Six Worries for Workers This Labour Day

This blog was originally posted on the Parkland Institute blog.

What can Alberta workers expect from a United Conservative Party government over the next four years? The UCP’s first term cheapened labour costs for employers. Its 2023 election platform contained few promises related to labour and employment issues beyond the usual nostrums about low taxes creating jobs. We think workers should watch six issues.

1. Low wages, high unemployment, and Inequity

While the number of jobs in Alberta has increased, more job seekers and layoffs mean Alberta’s unemployment rate remains the fifth highest in Canada. For those with jobs, the purchasing power of their average hourly wage has fallen by 4.95% (or about $3,000 per worker) over the past 10 years. Alberta is only one of three provinces to experience this loss.

By October, Alberta’s minimum wage will be the third lowest in the country while Alberta’s cost of living remains among the highest. The UCP is unlikely to raise the minimum wage from 2018’s $15 per hour. This means inflation will further erode the purchasing power of 11.5% of Alberta workers, the majority of whom are women.

Not surprisingly, Alberta also continues to have the highest gender wage gap in Canada. In July of 2023, Alberta women earned 84 cents for every dollar men earned (averaging $31.52 per hour vs. $37.61 per hour). The UCP is unlikely to address this gap.

2. Illusion of low-cost childcare

Under an agreement with the federal government, the UCP has promised to implement $10 per day childcare by 2026 as well as create 70,000 additional spaces. While childcare fees have declined, $10 per day childcare is likely to be a chimera.

In February, the UCP established a cost-control framework for childcare. Government funding will ensure that “core” childcare is provided for $10 per day. But the UCP is encouraging providers to charge fees for “enhanced” childcare, such as food, activities, playground equipment, and better qualified staff. Providers are being told they do not have to spend all of these enhanced fees on the enhanced services (i.e., private providers can pad their profits with these fees).

Since demand for childcare spaces will continue to outstrip supply, parents who decline to pay the enhanced fees (i.e., want $10 per day childcare) may have difficulty securing a space because they reduce the providers’ profits. Further, low wages and limited training and professional development opportunities suggest the goal of 70,000 additional spaces may be wildly optimistic.

3. An Alberta Pension Plan

Alberta has been flirting with the idea of leaving the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and creating an Alberta Pension Plan (APP) since 2019, putatively to lower premiums. The UCP did not campaign on the APP, likely because more than half of Albertans are opposed to the idea.

Withdrawing from the CPP requires three years of notice. The terms of Alberta’s departure are difficult to predict since no jurisdiction has ever left the plan. Departure may constitute a major change in the plan, which would require the approval of 7 of the 10 provinces (representing two-thirds of the population) and the federal government.

There are many unanswered questions about an APP, including its financial stability and likely returns, operating cost, the portability of contributions, and its susceptibility to political meddling. Quebec’s experience with running its own pension plan suggests that doing so does not necessarily result in lower premiums.

4. Public-sector bargaining

In 2019, the UCP gave itself the power to foist secret bargaining mandates on public-sector employers, rendering collective bargaining a fettered and hollow process. All unions eventually settled for wage increases well below inflation, after years of prior wage freezes. Despite the negative impact that uncompetitive wages have on recruitment, retention, and productivity, it is likely the UCP will go back to this well in the hope of further grinding public-sector wages.

It is unclear whether Alberta’s public-sector workers and their unions have the will to meaningfully resist such a tactic. Resistance would require workers to strike and, perhaps, to do so illegally in the face of back-to-work legislation. That is a risky proposition for both workers and their unions’ leadership. That said, only last fall, Ontario’s unions forced the Ford government to walk back legislated contracts through an illegal strike by education workers that looked set to escalate to a general strike.

Public-sector workers are also likely to see further privatization of their jobs, as the UCP did with laundry and laboratory services in health care. The UCP may also provide more public funding to private-sector providers of education and health-care services.

5. Recruitment and Retention

Not surprisingly, declining compensation, childcare shortages, and uncertainty about the CPP have meant some Alberta employers are struggling to recruit and retain workers. The UCP has promised a $1,200 tax credit for workers in fields such as health care, childcare, and the skilled trades who come and work in Alberta for at least a year, and a $3,000 to $10,000 tax credit (spread over multiple years) for new graduates in unspecified fields who stay in Alberta to work.

These promises are essentially an admission that Alberta is not an attractive place to live and work. Neither promise is very significant in monetary terms and, if implemented, they are unlikely to have much impact on worker shortages because of the negative impact of the UCP’s education and health-care agenda. Increasing post-secondary tuition and a defective K-12 curriculum (e.g., “find gravity on a globe”) make Alberta an unattractive place to study or raise children. Ongoing staffing shortages, the unavailability of rural obstetrical care, and the botched privatization of laboratory services suggest the health-care system is also failing.

6. Union Dues and Bill 32

The UCP has promised to fix one of their controversial changes to Alberta’s labour laws (commonly called Bill 32) that accidentally cost community organizations $2.5 million in lost donations from unions. This happened because Bill 32 required unions to get each member to authorize dues deductions for activities beyond collective bargaining and contract administration. This was designed to constrain unions’ abilities to participate in political and advocacy campaigns but also affected donations.

Before the election, many unions quietly decided to simply ignore Bill 32. It will be interesting to watch how (and, indeed, if) the UCP handles enforcement. It may choose to pursue legal action against these unions. Or it may take the position Bill 32 achieved its political goals and ignore widespread non-compliance.

Conclusion

The UCP has a difficult course to navigate over the next four years. Its political goals include low taxes, low wages, a diminished public sector, and increased privatization. None of the outcomes of these goals are attractive to the skilled workers that Alberta requires. Indeed, declining real-dollar wages, failing health-care and education systems, unstable retirement income, and unavailable childcare are likely to impede both worker recruitment and retention.

-- Bob Barnetson, Susan Cake, and Jason Foster

Labour & Pop Culture: Documentary on 9-to-5 Movement

Netflix is presently showing a documentary entitled 9to5: The Story of a Movement. This documentary traces the development of the 9 to 5 social movement that began foregrounding unfair working conditions for women office workers in the United States (initially in Boston) in the early 1970s. This movement was the inspiration for the 1980 comedy of the same name (which holds up pretty well and, sadly, is still topical, 40 years later).

One of the narrative arcs of the film explores how the 9 to 5 movement transitions from a social movement into a union (Local 925) as the workers sought to formalize and entrench the gains they had made. This includes following a union organizing campaign (in Cincinnati I think, but it may have been Seattle) through an initial defeat and subsequent victory. It also examines how the attack on labour by US business and government in the 1980s affected Local 925.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: The Factory Witches of Lowell

Recently, a new novella arrived on my desk. It tells the story of a strike by young female mill workers (“mill girls”) set in Lowell, Massachusetts during the mid 1830s (probably, as a work of historical fiction, the story is vague). Facing severe health effects from the work and a reduction in wages, the workers strike.

As the title implies, workers in The Factory Witches of Lowell are, well, witches. I’m not much for the fantasy genre, but I am interested in representations of union in science fiction. There are slim pickings in the sci-fi genre so I’m like, fine, bring on the dragons and unicorns and whatnot.

Without giving away the plot, the workers use witchcraft to create an unbreakable solidarity among the workers as well as control the production process. This gives them the leverage to hold out against the pressure of bosses.

Overall, the book left me a little flat. Using magic as a proxy for solidarity and direct action was an interesting idea that, to my mind, never really went anywhere. Perhaps, though, I’m just less interested by allegory than I am by more realistic representations of workers exercising power?

I have, however, ordered The Future of Another Timeline, which explores a covert war between rival factions of time travellers over women’s and human rights. The events they attempt to influence include moments in the labour movement.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: He thinks he’ll keep her

My wife flagged this 1993 song by Mary Chapin Carpenter as labour related. It traces the journey of a women who, at 36, opts to leave her marriage and role and primary caregiver to re-enter the workforce.

Most of the song chronicles the unpaid, social reproductive labour that the women does. It is interesting to see this work treated so explicitly as both skilled and demanding labour. And yet these skill have little market value when she decides to rejoin the paid workforce. It also nicely tease is out the often hidden power dynamics of one-income marriages.

I’m not a huge fan of the new country era, but the backup singers on this video are are pretty amazing. Trisha Yearwood, Emmylou Harris, and Patty Lovelace, to name a few.

She makes his coffee, she makes his bed
She does the laundry, she keeps him fed
When she was twenty-one she wore her mother's lace
She said, "forever," with a smile upon her face

She does the carpool, she P.T.A.'s
Doctors and dentists, she drives all day
When she was twenty-nine she delivered number three
And ev'ry Christmas card showed a perfect family

Ev'rything runs right on time
Years of practice and design
Spit and polish till it shines, he thinks he'll keep her

Ev'rything is so benign
The safest place you'll ever find
God forbid you change your mind, he thinks he'll keep her

She packs his suitcase, she sits and waits
With no expression upon her face
When she was thirty-six she met him at their door
She said, "I'm sorry, I don't love you any more"

Ev'rything runs right on time
Years of practice and design
Spit and polish till it shines, he thinks he'll keep her

Ev'rything is so benign
The safest place you'll ever find
God forbid you change your mind, he thinks he'll keep her

For fifteen years she had a job and not one raise in pay
Now she's in the typing pool at minimum wage

Ev'rything runs right on time
Years of practice and design
Spit and polish till it shines, he thinks he'll keep her

Ev'rything is so benign
The safest place you'll ever find
At least until you change your mind (he thinks he'll keep her) all right

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Good Girls Revolt

If you are looking for an interesting historical dramatization to fill you winter evenings, Amazon Prime is presently offering Good Girls Revolt, a 10-episode miniseries set in 1969 and 1970 at Newsweek Magazine.

Amazon cancelled the show after one season. But what a season it was! The show is based upon a book the chronicles a sex discrimination lawsuit by female researchers at Newsweek.  The researchers are exploited horrendously, often being more qualified and better writers than the male reporters, but paid a fraction of their wages and denied credit.

 

The most interesting part of the show is how it documents what is essentially an organizing campaign by the women to assert their rights. I can’t think, off hand, of another mainstream series that follows an organizing campaign over time. Usually collective action is framed as spontaneous or the result of a long-standing power base. 

 

In Good Girls Revolt, we get to see a group of workers create a new power base in a workplace. This includes recognizing and articulating their interests and how they differ from the interests of other workers (the men). It also engages how race and class can affect solidarity within a group. The character’s flaws and mis-steps are also realistically portrayed. 

 

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour and Pop Culture: Frankie Drake

I recently had the… opportunity?... to watch a few episodes of CBC’s Frankie Drake Mysteries series. The series centres on an all-female detective agency in 1920s Toronto (so kind of a flapper lady Matlock dealie). The series is available on Amazon Prime but perhaps also the CBC website.

Episode 2 of the first season (“Ladies in Red”) sees Frankie hired to investigate an attack on a factory owner. The owner is convinced the attack was the work of communists in his plant (that manufacturers some kind of confusing glass window product). The show makes reference to the 1919 Winnipeg strike as well as the 1920 Wall Street bombing (which may have been the work of Italian anarchists or communists… or maybe not) to explain the owner’s concerns.

The detectives’ investigations turns up a group of communists (or red sympathizers) in the plant. But their interest is mostly in world peace and perhaps in better working conditions. There is a subplot around sexual harassment and, in the end, the real villain in the plant manager who is skimming, sexually exploiting, and trying to deflect blame onto the workers.

If you can get past the many inconsistencies (e.g., the show is pretty race blind until race is a useful plot point) this episode has a positive portrayal of collective action by workers and highlights the plight of working women in urban Canada after the first war.

I have to admit, by the end I was on my phone googling. But my impression is that the episode ends with Frankie cajoling the plant owner into raising the women’s wages. This seemed very out of character and pretty Pollyanna.

-- Bob Barnetson

In Search of Professor Precarious fundraiser

Sessionals at MacEwan University celebrate winning greater rights.

A documentary film about precarious employment in post-secondary education has just launched a crowdfunding campaign.

In Search of Professor Precarious will take viewers into the lives of contract faculty, and tells their compelling stories. 

The film includes interviews with precarious contract faculty, permanent faculty, students, administrators, activists and experts. It also shows artists in action, an outdoor biology class on the shores of Nova Scotia, and the biggest higher education strike in Canadian history unfold.

The film makers have received support from National Film Board, unions OPSEU, CUPE and CUPE 3911, associations CAFA, FPSE, and ACIFA and faculty associations ULFA, AASUA and APTUO. They are seeking an additional $15,000 in donations to finish the film and cover the costs of both post-production (e.g., editing, sound mix, music) and develop promotional material.

-- Bob Barnetson

Some labour implications of the Final Report of MMIWG Inquiry

A few weeks back, the final report from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Woman and Girls was released. While I haven't finished reading the report yet, Volume 1a contains two sections of particular interest to human resource and labour relations.

The first section is a deep dive into the relationship between resource-extraction projects and violence against Indigenous women and children (starting on page 584). The report specifically examines the impact of transient (or migrant) workers on receiving communities and their citizens as well as workplace harassment, shift work, additions and economic insecurity. The nub of it is that the structure of employment associated with these projects creates and/or amplifies negative consequences for Indigenous women and children.

The second section is a deep dive into the sex industry (starting on page 656), in which Indigenous women and girls are often participants. This section does a nice job of capturing the nuances of sex work and the impact Canada’s colonial legacy has on the dynamics of sex work. It also highlights the importance of an intersectional analysis when examining how individuals experience sex work.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Private Dancer

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Private Dancer” by Tina Turner. The song is sung from the perspective of a worker in the sex industry. We don’t normally think about sex workers as workers—although they are.

A new course under development at Athabasca is hoping to change that. LBST 4XX (Sex work and sex workers) will examine the sex industry and the experiences of those work in it. While sex work represents one of the most extreme forms of employment, it shares many features with other forms of employment. Specifically, it is a relationship of power wherein one party appropriate the surplus value generated by the other, often employing coercion and externalizing costs in gendered and racialized ways.

The course offers an overview of the sex industry in a variety of theoretical and material contexts, as well as an in-depth focus on prostitution in the Canadian context. Taking “the prostitute” as the stereotype that drives public sex work policy, this course examines the myriad images of and circumstances in which sex work occurs. In addition to reading key texts by scholarly experts on the sex industry, we will hear from sex workers themselves about their jobs, working conditions, and the power dynamics of sex work.

Students will learn to analyze sex work as work through a variety of theoretical lenses, and to identify similarities and differences in legal and policy positions that respond to feminism, queer theory, critiques of neoliberalism and globalization, postcolonial praxis, and progressive legalism. This includes examining how labour policies, such as occupational health and safety policies, affect sex workers, the roles of clients and third parties in the sex industry, and sex workers’ labour organizing.

I’m hopeful this course will open in late 2019.

Well, the men come in these places
And the men are all the same
You don't look at their faces
And you don't ask their names
You don't think of them as human
You don't think of them at all
You keep your mind on the money
Keeping your eyes on the wall

I'm your private dancer
A dancer for money
I'll do what you want me to do
I'm your private dancer
A dancer for money
And any old music will do

I want to make a million dollars
I want to live out by the sea
Have a husband and some children
Yeah, I guess I want a family
All the men come in these places
And the men are all the same
You don't look at their faces
And you don't ask their names

I'm your private dancer
A dancer for money
I'll do what you want me to do
I'm your private dancer
A dancer for money
And any old music will do
I'm your private dancer
A dancer for money
I'll do what you want me to do
Just a private dancer
A dancer for money
And any old music will do

Deutschmarks or dollars
American Express will do nicely, thank you
Let me loosen up your collar
Tell me, do you want to see me do the shimmy again?

I'm your private dancer
A dancer for money
Do what you want me to do
Just a private dancer
A dancer for money
And any old music will do

All the men come in these places
And the men are all the same
You don't look at their faces
And you don't ask their names
You don't think of them as human
You don't think of them at all
You keep your mind on the money
Keeping your eyes on the wall

I'm your private dancer
A dancer for money
I'll do what you want me to do
I'm your private dancer
A dancer for money
And any old music will do
I'm your private dancer
A dancer for money
I'll do what you want me to do
I'm your private dancer
A dancer for money
And any old music will do

I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money
I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money
I'm your private dancer, a dancer for money
Just a private dancer, a dancer for money

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Anti-union campaign on Superstore

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.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Welcome to the Boomtown

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Welcome to the Boomtown” by David & David. The song recounts the mid-80s excess found in Los Angeles and how a boomtown plays out for the rich and for the poor.

Alberta is no stranger to booms and busts and there is interesting research going on about how this affects labour. For example, foreign live-in caregivers (more commonly known as “nannies”) play an important role in the economy of Fort McMurray. Their often-grueling conditions of work allow their employers to meet the demands of their own employers.

Sara Dorow (from the U of A) and her colleagues have been studying this phenomenon. They note that the boom entails a cascading of social reproductive costs onto this vulnerable group. That is to say, the oil sands couldn’t function without these almost invisible workers managing home and hearth issues for workers. Yet these workers are often treated as disposable.

With the boom also comes the bust. Since 2014, Alberta has struggled economically. It appears that the worst of this recession is passing but the recovery is uneven.

For example, in a recent CBC article, U of C economist Trevor Tombe notes that the economic recovery Alberta is experiencing is evident in employment rates (which are bouncing back up. But as Tombe’s graph (below) shows, young men appear to be excluded from this recovery.

This pattern is understandable given that, in the past, young men could secure well paying jobs in the oil patch with not much more than a strong back. This employment strategy appears to no longer be as effective as it once was. One solution is to provide displaced workers with opportunities to return to school.



Ms. Cristina drives a 944
Satisfaction oozes from her pores
She keeps rings on her fingers

Marble on her floor, cocaine on her dresser
Bars on her doors, she keeps her back against the wall
She keeps her back against the wall

So I say, I say welcome, welcome to the Boomtown
Pick a habit, we got plenty to go around
Welcome, welcome to the Boomtown
All that money makes such a succulent sound
Welcome to the Boomtown

Handsome Kevin got a little off track
Took a year off of college and he never went back
Now he smokes too much, he's got a permanent hack

Deals dope out of Denny's, keeps a table in the back
He always listens to the ground
Always listens to the ground

So I say, I say welcome, welcome to the Boomtown
Pick a habit, we got plenty to go around
Welcome, welcome to the Boomtown
All that money makes such a succulent sound
Welcome to the Boomtown

Well, the ambulance arrived too late
I guess, she didn't want to wait

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Mining for Gold

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Mining for Gold”, most famously performed by the Cowboy Junkies. The very haunting song speaks to the human cost associated with mining (specifically hard rock mining).

This song is timely given the death of Barrack Gold founder Peter Munk at the end of March. Munk was widely lauded as a visionary business leader, with lofty ambitions and visionary goals. A look at the record of Barrack Gold is sobering.

And as the company’s mining empire expanded, so too did the social criticism, with accusations of abuse at mines in Papua New Guinea and Tanzania drawing protests and reprimands. 

But Munk was unapologetic, and held fast in his convictions that the company was overall a source of good as part of a globalized world of capitalism. 

“Someone has got to create and generate wealth,” Munk said at his last annual general meeting in 2014.

What the Toronto Sun is avoiding talking about in detail are the gang rapes and shooting of workers at various Barrack mines in the developing world. But at least he generated shareholder value. 

The Beaverton pretty much nailed it with its headline “Barrick Gold entombs fifty foreign miners in Peter Munk’s pyramid so he’ll have workers to abuse in afterlife”

“He was such a generous man,” said a Barrick Gold VP, about the ex-chairman whose company is responsible for dozens of atrocities throughout the world. “He would insist on Barrick Gold giving our miners more violence, more heavy metals in their groundwater, more sexual assault. It’s only fair that in return these fifty men be forced to accompany him to paradise.” … 

In addition to Munk’s compulsory entourage, he will also be buried with a thousand barrels of industrial cyanide so he can poison the hereafter’s freshwater sources, a bulldozer for tearing down the homes of heaven’s indigenous population, and a few hundred million dollars in case he needs to bribe God to look the other way. 

“I thought Peter was crazy when he said he could get away with killing hundreds of people if he also dug up a shiny rock once in awhile,” said one longtime friend and member of the board of directors. “Boy is my face red, not to mention my hands!”

We are miners, hard rock miners
To the shaft house we must go
Pour your bottles on our shoulders
We are marching to the slow

On the line boys, on the line boys
Drill your holes and stand in line
'til the shift boss comes to tell you
You must drill her out on top

Can't you feel the rock dust in your lungs?
It'll cut down a miner when he is still young
Two years and the silicosis takes hold
and I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold

Yes, I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Bread and Roses

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Bread and Roses”. This song has its origins in a speech by Rose Schneiderman, a US suffragette and labour activist from the early of the 20th century. She said:

What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.

The line “bread and roses” gave rise to a poem and then several songs about workers’ need for not just sustenance, but also dignity. The most famous version is by Judy Collins (or maybe Joan Baez), the arrangement that appeared most recently in the movie Pride.



John Denver also recorded it to a different (more Celtic) melody.



As we go marching, marching in the beauty of the day
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses
For the people hear us singing: “Bread and roses! Bread and roses!”

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men
For they are women's children, and we mother them again
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient song of bread
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew
Yes, it is bread we fight for - but we fight for roses, too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days
The rising of the women means the rising of the race
No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes
Hearts starve as well as bodies;
Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Laying Pipe

In honour of Alberta’s efforts to expand the extraction of carbon-dense bitumen (thereby accelerating climate change) by forcing a pipeline through unceded Indigenous lands (so much for a more respectful relationship with Indigenous peoples), this week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Laying Pipe” by David Wilcox.

I can’t really think of a song that better sums up Alberta’s oil and gas industry and the degree to which Alberta's government is beholden to it. On one level, the song is about men working hard in blue-collar jobs (e.g., drilling for oil, installing sewers, making steel) in an industry where everybody they know also works:

My daddy worked construction
My brother too
He got me in the union
I'm payin' my dues

The job is tough and socially disruptive, but it has its rewards (a boy’s gotta eat, after all):

I don't mind working
If the money's okay
I take the night shift
I sleep all day

On another level, the song is a paean to misogyny—which is deeply embedded in the culture of the upstream oil-and-gas industry. The singer has a gold-digging women that he’s gotta keep in sparkly bobbles:

Oh but the woman I love
Has expensive taste
She's never satisfied
The latest things
A diamond ring
A car with an ultra-glide

Why?

Well, so he can get laid. The whole song is really a clumsy metaphor for screwing women (watch the video):

I'm layin' pipe all night long
Layin' pipe
I'm workin' so hard
I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
To satisfy that woman

As long as one’s getting some, who cares about anything else? Which pretty much sums up Alberta’s efforts to force a pipeline through BC.



My daddy worked construction
My brother too
He got me in the union
I'm payin' my dues

Oh but the woman I love
Has expensive taste
She's never satisfied
The latest things
A diamond ring
A car with an ultra-glide

I work so hard
Payin' for all that stuff
Eight shifts a week
It's never enough

I'm layin' pipe all night long
Layin' pipe
I'm workin' so hard
I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
To satisfy that woman

I don't mind working
If the money's okay
I take the night shift
I sleep all day

Dust and mud is in my blood
Underground cable in my way
I punch a clock and start my rig
Don't know how deep I might have to dig

I wish I had a million dollars
To buy her everything she needs
She'd only come back for more and more and more and more and more and more and more

I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
I'm working so hard
I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
To satisfy that woman

I put the pipe in
I pull it out again
My back is so sore
I can't work much more
I can't get my traction
The ground's too wet
I take a ten minute break
Ah smoke a cigarette
I don't mind the night shift
The cool breeze when the sun goes down
Winter time the ground is hard
Take twice as long to drill down

I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
I'm working so hard
I'm layin' pipe
All night long
Layin' pipe
To satisfy that woman

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: North Country

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture looks at the 2005 film North Country. The film is a fictionalized account of Jenson v. Eveleth Mines (1984), one of the first successful sexual harassment lawsuits in the US.

Jenson endured harassment from male mine employees beginning when she commenced employment in 1975. Jensen’s 1984 efforts to gain redress from the Minnesota Department of Human Rights were unsuccessful and she faced further harassment in retaliation.

In 1988, she and 14 other women at the mine filed a class-action suit against their employer. As the suit progressed, Jensen resigned due to post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite an invasive discovery process, the women won. The 1995 judgment, however, was profoundly damaging to the women and they appealed the miniscule damages award. The company eventually settled in 1998 for $3.5 in damages.

It has been awhile since I’ve seen this film. But, given the recent profile of harassment in Hollywood, it might be worth watching again. Interestingly, the only other block-buster style films I could find about sexual harassment were 9 to 5 (1980), the wretched Disclosure (1994), and Horrible Bosses (2011). The latter two reverse the usual power dynamic to portray men as the victims.

-- Bob Barnetson

Research: Family and friends as barriers to inter-provincial labour mobility

It is axiomatic for many right-wing commentators that the unemployed should just pack-up and move for a job. Often this suggestion underlies demands for reform of various income support programs, such as Employment Insurance.

For example, consider this 2013 proposal by the so-called Canadian Taxpayers Federation, then fronted by now former UCP MLA Derek “Fildepants” Fildebrandt.

This demand for hyper mobility is often framed as unrealistic. Statistics Canada just released some interesting research about the (un)willingness of unemployed Canadians to migrate for work that may bear upon this policy argument.

The crux of the findings are:

• Approximately 1% of working-age Canadian migrate inter-provincially each year, a lower level than in past years. The aging of the workforce does not fully explain this decline in mobility.
• About one third of unemployed Canadians 15-64 reported no barriers to inter-provincial migration for employment. The other two-thirds indicated they would not move to another province or territory to take a new job. 
• Half of non-movers cited a desire or need to stay close to family and friends as the key barrier to mobility. This reason included a need to take care of relatives and/or consider the wishes of spouses and children.
• Other barriers included financial and housing barriers. Few unemployed workers (1%) reported credential recognition as a barrier to work-related geographical mobility.
• Slightly more unemployed Canadians (43%) would accept a job offer in other cities within their home province. The same pattern of barriers appeared for intra provincial migration as did for inter-provincial migration.
• In both scenarios, men, workers under 40, and unmarried workers were more likely to consider moving than their opposites.

This data supports the assertion that labour mobility is constrained by both economic and social reasons. It also suggests that policy prescriptions that ignore social factors are unlikely to be particularly effective.

An important limitation on this research is that it is based upon current economic conditions. If there was a significant worsening of the economy in a respondent’s region, respondents’ answers might change.

-- Bob Barnetson

Bill 30 debate a disaster for UCP

Last week, Alberta finally passed Bill 30 (An Act to Protect the Health and Well-being of Working Albertans). I’ve written about the changes to the OHS Act here and here as well as the changes to workers’ compensation here, here, and here.

The debate about Bill 30 was pretty boring until last Tuesday. The United Conservative Party (UCP) spent most of its time trying to doom Bill 30 to a slow death in committee. You read see the debate in Hansard. The UCP advanced several arguments.

Not Enough Consultation
Basically the opposition argued that there hadn’t been enough consultation about the Bill. This ignores that the OHS consultation included 1,300 online surveys, 90 written submissions, 200 stakeholders participating in face-to-face consultations. The WCB consultation went on for more than a year and included 1,700 questionnaires, 200 written submissions, 67 workbook responses, hundreds of stakeholders in various face-to-face consultations, and then the 60 responses to the WCB review panel's report.

A variant on this critique was that there is no need to rush Bill 3 through. According to UC MLA Mike Ellis:

As the minister so enjoys pointing out, the OH and S Act came out when Wayne Gretzky was a rookie and when cellphones did not exist. Syncrude had opened its mine. Minister, what is the rush? As for the WCB, the minister kindly pointed out that the last comprehensive review of the act occurred 15 years ago. Once again, is there a need to rush and force it through in days? I think not, Mr. Speaker. (p. 2217).

It is a bit rich for a former Tory MLA to claim there is need to hurry modernizing the OHS Act (which isn’t working very well) after his former party left it largely untouched since 1976. Those who depend upon the Act to protect them at work might well want some action after 41 years of being maimed and killed on the job. Premier Notley basically said as much during the debate:

This is about the members opposite not wanting to take these important steps forward to protect workers, to protect their families, and to keep them safe. That is the decision that is being made here right now by the members opposite as they engage in these ridiculous conversations about the need to delay. (p. 2249)

Overall, this line of attack was profoundly underwhelming and runs contrary to the facts.

Safety Costs Too Much
The opposition then made several attempts to say that, “sure, safety is important, but who will think about the bottom line!?!” For example, UCP MLA Grant Hunter stated:

Safety measures sure can be expensive, and joint committees are no exception. All training for committee members is required by this bill to be covered by the employer. Workplace training for employees is usually covered at the expense of the employer, primarily because the knowledge and skills acquired will go to the long-term benefit of the business. However, committee members are entitled to an annual maximum of 16 hours of training at the expense of the employer for a committee that will only reduce workplace efficiency and fail to improve the safety of the workers. (p. 2133)

This argument has the virtue of being an honest portrayal of employer objections to safer workplaces. I’m less convinced that trading worker safety for profit is in the public interest or is a good position for a political party to stake out (pro-tip: workers are also voters).

Split the Bill
The UCP complained Bill 30 was too complex for them to understand. Some of their troubles may stem from the UCP’s inability to manage its caucus budget and the resulting layoff of most of their staff. I know how tough it is when you have to do your own research and read legislation yourself.

I do have some sympathy for this argument in that big bills tend to obscure changes. I have much less sympathy for the UCP, given that their party is led by a former Harper cabinet minister and that government used omnibus legislation to ram through changes all the time. Sauce for the goose and all.

Workers Are Stupid
Rather disappointingly, UCP MLA Prasad Panda suggested that asking employers to ensure their workplaces are safe was unfair because workers are stupid:

Now, Madam Speaker, as Forrest Gump used to say, “Stupid is as stupid does.” As much as we want to legislate stupid away, stupid is as stupid does, and accidents will happen on work sites when workers are not paying attention or are not careful and not thinking things through. This Bill 30: the core principle of this bill is that all work-site parties have a responsibility for the health and safety of all workers. I completely agree with that. However, Bill 30 puts significantly more responsibility on employers. (p.2276)

Okay, wow. I had thought this would be the low point in debate. But then shit got real for the UCP.

UCP House Leader Sacks Worker for Complaining About Sexual Harassment
Last Tuesday, the Edmonton Journal ran a story about UC House Leader Jason Nixon. A 2008 BC Human Rights Tribunal had found that one of Nixon’s employees at a safety company was sexually harassed on the job in 2005. When she complained, Nixon (eventually) terminated her employment. She was awarded $32,000 in damages.

The details of the harassment are awful. The harasser watched porn in front of victim. He slapped her on the butt and told her to dress sexier. And he offered her dope, lingere, and new tires in exchange for sex (the good ole boy trifecta).

Nixon then fired the single mom of three just days before Christmas and sent her termination letter to the harasser. And he declined to participate in the human rights case. Beneath these facts, there is a complex subcontracting arrangement in the background that resulted in Nixon’s company being pressured to fire the victim. So basically profit trumped protecting the worker.

The #ableg twitter feed went basically insane in its condemnation of Nixon. Here are two illustrative examples:




The NDs also lost no time calling for the UCP to remove Nixon as house leader (the UCP did not) and went after him in Question Period. This response collectively reflects both the heinous nature of Nixon’s behaviour and that Nixon had previously argued against Bill 30 (which includes new protections against harassment).

For example, he stated “The right way to deal with it is to get the industry to address it, to work through their safety associations … and they will do it. They’ve already proven it.” I wonder if Nixon knows what "proof" means?

Reporters grilled Nixon mercilessly about the apparent hypocrisy of arguing against legislation around sexual harassment while (somehow) forgetting his own company's egregious behaviour:

Reporter: Jason, you’ve been convicted by a tribunal, they have found you guilty of firing somebody who was sexually harassed. And that never popped into your head when you talking about the rules on sexual harassment in the House, that’s what you’re telling us today? 

Nixon: No it did not. 

Reporter: It just blanked right out.

Nixon also told the Journal that “Any time we’ve made large advancements on occupational safety, it’s been driven by industry.” This statement is, of course, laughably wrong.

Nixon later attempted to clarify his comments in the Legislature (see p. 2506) However, this scandal was so politically toxic that the UCP decided not to further extend the session with additional debate.

The UCP's unwillingness to further debate Bill 30 (presumably to avoid more political damage) undermines their already weak critique of the Bill. Were there really problems with Bill 30? Or was the UCP just grand-standing on behalf of employers?

Their behaviour suggests the latter. Hopefully voters will remember in 2019 whose side the UCP took when the government tried to improve injury prevention and compensation for Alberta workers.

-- Bob Barnetson

So why are women under-represented in construction?

Last week, CBC ran an article with the interesting headline, “Why has the number of Alberta women in trades stagnatedfor a decade?” This is an important question given the high salaries and extreme gender segregation in these occupations. This dynamic is a factor in Alberta’s large female wage-gap.

Unfortunately, the article doesn't deliver any answers. Instead, we get the usual “more awareness” spiel leavened with a bit of (soft-pedaled) “misogynist workplace culture”. The article then transitions into focusing on programs promoting women in trades. That these programs have made no impact on aggregated female participation rates is totally ignored.

My colleague Jason Foster and I recently published a study looking at the participation of traditionally under-represented groups in Alberta construction occupations from 2003 to 2014. Our interest was piqued by a 2007 joint government-industry strategy to address shortages of workers in Alberta’s construction industry. Two strategies jumped out at us:

1. Encouraging traditionally under-represented groups (female, immigrant, Indigenous, and young workers) to join the industry, and
2. Encouraging the federal government to increase employer access to temporary foreign workers (TFWs).

The absence of any meaningful evaluation of this strategy was also notable so we pulled StatCan data on construction occupation and CIC data on TFWs. What we found was:

• Employment in construction occupations grew by 50% between 2003 and 2014 to 369,000, although there was significant year-to-year variation (the industry is cyclical).
• Men held 93.6% of jobs in construction occupations on average (this varies +/-1%), mostly by non-immigrant, non-Indigenous men over age 25.
• The overall share of employment by most traditionally under-represented groups maintained their share of employment during this period (absolute numbers rose). You can see this visually depicted in Figure 2 below.
• The share of employment of TFWs grew significantly and most TFWs in construction occupations are men.

Figure 2 shows two other notable things. First, immigrants’ share of employment jumped during the boom of 2007 and 2012 while women’s share jumped during the 2007 boom. In both cases, these groups lost ground during the bust. Second, TFWs saw a similar pattern but increases and decreases are delayed.

Figure 3 looks at the experience of women more closely. The thick grey line shows overall year-over-year employment change (which is also basically the male line). The diamond-line shows that women experience more volatility than men: during booms their employment jumps more and, during busts, their employment declines more.

 Figure 5 looks at the experiences of TFWs. We had to re-scale the figures (note the scale on the left side of the figure) because the TFW changes are so extreme that, if we tried to plot women and TFWs on the same figure, the size of the TFW effect makes it hard to appreciate the experience of women.

Basically, employers hired lots of (male) TFWs during the booms. Looking back at Figure 2, note that proportion of TFWs rises over the period the period.

At the risk of over simplifying the conclusions, what this suggests to us is that:

1. Employers continue to prefer to hire men and hire male TFWs when male Canadians are not available.
2. The decision by the federal Harper government to relax the rules around TFWs (Jason Kenney was minister responsible) facilitated this employer behaviour.
3. Had employers not been given access to more male workers by the feds, they might well have hired more traditionally under-represented groups (clearly there were such workers available).

This dynamic is not surprising: employers look to minimize costs. Changing workplace practices and cultures to make those workplaces more attractive to women is expensive. Instead, they naturally took the path of least resistance and hired more men. When the downturn came, the small gains women made were erased.

A knock-on effect is that (male) TFWs have now become a normal part of the construction labour force, taking positions that (absent TFWs) would likely be filled by Canadian women and other traditionally under-represented groups.

Coming back to the 2007 provincial labour force strategy, it mostly failed to attain its objectives. There are more workers from traditionally disadvantaged groups in the construction sector, but their share of employment is stagnant.

This failure likely reflects that goal of increasing participation was undermined by the goal of increasing access to TFWs. Faced with a choice between more male workers and increasing diversity (which increases cost), employers chose the cheapest option.

This, in turn, highlights that expecting employers to diversify their workforces because it is the right thing to do is unrealistic: employers are responsive to the profit imperative. If governments are seeking more equitable employment outcomes, then they will be forced to regulate industry as part of the solution--like they do in Newfoundland. This would be an appropriate task for the Status of Women Ministry which, so far, has advanced few changes that meaningfully impact Alberta women.

So, to answer the question posed by the CBC, women’s employment in construction is stagnant due to gender discrimination by employers, partly enabled by overly permissive federal immigration policy and partly enabled by the absence of provincial employment equity requirements.

-- Bob Barnetson