As a huge Kate Bush fan, it delights me to report that yesterday she was officially appointed as a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for “services to music”. The appointment was announced this past December in the 2013 New Year Honours List, but the actual ceremony was yesterday.
Kate Bush receives her CBE from Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle. (photo credit: news.uk.msn.com)
Here is her message on her website about the honour, along with a picture of her medal.
Congratulations, Kate!!!
My doctoral dissertation was about workers in semi-professional occupations, and how their identification with their profession’s values affected how they felt about their work. So I’m always fascinated by stories about professionals faced with difficult situations that challenge the values of their chosen occupation.
This article about Geir Lippestad, the Norwegian lawyer who defended mass murderer Anders Breivek, appeared in the Globe and Mail last month. A few weeks later, Doug Christie, a Canadian lawyer who also defended controversial clients, passed away. I’ve been thinking about the contrast between the two and their reasons for doing what they did – and I’m kind of sorry that the article on Lippestad did not get more attention, because to me he represents why professional work is so important. (more…)
Although strikes and other labour-related actions often get negative coverage in the media, occasionally there are light-hearted parts to these events. And one of these is Scabby the Rat, the giant inflatable rat that shows up in front of American workplaces where union members are on strike or locked out.
This week, the VICE website posted a wonderfully entertaining and informative article about Scabby, prompted by a suggestion by one US union leader that Scabby no longer reflected unionism’s new “value proposition”. (more…)
The program I teach in puts a big emphasis on using case studies – giving students a description of a problem situation, getting them to think the situation through, and getting them to come up with solutions to the problem. I really enjoy teaching with case studies, because one of the things they train you to do is to reason through a problem, rather than just jumping at a solution. (more…)
Back in March of this year, Conservative MP Russ Hiebert introduced the so-called “union transparency” bill in Canada’s federal House of Commons. Bill C-377 is a private member’s bill that would require unions to file financial statements with the federal government that would be made publicly available through the Canada Revenue Agency. The statements would have to provide, among other things, the details of any union financial transactions worth more than $5,000, as well as the salaries of union officials and staff.
The bill received initial support in the House of Commons and most recently has been the subject of discussion in Parliamentary committee hearings. But this story from the CBC (more…)
Apparently, we have become so used to Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt prematurely intervening in public sector labour disputes that, when it happens, it isn’t even considered news any more. (more…)
This past week, Statistics Canada released some findings from its 2011 Canadian census data, showing that Canadians are speaking a greater variety of languages at home. Justifiably, this news got a lot of attention, because of the political and societal implications of linguistic diversity in a country with two official languages. However, what was almost completely unreported that Statistics Canada also issued a warning about the quality of its own information. (more…)
Since I became old enough to vote (which was, er, um, quite a while ago), I’ve voted in every municipal, provincial, and federal election that I’ve been eligible to participate in. I’m a firm believer in the principle of “if you don’t vote, you can’t complain” – and I know that people in my own country and around the world have fought for the right to vote, which makes voting even more important to me. So I was both sad and angry to see this screen pop up on Yahoo Canada’s website this week: (more…)
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…)
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…)
All About Work 