Friday Tunes: My Cubicle

Following up on my post about doing nothing at work on Wednesday, I present to you My Cubicle. I particularly enjoy the fellow assaulting the photocopier (because who hasn't lost their shit at a photocopier at some point in their career?).



Now get back to work.

-- Bob Barnetson

The phenomenon of "do nothing" jobs

The Atlantic has recently published an interesting article called “The Art of Not Working at Work” which begins with the story of a German worker who, upon retirement, informed his coworkers that he had not actually done anything for the previous 14 years:

He had not been avoiding work for 14 years; as his department grew, his assignments were simply handed over to others. “…I have always offered my services, but it’s not my problem if they don’t want them,” he said.

Setting aside the usual moralizing about lazy workers, this dynamic of “nothing to do” is (in my experience) very common yet largely unstudied. I’ve had two such experiences over the past 22 years and chatting with co-workers suggests I’m not unique.

For a year or so (in 2003/4) I worked for the Alberta WCB. I didn’t care much for the organization (e.g., cube farms, surveillance, lots of corporate rah-rah interspersed with periodic sackings), the folks I worked with were, for the most part, very nice people. The problem in my job was that there was virtually nothing to do. For example, I completed my entire January to December 2004 work plan by February 18, 2004 (and I didn't go all that hard).

There were a number of inter-related factors at play there. The first was that the job was filed mostly to keep the budget line within the department. I certainly was grateful for the paycheque (at first) but there was simply no need for the position (it was eventually eliminated). This “empire building” (or maintaining) is a pretty common dynamic in most organizations I’ve observed.

The second was I was hired as a policy wonk but the organization was averse to policy change. So we would get handed policy problems and then told to solve the problem without changing policy. Which was impossible (they were problems with policy!) and lead to disengagement and cynicism. I did ask for more work, but there wasn’t any to be had and only an insane worker would repeatedly advertise to the boss that “I don’t have anything to do.”

Although there certainly were busy units at the WCB (e.g., claims), I don’t think this was specific to my shop. The woman who shared a cube wall with me (and I think worked in purchasing) spent her time day-trading stocks on the phone (harder to monitor than the computer). She was so loud about it that I eventually started wearing earplugs.

Contrary to what most people seemed to think about do-nothing jobs, the experience was vastly stressful. Try looking busy for 90% of the year with no real work to do! There are only so many coffee dates and webinars you can take. I have a pretty rich inner life but it was boring as hell (I likened it to jail) and I lived in terror that someone would find out I was doing nothing and I’d get sacked with no prospect of references. I expect that, if I could have withstood the stress, I likely could have continued on there indefinitely.

Anyhow, the Atlantic article offers an interesting window into the real world of organizations. Your stories are welcomed in the comments section.

-- Bob Barnetson

A new farm worker video

The movement to gain basic safety rights for farm workers in Alberta has been slowly gaining momentum. The latest piece I ran across is this short video clip put together about the decade-long struggle:



I've recently pulled some StatCan data on where farm workers "work" in Alberta and the results suggest that giving farm workers basic rights is not something that will impact small farms very much. When I get a chance later this week, I'll posts one summary tables.

-- Bob Barnetson

Friday Tunes: Allentown

Too many meetings this week to make a substantive post but here is an interesting (and disillusioned) working-class perspective on the deindustrialization of America in the late 1970s and early '80s: Billy Joel's Allentown. A fairly lame video (even by '80s' standards) but look for a young Val Kilmer (pre-Top Gun)!



Well we're living here in Allentown
And they're closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they're killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line.

Well our fathers fought the Second World War
Spent their weekends on the Jersey Shore
Met our mothers at the USO
Asked them to dance
Danced with them slow
And we're living here in Allentown.

But the restlessness was handed down
And it's getting very hard to stay.

Well we're waiting here in Allentown
For the Pennsylvania we never found

For the promises our teachers gave
If we worked hard
If we behaved.

So the graduations hang on the wall
But they never really helped us at all
No they never taught us what was real
Iron and coke,
Chromium steel.

And we're waiting here in Allentown.
But they've taken all the coal from the ground
And the union people crawled away.

Every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got.
but something happened on the way to that place
They threw an American flag in our face, oh oh oh.

Well I'm living here in Allentown
And it's hard to keep a good man down.
But I won't be getting up today.

And it's getting very hard to stay.
And we're living here in Allentown.

-- Bob Barnetson

Friday tunes: Dolly Parton's 9 to 5

For a bit of Friday inspiration, I present Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5”, one of the catchiest songs about class and employment in America, although people who can sing along often have never really thought about the message in the lyrics.

Particularly interesting is the contrast of the light pop melody and the really dark lyrics (the song ends without much hope for the workers). Plus great early 80s hair--check out the bassist: a heroic long-with-centre-part plus a pornstar moustache.

Tumble outta bed and I stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yawn and stretch and try to come to alive
Jump in the shower and the blood starts pumpin'
Out on the street the traffic starts jumpin'
With folks like me on the job from 9 to 5

Workin' 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin'
Barely gettin' by, it's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it

9 to 5, for service and devotion
You would think that I would deserve a fair promotion
Want to move ahead but the boss won't seem to let me
I swear sometimes that man is out to get me!

They let you dream just to watch 'em shatter
You're just a step on the boss-man's ladder
But you got dreams he'll never take away
You're in the same boat with a lotta your friends
Waitin' for the day your ship'll come in
an' the tide's gonna turn and it's all gonna roll your way

Workin' 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin'
Barely gettin' by, it's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind and you never get the credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it

9 to 5, yeah they got you where they want you
There's a better life, and you dream about it, don't you?
It's a rich man's game no matter what they call it
And you spend your life puttin' money in his wallet

9 to 5, whoa what a way to make a livin'
Barely gettin' by, it's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it

9 to 5, yeah they got you where they want you
There's a better life, and you dream about it, don't you?
It's a rich man's game no matter what they call it
And you spend your life puttin' money in his wallet

-- Bob Barnetson

Research on claims suppression, employment standards enforcement and minority unionism

The Journal of industrial Relations has just released a strong new issue. The articles include the role of unions in employment standards enforcement and an examination of union conflict under minority unionism (co-authored by AU professor Helen Lam).

Confronting the employment standards enforcement gap: Exploring the potential for union engagement with employment law in Ontario, Canada

Employment standards (ES) are legislated standards that set minimum terms and conditions of employment in areas such as wages, working time, vacations and leaves, and termination and severance. In Canada, the majority of workers rely on ES for basic regulatory protection; however, a significant ‘enforcement gap’ exists. In the province of Ontario, this enforcement gap has been exacerbated in recent years due to the deregulation of ES through inadequate funding, workplace restructuring, legislative reforms that place greater emphasis on individualized complaints processes and voluntary compliance, and a formal separation of unions from ES enforcement. The implications of these developments are that, increasingly, those in precarious jobs, many of whom lack union representation, are left with insufficient regulatory protection from employer non-compliance, further heightening their insecurity. Taking the province of Ontario as our focus, in this article we critically examine alternative proposals for ES enforcement, placing our attention on those that enhance the involvement of unions in addressing ES violations. Through this analysis, we suggest that augmenting unions’ supportive roles in ES enforcement holds the potential to enhance unions’ regulatory function and offers a possible means to support the ongoing efforts of other workers’ organizations to improve employer compliance with ES.

US union revival, minority unionism and inter-union conflict

One option for reversing US union decline, requiring no legislative change, would involve re-legitimizing non-majority or minority union representation, allowing unions to organize without running the gauntlet of union certification. Such minority representation, applicable only to workplaces without majority union support on a members-only basis, could run in parallel with the existing system of exclusive representation in workplaces where majority support is achieved. The increased representation in the currently unrepresented workplaces would inevitably promote workers’ collective voice and contribute to union revival. However, minority unionism has been criticized for breeding union competition because it is non-exclusive. In this paper, the nature and extent of inter-union conflict under minority unionism are re-examined, using survey data from unions in New Zealand which already has non-exclusive, minority union representation. The low levels and consequences of conflict suggest that the benefits of minority unionism far outweigh any potentially unfavourable effects.

The Institute for Work and Health has also just released a brief examining the evidence for suppression of reports about workplace injuryand illness in Canada.

-- Bob Barnetson

Another lousy employer "study" about the "labour shortage"

The Alberta Chambers of Commerce (the umbrella group for the local Chambers) has recently released a study: Alberta businesses share their stories: A survey on the impact of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in Alberta and recent changes. 

Before delving into the content of the study, a quick look at its methodology worthwhile. There is no clear explanation of the methodology used in the Chambers’ study but it looks like the 26,000 businesses associated with local Chambers of Commerce were asked to fill out an online survey. Responses came from 47 communities.

The decision to collect feedback from anyone interested (rather than a random sample of businesses) creates the spectre of respondent bias. Basically, those who responded are likely to be different from the overall population (specifically, they are likely to be those businesses most affected by the program and changes in the program). What this means is we should be skeptical that the data and  comments reflect the experience of all 26,000 Chamber members.

This matters because the survey uses language like “58% were either very likely or somewhat likely to reduce their hours of operation”. The survey very carefully indicates that this result reflects the views “of the businesses surveyed” but this nuance (i.e., that these businesses’ views likely don’t reflect all the views of all businesses) is never really explained and is easily lost to causal readers. The take-away becomes “58% of businesses are going to shorten hours”.

We should be further skeptical because the Chambers provides no information about how many businesses responded (47? 470? 4700?) and no information how they selected the comments they reproduced. Are these comments representative of the (non-representative) responses the Chambers received? Or were the selected to support the Chambers’ views on temporary foreign workers? There is no way to tell.

To be fair, sometimes circumstances mean one has to use the data that is easily available. That is not the case here. The Chambers is a sophisticated organization with the resources (~$30k) to do a proper survey that would give representative results. The lousy methodology and absence of info about the study means we should likely disregard this study altogether—it is basically garbage.

Turning to the results, the gist of the comments is that businesses cannot attract enough workers who are Canadian residents and, without access to more TFWs, their businesses are in jeopardy. This may well be true.

At the risk of sounding heartless, is that a bad thing?

Access to workers basically comes down to wages and working conditions. Raise wages and/or improve working conditions enough and workers will come—either from other businesses or from the ranks of people who were previously uninterested in working.

Not every business can afford to do this. But, in a free labour market, a business that cannot afford the cost of inputs (e.g., labour) goes out of business. That is unfortunate, but that’s how it goes. This frees up the workers from the defunct business to take employment elsewhere.

Yes, we may not be able to get a burger or coffee on every corner and in every hamlet at 3 am on Sunday morning. But I expect life will go on regardless.

Mostly this report is part of a broader narrative that employers are trying to create that advocates for government intervention to suppress wages by loosening the labour market via easier access to foreign workers. Given how poorly done it is, we should simply ignore it as more partisan lobbying by employers to grind workers' wages.

-- Bob Barnetson