February 9, 2010 | Posted by admin
A warm congratulations to Professor Carla Lipsig-Mumme of York University for winning a huge, $1 million SSHRC grant for her application to study the effects of climate change on work in Canada.
We need to know more about the chain of processes that comprise work, employment and training in key Canadian industries and professions and how their decision-makers understand and respond to the challenge that global warming poses to these processes. Our second goal is to engage community partners active in the work world and the environmental community in research that identifies critical spaces for adaptation, drawing on their hands-on experience and linking it to the expertise of the academics.
Now the heavy lifting starts. A number of York faculty are part of the research team including yours truly and environmental law professor Stepan Wood from Osgoode Hall Law School. I’m looking forward to working with Carla and the many other great Canadian and international academics and practitioners on this fascinating project. Well deserved, Carla.
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February 8, 2010 | Posted by admin
A dozing TTC ticket collector caught on camera a while back has led to an army of pocket poparazzies in Toronto trying to capture on film every act of misconduct or grumpiness by TTC employees. The Toronto Sun bumped Haiti off the front page to cover this momentous story! A couple of days ago, there was a story about a TTC employee filming an irate customer who was filming him. It’s really only a matter of time before something bad happens out of all of this, I suspect. One of these TTC employees is going to take exception to being filmed without their permission, and something bad will happen. Is this situation getting dangerous? Keep in mind, the buses and trains and ticket collection booths are workplaces.
[Postscript: here we go, as predicted, this situation of photo-taking in the TTC is raising tensions. Check out this Star story]
I’m interested in this topic from an HR and employment law perspective. If someone started filming me at work and refused to stop when I asked them, I’d be pretty pissed off. If someone tried to video-tape my lecture, and refused to stop when I asked, I’d leave the room and call security. I don’t know this for sure, but I think my employer would support my right not to video-taped without my permission while I am working. Which raises an interesting employment law question: What should the TTC being doing about this situation?
So far, the employer has sided with the paparazzies, blessing them for pointing out the bad employee conduct, and promising to deal with the employees and the ‘culture’ of poor attitudes amongst the employees. The TTC’s By-Laws make it unlawful to take photos or videotape on TTC property without the TTC’s authorization. It’s in By-Law 1:
3.17 No person shall operate any camera, video recording device, movie camera or any similar device for commercial purposes upon the transit system without authorization.
So, we might ask, why isn’t the TTC telling passengers to stop video-taping and taking photos of TTC employees? A commentator (see comments on this point) advised me that the TTC’s position is that this only applies to ‘commercial’ photography (fair enough, it says that), and that photography is allowed as long as it does not ‘interfere with the safe and orderly operation of the transit system and/or customers”. I’d think the idea is that personal photos of friends, etc, is fine, because it has no impact whatever on the operation of the TTC. But what about filming that becomes disruptive to service (because the employee gets into an argument with the employee) or to employee relations (because the workers get angry that their employer is allowing them to be recorded) or that becomes dangerous (because overzealous customers or employees may react poorly to the provocation of the filming)?
I wonder at what point having customers confront TTC employees with cameras, provoking TTC employees to confront the passengers, becomes interference with the safe and orderly operation of the transit system and or safety of the customers (and the employees). Was it the TTC’s intention that customers be permitted to film employees who don’t want to be filmed? If so, that would be an odd human resource management policy, wouldn’t it? How many of you working people expect to be filmed at work by strangers without your permission, with your employer’s consent? Do you HR students/manager believe that allowing customers to video-tape employees at work (against the employees’ wishes) will improve employee morale or productivity?
And does the TTC’s willingness to endorse the paparazzis increase the possibility of a altercation between employees and the public? If so, shouldn’t the employer be concerned about that? Do they have a legal obligation to prevent unwanted filming of their employees at work?
Another option for the TTC would be to ask customers to use the existing complaints procedure and to file a complaint, rather than take matters into their own hands by pulling out cameras. Maybe the TTC could improve that process and make it easier to complaint. This would not make for front page news, but it would deflate the escalating tensions between customers and TTC employees, and between the TTC and the employees and would likely avoid what I suspect is an inevitable incident between workers and the public that will occur if customers keep snapping cameras in the buses.
Not surprisingly, the workers are getting tired of being filmed and of the employer’s unwillingness to suggest to customers that they stop filming TTC employees. The Toronto Star reports today that some workers are suggesting a ‘work to rule’ campaign to respond to paparazzies, to protest. In Canadian labour law, a ‘work to rule’ usually means a campaign by workers to follow their employment contract to the letter, but to do nothing more. This often results in slower service, since most workplaces depend on a degree of good will and flexibility to operate functionally. A ‘work to rule’ intended to slow production is considered a strike in Canada, since a strike includes any concerted activity designed to restrict output (see definition of a ’strike’ in section 1 of the Labour Relations Act). A work to rule would be illegal at this point, since the TTC workers are covered by a collective agreement, and strikes are illegal during a collective agreement. Nevertheless, tensions are rising at the TTC and this is a human resources problem to solve.
What do you think about this?
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February 4, 2010 | Posted by admin
One of the aims of this blog is to promote Canadian labour & employment law scholarship. In that vein, I have posted articles by Canadian law professors, and I have a permanent category link on this page to Free Labour Law scholarship, which includes posts linking to new articles on our subject matter.
Today, I am advertising a new paper by …. well, me! I wrote a 400 page Ph.D dissertation a while back in which I theorized and researched how a Canadian law could actually lead to improvements in working conditions in factories in the developing world that supply multinational corporations. I called this type of regulation–a law that seeks to influence foreign labour practices– “transnational domestic labour regulation”.
My new article (In Defense of Transnational Domestic Labor Regulation) wrestles with the thorny question of whether this sort of regulation is a good idea in the first place. Should Canada attempt to improve labour conditions in factories in India, China, or Sri Lanka, or are those conditions none of Canada’s business? Could a Canadian law targeting foreign labour conditions actually make life worse for the workers in those countries? Or does Canada have an obligation to use whatever power it has to try and aid foreign workers in their struggle to win improved working conditions? These are not easy questions, but these are the sorts of issues considered in my new paper.
You can download the paper for free here (click DOWNLOAD). Comments/suggestions are welcome, as always. Here is the abstract:
“Transnational domestic labor regulation” (TDLR) is unilateral regulation introduced by a national government that is designed to influence labor practices in foreign jurisdictions. Many governments already use a variety of measures to try and influence foreign labor practices. TDLR has the potential to empower foreign workers and influence the balance of power in foreign industrial relations system in ways that might lead to improvements in labor conditions over time. Particularly interesting is the potential for TDLR to harness or steer the many private sources of labor practice governance already active in shaping labor conditions within global supply chains. However, whether governments should be trying to influence foreign labor practices at all is a controversial question. Does such a strategy not amount to unwarranted interference in the sovereign right of the foreign governments to regulate labor conditions within their own borders? Is this not just another form of Northern protectionism designed to undermine the comparative advantage of developing countries? This article explores the arguments both for and against a unilateral legislative strategy that aims to improve working conditions in foreign countries. While, ultimately, the author is supportive of the strategy, he concludes that the design of the model must incorporate the legitimate warnings in many of the criticisms of the strategy.
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February 3, 2010 | Posted by admin
York’s Centre for Research on Work and Society (CRWS) has begun its search for a new Director, a position that would begin on July 1, 2010. The position is for a term of 3 to 5 years, and comes with a 1.5 course release and stipend. The Director must be a York professor.
Here’s the job posting.
A description of the Centre from the posting reads as follows:
The York Centre for Research on Work and Society was established as an Organized Research Unit in 1991. Its membership currently includes York scholars with accomplished backgrounds in the arts and social sciences, community partners from workers’ organizations across Canada, and academic and non-academic researchers from the international labour research community. The Centre’s mandate is to promote collaborative research at York University that addresses the many issues that arise from the transformation of work in local, national, and transnational contexts, as well as to establish research linkages and partnerships in Canada and internationally.
This is a great opportunity for York faculty interested in the study of work. The application information is set out in the attached posting.
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February 2, 2010 | Posted by admin
Last year I noted a Statistics Canada study that showed that women who have children earn less than women who do not (about 12% less overall). A new study by some Harvard economists looking at men and women with MBAs has come to a similar conclusion. I’ve noted a similar study in Canada.
The Harvard study followed the earnings of men and women who graduated from top tier U.S. business schools between 1990 and 2006. It found that, while the earnings at the outset of their careers were nearly identical, after a decade, female earnings had fallen behind significantly. While the evidence did not support a finding that women are less productive when at work, the principle explanation for the wage gap was the lost time from work owing to child care responsibilities. In short, because women give birth, and also spend more time than men raising the children, they miss more work and are less able to work long hours. This is reflected in women’s earnings over time.
If greater child care responsibilities is the explanation for the fact that women constantly earn much less than men (on average), do you think that this is something that the government should try to ‘fix’ through legislation? In other words, is it a social problem, or just the proper functioning of labour markets?
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