labor

Crowdsourcing and Unpaid Workers: When Worlds Collide

A while ago I wrote about crowdsourcing, which is becoming more and more interesting to me as an organizational theorist. Crowdsourcing bypasses traditional organizational structures and processes by creating what organizational theory would likely identify as a “networked organization”, Crowdsourcing creates a network of supporters around an artist or a project, and that organization can be temporary (for a one-time-only project) or ongoing (when the artist calls on those supporters whenever they have something new they want to pursue).

Thanks to the lively minds over at The Afterword, I was recently alerted to a situation that we might call “crowdsourcing gone wrong”. (more…)

Rocky Mountaineer and Locked-Out Workers Reach Tentative Settlement

According to this story, the Rocky Mountaineer rail service has reached a tentative contract settlement with the onboard workers it locked out more than a year ago. The ratification vote on the contract will take place on Saturday. I’ll post information on the settlement as I come across it.

UPDATE: According to this story from Monday, the workers ratified the contract. A message  on Twitter indicated that the new contract includes a 10% pay cut, a requirement that onboard workers share their tips with other staff,  and a “payout” (I’m not sure if this is a contract signing bonus, a buyout option for employees who want to leave, or something else), but I haven’t seen any official confirmation of any of these details.

Labour Day News Review

Well, if Labour Day is indeed the time of the year when labour and workers get the most media attention, we might as well take advantage of it and take a quick look at some of what was said. (more…)

(Not so) Happy Labour Day: How Did We End Up Here?

Labour Day, as my colleague David Doorey points out, is the time of the year when labour relations and unions can be guaranteed a bit of media attention. The “state of the union movement” was something I was thinking about not just because of Labour Day, but  while following the recent bargaining dispute between the Society of Professional Engineers and Associates (SPEA) and Candu Energy, and hearing about the latest anti-union diatribe from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. (more…)

Late-August Industrial Relations News

Lately I haven’t posted a lot of news from the world of Canadian industrial relations – but suddenly, at the end of the summer, all sorts of things are happening. (more…)

This Week in Communication: The Organizational Control Edition

It’s been a busy week for organizations trying to control how people communicate, but an interesting one if you’re intrigued by issues of how social and electronic media are, or should be, used. (more…)

Statistics Canada Cutbacks: The Death of More Evidence

A few weeks ago, Canadian scientists went to Parliament Hill to hold a protest rally that they dubbed “the Death of Evidence“. The speakers at the event outlined the effects of the federal government’s research funding cutbacks. They pointed out that research supported by government funding actually saves money, because it produces reliable evidence that helps government make sound decisions. They also emphasized the difficulty or impossibility of restarting their work if it ends.

My own research isn’t in the “hard” sciences, so the cutbacks protested at the Death of Evidence rally don’t directly harm my work. But my colleagues whose research will be affected are mad and very frustrated, because they know the value of the work they do.
And personally I’m angry about the disrespectful way that these researchers learned they were losing their funding. (more…)

Nuclear Workers on Strike: Apparently Not A Threat

Over the last year, Canada’s federal government has been more than happy to force resolutions in collective bargaining disputes before the parties have had much chance to settle their disputes on their own. Using the rationale of avoiding damage to the Canadian economy, the government has intervened to end strikes at Air Canada, CP Rail, and Canada Post. So it’s more than a little surprising to hear Labour Minister Lisa Raitt continue to claim that the federal government prefers to let parties settle disputes themselves. And it’s especially surprising to hear this claim in the context of an unresolved dispute with potentially huge economic implications.

On July 9, nearly 800 workers at Candu Energy went on strike. (more…)

One Year and Counting: Rocky Mountaineer Lockout Keeps Chugging Along

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the lockout of Vancouver’s Rocky Mountaineer train attendants, which I wrote about a few months ago in this post. The Vancouver Courier newspaper has a very good update on the dispute here. Unfortunately, not much has changed in the last few months, other than the company expanding its services despite the dispute. It’s still using replacement workers to staff the trains – and, according to this press release, the company plans to expand its services even more in the 2013 season.

According to the Vancouver Courier story, the two parties in the dispute (Rocky Mountaineer and Teamsters Local 31), aren’t even bargaining. Hmm. Canada’s federal government seems quite happy to quickly impose laws to end labour disputes on the basis that any service disruption might affect the Canadian economy – and this is a dispute that falls under federal jurisdiction. (more…)

Professional Licensing and the Labour Market: Not That Tightly Braided

I’m usually a fan of the New York Times Magazine column “It’s The Economy”, some previous installments of which I’ve written about before. I like this column because it uses real life examples to demonstrate that economic and organizational  theories don’t just live in some isolated ivory tower, but are actually very useful in explaining why things in the real world work the way they do. That being said, however, this week’s column on licensing of professional work is really disappointing and superficial. (more…)