Labour & Pop Culture: Torn Screen Door

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is "Torn Screen Door” by David Francey. The song is a lament for an abandoned farmstead that the singer stumbles across on a summer walk—a very prairie experience if there ever was one.

Although why exactly the farm was abandoned is unclear, the singer suggests that ultimately the farm family was unable to meet their financial obligations to the bank and it foreclosed:

Had a life that they tried to save
But the banks took it all away
Hung a sign on a torn screen door
Nobody lives here no more

This story very effectively taps into the long history of agricultural foreclosures and shattered dreams. Indeed, opponents of Alberta’s Bill 6 frequently evoke the threat of farm closure when resisting the extension of employment rights to farm workers because it is emotionally powerful.

The long history of such foreclosures along the long-term increase in farm size and gross revenue and decrease in the number of farms suggests that there are structural factors at work in farm failures. I have a co-edited collection forthcoming shortly from the U of A Press that looks at these trends over time.

While Bill 6 may (or may not) slightly bend these trend lines, it is unlikely that it will profoundly affect the direction of the trends, whereby most food is now produced by a small number of very large, industrialized operators.

What this means is that the family farm (in the sense of an nuclear family farming one or two sections as their primary source of income) as the main form of agricultural production is likely long gone. Certainly, there are still many such producers, but their impact on the food supply is small and their financial viability is limited.

While lamenting the passing of the family farm is understandable, mourning it shouldn’t be weaponized to block public policy designed to protect the growing class of waged agricultural producers.



Late summer day and my
Love and I went walking
Over hills and fields
we walked, laughing and talking

Came across an old farmhouse
Standing broken and bare
It used to be someone's home
Now no one lives there.

There's a red barn standing
Held together with nails and dust
And a tired old Massey Harris
All wires and rust

Weeds overgrown in a garden
sown with care
It used to be someone's home
Now no one lives there

And through the crack
In the window pane
I hear the sound
Of the falling rain
Another farm being left run down
Another family moved into town

Had a life that they tried to save
But the banks took it all away
Hung a sign on a torn screen door
Nobody lives here no more

They worked their fingers
To the bone
Nothing left
They can call their own
Packed it in under leaden skies
With just the wheat
Waving them goodbye

Had a life that they tried to save
But the banks took it all away
Hung a sign on a torn screen door
Nobody lives here no more

-- Bob Barnetson

Presentations: Women and labour in Alberta

This weekend, the U of Alberta is hosting the a conference addressing the History of Women’s Political and Social Activism in the Canadian West. One of the panels on Saturday afternoon addresses labour issues:

A: Alberta Women Organizing to Address Labour Issues

Antonella Cortese, Comitato Promotore della ligua Italiana, Edmonton, Alberta; and Trude Aberdeen, Truong Lac Hong Vietnamese Heritage Language School, Edmonton, Alberta
Multiculturalism, activism, and the women of the Alberta Ethnic Language Teachers’ Association (AELTA)

Laurel Halladay, Athabasca University
Women and the Crowsnest Pass Miners’ Strike of 1932

Cynthia Loch-Drake, York University
Pentecostalism and the Unionism and Politics of Meatpacking Seamstress Ethel Wilson in Postwar Alberta: An Exploration

-- Bob Barnetson

Public Emergency Tribunals and farm work

In late 2015, the government passed Bill 6, which extended basic OHS rights and WCB coverage to farm workers. The full implementation of basic employment rights was deferred pending consultation with affected groups. Five committees have been meeting since early summer to hash through how to apply Alberta’s employment laws to paid farm worker.

The Alberta Agriculture Farm and Ranch Safety Coalition (AgCoalition) represents most (29) of Alberta’s producers groups and its representatives have 23 of 72 seats on the working groups. In late September, the AgCoalition provided an update on progress at the Labour Relations table, which is discussing how the Labour Relations Code should apply to farms and ranches.

Not surprisingly, AgCoalition reps oppose any strikes (and, one presumes, lockouts) in agriculture. The thinking appears to be that the time pressures associated with seeding/harvesting crops and taking care of animals mean that a strike would be profoundly harmful to employers and to food/public safety (I’m not sure this latter point is particularly true if essential services legislation is place…).

The AgCoalition update contains some interesting insight into the divided nature of the group. It appears there was an (unsuccessful) effort to (re)exempt farm workers from labour laws (which runs contrary to the basic intent of Bill 6). Then there was an (unsuccessful) effort to import Ontario’s virtually useless Agricultural Employees Protection Act. And then there was an (unsuccessful) effort to ban strikes and lockouts.

The most fascinating thing is that there was agreement to add language to the Public Emergency Tribunal (PET) provisions of the Labour Relations Code that would allow the government to impose binding arbitration (in the form of a PET) whenever a strike or lockout results in imminent and irreversible danger to crops and livestock.

On the surface, it seems crazy that the various labour representatives would have agreed to this. Imminent and irreversible harm to crops and livestock provide any union with significant bargaining leverage (indeed, it may be the only time the union has much leverage). What could explain the labour-side reps supporting the idea that strikes should be disallowed if they exert economic pressure on the employer (which is the purpose of a strike)?

Maybe it was true concern for the welfare of animals or food safety. I suspect though, the real calculus was that unionized farm workers will do better at arbitration than using strike/lockout to break a bargaining impasse.

Any unionized farm workers looking for a first contract are likely to face rabid employer resistance. Going to arbitration will get the union and workers a basic agreement no matter what. This will include provisions for union security and access and basic substantive provisions (e.g., language on wages and benefits) as well as procedural provisions (e.g., grievance and bargaining procedures). And (assuming the union times it right), a PET will get the union these provisions without having to go through a nasty strike/lockout with the attendant risk of the employer trying to convince the workers to ditch their union.

In this way, the labour reps have achieved a form of first-contract arbitration, an issue upon which there was no consensus when it was brought up separately. For their part, employers have also minimized the downside risk of a strike. It will be interesting to see whether the government accepts these consensus recommendations.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Click, Clack, Moo

This week’s instalment of Labour & Pop Culture looks at the children’s book Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin. The crux of this fable (which you can listen to below) is that the cows find a typewriter and ask Farmer Brown for electric blankets to warm up the barn.

Framer Brown refuses and the cows (and hens) withhold their labour. Eventually the two sides come to an agreement: the animals get electric blankets and they give up the typewriter. But then the ducks start making demands.



I love Click, Clack, Moo because it highlights (in a very inoffensive way) a number of lessons about labour relations. In no particular order:

Class conflict: Farmer Brown depends on the cows and hens to make a living. When they want better working and living conditions, he balks (presumably because of the cost). Herein lies the crux of class relations: conflict over the distribution of profits arising from the labour of workers.

Collective power: Once the workers (cows and hens) have some way to articulate their class interests and express them to the boss (Farmer Brown), they suddenly have power. Farmer Brown eventually caves. 

Interestingly, the concession he demands is not higher production, but rather that the workers agree to not strike again (by giving up their type writer). What this tells us is that boss’s power depends (in part) on the acquiescence of the workers and he will accommodate worker’s monetary demands as long as he can maintain control over the workplace.

Gender: Note how the workers (hens and cows) are all female while the boss (Farmer Brown) is a man? Note how pissed off and dismissive Farmer Brown gets when the womenfolk get uppity? I wonder how he would deal with a bunch of angry bulls and roosters (who are far more physically threatening). I suspect he’d shoot them.

The Farmer Wins: In the end, the workers go back to their jobs and order (i.e., the employer extracting surplus value from workers) is returned to the barnyard. It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if Farmer Brown dug in his heels and, say, cut off the feed to the animals or turned them out of the barnyard.

Cat’s Out of the Bag: Once the ducks see how successful the hens and cows were, they too start making demands using the typewriter. This speaks to both the universal and enduring nature of class conflict in capitalist societies.

This book also allows us to reframe some of the angst in Alberta’s agricultural community about the possibility that unionized farm workers will (one day) be able to strike. In this book, the workers’ strike for decent living and working conditions looks pretty reasonable (Farmer Brown’s refusal less so). 

So why all the angst when it comes to other humans requesting the same thing? The answer is that it is about power and privilege. Farmers have long been the undisputed masters of their domain (acknowledging the broader economics dynamics of commodity producers in producers have little bargaining power). 

Losing that control on the farm feels like an attack on their authority. Further, giving workers the right to strike compels some farmers to confront the fact that their operations are only economically viable if they can externalize costs onto workers in the form of low wages and poor working conditions.

-- Bob Barnetson

Holding out for a (course) hero

For those of you hoping for some awesome 1980s music, please amuse yourself with the video below (yes, a tractor duel between Justin Trudeau and Kevin Bacon was high-quality entertainment in the 1980s…).

Now for the rest of you, let’s talk about Course Hero. Course Hero is a website that allow students to upload assignments, quizzes, exams and other materials. If you upload enough of your stuff (or just send the cash), you can then access the material (so-called “study aids”) uploaded by others.  

Reviewing the work of others can certainly seem like a quick way to complete assignments. Alas, it is also an easy way to run afoul of the university’s Student Academic Misconduct Policy, which requires you to do your own course work.

But it is not just downloaders who are in peril: uploading materials is also likely a violation of Section 2.5 which prohibits the distribution of assignments and other course material.

One of my jobs right now is academic integrity officer for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (basically I’m the plagiarism guy). Over the past few months, my workload has risen dramatically because faculty are complaining about uploaders. Year-long suspensions and notations of misconduct on transcripts are pretty common for first-time offenders.

Course Hero is not the only such website, but its recent popularity has pushed the university to speak out against all websitesthat offer “study aids”. You’d be wise to heed the university’s advice about these websites and remove any of your materials from them.

-- Bob Barnetson

Union avoidance at Rogers Place

Edmonton’s new arena (Rogers Place) recently opened (with generous public subsides). Food service in Rogers Place is provided by Aramark. Last week, Aramark sent a letter to its employees providing them with “information” about possible unionization efforts.

Such letters are legal in Alberta and this is a pretty typical example. It notes that, if employees unionize, they will pay dues. It then trots out the bogey man of rich union staffers spending dues however they like (ignoring the internal democracy of unions).

The employer cleverly avoids saying that it will sack employees if they unionize by saying “Job security comes to our organization if all of us work together as a team to ensure that our organization is a competitive and successful business.” You’d have to be pretty stupid not to read between the lines of that statement.

The letter ends with apple-pie statements like “We feel that nobody will ever represent you better than yourself.” This, of course, ignores the profound power asymmetry in individual employment relations that render employee representations basically useless and advantages the employer.

Union avoidance is big business in the United States. A few weeks ago I flagged an episode of the comedy “Superstore” that dealt with it. Last week, I also ran across a hilarious mash-up of Wal-Mart’s and Home Despot’s union avoidance videos.



They are hilarious because the “workers” in both videos are the same. Now maybe the “employees’” pay packets are so small that they need to have two jobs (and NO UNION!)… . But the near verbatim scripts suggests otherwise.

-- Bob Barnetson

Labour & Pop Culture: Harlan Man

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Harlan Man” by Steve Earle. This bluegrass song is about coal mining in 1970s in Kentucky. During this time, the miners sought to unionize. The resulting strike went poorly for the miners. The strike is documented in an excellent film called Harlan County USA.

Mining (like construction) is a hyper masculinized occupation. There are very few female miners. I remember working a strike vote at a strip mine west of Edmonton in 2001 (or 2002?) and there were two (or maybe three?) women in the unit and some of the other miners immediately brought this up with me as an issue (it was completely unrelated to what we were talking about).

The hyper masculinity is evident in the lyrics which talk about doing dangerous work because the worker has to provide for his family. The singer grew up poor in rural Kentucky and goes down in the mine because that is the easiest way to make a living. Only later does the true cost of the decision become apparent but, by that time, the singer is caught because he has a family to support. This is a point of pride for the singer, carrying on a long family tradition based upon manual skill and stick-with-it-ness despite poor treatment by the boss.



I'm a Harlan Man
Went down in the mine when I was barely grown
It was easy then
'Cause I didn't know what I know now

But I'm a family man
And it's the only life that I've ever known
But I'm a Harlan Man
Just as long as my luck and lungs hold out

I'm a mountain man
Born in east Kentucky and here I'll stay
And if it's the good Lord's plan
I'll wake up in the mornin' and find

I'm lookin' at the end
Of another long week and I can draw my pay
'Cause I'm a Harlan Man
Never catch me whinin' cause I ain't that kind

I'm a union man
Just like my daddy and all my kin
I took a union stand
No matter what the company said

I got me two good hands
And just as long as I'm able I won't give in
'Cause I'm a Harlan Man
A coal minin' mother 'til the day I'm dead

-- Bob Barnetson