Last Night at the Strip Club

CBC Gem is airing a short documentary titled Last Night at the Strip Club. The auto-ethnography examines the impact the COVID-19 had on sex worker Andrea Werhun. Werhun was employed as an exotic dancer in the spring of 2020 and had to make some significant changes to her work due to COVID.

There are a couple of reasons to spend 12 minutes on this film. First, first-person discussions of sex work are rare enough that they're worthwhile to watch. They offer a useful counterpoint to more academic work. Stripping, in particular, is something of which I haven't seen a lot of first-person Canadian accounts. 

Second, Werhun is quite articulate about her experiences. The way she adapted to COVID shows a lot of savvy. The documentary predates her recent book Modern Whore: A Memoir, which I haven't yet read (and is apparently to be a film shortly).

-- Bob Barnetson

Blue-collar work and the Kenney government

CBC recently ran a very interesting first-person account from a Calgary welder about his experiences in the oil-and-gas sector. You can read the piece here. The nub of the account is that working conditions for welders in the sector are poor and are driving workers away. It is an interesting and well-written piece.

I flag it for a couple of reasons. One of the more tedious talking points of the Kenney government is that there is some kind of esteem gap between white-collar and blue-collar occupations. The gist of the narrative is that people (e.g., students, parents, teachers, and workers) think they are too good to do a blue-collar job (so basically it is a worker-blaming narrative, not all that different than equally ridiculous assertion that people no longer want to work).

Like most things Jason Kenney said as premier, there isn’t really any evidence that this esteem gap exists. (The two people I have been happiest to see in my life are an ER doc and a plumber, and not necessarily in that order.) Rather, this putative esteem-gap is just a dog-whistle pretext designed to justify increasing investment in skilled trades training and reduced investment in university education. Why would Kenney do that?

Well, Kenney’s actions as a federal minister suggest he often assists employers to minimize labour costs buy flooding the labour market with workers (think back to the temporary foreign worker deluge of 2008-12). Increasing the number of skilled trades people allows employers to suppress demands for better wages and working conditions because there is always a surplus of workers.

The first-person account of working in a welding shop in the oil-and-gas industry unintentionally highlights a number of structural reasons that workers may be reluctant to engage in blue-collar work (that have nothing to do with people thinking they are too good for that work):

• Job demands: The author flags that the work is difficult, dangerous, and often entails working in unpleasant conditions at odd times. Workers are often unwilling or unable to work in these conditions. This has historically constrained the labour force and driven up wages. Corporations have responded in many ways to reduce labour costs, such as automation, off-shoring, and subcontracting work.
• Insecurity: The oil-and-gas sector has organized work in ways that externalizes risk onto workers (in the form of layoffs and wage cuts) to maximize corporate profitability. The author notes that one new and very skilled worker had soured on the industry after three layoffs in five years. (This insecurity also a key barrier to apprentices completing their training, but note that Kenney’s training announcements never engage with this issue.)
• Restructuring: The author notes that austerity, tax cuts, and rising energy prices had made him hopeful that his job would have more security. This didn’t happen because trickle-down economics (which is what he’s talking about) doesn’t work. Very crudely speaking, if you give wealthy individuals and corporations additional income (through tax cuts), they don’t create jobs with it: they just horde it. By contrast, policies that raise wages for low-income workers do create new jobs because low-income workers spend the money and that creates demand (and new jobs).

In the end, the author acknowledges that working in the industry used to provide a stable living but no longer does. Not surprisingly, he leaves the industry to teach high-school kids welding skills and all but two members of his original crew either quit or were laid off.

So, what can we learn from this:

• Employers care about profit and treat workers instrumentally. If there is a way to increase profit and the effect is to make workers’ lives worse, employers will do so. This is particularly the case when there is a surplus of workers so the workers have little labour market power to exert.
• Governments, especially conservatives ones, are typically happy to help employers create a loose labour market that worsens wages and working conditions. To stifle dissent about policies that are actually screwing the workers who comprise the bulk of the electorate, governments will happily invent or manipulate facts. No one wants to work. People think they are too good for blue-collar work. And so forth. 
• Workers are often unable or unwilling to incorporate this dynamics into their analysis of how the world works. Instead, they will cheer-lead policies that harm their interests (e.g., tax cuts and austerity that destroy the public services they depend upon) in the hope they will see greater stability or a modest wage increase. They will also adopt explanatory narratives that blame workers (people look down in the trades) while ignoring that workers may well be making rational and well-informed choices about what job options are best for them.

Even a modest amount of critical thinking raises some pretty profound questions about these narratives. Why, for example, might workers not be keen to take certain jobs? Is it because they are innately lazy or think too highly of themselves or are misinformed? Or is it because the jobs are organized in ways that make them, relatively speaking, difficult, unstable, and poorly paid, and thus workers don’t see them as a good choice? Are there impediments (such a childcare availability and shift work) that make it impossible or uneconomical for workers to take these jobs?

This kind of questioning is typically taught in the liberal arts, which is the exact kind of education that the Kenney government has aggressively defunded. That is probably not a coincidence.

-- Bob Barnetson

Should I take a job at Athabasca University?

Every year, I receive phone calls from a couple of dozen candidates considering taking a job at Athabasca University (AU). Usually, these folks find me through this blog or word of mouth.

So, as the academic job-hunting season begins, I thought I’d take the opportunity to write down the pros and cons of taking a job at AU. These comments are mostly directed at folks considering a professorial job.

PROS

Working from home: Pre-pandemic, the vast majority of academic staff worked from home offices). Although the majority of staff live in Alberta, recently staff have been permitted to work anywhere in Canada. This means you can stay in your home community. 

At the time of writing, the university’s Board is engaged in an ill-chosen bun fight with the provincial government over the ongoing loss of jobs in the town of Athabasca (where the university’s headquarters is located). The government wanted, at one point, 65% of staff to work from there (despite there being inadequate housing stocks and office space). It is unclear how this dispute is going to play out or how it will affect where academic staff can live. You’ll definitely want to ask about this in your interview.

Setting your own schedule: For the most part, instruction at AU is asynchronous and text mediated. Since you don’t have to appear at a fixed time each week to lecture, you can largely set your own schedule. Start early or late. Work in the middle of the night. Take your kids to school or you mom to the doctor. As long as you get your work done and show up for the small number of fixed meetings, you basically can organize your life however you want.

Good benefits and pension plans: The benefits plan for faculty is pretty good, particularly in terms of vision, eyecare, and drug coverage (although costs are reimbursed, not pre-paid).

The pension plan is also pretty good, although you’ll pay about 11% of your salary into the plan. You can collect a full pension when (1) you are at least 55, and (2) your age and years of services equal 80. A full pension is 70% of your average salary during your five best consecutive years of employment. You can take a reduced pension any time after 55 if you have not yet met the 80 factor.

Tenure and promotion is the norm: The vast majority of hires (>99%) can expect to get tenure and promotion. Based on my 18 years of experience, I’d go so far as to say you have to actively and repeatedly fuck-up not to get tenured. That is not to say you don’t have to work—just that the bar is set at a very manageable level.

Faculty are typically hired with a four-year probationary appointment. After a successful review, you receive tenure. You can choose when to apply for promotion in rank. If you apply for and receive promotion before your tenure review, then you also automatically get tenure. Promotion is also rarely denied although the process is more rigorous than just tenure.

Financial stability: AU is financially stable (despite a history of the administration crying insolvency). In 2021/22, AU posted a surplus of $10.4m on expenses of $150.6m. This was the sixth straight surplus and ninth surplus in 10 years. AU has an accrued surplus (i.e., cash in the bank) of $46.9m.

Government funding of AU has been stable over the past few years. Only about 35% of institutional revenue comes from grants (the largest chunk is tuition based). Enrollments have been falling (about 9% per year for last two years) but the nature of AU’s business model is that the costs of revenue losses due to declining enrollment are borne mostly by the tutor pool (i.e., permanent, part-time academics with variable teaching loads).

CONS

Poor wages: Overall, wages are low and have fallen significantly behind inflation. The table below compares the compounded cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) to faculty wages and Alberta inflation from 2013 to 2022. Basically, the purchasing power of staff wages at AU has dropped by ~20% over 10 years.

Going forward, the COLA for adjustment for 2023 will total between 2.75% and 3.25%. Unfortunately, inflation is presently running about 8%, so expect another big loss in purchasing power.

Compounding the erosion of purchasing power is that starting salaries in nominal dollars are roughly the same as they were in 2007. There is also evidence of a gender wage gap (but zero interest by the institution in addressing it). While the institution will often say that salaries are negotiable, in practice that is not the case.

Poor Treatment and Low Morale: The treatment of staff by the university is, in a word, awful. I’ve been on the union grievance committee for a decade. While I can’t tell you everything I’ve seen, here are a few illustrative examples of how individual staff have been treated:

• AU knew it disciplined staff member improperly but took no action to fix. 
• AU accused a staff member of faking sick leave while his spouse was dying of cancer 
• AU forced a staff member to delay maternity leave or lose their sabbatical. 
• AU terminated nurses’ market supplements during a pandemic with no notice and then denied they were doing so. 
• AU dissolved a promotion committee with no cause 
• AU re-opened its campuses with no effective COVID protocols in place

Over the past five years, the employer has twice driven collective bargaining to impasse and the verge of a strike by demanding huge concessions. In between those rounds of bargaining, the employer also tried union busting with an effort to carve two-thirds of the union’s members out of the bargaining unit (and thus out of the pension plan).

The most recent survey of staff (Spring 2022) by the faculty association finds only 20% of staff trust the senior executive and only 39% agree with the statement that “my morale is high.” The employer no longer does staff surveys because the results were so consistently bad.

Workloads have also gone up, particularly for administrative staff, due to COVID. More subjectively, I’m seeing a widespread withdrawal of citizenship behaviours and effort by my colleagues. Essentially, they are realizing AU doesn’t care for them and are (understandably) reciprocating in kind. The upside is the union is tenacious, fights hard, and has strong member support.

Isolation: Working from home with essentially no in-person contact with co-workers or students is extremely isolating and may not be for everyone. Further, AU has no functional orientation process for new staff and most of the institution’s processes do not operate in the way that the various policies and procedures (often decades old) say that they do.

COVID has limited the opportunity for staff to meet socially (which is how we used to cope with the isolation and get our questions answered). In theory, more experienced colleagues in your area should provide you with an orientation and social introductions. In practice, the experiences of new hires is very uneven.

So, with those thoughts and the poor state of the academic job market in mind, one approach to a job offer might be:

• if you have no other option, take the AU job but stay on the market, and
• if you have other options, give the pros and cons of AU very careful thought.

-- Bob Barnetson

AUPE survey on pandemic needs

The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) periodically publishes a magazine (Direct Impact). The fall 2021 issue (not yet online at the time of writing) reports the results of a survey of its members about the impact of COVID.

The survey is fascinating, documenting income losses by two-thirds of members, with the losses being highly racialized. More than a quarter of member households experienced a layoff and almost half (49%) cut back on food purchases. An interesting question was what measures would help AUPE members cope with the financial hardships caused by COVID. I've nicked the graphic (sorry Guy!) and present it below:

Keep in mind that these results represent the view of unionized workers in AUPE who responded to the survey (I don't see a note about response rates). This means we should be cautious about its findings and especially of generalizing to other populations.

The pearl-clutching aside, what is most striking is that workers overwhelming identify price controls as what would help them most. Many of the COVID demands popularized by the broader labour movement (e.g., paid sick leave, presumptive WCB, childcare subsidies) received much less support. 

Further, demanding government intervention in the market (which neoliberalism suggests is anathema, unless it benefits the wealthy) is a surprisingly bold position for such a large portion of the respondents to stake out. Perhaps the pressure COVID is create and how it has pulled back the curtain on class-disparities is starting to more clearly inform rank-and-file views on union priorities?

-- 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

The paradox of small business

I'm not much for podcasts but the Alberta Advantage podcast (basically lefty political economy analysis out of Calgary) is often worth a listen. This episode provides an interesting analysis of the role of small business in society. 

Specifically, the episode examine the valourization of small business and how that is used to run cover for capitalists. For example, when big business advocates for lower wages, they get pilloried as greedy. When small business advocates for lower wages, the conversation is almost always framed around helping "job creators" in the local community stay afloat.

The episode also interrogates the actual track record of small businesses with regard to workplace safety and wage theft (spoiler: lousy, often made worse by the precarious employment that they offer). And it explores how the media flips the narrative on things like wage theft by bosses to time theft by workers in order to obscure how shitty some employers are.

Finally, the episode (like most of their episodes) spends a few minutes calling out the provincial NDP for their opportunist boosterism around small business, generally to the detriment of the interests of workers.

-- 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: Casinos and captive labour markets

The journal Labour/Le Travail recently published a very interesting case study about the experiences of workers at Casino Windsor. You can read the full text of the article here.

Casinos are often mooted as tools of economic diversification, providing relatively high-waged service industry jobs. This was a part of the back story of the opening of Casino Windsor and, initially, the casino did provide good jobs, particularly to women. Over time, though, economic pressure resulted in declining working conditions.

The workers at the casino faced labour immobility due to high unemployment and the absence of comparable wages elsewhere. This dynamic essentially creates a captive labour market, argues author Alissa Mazar, where the workers are stuck in their job. The employer knows this and uses aggressive disciplining to pressurize workers to perform.

Few options and fear of job loss has meant workers have internalizing the need to provide high quality customer service, despite poor treatment. Essentially, they exert discretionary effort in the hope that it will keep their livelihood intact and the employer uses this extra effort to reduce labour costs.

Mazar’s case study raises numerous questions about the value of casinos as economic engines, particularly when the state constraints the number of casinos and thus creates a captive labour force for the employer.

-- 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

Performance-based funding means more red tape, uncertainty for post-secondary institutions

This post previously appeared on the Parkland Institute Blog.

Last week, the Alberta government announced it will be implementing a performance-based funding model for the province's 26 post-secondary institutions. By 2022/23, 40 percent of institutional operating grants will be “at risk” (i.e., allocated only to the degree that institutions meet certain performance targets).

The government has indicated it will be consulting with institutions about the specific performance measures, and a background document for the consultation is now circulating which suggests there will be about 15 measures tied to funding as well as six other measures that will be reported for transparency purposes.

The document includes examples of each proposed performance measure, but no suggested targets. The targets may be system-wide or may be institution-specific. The metrics tied to funding fall into three broad categories and data sources for these measures have been identified. All of the measures appear to operate at the institutional level. I have summarized the measures below, some of which are a touch unclear.

Labour Market Measures

There are nine measures that assess labour-market outcomes or support for labour-market attachment:

• Percent of graduates employed two years after graduation
• Percent of graduates employed in a job related to their credential two years after graduation
• Percent of graduates employed within six months of graduation
• Median income of graduates one year after graduation
• Percent of current students who accessed career counselling
• Percent of current students who accessed employment services
• Percent of current students who have taken one or more steps to prepare for a career post-graduation
• Percent of current students who participated in a work-placement program
• Percent of employers satisfied that recent graduates were well-prepared across a range of basic skills

These measures frame post-secondary education (PSE) as labour-market training, which is one outcome of PSE. There are no measures of other PSE outcomes (e.g., knowledge creation, critical citizens).

Funding Measures

There are five measures that assess institutional funding:

• Percent of expenses spent on administration
• Percent of institutional expenses funded by government (Campus Alberta Grant)
• Percent of institutional revenue derived from non-mandate-related activity and/or fundraising
• Full-Load Equivalent (FLE) students divided by total expenditures
• Sponsored research revenues (for comprehensive research universities only)

These metrics suggest the government desires institutions to reduce their reliance on government funding (the MacKinnon report suggested a target of about 35 percent of revenue from government). The fourth (FLEs divided by total expenditures) measure doesn’t really make any sense to me; the reverse (i.e., expenditures divided by FLEs) would yield spending per student, so perhaps that is the intent.

Institutional reliance on government grants and their capacity to generate non-mandate related revenue (which is not defined in the document but likely includes continuing education courses, campus recreation, and food services revenue) varies widely. This may be an area where institution-specific targets are appropriate.

Enrollment Measures

There are four measures that assess institutional enrollments:

• Number “domestic” FLE students enrolled
• Number of international FLE students enrolled
• Number of Indigenous learners enrolled
• Number of domestic students enrolled in the 20 highest-demand programs at the institution

Measuring the number of FLEs will require institution-specific targets. The government could use these enrollment targets to pressure institutions to expand enrollments with no additional funding just by changing the targets from one year to the next.

The measure assessing the number of domestic students enrolled in the 20 highest-demand programs is difficult to unpack. The briefing document says a “Post-secondary demand model was developed in 2019 and is currently being finalized. Will be shared with institutions for planning purposes.” This measure may be designed to push institutions to expand access in high-demand programs.

But the definition of high demand is unclear. Is it high demand as defined by student applications? Or is high demand defined by some other group (e.g., employers) or by Alberta labour market forecasts? If high-demand programs vary from year-to-year (which is likely), institutions will struggle to meet targets because most programs span multiple years and expanding and contracting programs is slow and expensive.

Analysis

The most obvious implication of these draft measures is that the government views PSE uni-dimensionally as labour-market training. While PSE does certainly provide labour-market outcomes for graduates, this funding mechanism does not address the many other outcomes for students of a post-secondary education.

The structure of the performance system is penalty based: institutions that fail to meet targets will see their government grant reduced. This structure may introduce significant instability into a system already grappling with significant reductions in government operating grants. Penalizing institutions that fail to meet these targets will hinder improvement efforts (because there is no money to do so) and it may further degrade institutional performance (because now there is even less money).

Compounding the difficulties that will be caused by this punitive approach is that institutions have little meaningful control over many of the outcomes upon which they are being assessed. For example, the labour market outcomes will be largely driven by general economic conditions and/or the behaviours of students and graduates. If institutions can’t meaningfully influence the outcomes upon which their performance is being assessed, it is reasonable to question whether performance-based funding will have any meaningful impact upon institutional behaviour (other than redirected resources from teaching and research to administrative report-writing). This dynamic seems to sit at odds with the government’s stated desire to reduce “red tape.”

Similarly, institutions have little control over who applies to be a student. The proposed international and Indigenous student measures essentially set quotas based on citizenship and/or heritage. While equity group quotas are a valid policy instrument, these measures seem a touch off-brand for the UCP. For example, if institutions don’t meet the international student target and are financial punished for it, the UCP will be in the odd position of punishing institutions for educating Canadians.

Absent an indication of the targets that are being set, it is hard to assess the probable impact of this system. If the targets are easy to meet, then performance-based funding will have little impact (and is thus a waste of effort). If the targets are too hard to meet, institutions will see likely see a significant loss of funding. For institutions that are highly reliant on government funding and/or are in precarious financial situations, a big loss of funding will be profoundly destabilizing.

-- Bob Barnetson

Back to the future: Alberta introduces performance-based funding

Earlier this week, Alberta announced it would be implementing a new funding model. This model links up to 40% of institutional funding to performance on various targets. The Minister claims “[t]his is a new and completely transformative funding model.” This claim both is and isn’t true.

It isn’t true as Alberta (and other jurisdictions) experimented with performance-based funding in the late 1990s and Ontario is back at this. Alberta eventually abandoned performance-based funding, at least in part, because it was administratively burdensome and institutions could do little to improve their performance where they did not meet the targets.

The Minister’s statement is true in that the size and punitive approach of the new model has not been seen before in Alberta. The 1990s model provided a small amount of additional funding if performance target were met. The current model places significant amount of current funding (up to 40% by 2023) in jeopardy if targets are not met.

The exact institutional performance metrics have not been decided (or so we’re told). But a list of possible measures was included:

• graduate employment rate
• median graduate income
• graduate skills and competencies
• work-integrated learning opportunities
• administrative expense ratio
• sponsored research revenue
• enrolment (including potential targets for domestic students, international students and under-represented learners)

These metrics will, according to the Minister, “help ensure students are set up for success by encouraging institutions to produce job-ready graduates.”

It is hard to assess an incomplete proposal, but here are a few thoughts:

Performance measures are conceptual technologies, in that they shape what issues we think about and how we think about them. For example, assessing the employment rate and income of graduates emphasizes the labour-market training role performed by post-secondary institutions. Not assessing other roles (e.g., developing an informed and critical populace) obscures these other roles.

Continuing with this example, measuring graduates’ employment rates and incomes also suggests (however implicitly) that institutions have some control over these outcomes. Certainly institutions can (to some minor degree) influence these outcomes based upon which programs are offered and the career services institutions provide. But graduates’ behaviour and general economic conditions are likely to be far more important determinants of these outcomes.

These more important contributors to labour-market outcomes are entirely outside of institutional control. Yet, bizarrely, the government is suggesting making institutions accountable for outcomes they have little control over.

And, institutions that fail to meet targets will be financially penalized (i.e., have less money to improve performance). Absent radical internal re-allocations (which will be difficult since grants will also shrink over time), these institutions be unable to take meaningful steps to improve performance which, it must be remembered, is largely driven by factors outside of institutions’ control anyhow.

So where does such a system take us? Well, that depends on the details (that we don’t have).

One possibility is that performance targets are set such that institutions are already meeting them (or can easily met them). That doesn’t seem in keeping with the UCP’s narrative that the public sector is inefficient. Further, it would mean the new performance metric system is just a bunch of additional government red tape that serves no real purpose (except maybe to make institutions more easily controlled by government).

A second possibility is that institutions re-allocate funding internally to ensure they meet challenging targets. Since funding is tight, this might include dumping programs that drag down institutional averages on performance metrics and expanding programs that push up averages. The exact outcomes are hard to predict and may be unexpected. For example, during a downturn in oil and construction, the graduate employment measure may pressure institutions to curtail trades programs. I mention that example only because the government is constantly messaging the importance of getting more youth involved in the trades.

Another possibility is institutional gaming (which is often a response to performance measures). Institutions will, to the degree possible, prioritize measures that they do well on while de-emphasizing measures that they do poorly on. Institutions may also play some accounting games. For example, the ratio of administrative to academic expenses can be changed by recoding certain salaries and expenses as academic. This gaming and the broader enterprise of collecting and analyzing this data will, ironically, consume resources that could be better spent on educating students.

A fourth possibility is that performance-based funding is designed to cause financially precarious institutions to fail. In the short term, institutions seeing operating grants decline would likely seek wage-rollbacks and layoffs. This government-induced financial crisis would reduce public-sector expenditures (seemingly a key government priority). In the longer-term, an inability to balance budgets would provide a pretext for closing or amalgamating institutions (I’m thinking particularly of rural colleges, which are electorally popular in Tory ridings but of unclear financial viability).

It will be interesting to see which performance measures Alberta and individual institution come up with and how institution’s behaviour changes ins response to them.

-- Bob Barnetson
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College Humour: How Sex Workers Settled the West

So, we want to take anything produced by College Humour with a grain of salt. But this light-hearted examination of the history of sex work in the American west offers an interesting counterpoint to the typical portrayal of female sex workers in the western genre.

While you wouldn't want to cite this video in a paper, it does a reasonably job of highlighting the tension between exploitation and agency that lies at the heart of sex work. These themes are explored in AU's new course LBST 415: Sex Work and Sex Workers.

-- Bob Barnetson

Budget 2019: Bad news for labour market training in Alberta

There has been much written about the Kenney government’s attack on organized labour in its 2019 budget (which include layoffs and wage freezes, as well as interfering in ongoing arbitrations and future collective bargaining). Alberta’s 2019 budget also purports to improve labour-market training opportunities in order to get Albertans back to work:

“Supporting a highly skilled labour force and a competitive business environment will make lasting contributions to Alberta’s economy. Alberta will once again become the destination of choice for investors and skilled workers.” Travis Toews, Minister of Finance

A closer examination of the labour-market training pieces of the budget suggests this is mostly smoke and mirrors. The government is reducing its funding of post-secondary institutions (which do most of the training) by 5 per cent this year. The institution-specific cuts are unevenly distributed with no suggestion that the cuts reflect anything other than capacity to absorb the cuts. 

These cuts hamstring institution’s ability to deliver the education and skills training alleged desired by the government. Even more concerning is analysis that suggests that additional cuts of 20 to 25% are planned by 2022/23.

These cuts are to be offset, in part, by rapid tuition increases, with institutions allowed to increase tuition by 7% per year for the next three years. Tuition increases, combined with eliminating the tuition tax credit, reducing the teen minimum wage, and closing the Summer Temporary Employment Program (STEP), will make it much harder for students to afford to enroll in post-secondary education and training.

So, if you are playing along at home, your bingo card now shows fewer training opportunities that are less accessible to future workers. Sounds promising, so far!

While governments frequently talk about addressing skills shortages, the evidence that skills shortages actually exist is weak to non-existent (there is a long line of research suggesting that a great many workers are actually under-employed). When there are skills shortages (which tend to be industry specific and geographically localized), such shortages are often difficult to predict and almost impossible for institutions to react to (because mounting and delivering training takes time and the labour tends to adjust). 

A new post-secondary funding mechanism (likely with labour market metrics) is to be introduced in the coming months. This was tried in the mid-1990s and basically didn't work. Meh.

Expected skill shortages in the skilled trades are a recurring UCP talking point. The key barrier to qualifying more trades people lies with employers’ unwillingness to offer adequate apprenticeship opportunities. The last data I saw showed that only 19% of employers that use qualified trades people participate in training apprentices. More money (or more directive finding mechanisms) for post-secondary institutions won’t alleviate that bottle neck.

The government also announced an additional $4 million to expand work experience and apprenticeship programs for elementary (!!!), junior and senior high-school students. The current Registered Apprenticeship Program (RAP) provides a useful pathway for students interested in the trades. But there are issues.

Research suggests that Alberta students sometimes struggle to find apprenticeships and the female participants struggle against long-standing gender discrimination. One in five students reports an occupational injury during a RAP apprenticeship. One in twenty RAP participants (whom we should remember, are kids) is injured so severely that they cannot work in the field.

Overall, there is little reason to believe that the Kenney government is serious about enhancing labour market training opportunities. Rather, this appears to be an elaborate rhetorical offensive to distract Albertans from the profound damage that public-sector cuts will do post-secondary education. These cuts, of course, are necessary only because the Kenney government gave away $4.5 billion in corporate tax breaks. (Which, as predicted, corporations pocketed, instead of creating jobs).

-- Bob Barnetson

Bizarre survey reignites "jobs in Athabasca" issue

A recurring issue at Athabasca University is the slow loss of university jobs from the town, mainly to the Edmonton area. While there was some recognition that this was a problem by former New Democrat government, the government took no action to resolve it and the entire senior leadership of the university decamped to Edmonton, St. Albert, and Calgary.

Recognizing that job loss at the town’s largest employer was potentially politically problematic, the university struck a committee (that included residents of the town) to discuss the issue and held an open-house in June. The open house infographic claims a 71% increase in Athabasca-based staff between 1985 and 2019. While probably true, using two data points 34 years apart disingenuously obscures the rise and fall of employees in intervening years. The university was also invited to join Athabasca County’s Tourism/Economic Development Committee.

There has been little concrete progress on this issue for several years beyond some sporadic language in job postings about giving preference to candidates who will live in Athabasca. In mid-September, a group of prominent Athabasca residents (mostly Conservative business people and politicians) arranged a meeting with the new Minister of Advanced Education to discuss this issue (and, specifically, the departure of senior university leaders). While this meeting was postponed (possibly at the request of the university), it suggests this issue is not going away.

This week, Athabasca-based AU employees received an invitation from the university to complete a survey designed “to help develop strategies to drive discussions on building a sustainable local community.” The survey appears intended to feed into the work of the Athabasca County’s Tourism/Economic Development Committee (although this is unclear). The survey itself is, to say the least, bizarre and appears to be hosted by 13ways.ca, a consulting company run by former Conservative MLA Doug Griffiths.

The survey asks a variety of yes/no questions about respondents’ perceptions of the community’s trajectory, drinking water (?), local spending, municipal flower plantings, various questions about strategies and partnerships (that respondents almost certainly can’t answer), seniors housing, and in-migration. A “bonus question” asks respondents to choose a community slogan from a list of negative options (at the bottom you can select none of the above). I have reprised the list of slogans below—it is quite shocking.



Presumably, this survey and the bonus question (which appears based on Griffiths’ book “13 ways to kill your community”) is designed to identify problem areas that Griffith’s consulting firm would be poised to help remedy. Whether this survey is valid or reliable (even in the most casual sense of the word) is a very, very open question (if this was student project, I’d give it a D).

Why the university would be sending this out to their employees to fill out is a good question. The survey suggests that there is something wrong with the Athabasca community that must be remedied (which is not true). This framing allows the university to shrug, say “no one wants to live there”, and absolve itself from any responsibility for the loss of jobs in Athabasca.

In fact, what has happened is that the university has been voluntarily transferring jobs out of the community for years. This job loss could be stopped literally overnight if the university simply started hiring more positions to Athabasca. There is no impediment to this: there is space and there are candidates who will move there.

That the university won’t do that and, instead, sends out silly info graphics and surveys, tells Athabasca community members pretty much all they need to know about Athabasca University’s actual commitment to the community. It would be pretty funny if all of AU’s ducking and weaving on this issue resulted in the government directing all senior executives to live and work in town.

-- 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

Bill 2 grinds wages, complicates payroll, and impedes union drives

This post originally appeared on the Parkland Institute blog on May 28, 2019.

The second bill introduced by Alberta’s new United Conservative Party (UCP) government is An Act to Make Alberta Open for Business. In conjunction with an Order in Council, if passed this act will reduce the minimum wage for many workers under 18, reduce all workers' access to general holiday pay and overtime premiums, and make it harder for workers to unionize.

According to Premier Jason Kenney, these changes are designed to increase employment levels and fairness in the workplace: 

Our government ran on a promise to get Albertans, especially young people, back to work. … With Bill 2 and the youth minimum wage, we are restoring fairness and balance to the workplace and getting 'Help Wanted' signs back in the windows of Alberta businesses.

Minister of Labour Jason Copping asserts these changes will also reduce red tape and increase the employment of minors, saying, 

We need to encourage employers to create opportunities for all workers. These changes would help Alberta's businesses to do just that. We’re bringing back balance, cutting red tape and making it more affordable to hire teens for their first jobs.

An examination of Bill 2 suggests that it will, in fact, yield none of these claimed benefits. Instead, it will reduce workers' income, make payroll administration more complex, and impede workers seeking to join a union.

Youth minimum wage

Effective June 26, the minimum wage for workers under 18 who attend school will drop from $15 per hour to $13 per hour. The government will (somehow) allow employers to immediately reduce the wages for these workers.

During weeks when school is in session, the first 28 hours worked by minors who are in school will be paid at $13 per hour while subsequent hours will be paid at $15 per hour. During weeks when school is not in session (e.g., summer, Christmas, spring break), all hours will be paid at the lower $13 rate.

The premise underlying this 13 percent reduction in the minimum wage is that employers will hire more minors who are in school. It certainly is possible that, given the opportunity to hire minors at $13 per hour or adults at $15 per hour, some employers will hire more minors who are in school. Shifting who gets hired will not, however, change overall employment levels.

I was unable to locate any academic research addressing the impact of reducing the minimum wage for minors. While it is possible that employers will use the savings they realize to hire more workers, this seems unlikely. Hiring is typically driven by demand for a product or service. Reducing wage levels does not increase demand. What we are likely to see is that employers (who are in business to make money) will simply pocket these savings.

What this change does do is significantly increase payroll complexity for employers (particularly small businesses) by requiring them to:

1. know which employees are students,
2. know when each employee’s school is in session or on a break,
3. vary each employee’s hourly wage depending upon hours worked and whether school is in session, and
4. change workers’ wages and payroll calculations when workers turn 18.

This effect seems at odds with the UCP’s election promise to reduce red tape. To avoid the red tape the UCP is creating, some employers may simply cap minors at 28 hours of work per week. Other employers may cope by simply paying all minors $13 an hour in all instances and waiting to see if anyone complains (unfortunately, most minors won't).

The government has also promised to allow employers to quickly reduce the wages of minors who are in school via the provision of notice. This promise directly interferes with employment contracts negotiated between employers and employees in a way that negatively affects the more vulnerable party (i.e., young workers). It is unclear how the government’s requirement for notice would satisfy the usual requirements for a contractual change. Neither Bill 2 nor the associated Order in Council addresses this issue.

Overall, reducing the minimum wage for minors who are in school benefits employers by reducing their labour costs. These savings may be offset by the increasing administrative complexity created by this change. It is unclear how this change would increase overall employment.

General holiday pay

At present, Alberta workers are entitled to nine paid general holidays (often called statutory holidays) immediately after hiring. General holiday pay is complicated, but the basic rules are:

1. To be eligible for holiday pay, your must work your regularly scheduled shifts before and after the holiday as well as on the holiday, if asked.
2. If you do not work the holiday, you get your average daily pay rate (regardless of when the holiday falls).
3. If you do work the holiday you either get 1.5 times your hourly rate for hours worker or your regular rate plus another day off with pay.

Bill 2 proposes adding an additional requirement that you must be employed by the employer for the 30 days preceding the holiday. Bill 2 also proposes that if a holiday falls on a day you do not normally work and you do not work the holiday, you are not entitled to general holiday pay. Essentially, the UCP is adding back in much of the complexity that employers asked the former NDP government to remove.

It is very difficult to calculate the exact effect of this change. Overall, employers will see a reduction in labour costs and workers will see a reduction in take-home pay. Employers will face additional work and complexity in determining who is entitled to pay for each holiday. Workers with irregular or flexible schedules may be affected more significantly than workers who work a standard work week.

Overtime premiums

Bill 2 also proposes reducing the rate at which banked overtime is paid out. At present, if you work more than 8 hours in a day or 44 hours in a week, you are entitled to be paid at a rate of 1.5 times your normal rate of pay for these overtime hours.

The Employment Standards Code allows employers and employees to enter into overtime banking arrangements, whereby overtime is not immediately paid out. Instead, employees can draw down their banked overtime to take time off with pay at a rate of 1.5 hours off for every hour of overtime worked. If the employee does not draw down the banked time, it is then paid out at the overtime rate.

Overtime banking is often used in industries subject to seasonal fluctuations. Workers bank overtime during a busy period and then draw down this time to maintain their employment (and benefits) during the slow season.

The UCP is proposing that banked overtime taken as time off would be taken at straight time. In effect, employees would lose the overtime premium they are due. While employees could elect to cash out their banked overtime (and get the premium), if they are using overtime to bridge slow seasons (to avoid a layoff), cashing out overtime may trigger a layoff (thereby terminating their benefits).

This change benefits employers by providing them with a way to avoid paying overtime premiums to workers. It is unclear how this would increase workplace fairness or increase employment. Indeed, incentivizing employers to use overtime (by cheapening it) will likely reduce employment levels.

Mandatory certification votes

At present, when workers wish to join a union, a union files an application for certification with the Alberta Labour Relations Board (ALRB). Certification applications must include evidence that at least 40 percent of employees in the proposed bargaining unit support the union's application. If the union provides evidence that more than 65 percent of workers support the union, then the ALRB will certify the union as the bargaining agent for the unit without the need for a vote. This is called card-check certification.

If the union cannot demonstrate greater than 65 percent support, then the ALRB will order a vote of all of the workers in the proposed bargaining unit to determine if the majority of voters support the application.

Bill 2 proposes eliminating card-check certification and requiring mandatory certification votes in all certification applications. The research from across Canada is pretty clear: card-certification results in more applications to join unions and a greater success rate. We have seen this dynamic already take effect in Alberta.

The reason for this effect is that card-check certification eliminates the opportunity for employers to interfere in what should be a free choice by employees. One Canadian study found that 80 percent of employers oppose certification drives, 60 percent do so overtly, and 20 percent take action that is illegal (e.g., threatening or dismissing workers).

Employer interference tends to put a chill on the organizing drive. Research from both British Columbia and Ontario shows that, as soon as the rules switch to mandatory votes, the number and success rate of union drives drops significantly.

Requiring certification votes is often justified as fundamentally democratic, and as a way to prevent union intimidation of workers. Equating certification votes with the electoral process ignores the fact that, when workers cast a vote in a federal or provincial election, the government doesn't spend the campaign period threatening to fire workers if they vote for a different party.

Such claims also ignore that elections and union drives are fundamentally different. Government policies profoundly affect every aspect of our lives and can't be avoided (unless we abandon our country and citizenship). By contrast, the selection of a bargaining agent affects only certain aspects of our employment and the effects (typically higher wages and greater job security) can be avoided by changing jobs.

The idea that mandatory votes prevent the intimidation of workers is misleading. Requiring mandatory votes may prevent (very uncommon) union intimidation of workers, but it does so at the cost of facilitating (very common) employer intimidation of workers.

Eliminating card-check (i.e., requiring votes on every application) will reduce the number of workplaces that are unionized. Because unionized workplaces typically better terms and conditions of employment, reducing the number of workplaces that unionize financial benefits employers and financially penalizes workers.

Analysis

Bill 2 is clearly designed to reduce labour costs for Alberta employers. Bill 2 achieves this by transferring these costs to workers, in the form of reduced compensation. There is no evidence or reason to believe that this transfer of costs will result in an overall increase in employment rates, and the mechanisms set out in Bill 2 will also substantially increase payroll complexity for employers (particularly small businesses).

Eliminating card-check certification increases employers' abilities to interfere in workers' decisions about whether they wish to be represented by a union or not. The result will be fewer successful union drives. This change will clearly decrease fairness in the workplace in order to help employers avoid unions.

At the media conference announcing Bill 2, Premier Kenney stated that additional labour law reform will be introduced in the fall. This may include the introduction of a lower minimum wage for serving staff (following the appointment of a task force), restrictions on how unions can spend dues collected from members, and changes the essential services rules for public-sector unions.

-- Bob Barnetson

Indigenous gendered experiences of work in an oil-dependent, rural Alberta community

The Parkland Institute recently issued a very interesting report entitled “Indigenous gendered experiences of work in an oil-dependent, rural Alberta community.”

This case study of Wabasca “focuses on the lived experiences of Indigenous working families in the oil industry and how working conditions impact families and gender relations” (p. 1).

This study remedies the lack of attention paid by researchers to the economic, employment, or other benefits (and the tradeoffs among them) involving Indigenous communities and the gendered nature of these experiences.

The authors draw a number of conclusions and raise some very thought-provoking questions:

Interviews demonstrated that individuals working in the oil industry have experienced gender and racial discrimination at and related to work. At the same time, Indigenous companies have been able to carve out space in what has been an industry primarily dominated by non-Indigenous people. (p. 20)

The oil industry’s boom-bust cycle and the pressures of capitalism can bring significant imbalance and disruption to communities, as described here. However, through relationality in the community, specifically paid and unpaid caring work that is largely performed by women, the community works to establish balance. The industry itself may foster and exploit women’s engagement in this type of care work through its very structure and practices that create barriers and deterrents for women and ultimately reduce their participation in the higher-paying oilfield jobs. (p. 20) 

Some interviewees have internalized hegemonic racist stereotypes and narratives that Indigenous workers lack the drive to move up the labour ladder. At the same time, some workers are conscious of the stereotypes and resist them. These workers, especially Indigenous tradespeople, described the need to work harder than white workers to move up the ladder. (p. 20) 

Many Indigenous workers may end up streamed into unskilled labourer positions. The few Indigenous workers that become skilled journeymen or journeywomen sometimes end up being business owners by starting their own contracting companies. Indigenous business owners are a different class than their employees because they are wealthy enough to own some means of production. (pp. 20-21) 

Capital is a form of social and economic power that is not necessarily recognized as such. The long-term concern is that capitalist relations will get implanted in Indigenous communities, hooking them into the trans-local practices of ruling that are integral to corporate power (building stronger support for continued extractivism, as business revenue streams come to require it), and dividing the community against itself. From the perspective of miyo-pimatisiwin, how can Indigenous understandings of being relations (“all my relations”), and caring for the collective good be maintained when capitalist structures divide the community by class and individualist approaches impact community relations? (p. 21)

Overall, this is a very useful extension of the significant research done (primarily by University of Alberta scholars) on the social impacts of Alberta’s oil-dependent economy.

-- 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

Jobs losses in Athabasca continue

This week brings us another example of Athabasca University (AU) saying one thing to its employees and doing another. This time, the topic is AU’s mixed messages about keeping jobs in the town of Athabasca.

AU is the largest employer in the town of Athabasca. AU also operates campuses in Edmonton (2) and Calgary (1) and about half of its 1100 employees (mostly the instructional staff) work from home offices.

A long-standing issue is the degree to which AU is shifting operations out of Athabasca. This issue came to a head after a 2015 report mooted AU leaving town, a 2016 report that AU was planning on a new campus in St. Albert, and another 2016 report that IT jobs would shift there.

In 2016, political backlash saw Minister of Advanced Education Marlin Schmidt direct AU to develop a plan to keep AU in Athabasca. Not surprisingly, a 2017 report on AU’s future suggested maintaining (and perhaps expanding) the size of its operations in Athabasca. Then-new AU President Neil Fassina told the Edmonton Journal that

…the university was “100 per cent committed to our presence in Athabasca” and that it needed to “take advantage of the immense opportunity that is inherent in the town.”

Yet, AU’s behaviour since then has not really lived up to the hype. None of AU’s senior executives live in Athabasca anymore. Most live in Edmonton or Calgary and visit Athabasca one day per week or less. AU’s new strategic plan, spearheaded by Fassina, says essentially nothing about the town of Athabasca and planning for a new Edmonton-area campus is underway.

This approach to the location issue sits uncomfortably with continued messaging by the government that “Athabasca University… is an important part of the Town of Athabasca.”

There is data to support continued concerns about jobs slowly leaving the town of Athabasca. Analysis of AU staffing suggests that there has been a steady loss of jobs over the past five years, with jobs shifting to Edmonton and Calgary. Here are some examples.

Professional staff (e.g., IT workers, editors, other unionized professional staff) saw an overall reduction in numbers (from 247 in 2013 to 201 in late 2018). The biggest losses have been in Athabasca (net loss of 29) and the majority of professionals now work elsewhere.

There is a similar story among excluded management jobs. The overall decline (from 23 in 2014 to 17 in 2018 ) includes a large shift in positions away from Athabasca. This data also masks a very high level of turnover among directors and executives.

On February 6, a staff member asked Fassina why job postings no longer say nice things about living in Athabasca. Fassina responded that all job postings state, “all else being equal, preference will be given to the individual who is willing to live or relocate to Athabasca. All of our job postings have got that now.”

Staff fact-checked him as he was speaking and found that wasn’t true. Fassina said he would take that away. A month later, this language is still missing from all job postings (including those where no location is specified).

The job postings do, once again, say nice things about living in Athabasca:

The vibrant town of Athabasca is located in the heart of Alberta's boreal forest on the banks of the Athabasca River. The community offers modern services, affordable housing, excellent public schools, and a variety of recreational activities to suit everyone's lifestyle. 

Athabasca University offers an interest-free loan for new employees who relocate within Athabasca County or the Town of Athabasca.

When queried, HR’s explanation for the re-introduction of Athabasca-booster statements was that they have to be included after the last connect with the President session.

That makes little sense because (1) that isn't what the president said would be in the job ads, (2) saying nice things about Athabasca is way less effective at bringing workers to town than would giving preference to Athabasca candidates, and (3) the Athabasca booster statements occur in jobs posted as Edmonton-only!

Further, that AU continues to insist jobs be located in Edmonton (when those jobs can clearly be done at any location) reveals the underlying problem: despite its purported commitment to keeping operations in Athabasca, AU doesn't make hiring to Athabasca a priority.

Further, requiring jobs be located in Edmonton (when there is no operational reason for the requirement) blocks Athabasca residents from acquiring these good jobs unless they leave town.

Saying one thing and doing another on the Athabasca job is issue does not help an administration beset by credibility problems due to its other labour relations practices. And the evidence clearly shows ongoing job losses in Athabasca.

I wonder what the government thinks about AU’s lack of compliance with Minister Schmidt’s direction about keeping AU in Athabasca?

-- Bob Barnetson