Labour & Pop Culture: Brooklyn 99

Brooklyn 99 is a police comedy series that has just released its final season on Netflix. The first episode (“The Good Ones”) deals with police brutality and the role of police unions in shielding officers from the consequences of their actions. The release of the final season was delayed as the writers sought to write a police comedy in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

Two of the characters (Rosa and Jake) investigate the assault, arrest, and false charging of an African woman by two NYPD police officers (to generate overtime payments, according to their captain). The police union (the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association) bars Rosa and Jake from talking to the officers and accessing bodycam footage that might demonstrate the charged woman is innocent. When Jake and Rosa steal the footage from the union offices, the precinct captain deletes it and explains how the disciplinary system is broken.

The plot and characterization of the police union was interesting in several ways. In no particular order:

• The assault and false arrest is explained as the officers seeking to extend their shift and receive overtime. This may well happen but this explanation seems to ignore the racial context of the George killings.
• The union official is written as a caricature (living with his mom and loving the NYPD and Billy Joel) prepared to overlook any bad behaviour by his union’s members. The union member are also shown as caricatures (making ridiculous complaints, dressing like RWNJs).
• There is collusion mooted between the union and the employer to undermine any discipline the officers might experience. In the end, the only outcome is the charges are dropped against the African woman.

Before jumping into any analysis, it is worth appreciating that Brooklyn 99 is a comedy show that is trying to navigate tricky terrain. And using tropes (e.g., corrupt union officials protecting irresponsible union members) is a common way for television shows to engage with unions (because viewers can much more easily understand the plot).

The precinct captain explaining the officers’ behaviour as economic is a very interesting way to portray how racism (which is the root issue) can be obscured by how the issue is framed. It is way easier for an organization to grapple with time theft than with systemic racism. I wonder if the elision of racism by the framing should have been made clearer? But perhaps I am under-estimating the audience.

The characterization of the police union officials and members was unsympathetic (but funny). These NPCs created an interesting foil for the main characters (who viewed themselves as “the good ones”) and allowed the show to highlight how good intentions often get subverted by systemic pressures. That said, this episode contributes the almost universally negative framing of unions and union members.

Near the end, there is an interesting discussion of how the discipline system works. Essentially, says the captain, trying to discipline the officers will not work. They will simply get a paid vacation, any finding of wrongdoing will be overturned on appeal (because the employer colludes with the union), and the officers will simply return to the job emboldened (while the female captain’s career gets sidelined for breaking the code).

There is a lot to unpack in that one scene. That the police officers would be placed on paid leave pending a hearing seems to be framed as rewarding bad behaviour (and it is certainly far different from most American’s experience of employment at will). Yet, if you think about it, a collective agreement compelling the employer to abide by the principle of innocent until proven guilty is a good thing.

The idea that the employer will collude with the union to prevent the police officers from being disciplined highlights how police unions operate in a far different realm than every other union. One of the functions of police officers is to (essentially) protect private property. In practice, this means that they act against workers on behalf of employers (who own most private property). This makes police officers effectively agents of capital. Consequently, their employer may excuse behaviour that no other employer would.

The position of the captain (who views herself as one of the good ones) is also an interesting study in the conflicted role of middle managers. The captain is basically a disposable tool of the employer (if she does the objectively right thing, her career is over). So, she does the “best” she can, which leads her to fix the immediate issue while, at the same time, enabling the officers’ ongoing bad behaviour.

The captain rationalizes her behaviour, in part, as an equity issue. She is one of the few female captains. Doing the right thing (by a racialized person) will set back gender equity in the NYPD. This was a really fascinating analysis of how racists systems can create conflicts of interests between and among racialized and non-racialized people.

Overall, this episode provided a lot of meat to chew over about systemic racism and the structures and dynamics that perpetuate it.

-- Bob Barnetson

Alberta's 2019 injury data released

Alberta finally released its annual report on injuries and fatalities for 2019. Some of the key findings are that, from 2017 to 2019:

• Lost-time claim numbers and rates are up slightly,
• Modified work numbers and rates are down some, and
• Overall, the number of disabling injuries is up slightly (likely population growth related) while the rate is down slightly. 

Industry-related data was not super surprising. Ag and forestry is the most dangerous and saw large growth in injury rates (~24%). I suspect this reflects the implementation of mandatory WCB in agriculture.

Manufacturing, processing and packaging was another sector with relatively high injury rates. We should expect this number to spike in 2020 and 2021 given the COVID waves that swept through the meat-packing plants. We’ll likely also see something similar in the public sector (particularly education and health care). We may also see this in mining, given the oilsands camp outbreaks.

There has been a long-term increase in occupational fatality rates in Alberta.


This has included a long-term reduction in the proportion of fatalities caused by motor vehicles accidents (blue bar in chart below) and an increase in workplace incidents (orange bar).

Claims related to harassment and violence doubled from 2015 to 2019. This may reflect, in part, greater awareness and acceptance of these sorts of injuries as a result of changes to the OHS Act and Code made by the New Democrats.


One of the most compelling charts is buried at the end of the document and it tracks injury rates over 10 years. Combined with the fatality rates chart above, the biggest take-away is that not much has changed. 

This suggests that the injury-prevention strategies mandated by successive Alberta governments (which have emphasized education and voluntary compliance coupled with anemic enforcement) have not really moved the needle on worker injuries or workplace safety.

-- Bob Barnetson

Decriminalizing sex work would make sex workers safer

This post was originally published on the AU Hub in conjunction with the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Sex Workers.

It is both legal and dangerous to sell sex in Canada. One factor that makes sex workers vulnerable to violence is how the government regulates sex work. While selling sex is legal, buying sexual services and assisting in the sale or purchase of sexual services is not. This regulatory approach stigmatizes sex work and thereby increases sex workers’ risk. Fully decriminalizing the purchase and sale of sexual services—a demand supported by sex workers and 150 human rights groups—would help reduce the risk of violence.

Canada’s current approach to regulating sex work is often called the Nordic model. It assumes sex work is socially undesirable and that the demand for sexual services can be extinguished by sanctioning clients. The impact of the Nordic model on sex workers’ safety is complicated.

Sex workers and authors Juno Mac and Molly Smith note that sex workers typically have a greater need to sell sexual services (e.g., to put food on the table) than buyers do to purchase it. Criminalizing clients can reduce demand. This, in turn, forces sex workers to take on clients they might otherwise refuse or meet them in circumstances that heighten the risk of violence. Criminalizing those who could provide assistance to sex workers working safely (e.g., security staff, call services, drivers) also increases the risk of violence for sex workers.

In theory, the Nordic model is supposed to result in sex workers finding other sources of income. (In Nordic countries, this model is paired with a more complete social safety net than is presently available in Canada). In Canada, “straight” jobs are often unavailable (that’s why sex workers sell sex) or unworkable (e.g., due to childcare or health issues).

Sex workers can also be reluctant to access existing income support programs for fear of triggering the interest of other government agencies, such as children’s services or the tax department. For example, some sex workers’ reluctance to access federal income supports during COVID-19 reflects their concerns about becoming visible to the state.

Consequently, sex workers say that what Canada’s laws do is pressure sex workers to work less safely and render illegal many of the strategies sex workers can use to make themselves less vulnerable to violence. These laws are presently due for a five-year review.

Fully decriminalizing sex work—where any adult can purchase sexual services—would allow sex workers to work more safely (e.g., in cooperatives, in safer locations, with access to security and other business services). Decriminalization would also lower the barriers faced by sex workers wishing to access state services, such as medical care and income support services.

New Zealand decriminalized most sex work in 2003. Decriminalization is not a panacea. Sex workers still report facing stigma and violence, especially racialized, migrant, and trans sex workers. They still cannot necessarily access law enforcement protection safely. And many other laws and policies (e.g., zoning, licensing, advertising) still make life difficult for sex workers.

And, where sex work occurs in the context of an employment relationship, sex workers are still subject to the usual indignities and exploitation that can be found in any workplace. They may also still be subject to the abuses sex workers tend to experience in employment relationships specifically because they’re sex workers, and which occur in the sex industry under all regulatory frameworks.

But decriminalization does appear to result in better working conditions for sex workers. It also offers more accessible pathways to different work (e.g., through income support programs). If combined with a more fulsome social safety net, it might result in a significant reduction in sex work overall. New Zealand’s experience offers useful guidance about how the government can meaningfully reduce the risk of violence faced by sex workers—one driven by data rather than by stigma.

-- Bob Barnetson

Why are public-sector employers “good employers”?

Source: D'Arcy Norman, Wikipedia Commons

Last week, I ran across an OHS order directed at the University of Calgary. Apparently, the U of C was found to have violated of s.391 of the OHS Code.

That section is about training workers and harassment and violence:

391. An employer must ensure that workers are trained in

(a) The recognition of violence and harassment.
(b) The policies, procedures and workplace arrangements that the employer has developed and implemented to eliminate or control the hazards of violence and harassment.
(c) The appropriate response to violence and harassment, including procedures for obtaining assistance, and the procedures for reporting, investigating, and documenting incidents of violence and harassment.

These provisions came into effect in June of 2018. The order was issued in September of 2020. I wasn’t able to find out much in terms of details, but we can make some guesses:

1. Likely the U of C hasn’t provided adequate OHS training on these hazards.
2. This order likely stems from a complaint or an injury (since random inspections are basically non-existent in Alberta). 
3. I’d also guess that this violation is likely long-standing (since falling out of compliance once an employer has set up a training system is unlikely).

This is not an issue unique to the U of C. For example, less half of the teachers in recent study by the Alberta Teachers Association indicated they had received training to managing bullying and violence.

My own university failed to provide OHS training, received an order, and then stalled responding for months. The training we were eventually provided was terrible. And a revised training developed by the joint occupational health and training committee has been waiting implementation for more than 6 months.

Widespread violations of health and safety rules by public-sector employers is often hard for people to reconcile. Aren’t public-sector employers “good employers”? I think this dissonance stems from confusing good jobs and good employers.

Public sector workers are more likely than private-sector workers to have good jobs, with decent wages, job security, benefits, pensions. (This isn’t a universal experience in the public sector, but there a definite pattern.)

These good working conditions don’t reflect employer benevolence. Rather, they reflect that unionization is high (~67%) in the public sector and union contracts limit how bad employers can make public-sector jobs.

While most public-sector collective agreements contain some language on OHS, the bulk of the rules flow from the OHS Act and Code (which is effectively unenforced in Alberta). So health and safety is an area where public-sector employers can let their true managerial colours show.

And this generally shows up by ignoring their obligations (because most violations don’t result in a serious injury that would attract government sanction). In this way, public-sector employers save cost (however marginal) on safety. Training is particularly easy to ignore unless, in my experience, there is a joint health and safety committee populated by knowledgeable actors who will push and prod the employer and maybe complain.

-- 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

Judge strikes down a portion of Canada's sex work laws

In December, AU opened a new course (LBST 415: Sex work and sex workers). One focus of the course is how governments regulate sex work and sex workers, with an eye to which approach yields the best results for sex workers.

In 2014, Canada amended the Criminal Code to decriminalize the sale of sexual services (in most instances). The purchase of sexual services and any acts designed to facilitate the sale of sexual services remain criminalized. 

This approach is often called the Nordic model and is intended to extinguish demand for sex work (although it has not) while making it safer for sex workers to seek police assistance (which it also has not). The law was supposed to have been reviewed by the government in 2019, but it was not.

An interesting development last month was that an Ontario judge struck down portions of Canada’s law on sex work that criminalized procuring, advertising, or materially benefitted from the sale of someone’s sexual services. The case involved a couple who ran an escort agency.

The judge’s rationale was prohibiting advertising violates freedom of expression while the laws against procuring and materially benefitting violate the Charter guarantee of security of person. The crux of the rationale is that the prohibitions make it difficult for sex workers to screen clients, work cooperatively, and to purchase certain services, all of which make sex work safer.

Those opposed to the decision frame this ruling as protecting pimps who traffic in exploited women and girls. While rhetorically powerful, this analysis ignores that there is significant nuance in the “management services” that sex workers may purchase as well as that human trafficking remains illegal.

This line of critique also contributes to the conflation of sex work and human trafficking. While there is overlap (some trafficked women and girls are involved in sex work, and some of this involvement in sex work is against their will), most sex work appears to be consensual activity.

That is not to say there isn’t an element of exploitation involved in sex work. But it is important to identify that sex workers have agency. A part of recognizing this agency is providing sex workers the opportunity to engage in sex work in ways of their choosing. Analysis of New Zealand (where sex work has been legalized) suggests this model yields the best outcomes for sex workers.

-- Bob Barnetson

Unions & Sci-fi: Hunger Makes the Wolf

I recently finished two sci-fi westerns by Alex Wells in which a union made an appearance. Hunger Makes the Wolf (2017) and Blood Binds the Pack (2018) follow the adventures of Hob Ravani as she leads a group of outlaws (the Ghost Wolves) on the bone-dry corporate planet of Tenegewa.

Tenegewa is dominated by the TransRift Corporation (which controls interstellar travel). TransRift has established a number of corporate towns (both mining and farming), which harken back to Appalachia in the 1930s (or 1970s!).

The heavy-handed tactics of TransRift are sometimes collectively resisted by the miners, who might call a day of rest and thereby reduce production. Over the course of the two novels, the situation faced by the miners deteriorates and they become more militant.

While I don’t think they ever refer to themselves as a union, the miners employer a number of traditional labour tactics, including striking. They are also subjected to numerous traditional employer tactics, include infiltration, starvation, and violence.

Ravani’s bandits eventually work in collaboration with the miners to undermine TransRift and give the distant government a pretext for more involvement (there is a power struggle between the government and TransRift over space-travel technology).

Overall, the books do a decent job of portraying the process of organizing workers. I found the books a touch long but hung on to the end.

-- 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: Peacock Skeleton with Crooked Feathers

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Peacock Skeleton with Crooked Feathers” by Blood Brothers. It is a bit hard to know what this song is specifically about (it came out in the aftermath of the 2004 US election) beyond the general hypocrisy of the elites.

The most obviously labour-related lyric is this one:

If you strike for better wages at the cola factory
and they drink champagne as they kick in your teeth?
Hey Peacock?
What's that?
I just wanna know what his blood tasted like.
Was it like sugar or vinegar or whiskey or dirt? (It's all those!)
Which peacock is beast? Which peacock is priest?

But there are other examples violence by the powerful (e.g., rising rents, police repression of dissent) and the impact this has regular people. Can’t say I really liked the song (a melody would be nice...) but it is an interesting example of post-hardcore music. Apologies for the lack of a video.

If the sea shakes like an empty maraca
I know I know I know I know
and she falls in love with the sounds of ships sinking?
I know I know I know I know

Which peacock is beast? Which peacock is priest?
If the heavens part and nobody, nowhere, nothing,
every apartment is vacant, every home for rent?
Hey Peacock?
What's that?
I just want to know what your feathers are made out of.
Is it bruises or roses or cradles or coffins? (It's all those!)
Which peacock is beast? Which peacock is priest?
If your friends are all cripple, all wither, all wilt,
I know (x4)
and you smile at their pain on your angel bone stilts.
I know (x4)
Which peacock is beast? Which peacock is priest?

If the brick you throw puts a bullet in your skull
and a police boot lands atop your gaping jaw?
Hey Peacock?
What's that?
I just wanna know what the babies mouth is full of.
Is it flies or cries or straw?
Which peacock is beast? Which peacock is priest?
Which peacock's police? Which peacock is thief?

If machine guns come knock, knock, knocking
Who's cashing out your bad luck?
If wedding bells sound like death knells baby
is a wealthy groom worth all this gloom?
If tuxedos slither off corpses
and copulate wild on wedding cake
and the priest starts snapping photos?
There's a peacock on your shoulder
pole dancing around your neck
while reciting the Book of Revelation.

So who do you love?
Who do you trust when your friends take a match to your front lawn?
A panicked face makes the peacock proud.
So who do you love? Who do you trust?
Who do you kill when your senator drags out your first born?
A panicked face makes the peacock proud.

If the forests turn to static and the gnarled branches, too?
I know (x4)
Your body starts to fall into a concrete tutu?
I know (x4)
which peacock is beast? which peacock is priest?

If you strike for better wages at the cola factory
and they drink champagne as they kick in your teeth?
Hey Peacock?
What's that?
I just wanna know what his blood tasted like.
Was it like sugar or vinegar or whiskey or dirt? (It's all those!)
Which peacock is beast? Which peacock is priest?

If machine guns come knock, knock, knocking
Who's cashing out your bad luck?
If wedding bells sound like death knells baby
is a wealthy groom worth all this gloom?
If tuxedos slither off corpses
and copulate wild on wedding cake
and the priest starts snapping photos?
There's a peacock on your shoulder
pole dancing around your neck
while reciting the Book of Revelation.

Things are never what they seem, the peacocks static melodies.

So who do you love?
Who do you trust when your friends take a match to your front lawn?
A panicked face makes the peacock proud.
So who do you love? Who do you trust?
Who do you kill when your senator drags out your first born?
A panicked face makes the peacock proud.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Death to my Hometown

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture looks at “Death to my Hometown” by Bruce Springsteen. This Celtic-infused (and very angry) song was part of Springsteen’s 2012 album Wrecking Ball, which examined the impact of the 2008 recession on Americans.

The song's premise is that economic mis-management is a form of violence, with effects analogous to war. He particularly notes that the impersonal nature of the economic system means that it is hard to identify and punish those responsible for economic crimes:

Send the robber barons straight to hell
The greedy thieves who came around
And ate the flesh of everything they found
Whose crimes have gone unpunished now
Who walk the streets as free men now

Protest songs like this one do a nice job of capturing frustration and giving it voice. What this song lacks any sort of call to action (excepting the vague “be ready when they come” and "send them straight to hell") that would change the underlying political economy that allowed this economic violence to be perpetrated on the working class.

Well, no cannon ball did fly, no rifles cut us down
No bombs fell from the sky, no blood soaked the ground
No powder flash blinded the eye
No deathly thunder sounded
But just as sure as the hand of God
They brought death to my hometown
They brought death to my hometown

Now, no shells ripped the evening sky
No cities burning down
No army stormed the shores for which we’d die
No dictators were crowned
I awoke on a quiet night, I never heard a sound
The marauders raided in the dark
And brought death to my hometown
They brought death to my hometown

They destroyed our families, factories
And they took our homes
They left our bodies on the plains
The vultures picked our bones

So, listen up my sonny boy, be ready when they come
For they’ll be returning sure as the rising sun
Now get yourself a song to sing
And sing it ’til you’re done
Sing it hard and sing it well
Send the robber barons straight to hell
The greedy thieves who came around
And ate the flesh of everything they found
Whose crimes have gone unpunished now
Who walk the streets as free men now

They brought death to our hometown, boys
Death to our hometown
Death to our hometown, boys
Death to our hometown

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Damnation Ep 1-5

Rainy summer days are a nice time for TV. I have been working my way through the Netflix series Damnation.

The series is set in the rural America in the 1930s (but filmed by Calgary). It follows local preacher (of sorts) Seth who rallies local farmers facing price fixing by local business folks who are in league with the nasty banker.

The series opens with a producers strike, based on the Farmers’ Holiday Association strike of the 1930s. There was also a producers strike in Alberta in the late 1940s. This idea circulated in Alberta again during the debate about Bill 6.

The bad guys then bring in a strike breaker (Creeley) who kills strikers. While this seems a touch dramatic, it is based upon the strike breaking activity of private detective agencies like the Pinkertons (in the story, Creeley is a Pinkerton).

Episode 1 ends when Seth responds by nailing the dead man up to the bank door with the sign “which side are you on?” around his neck. (Which Side Are You On is a 1931 miners’ strike song from Harlan County—which is also (sort of) covered in the series).

Episode 2 features white supremacists and explores how the newspaper aligns itself with the interests of the local business people. Episodes 3-5 explores escalating conflict over farm foreclosures and an effort to split the farmers up to undermine their strike. A lot of people die in this series.



There are three strong female characters in story (a sociopathic strikebreaker, the preacher's radical wife, and a very cagey prostitute), which is nice to see given the tendency of unions of be viewed as “male” organizations and the limited roles of women in the 1930s. I’m hopeful we’ll see more of them in the second half of the series.

I’m pretty keen to finish this series and see how it plays out. There is some larger conspiracy by industrialists at work in the series that I’m keen to see revealed.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Darth Vader's Performance Assessment

It's summer and, honestly, I got nothing left this week so enjoy some Star Wars-related labour stuff. Especially the mission statement stuff.

-- 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: Superstore on staff meetings

To start the new year of Labour & Pop Culture, we return to NBC’s comedy Superstore. Last year they had an interesting storyline about strikes. This year, there is a recurring bit about staff meetings that is just a touch too real. Here are some clips:

Staff made training videos about improving efficiency during bathroom breaks.

Staff debrief a workplace tornado.

Staff debrief a workplace robbery.

Honestly, it is hard to watch stuff that so bitingly accurate.

-- Bob Barnetson

Bill 30 and workplace harassment and violence

Continuing our look at Bill 30 (An Act to Protect the Health and Well-being of Working Albertans), today I wanted to examine new rules about violence and harassment in the workplace.

The new OHS Act created by Bill 30 makes employers responsible for ensuring harassment- and violence-free workplaces:

3(1) Every employer shall ensure, as far as it is reasonably practicable for the employer to do so,

(c) that none of the employer’s workers are subjected to or participate in harassment or violence at the work site,

There are similar obligations for supervisors and a requirement for workers to refrain from causing or participating in this behaviour. Harassment and violence are defined this way

1(q) “harassment” means any single incident or repeated incidents of objectionable or unwelcome conduct, comment, bullying or action by a person that the person knows or ought reasonably to know will or would cause offence or humiliation to a worker, or adversely affects the worker’s health and safety, and includes

(i) conduct, comment, bullying or action because of race, religious beliefs, colour, physical disability, mental disability, age, ancestry, place of origin, marital status, source of income, family status, gender, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation, and

(ii) a sexual solicitation or advance,

but excludes any reasonable conduct of an employer or supervisor in respect of the management of workers or a work site;

1(yy) “violence”, whether at a work site or work-related, means the threatened, attempted or actual conduct of a person that causes or is likely to cause physical or psychological injury or harm, and includes domestic or sexual violence;

Requiring employers to prevent harassment and allowing workers to make OHS complaints if employers don’t do so is a significant change. Workplace harassment is endemic, as evident in a recent series of stories about unremediated harassment of City of Edmonton employees. Being able to file an OHS complaint gives workers a much faster remedy for harassment than using internal complaint procedures or (if unionized) filing grievances.

It will be interesting to see how OHS officers handles such complaints and how this requirement interacts with the new language around the right to refuse unsafe work. If my boss is a yeller, for example, (and mine is not!) and if that causes me significant distress, can I refuse to interact with her if her yelling has no meaningful relationship to legitimate management activities? And what if my boss is an ass grabber or a low-level racist? Will we see OHS orders that specify so-and-so is not to grab workers’ asses? Or is precluded from interacting with specific subordinates? 

How will this work in a small workplace where the boss is the owner and the boss is a serial harasser? Will OHS preclude the boss from attending the workplace? Can I refuse unsafe work indefinitely (and continue to get paid) if the boss remains in the workplace? I suspect no one has really thought this through. This is going to be super interesting and will pressure employers to act on misconduct that often just gets a pass these days.

The explicit requirement for employers to protect workers from violence addresses, in part, a 2011 case where a women was murdered by her spouse at work. Despite being aware of the threats against her, her employer took no steps to protect her. The government promised to address this issue in 2015. More recently, there was a disturbing story about assaults on City of Edmonton bus drivers.

An interesting question is how this requirement will interact with the recently legislation designed to protect gas station and convenience store staff (Bill 19). This legislation amended the OHS Code and requires employers to have so-called violence prevention plans in place. Unfortunately, these plans are really robbery prevention plans and will have little effect on violence.

As I have argued elsewhere, what Bill 19 reflects is a saw-off: the government got good press and support from industry around (long-needed) gas-and-dash legislation and, in return, took a pass on violence-prevention requirements (e.g., bullet-proof barriers for clerks) that employers opposed because they are costly.

Fast forward to Bill 30 and employers now have an obligation to take reasonably practicable steps to protect workers from violence. So will the next employer whose convenience store clerk gets killed because there were no barriers be able to rely upon their violence prevention program to evade charges under the OHS Act? Installing a barrier is a reasonable practicable step to prevent such a death even if barriers are not required by the Code. Failing to install one (even if it is not required under the Code, which sets out absolute minimums) seems to violate the Act.

One of the most interesting immediate effects of adding harassment and violence in workplaces is that these behaviours have now been identified as (1) wrongful and (2) threats to workers health. I am already hearing reports of workers reading media reports and reframing their negative workplace experiences as the fault of their employer.

Combined with the recent flurry of harassment allegations against (and consequences for) powerful actors in Hollywood, I wonder if this legislation will contribute to new norms and expectations in Alberta workplaces? The City of Edmonton’s rapid shift from denial to action on harassment being an example of how this could play out.

-- Bob Barnetson

Bill 19 a missed opportunity on violence prevention

Last week, Alberta introduced and passed (!) Bill 19, An Act to Protect Gas and Convenience Store Workers. This legislation requires customers to pay before pumping in an effort to prevent gas-and-dash injuries as well as increases employers’ obligations around staff safety. Unfortunately, Bill 19 was only a half-measure that leaves workers vulnerable to other, more common forms of workplace violence.

The pay-before-you-pump requirement is long overdue. BC enacted Grant’s Law in 2005 and, in doing so, eliminated gas-and-dash deaths. Interestingly, last autumn’s consultation on this legislation revealed that 77% of filling stations already had this technology in place. In this way, pay-before-you-pump is another instance of the law catching up with practice. And this practice benefits employers by reducing theft. That said, this is laudable move by Alberta’s New Democratic government.

The majority of Bill 19, however, is focused on setting out requirements around violence prevention in convenience stores and gas stations. Stats on violence-related injuries are hard to find (and, notably, aren’t a part of the background info on Bill 19). Last autumn’s consultation suggested there were 83 employee assaults resulting in lost-time claims from 2011 to 2015. And, more broadly, there were about 750 victims of crime in this sector (victims include workers and bystanders) in 2012. One implication is that in-store violence is a much numerically larger issue than gas-and-dash.

BC’s legislation requires employers to choose among three options if they employ retail workers between 11 pm and 6 am:

1. Assign two employees to the job.
2. Install a physical barrier between the worker and the public.
3. Implement a violence protection program (e.g., time locked safe, good visibility, video surveillance, emergency transmitter).

Most employers have opted for option 3 because it is the cheapest and least disruptive option. Option 3 has been the norm for bigger retailers at least as far back as 1989, when I was an overnight gas jockey. Alberta’s legislation requires employers to only comply with option 3—basically legally mandating the best practices common 30 years ago.

The weakness of this approach is that it is basically a robbery-prevention program, rather than a violence-prevention program. Certainly, robbery prevention programs will have some spill over effect on violence (as some violence occurs during robberies). What stats are available on violence in convenience stores (and they are poor) from the US suggests that only 20% of homicides have a robbery connection.

We also know that robbery-prevention programs don’t necessarily prevent violence. For example, the existence of a robbery-prevention program did not prevent the deaths of two Edmonton Mac’s employees in 2015, who were killed after being robbed for what little cash was in the till. Barriers might well have prevented these deaths.

At last year’s consultation, employers resisted the requirement to install barriers because of the expected cost and operational impact (e.g., it interferes with workers perform other duties like cleaning and stocking). Indeed, the convenience-store lobby led the charge in BC to weaken Grant’s Law in 2012 and allow the substitution of a robbery-prevention program in lieu of barriers or two staff members.

Alberta’s decision to adopt the weakest of BC’s three options leaves convenience-store and gas-station workers at significant risk of workplace violence. These changes appear consistent with the Notley’s government’s “getting to average” pattern on labour legislation, wherein the limits of employment law changes appear to be the rules that are already widely adopted elsewhere (apparently, even if they don’t really work).

Since most major gas and convenience-store chains already comply with these rules, there is going to be little employer push back on the changes. Indeed, there is going to be praise. For example:

“Pre-payment eliminates the risks associated with fuel payments, and we applaud the government for taking this important step to protect attendants and the public. We believe this is the right thing to do – and so do the people working at our stations.”
Lawrence Richler, vice-president, Canadian Products Marketing, Husky Energy Inc.

“A safe store environment is paramount to 7-Eleven Canada and we believe pre-payment of fuel purchases will improve employee and public safety in Alberta. For many years, 7-Eleven Canada has run an employee safety program similar to the safety plan announced today. It stems from our commitment to our employees and the communities we serve.”
Doug Rosencrans, vice-president and general manager, 7-Eleven Canada

Yet praise from industry (which has been spared significant costs) does not necessarily mean that the government got the balance right. Under Bill 19, vulnerable workers remain vulnerable to workplace violence. Overall, this is missed opportunity to put worker safety before employer profitability. Even the usually supportive Alberta Federation of Labour issued a press release noting this gap in the NDs' bill.

I suspect the NDs know Bill 19 is a half measure (or they got really bad policy advice). And that is why they are pushing the gas-and-dash narrative (which is a clear win for workers and an easy sell) while downplaying (and, frankly, misrepresenting) the so-called violence-prevention measures.

-- Bob Barnetson