The Alberta Enterprise Groups’s report making recommendations about reforms in Alberta’s laws proposes eliminating regulations that can force the parties into final and binding arbitration when labour disputes arise. This is a bizarre recommendation and that deserves some unpacking.
Sections 135 and 136
The Labour Relations Code requires that every collective agreement have some means by which to settle disputes about the meaning or implementation of the agreement. If the agreement does not contain such a mechanism, the legislation imposes rights arbitration (i.e., a neutral third party hears the dispute and decides the outcome).
The requirement has its roots in the compromise struck between workers and employers during the second world war: workers agreed not to stop work (i.e., strike) during the term of a collective agreement and, in return, employers agreed to subject disputes to binding arbitration. There were other aspects to this agreement but these are the important dimensions for this discussion.
So let’s say AEG gets its way and the provisions about dispute resolution are struck from the Labour Relations Code. Soon enough an instance will come along where a collective agreement has no dispute resolution provision. There might not be one because the parties have always relied on the statutory provisions. Or an employer will refuse to negotiate one into a new agreement. Or an employer will force one out of an agreement.
Why would an employer do that?
Almost all grievances are filed by workers. This reflects one of the asymmetries of unionized workplaces. Employers interpret and administer the agreement and, if workers object, their unions file grievances.
When there are dispute resolution procedures, workers can have employer decisions that violate the contract overturned via arbitration (assuming the arbitrator agrees with them). If there are no provisions requiring arbitration, the employer then has the opportunity to simply deny the workers’ complaint and suggest the union bargain clearer language in the next round.
AEG vaguely discusses other means of dispute resolution, such as mediation. But without a binding means of dispute resolution, the worker must live with the situation until the next round of bargaining. And it is unclear that the union will choose to negotiate clearer language the next time (there are usually more important issues) and it is unclear the employer would agree to such language.
In effect, AEG is advocating workers can have rights under the contract but no means of remedy if the rights are violated. And, as we all know, rights without remedy for violation are no rights at all.
So what happens then?
Well, workers will likely do what they have always done when faced with a grossly unfair situation. They’ll resist. Some will do it covertly—by not working as hard or perhaps sabotaging or stealing. Others will resist publically—perhaps by quitting. But sooner or later an employer is going to do something egregious that will set a group of workers off. And those workers will put down their tools and stage a (illegal) mid-term strike.
But why should a mid-strike be illegal? The quid pro quo for not engaging in illegal strikes was that there would be some way to remedy violations of the contract. If AEG wants to get rid of mandatory rights arbitration, then the ban on mid-term strikes should go too.
Yet that isn’t in AEG’s proposals.
The reason this is missing from AEG’s proposal is because employers need the ban on mid-term strikes. Workers putting down their tools is a very effective weapon. A wildcat strike can seriously damage a company, especially in a just-in-time economy. And employers who have production process that cannot be easily (or even safely) stopped quickly would be incredibly vulnerable to threats of job action. There is lots of stuff that could go boom in Alberta if workers just walked away.
What does this tell us?
At a most basic level, this tells us that AEG’s proposals are not designed to create “balance” in the labour relations environment (as AEG purports). Rather, these proposals are designed to tip the balance in favour of employers by eliminating basic rights. And they do so by eliminating a statutory requirement that ensures that workers have a remedy when employers violate the contract. The more one reads, the more politically craven AEGs report appears.
Up next: Successor employer provisions and conclusions
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Labour reform courtesy of the Alberta Enterprise Group
In December, the Alberta Enterprise Group released a report making recommendations about reforms in Alberta’s laws governing unionization and collective bargaining. In the next few posts, I will examine these recommendations in some detail. We’ll start with some basic background and discussion of AEG’s proposal regarding unionization votes.
Who is AEG?
AEG is a policy advocacy group that represents employers. It is funded by employers, its members are employers, its Board is populated by corporate big wigs and it clearly seeks public policy that advance the interests of corporate Alberta.
What does the AEG “study” recommend?
The “study” recommends altering Alberta’s labour laws. The proposed changes will make it more difficult for workers to form union, for unions to collect dues from members, and for unions to enforce worker rights. The proposed changes will also make it easier for employers to evade unions and the contracts they have signed with them through corporate maneuvering. How these recommendations jive with the AEG’s mandate to “promote policy fairness for all Albertans” is difficult to fathom.
How was the “study” conducted?
The “study” begins with a review of “the literature” about the effect of regulation of economic performance. In this case, “the literature” comprises eight studies which all support the unqualified conclusion that less regulation increases employment levels. This not a convincing or auspicious start.
The study then examines one aspect of Alberta’s regulatory framework: the laws governing unionization and collective bargaining. The “analysis” is thin and essentially regurgitates typical employer arguments in favour of American-style labour legislation. The study also contains the results of a telephone survey, which purport to support some of the conclusions advanced by AEG.
Unionization in Alberta
Workers who want to be represented by a union in Alberta typically sign petitions or buy membership cards. If 40% of the workers support the union’s application for certification, the Labour Relations Board (LRB) will conduct a vote of the workers. If greater than 50% of workers who vote support the union, the union is certified by the LRB and the employer must bargain with it.
AEG proposes several ways to make it harder for a union to be certified:
• unions must have 50% support to file an application (versus 40% now),
• the support must be a signed membership card with a $20 fee (versus signing a petition),
• at least 70% of eligible voters must vote (versus no quorum now), and
• employers must be able to argue against the union (which is precluded now) and have a minimum of three weeks to do so.
Many people will find these proposal not unreasonable. But let’s stop for a minute and consider why the rules (which are already the most employer-friendly in Canada) are what they are.
Threshold support
Unions must show at least 40% support among workers before applications are accepted to prevent spurious applications. Increasing the requirement to greater than 50% (an increase of 25%) will simply make it that much harder for workers to exercise their rights under the Labour Relations Code.
This difficulty will be compounded by doing away with petition evidence and requiring workers to drop $20 on a union membership card. There is no reason why workers ought to have to pay $20 each to exercise their right to have a vote except to discourage votes. There is hardly a flurry of spurious certification applications now.
This burden will be disproportionately felt by workers in low-wage jobs—those with perhaps the most to gain via unionization. Low-wage workers in Alberta are disproportionately immigrant, female and young. This hardly seems to “promote policy fairness for all Albertans.” Human rights complaint anyone?
Quorum and employer free speech
The proposal for a 70% quorum for votes to be valid is without merit. There is, for example, no minimum number of voters who must cast ballots in provincial or federal elections for those results to be valid. And those elections are much more important than a certification vote.
The reason for the 70% threshold is so create a further barrier to certification. When I worked at the Labour Board, I recall one employer sending two of his four employees out of town on the date of the vote so that (in his mind) it was not possible for a majority of the four-man unit to vote in favour of the union.
As it turned out, he should have read the current law more carefully (or at all). By requiring a majority of votes (not voters), the law precludes employer gerrymandering of elections. For this same reason, the current law limits employer “free speech” during certification drives.
This limitation reflects that there are important differences between political elections and certification votes. In a political election, free speech (theoretically) increases voter knowledge and has no coercive power. Workplaces are, however, not democracies. When the employer says “don’t vote for the union” or “the union will bankrupt us and you’ll lose your job” that information is both suspect and coercive. Instead, employers are told to let the workers make up their minds without being unduly influenced by the employer.
Why have votes at all?
An interesting question the AEG report side steps is why a union should have to show greater than 50% membership support and then face a vote? If the purpose of the AEG proposal is to ensure that a majority of workers wish to be represented by the union, surely the union should be automatically certified without a vote if more than 50% sign membership cards and give up $20.
AEG addresses this by suggesting union cards are not necessarily a good indicator of worker preferences (because workers might be pressured by the union to sign them). If cards are not a valid indicator of worker preferences, then why is AEG advocating using only signed cards as support for a membership application? And why is AEG advocating increasing the percentage of cards needed to start an application from 40% to 50%?
The answer is pretty obvious. Cards are harder to get than petition signatures, especially if you also need to get $20 out of a worker. And cards from 50% of the membership is harder to get than cards from 40%. So it will simply become harder to workers to get a vote and there will be fewer applications and fewer unionized workplaces. Again, this hardly seems to “promote policy fairness for all Albertans.” And it ignores that the purpose of the Labour Relations Code is to give workers a meaningful opportunity to exercise their rights.
Up next: Binding Arbitration
Who is AEG?
AEG is a policy advocacy group that represents employers. It is funded by employers, its members are employers, its Board is populated by corporate big wigs and it clearly seeks public policy that advance the interests of corporate Alberta.
What does the AEG “study” recommend?
The “study” recommends altering Alberta’s labour laws. The proposed changes will make it more difficult for workers to form union, for unions to collect dues from members, and for unions to enforce worker rights. The proposed changes will also make it easier for employers to evade unions and the contracts they have signed with them through corporate maneuvering. How these recommendations jive with the AEG’s mandate to “promote policy fairness for all Albertans” is difficult to fathom.
How was the “study” conducted?
The “study” begins with a review of “the literature” about the effect of regulation of economic performance. In this case, “the literature” comprises eight studies which all support the unqualified conclusion that less regulation increases employment levels. This not a convincing or auspicious start.
The study then examines one aspect of Alberta’s regulatory framework: the laws governing unionization and collective bargaining. The “analysis” is thin and essentially regurgitates typical employer arguments in favour of American-style labour legislation. The study also contains the results of a telephone survey, which purport to support some of the conclusions advanced by AEG.
Unionization in Alberta
Workers who want to be represented by a union in Alberta typically sign petitions or buy membership cards. If 40% of the workers support the union’s application for certification, the Labour Relations Board (LRB) will conduct a vote of the workers. If greater than 50% of workers who vote support the union, the union is certified by the LRB and the employer must bargain with it.
AEG proposes several ways to make it harder for a union to be certified:
• unions must have 50% support to file an application (versus 40% now),
• the support must be a signed membership card with a $20 fee (versus signing a petition),
• at least 70% of eligible voters must vote (versus no quorum now), and
• employers must be able to argue against the union (which is precluded now) and have a minimum of three weeks to do so.
Many people will find these proposal not unreasonable. But let’s stop for a minute and consider why the rules (which are already the most employer-friendly in Canada) are what they are.
Threshold support
Unions must show at least 40% support among workers before applications are accepted to prevent spurious applications. Increasing the requirement to greater than 50% (an increase of 25%) will simply make it that much harder for workers to exercise their rights under the Labour Relations Code.
This difficulty will be compounded by doing away with petition evidence and requiring workers to drop $20 on a union membership card. There is no reason why workers ought to have to pay $20 each to exercise their right to have a vote except to discourage votes. There is hardly a flurry of spurious certification applications now.
This burden will be disproportionately felt by workers in low-wage jobs—those with perhaps the most to gain via unionization. Low-wage workers in Alberta are disproportionately immigrant, female and young. This hardly seems to “promote policy fairness for all Albertans.” Human rights complaint anyone?
Quorum and employer free speech
The proposal for a 70% quorum for votes to be valid is without merit. There is, for example, no minimum number of voters who must cast ballots in provincial or federal elections for those results to be valid. And those elections are much more important than a certification vote.
The reason for the 70% threshold is so create a further barrier to certification. When I worked at the Labour Board, I recall one employer sending two of his four employees out of town on the date of the vote so that (in his mind) it was not possible for a majority of the four-man unit to vote in favour of the union.
As it turned out, he should have read the current law more carefully (or at all). By requiring a majority of votes (not voters), the law precludes employer gerrymandering of elections. For this same reason, the current law limits employer “free speech” during certification drives.
This limitation reflects that there are important differences between political elections and certification votes. In a political election, free speech (theoretically) increases voter knowledge and has no coercive power. Workplaces are, however, not democracies. When the employer says “don’t vote for the union” or “the union will bankrupt us and you’ll lose your job” that information is both suspect and coercive. Instead, employers are told to let the workers make up their minds without being unduly influenced by the employer.
Why have votes at all?
An interesting question the AEG report side steps is why a union should have to show greater than 50% membership support and then face a vote? If the purpose of the AEG proposal is to ensure that a majority of workers wish to be represented by the union, surely the union should be automatically certified without a vote if more than 50% sign membership cards and give up $20.
AEG addresses this by suggesting union cards are not necessarily a good indicator of worker preferences (because workers might be pressured by the union to sign them). If cards are not a valid indicator of worker preferences, then why is AEG advocating using only signed cards as support for a membership application? And why is AEG advocating increasing the percentage of cards needed to start an application from 40% to 50%?
The answer is pretty obvious. Cards are harder to get than petition signatures, especially if you also need to get $20 out of a worker. And cards from 50% of the membership is harder to get than cards from 40%. So it will simply become harder to workers to get a vote and there will be fewer applications and fewer unionized workplaces. Again, this hardly seems to “promote policy fairness for all Albertans.” And it ignores that the purpose of the Labour Relations Code is to give workers a meaningful opportunity to exercise their rights.
Up next: Binding Arbitration
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Policy: Look Out Below
The government announced the results of a workplace safety inspection blitz in the commercial construction industry conducted this fall. Not unexpectedly, the results indicated widespread non-compliance with the OHS Code.
Of the 298 inspections (encompassing 146 companies and 73 work sites), inspectors found 214 violations. Thirty-nine stop work orders (27% of worksites) were issued for particularly dangerous situations. There were also 12 stop-use orders issued related to non-compliant scaffolding.
The inspections found major problems with fall protection. Among the violations noted were failure to provide protective gear, failure to provide a fall protection plan, lack of proper safeguards and scaffolding violations. All of these are employer responsibilities.
Minister Thomas Lukaszuk noted: “If there is no response, if we don’t see improvement on the work sites, then we will be implementing new and more creative and more aggressive measures by which we will curtail those numbers.”
This inspection blitz raises several interesting questions. First, why is this the first-ever safety inspection blitz in Alberta's history? Workers are killed or injured in droves each year. The only difference this year is that the government took political heat about it in the press. Should we conclude that worker injury and death only matter to the government when there is bad press?
Second, why would the minister wait to take more aggressive inspection and enforcement action? The academic literature is pretty clear: absent surveillance and enforcement, safety rules are routinely ignored. This inspection blitz provides more evidence that education and voluntary compliance are ineffective at protecting workers.
Third, why is the government threatening to ticket workers (as well as employers) for safety violations? The evidence here is that it is employers who can't seem to organize work in a safe manner.
Workers didn't fail to provide fall protection equipment or fall protection plans. Workers didn't fail to provide safe guards or provide scaffolding that was unsafe. In fact, workers would probably prefer to have safe worksites.
These are employer responsibiilities--ones that employers routinely evade because safety precautions slow down work and increase costs. It is cheaper to not provide these protections and hope no one gets hurt--because there are basically no consequences for the employer if they do.
-- Bob Barnetson
Of the 298 inspections (encompassing 146 companies and 73 work sites), inspectors found 214 violations. Thirty-nine stop work orders (27% of worksites) were issued for particularly dangerous situations. There were also 12 stop-use orders issued related to non-compliant scaffolding.
The inspections found major problems with fall protection. Among the violations noted were failure to provide protective gear, failure to provide a fall protection plan, lack of proper safeguards and scaffolding violations. All of these are employer responsibilities.
Minister Thomas Lukaszuk noted: “If there is no response, if we don’t see improvement on the work sites, then we will be implementing new and more creative and more aggressive measures by which we will curtail those numbers.”
This inspection blitz raises several interesting questions. First, why is this the first-ever safety inspection blitz in Alberta's history? Workers are killed or injured in droves each year. The only difference this year is that the government took political heat about it in the press. Should we conclude that worker injury and death only matter to the government when there is bad press?
Second, why would the minister wait to take more aggressive inspection and enforcement action? The academic literature is pretty clear: absent surveillance and enforcement, safety rules are routinely ignored. This inspection blitz provides more evidence that education and voluntary compliance are ineffective at protecting workers.
Third, why is the government threatening to ticket workers (as well as employers) for safety violations? The evidence here is that it is employers who can't seem to organize work in a safe manner.
Workers didn't fail to provide fall protection equipment or fall protection plans. Workers didn't fail to provide safe guards or provide scaffolding that was unsafe. In fact, workers would probably prefer to have safe worksites.
These are employer responsibiilities--ones that employers routinely evade because safety precautions slow down work and increase costs. It is cheaper to not provide these protections and hope no one gets hurt--because there are basically no consequences for the employer if they do.
-- Bob Barnetson
Monday, December 13, 2010
Research: Mesothelioma Reporting Rates
Three new studies raise some interesting questions about statistics regarding asbestos-related disease rates and compensation. The article “Surveillance of mesothelioma and workers’ compensation in British Columbia, Canada” broadly mirrors the results of studies in Alberta and Ontario.
The study examined reporting and compensation of mesothelioma in BC. Mesothelioma is an almost always fatal cancer that is clearly linked to asbestos exposure.
The study found that, between 1970 and 2005, 33% of BC cases of mesothelioma were compensated by the workers’ compensation board. Annually, the rate of compensation increased over time and was as high as 49% in 1999 and 2004. These rates of compensation are approximately half the rates in France (62%) and Australia (64%) notably lower than rates in Ontario (43%) and Alberta (42%). Gender, age, site of cancer and location of residence all were important variables in acceptance rates.
Under-compensation is important because accepted compensation claims are used to “count” workplace injuries and illnesses. Unaccepted cases of occupationally-related mesothelioma (normally caused by non-reporting) results in an under-estimation of exposure rates and of the hazardous nature of asbestos. This, in turn, results in greater externalizing of production costs onto workers, their families and the general medical system in the form of mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases.
The study examined reporting and compensation of mesothelioma in BC. Mesothelioma is an almost always fatal cancer that is clearly linked to asbestos exposure.
The study found that, between 1970 and 2005, 33% of BC cases of mesothelioma were compensated by the workers’ compensation board. Annually, the rate of compensation increased over time and was as high as 49% in 1999 and 2004. These rates of compensation are approximately half the rates in France (62%) and Australia (64%) notably lower than rates in Ontario (43%) and Alberta (42%). Gender, age, site of cancer and location of residence all were important variables in acceptance rates.
Under-compensation is important because accepted compensation claims are used to “count” workplace injuries and illnesses. Unaccepted cases of occupationally-related mesothelioma (normally caused by non-reporting) results in an under-estimation of exposure rates and of the hazardous nature of asbestos. This, in turn, results in greater externalizing of production costs onto workers, their families and the general medical system in the form of mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Asbestos: Occupational or Environmental Hazard?
This weekend the newspaper featured an interesting story about asbestos. Following an apartment fire, residents have been evacuated while the damage is being fixed. This includes remediation of asbestos (which is common in older buildings)--a mineral fiber likely used to insulate or possible strengthen the structure of the building (hard to know at this point).
The story focuses on the plight of tenants who must find alternate accommodation for four months and how the insurance company covering the fire will not cover these costs. There is also some minor discussion of how various regulatory schemes seem to interact around the asbestos removal.
Asbestos and its dangers are the subject of many books, the most recent being Defending the indefensible by Jock McCulloch and Geoffrey Tweedale. The key health effects of asbestos exposure include asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma (cancer of the chest and stomach wall lining). There may also be other asbestos-related illnesses (I recall reading something about colorectal cancer and asbestos but cannot find the source offhand).
There is no safe level of exposure to asbestos, despite governments enacting (ever lowering) occupational exposure limits for it. An interesting question this story raises is whether there is any real difference between an occupational hazard and an environmental hazard. The answer, according to McCulloch and Tweedale, is not really.
While occupational exposures to hazards such as asbestos tend to be in higher concentrations (thus the resulting diseases manifest themselves more frequently and more quickly), the mineral poses risks to everyone, particularly given its prevalence in the environment. This relationship is not confined to asbestos but seems to be broadly applicable across hazards.
The China Price details how coal mining and power generation in China, for example, entails both occupational and environmental effects as air and water are polluted. And, of course, the introduction of lead to gasoline first manifested itself as a hazard among workers and is now recognized as a source of lead contamination in the air, water and soil which is particularly dangerous to children.
Returning to asbestos, there is widespread disease in South Africa and Australia among miner’s families exposed to asbestos in the community. Workers have been treated as largely disposable by asbestos mining corporations who knew as early as 1918 about the risks but hide them for another 50-odd years and continue to evade compensating workers for their losses.
Canada is not immune to asbestos, with fibres brought home in workers’ clothes causing asbestos-related diseases among their families. But have a look around your own home if it pre-dates the 1970s—you’ll likely find asbestos in floor tiles as well as insulating pipes and ducts (this will look like fabric adhered to ductwork). Asbestos has also made its way (over time) into the food chain, paints, dishtowels, bank notes, tampons, insulation, piano felts, and cigarette filters (ironically asbestos and cigarette smoke interaction to increase the risk of lung cancer by 90 times over smoking alone).
The potential death toll from asbestos-related diseases is massive: 10,000 deaths per year in the US alone (as many as 100,000 annual across the globe). This takes no account of the declining quality of life of those afflicted with asbestos. And interesting local angle is this audio clip of a daughter discussing her father’s death by asbestosis in Alberta.
-- Bob Barnetson
The story focuses on the plight of tenants who must find alternate accommodation for four months and how the insurance company covering the fire will not cover these costs. There is also some minor discussion of how various regulatory schemes seem to interact around the asbestos removal.
Asbestos and its dangers are the subject of many books, the most recent being Defending the indefensible by Jock McCulloch and Geoffrey Tweedale. The key health effects of asbestos exposure include asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma (cancer of the chest and stomach wall lining). There may also be other asbestos-related illnesses (I recall reading something about colorectal cancer and asbestos but cannot find the source offhand).
There is no safe level of exposure to asbestos, despite governments enacting (ever lowering) occupational exposure limits for it. An interesting question this story raises is whether there is any real difference between an occupational hazard and an environmental hazard. The answer, according to McCulloch and Tweedale, is not really.
While occupational exposures to hazards such as asbestos tend to be in higher concentrations (thus the resulting diseases manifest themselves more frequently and more quickly), the mineral poses risks to everyone, particularly given its prevalence in the environment. This relationship is not confined to asbestos but seems to be broadly applicable across hazards.
The China Price details how coal mining and power generation in China, for example, entails both occupational and environmental effects as air and water are polluted. And, of course, the introduction of lead to gasoline first manifested itself as a hazard among workers and is now recognized as a source of lead contamination in the air, water and soil which is particularly dangerous to children.
Returning to asbestos, there is widespread disease in South Africa and Australia among miner’s families exposed to asbestos in the community. Workers have been treated as largely disposable by asbestos mining corporations who knew as early as 1918 about the risks but hide them for another 50-odd years and continue to evade compensating workers for their losses.
Canada is not immune to asbestos, with fibres brought home in workers’ clothes causing asbestos-related diseases among their families. But have a look around your own home if it pre-dates the 1970s—you’ll likely find asbestos in floor tiles as well as insulating pipes and ducts (this will look like fabric adhered to ductwork). Asbestos has also made its way (over time) into the food chain, paints, dishtowels, bank notes, tampons, insulation, piano felts, and cigarette filters (ironically asbestos and cigarette smoke interaction to increase the risk of lung cancer by 90 times over smoking alone).
The potential death toll from asbestos-related diseases is massive: 10,000 deaths per year in the US alone (as many as 100,000 annual across the globe). This takes no account of the declining quality of life of those afflicted with asbestos. And interesting local angle is this audio clip of a daughter discussing her father’s death by asbestosis in Alberta.
-- Bob Barnetson
Friday, December 3, 2010
Policy: Farm Safety Gridlock
This morning, two farm workers were electrocuted, apparently because a grain auger they were moving struck an overhead power line. Occupational health and safety won’t be investigating because farm workers are excluded from the ambit of the Occupational Health and Safety Act.
And the Workers’ Compensation Act.
And much of the Employment Standards Code.
And the Labour Relations Code.
After years of lobbying and judicial commentary that such exclusions are unconstitutional and/or without any good reason, the Alberta government has announced changes. Well, sort of.
In lieu of setting safety standards and enforcing them, industry and government reps will get together to figure out how to enhance farm safety training and education.
This all sounds nice. But it ignores that unsafe work is one manifestation of the broader conflicting interests of workers and employers. Unsafe work is usually faster and cheaper for employers than safe work—because unsafe work externalizes some costs of production onto employees in the form of workplace injuries.
This is, indeed, the reason why we have occupational health and safety laws in the first place. Education alone simply does not work because it (rather unrealistically) expects employers to act contrary to their own economic interests.
That employers have little appetite for regulation comes through quite clearly in the comments in the government’s recent consultation (mostly with employers).
“(Employers) warned the government to be careful not to create bigger problems in attempt to enhance health and safety.”
“Many (employers) commented that education is a better way to reduce farm accidents rather than regulations. A couple thought that voluntary education would be met with much less resistance and more acceptance.”
Such comments are hardly surprising and neither is the government’s focus on education rather than regulation. Education is relatively cheap. Education has limited impact upon farmers--who have traditionally supported the conservative government and who have, in turn, been rewarded through the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries and exclusion from the regulatory regime. And education sets up a “blame the worker” situation when “educated workers” get injured (conveniently ignoring it is the employer who determines what will be done, when, where and how).
What this suggests is that short of a court challenge about the exclusion of agricultural workers from virtually all of the basic workplace rights that every other worker has or a change in government, there is no prospect for meaningfully improving farm worker safety in Alberta.
-- Bob Barnetson
And the Workers’ Compensation Act.
And much of the Employment Standards Code.
And the Labour Relations Code.
After years of lobbying and judicial commentary that such exclusions are unconstitutional and/or without any good reason, the Alberta government has announced changes. Well, sort of.
In lieu of setting safety standards and enforcing them, industry and government reps will get together to figure out how to enhance farm safety training and education.
This all sounds nice. But it ignores that unsafe work is one manifestation of the broader conflicting interests of workers and employers. Unsafe work is usually faster and cheaper for employers than safe work—because unsafe work externalizes some costs of production onto employees in the form of workplace injuries.
This is, indeed, the reason why we have occupational health and safety laws in the first place. Education alone simply does not work because it (rather unrealistically) expects employers to act contrary to their own economic interests.
That employers have little appetite for regulation comes through quite clearly in the comments in the government’s recent consultation (mostly with employers).
“(Employers) warned the government to be careful not to create bigger problems in attempt to enhance health and safety.”
“Many (employers) commented that education is a better way to reduce farm accidents rather than regulations. A couple thought that voluntary education would be met with much less resistance and more acceptance.”
Such comments are hardly surprising and neither is the government’s focus on education rather than regulation. Education is relatively cheap. Education has limited impact upon farmers--who have traditionally supported the conservative government and who have, in turn, been rewarded through the gerrymandering of electoral boundaries and exclusion from the regulatory regime. And education sets up a “blame the worker” situation when “educated workers” get injured (conveniently ignoring it is the employer who determines what will be done, when, where and how).
What this suggests is that short of a court challenge about the exclusion of agricultural workers from virtually all of the basic workplace rights that every other worker has or a change in government, there is no prospect for meaningfully improving farm worker safety in Alberta.
-- Bob Barnetson
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Research: Protracted WCB claims
Injured workers who have unusually protracted compensation claims are the subject of curiosity—in part because such claims can entail significant costs to the compensation system which are ultimately passed onto employers. Such inquiries are often couched in terms of “what is wrong with these workers?” The Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation has published an article examining this issue from a different perspective.
“The ‘‘toxic dose’’ of system problems: Why some injured workers don’t return to work as expected” considers the effect of seeming innocuous bureaucratic problems on workers and a potential explanation. The authors posit workers’ experience of these systemic dysfunctions damages them in difficult to see ways which impede recovery and return to work. The study focuses on Ontario but has broad application as most workers’ compensation systems provide employers with incentives to provide modified work to injured workers in order to reduce time away from work.
The study found that return to work (RTW) systems and policies are premised upon inaccurate assumptions about how RTW actually operate. For example, the parties may not be communicating well and there may be conflicting motives among stakeholders for participation in RTW. These issues manifest themselves in seemingly mundane ways: “inappropriate modified work, injuries that are not reported, co-worker hostility, untimely and inappropriate referrals for retraining, physicians who are too busy for paperwork, workers’ compensation decision-makers who communicate inadequately with workers by mail and telephone” (p. 360). The seeming insignificance of these difficulties makes it difficult to “see” them as issues that can compromise the effectiveness of RTW programs.
Yet these systemic defects have important mental and physical consequences for injured workers. For example, “inadequately informed benefit entitlement decisions can result in denial of income and other support benefits to workers, who, can then, suffer financial and mental strain and deteriorating health conditions” (p. 360). This dynamic effectively overwhelms workers who already face injury-related difficulties. Herein lies the “toxic dose” administered by the system to injured workers and perhaps an important piece of explaining why some compensation claims generate seemingly unwarranted costs and delays.
“The ‘‘toxic dose’’ of system problems: Why some injured workers don’t return to work as expected” considers the effect of seeming innocuous bureaucratic problems on workers and a potential explanation. The authors posit workers’ experience of these systemic dysfunctions damages them in difficult to see ways which impede recovery and return to work. The study focuses on Ontario but has broad application as most workers’ compensation systems provide employers with incentives to provide modified work to injured workers in order to reduce time away from work.
The study found that return to work (RTW) systems and policies are premised upon inaccurate assumptions about how RTW actually operate. For example, the parties may not be communicating well and there may be conflicting motives among stakeholders for participation in RTW. These issues manifest themselves in seemingly mundane ways: “inappropriate modified work, injuries that are not reported, co-worker hostility, untimely and inappropriate referrals for retraining, physicians who are too busy for paperwork, workers’ compensation decision-makers who communicate inadequately with workers by mail and telephone” (p. 360). The seeming insignificance of these difficulties makes it difficult to “see” them as issues that can compromise the effectiveness of RTW programs.
Yet these systemic defects have important mental and physical consequences for injured workers. For example, “inadequately informed benefit entitlement decisions can result in denial of income and other support benefits to workers, who, can then, suffer financial and mental strain and deteriorating health conditions” (p. 360). This dynamic effectively overwhelms workers who already face injury-related difficulties. Herein lies the “toxic dose” administered by the system to injured workers and perhaps an important piece of explaining why some compensation claims generate seemingly unwarranted costs and delays.
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