Back before Xmas, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) released a report ranking workers’ compensation systems in Canada.
This is fairly typical business-friend lobby-group stuff: quantify some aspects of a social program, build assumptions into the measures that your special interest likes (e.g., low premiums are good) and then release the report like it has some meaning.
Basically the CFIB wants to reduce premium costs by denying compensation for the first three days of injury, reducing the amount of wages replaced and reducing the maximum wages that qualify for replacement.
Vue Weekly did a piece on the reaction in Alberta that is reasonably entertaining reading.
-- Bob Barnetson
Friday, January 6, 2012
CBC interview about OHS prosecutions
Yesterday afternoon I was on the CBC drive-home show chatting about the government’s dismal record on workplace injury prosecutions. You can listen to the six-minute clip here.
I’ve had a couple of follow-on comments questioning why creative sentencing is on the upswing. My sense is that the government prosecutes so few OHS violations that those charges they do lay tend to be slam-dunks (i.e., prosecutors cream the “best” cases).
This allows the government to then go to the company and offer a choice: a long trial with lots of bad media coverage or a quiet guilty plea and the company can then pay the fine to a community group and look philanthropic. Companies then make the obvious choice.
One of the comments I didn’t have time to make during the interview are the bizarre discrepancies in health enforcement in Alberta. For example, riddle me this: why can I go online and find out that my favourite eatery had its cooler temperature two degrees too high and whether they’ve remedied that problem but I can’t go online and find out whether my kid’s employer passed their last safety inspection and, if they didn’t, what potentially life-threatening hazards are in that workplace?
It is a shame that no one from the government was available to comment yesterday on a news story generated by one of the government's own press releases... isn't generating press coverage of news the purpose of issuing a press release? I’ll keep my eyes peeled for any response and publish up a link.
-- Bob Barnetson
I’ve had a couple of follow-on comments questioning why creative sentencing is on the upswing. My sense is that the government prosecutes so few OHS violations that those charges they do lay tend to be slam-dunks (i.e., prosecutors cream the “best” cases).
This allows the government to then go to the company and offer a choice: a long trial with lots of bad media coverage or a quiet guilty plea and the company can then pay the fine to a community group and look philanthropic. Companies then make the obvious choice.
One of the comments I didn’t have time to make during the interview are the bizarre discrepancies in health enforcement in Alberta. For example, riddle me this: why can I go online and find out that my favourite eatery had its cooler temperature two degrees too high and whether they’ve remedied that problem but I can’t go online and find out whether my kid’s employer passed their last safety inspection and, if they didn’t, what potentially life-threatening hazards are in that workplace?
It is a shame that no one from the government was available to comment yesterday on a news story generated by one of the government's own press releases... isn't generating press coverage of news the purpose of issuing a press release? I’ll keep my eyes peeled for any response and publish up a link.
-- Bob Barnetson
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
OHS prosecutions up in 2011
Over the Christmas break, the government rolled out its 2011 occupational health and safety prosecutions. I love how potentially contentious news releases appear over the holidays when no one is paying any attention.
The short version is there were 20 prosecutions in 2011 (although one looks like a prosecution for not paying an earlier creative sentence!) with $3.5m in fines levied. This is a significant increase in prosecutions and fines over 2009 (7 prosecutions, $457k in fines) and 2010 (11 prosecutions, $1.7m in fines) although it lags behind 2008 (22 prosecutions, $5.1m in fines). The offenses span 2003-2008.
There are a couple of notable aspects to these prosecutions. While the number of prosecutions is up, it still pales in comparison to the total number of reported fatalities and serious injuries (about 50,000 per year in Alberta). While my computation skills are a bit dodgy, that means roughly 0.04% of serious injuries are subject to prosecution. Now, admittedly, not all of those injuries entail violations that warrant prosecution.
The reason I point this out, however, is the Minister’s comments on prosecutions:
I think it is fair to ask whether a handful of prosecutions really sends a strong message or acts as a meaningful deterrent for employers? My sense is that it doesn’t—these serve more as show trials that make the government appear like it cares about workplace injury than a meaningful effort to prevent injuries or punish employers.
Those few employers who get convicted are fined. The government’s press release touts that 67% of the fines have been paid to community groups via creative sentencing. I find myself conflicted about creative sentencing.
On the one hand, the fines can be directed to programs that directly bear upon occupational health and safety. That seems like a good thing. On the other hand, creative sentencing seems to lighten the stigma that should attach to maiming and killing workers via unsafe working conditions. “Oh look what good guys Syncrude are—they paid $365,000 to Keyano College.”
Further, some of these payments go to industry associations. That is to say, basically employers who maimed and killed workers are directing their fine to employer organizations to underwrite the cost of safety programming that employers ought to pay for themselves as part of their obligation to operate safely under the Act. That seems wrong.
If one purpose of prosecution is indeed to deter employers from organizing work unsafely, it seems to me that there ought to be more prosecutions (or some sort of penalty short of prosecution) such that employers have a reasonable chance to being penalized for violating OHS laws.
And, where an employer has been done something to result in a conviction, the fines should be significant. Yes, $100k+ fines seem significant to you or me, but not to large employers. One of my correspondents has indicated that fines can even be deducted from revenue (i.e., are a tax write off). I’m having a hard time believing that is true, but perhaps I am naïve.
Perhaps more effective (since injuries show little sign of significant abatement after a decade of government attention) might be using the provisions for prosecution under the Criminal Code to seek jail time for negligent employers. If prosecution is supposed to be a deterrent and we accept the government is only going to prosecute a fraction of all cases, perhaps the spectre of jail time will motivate employers to improve their safety practices.
-- Bob Barnetson
The short version is there were 20 prosecutions in 2011 (although one looks like a prosecution for not paying an earlier creative sentence!) with $3.5m in fines levied. This is a significant increase in prosecutions and fines over 2009 (7 prosecutions, $457k in fines) and 2010 (11 prosecutions, $1.7m in fines) although it lags behind 2008 (22 prosecutions, $5.1m in fines). The offenses span 2003-2008.
There are a couple of notable aspects to these prosecutions. While the number of prosecutions is up, it still pales in comparison to the total number of reported fatalities and serious injuries (about 50,000 per year in Alberta). While my computation skills are a bit dodgy, that means roughly 0.04% of serious injuries are subject to prosecution. Now, admittedly, not all of those injuries entail violations that warrant prosecution.
The reason I point this out, however, is the Minister’s comments on prosecutions:
“My first choice is to have no workplace injuries or fatalities, no charges, and no convictions,” said Dave Hancock, Minister of Human Services. “However, when the law is broken, we need to send strong messages that the health and safety of Albertans must be a priority.”
I think it is fair to ask whether a handful of prosecutions really sends a strong message or acts as a meaningful deterrent for employers? My sense is that it doesn’t—these serve more as show trials that make the government appear like it cares about workplace injury than a meaningful effort to prevent injuries or punish employers.
Those few employers who get convicted are fined. The government’s press release touts that 67% of the fines have been paid to community groups via creative sentencing. I find myself conflicted about creative sentencing.
On the one hand, the fines can be directed to programs that directly bear upon occupational health and safety. That seems like a good thing. On the other hand, creative sentencing seems to lighten the stigma that should attach to maiming and killing workers via unsafe working conditions. “Oh look what good guys Syncrude are—they paid $365,000 to Keyano College.”
Further, some of these payments go to industry associations. That is to say, basically employers who maimed and killed workers are directing their fine to employer organizations to underwrite the cost of safety programming that employers ought to pay for themselves as part of their obligation to operate safely under the Act. That seems wrong.
If one purpose of prosecution is indeed to deter employers from organizing work unsafely, it seems to me that there ought to be more prosecutions (or some sort of penalty short of prosecution) such that employers have a reasonable chance to being penalized for violating OHS laws.
And, where an employer has been done something to result in a conviction, the fines should be significant. Yes, $100k+ fines seem significant to you or me, but not to large employers. One of my correspondents has indicated that fines can even be deducted from revenue (i.e., are a tax write off). I’m having a hard time believing that is true, but perhaps I am naïve.
Perhaps more effective (since injuries show little sign of significant abatement after a decade of government attention) might be using the provisions for prosecution under the Criminal Code to seek jail time for negligent employers. If prosecution is supposed to be a deterrent and we accept the government is only going to prosecute a fraction of all cases, perhaps the spectre of jail time will motivate employers to improve their safety practices.
-- Bob Barnetson
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The Coming Population Crash
Over the holidays I worked my way through a few books. Most were trashy fiction but I did run across The Coming Population Crash while wandering the shelves of my local library. The crux of Fred Pearce’s book is that birth rates have dropped significantly and, in developing countries, are frequently below the replacement rate. He predicts a global population plateau just below 8 billion and a population drop to 5 billion by 2100.Pearce canvasses a number of issues in the book, including evaluating the uncharitable assumptions of Malthus about the poor (of which we continue to see echoes in right-wing policy). Some reviewers have called him overly optimistic—I was certainly struck by his optimism (a nice change!)—a bit light on analysis and prediction. There are two implications in the book for labour policy and human resource management.
The first is that, in developed countries where the cost of social reproduction is mostly borne by women (i.e., women face a choice between having children and having a career), women are increasingly opting to have a career. This creates the conditions for (and in some cases the fact of) a population crash. By contrast, in countries with social policy that supports women, women choose to have children.
Australia is an interesting example. Unsupportive social policy over the past 30 years (which an analysis of generational effects suggests were unnecessary ) now faces a significant baby deficit, which has ripple on effects for the future labour force and the tax base. How a country that is relatively xenophobic towards immigrants (at least non-Anglo immigrants) will cope with that is an open question.
This leads to the second implication: developing countries will increasingly rely upon immigration (or, in cases like Alberta, perhaps migration) in order to maintain their workforce and population. Pearce provides an accessible but nuanced consideration of migration at the macro-level, attempting to dispel uncharitable assumptions about migrants and migration (shades of Malthus!). Overall, a pleasant read and reasonable introduction to the inter-relationships between birth rates, public policy, the environment and migration.
-- Bob Barnetson
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Relaxing child labour laws in the US?
A colleague twigged me to an interesting story about child labour laws coming from the US. Newt Gingrich, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, is proposing rolling back child labour laws. A variety of conservatives and business types have fallen into line. The following quotes capture the gist of the “argument”:
On the surface, these sorts of statements appeal to some voters. It is useful to clarify the assumptions they are premised upon:
1. Child labour is analogous to other activities children participate in.
2. The solution to family poverty is child labour.
3. Child labour is, on balance, a good experience for children.
Stated bluntly, there are, of course, some fairly clear problems with these assumptions. Employment differs from, say, glee club, in that employment is an economic, rather than educational, relationship. Few glee-club organizers face financial incentives to expose glee club members to unsafe work or excessive hours. Not so employers.
In fact, the exploitation of children by employers to drive down wages and production costs is why civilized countries enacted child labour laws in the first place a century ago. Suggesting employers won’t simply fall back into this behaviour is, at best, naïve and, at worst, intentionally deceptive.
Child labour is not the answer to family poverty. In the context of the United States, increasing adult employment (perhaps with adequate social supports) will do a better job of that. Further, government regulation is not the cause of trans-generational poverty—that is a byproduct of the functioning of capitalism whereby the (dis)advantaged maintain or increase their (dis)advantage over time.
And, finally, child labour is dangerous. While it may be possible to wander off into the abstract and conclude that, on balance, child labour is good, this ignores the reality of employing children.
Children are physiologically and intellectually immature. They are inexperienced and have difficulty avoiding dangers that experienced workers do. They tend to be grouped in dangerous occupations. They are less able to resist employer pressures around what they will do and how much they will be paid when compared to adult workers.
Relaxing child labour laws will both drive down wages and increase the number of children who are injured on the job. The attraction of low wages to employers is as understandable as employers’ willingness to maim and kill children to get low wages is reprehensible.
-- Bob Barnetson
"How come it's OK, even exemplary, for teenagers to spend 40 hours a week in sports, glee club, chorus, debate society or any other select activity sanctioned by the social elite, but if you are a teenager who wants to work or needs to work, there are limits?"
"It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid."
"You give lots of poor kids a work experience in the cafeteria, in the school library, in the front office. I'll stand by the idea young people ought to learn how to work. Middle-class kids do it routinely. We should give poor kids the same chance to pursue happiness."
On the surface, these sorts of statements appeal to some voters. It is useful to clarify the assumptions they are premised upon:
1. Child labour is analogous to other activities children participate in.
2. The solution to family poverty is child labour.
3. Child labour is, on balance, a good experience for children.
Stated bluntly, there are, of course, some fairly clear problems with these assumptions. Employment differs from, say, glee club, in that employment is an economic, rather than educational, relationship. Few glee-club organizers face financial incentives to expose glee club members to unsafe work or excessive hours. Not so employers.
In fact, the exploitation of children by employers to drive down wages and production costs is why civilized countries enacted child labour laws in the first place a century ago. Suggesting employers won’t simply fall back into this behaviour is, at best, naïve and, at worst, intentionally deceptive.
Child labour is not the answer to family poverty. In the context of the United States, increasing adult employment (perhaps with adequate social supports) will do a better job of that. Further, government regulation is not the cause of trans-generational poverty—that is a byproduct of the functioning of capitalism whereby the (dis)advantaged maintain or increase their (dis)advantage over time.
And, finally, child labour is dangerous. While it may be possible to wander off into the abstract and conclude that, on balance, child labour is good, this ignores the reality of employing children.
Children are physiologically and intellectually immature. They are inexperienced and have difficulty avoiding dangers that experienced workers do. They tend to be grouped in dangerous occupations. They are less able to resist employer pressures around what they will do and how much they will be paid when compared to adult workers.
Relaxing child labour laws will both drive down wages and increase the number of children who are injured on the job. The attraction of low wages to employers is as understandable as employers’ willingness to maim and kill children to get low wages is reprehensible.
-- Bob Barnetson
Monday, December 19, 2011
Inter-generational conflict
The Edmonton Journal has an interesting story today about generational differences in income and prospects. Now, I’ve done my fair share of complaining about baby boomers in the workplace. And I’ve gone so far as to put a former colleague (who would not freakin’ retire) on the mailing list for a variety of senior lodges and leaving him job applications for WalMart and McDonalds mixed in with his paper work.
What resonated most with me in the Journal article was the need for two-income families to maintain a middle class lifestyle. This reflects wage stagnation over time for workers, while the cost of housing, energy and (most recently) food has increased.
The notion of generational conflict is certainly an interesting one. For those of you GenXers out there, the University of Toronto Press has recently published The making of a generation: Children of the 1970s in adulthood which largely validates much of what we’ve experienced.
This includes more education but tenuous labour market attachment, growth in economic inequity, delayed marriage and parenthood, work-life imbalance and a significant growth in low-distress mental health issues. Yet the culprit identified by the authors is not inter-generational conflict, but rather state social policy which facilitates externalizing the costs of social reproduction onto families.
-- Bob Barnetson
What resonated most with me in the Journal article was the need for two-income families to maintain a middle class lifestyle. This reflects wage stagnation over time for workers, while the cost of housing, energy and (most recently) food has increased.
The notion of generational conflict is certainly an interesting one. For those of you GenXers out there, the University of Toronto Press has recently published The making of a generation: Children of the 1970s in adulthood which largely validates much of what we’ve experienced.
This includes more education but tenuous labour market attachment, growth in economic inequity, delayed marriage and parenthood, work-life imbalance and a significant growth in low-distress mental health issues. Yet the culprit identified by the authors is not inter-generational conflict, but rather state social policy which facilitates externalizing the costs of social reproduction onto families.
-- Bob Barnetson
Friday, December 16, 2011
Don't google-up prospective employees
Alberta’s privacy commissioner is warning employers that vetting potential employees by using information found online may contravene Alberta’s privacy laws. You can view the very thoughtful and earnest advice provided here.
This is an interesting development but note that, out of the roughly 2 million employees in Alberta (tens of thousands of whom went through a hiring process last year), the privacy commission has one active complaint.
Now it could be that almost no employers google up potential applicants. But my sense is that this is a common practice. More likely, the lack of complaints reflects that potential employees are unlikely to know how their employer vetted them this way or that this may contravene their rights. And, as the vulnerable party in the employment relationship, are unlikely to complain even if they did know these two things.
We see a similar dynamic operating with Alberta’s child labour laws. Enforcement is complaint driven but the potential complainant (the child and the parents) basically don’t know their rights and don’t complaint, thus child labour is rampant (but hidden).
The privacy office has no real capacity to go out and proactively investigate instances of such violation. And they have no capacity to respond to any huge rush of complaints in a timely manner. The upshot is that Alberta employers can break this law with impunity.
This example is part of a broader problem with employment-related law in Alberta. The crux is that the government does not adequately resource (or politically support) effective enforcement of laws that constrain employer behaviour. This creates the veneer of state-protection but the reality is that these rights are hollow ones for workers with little labour market power (which is most of us).
-- Bob Barnetson
This is an interesting development but note that, out of the roughly 2 million employees in Alberta (tens of thousands of whom went through a hiring process last year), the privacy commission has one active complaint.
Now it could be that almost no employers google up potential applicants. But my sense is that this is a common practice. More likely, the lack of complaints reflects that potential employees are unlikely to know how their employer vetted them this way or that this may contravene their rights. And, as the vulnerable party in the employment relationship, are unlikely to complain even if they did know these two things.
We see a similar dynamic operating with Alberta’s child labour laws. Enforcement is complaint driven but the potential complainant (the child and the parents) basically don’t know their rights and don’t complaint, thus child labour is rampant (but hidden).
The privacy office has no real capacity to go out and proactively investigate instances of such violation. And they have no capacity to respond to any huge rush of complaints in a timely manner. The upshot is that Alberta employers can break this law with impunity.
This example is part of a broader problem with employment-related law in Alberta. The crux is that the government does not adequately resource (or politically support) effective enforcement of laws that constrain employer behaviour. This creates the veneer of state-protection but the reality is that these rights are hollow ones for workers with little labour market power (which is most of us).
-- Bob Barnetson
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