Trading Workers’ Health
for Profit in a Petro-State
Athabasca University Arts and Science Lecture Series
18 May 2012, Edmonton
Bob Barnetson, Associate Professor
Labour Relations, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Introduction
One of the more interesting research projects underway at Athabasca
right now examines the intersection of oil and democracy by querying whether
and to what degree Alberta is a petro-state. Today I’m going to present a
high-level overview of some research I’m doing about occupational health and
safety (OHS) in Alberta. Broadly speaking, this research supports the notion
that Alberta is a petro-state.
I’m going to start by identifying some of the
characteristics of petro-states. Then I’m going to move into a discussion of
Alberta’s OHS record and system. These two topics are linked together by the
notion of human rights—that workers have a right to a safe work environment,
rights that are undermined by Alberta’s anemic OHS enforcement system.
I’m then going to turn to some explanations of why this is
the case. We’ll look at Alberta’s weak labour movement. This includes the ways
the government acts to keep workers’ complacent as well as the effect of the
oil-driven boom-bust cycle on worker interest in unions. We’ll also look at how
employers pressurize politicians to create ineffective OHS enforcement. This
includes considering the degree to which Alberta’s OHS regulatory system has
been captured by employers.
Alberta as a
Petro-State
Petro-states derive a significant portion of their
revenue—typically >20%—from rents levied on petroleum extraction. Examples
of petro-states exist in the Gulf (e.g., Iraq and Qatar), Africa (e.g., Libya
and Nigeria) and South America (e.g., Venezuela and Brazil). Norway, Britain
and Russia are also petro-states. At the sub-national level, Alaska and Alberta
(25% of revenue) are also petro-states by this definition.
Petro-states display a number of characteristics. These
include highly concentrated wealth, weak public institutions and authoritarian
rule. These characteristics appear to flow from heavy reliance on oil rents.
The link between the government and producers is strengthened because oil is
the “golden goose”.
To the degree they exist, links between government and
citizens are weakened. Governments are less reliant upon personal taxation to
operate and oil wealth facilitates buying off and/or repression opposition. The
economy also becomes slaved to oil: manufacturing and agriculture are
suppressed by a high dollar and high wages dampening export markets.
Counter-intuitively, petro-states tend to exhibit high
levels of poverty, low level of education and poor health care and nutrition.
There tends to be significant corruption and a democratic deficit. The question
that Lorna Stefanick and Meenal Shrivastava are looking into is the degree to
which Alberta demonstrates these political, economic and social characteristics.
Workplace Injury in
Alberta
Bluntly, Alberta jobsites are unsafe places to work. Each
year, the government reports approximately 150 occupational fatalities and
50,000 serious injuries. The true level of injury in Alberta is approximately
500,000 annual injuries. This reflects widespread employer non-compliance with
Alberta’s Occupational Health and Safety
Code. For example, in 2011, the government announced a safety inspection
blitz in the residential construction industry. Despite knowing government
inspectors were coming, the majority of the 387 employers inspected were found
to have safety violations on their worksites.
Non-compliance reflects anemic enforcement. Employers know
there is almost no chance they will be caught violating safety rules. For
example, on average, workplaces are inspected less than once every 14 years in
Alberta. And it can take safety inspectors up to 18 days to respond to reports
of unsafe workplaces. Employers also know that, if they do get caught, there is
almost no chance they will be penalized.
Alberta does prosecute a handful of employers each
year—typically when the employer has killed or seriously maimed a worker. Fines
are levied years after the event and are tax deductable (i.e., tax-payer
subsidized). A good lawyer can get the fine paid for an employer-sponsored
safety organization—that is to say, a tax-payer subsidized fine can be paid to
other employers to do safety work the employer should have been doing in the
first place.
As a result of this dynamic, employers adopt a cost-benefit
approach to safety. They only prevent injuries that are cheaper to prevent than
to incur. As Alberta allows employers to externalize much of the cost
associated with injuries onto workers and the taxpayer, few injuries are “worth”
preventing. Consequently, we have half a million annual injuries.
Human Rights and Democracy
in Alberta
The nexus between
OHS and petro-states is found in notions of human rights. Albertans possess
a range of human rights, which often characterize liberal democracies. Two
human rights important to this presentation are the freedom to associate (which
is the basis of collective action in the workplace) and the right to health
(which underlies injury prevention efforts). The freedom of association finds protection
in the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms as well as expression in provincial statutes, such as Alberta’s Labour Relations Code. The right to
health exists in the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which includes the right
to safe and healthy working conditions. Alberta has accommodated workers’
desire to avoid workplace injuries by enacting a variety of statutes, including
the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
One categorization of human rights divides them into civil,
political and social rights. Civil rights codified a set of
relations between individuals based on the capitalist mode of production. The purpose
of these rights is to protect individual liberty, property, security
and justice. Civil rights are typically embedded in nations’ constitutional
documents and are protected by the state.
Also embedded in these constitutional documents are certain political
rights—rights allowing direct or indirect participation
in the establishment or administration of government, such as the right to vote
and hold public office. These political rights (eventually) allowed (most)
citizens to participate (in various ways) in periodic elections, thereby legitimizing
the government: the ruled choose the government of the day and its policies.
Yet the political choices available to citizens do not typically challenge the
underlying civil rights that structure relationships in society. Further, the
notional political equality of citizens is significantly undermined by the
economic inequalities between various groups of citizens, most commonly labour
and capital.
Social rights were the last type of rights to emerge and
are
an attempt to ameliorate the negative effects of capitalism (i.e., the
operation of civil and political rights). For example, when workers are unable
to access the basic necessities of life because their wages are poor or they
are unemployed, this threatens the availability of workers as well as workers
accepting their subordinate position in society—necessary components of social
reproduction. For these reasons, the state may intervene in the operation of
the labour market or workplace or provide necessary services or supports.
The regulation and public provision associated with social
rights often infringe upon civil rights and are a source of conflict between
labour and capital. As social rights run contrary to civil rights, they also do
not typically find expression in constitutional documents. Rather, they are
voluntarily codified by the state in legislation or international agreements.
Consequently, social rights are much easier to change over time than are
political or civil rights, are often weakly or not enforced, and are more
subject to particular political alignments and pressures.
It is axiomatic that rights without remedy are not really
rights at all. That is to say, if workers cannot consistently realize their
right to health, then they don’t actually have such a right in anything other
than a notional sense. As I noted before, Alberta workplaces are extremely
unsafe and workers are routinely maimed and killed because government
enforcement is ineffective. This seems to naturally lead to the question of why
is government enforcement of workers’ rights to health so ineffective?
Organized Labour in
Alberta
A part of the answer is that organized labour is a weak
presence in Alberta workplaces and is largely excluded from public policy
making. There are a number of factors that contribute to this situation. Only 25%
of Alberta workers (mostly in the public sector) were unionized in 2011, the
lowest rate of unionization in Canada. Further, the largest sectors in
Alberta’s economy (energy, construction and finance) are mostly non-unionized.
In this way, the dominant employment paradigm in Alberta has been (and remains)
non-union. While segments of Alberta workers periodically exhibit significant
support for trade unionism, this has not translated into union members or
political influence.
This may be partly explained as an impact of successive Alberta
governments enacting employer-friendly labour laws. For example, the Labour Relations Code requires
certification votes regardless of how much worker support a union demonstrates.
Under such a system, workers are less able to gain union representation than
card-check system. The Alberta Labour Relations Board does not have the power
of automatic certification to remedy unfair labour practices during organizing
campaigns. And the government has resisted calls for first-contract arbitration
provisions. All of these policy choices aid employers to resist union
organizing campaigns.
The government also frequently intervenes directly in the
labour market to the benefit of employers. For example, the government has
intervened in unionization to benefit “friendly” unions and punish combative
ones as well as widely prohibiting strikes in the public sector. The government
has expanded the labour force via migration to limit the labour market power of
workers and facilitate union avoidance tactics. And the government intervenes
directly in collective bargaining, but only when it benefits employers (including
itself).
That said, it is also important to recognize that many
Alberta workers do not see trade unions as particularly useful. Alberta’s
energy-driven boom-and-bust cycles mean that workers have substantial personal
labour market power during the booms (thus do not need unions). During the
busts, unions have experienced difficulty protecting worker interests. Further,
migrants from other provinces comprise a significant portion of Alberta’s
workforce and they have historically exercised exit options rather than resist
unfavorable working conditions. The upshot is that Alberta’s labour movement,
while not powerless, is not a key player and is often unable to shape public
policy.
Impact of Oil and
Agricultural Industries on Public Policy
In addition to a weak labour movement, Alberta has an
influential employer lobby that appears able to shape public policy in ways
that advantage it. Some of this stems from the basic neoliberal orientation of
Alberta progressive conservative politicians: they broadly accept that the purpose
of government is to facilitate the operation of business. Alberta employers also
have a number of ways of exerting influence on public policy. For example, it
is useful to examine the electoral benefits that accrue to politicians who
maintain a repressive and injurious labour relations system.
Historically, agriculture was economically and politically
important in Alberta. Prior to 1945, the agricultural community supported
limits on farm worker rights. Although the economic importance of agriculture
diminished after the 1947 discovery of oil, rural Alberta has retained political
importance through the development of a symbiotic electoral relationship with
the provincial government. Revenue from the growing oil and gas industry has
allowed the government to fund significant rural public infrastructure (e.g. highways,
hospitals and nursing homes) and programming. This spending has, in turn,
garnered the government strong political support from rural constituencies that
governments have ensured are electorally over-represented in the legislature.
One outcome of this arrangement has been that the government
continues to exclude farm workers from most basic statutory employment rights
despite the absence of any substantive argument for doing so. A second outcome
is that the government can continue its long tradition of privileging employer
interests, particularly in the oil and gas industry. For example, during the
1950s and 1960s, Alberta’s Social Credit government sought to maintain a weak
labour movement to facilitate the development of the oil industry. The election
of a Progressive Conservative government in 1971 broadly continued this policy
direction.
Alberta’s boom-and-bust cycle has also triggered state
intervention to curtail workers’ ability to resist employer demands. This
includes legislative change in the 1980s to facilitate union avoidance,
public-sector wage rollbacks and job losses in the early 1990s as well as
further changes to labour laws and the expansion of child labour and migrant
worker populations to loosen the labour market in the 2000s. Similar favorable
treatment of the oil industry in environmental regulation and taxation as well
as regulatory reform favorable to other employer groups has also been
identified.
The upshot of these circumstances is that Alberta employers,
among whom oil companies feature prominently, have created pressures,
opportunities and inducements to continue and exacerbate Alberta’s tradition of
privileging the interests of employers over workers. They have also made
significant direct financial contributions to the Conservative Party, which
can’t hurt their ability to access and influence policy. In workplace health
and safety issues, there is evidence that employers have effectively captured the
regulatory system and turned it to their own ends.
Regulatory Capture of
Alberta’s OHS system
Regulatory capture occurs when a state agency designed to
act in the public interest instead acts to advance the interests of an
important stakeholder group. Once captured, a regulatory agency can then be
used by that stakeholder group to impose costs on other stakeholders, even if
such costs are contrary to the public interest. Captured regulators often see
themselves as partners of the captors they are supposed to regulate and may
even find themselves financed by that group.
Alberta’s OHS system exhibits several characteristics of regulatory
capture. This includes including ineffective regulation of workplace safety by
employers that transfers costs to workers, employer funding, industry-government
partnerships that allow employers to set standards and perform auditing, the
introduction of a questionable safety incentive systems for employers, and
government messaging around safety that deflects blame for workplace injuries
onto workers.
The ineffective enforcement of Alberta’s OHS laws has been
discussed already. This issue of who funds OHS in Alberta is trickier to
unravel. Of the $23.3 million Alberta spent on OHS in 2009, roughly $21.7 million came from employer
premiums transferred to the government from the Alberta Workers’ Compensation
Board (WCB). In this way, OHS is (indirectly) funded by employers. This funding
is contingent upon continued approval by the WCB’s industry-dominated Board of
Directors.
Since the 1990s, industry-funded safety associations have increasingly
entered into “partnerships” with the government. These partnerships allow
employers play a formal role in determining policy and standards as well as
sponsor various safety awareness campaigns and perform safety auditing
functions.
A 1997 strategic plan for Alberta’s Partnerships framework explains
the thinking underlying this approach:
“Partnerships is based upon the
premise that more can be achieved through a cooperative, collaborative approach
than by a one sided, dictatorial or interventionist approach. Leverage and
synergy is possible without duplicating efforts and ‘re-inventing the wheel’.
Partnerships strives to promote a culture of increased proactive health and
safety attitudes and behaviour in the workplace. These cannot be legislated!”
This model prioritizes employer autonomy over regulation and
government is viewed as a facilitator of employer-driven initiatives. Given the
level of injury in Alberta workplaces, I think we should rightly question
whether this partnerships model is effective.
The “collaborative” processes established by government to
review standards created employer dominated “working groups” deliberating over
small changes for extended periods. This led to a “culture of compromise” among
labour representatives on the groups, which undermined the effectiveness of
labour’s capacity to improve safety for workers.
The government has
also linked the achievement of a Certificate
of Recognition (COR) and employer claims costs to WCB
premium reductions. These incentives are in addition incentives that exist under the WCB’s own experience-rating system. Yet, a 2010 audit raised questions about whether the
Partnership in Injury Reduction program has made workplaces safer.
The partnership model has also intensified government
promulgation of the careless work myth in Alberta injury prevention efforts.
The careless work myth explains occupational injuries as the result of workers
being accident prone, careless or even reckless. The most egregious example is
the 2008 Bloody Lucky video campaign. The videos clearly and inaccurately
portray workers as the cause of their own injuries.
For example, one video shows a shoe-store employee climbing
a rickety ladder in high heels, reach to grab some stock (which is stacked
precariously), fall backwards, break an unguarded light fixture and then fall onto
the glass. The impression the video conveys is that the worker was at fault. In
fact, the employer told her what shoes to wear, gave her a defective ladder, stacked
the stock up high and unstably and failed to guard the light fixture. While the
proximate cause of injury was the worker’s behaviour, the root caused was
dangerous job design.
Bloody Lucky is the culmination of a trend in Alberta safety
campaigns (that intensified during after 1995) of blaming workers for their
injuries. Analysis of this campaign demonstrates that the bureaucrats involved
with the campaign have difficulty identifying blaming behaviour and view such a
messaging as important in securing political support for the campaign. The
result of this campaign is that the state has mis-informed young workers about
the nature of workplace hazards and appropriate mitigation strategies by
publically shifted blame for injuries away from employers.
Workplace injury as a
bellwether for democracy
The purpose of this research was to consider whether
workplace safety in Alberta is consistent with the petro-state thesis. I
believe the answer is yes.
There is substantial evidence that employers have disproportionate
access to and say in legislative decision-making around occupational health and
safety. Some of this influence comes from direct political contributions made
by employers to the Conservative Party. And some of it comes via the importance
of these employers to Alberta’s economic stability. Consider the fallout from
the Stelmach government’s oil royalty review of 2007. Oil companies threatened
a capital strike and Stelmach retreated. Oil companies then began funding an
alternative political party, which came close to defeating the Conservatives.
Clearly, you don’t screw with big oil in Alberta.
The long-term result of this arrangement is labour policies
that are favorable to employers. Indeed, Alberta’s workplace health and safety
system exhibits characteristics suggesting regulatory capture by employers—the
very group OHS agencies are supposed to regulate. There is evidence of similar
extraordinary employer influence in employment standards, labour relations and
Alberta’s approach to immigration. As a result of this, employers appear to
receive special treatment before the law. Specifically, employers have little
chance of being caught breaking the law and virtually no chance to being
assessed a penalty.
Alberta has also placed significant limits on workers’
freedom of association. This has created a weak labour movement that, in turn,
has facilitated Alberta undermining workers’ right to health via ineffective
injury-prevention efforts. Consequently, the costs associated with work-related
injuries are externalized onto workers, their families and society. Where significant
resistance emerges to this behaviour, the state is often able to buy offs
unions through well timed settlements.
Stepping back from the specifics of OHS, what we see is
evidence of power being concentrated in the hands of oil companies and
conservative MLAs, creating an authoritarian and highly stable power structure.
Public institutions are captured by employers and weakened to serve employer
interests. Worker rights are virtually unenforceable and thus are meaningless.
This is consistent with the notion that there is a democratic deficit in
Alberta.
Generalizing from such narrow research has its perils, which
is why I’m keen to see what the other contributors to this project come up
with. I have a second project examining how the growth and treatment of
temporary foreign workers accords with the petro-state thesis that I’m working
on with Jason Foster from the Faculty of Business. We’ll be presenting some
preliminary results at the Canadian Political Science Association conference in
June.
The short version of that research is that migrant workers
are a population vulnerable to exploitation. Alberta employers have sought to
increasingly meet their labour needs via migrant workers. This lowers
employer’s direct wage bill and undermines the labour market power of domestic
workers.
The federal and provincial governments have responded to the
desires of employers by making it easier to bring in “temporary” foreign
workers. The state has sought to manage issues of exploitation of these workers
mostly by managing the message and, when there is a big stink, through minor
and ineffective regulatory processes. This behaviour is broadly consistent with
the behaviour of Gulf states, which utilize large amount of unfree guest
workers and again adds evidence that Alberta is a petro-state.
-- Bob Barnetson
I had the opportunity to attend the launch of Working People in Alberta: A History on Friday. This new book (available as a free download from Athabasca University Press) chronicles the history of Alberta workers and is useful in understanding the dynamics which are present in Alberta labour relations today. It is part of the 2012 project and draws upon material collected by the Alberta Labour History Institute.