the scene in a way that quietly highlights the challenges faced by these workers.

Overall, this was a challenging book to read because of how difficult the lives of the characters were to read about. The author really captures how lower- and middle-class Albertans have struggled, even during boom times, to keep their lives and families together. It wasn't until the last quarter of the book, as the stories start to knit together and multi-generational problems begin to resolve, that started enjoying the book and began to appreciate the gritty earlier stories.  Overall, an interesting window into the recent past.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Tillsonburg

Over the holidays, I heard a Stompin’ Tom Connors song called Tillsonburg. Tillsonburg is a town located just southeast of London, Ontario and was once a centre of tobacco production. The song recounts the experience of a worker recruited for field work.

This song shines some light on why Canada continue to operate programs bringing migrant agricultural workers to Canada (now focused more on vegetable and fruit production). Essentially, workers who have options, aren't prepared to work and live in the conditions offered by agricultural operators.

While a way down in Southern Ontario
I never had a nickel or a dime to show
A fella beeped up in an automobile he said "Do you want to work in the tobacco fields of Tillsonburg?" (Tillsonburg x3)
My back still aches when I hear that word

He said "I'll only give you seven bucks a day" but if you're any good you'll get a raise in pay
Your bed's all ready on the bunkhouse floor if it gets a little chilly you can close the door

Tillsonburg (Tillsonburg x3) my back still aches when I hear that word

I'm feelin' in the morning anything but fine
The farmer said "i'm going to teach you how to brane"
He said "You'll have to dawn up a pair of oil skin pants" if you want to work in the tobacco plants of Tillsonburg (Tillsonburg x3)
My back still aches when I hear that word

Well we landed in a field that was long and wide with one whole horse and five more guys
I asked him where to find the cigarette trees
When he said "Bend over" I was ready to leave
Tillsonburg (Tillsonburg x3)
My back still aches when I hear that word

He said to pick just the bottom leaves
Don't start crawlin' on your hands and knees
Prime your load cause you'll get no pay
For standin' there pickin' at your nose all day around Tillsonburg
(Tillsonburg x3)
My back still aches when I hear that word

With a broken back from bendin' over there
I was wet right through to the underwear
And it was stuck to my skin like glue
From the nicotine tar on the morning dew of
Tillsonburg (Tillsonburg x3)
My back still aches when I hear that word

Now the nearest river was two miles from
The place where they was waitin' for the boat to come
When I heard some talk of makin' the kill
I was down the highway and over the hill from
Tillsonburg (Tillsonburg x3)
My back still aches that word

Now there is one thing you can always bet
If I never smoke another cigarette
I might get taken in a lot of deals
But I won't go workin' the tobacco fields of
Tillsonburg (Tillsonburg x2)

My back still aches when I hear that word (x3)

-- Bob Barnetson

Research: Trajectories of union renewal: Migrant workers and the revitalization of union solidarity in Saskatchewan

A recent issue of Labour/Le Travail contained a study examining the intersection of migrant workers and union renewal in Saskatchewan. This research note extends our knowledge of Canadian union’s responses to migrant workers through a survey and interview of migrant workers, Canadian workers, and union staff.

The study provides an interesting comparison of the attitudes of migrants and Canadian workers on various issues. There were interesting points of agreement in the survey results. Both groups strongly supported unionization and the belief that unions make workers’ lives better. There were also points of disagreement. For example, Canadians are more likely than migrants to believe migrants lower wages and take jobs from Canadians.

This is an interesting point of contention that might warrant some unpacking. Off the cuff, I would have said employers seek out migrant workers to fill jobs that Canadians will not take (given prevailing wages and working conditions). In this way, migrant workers do lower Canadian workers’ bargaining power by loosening the labour market. But perhaps I'm out to lunch here. And whether this plays out as wage reductions and/or worker displacement is probably complex, with unionization possibly attenuating (or exacerbating) these issues due to reduced employer flexibility around wages rates.

The qualitative results suggest that Saskatchewan unions (in general) have not responded effectively to the experiences or needs of migrant workers. Author Andrew Stevens suggests that unions may find a pathway towards membership renewal by understanding and taking action on the interests of migrant workers. Overall, this was a very interesting article.

-- Bob Barnetson

Research: Interjurisdictional employment in Canada, 2002-2016

Researchers at Memorial University has issued a new report analyzing tax data on inter-jurisdictional employment in Canada between 2002 and 2016. There were approximately 409,000 Canadians who worked outside of their home jurisdiction in 2016. In this study, a jurisdiction is a province or a territory (due to the granularity of the data available).

Men represented an average of 62% of interjurisdictional workers, and around 45% of such workers were between the ages of 25 and 44. The second largest group swing from 18- to 24-year-olds pre-2008 to 45 and older workers afterward.

The top industries in which inter-jurisdictional employment occurred were health care and construction (this varied over time and by jurisdiction). Ontario and Alberta were among the jurisdictions most likely to receive interjurisdictional workers.

Atlantic Canada, Manitoba and Saskatchewan were consistent sending jurisdictions. Atlantic Canadian provinces saw significant volatility in the number of workers sent over time. Approximately, 8% of aggregate earnings in Newfoundland and Labrador were from interjurisdictional employment.

This broadly accords with (but helpfully expands) other research on interprovincial labour mobility. The growth in interprovincial labour mobility suggests that disruptions (e.g., COVID, economic downturn) may be more acutely felt in sending regions. The return of mobile workers to their home provinces and territories during downturns may also muddy provincial unemployment data, depending upon where workers claim their EI.

-- Bob Barnetson

New course: LBST 325: Labour mobility and migrant workers

 

Athabasca University has opened a new online course.

LBST 325: Labour Mobility and Migrant Workers examines various forms of labour mobility and how they affect workers, their families, and the sending and receiving communities.

The course draws upon research done by scholars associated with a recently concluded SSHRC grant (On the Move) with an emphasis on labour mobiilty in western Canada.

-- Bob Barnetson

COVID and mobile work

A few years ago, I was a bit player in a pan-Canadian study of mobile work. One of the researchers in the study was Sara Dorow (University of Alberta). Dorow’s research included looking at the experiences of camp workers, including fly-in fly-out (FIFO) workers in Fort McMurray.

Dorow has revisited some that work in light of COVID-19 and the outbreak that started at the Kearl Lake worker camp. More than 100 cases have been traced back to this camp. About a quarter of the cases are in other provinces.

Her recent blog post makes a number of interesting points, including:

• COVID is just one of the hazards associated with FIFO work.
• The structure of camp life plays a significant role in how serious these hazards are.
• The close contact of camp life is a factor in outbreaks in others industries, such as meat packing and long-term care.

More broadly, Dorow notes that some workers' mobility results in immobility for other workers, These include those who must remain at home to manage in the mobile workers’ absences and the camp staff, who are often temporary foreign workers.

-- Bob Barnetson

Census data on commuting

Statistics Canada has provided some analysis around commuting in several of Canada’s larger urban centres—comparing commuting in the 1996 and 2016 censuses. Commuting is one form of labour mobility that we’ll be addressing in LBST 325: Labour mobility and migrant workers, when this course opens late in 2020.

Canada-wide, the finding include:

• Jobs have been moving away from city centres.
• Public transit use among traditional commuters (suburb to core) increased.
• Active forms of transportation are increasingly be used by residents within city cores. 

Table 4 shows commuting distances for workers. 

In both, Edmonton and Calgary, commuting distances appear to be increasing. This may reflect both the growth in city size and the dispersal of jobs out of the central core of the city. Public transit use (roughly 25%) and active commuting (about 10%) is highest among those with commutes under 5 km and drops off sharply after that. Public transit use is also highest among traditional commuters and within-core commuters—perhaps reflecting the set up on transit infrastructure.

Interestingly, for both Edmonton and Calgary, the largest category of commuting is commutes over 5km between suburbs (43% and 39% respectively). This is followed by traditional commutes (suburbs to core) at 22% and 30% and commutes of less than 5km within suburbs at 22% and 18%.

-- Bob Barnetson

Research: Return to work among injured mobile workers

The American Journal of Industrial Medicine recently published an interesting article about the intersection between mobile work and return to work following as workplace injury.

The study, “Total disability days in interprovincial and home‐province workers injured in Alberta, Canada,” compared the speed of return to work for 240 pairs of workers (each comprising one worker injured in Alberta and who required time off from work from Alberta and one from Atlantic Canada). This comparison was supplemented by 60 interviews with injured workers.

The overall findings are that mobile workers were less likely to return to work (79%) than resident workers (90%) and required almost three times as long as resident workers to return to work (63 days to 22 days). This likely reflects the importance of family support during a recovery from an injury which took mobile workers away from the jurisdiction in which they were injured.

The study includes a very nicely nuanced conclusion:

The conclusion from this study is not that out‐of‐province workers should necessarily be provided with greater services in Alberta, nor that they should be required to seek health care only in the province of injury. Rather, we would argue that the higher costs for wage replacement associated with extended time off work may be inherent to the practice of employing out‐of‐province workers for jobs for which there is a shortage of local labor. (p.9)

This reflects that labour mobility entails costs, both to employers and workers. Some of these employer costs can be attenuated through policy changes. Others either should not be attenuated because of the impact such changes would have on the more vulnerable party (the worker).

-- Bob Barnetson

Superstore: Unions and Undocumented Workers

In late May, the TV show Superstore wrapped up another season. I’ve written about Superstore before because they had a very interesting union storyline a few years back as well as some hilarious staff training videos.

This finale had a three-episode story arc. Cloud 9’s corporate office grinds workers’ hours which leads store management to publish photos of the gross effects on store cleanliness in order to get more hours. This leads to a disciplinary investigation and the firing of a worker (meek weirdo Sandra). Sandra then becomes a union stalwart and starts organizing. Cloud 9 then targets the store for closure.



There are three really interesting moments in the final two episodes:

1. There is a depiction of a union organizing meeting. Although the meeting is played for laughs, this is the first mainstream depiction of a union organizing meeting that I can recall on TV.

2. During the meeting, one employee argues against organizing by highlighting how vulnerable the workers are and maybe they should just be happy with the pittance they have. This part of the meeting is played straight and it has the effect you would expect on the union drive.



3. A part of its union-busting, Cloud 9 contacts ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) to raid its own store. This is expected to be disruptive to the workers’ solidarity as well as terrify them. This is where the episode takes a dark, dark turn for undocumented worker Mateo.



Interestingly, the ICE raid seems to solidify support for the union. We’ll have to wait until the fall to see how this plotline plays out. But this story line returns Superstore towards the kind of critical comedy that we saw in shows like Archie Bunker.

-- Bob Barnetson

On the Move: Stories of Mobile Work

One of the long-term research projects I’ve been involved with is the On the Move partnership, which examines economic-related geographic mobility (ERGM). The project is wrapping up and two new knowledge translation activities have recently rolled out.

The first is another episode of Ideas on CBC radio. This episode reports some of the findings of the series and the link includes other episodes of Ideas that have covered the project. These include the experiences of young migrant workers in Banff and live-in caregivers in Fort McMurray and the impact of the wildfire.

The second is a set of stories produced by the Alberta team which captures the stories of migrant workers in Alberta. There are stories of Indigenous, interprovincial, and international migration. My own work has mostly been with international workers and the stories (which are composites) reflect that:

• Carlos: A Gautemalan temporary foreign worker in the meatpacking industry who transitions to permanent residency.
• Anong: A Thai worker comes to Canada and experiencing human trafficking.
• Eugene: A Ukrainian migrant worker who stays on after his work permit expires and becomes undocumented.
• Gabriela: A Mexican agricultural worker struggles to assert her reproductive rights on a mushroom farm.
• Ashok: An Indian migrant worker struggles to work and live in rural Alberta.
• Reyna: A Filipina caregiver flees the Fort McMurray wildfire and sees her dreams of family reunification put on hold. 

These stories highlight the exploitation and vulnerability of migrant workers. It is not that they lack agency or understanding, but they are trapped within profoundly exploitative immigration regimes. These stories will be included as learning elements in a new course I'm writing, LBST 325: Mobile work and migrant workers.

-- Bob Barnetson