tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/labour-law-14264/articlesLabour law – The Conversation2023-10-05T11:11:29Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2145472023-10-05T11:11:29Z2023-10-05T11:11:29ZOntario’s 2-tier minimum wage: As discriminatory now as it was in the 1990s<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/ontarios-2-tier-minimum-wage-as-discriminatory-now-as-it-was-in-the-1990s" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The province of Ontario <a href="https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1002886/ontario-increasing-minimum-wage-to-1655-an-hour">has increased</a> its minimum wage to $16.55 per hour — unless workers are students under the age of 18, in which case their labour is only worth $15.60.</p>
<p>Québec and Manitoba eliminated their two-tier minimum wage in the late 1980s over concerns that the wage differential amounted to age discrimination and therefore violated Canada’s <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/rfc-dlc/ccrf-ccdl/">Charter of Rights and Freedoms</a>. Ontario almost did as well 30 years ago. But the Ontario NDP government broke its promise, as I detail below.</p>
<p>The issue is personal for me. When I was 17 years old, I was hired by my hometown library. But a week into the job I was called into the head librarian’s office and told that they had made an administrative error. They would need to pay me the lower rate. </p>
<p>With that, my wages dropped from $4 an hour to $3.15. Over the next year, I worked for substantially less than other students hired at the same time and who were doing the same work. This is an experience not easily forgotten.</p>
<h2>Age discrimination</h2>
<p>A few years later, I did something about it. As the head of a provincial student group, <a href="https://ondy.ontariondp.ca/">Ontario New Democratic Youth</a>, I launched a campaign on the issue in late 1989. As I wrote at the time: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“If the two-tiered system was based upon any other category (of difference), it would not be tolerated.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>We made the case that it was “unfair to value one person’s labour less than another’s simply on the basis of age.”</p>
<p>We then launched a Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge on the issue of age discrimination with the help of Toronto labour lawyer <a href="https://goldblattpartners.com/our-lawyers/steven-barrett/">Steven Barrett</a>. A notice of application was submitted to the Supreme Court of Ontario in April 1990.</p>
<p>But then, most unexpectedly, the Ontario NDP won the election in September 1990 and <a href="https://www.tvo.org/article/orange-shockwave-how-ontario-got-its-first-ever-ndp-government">Bob Rae</a> became premier.</p>
<p>It seemed strange to us to continue the court challenge as our youth group was the party’s youth wing. Besides, the Ontario NDP had promised to eliminate the two-tier minimum wage in its election platform. It was also mentioned in <a href="https://www.poltext.org/sites/poltext.org/files/discoursV2/Ontario/ON_DT_1990_35_01.txt">the government’s first speech from the throne</a>. So, we dropped the lawsuit. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Court documents." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552305/original/file-20231005-28-q6twsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552305/original/file-20231005-28-q6twsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552305/original/file-20231005-28-q6twsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552305/original/file-20231005-28-q6twsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552305/original/file-20231005-28-q6twsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552305/original/file-20231005-28-q6twsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552305/original/file-20231005-28-q6twsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A photo of the paperwork pertaining to the lawsuit the author’s youth group launched and then dropped.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Steven High)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Ontario government reduced the student differential in 1991 to 45 cents an hour from 85 cents an hour, promising to eliminate it altogether the following year.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/ndp-politician-bob-mackenzie-dead/article_8a4536d2-8d22-5e9b-92bb-7d90e9c320ee.html">Bob Mackenzie</a>, the NDP’s labour minister, even told the media at the time that the under-18 minimum wage “just cannot work in a society that promises equality and fairness. In fact, the existence of the student differential is currently before the courts in a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” </p>
<p>But then something changed, and the NDP decided to maintain the lower differential.</p>
<p>I have long wondered what happened. </p>
<h2>Employer lobbying</h2>
<p>Thirty years later, I am writing a book on how the NDP government responded to the industrial crisis. So, I decided to do some digging in the archives to find out why. </p>
<p>Thanks to <a href="https://www.ola.org/en/members/all/richard-alexander-allen">Richard Allen</a>, an NDP cabinet minister and historian who donated his records to McMaster University, I discovered that the Ontario Restaurant Association and other employer groups lobbied hard to convince the NDP cabinet to reverse itself.</p>
<p>According to archival material, they argued:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The student minimum wage category should not be seen as discriminatory against young inexperienced workers, instead it should be viewed as an affirmative action initiative which assists young inexperienced workers in gaining employment.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These were tough economic times and the youth unemployment rate was a dismal <a href="https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/files/pdf/MLI-PCrossYouthUnemployment10-15-webready.pdf">18 per cent</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A newsletter on newsprint with the headline Youth Viewpoints." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552307/original/file-20231005-15-gui2v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/552307/original/file-20231005-15-gui2v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552307/original/file-20231005-15-gui2v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552307/original/file-20231005-15-gui2v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552307/original/file-20231005-15-gui2v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552307/original/file-20231005-15-gui2v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/552307/original/file-20231005-15-gui2v6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Ontario New Democrat newsletter on the minimum wage differential for students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Steven High)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To find out more, I filed an access-to-information request and discovered that a decision was made in September 1991, the same month the <a href="https://springmag.ca/rae-days-lessons-from-the-social-contract-30-years-later">NDP abandoned its longstanding promise to deliver public auto insurance</a>, to hold off on eliminating the youth differential. </p>
<p>Instead, the Student Minimum Wage Consultation Group was formed with representatives of the four main employer groups in the hospitality industry, all with a strong vested interest in maintaining the youth differential, as well as two service-sector unions and an obscure student group nobody ever heard of. </p>
<p>The consultation group recommended keeping the differential.</p>
<h2>Discriminatory differential</h2>
<p>In its April 1993 cabinet submission on the subject, the Ministry of Labour conceded that the differential was discriminatory but recommended it was maintained anyway.</p>
<p>Here is how they worded it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Clearly, the student minimum wage does discriminate on the basis of age and student status. The student component does not appear to present any legal difficulties, but the age discrimination is a complex legal issue.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It went on to say that “legal analysis concluded that if a Charter challenge were to be raised again there is a risk that the student differential could be found to violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the basis of age discrimination.” </p>
<p>Thanks to us dropping our case, the ministry could advise: “There is no legal ruling directly on this issue and no current challenge.” The NDP cabinet therefore agreed with the warped line of reasoning that paying less to younger workers was a form of affirmative action. </p>
<p>Thirty years later, young people in Ontario are still paying the price: 95 cents an hour, to be precise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214547/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven High receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Thirty years ago, he was a member of the New Democratic Party.</span></em></p>Ontario almost joined Manitoba and Québec in eliminating the under-18 minimum wage 30 years ago. Then Bob Rae reneged on an election promise.Steven High, Professor of History, Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling (COHDS), Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2016802023-04-13T12:31:00Z2023-04-13T12:31:00ZFairtrade: study finds premium label does not always benefit workers on South African wine farms<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518701/original/file-20230331-24-bbmx2i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Wine was first produced in South Africa <a href="https://www.wosa.us/wines/history/">as far back as the mid-1600s</a> by Dutch colonisers who sold it to passing ships. The industry developed further during the colonial and apartheid eras and wine became an important part of the South African economy.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2017.1298152">recent study</a> reports that the industry now employs close to 300,000 people. A <a href="https://news.wine.co.za/news.aspx?NEWSID=38772">2021 report</a> indicates that it generates R10 billion (more than US$550 million) in export value annually. While wine does not rank as one of South Africa’s biggest industries, it <a href="http://www.sawis.co.za/info/download/Macro-economic_Impact_of_the_Wine_Industry_2019_Final_(2).pdf#page=7">contributes 1.1% to South Africa’s GDP and 1.6% of the country’s total employment</a>, making it significant to the economy.</p>
<p>During the colonial and apartheid eras, the country’s wine industry was characterised by the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2016.1234120">use of enslaved workers</a> and the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637348">exploitation and paternalistic control of black and coloured labourers by white farmers</a>. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Coloured">black and coloured</a> labourers lived and worked on the farms under the control of the white farmers. </p>
<p>With the formal end of apartheid in 1994, such relations were expected to change. <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---africa/documents/publication/wcms_385959.pdf">New labour laws</a> to protect workers from exploitation were introduced. However, many observers <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14747730802057753">continued to have concerns</a> about the living and working conditions of workers on the wine farms.</p>
<h2>Fairtrade certification</h2>
<p>In response to these concerns, some South African wine farms applied for and were granted Fairtrade certification. <a href="https://www.fairtrade.net/">The Fairtrade label</a> assures consumers that the product they buy has been ethically sourced and traded. <a href="https://www.fairtrade.net/about/certification">Fairtrade certification</a> is supposed to be given only after an audit to determine that the social, economic and environmental conditions on the farm meet certain minimum requirements. </p>
<p>Fairtrade products, such as Fairtrade coffee, chocolate or wine, are sold at a higher price, with a percentage of the sale value going towards a <a href="https://www.fairtrade.net/impact/fairtrade-premium-overview">Fairtrade premium</a>. This premium is supposed to be spent on projects that will improve farmworkers’ lives, such as creches, literacy programmes or medical centres.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-efforts-by-cote-divoire-and-ghana-to-help-cocoa-farmers-havent-worked-162845">Why efforts by Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana to help cocoa farmers haven’t worked</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If Fairtrade certification worked as intended for the South African wine industry, it could offer local producers improved entry into new markets while also supporting farmworkers’ developmental needs. </p>
<p>But what is the reality? </p>
<p>That’s what we set out to establish in a <a href="http://vital.seals.ac.za:8080/vital/access/manager/Repository/vital:61086?site_name=GlobalView">doctoral study</a>. What makes this study important is that it focuses on the experiences of farmworkers on commercial wine farms. Most Fairtrade products are produced by small-scale producers who are organised into cooperatives. However, in the case of South African Fairtrade wine, it is mostly commercial farms which have been certified. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Fair-Trade-The-Challenges-of-Transforming-Globalization/Raynolds-Murray-Wilkinson/p/book/9780415772037">other researchers have pointed out</a>, the decision to extend Fairtrade certification to South African commercial wine farmers has been a controversial one. Such farmers, who are mostly wealthy and white, are not the typical producers associated with Fairtrade certification. </p>
<p>Our study can help in reviewing whether the inclusion of such farmers is justified.</p>
<p>As part of the study, interviews were conducted in 2020 with representatives of the <a href="https://saftu.org.za/csaawu/">Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union</a>, other key stakeholders in the wine industry, and workers on five Fairtrade farms. </p>
<p>The five farms are all commercial farms and all hold Fairtrade certification. But the experiences of the farmworkers suggest that while the wine bottles leaving the farm might bear the Fairtrade label, the workers on these farms do not feel they are fairly treated. These findings cast doubt on the efficacy and legitimacy of extending Fairtrade certification to South African commercial wine farmers. </p>
<p>Fairtrade’s <a href="https://www.fairtrade.net/about/mission">stated mission</a> is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>is to connect disadvantaged producers and consumers, promote fairer trading conditions and empower producers to combat poverty, strengthen their position and take more control over their lives. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our study suggests that this mission is not being realised on South African Fairtrade wine farms. Workers on these farms are not being empowered to combat poverty and have more control over their lives. </p>
<h2>What farmworkers said</h2>
<p>Most of the 30 farmworkers interviewed were not even aware that the farm they worked on was Fairtrade certified. Only one had a good understanding of what the Fairtrade certification and audit process entails, but her account suggests that the process did not function as it should: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>{W}hen they do audits, the employer will clean. … {P}eople are forced to clean so that if the auditor comes, they will find everything in good standard. What happens when the auditor comes is that the employer chooses who must talk to the auditor because, for example, me, I will never be called to an auditor because they know that I will tell the honest truth.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Regular audits are meant to be conducted as part of the certification process to ensure that farmworkers on Fairtrade farms are fairly treated and adequately paid.</p>
<p>Farmworkers reported poor and unsafe living and working conditions. One woman complained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What happens in the vineyards is that there is no toilet for us as women. We have to relieve ourselves in the vineyards. The toilets you will see when there is an audit.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Others described inadequate housing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We were promised that these houses would be temporary. It is cold and when it rains the rain comes in. … We have reported this, and nothing happens. I have to constantly move my bed when it rains because the water comes through. I have been here since 1979. They [farm management] have ignored me. They don’t care.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Farmworkers also spoke about increased labour casualisation, especially for women. They further reported being intimidated for taking part in trade union activities, or for speaking out about their conditions. It was clear that, contrary to the <a href="https://www.fairtrade.net/about/mission">stated goals of Fairtrade International</a>, farmworkers on these farms did not feel empowered.</p>
<h2>What needs to happen</h2>
<p>Fairtrade certification may be helping farmers gain entry to international markets, but our study suggests it is not bringing the anticipated benefits to farmworkers. </p>
<p>Significant changes to the auditing and certification processes need to be made if the certification is to benefit workers on South African wine farms. More transparent and rigorous auditing needs to occur if certification is to be meaningful.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Bell received funding from the NRF-DAAD for the purposes of this study. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Matthews does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Most farmworkers were not even aware that the farm they worked on was Fairtrade certified.Sally Matthews, Associate Professor of Political and International Studies, Rhodes UniversityJoshua Bell, PhD Candidate in the Department of Political and International Studies, Rhodes University, Rhodes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1897662022-09-21T13:11:47Z2022-09-21T13:11:47Z12% of working women in South Africa are domestic workers – yet they don’t receive proper maternity leave or pay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/484527/original/file-20220914-17-zlu3u9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">GettyImages</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Most of the world’s domestic workers – <a href="https://www.wiego.org/sites/default/files/publications/file/WIEGO_Statistical_Brief_N32_DWs%20in%20the%20World.pdf">(76%)</a> – are women. They mainly do housework like cleaning, washing clothes, cooking and childcare, usually in private households. Domestic workers often have low incomes and are excluded from basic labour rights and employment benefits like pensions and paid leave. </p>
<p>There are over <a href="https://www.wiego.org/sites/default/files/publications/file/WIEGO_Statistical_Brief_N32_DWs%20in%20the%20World.pdf">76 million</a> domestic workers globally, representing between 1% and 2% of the global workforce. Around <a href="https://www.wiego.org/sites/default/files/publications/file/WIEGO_Statistical_Brief_N32_DWs%20in%20the%20World.pdf">80%</a> of domestic workers work informally. </p>
<p>Of all working women in South Africa, around <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/P02112ndQuarter2022.pdf#page=70">12%</a> work as domestic workers. These workers have little or no safety nets. This form of work takes place in people’s homes, quite a personal context. It’s therefore difficult to make sure the sector applies regulatory frameworks. Domestic workers often depend on the goodwill of their employer to access components of maternity protection.</p>
<p>The International Labour Organization offers a definition of comprehensive maternity protection. It includes health protection at the workplace and a period of maternity leave. Women should get cash payments and medical benefits while on maternity leave. They should have job security and not face discrimination. Daily breastfeeding breaks and childcare support are also part of the protection package. </p>
<p>My colleagues and I <a href="https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-022-04944-0">recently</a> described what maternity protection is available to non-standard workers in South Africa. This category includes temporary, part-time and casual workers. We specifically focused on domestic workers as a vulnerable sub-group.</p>
<p>South Africa’s laws and regulations <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35808809/">incorporate some elements</a> of global maternity protection recommendations. Non-standard workers are supposed to get health protection in the workplace, maternity leave and job security. They should not be discriminated against. But the policy framework is fragmented. And it’s difficult for employers and employees to interpret. </p>
<p>We found that domestic workers struggled to access maternity protection benefits – particularly cash payments while on maternity leave. This is because of gaps in the legislation, and employers not complying with relevant laws. Women may lose their income for the months they are on maternity leave.</p>
<p>Workplaces and employers need to be encouraged to go beyond minimum national requirements. They must aim to be in line with progressive global guidance. Workplaces, employers, managers, and members of society should intentionally contribute to supportive environments for women to be able to combine their work and family responsibilities. This could result in improved breastfeeding practices, which would play a role in improving the health and development of future generations.</p>
<h2>Maternity protection</h2>
<p>Maternity protection is available in South Africa for some non-standard workers. These provisions are dispersed across various documents and government departments. </p>
<p>We identified 29 policy and legislative documents that contain provisions on maternity protection relevant to non-standard workers. Most of these documents were from the Department of Employment and Labour. </p>
<p>The components of maternity protection are scattered through many policy documents. For example, to understand the cash payments that domestic workers are entitled to when on maternity leave, one needs to consult a number of different laws. These include the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a63-010.pdf">Unemployment Insurance Act</a> (2001), the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a4-02.pdf">Unemployment Insurance Contributions Act</a> (2002) and the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201411/38237rg10319gon919.pdf">Sectoral Determination for Domestic Work</a> (2002), among others. </p>
<p>And there is weak alignment within government. For example, the National Department of Employment and Labour is responsible for labour legislation, which contain provisions on maternity protection. The National Department of Health implements health policy – some of which is relevant for maternity protection. But there are no clear communication channels or coordination between these two departments. Implementation, monitoring and enforcement of existing maternity protection policy are inadequate.</p>
<p>When women do not receive some form of income replacement (cash payment) while on maternity leave, they are not able to make full use of the maternity leave period available to them. They often return to work earlier than recommended. This has consequences for the care of their newborn. It also interferes with the establishment of breastfeeding. </p>
<p>All components of maternity protection need to be available and accessible for working women to be able to recover from childbirth, care for their new baby and establish breastfeeding. There is substantial <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(15)01044-2/fulltext">evidence</a> to support the many short- and long-term health, economic and environmental benefits of breastfeeding for children, women and society. </p>
<p>The most recent South African National Demographic Health Survey shows that only <a href="https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR337/FR337.pdf#page=214">32%</a> of infants under six months are exclusively breastfed. The World Health Assembly has recommended that the global target for exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months be increased to <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-NMH-NHD-14.2">50%</a> in all countries by 2025. Political support and financial investment are required to protect, promote and support breastfeeding and therefore create the conditions to give children the best start in life. </p>
<h2>Improving access</h2>
<p>The diversity of non-standard employment makes it especially challenging for many women to access maternity protection. Women in the <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw61/women-in-informal-economy">informal economy</a> make up a significant proportion of the workforce, especially in Africa. This is why it’s important to consider their labour-related rights. </p>
<p>Government – specifically the National Department of Employment and Labour – needs to ensure that the efficiency and accessibility of current social protection mechanisms such as the unemployment insurance fund are improved. One way of doing this could be making it easier for employers to find information on how to comply with relevant labour legislation, including that which enables access to maternity protection. </p>
<p>Lessons learned from the South African context could be applied to other low- and middle-income countries where non-standard employment is common and similar challenges to access maternity protection are experienced. </p>
<p>Making comprehensive maternity protection available and accessible to all women has potential long-term benefits to women’s and children’s health and development.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189766/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Pereira-Kotze receives funding from the DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence for Food Security - <a href="https://foodsecurity.ac.za/">https://foodsecurity.ac.za/</a> </span></em></p>The domestic workers’ place of work, as a private household, is difficult to monitor. It is therefore challenging for government to enforce current legislation.Catherine Pereira-Kotze, PhD candidate, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1793152022-03-15T14:24:18Z2022-03-15T14:24:18ZSouth Africa has a new Chief Justice: an introduction to Raymond Zondo<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452152/original/file-20220315-23-1g5csd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Raymond Zondo, South Africa's new chief justice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> Photo by Phill Magakoe/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South African president Cyril Ramaphosa recently <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-ramaphosa-appoints-justice-zondo-chief-justice">announced</a> the appointment of Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo as the next chief justice of the country’s Constitutional Court. </p>
<p>Zondo is best known for his role as the head of the judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of rampant corruption, fraud and <a href="https://www.statecapture.org.za/">state capture</a> during former President Jacob Zuma’s tenure (<a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/profiles/president-jacob-zuma-0">May 2009-February 2018</a>. Zuma grudgingly established the commission <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/statement-president-jacob-zuma-establishment-commission-inquiry-state-capture">in January 2018</a>).</p>
<p>The commmission’s work will go down in the annals of history as having defined Zondo’s tenacity as a fearless judicial leader. Presiding over the politically charged inquiry saw him lock horns with the former president, who bizarrely questioned his suitability to <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-judge-has-refused-to-step-down-from-corruption-probe-this-was-the-right-call-150484">lead the commission</a> – after he had elected him to the position. </p>
<p>The commission tested Zondo’s mettle. It sat over more than 400 days of hearings, featuring more than 300 witnesses. According to the commission, about 1,438 people and entities were implicated by evidence <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202201/judicial-commission-inquiry-state-capture-reportpart-1.pdf">before the commission</a>. </p>
<p>The outcome, in a <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/documents">three-part report</a>, made far-reaching recommendations in ridding the country of corruption, and setting up an effective anti-corruption framework. </p>
<p>Also notable is Zondo’s handling of Zuma’s <a href="https://collections.concourt.org.za/handle/20.500.12144/36746">contempt of court case</a> before the Constitutional Court. It resulted in the ruling that let to the imprisonment of the former president. </p>
<p>So, who is Justice Raymond Zondo?</p>
<h2>The early years</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/13-current-judges/72-deputy-chief-justice-ray-zondo">Raymond Mnyamezeli Mlungisi Zondo</a> was born on 4 March 1960 in <a href="https://southafrica.co.za/ixopo.html">Ixopo</a>, a small town on a tributary of the Mkhomazi River in the midlands of KwaZulu-Natal Province. Ixopo is most famous as the setting for the 1995 South African-American film, <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/cry-the-beloved-country-1995">Cry the Beloved Country</a>, based on <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cry-the-Beloved-Country-novel-by-Paton">Alan Paton’s novel</a> of the same name. </p>
<p>The young Zondo’s father worked as a labourer in Johannesburg and his mother was a nurse aid. He is the third of nine children. He and his wife Sithembile Zondo have four children. One of them is a cricketer <a href="https://www.cricbuzz.com/profiles/9724/khaya-zondo">Khayelihle (Khaya) Zondo</a>.</p>
<p>Zondo matriculated (finished high school) at St Mary’s Seminary in Ixopo. He went on to study law at the University of Zululand and today’s University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, earning an LLB. He went on to complete three Master of Law degrees (cum laude) in labour law, commercial law, and patent law at the University of South Africa.</p>
<p>During his training as a lawyer he met with a great loss. His articles of clerkship in Durban under <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/victoria-nonyamezelo-mxenge">Victoria Mxenge</a>, a human rights lawyers who fought fearlessly against apartheid, had to be ceded after she was assassinated by apartheid government agents in 1985.</p>
<p>He was appointed as a judge to the Labour Court in 1997. He then became a judge in the then Transvaal Provincial Division of the High Court, now the Gauteng High Court (1999). He was elevated to judge president of the Labour Court in 2000. The judge president’s role is to provide leadership to ensure that judges in the division perform their judicial responsibilities diligently and effectively. Zondo saw another upward movement when he joined the Constitutional Court in 2012, later becoming deputy chief justice in 2017.</p>
<h2>Career highlights</h2>
<p>Zondo’s illustrious career is a tapestry of highlights: from a lawyer to one of the senior judges in the South African judiciary. He has written more than 200 judgments. </p>
<p>In 1991 and 1992 he served in two committees of the Commission of Inquiry Regarding the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation, <a href="http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Goldstone/gold-con3.html">chaired by Justice Richard J. Goldstone</a>. Its mandate was to investigate the causes of political violence and intimidation in which some 20,000 people had died in the decade before the release of Nelson Mandela from prison, and the unbanning of the liberation organisations, paving the way for <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/convention-democratic-south-africa-codesa">negotiations to end aparthied</a>. </p>
<p>Also notable is that he was the first chairperson of the governing body of the <a href="https://nationalgovernment.co.za/units/view/83/commission-for-conciliation-mediation-and-arbitration-ccma#:%7E:text=The%20CCMA%3A%20conciliates%20workplace%20disputes,for%20accreditation%20and%20subsidy%20from">Commission for the Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration</a>, whose mandate is to resolve labour disputes speedily and cost-effectively.</p>
<p>In 1994, Zondo was appointed as a member of the ministerial task team tasked with producing <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/pdf/10.10520/AJA0259188X_1535">a draft labour relations bill</a> for post-apartheid South Africa. It culminated in the <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/labour-relations-act">Labour Relations Act of 1995</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://gcbsa.co.za/jscdocs/comments/zondo.pdf">General Bar Council</a> has credited him with playing a major part in developing South Africa’s employment law into a respected, coherent and fair system of law.</p>
<p>One of Zondo’s significant judgments was in the case <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZALAC/2000/1.html">Modise v Steve’s Spar Blackheath</a>. In this case, the trade union SACCAWU demanded that the store and other Spar stores agree to bargain collectively with the union. The store declined.</p>
<p>The majority of the employees who went on strike in November 1994 were found by the Supreme Court to have embarked on an illegal strike. It granted an interim interdict forbidding the strike. The workers were subsequently dismissed. </p>
<p>They appealed their dismissal to the Labour Appeal Court. Zondo, with acting appeal judge <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/judges/current-judges/13-current-judges/71-justice-mogoeng-mogoeng">Mogoeng Mogoeng</a> – ironically Zondo’s predecessor as chief justice – concurring, held that the employer was obliged to afford the strikers a hearing in order to decide whether to dismiss them. Also, that the right to be heard should be done prior to the issuing of an ultimatum to return to work or face dismissal, rather than afterwards.</p>
<p>Zondo set a precedence by finding that the principles of <em>audi alteram partem</em> (“let the other side be heard as well”) applied in labour law, and must be observed even in cases of dismissals in strikes. </p>
<p>Ultimately, this was the confirmation of the right to procedural fairness of unprotected striking workers. </p>
<p>It is clear from his many other judgments that Justice Zondo believes in upholding the rights and values enshrined in the country’s <a href="https://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/saconstitution-web-eng.pdf">constitution</a>.</p>
<p>Another example was in <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZACC/2012/16.html">Minister of Home Affairs v Tsebe</a>. Zondo would not allow the government to extradite a murder accused to Botswana without receiving an assurance that the death penalty would not be implemented, as that would have been contrary to South Africa’s abolitionist approach.</p>
<h2>Chief Justice role</h2>
<p>When announcing Zondo’s appointment as chief justice, Ramaphosa <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/press-statements/president-ramaphosa-appoints-justice-zondo-chief-justice">noted</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The position of chief justice carries a great responsibility in our democracy. As the head of the judiciary, the chief justice is a guardian of our constitution and the laws adopted by the freely elected representatives of the people. The chief justice stand as the champion of the rights of all South Africans and bears responsibility for ensuring equal access to justice. I have every confidence that Justice Zondo will acquit himself with distinction in this position.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The statement is a clear indication of the mammoth task awaiting Zondo in his new role. </p>
<p>He is one of the longest serving justices on the Constitutional Court, with the institutional memory required to lead the judiciary. But he comes in with the acknowledgement that there is still a lot of work to be done at the Constitutional Court and the judiciary in general. </p>
<p>His new role will include having to deal with what he identified during his interview for the job to be myriad problems affecting the country’s courts, including the delayed handing down of judgments. During the interview <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/02/04/a-chief-justice-should-be-someone-of-integrity-zondo-tells-jsc#:%7E:text=%22I%20think%20that%20a%20Chief,the%20judiciary%2C%22%20Zondo%20explained">he had this to say</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think that a chief justice in a country such as ours should be somebody of integrity, who can provide intellectual leadership, who has a demonstrable track record as a judge, somebody who is able to work with people and is able to appreciate the contribution of other leaders of the judiciary.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179315/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Omphemetse Sibanda does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Zondo’s career is made up of a tapestry of highlights, from lawyer to senior judge. He has written more than 200 judgments.Omphemetse Sibanda, Executive Dean and Full Professor, University of Limpopo Faculty of Management and Law, University of LimpopoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1624862021-07-18T12:28:09Z2021-07-18T12:28:09ZWhat Canada can learn from Sweden about creating middle-class retail jobs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410924/original/file-20210713-27-1q9sri0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C206%2C3212%2C1759&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canadian grocery-store workers earn low wages compared to their counterparts in Sweden. Why?
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Grocery-store cashiers and other frontline retail workers have helped get us through the pandemic, but do we value them? Why are retail jobs middle-class in Sweden, but low-wage work in Canada?</p>
<p>These were some of the questions I tried to answer over several years of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12596">published research</a> on grocery-store workers in different countries.</p>
<p>My research has shown that in the late 1970s, Canadian grocery-store jobs were middle-class union jobs. Full-time hours were common, and Canada’s grocery store-workers were well paid by global standards for the industry.</p>
<p>Major grocery chains held oligopolies in their respective provinces and had considerable discretion in setting prices, focused more on quality, and could use these aspects of their business strategy to justify high wages in the industry.</p>
<p>The opening of discount chains like Super Carnaval in Québec in 1982 and megastores like the Real Canadian Superstore in 1979 forced traditional grocers to rethink their human resources strategies. In addition to making profit margins narrow, many of these new discounters — like Walmart <a href="https://www.walmartcanada.ca/about-us/history">which entered Canada in 1994</a> — were non-union.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man walks to The Real Canadian Superstore in Coquitlam, B.C." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man walks to The Real Canadian Superstore in Coquitlam, B.C. in 2005.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CP PHOTO/Chuck Stoody)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wages were reduced</h2>
<p>The chains demanded that the unions work with them to lower labour costs and prevent them from losing money. Fearing what would happen to their members’ jobs if the chains went bankrupt (and some did), most of the unions worked with major grocers to cut wages and erode other key conditions set in collective agreements.</p>
<p>The result was a drastic reduction in the real wages of unionized workers from 1980 to 2016. Today, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/06/16/pay-premiums-for-grocery-store-workers-have-ended-did-their-essential-status-change-labour-rights-advocates-say-no.html">unionized retailers start at the minimum wage, or just above it</a>. </p>
<p>In Sweden, the wages of grocery-store workers in 1980 were good, but workers in some Canadian chains were better off. Like Canada, the Swedish grocery market was dominated by an oligopoly of players (until the early 2000s, when discounters like Netto and Lidl entered the market).</p>
<p>But unlike in Canada, working conditions did not erode with the rise of discount retailers in Sweden. In key areas, they improved.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12484">Swedish wages grew by over 50 per cent</a>. Today, <a href="https://handels.se/pa-jobbet/lagstaloner/butiksanstalld/privata-och-kooperativa-butiker/">the starting salary in Sweden is just over CA$20 an hour</a>. But most workers earn more than this. The collective agreement ensures that they earn more than $31 an hour on evenings, and over $40 an hour on weekends. They also receive pay in addition to what’s stipulated in the collective agreement.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People shop on a sunny Stockholm street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People shop in Stockholm, Sweden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tomas Williams/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What’s more, Swedish workers have substantial scheduling protections, including one month’s notice for schedules, strong rights to limit work performed on weekends and the right to be consulted on working hours. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/2.1.3612.5767">Swedish retail workers are also remarkably satisfied with their work</a>. </p>
<p>In Canada, the most employees get is usually the right to a few days’ notice on their scheduled hours.</p>
<h2>Sectoral bargaining is key</h2>
<p>So why do Swedish retail workers have remarkably superior working conditions? In a nutshell, their labour laws strongly support what’s called <a href="https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/news/2020/03/02/176857/what-is-sectoral-bargaining/">sectoral bargaining.</a></p>
<p>Sectoral bargaining ensures every worker who works for a major retail chain in Sweden is covered by what’s called a sectoral bargaining agreement. This is a common agreement that stipulates working conditions for retail employees, and it applies across the entire sector.</p>
<p>Sectoral bargaining takes wages and other working conditions out of competition. In Canada, retail unions are always nervous that asking for high wages and significant improvements to other working conditions will hurt the profitability of their stores, which could lead to job loss. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labors-rank-and-file-still-believe-in-collective-bargainings-power-to-bolster-middle-class-49160">Labor's rank and file still believe in collective bargaining's power to bolster middle class</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Since working conditions differ across stores, even across unionized outlets, unions are forced to accept wage concessions to help their employers compete for low prices.</p>
<p>In Sweden, the opposite is true. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12484">Their retailers are not competing with each other by lowering labour costs</a>. Grocers want all their competitors to offer the same working conditions. That’s because sectoral bargaining prevents a non-union market entrant from gaining an unfair price advantage by operating with lower labour costs.</p>
<h2>All-encompassing agreements</h2>
<p>Employers want the union to organize workers and ensure that collective agreements are all-encompassing. <a href="https://portal.research.lu.se/portal/files/94935911/Unions_in_social_dialogue_Kjellberg_Workplace_Innovation.pdf">Approximately 70 per cent of the Swedish workforce is unionized</a>, more than double that of Canada.</p>
<p>Why is sectoral bargaining uncommon in Canada, and absent in retail? Basically, our labour laws don’t support it.</p>
<p>Swedish unions work in solidarity to force firms to sign collective agreements. For example, when <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/03/18/sweden-retail-unions_n_6888328.html">Toys “R” Us refused to sign a collective agreement in the mid-1990s</a>, unionized workers in other industries blocked the company from operating in Sweden. </p>
<p>Transit unions instructed their workers to stop delivering goods to the company. Bank unions told their workers to stop processing financial transactions for the company.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Shoppers in a Toys 'R' Us." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Toys ‘R’ Us faced an unfriendly reception when it entered the Swedish market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Alan Diaz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the end, the company had no choice but to sign the collective agreement. In fact, they turned these stores into a franchise operated by Scandinavians, since the American managers discovered that they did not understand how to operate in countries like Sweden.</p>
<p>Conflicts like this have set the stage for retailers wishing to operate in the country. For example, Lidl, a German discount food retailer known for its anti-union stance throughout Europe, signed the collective agreement when entering the Swedish market in 2002. </p>
<p><a href="https://handelsnytt.se/2021/02/22/vi-later-inte-amazon-komma-undan-utan-schyssta-villkor/">Amazon has entered the Swedish market but has yet to open its own warehouses in the country</a>. If it does, there’s little doubt the union will be successful in getting the company to sign a collective agreement. </p>
<h2>Patchwork unionization</h2>
<p>In Canada, the law encourages collective bargaining by store or chain. Sympathy actions aren’t part of the system. Among stores that are unionized, it’s not always by the same union.</p>
<p>The result is a fragmented system where working conditions diverge considerably. When unionized stores are operating under different collective agreements, their unions face immense pressure to compete with each other to lower labour costs and hence maintain poor working conditions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A customer and a little girl look at the seafood counter at a Metro store in Ste-Therese, Que" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A customer looks at the seafood counter at a Metro store in Ste-Therese, Que.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The existence of non-union operators like Walmart and Dollarama makes matters even worse. Many union officials argue that preserving modest privileges through collective bargaining is better than letting non-union chains dominate the industry, which would be considerably worse for workers. </p>
<p>Without providing Canada’s unions with legal supports to effectively extend workplace standards across all major chains, including Walmart and Dollarama, these workers will never win the conditions they deserve. </p>
<p>There are many benefits to supporting unionization in the grocery industry, including a wage scale, employee benefits and access to a voice for employees.</p>
<p>But if Canada wants to expand its middle class by substantially improving working conditions in sectors like retail, it must fundamentally reform its labour laws.</p>
<p>Sectoral bargaining is probably our best bet. In fact, <a href="https://cepr.net/documents/publications/low-wage-2012-01.pdf">we have long known that low-wage work is much rarer in countries where sectoral bargaining is encouraged and widespread</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1331&context=all_papers">We’ve had opportunities for such a reform in the past</a>. We need to create new opportunities and show our front-line workers that we truly value them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean O'Brady receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and has received funding from the Fonds de recherche du Québec en Société et culture (FRQSC).</span></em></p>If Canada wants to expand its middle class by substantially improving working conditions in sectors like retail, it must fundamentally reform its labour laws to be similar to Sweden’s.Sean O'Brady, Assistant Professor, Labour Relations, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1404612020-06-17T11:46:22Z2020-06-17T11:46:22ZThe International Labour Organization was founded after the Spanish flu – its past lights the path to a better future of work<p>The fraying fabric of the global order was ill-prepared for a pandemic. As the focus now shifts from health to wealth amid the ensuing economic crisis, the World Health Organization (WHO) will cede the stage to other international bodies tasked with steering a course through the current turmoil and recovery to come.</p>
<p>Enter stage left the International Labour Organization (ILO), a sister body of the WHO and the very first specialised agency of the United Nations. As multilateralism wanes and COVID-19 strikes at the heart of how we work and live, the <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:62:0::NO:62:P62_LIST_ENTRIE_ID:2453907:NO">founding mandate</a> of the ILO – which was created in 1919 after the first world war and the Spanish flu pandemic – should resonate around the world: “Poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere.”</p>
<p>Worldwide, it’s predicted that <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_743036/lang--en/index.htm">305 million jobs will be lost by mid-2020</a>, that one in six young people <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_745879/lang--en/index.htm">have stopped working</a> and that existing inequalities will deepen. This is exacerbated by the fact that more than 62% of the global workforce <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/employment-promotion/informal-economy/publications/WCMS_743623/lang--en/index.htm">work in the informal sector</a>, beyond the reach of labour legislation and beyond the coverage of social protection. </p>
<p>The market alone cannot guarantee future livelihoods. The ILO’s constitutional <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/decent-work/lang--en/index.htm">commitment</a> to “decent work”, <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---jur/documents/genericdocument/wcms_441862.pdf">ensuring that</a> “labour should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of commerce” and liberating working life from commercial imperatives sounds increasingly like a clarion call to politicians everywhere.</p>
<h2>Origins of the ILO</h2>
<p>The ILO arose in the ravages of the Spanish flu and the ruins of the first world war. The preceding period had been one of profound social, economic and political upheaval. Increased competition, industrialisation and unprecedented growth were achieved at the expense of workers. Poverty, inequality, discrimination and poor conditions of work meant that Europe was on the brink of what the ILO constitution <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:55:0::NO::P55_TYPE,P55_LANG,P55_DOCUMENT,P55_NODE:KEY,en,ILOC,/Document">termed</a> “unrest so great that the peace and harmony of the world are imperiled”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342150/original/file-20200616-23261-18c3yow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342150/original/file-20200616-23261-18c3yow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=148&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342150/original/file-20200616-23261-18c3yow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342150/original/file-20200616-23261-18c3yow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=148&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342150/original/file-20200616-23261-18c3yow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342150/original/file-20200616-23261-18c3yow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342150/original/file-20200616-23261-18c3yow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Staff at the first International Labour Conference in 1919 in Washington.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Labour_Organization#/media/File:1919-ILC-secretariatstaff.jpg">Schutz Group Photographers (Washington, D.C.) - US Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Established by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, the ILO was part of an international liberal order built in the wake of the war and the face of totalitarianism. Binding the founding 44 national governments (the ILO now has <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/how-the-ilo-works/member-states/lang--en/index.htm">187</a> member states) to basic labour rights and protections not only safeguarded workers, but stabilised liberalism. It channelled increasingly bold assertions of worker power into institutional reform rather than revolutionary uprising. While peace was on the lips of the ILO’s founders, Bolshevism was on their minds. </p>
<p>Whereas all other international organisations consist solely of government representatives, ILO decision-making brings together governments, trade unions and employers. This unique tripartite structure provided a solid foundation for the ILO’s primary remit of international standard-setting – creating and monitoring labour conventions – agreed by the “social partners” who represent capital, labour and the state.</p>
<p>In the intense upheaval of its inception, this unique structure proved indispensable in countering the social, political and economic consequences of the twin salvo of world war and global pandemic. It’s hard to attribute the hardship and social unrest that followed 1919 to one or the other of these causes. But the Spanish flu certainty hung heavy over the Labour Commission of the Peace Conference where the ILO was founded. Not least because of <a href="https://iloblog.org/2020/05/27/spanish-flu-and-covid-19-are-there-lessons-for-the-world-of-work/">the 50 million people who died during the pandemic</a>, but also because the US president, Woodrow Wilson – a key architect of the ILO – <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/woodrow-wilsons-case-of-the-flu-and-how-pandemics-change-history">fell ill with the flu</a>. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339451/original/file-20200603-130917-1phwlgk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Listen to Recovery, a series from <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-anthill-podcast-27460">The Anthill Podcast</a>, to hear more about how the world recovered from past crises, including an episode on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-slow-recovery-after-the-combined-shock-of-spanish-flu-and-the-first-world-war-recovery-podcast-part-3-140877">recovery after the Spanish flu and first world war</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The early decades of the ILO were arguably the most successful in the organisation’s history, starting with <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C001">a convention endorsing</a> the long sought-after 48-hour working week and a further 66 international labour standards agreed before the outbreak of the second world war. Whether the standards and employment rights concerned working age, maternity protection, occupational safety, compensation in the event of an accident, sickness insurance, holiday pay, old age insurance, the beneficial effects for workers’ health and wellbeing was undeniable. Health and wealth <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/287/5456/1207">go hand-in-hand</a>. </p>
<p>Regrettably, as liberal democracies left the rise of fascism unchecked, the spirit of international cooperation summoned up at Versailles, and the ILO’s ambition to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YBqvCwAAQBAJ&dq=history+of+the+ilo&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s">lessen tensions within and between nations</a>, soon faded with the onset of the second world war.</p>
<h2>Paths of despair and repair</h2>
<p>Just as the ILO confronted a world falling radically apart during the interwar years, there is a danger that COVID-19 is exacerbating current trends towards a more authoritarian and nationalist political-economic order with little respect for established global standards. At the same time – and on a more positive note – the COVID-19 crisis offers the possibility of a policy reset reminiscent of those put in place by reforming governments in response to the Great Depression. This is epitomised by President Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal – in the wake of which the US finally joined the ILO in 1934.</p>
<p>Between these paths of despair and repair lies a thin line defended and extended by international coordination and social dialogue. For more than 100 years, the ILO has been the only international organisation with the constitutional mandate to bring capital, labour and the state together to promote decent work. </p>
<p>However, long before the COVID-19 crisis, tripartite cooperation within the ILO was <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0018726717719994">increasingly fractious</a>, characterised by the current director general, Guy Ryder, <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_369026.pdf">as</a> “special pleading by vested interests to the detriment of the common good”. While employers frustrate progress on new labour standards and the effective enforcement of existing international conventions, most notably the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1564-913X.2014.00196.x">freedom of association and the right to strike</a>, the ILO continues to engage in concerted technical cooperation programmes, cementing its role as the leading recognised expert in the world of work.</p>
<p>Social dialogue between governments, workers and employers is <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-how-uk-job-retention-plan-borrows-from-collectivist-europe-134194">increasingly on the cards</a> in countries around the world. If this new sense of local and national partnership is to be scaled up to the international stage, then the ILO’s tripartite structure once again seems uniquely placed to meet demands for the <a href="https://democratizingwork.org/">democratisation of work</a> in the shadow of a pandemic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140461/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Huw Thomas has previously worked with the International Labour Organization (ILO). He has received funding from the Economic & Social Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frederick Harry Pitts has received funding from the Economic & Social Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Turnbull has previously received funding from the International Labour Organization and the UK's Economic & Social Research Council.</span></em></p>The International Labour Organization was founded in 1919 at the Treaty of Versailles after the ravages of pandemic and world war. Its model offers a way forward for us now.Huw Thomas, Lecturer in Work, Employment, Organization & Public Policy, University of BristolFrederick Harry Pitts, Lecturer in Work, Employment, Organisation & Public Policy, University of BristolPeter Turnbull, Professor of Management, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1327442020-03-15T11:40:55Z2020-03-15T11:40:55ZDespite Foodora ruling, app-based workers face uphill union battle<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318774/original/file-20200305-127909-4w2veg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C59%2C3600%2C2527&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Foodora courier is pictured picking up an order for delivery from a restaurant in Toronto in February 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Ontario Labour Relations Board recently cleared the way for couriers who work for the app-based food delivery company Foodora <a href="http://www.olrb.gov.on.ca/Decision/1346-19-R_Foodora-Inc-Feb-25-2020.pdf">to unionize</a>. </p>
<p>The couriers had filed a union certification application at the board last summer with the help of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). This in turn triggered a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/foodora-union-vote-ends-1.5244950">board-supervised union certification vote</a>. </p>
<p>Foodora objected to the application because, the company argued, its couriers were neither employees nor dependent contractors, but rather independent contractors, in business for themselves. </p>
<p>The difference in status matters because independent contractors, unlike dependent contractors or traditional employees, are
ineligible to unionize in Ontario. The ballot box was sealed, pending a board decision on the status of the couriers.</p>
<p>Six months later, the board ruled that Foodora couriers were dependent contractors eligible to unionize. The landmark ruling was celebrated as an important precedent for workers in the gig economy that could result in <a href="https://www.cupw.ca/en/historic-win-foodora-couriers-big-step-closer-union-certification">transformational change in the sector</a>. Despite winning a legal right to unionize, however, app-based workers still face an uphill battle when it comes to unionization.</p>
<h2>Obstacles to unionization</h2>
<p>The level of union membership among precariously employed workers in the service sector has always been extremely low. For example, unions are virtually non-existent in fast-food restaurants or in shopping malls, even though most of these workers have long had a legal right to unionize. </p>
<p>One reason for such low rates of unionization is that employers typically deploy a variety of union avoidance strategies <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/aw-tells-anti-union-conference-it-keeps-a-secret-watch-list-to-make-sure-workers-dont-unionize/">designed to thwart organizing efforts</a>. These usually involve coercive tactics designed to plant seeds of doubt in workers’ minds about the benefits of unionizing, and playing on workers’ fears about job security should the boss learn about their pro-union views. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318776/original/file-20200305-127897-1hrucgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318776/original/file-20200305-127897-1hrucgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318776/original/file-20200305-127897-1hrucgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318776/original/file-20200305-127897-1hrucgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318776/original/file-20200305-127897-1hrucgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318776/original/file-20200305-127897-1hrucgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318776/original/file-20200305-127897-1hrucgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318776/original/file-20200305-127897-1hrucgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Other app-based employers will likely do what they can to discourage their employees from joining together to unionize.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If Foodora couriers win their union once the ballots are counted, in some ways their success will unwittingly make it more — not less — difficult for similar workers to follow suit. </p>
<p>That’s because a successful campaign will almost certainly spur other app-based employers to proactively ramp up union avoidance tactics to avoid any cascading effect.</p>
<p>One particular tactic that will prove difficult for app-based workers to overcome is their employers’ ability to manipulate lists of eligible voters. </p>
<h2>Need majority support</h2>
<p>Legally, the union must demonstrate majority support among the workers who would then form the union. </p>
<p>In many Canadian jurisdictions, including Ontario, this requires two steps. The first is to get a large minority (in Ontario it is at least 40 per cent) of the workers to sign a union membership card. If successful, this paves the way for a secret ballot vote administered by the board, where 50 per cent plus one must vote “yes” to certify the union.</p>
<p>In traditional workplaces, workers regularly labour alongside the same group of employees. In such cases, it’s relatively easy for the union to determine how many workers would need to sign union cards in order to trigger a certification vote. </p>
<p>But work in the app-based gig economy is less straightforward. The number of workers on a given platform is more difficult for the union to ascertain. It is also much easier for app-based employers to game the system by stacking employee lists with people who shouldn’t be there. This can force union support below the threshold needed to trigger an election.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318777/original/file-20200305-127932-kpd4tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318777/original/file-20200305-127932-kpd4tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318777/original/file-20200305-127932-kpd4tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318777/original/file-20200305-127932-kpd4tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318777/original/file-20200305-127932-kpd4tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=357&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318777/original/file-20200305-127932-kpd4tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318777/original/file-20200305-127932-kpd4tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318777/original/file-20200305-127932-kpd4tr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers in the gig economy can be more difficult to organize than those working in an office together every day.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unions don’t have endless resources. Certification campaigns are expensive undertakings with uncertain outcomes. While organizing new members is a strategic priority for many unions, only a handful are actively organizing app-based workers. </p>
<p>Not all the app-based workers who want to unionize will be guaranteed a union that’s prepared to organize them. In Canada, a lot will depend on the outcome at Foodora and of any subsequent campaigns, all of which we can expect to be vigorously opposed by employers. </p>
<h2>Legal wrangling far from over</h2>
<p>The issue of worker classification may continue to frustrate attempts to organize app-based workers. </p>
<p>While the Ontario Labour Relations Board’s decision on the Foodora case opens the door to unionization for this specific group of workers, it does not automatically cover all app-based workers. </p>
<p>For example, the Supreme Court of Canada is expected to hand down its own ruling in the near future <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/supreme-court-uber-case-gig-economy-1.5349649">regarding the status of Uber drivers</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318778/original/file-20200305-127888-158uitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/318778/original/file-20200305-127888-158uitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318778/original/file-20200305-127888-158uitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318778/original/file-20200305-127888-158uitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318778/original/file-20200305-127888-158uitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318778/original/file-20200305-127888-158uitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/318778/original/file-20200305-127888-158uitw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Supreme Court of Canada will soon rule on the legal status of Uber drivers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Gold/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Regardless of the outcome in the Uber case, app-based employers may adjust their business operations, which could have the effect of altering the workers’ status. They may even ask governments to intervene on their behalf to deny union rights to their app-based workforces, regardless of classification. </p>
<p>App-based employers in California, for example, have launched a multi-million dollar campaign to reverse the state’s recent decision <a href="https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Uber-Lyft-DoorDash-campaign-for-ballot-15090479.php">to grant employee status to app-based workers</a>. </p>
<p>Closer to home, some provincial governments, including Nova Scotia and Ontario, have moved to deny employment standards rights to <a href="https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/juniors/ontario-excludes-ohl-players-provincial-employment-standards/">minor hockey league players.</a> </p>
<p>In short, while Ontario’s labour board decision appears to have set an important precedent that will open the door to unionization for thousands of app-based workers, unionizing workers in the gig economy will continue to be an uphill battle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132744/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An Ontario labour board decision to allow Foodora workers to unionize appears to have set an important precedent. But unionizing workers in the gig economy will continue to be an uphill battle.Alison Braley-Rattai, Assistant Professor, Brock UniversityLarry Savage, Professor, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1286522020-02-18T13:51:36Z2020-02-18T13:51:36ZHow South African wineland workers used global networks to fight for their rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/313092/original/file-20200131-41541-1drglkt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Workers harvest grapes on a wine estate in Stellenbosch outside of Cape Town.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anna Zieminski/AFP via Getty Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Echoes of apartheid-style exploitation of workers have resurfaced in recent years in South Africa. Debates around these malpractices were given fresh impetus four years ago with the release of a documentary, <a href="http://www.bittergrapes.net/trailer/">Bitter Grapes</a>. Produced by Danish journalist Tom Heinemann, it featured workers from South Africa’s winelands.</p>
<p>Bitter Grapes cast light on wide-ranging exploitation. Hardships included health and safety violations, underpayment of wages, and illegal efforts by producers to restrict trade union access on farms. These conditions sit uneasily with South Africa’s progressive constitution. They also run counter to numerous <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C081">International Labour Organisation</a> conventions relating to organised labour rights that the country has signed. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/joeg/article-abstract/19/4/921/5521066">recent research paper</a> I outlined the case for greater optimism around working conditions on wine farms due in part to the activism which helped create the documentary. </p>
<h2>Worker’s networked activism</h2>
<p>Key to the production of Bitter Grapes was the role of Ethical Wine Trade Campaign. This was a collaboration of worker organisations and solidarity movements across South Africa, Sweden, Chile and Argentina. All are important wine regions. </p>
<p>The campaign makes use of local knowledge about conditions in winelands in the Global South. This can be used to apply pressure to improve conditions in wine supply chains. An example is the role played by the campaign in connecting actors in Scandinavia and South Africa which informed and made possible the Bitter Grapes documentary. Subsequently the film has proved key in creating regulatory reforms. </p>
<p>The Commercial Stevedoring and Allied Workers Union played a vital role in the campaign.</p>
<p>The impact of Bitter Grapes reflects a strategy to connect activists in different places connected to common sectors. The links between South Africa and Scandinavia are not incidental. Nordic countries <a href="https://topwinesa.com/sa-winelands/sa-wine-industry-statistics/">consume around 10% </a> of all South African wine exports. This is mainly via the country’s state monopoly retailers – Systembolaget in Sweden and Vinmonopolet. They have the sole licence for selling alcohol on the high streets of Norway and Sweden. Both governments have faced pressure to better regulate supply chains which are directly funded by tax payers. </p>
<p>In my paper I examined how labour can use networks to create public pressure on governments and firms to better regulate supply chains. This has the potential to improve working standards and opportunities. In particular, I look at changes in the regulation of work conditions that have resulted.</p>
<h2>Improvements</h2>
<p>Several changes to wine farm regulation have emerged since Bitter Grapes on the back of moral and political appeals to European consumers.</p>
<p>The first set of changes is around formal state-led labour inspections. After Bitter Grapes the South African labour inspectorate investigated (and verified) several claims made in the documentary. Subsequently, the inspectorate has shown greater interest in the rural sector and has committed to more dialogue with trade unions in gathering intelligence about worker exploitation. </p>
<p>Secondly, there have been major changes in the private regulation of wine producers. A key private labour standards monitor in South Africa, the <a href="http://wieta.org.za/">Wine and Agricultural Ethical Trade Association</a>, has adjusted the way it operates. It has responded to concerns by committing to auditing farms more frequently. And it’s agreed to use a more transparent grading system. This change will mean that poorly performing farms are now confronted with a genuine trading threat. Farms getting a low score in an audit are now – in theory – unlikely to be able to sell products to major retailers in Europe.</p>
<p>For their part, Vinmonopolet and Systembolaget have sought to improve standards in wine production through additional strategies. Vinmonopolet commissioned a series of independent audits and developed a new eight-point assessment for producers to adhere to. Findings confirmed a range of “critical” risks in several wine farms. </p>
<p>Systembolaget, meanwhile, has adopted a new and novel approach to reporting standards violations spurred by the Swedish trade union <a href="https://www.unionen.se/in-english">Unionen</a>. This has included a <a href="http://www.iuf.org/w/?q=node/5703">Memorandum of Understanding</a> with the International Food Workers’ Federation. The memorandum is intended to support unions on the ground and offers a reporting mechanism for unions operating on the ground in South Africa, ultimately feeding information back to Systembolaget in Sweden. </p>
<h2>Lessons learnt</h2>
<p>The creation of progressive labour laws is important in securing improved standards of work. But laws in themselves remain limited in their effectiveness in industries where workers are hidden and isolated, and where inspectorates struggle to attend to the work realities on the ground. </p>
<p>That’s why regulation is so important. </p>
<p>The case study I have done shows that workers are capable of influencing both private and public forms of regulation in their interests. This involves the creation of consumer boycotts, as well as supply lines of pressure from within corporate networks which producers will struggle to ignore.</p>
<p>Workers not only create pressure to reform laws and regulation: they can influence the strategies for policing labour standards too, for example by getting the labour inspectorate to be more active.</p>
<p>In this instance workers have helped re-orientate regulatory agencies away from merely nudging companies to improve conditions towards a stronger regulatory model with a threat of sanction. </p>
<p>Others could learn from the collaborative networks that were formed.</p>
<p>Despite this positive story it is important to stress that the job of improving labour standards in South African wine is far from finished. Issues such as evictions of workers and the over-reliance of casual labour (often via labour brokers) are not typically addressed by either labour inspectorates or private codes of conduct. </p>
<p>The need for transnational worker activism in monitoring labour standards is sure to remain relevant.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128652/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Hastings does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Labour can use networks to create public pressure to protect workers’ rights.Thomas Hastings, Lecturer in Management, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1255862019-10-24T14:44:00Z2019-10-24T14:44:00ZSouth Africa’s TV actors have every reason to demand a better deal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298293/original/file-20191023-119459-1qmle2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every few months there’s a fresh outcry from South African actors complaining about exploitative working conditions in the film and television industry.
Last year cast and crew were up in arms about an actor who needlessly <a href="https://city-press.news24.com/News/what-killed-odwa-shweni-20180513">fell to his death</a> from a waterfall during a film shoot. Most recently award-winning actress Vatiswa Ndara penned <a href="https://twitter.com/theVati_Can/status/1181119732906377216/photo/1">an angry open letter</a> to the country’s arts and sports minister. Among the issues she raised were that actors are underpaid, particularly given the excessive workload being placed on them. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298321/original/file-20191023-119414-488v8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298321/original/file-20191023-119414-488v8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298321/original/file-20191023-119414-488v8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298321/original/file-20191023-119414-488v8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298321/original/file-20191023-119414-488v8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298321/original/file-20191023-119414-488v8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298321/original/file-20191023-119414-488v8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298321/original/file-20191023-119414-488v8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Jack Devnarain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SAGA</span></span>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298322/original/file-20191023-119414-grvw3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298322/original/file-20191023-119414-grvw3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298322/original/file-20191023-119414-grvw3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298322/original/file-20191023-119414-grvw3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298322/original/file-20191023-119414-grvw3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298322/original/file-20191023-119414-grvw3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298322/original/file-20191023-119414-grvw3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/298322/original/file-20191023-119414-grvw3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adrian Galley.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">SAGA</span></span>
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<p>Ndara also took aim at unfair contracts and rates that haven’t changed in 20 years, and lack of repeat fees for the stars of TV shows that are rebroadcast. She also raised the prevalence of sexual harassment, bullying and a lack of safety. Seasoned actress and lecturer Fiona Ramsay asks Jack Devnarain, chair of the <a href="https://www.saguildofactors.co.za/">South African Guild of Actors</a> and his deputy Adrian Galley, to provide some context.</p>
<p><strong>Are South Africa’s television actors underpaid and subject to exploitative contracts?</strong></p>
<p>It is largely true that rates for actors in South Africa have been static for two decades. And, while it may be that budgets are strained, the pressure is not evenly distributed across the value chain and the most vulnerable are worse off.</p>
<p>Unlike musicians, actors have never enjoyed a statutory right to performance royalties. Residual earnings are of two kinds: repeat broadcast fees, for any further broadcasts on the same channel; and further commercial exploitation fees, linked to sales of the program to other broadcasters.</p>
<p>Freelance contracts have contained provisions for both types of residual fees since the mid 1990s. But broadcasters have been reluctant to meet their obligations. One of the issues contributing to <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2014-08-18-striking-generations-actors-a-no-show">a strike</a> by actors in the country’s longest running TV soap opera, <em>Generations</em>, was the broadcaster’s unwillingness to distribute funds generated through the sale of the series throughout Africa and as far afield as Jamaica. The strike led to the dismissal of 16 actors and the collapse of the production. </p>
<p>Only one major broadcaster honours contractual provisions for rebroadcast and compensate when productions are sold on to other territories.</p>
<p>For the first time in the country’s history, a statutory right for actors to receive a performers’ royalty is contained in pending legislation. The <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Docs/bill/45550480-97f6-4839-83ce-f285de169a6a.pdf">Performers Protection Amendment Bill</a> and its companion <a href="https://pmg.org.za/bill/705/">Copyright Amendment Bill</a> sit on the president’s desk awaiting his signature. </p>
<p><strong>What labour laws protect South African actors, who are all essentially freelancers?</strong></p>
<p>Actors are particularly vulnerable to exploitation as their legal status is unclear. As freelancers rather than employees, actors are explicitly denied any form of protection under labour law. </p>
<p>That would include a right to collective bargaining. Any attempt to organise around minimum rates has been with sanction from the <a href="http://www.compcom.co.za/">Competition Commission</a>. For example, it recently ordered the South African Guild of Actors to take down suggested rates guidelines published on our website. The commission accused the guild of price-fixing.</p>
<p>Actors also have no statutory right to participate in creating or monitoring health and safety standards in their work environments.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/lang--en/index.htm">International Labour Organisation</a> recognises a class of <a href="https://www.ilo.org/actrav/areas/WCMS_DOC_ATR_ARE_INF_EN/lang--en/index.htm">“atypical workers”</a> – those who work outside the formal economy, known as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/work-in-the-gig-economy-one-night-stand-or-a-meaningful-relationship-111047">gig economy</a>. The South African Guild of Actors is lobbying for the Department of Labour to recognise certain minimum rights for atypical workers under the <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201409/a75-97.pdf">Basic Conditions of Employment Act</a>.</p>
<p>As independent contractors, actors are expressly prevented from even claiming from the country’s unemployment insurance fund. </p>
<p><strong>Do South African actors have it worse off than in the rest of the world?</strong></p>
<p>Never mind the rest of the world, South African actors are lagging behind the rest of the continent when it comes to a recognition of our rights. </p>
<p>South Africa, once a leader in Africa, now lags behind in adopting any form of regulatory framework for the entertainment and audiovisual production sector and the use of technology to monitor and enforce those rights. </p>
<p>For example, in Kenya, the <a href="https://www.prisk.or.ke/index.php/en/">Collective Management Organisation PRiSK</a> employs sophisticated technology to track, collect and distribute performance royalties generated globally for local actors. </p>
<p>And actors in Morocco work in a regulated environment. Their performers’ union <a href="https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2019/04/271504/new-measures-social-protection-moroccan-artists/#targetText=The%20Minister%20Mohamed%20Laaraj%20met,social%20security%20for%20Moroccan%20artists.&targetText=In%202016%2C%20Morocco%20introduced%20a,rights%20under%20Moroccan%20labor%20law.">SMPAD</a> recently spearheaded the adoption of legislation that establishes a system of social protection for actors. </p>
<p>Zimbabwe was the most recent African country to the <a href="https://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/beijing/">Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performance</a> which aims to secure the economic and moral rights for actors worldwide. Zimbabwe joined Tunisia, Nigeria, Mali, Gabon, Burkina Faso, and Botswana in adopting the treaty. South Africa has yet to add its signature.</p>
<p>South Africa’s actors are hailed as ambassadors when they are on the world stage. But the truth is that they are seldom given the same respect at home.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Ramsay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South African actors are lobbying government to demand better working conditions and labour protection.Fiona Ramsay, Head of Department of Theatre and Performance and PhD candidate, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1233982019-09-19T22:13:58Z2019-09-19T22:13:58ZThe NDP is MIA on bold labour proposals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293029/original/file-20190918-187995-pjp4ux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=41%2C665%2C4533%2C2380&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has so far failed to propose bold labour initiatives in the lead-up to the Oct. 21 federal election.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many social democrats, progressives and others on the left have been approaching Canada’s federal election campaign with considerable apprehension. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/">latest polls</a>, the federal New Democratic Party is in a distant third place, its popular vote projection having declined slightly since May. </p>
<p>Poll numbers so far have put the NDP at below 15 per cent and if its popularity doesn’t rise over the next few weeks, the party is likely to lose most of its caucus and play a minor role in the next Parliament.</p>
<p>What’s going on with the New Democrats? </p>
<p>Without question, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/09/04/will-jagmeet-singhs-identity-be-a-campaign-issue.html">racism</a> — whether explicit or implicit — has contributed to NDP leader Jagmeet’s Singh’s struggle to make headway with Canadian voters. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/vb5vwb/ndp-leader-jagmeet-singh-tackles-racism-after-losing-new-brunswick-candidates">Public</a> and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/8x8wap/jagmeet-singh-called-out-the-cbc-for-racist-questions">media treatment</a> of the first visible minority leader of a Canadian political party should have Canadians thinking seriously about the country’s purported multiculturalism. </p>
<p>But there’s also been a surprising lack of organization and mobilization by the NDP. While not entirely attributable to Singh himself, the difficulty the NDP has had filling each electoral riding with a <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/09/11/ndp-candidate-in-bc-resigns-and-apologizes-for-telling-energy-journalist-that-he-would-like-to-break-his-jaw.html">vetted candidate</a> hasn’t eased the party’s woes.</p>
<h2>Labour movement in decline</h2>
<p>The NDP’s lack of bold proposals directed toward strengthening and rebuilding the labour movement — the party’s natural constituency — is striking. To be sure, the federal New Democrats have put forward some <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ndp-singh-health-policy-federal-election-1.5175899?fbclid=IwAR1AUM2Xs1Pg1_meHEQGFhA2dVdEd-gVdFXpVUy45bqTDV6nOzSjodXE7dI">far-reaching policies</a>, such as enlarging Canada’s health-care system to include dental, hearing and eye coverage, Pharmacare and mental health services. </p>
<p>But when it comes to the labour movement, the NDP has less to offer. This is particularly troubling when contrasted with <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/parliamentary-budget-officer-1-tax-on-canadas-wealthy-elites-would-generate-nearly-70-billion-in-new-revenue/">persistent earnings and wealth inequality</a> in Canada, and the related <a href="https://pressprogress.ca/new-data-shows-wages-stagnated-and-inequality-grew-even-as-the-canadian-economy-boomed-in-2017/">wage stagnation</a> experienced by workers in the bottom 40 per cent of the income distribution since the 1980s. </p>
<p>It’s no coincidence that during this same time period, union membership rates have fallen from a high of 37.6 per cent <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2015005-eng.htm">in 1981</a> to just over 30 per cent today. Even this significant decline masks what has been a far more disconcerting weakening of unions in the private sector, where unionization now hovers at just under <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1410013201">16 per cent</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/militant-unionists-are-striking-out-here-are-4-things-unions-can-do-to-stay-relevant-121040">Militant unionists are striking out: here are 4 things unions can do to stay relevant</a>
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<p>Given the role trade unions <a href="https://www.labourrights.ca/sites/labourrights.ca/files/documents/cflr_unions_matter.pdf">have historically played</a> in diminishing economic inequality, there should be more in the NDP’s platform aimed at making it easier for workers to form or join unions and to expand the scope of collective bargaining. </p>
<h2>A platform for labour?</h2>
<p>Perhaps the centerpiece of the NDP labour platform is the call for a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage, <a href="https://www.insauga.com/ndp-leader-jagmeet-singh-announces-plan-to-establish-living-wage-for-minimum-wage-workers">officially announced</a> by Singh on Labour Day. </p>
<p>There are two problems with this proposal.</p>
<p>First, because of the division between provincial and federal jurisdictions in Canada, where employment and labour law are mostly the purview of the provinces, a federal minimum wage would only cover approximately <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/labour-standards/reports/federal-minimum-wage.html">six per cent</a> of workers in federally regulated industries.</p>
<p>Currently, there’s no minimum wage in the federal industries; federal employees in the private sector are covered by the provincial minimum wage legislation in place in whichever province they happen to work. So although it would be a progressive measure to institute a higher federal minimum wage, the policy would have a limited reach. </p>
<p>Second, of those <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/labour-standards/reports/federally-regulated-private-sector.html">federally regulated workers</a> (who mostly work in banking, telecommunications, air, rail and road transportation, private courier services, uranium mining, grain milling and interprovincial bridge and tunnel construction), fewer than a quarter currently earn less than $20 per hour. </p>
<p>The federal New Democrats also propose to tackle the growth of nonstandard employment, such as part-time, contract and temporary work, by instituting policies designed to ensure workers are compensated equally to full-time permanent employees doing comparable work.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293063/original/file-20190918-187940-1d9wwx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293063/original/file-20190918-187940-1d9wwx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293063/original/file-20190918-187940-1d9wwx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293063/original/file-20190918-187940-1d9wwx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293063/original/file-20190918-187940-1d9wwx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293063/original/file-20190918-187940-1d9wwx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293063/original/file-20190918-187940-1d9wwx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293063/original/file-20190918-187940-1d9wwx8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Workers in the gig economy would be compensated fairly under NDP proposals. But the Liberals are proposing the same safeguards.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But it’s not clear how these proposals differ from what Justin Trudeau’s Liberals already introduced in 2018 through Bill C-86. These newest reforms to the Canada Labour Code — the legislation governing labour standards in the federal jurisdiction — already include a measure to help guarantee <a href="https://www.hrreporter.com/workplace-law/38932-bill-c-86-brings-major-changes/">equal pay for equal work</a>, regardless of whether an employee is full-time, part-time, contract or temporary.</p>
<p>The Trudeau government has also already signalled its willingness to make a number of positive reforms to labour standards in the federal jurisdiction, convening an <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/campaigns/expert-panel.html">Expert Panel on Modern Labour Standards</a> in 2017 to hold public consultations and make recommendations to the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour. </p>
<p><a href="https://stewartmckelvey.com/thought-leadership/client-update-change-is-the-only-constant-bill-c-86-changes-in-federal-labour-and-employment-regulation/">Bill C-86</a> contains a number of labour standards improvements. They include paid personal leave days and additional vacation and vacation pay for employees with more than 10 years of service, and a “reverse onus clause” designed to place the burden of proof on employers in cases where workers claim to be misclassified as independent contractors. </p>
<h2>Growing the labour movement</h2>
<p>On the industrial relations side, the NDP’s main proposal involves banning the use of replacement workers during strikes. Such “anti-scab” legislation has long been on the agenda of organized labour. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293058/original/file-20190918-187974-1exrbrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293058/original/file-20190918-187974-1exrbrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293058/original/file-20190918-187974-1exrbrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293058/original/file-20190918-187974-1exrbrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293058/original/file-20190918-187974-1exrbrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293058/original/file-20190918-187974-1exrbrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293058/original/file-20190918-187974-1exrbrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293058/original/file-20190918-187974-1exrbrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Canada Post workers walk the picket line during a rotating strike in Halifax in November 2018. The striking postal workers were ordered back on the job.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One important caution about anti-scab bills is that, while they ban companies from bringing in replacement workers, they do not necessarily stop companies from moving production out. Given the increasingly complex supply chains of our economy, outsourcing production during a labour stoppage is arguably a bigger problem for striking workers.</p>
<p>Additionally, the NDP’s <a href="https://www.ndp.ca/economy">election platform</a> indicates that the party will protect free collective bargaining. However, Canada’s system of worksite-based bargaining presents significant obstacles to union growth.</p>
<p>The rise of the “<a href="http://www.fissuredworkplace.net/the-problem.php">fissured workplace</a>,” with sub-contracting, franchising and other forms of divided ownership structures, creates a fundamental mismatch between worksite-level bargaining units and the organization of contemporary businesses. As many <a href="https://onlabor.org/this-labor-day-a-clean-slate-for-reform/">labour experts</a> have been pointing out, the only way to address these economic changes is through a system of broader-based <a href="https://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/about/cwr_interim/chapter_4_6.php">sectoral bargaining</a>, where unions bargain contracts to cover whole sectors, industries or regions. </p>
<p>Nothing of this order seems to be on the radar of the federal NDP. </p>
<p>Granted, the federated structure of Canada’s political system makes it difficult to roll out progressive legislation with a national impact, particularly when it comes to labour reforms. But a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/17/the-next-left-socialism-in-the-uk-and-the-us">resurgent left</a> in the United States and United Kingdom, growing inequality in Canada and a Canadian public seemingly <a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2019/08/27/majority-of-canadians-have-a-positive-view-of-socialism-poll-says.html">open to progressive change</a> present a promising political opening that the NDP is unfortunately squandering. </p>
<h2>A template from Bernie Sanders</h2>
<p>If the NDP is in search of an ambitious suite of labour proposals, they should look to Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders’ recently released <a href="https://berniesanders.com/en/issues/workplace-democracy/">Workplace Democracy Plan</a>. It’s a veritable labour wish list for the 21st century economy. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293065/original/file-20190918-187945-ymciy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293065/original/file-20190918-187945-ymciy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293065/original/file-20190918-187945-ymciy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293065/original/file-20190918-187945-ymciy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293065/original/file-20190918-187945-ymciy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293065/original/file-20190918-187945-ymciy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293065/original/file-20190918-187945-ymciy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293065/original/file-20190918-187945-ymciy0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bernie Sanders’ list of labour proposals is a wish list for the decades ahead.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Eric Gay)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sanders’ plan includes lifting the ban on secondary strikes and boycotts, tackling various forms of employee misclassification, guaranteeing union successor rights that would prevent contract-flipping and business sales from undermining collective agreements, ending at-will employment (requiring “just cause” for dismissals), extending labour rights and protections to workers currently exempted (like domestic workers and farm labourers), and — most ambitiously — creating a system of national-level sectoral bargaining. </p>
<p>The breadth of Sanders’ plan is remarkable, particularly when compared to the tepid NDP platform. </p>
<p>At a time when economic polarization has contributed to a revitalized left in other industrial democracies, the NDP appears conspicuously out of step. </p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam D.K. King does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The federal NDP is missing an opportunity to put workers’ rights firmly on the agenda during this election campaign.Adam D.K. King, Post-Doctoral Visitor, Department of Politics, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1165562019-05-12T16:45:35Z2019-05-12T16:45:35ZRainforest Cafe strike puts the spotlight on tip-sharing<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273625/original/file-20190509-183089-1ah1ynq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C2269&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hospitality workers across the country are concerned about efforts by employers to zero in on their tips. The ongoing labour dispute at the Rainforest Cafe in Niagara Falls underscores the alarm.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unsplash</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ongoing labour dispute at the Rainforest Cafe in Niagara Falls, Ont., highlights a growing concern among hospitality workers across the country — <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/restaurant-chains-increase-tip-outs-1.4517271">employer control over their tips</a>. </p>
<p>Unionized servers, bussers and hostesses at the Rainforest Cafe have been <a href="https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news-story/9273637-striking-rainforest-cafe-workers-put-niagara-falls-tourism-district-on-notice-">on strike since early April</a>. They are trying to bargain their first collective agreement with their employer, Canadian Niagara Hotels. Canadian Niagara Hotels owns the Rainforest Cafe location, as well as several <a href="https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news-story/9289769-backlash-hits-falls-hotel-after-tourists-kicked-out-for-joining-picket-line/">local-area hotels</a> and attractions. </p>
<p>Both the substance and the administration of the employer’s tip-sharing policy remains a key sticking point in the dispute.</p>
<h2>They can’t take my tips, can they?</h2>
<p>Tips make up a substantial portion of a server’s income. And yet, prior to 2016, there was nothing in Ontario law that prevented employers from taking servers’ tips for any reason whatsoever: to cover breakage, theft by patrons, general renovations and other capital investments, to redistribute to other workers, or, simply, to keep them. </p>
<p>Tips are not counted as wages. And, contrary to the popular view, until recently, servers were not legally entitled to them. </p>
<p>Across Canada, regulation of tips and tip-sharing is more or less robust. For instance, Québec gives complete control over tip-sharing arrangements <a href="https://www.cnt.gouv.qc.ca/en/wages-pay-and-work/wages/wages-employees-receiving-tips/index.html">to the employees themselves</a>. Not only are employers forbidden from imposing tip-sharing arrangements upon employees, but the employer has no role in the administration of any such arrangement except at the request of the employees. </p>
<p>Newfoundland and Labrador’s statutory language is similarly clear in terms of giving individual employees <a href="https://assembly.nl.ca/Legislation/sr/statutes/l02.htm#38">control over the tips they earn</a>. By contrast, some provinces do not regulate tips at all, meaning employers may do with them as they please.</p>
<p>While Ontario and British Columbia do regulate tips, they give employers large discretion over them. Both jurisdictions forbid employers from <a href="http://www.bclaws.ca/EPLibraries/bclaws_new/document/ID/freeside/00_96113_01">taking tips to pay for business expenses</a>. But beyond that, the employer has nearly complete control over any tips and tip-sharing arrangements. This includes how much is to be collected, as well as administration over the redistribution process, and — to a very large extent — who is to be included in what’s known as the “tip-out pool.”</p>
<p>In Ontario, and under amendments introduced in B.C. in late April, proprietors are forbidden to participate in tip-out pools except under certain narrowly specified circumstances. Whether front-line managers can participate —and under what circumstances — is less clear. The inclusion of front-line managers in tip-out arrangements is a central focus for striking Rainforest Cafe workers and others.</p>
<h2>Tipping-out is the new battleground</h2>
<p>Tip-sharing is not a new phenomenon. It has been described as a means of remedying the pay inequity between serving and non-serving staff. This certainly sounds laudable and is perhaps appropriate in some circumstances. After all, some non-tipped workers (bussers, kitchen staff) may also face precarious conditions — low wages, uncertain hours — and they contribute to the ability of the serving staff to do the job for which they receive tips. </p>
<p>But employer control over tips is a new battleground for many hospitality workers. Servers object to unilateral increases to tip-out amounts and the extension of tip-out pools to previously excluded employees. They say it amounts to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/restaurant-chains-increase-tip-outs-1.4517271">clawing back gains made through improved employment standards legislation</a>, notably minimum wage increases. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273632/original/file-20190509-183103-1bil265.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/273632/original/file-20190509-183103-1bil265.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273632/original/file-20190509-183103-1bil265.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273632/original/file-20190509-183103-1bil265.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273632/original/file-20190509-183103-1bil265.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273632/original/file-20190509-183103-1bil265.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/273632/original/file-20190509-183103-1bil265.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Who’s included in the tip-out pool can be contentious.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sam Truong Dan/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Servers are concerned that tips are being funnelled to higher-paid or salaried employees as a means to maintain a particular compensation level for those employees; “<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/restaurant-chains-increase-tip-outs-1.4517271">taking from Peter to pay Paul.</a>”</p>
<p>Employer control over the arrangement also makes it vulnerable to abuse. In Ontario, there is no real way to ensure that tips are being collected and redistributed in accordance with any employer policy or even in compliance with the law; the requirement to provide pay stubs, for instance, does <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/00e41#BK18">not extend to information about tips.</a> </p>
<p>This is concerning given revelations of <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/07/27/workplace-violations-widespread-in-ontario-government-report-says.html">systemic violations of employment standards</a> and Ontario’s recent <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2018/10/25/ministry-of-labour-puts-hold-on-proactive-workplace-inspections-internal-memo-says.html">cutbacks to proactive enforcement measures</a>.</p>
<h2>Strong legislation and strong unions</h2>
<p>The dispute at the Rainforest Cafe highlights both the need for strong employment standards legislation and strong unions. </p>
<p>Robust employment standards legislation is necessary if we’re serious about ensuring workers receive basic protections. For example, tip-sharing should be regulated, at a bare minimum by requiring transparency. </p>
<p>But even where employment standards are strong, rarely are individual workers able to enforce rights on their own; a tip-sharing policy that violates employment standards would not likely be rectified by an individual employee. Unions provide workers with effective grievance procedures, as well as expertise that individual employees cannot otherwise normally access.</p>
<p>Workers at the Rainforest Cafe decided to unionize in March 2018 <a href="https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/news-story/8363838-rainforest-cafe-workers-vote-to-unionize/">over the employer’s tip-sharing policy</a>. They wanted a say over both its substance and its administration. Nearly a year later, they are on strike against a highly profitable employer that is intent on redistributing servers’ tips in response to minimum wage increases. </p>
<p>How the dispute will resolve itself is still an open question, but the strike has brought attention to a gap in public policy that allows employers to “take from Peter to pay Paul.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Braley-Rattai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ongoing labour dispute at the Rainforest Cafe in Niagara Falls, Ont., highlights some dubious efforts by employers to take tips from hospitality workers due to minimum wage increases.Alison Braley-Rattai, Assistant Professor Dept. of Labour Studies, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1161332019-04-29T20:29:20Z2019-04-29T20:29:20ZOn May Day, assessing what a Sanders presidency would mean for labour<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271490/original/file-20190429-194609-1bnorsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders reaches out to supporters before a recent rally in Houston. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2020 Democratic primary race is a crowded field. However, the <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/04/26/the-democratic-presidential-field-already-looks-crowded">latest polls</a> suggest it’s likely to be a battle between Bernie Sanders and former vice-president Joe Biden. </p>
<p>With Biden’s <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/837515/biden-vs-bernie-what-two-long-records-say-about-2020">troubling voting record</a>, Sanders remains a clear choice for progressives and labour advocates. Sanders’ stump speeches and campaign platform reiterate many of the themes and policies that in 2016 transformed him from someone relatively unknown outside the Northeast into one of <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/xww4ek/bernie-sanders-is-the-most-popular-politician-in-america-poll-says-vgtrn">the most popular politicians in the United States.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://time.com/3836834/may-day-labor-history/">With May Day upon us</a>, it’s a good time to consider what a Sanders presidency could mean for workers. So far, Sanders <a href="https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/03/bernie-sanders-vs-the-billionaire-class">is once again</a> putting economic equality and workers’ rights front and centre, skewering “the billionaires” and “special interests” and spotlighting <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-erie-wabtec/">striking workers</a>. As well, Sanders continues to promote <a href="http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-workers-rights/">a living minimum wage, policies to make unionization easier and various paid leaves.</a> </p>
<p>While recognizing how important these policy changes would be if enacted, labour advocates need also to reflect on what governmental functions would have to be strengthened, not only to promote and secure Sanders’ program, but also to ensure labour standards compliance more generally. </p>
<p>At a time when <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/union-density-united-states-2018-bls">union membership is at a historic low</a> and employer violations of basic workplace rights are <a href="https://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/career-services/David%20Weil%20Enforcing%20Labour%20Standards%20in%20Fissured%20Workplaces.pdf">pervasive and systemic</a>, it would be crucial for a Sanders administration to develop the policy tools to both enhance and enforce workers’ rights. </p>
<h2>Economic restructuring, worker vulnerability</h2>
<p>With unions in decline, the service sector at slightly <a href="https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry-sector.htm">over 80 per cent</a> of the workforce and many low-wage and insecure jobs at the bottom of the income ladder, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, with its mandate to enforce the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), has its hands full. </p>
<p>First, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2012/03/art4full.pdf">the average size</a> of businesses has been shrinking since 2000. This effectively means that labour inspectors now have more businesses, each with fewer workers, to keep watch over. <a href="http://closeesgap.ca/download/841/">Researchers studying labour standards</a> in the United States and other common-law countries consistently find that small firms are far more likely to break the law.</p>
<p>However, shrinking firm size is but an indication of a broader pattern of economic restructuring. Increasingly, lead firms in various sectors have reduced their number of direct employees considerably, producing what David Weil, former Department of Labor official under former president Barack Obama, refers to as <a href="http://www.fissuredworkplace.net/the-problem.php">“fissured workplaces.”</a> </p>
<p>Focusing instead on their “core competencies,” many businesses now rely on independent contractors, sub-contractors and temporary help agency workers to meet labour needs. </p>
<p>This has generated significant increases in employer non-compliance with the law. For many contracted suppliers, reducing labour costs is their primary means of cost containment, which routinely means violating labour standards pertaining to pay, working time and other basic standards. </p>
<p>These changes in the economy also disproportionately affect the most vulnerable workers. <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/laborstandards-2011.pdf">Immigrant workers</a> in particular are highly concentrated in industries rife with labour violations. The <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/forbrn.pdf">foreign born</a>, 17 per cent of the U.S. population as of 2017, are more likely than their native-born counterparts to work in the service sector, to earn low wages and to thus have their labour rights violated.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators march for immigrant and workers rights in a May Day parade last year in Seattle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Inadequate enforcement, pervasive law-breaking</h2>
<p>If the U.S. labour department was dealing with all this with steady funding and staff levels, the situation would be challenging enough. However, as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329210381240">professors Janice Fine and Jennifer Gordon report</a>, in the last 30 years the number of workers without a union contract, and who therefore rely solely on the Fair Labor Standards Act for workplace protection, has increased by 55 per cent.</p>
<p>At the same time, the number of establishments that the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division should be covering has jumped by 112 per cent.</p>
<p>Over the same period, the number of labour inspectors precipitously shrank from a high of just over 1,300 at the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s administration down to 709 when Obama took office. Although <a href="https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/WorkingForYou-2009-2016.pdf">Obama’s Department of Labor</a> hired an additional 300 inspectors, this still left approximately 1,000 people overseeing 7.3 million workplaces and over 135 million workers. </p>
<p>The likelihood of a business being inspected to ensure labour standards compliance is therefore remarkably slim, and low-wage employers know it. </p>
<p>Employers violate basic standards extensively, especially those dealing with overtime pay, working off the clock and rest periods. Among low-wage workers in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/501437/pdf">researchers</a> found that in the previous work week, fully 75 per cent had worked unpaid or underpaid overtime, 71 per cent worked “off-the-clock” without pay, nearly 82 per cent had been denied a break and one in four was not paid the legal minimum wage. </p>
<p>Additionally, employers looking to evade labour standards frequently misclassify workers as independent contractors. In sectors such as trucking, construction, in-home care and cleaning services, <a href="https://www.epi.org/press/independent-contract-misclassification-is-a-large-and-growing-problem/">employee misclassification</a> impacts anywhere from 10 to 20 per cent of workers. </p>
<p>Although Obama made improvements that saw both inspections and awards to workers increasing, this barely made up for what was lost over the years between the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, and could be eviscerated under Trump. </p>
<h2>What could a Sanders administration do?</h2>
<p>At minimum, to strengthen enforcement, a future President Sanders would need to invest heavily by expanding the Department of Labor’s resource base and hiring many additional inspectors. But there is also a need to overhaul the Fair Labor Standards Act to reflect changes in American workplaces that are unlikely to ever be addressed through unionization.</p>
<p>Sectors with high numbers of violations are generally characterized by large firms at the top and an ecosystem of contractors and labour service providers who compete for their business. </p>
<p><a href="https://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/career-services/David%20Weil%20Enforcing%20Labour%20Standards%20in%20Fissured%20Workplaces.pdf">As David Weil</a> suggests, strategic enforcement should utilize this network of business connections, perhaps taking a cue from Australia, where the <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/news-and-media-releases/archived-media-releases/2014-media-releases/august-2014/20140829-trolley-collectors">Fair Work Ombudsman</a> instituted a program that made big firms more responsible for the labour standards of their contractors. </p>
<p>Importantly, the Department of Labor must increase targeted, proactive inspections and rely less on worker complaints. As the <a href="http://closeesgap.ca/">Closing the Employment Standards Enforcement Gap</a> research project in Ontario has demonstrated, proactive inspections are able to target persistent violators and high-risk sectors, can often uncover substantive employer noncompliance and generally do a better job correcting future business behaviour. </p>
<p>Finally, unions and other worker advocates could be more involved with the enforcement of labour standards. <a href="https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1002&context=ohlj">Projects in California</a> that allow unions to partner with labour inspectors to police labour standards compliance in the construction sector show that such relationships can be quite effective. </p>
<p>Robust changes are needed to address the negative social consequences resulting from the growth in nonstandard work. And although revitalizing the labour movement is undoubtedly necessary, policy changes are required to address the sizable problems at the bottom of the labour market.</p>
<p>Of all Democratic primary candidates, Bernie Sanders is the most likely to undertake this project. A future Sanders administration could improve conditions for millions of workers by reforming basic labour standards and ensuring the necessary resources to enforce the law.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam D.K. King is a Post-Doctoral Visitor with funding from the Closing the Employment Standards Enforcement Gap and Canada Labour Code Data Analysis Infrastructure research projects. </span></em></p>American employers routinely violate workers’ rights. A Bernie Sanders presidency could change that.Adam D.K. King, Post-Doctoral Visitor, Department of Politics, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1097872019-01-13T19:12:16Z2019-01-13T19:12:16ZThe impact of France’s PACTE corporate reform law on the country’s social and solidarity economy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/253539/original/file-20190113-43544-i8lihp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C2%2C1491%2C776&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/confirm/200543060?size=huge_jpg">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The French government’s <a href="https://www.gouvernement.fr/en/pacte-the-action-plan-for-business-growth-and-transformation">Action Plan for Business Growth and Transformation</a> (PACTE, in French) seeks to change the way corporate stakeholders (entrepreneurs, funders, managers, workers, customers, etc.) see the company’s role in society. Its goal is to rethink what companies could be – or should be – in light of the societal, economic, political and ecological changes that have been happening in recent years.</p>
<p>More importantly, this corporate reform seems to announce the end of the dichotomy between “traditional” companies and social and solidarity economy (SSE) companies. Four years after the law on social and solidarity economy, what can we learn by comparing the two laws? What do they show us about new business models? What kind of picture do they paint of the firms of the future?</p>
<h2>Social and solidarity economy companies</h2>
<p>Behind the SSE label, there lies a wide variety of companies with old and diverse historical foundations. They were united in 1980 under France’s National Liaison Committee for Mutual, Cooperative and Associative Activities, which was governed by a charter with seven principles:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>One person, one voice (in the General Assembly), regardless of the individual’s level of participation in the company’s capital;</p></li>
<li><p>Voluntary membership and responsibility;</p></li>
<li><p>Dual capacity: the company belongs to those who produce its value;</p></li>
<li><p>Equality and freedom;</p></li>
<li><p>Limited profit: surpluses are reintegrated into the project;</p></li>
<li><p>Empowerment: research and experimentation;</p></li>
<li><p>People-oriented economic activities.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These principles are supposed to be guaranteed by the articles of incorporation adopted by these organisations – associations, cooperatives, mutual societies and their foundations – but also by the practices and tools they employ. However, under the effect of competition and the decline in public support, SSE companies have been pushed to adopt the same practices and management tools as for-profit companies: management by objectives, financial reporting, etc.</p>
<p>These tools and practices run counter to SSE practices, so much so that adopting them makes it more difficult for all stakeholders (employees of these organisations, consumers of the products and services that they produce, etc.) to distinguish between SSE companies and traditional companies. In fact, though the public is seldom aware of this, some major brands are actually SSE companies: Maif (mutual fund), Intersport (retail cooperative), Crédit Mutuel (cooperative bank), Magasins U (retail cooperative), the Up “Chèque Déjeuner” group (workers’ cooperative).</p>
<h2>SSE Law of 2014: expanded to include commercial companies</h2>
<p>In the context of this complex landscape, new companies have emerged in recent years called “social” companies. These companies pursue a social purpose, but with the same legal form as “traditional” commercial companies (public limited company, simplified joint-stock company, etc.). For example, <a href="https://dreamact.eu/fr/">DreamAct</a> (a platform that promotes “responsible” consumption with its city guide and e-shop) or <a href="https://laruchequiditoui.fr/fr">La Ruche qui dit oui</a> (The Food Assembly, which facilitates direct sales between producers and consumers) have opted for the simplified joint-stock company status.</p>
<p>Despite some protests, the SSE Law, passed by French Parliament on 31 July 2014, allowed these companies, which are both commercial and social, to be included in the SSE family. Still, certain conditions apply: they must comply with SSE principles, in other words, pursue an aim other than sharing profits, have democratic governance, create indivisible reserves, and use the majority of their profits to maintain or develop the company.</p>
<p>Originally designed to bring wider recognition to the SSE, the law has in fact further exacerbated tensions between social companies and SSE companies, further blurring the lines of company classifications.</p>
<h2>2018 corporate reform: integrating CSR criteria</h2>
<p>The current draft corporate reform is based on criticism of the financialisation of companies, which was particularly brought to light following the 2008 financial crisis. It seeks to respond to new social and environmental expectations for companies, at a time when public authorities and civil society appear powerless when it comes to financial issues. This reform seems to encourage companies to adopt these criteria of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility">corporate social responsibility</a> (CSR).</p>
<p>The recommendations of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rapport-notat-senard-reformer-lentreprise-raisonnablement-93197">Notat-Sénard report</a> on “the collective interest company”, which were added to the draft PACTE law on 9 March 2018, in some ways provide an answer to company stakeholders’ growing search for meaning. Measures such as considering social and environmental issues, reflecting on companies’ <em>raison d'être</em>, and increasing the representation of employees in the board of directors should help to heal the rift between companies and society as a whole by aligning their objectives with common goals that benefit everyone.</p>
<h2>The end of dichotomies</h2>
<p>These two reforms offer senior managers and entrepreneurs a wider range of options. The old dichotomies that emerged with the industrial revolution (decision-making bosses, decision-implementing employees, lucrative company/charitable association) are slowly fading away to make way for more diverse, hybrid organisations.</p>
<p>Theoretically, we could map the entrepreneurial landscape by dividing it into two different areas. This offers a clearer understanding of the logic behind the legislation from 2014 and 2018 and its potential impacts on companies. The first area is governance, or the distribution of decision-making power.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256913/original/file-20190202-109820-1850j3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256913/original/file-20190202-109820-1850j3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256913/original/file-20190202-109820-1850j3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=90&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256913/original/file-20190202-109820-1850j3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=90&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256913/original/file-20190202-109820-1850j3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=90&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256913/original/file-20190202-109820-1850j3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=113&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256913/original/file-20190202-109820-1850j3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=113&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256913/original/file-20190202-109820-1850j3k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=113&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The second area is the business model, or the methods for mobilising resources, using them and distributing the value the company creates.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256914/original/file-20190202-109820-1vnz4k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256914/original/file-20190202-109820-1vnz4k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256914/original/file-20190202-109820-1vnz4k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=117&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256914/original/file-20190202-109820-1vnz4k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=117&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256914/original/file-20190202-109820-1vnz4k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=117&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256914/original/file-20190202-109820-1vnz4k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=146&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256914/original/file-20190202-109820-1vnz4k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=146&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256914/original/file-20190202-109820-1vnz4k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=146&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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</figure>
<p>The governance area can be subdivided into two sections. On the one hand there are traditional commercial companies, with a shareholder governance in which the decision-making power is by and large concentrated in the hands of investors. On the other hand, there are SSE companies, as they define themselves in their charter from 1980, with a democratic governance in which the decision-making power belongs to the participating members (employees, volunteers, consumers, producers). The business aspect can also be subdivided into two models: the profit model, focused on maximising profit, and the limited profit model, in which surpluses are reintegrated into the project or are distributed between participating members.</p>
<p>While the historical distinction between “traditional” companies and SSE companies consisted in a shareholder governance with a for-profit business model versus democratic governance with a limited-profit business model, this rift has greatly diminished in recent years due to changes in practices (CSR, social companies) which have now been recognised and even encouraged by the SSE law and the draft PACTE law.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256915/original/file-20190202-109820-1u0r8ze.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256915/original/file-20190202-109820-1u0r8ze.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256915/original/file-20190202-109820-1u0r8ze.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=141&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256915/original/file-20190202-109820-1u0r8ze.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=141&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256915/original/file-20190202-109820-1u0r8ze.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=141&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256915/original/file-20190202-109820-1u0r8ze.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=177&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256915/original/file-20190202-109820-1u0r8ze.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=177&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256915/original/file-20190202-109820-1u0r8ze.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=177&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>In 2014, the SSE law included commercial companies which are considered social companies in the SSE category, by encouraging them to adopt democratic governance and limit their profit-making by reintegrating their surpluses into the project and creating indivisible reserves. The draft PACTE law seeks to encourage companies to open up their governance to include employees in decision-making. It also calls for business models to be expanded to integrate social and environmental issues.</p>
<h2>A move toward hybrid companies, “creators of meaning”?</h2>
<p>These two reforms invite us to change the way we see the company. They aim to support and encourage changes in entrepreneurial behaviour by providing tools to create new governance and business models for companies. They encourage the creation and development of what could be considered “hybrid” companies in comparison with the historical models.</p>
<p>Many companies have already combined the two traditional views of the company to accomplish their goals. One prime example is companies for integration through economic activity. These groups strive to reintegrate individuals who are farthest removed from employment through training and appropriate jobs. They often combine different legal statuses to bring together a profitable business activity and social purpose. Although the wages of the individuals who are being reintegrated are co-financed by the public authorities, the integration companies must find opportunities and generate enough income to create jobs and develop the business project and make it sustainable. Réseau Cocagne, for example, proposes organic food baskets produced by individuals integrating the workplace. It is an association under the French law of 1901 and it created a private company limited by shares which is supported by an endowment fund to improve its access to funding. In 2016, the group had 4,320 employees integrating the workforce, 815 permanent employees, 1,800 volunteers and administrators and 20,500 consumer members.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256916/original/file-20190202-110834-1igwkh2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256916/original/file-20190202-110834-1igwkh2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/256916/original/file-20190202-110834-1igwkh2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256916/original/file-20190202-110834-1igwkh2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256916/original/file-20190202-110834-1igwkh2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256916/original/file-20190202-110834-1igwkh2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256916/original/file-20190202-110834-1igwkh2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/256916/original/file-20190202-110834-1igwkh2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=238&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Could what we are witnessing be the development of what François Rousseau called “creators of meaning”? Companies “on a quest to regain the meaning behind their actions and the social calling motivating their project”.</p>
<p>Having re-established their roots in society, these companies need specific management tools to be developed, “meaning-management tools”, which enable them to reach the economic, social and environmental goals they have set. The SSE law and draft PACTE law pave the way for developing such tools and practices. Now it is up to entrepreneurs, managers, workers and funders to create, develop, and make them meaningful.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article was translated from the French by <a href="https://blogrecherche.wp.imt.fr/en/2018/09/17/sse-corporate-reform/">Institut Mines-Télécom</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109787/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Does the PACTE law signal the end of the dichotomy between traditional, profit-focused companies and social and solidarity economy companies committed to the public interest?Mélissa Boudes, Professeure associée en management, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School Quentin Renoul, Enseignant vacataire en entrepreneuriat et communication digitale, Institut Mines-Télécom Business School Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1075442018-11-26T22:42:43Z2018-11-26T22:42:43ZTo pay or not to pay: That’s the internship question<p>Students in Québec were <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/cegep-students-strike-over-unpaid-internships">striking last week</a> to demand that internships be paid. Do they have a point?</p>
<p>The issue is an emotional one. Some people swear by unpaid internships, especially those who have benefited from the arrangement. Others emphasize how equity issues are at stake when we assume students work for free. </p>
<p>For example, a <em>Globe and Mail</em> article from 2014 described the case of a recent graduate of a bachelor’s degree. He took an <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/startups/in-defence-of-the-unpaid-internship/article19545250/">unpaid internship</a> with a cash-strapped start-up to get much-needed work experience. He called it a defining point that got him on track. </p>
<p>The owner of the company said the company also benefited; it wouldn’t have been able to achieve as much if the employer had “<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/startups/in-defence-of-the-unpaid-internship/article19545250/">hired some random person…found online</a>.”</p>
<p>The company viewed the internship as a recruiting tool. People who benefit from unpaid internships see no problem with the arrangement. </p>
<p>Others feel just as strongly that internships be paid. Writing in 2016, Darren Walker, who was then-president of the Ford Foundation, noted that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/05/opinion/breaking-a-cycle-that-allows-privilege-to-go-to-privileged.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0">paid internships</a> ensure equity of opportunity. </p>
<p>He was making the point that young people from financially comfortable homes can afford to intern for weeks or months because their parents can help subsidize the living expenses that a salary would cover. Students from less advantaged backgrounds cannot. </p>
<p>The striking students <a href="https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/cegep-university-students-walk-out-in-protest-over-unpaid-internships-1.4187345">in Québec</a> have mentioned they either have to forgo paid work or work extensive overtime during unpaid internships.</p>
<h2>Do whatever is needed?</h2>
<p>This emotional argument probably won’t answer the question of whether students have a right to be paid for internships. Rather, issues of definition, law and economic benefit will. </p>
<p>The first issue is the most basic: What is the purpose of an internship, and how does it differ from basic schooling? In an analysis of definitions, Concordia University PhD student Ingy Bakir and I found little agreement about internship responsibilities.</p>
<p>Points of variation include: Who is an intern (current students, graduates)? How long should the internship be (weeks, months)? What is the structure of the work experience: Are there clearly defined duties, or can interns be expected to do whatever is needed? </p>
<p>But the definitions, however, converge on one key point: Internships provide clinical or practical job experience and help people <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00131720802361936?casa_token=pEzZuh8V020AAAAA:7RMQ2eDSZC_K-4F-EiPfbp9rtdAFCGG_i0c4nIZiI593zZ-W4FjNADzC-VdwI4A27VJ7p2AGzQQ">transfer</a> their academic learning into real work environments. Internships are <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-012-9509-4">both work</a> and learning experiences. </p>
<p>Although the law varies among jurisdictions, it offers a clearer, simpler definition. According to law firm <a href="https://gowlingwlg.com/en/insights-resources/articles/2014/are-unpaid-internships-legal-in-canada/">Gowling WLG</a>, most provincial labour codes consider interns to be employees if they perform work for the organization; they receive direction from the organisation; and the employer benefits from that work. </p>
<p>The only exception is students who are performing their internships as part of an academic program. Most provincial labour codes, including Québec’s, <a href="https://mcmillan.ca/Managing-Unpaid-Internships-in-Quebec">include this exemption</a>. </p>
<p>One could argue, then, that the law permits unpaid internships. </p>
<h2>Agree to compensate</h2>
<p>A second issue is whether all student work experiences are unpaid. Not even close. Financial compensation is <a href="https://www.cewilcanada.ca/coop-defined.html">central to co-operative education</a>, another work-study arrangement. </p>
<p>Co-ops alternate study terms with work terms. During the work terms, they are placed in paid positions. </p>
<p>Many student interns are also compensated. The most popular component of the program in which I teach is <a href="https://www.concordia.ca/artsci/education/about/internship-program.html">an internship</a>. Because the demand for our interns often outstrips supply, nearly all employers pay. And as happens in most competitive labour markets, employers who do not want to pay receive few or poor-quality applicants and eventually agree to compensate.</p>
<h2>Who benefits?</h2>
<p>The third issue is whether the employer is profiting from the intern’s labour. On an individual level, that depends on the effectiveness of the intern in the job. More broadly, however, the answer is yes or employers wouldn’t take on interns. </p>
<p>The primary argument against paying interns, however, is that employers incur corresponding expenses. Some employers argue that internships are a training expense and, as a result, they cannot afford both provide training and compensation. But that’s mostly an issue if the fit is not great and employers have to invest significantly in <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/career-advice/the-ins-and-outs-of-internships/article1319780/">time-consuming supervision</a>. </p>
<p>But that inability to afford both might simply be a choice. Conference Board of Canada figures suggest that Canadian employers are increasingly tight-fisted with <a href="https://www.conferenceboard.ca/press/newsrelease/2018/01/31/canadian-employers-investment-in-employee-learning-and-development-continues-to-rise?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1">training investments</a>, reducing per-employee annual investments from a high of $1,116 in 1993 to just $889 in 2017. </p>
<p>Other employers view internships as a recruiting cost. After interviewing, they try out workers for a few weeks or months unpaid to see how they perform. But is it fair to expect a prospective employee to forgo weeks of paid work so the employer can reduce its recruiting and training expense? Could a prospective employee who already has a full-time job do the same? </p>
<p>In other words, the students have a point. </p>
<p>Certainly colleges and universities can prevent employers from posting unpaid internships on campus. But some professions require clinical education to earn a licence. Agreements between universities and other parties allow those internships to be unpaid. Changing that practice will be more challenging.</p>
<p>Besides, the core problem lies in a loophole in the labour code that permits unpaid internships for students while preventing them for others. Students are well-advised to set their sights on that target. </p>
<p>And legal or not, unpaid internships are likely to continue as long as people face barriers breaking into the workforce and some employers see the opportunity for free labour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saul Carliner is a fellow with the Institute for Performance and Learning. He has received funding from SSHRC, Entente Canada Québec, and Canadian Council on Learning.</span></em></p>Legal or not, unpaid internships are likely to continue as long as people face barriers breaking into the workforce and some employers see the opportunity for free labour.Saul Carliner, Professor of Education, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1045982018-10-21T09:34:24Z2018-10-21T09:34:24ZWhy changes to picketing rules in South Africa pose a threat to strikes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/241280/original/file-20181018-67176-e3w0xg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African workers protesting against a proposed minimum wage earlier this year.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The South African government recently released a draft of <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/41898_rg10865_gon943.pdf">new picketing rules</a> for public comment. These new rules, alongside the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-changes-to-south-africas-labour-laws-are-an-assault-on-workers-rights-88330">2017 amendments</a> to the Labour Relations Act are intended to change the process through which trade unions can embark on protected strike action.</p>
<p>The right to join a trade union and to strike are <a href="https://www.gov.za/documents/constitution/chapter-2-bill-rights#17">constitutionally protected</a> in South Africa. The Labour Relations Act enables this right by setting out the procedures through which trade unions can embark on protected strike action, meaning that no worker can be dismissed for taking part in a strike except in cases of misconduct. </p>
<p>These rights, which were introduced post-apartheid, were a major step forward for workers as previously strike action had been criminalised. </p>
<p>The provisions for protected strike action brought South Africa into line with conventions set out by the<a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@normes/documents/publication/wcms_087987.pdf"> International Labour Organisation</a>.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-changes-to-south-africas-labour-laws-are-an-assault-on-workers-rights-88330">changes to the act</a> – together with the draft picketing rules – will roll back the hard won rights of workers and make it increasingly difficult for them to go on protected strike action.</p>
<h2>What’s wrong with the new rules</h2>
<p>Picketing is a critical aspect of industrial action. It allows striking workers to exert pressure on their employers in pursuit of their demands and to seek support from other workers and members of the public. </p>
<p>Currently, when a trade union intends to take strike action they refer a dispute of mutual interest to the <a href="https://www.ccma.org.za/">Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration</a> or a bargaining council. A commissioner then attempts to mediate between the employers and trade union to resolve the dispute. </p>
<p>If after 30 days the parties are unable to resolve the dispute a certificate of non-resolution is issued, commonly referred to as a strike certificate. After it’s been issued the trade union must give the employer 48 hours notice of any strike action. It isn’t currently a legal requirement for picketing rules to be agreed prior to a strike. In 2016/17 a total of 1,612 certificates of non-resolution were issued by the commission. Less than 10% of these resulted in strike action. </p>
<p>The incoming picketing rules are likely to change this.</p>
<p>Now picketing rules have to be agreed before a certificate of non-resolution can be issued. While the draft picket rules are intended to be used when workers, unions and employers are unable to mutually agree on picketing rules, the concern is that these regulations, if passed, will become the norm and impose severe limitations on all strikes. </p>
<p>The picketing rules have to state when and where a picket will take place. This is a problem for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>First, making the issuing of a certificate of non-resolution dependent on picketing rules that state when and where a strike takes place means that, unlike now, once the certificate is issued unions will be compelled to go on strike. </p>
<p>Second, these changes entirely favour employers who will know even before a certificate of non-resolution is awarded when and where the strike will take place, as it must be stated in the picketing rules. This provides employers ample time to stock pile, hire alternative labour and undertake other action to undermine workers’ collective power. </p>
<p>Third, the draft regulations also provide commissioners far-ranging powers to decide what workers can and cannot do on a picket. For example, they will be able to decide what songs can be sung, whether placards can be held, whether workers can be addressed by a union official and whether workers can speak to members of the public about their strike. Commissioners will not be required to justify any limitations they place on the activities of striking workers. This may, potentially, not only undermine the right to strike but the right to freedom of expression. </p>
<p>In addition, pickets will be limited to a maximum number of workers. And members of the public will be banned from showing solidarity with striking workers as pickets will be limited to striking workers and union members only.</p>
<p>If any of the picketing rules are broken the trade union will be required to suspend the strike until it has satisfied a commissioner that it can control the picket. This opens up trade unions to having to suspend their strike for the slightest reason. </p>
<p>The new picketing rules will also result in trade unions having to police strikes. This includes being forced to participate in investigations against their own members in cases of alleged unlawful conduct. This is because the new picket rules say trade unions must assist the South African Police Service or “any security organisation” in their investigations. </p>
<h2>International experience</h2>
<p><a href="http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/12827.pdf">A recent study</a> of 70 countries found that 68 have adopted practices or made use of legal provisions that violate the International Labour Organisations’s principles <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_norm/@normes/documents/publication/wcms_087987.pdf">on the right to strike</a>. One of the violations was the use of excessive prerequisites to exercise the right to strike. </p>
<p>The amendments to South Africa’s labour law, combined with the new picketing rules, do just that. </p>
<p>The new regulations seem designed to protect employers’ interests at the expense of workers and their constitutional rights to strike and freedom of expression. </p>
<p>In the UK, where similar rules have been in place since the 1980s, the number of working days lost due to strike action has <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/bbfw/lms">decreased dramatically</a>. Even the <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/03/jaumotte.htm">International Monetary Fund has pointed out that</a> this is likely to result in declining wages and increasing inequality because weakening the ability of trade unions to bargain, which includes the right to strike, means workers are less likely to be able to improve their earnings. </p>
<p>Given that South Africa is the <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2018-04-04-poverty-shows-how-apartheid-legacy-endures-in-south-africa/">most unequal country in the world</a>, lawmakers should be giving serious thought as to how they can protect the rights of workers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104598/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carin Runciman is a management committee member of the Casual Workers Advice Office</span></em></p>Proposed changes to South African labour laws threaten to set back workers rights.Carin Runciman, Associate professor, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/959942018-06-05T21:36:19Z2018-06-05T21:36:19ZHow youth activism is kicking unpaid internships to the curb<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221621/original/file-20180604-175407-1u6y2xd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C114%2C900%2C478&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Unpaid interns protests in Geneva in 2016. Activism has played a big part in how unpaid internships are now being regarded with disdain.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Global Intern Coalition)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s job search season for students and fresh graduates, which means a bump in media interest in internships.</p>
<p>Barely a decade ago, we’d expect news articles to include tips for landing a “dream internship” or to quote an employer boasting that unpaid interns are economically efficient for firms. But today, the media coverage generally takes a different tone.</p>
<p>For example, the U.K.’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/feb/08/vogue-criticised-for-unpaid-internships"><em>The Guardian</em></a> recently called out <em>British Vogue</em> for recruiting unpaid interns. </p>
<p>The article’s main source is an intern advocate who reported the fashion magazine to Britain’s HM Revenue and Customs for potentially violating minimum wage laws. </p>
<p>It notes that a <em>Vogue</em> “workplace shadowing” role undermines the editor’s stated commitment to expand diversity at the magazine since unpaid internships generally exclude people who can’t afford to work for free and generally favour the children of the wealthy. </p>
<p>In Canada on International Women’s Day, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/women-sexual-harassment-metoo-rally-1.4565751">CBC News</a> reported on the need for improved protections against sexual harassment of unpaid interns.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221588/original/file-20180604-175442-11k245s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221588/original/file-20180604-175442-11k245s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221588/original/file-20180604-175442-11k245s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221588/original/file-20180604-175442-11k245s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221588/original/file-20180604-175442-11k245s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221588/original/file-20180604-175442-11k245s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221588/original/file-20180604-175442-11k245s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sexual harassment in the workplace is one of many ordeals faced by unpaid interns, who have few legal rights.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What’s behind the pivot in public opinion that has seen internships shift from a benign rite of passage to a lightning rod workers’ rights issue? Activism.</p>
<p>Since 2010, an intern rights movement has been remarkably successful at winning victories for interns, drawing attention to just one vital issue of workers’ rights.</p>
<h2>Activism has made a difference</h2>
<p>As part of our <a href="http://www.culturalworkersorganize.org/">research on collective responses to precarious work</a>
in cultural and creative industries, we have been tracking how young workers, interns past and present and their allies are confronting unpaid internships and the cultural conditions that condone them. They’re doing so via protests, online campaigns and government lobbying.</p>
<p>Grassroots intern labour groups are led by young people motivated by their own experiences and those of their peers, who are underemployed, engaged in long stretches of unpaid work or simply unable to afford to work for no pay.</p>
<p>Groups such as <a href="http://www.oecd.org/forum/interns-are-workers-too.htm">Intern Aware</a> and <a href="https://precariousworkersbrigade.tumblr.com/">Precarious Workers Brigade</a> in the U.K., Intern Labor Rights in the United States, Interns Australia and the <a href="http://internassociation.ca/">Canadian Intern Association</a> (on whose advisory board two of us sit) have formed to protest the pressure to work for no wages to gain “experience.” </p>
<p>These groups have produced research and educational texts (such as <a href="https://carrotworkers.wordpress.com/counter-internship-guide/"><em>Surviving Internships: A Counter Guide to Free Labour in the Arts</em></a>) and staged demonstrations that grab headlines.</p>
<p>Under the banner of the <a href="http://interncoalition.org/">Global Intern Coalition</a>, intern organizations have orchestrated an annual Global Intern Strike, a day each February where interns worldwide protest unpaid work in fields such as international development, arts and culture and in various academic programs.</p>
<h2>UN interns not diverse</h2>
<p>This past February, thousands of students protested in Québec — their slogan, <a href="http://www-csu.concordia.ca/unpaid-internships">“exploitation is not a vocation”</a> — while United Nations interns emphasized the high cost of interning at the UN, which can block people from diverse economic and cultural backgrounds from vital work experience. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://fairinternshipinitiativeorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/un-interns-report-2017.pdf">Fair Internship Initiative</a>, 64 per cent of UN interns come from high-income countries.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/unpaid-internships-just-the-job-if-your-parents-can-afford-it-14365">Unpaid internships: just the job, if your parents can afford it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Collectively, intern advocates have shaken up consensus on unpaid internships.</p>
<p>As part of our aforementioned research, we analyzed hundreds of news media articles between 2008 and 2015 and traced a shift in tone in how unpaid internships are covered, who is quoted as sources and what narrative devices journalists use to help tell stories about unpaid internships.</p>
<p>Early articles typically endorsed internships. They positioned unpaid internships as essential for standing out in a hyper-competitive labour market and relied on employers and career counsellors as go-to sources. </p>
<p>During the 2008-2009 recession, internships were viewed more critically and contextualized as a side effect of youth unemployment, but generally articles aligned with employer interest in attracting cheap labour. Unpaid internships were pitched as future investments, reinforcing the outlook that optimizing their employability is every young person’s calling.</p>
<p>As the years progressed, interpretations shifted. Articles begin to emphasize class-based exclusion in the intern economy, challenging assumptions about meritocracy and a slew of articles took a legal angle, focusing on employers that break minimum wage regulations.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-unpaid-internships-unlawful-60197">Are unpaid internships unlawful?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Narrative changed</h2>
<p>By 2015, the voices of interns and activists were being amplified, helping shift the narrative. Activists wrote op-eds, served as accessible sources for journalists and held events that spurred media coverage, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/dec/16/unpaid-internship-christmas-protest-serpentine-gallery">including descending upon London’s Serpentine Gallery dressed as Santa Clauses carrying signs reading: “All we want for Xmas is pay.”</a></p>
<p>Tracing coverage over time shows that intern labour activism has had concrete effects, altering public discourse about unpaid internships and informing government policy reform on internships in countries like Canada and the U.K.</p>
<p>Activists have brought attention to unpaid internships and their deleterious effects by naming and shaming employers who break minimum wage law on social media, and have pushed governments to make concrete changes to legal and policy structures.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/i869ylXWUNI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Euractiv.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://internassociation.ca/">The Canadian Intern Association</a> has been a major player in shifting Canadian policy. </p>
<p>In 2017, the federal government banned unpaid internships in federally regulated industries. In Ontario, the province’s <a href="https://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/pubs/internships.php">Ministry of Labour</a> clarified that unpaid internships are legal in very few instances —typically only for-credit academic internships.</p>
<p>U.S. law has been amended to protect interns against sexual harassment. Some media unions, like at VICE Canada, have collectively bargained for minimum hourly rates for interns. </p>
<p>In the U.K., various political officials support placing a four-week cap on internships, <a href="http://chrisholmes.co.uk/unpaid-internships/">and a bill</a> to that effect is making its way through the Upper Chamber.</p>
<h2>Setbacks, challenges</h2>
<p>Intern activists have made meaningful gains. But there are setbacks and new challenges. </p>
<p>Earlier this year, for example, the U.S. Department of Labor <a href="https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm">brought in measures</a> that make it more difficult for an unpaid intern to argue they are entitled to a wage. </p>
<p>Shining the spotlight on unpaid internships is not the end of a struggle, but rather a training ground.</p>
<p>Advocates who have led the fight against unpaid internships, often a young person’s first foray into the labour market, have raised awareness about difficult labour conditions and have fought for the tenet that workplace inequalities are unacceptable and must not be regarded as inevitable.</p>
<p>Displacing the cliché “pay your dues” with the call to “pay your interns” is a significant achievement for a young movement. </p>
<p>Challenges, of course, remain. Improved regulations are only as good as enforcement, for example. Without careful oversight, unpaid internships will continue informally. </p>
<p>What is clear, however, is that the “experiential learning” of the intern rights movement over the last few years can only help in the broader labour battles to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greig de Peuter receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He sits on the advisory board of the Canadian Intern Association. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Cohen receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is on the advisory board of the Canadian Intern Association. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Oakley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Global activism has played a big role in outlawing unpaid internships. Here’s how protests and social media shaming spurred negative media coverage of unpaid internships.Greig de Peuter, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityKate Oakley, Professor of Cultural Policy, University of LeedsNicole Cohen, Assistant Professor , University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/954702018-04-24T10:24:34Z2018-04-24T10:24:34ZSouth Africa’s strike rate isn’t as bad as it’s made out to be<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216094/original/file-20180424-94157-k9vcwc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Strikes are a common sight in South Africa. Data helps to put them in context.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Bothma/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa’s parliament is currently debating amendments to the <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/labour-relations/labour-relations-act">Labour Relations Act</a> that will change how workers can <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-changes-to-south-africas-labour-laws-are-an-assault-on-workers-rights-88330">go on strike</a>. For example, the amendments would require trade unions to hold secret ballots to decide on strike action and introduce a mechanism where strikes could be resolved through an advisory arbitration panel.</p>
<p>The Department of Labour has justified the proposed changes to strike legislation by arguing that they are prevalent, prolonged and increasingly violent. But a look at the data provided in the Department of Labour’s own <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/documents/annual-reports/annual-reports">industrial action annual reports</a> reveals a different picture.</p>
<p>The data shows that strikes have not particularly increased over the last decade, tend to be resolved in under two weeks and that the vast majority occur peacefully. </p>
<p>So the justification used by the Department of Labour is not based on fact but on an ideological perspective that seeks to protect employers’ interests at <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-changes-to-south-africas-labour-laws-are-an-assault-on-workers-rights-88330">the expense of workers</a>. </p>
<p>Recently, even the <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/03/jaumotte.htm">International Monetary Fund</a> has recognised that weakening unions by undermining the right to strike leads to declining wages and increasing inequality. Given that South Africa is among the most unequal countries <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-is-south-africa-the-most-unequal-society-in-the-world-48334">in the world</a>, lawmakers should be giving serious thought as to how they can protect the rights of workers and their right to strike.</p>
<h2>Assessing the data</h2>
<p>Over a ten year period there has been a slight increase in the number of work stoppages (see figure 1). But this is a very imprecise measure of industrial action as work stoppages vary in duration. It’s therefore more accurate to use the number of working days lost as an indicator of the intensity of industrial action.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216008/original/file-20180423-94157-1fjxvzg.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216008/original/file-20180423-94157-1fjxvzg.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216008/original/file-20180423-94157-1fjxvzg.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216008/original/file-20180423-94157-1fjxvzg.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216008/original/file-20180423-94157-1fjxvzg.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216008/original/file-20180423-94157-1fjxvzg.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216008/original/file-20180423-94157-1fjxvzg.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216008/original/file-20180423-94157-1fjxvzg.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 1. Number of industrial actions 2006-2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Labour Industrial Action Annual Reports</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Looking at this data demonstrates that there have been years where the number of working days lost has been high – including during the 2010 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/aug/23/south-africa-public-sector-strike">public sector strike</a> and the 2014 <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/2014-south-african-platinum-strike-longest-wage-strike-south-africa">platinum strike</a>. Overall, though, there has been a slight decline in the number of working days lost. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216009/original/file-20180423-94149-17dltlt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216009/original/file-20180423-94149-17dltlt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216009/original/file-20180423-94149-17dltlt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216009/original/file-20180423-94149-17dltlt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216009/original/file-20180423-94149-17dltlt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216009/original/file-20180423-94149-17dltlt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216009/original/file-20180423-94149-17dltlt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216009/original/file-20180423-94149-17dltlt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 2. Number of working days lost, 2006 - 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Labour Annual Industrial Action Report</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The data also demonstrates that strikes in South Africa don’t tend to be prolonged. In the last decade nearly three quarters of strikes were resolved within two weeks; 42% were resolved in less than a week. Only a very small proportion – 6.8% – last for more than a month. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216101/original/file-20180424-57611-14icnno.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216101/original/file-20180424-57611-14icnno.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216101/original/file-20180424-57611-14icnno.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216101/original/file-20180424-57611-14icnno.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216101/original/file-20180424-57611-14icnno.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216101/original/file-20180424-57611-14icnno.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216101/original/file-20180424-57611-14icnno.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216101/original/file-20180424-57611-14icnno.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=684&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Figure 3. Percentage distribution of work stoppages by duration, 2006-2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Labour Annual Industrial Actions Reports</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But some may argue that South Africa’s levels of strike activity is unacceptably high in comparison to other countries. Again, this is not borne out in the data.</p>
<p>Researchers from the University of Cape Town, Haroon Bhorat and David Tseng, did <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/africa-in-focus/2014/04/02/south-africas-strike-data-revisited/">comparative analysis</a> looking at two measures: the depth of strike activity (the number of working days lost per strikers’ working days per annum) and strikers’ intensity (the number of strikers per 1,000 employed workers). They found that South Africa’s depth of strike activity was lower than a number of countries including the United States, Brazil and India. </p>
<p>They also found that South Africa’s strikers’ intensity was comparable to a number of European states, among them Austria, Finland and Denmark. It was much lower than countries such as Argentina, Spain and Italy. This means that South Africa’s levels of industrial action are comparable to or even lower than many other middle- and upper-income countries. </p>
<h2>Violent vs orderly strikes</h2>
<p>Finally, there is the question of strike violence. To date, there has been little attempt to quantify levels of strike violence. Often analysts rely on media reports, including <a href="https://irr.org.za/reports-and-publications/media-releases/Strike%20violence.pdf/">analysis</a> done by the South African Institute for Race Relations, a think-tank who publishes research designed to assist policymakers. </p>
<p>But media data has an inherent bias towards the reporting of violent incidents and so can’t be used as a basis to generalise to all strikes. </p>
<p>A much better source, although not without its limitations, is data collected by Public Order Policing in the Incident Registration Information System which counts <a href="https://africacheck.org/2015/06/15/comment-politicians-and-police-are-misusing-unrest-figures/">crowd management incidents</a>, referring to any incident where it might be necessary to manage a crowd. </p>
<p>This includes large funerals, cultural events, sporting events as well as community protests and strikes. Examining this data, which I did as part of a team at the University of Johannesburg’s Centre for Social Change, provides important insights into the nature of strike violence.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304076282_Counting_Police-Recorded_Protests_Based_on_South_African_Police_Service_Data">analysed</a> a large representative sample of labour-related protests between 1997 and 2013. The vast majority – 88% – were orderly. </p>
<p>While incidents of violence during strikes should be taken seriously, it is also important to understand them in proportion to their frequency.</p>
<p>The Labour Relations Act is the cornerstone of South Africa’s industrial relations framework. Amendments to it should be based on robust evidence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95470/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carin Runciman is a management committee member of the Casual Workers Advice Office.</span></em></p>Data reveals that South Africa’s strike action is lower than many other countries, and not as prolonged as politicians claim.Carin Runciman, Senior Reseacher, Centre for Social Change, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/820092017-09-07T08:58:15Z2017-09-07T08:58:15ZWhat Macron has in store for France’s generous unemployment support system<p>As Emmanuel Macron gears up for a battle over plans to reform the French labour market, it is essential that he does not diminish France’s strong system of support for the unemployed. Instead, Macron’s government should be expanding support for the most disadvantaged unemployed people, particularly the young. </p>
<p>On August 31, Macron’s prime minister, Edouard Philippe, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-31/france-unveils-plan-to-fix-labor-markets-as-union-protests-ebb">announced</a> details of five decrees that will introduce reforms to labour laws and increase job flexibility. Although some trade union leaders have been working with the government on the plan, <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2017/06/27/la-cgt-veut-faire-du-12-septembre-la-journee-contre-la-reforme-du-code-du-travail_5152072_823448.html">strikes</a> are planned on September 12. </p>
<p>Muriel Pénicaud, the French minister of labour <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/4e6fffc4-9086-11e7-bdfa-eda243196c2c">said</a> the reforms are only the first of many planned by Macron to tackle unemployment and that she would soon begin consulting on reforming the French unemployment insurance system. A confrontation is already forming regarding cuts to <em>emplois aidés</em>, jobs for the unemployed in the public and private sector for which employers receive state subsidies.</p>
<p>When it come to unemployment support, Macron’s party, En Marche, <a href="https://en-marche.fr/emmanuel-macron/le-programme/travail-emploi">states</a> some of its key policy aims as fighting unemployment and ensuring that work enables people to escape poverty. <a href="http://www.liberation.fr/politiques/2017/07/04/sante-fiscalite-social-securite-les-principales-annonces-d-edouard-philippe_1581504">Proposals so far</a> include raising the <em>prime d’activité</em> – a benefit offering financial support to workers on low incomes – and extending unemployment benefits to workers who have resigned. </p>
<p>But in late August, Philippe <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2017/08/24/les-contrats-aides-un-coup-de-pouce-a-l-emploi-juge-trop-couteux-par-l-executif_5175952_823448.html">announced that</a> the number of subsidised jobs will fall by over half in 2018 compared to 2016. Created in 1980 in a context of high unemployment, these jobs were designed to reduce unemployment, particularly among disadvantaged young people. The contracts have been rebranded with different names over the years but the aims have remained similar. The number of people employed on such contracts <a href="https://www.insee.fr/fr/statistiques/fichier/2662534/032017_ndc_eclairage_emploi.pdf">increased under François Hollande</a>, Macron’s predecessor, but the new government contends that they are inefficient and too costly. </p>
<p>COORACE, a federation of social enterprises, <a href="https://www.alternatives-economiques.fr/contrats-aides-lettre-ouverte-dacteurs-de-linsertion-a-emmanuel-macron/00080060">wrote</a> to Macron criticising the reduction in subsidised job contracts. It argues the move risks severely damaging the voluntary sector, which has traditionally employed many people on such contracts, and could harm opportunities for disadvantaged job seekers and young people. Mayors from across France have also <a href="http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/2017/08/16/20002-20170816ARTFIG00294-les-maires-de-france-s-inquietent-de-la-baisse-du-nombre-de-contrats-aides.php">expressed serious concern</a> regarding the impact of the cuts on their administration.</p>
<h2>A generous safety net</h2>
<p>France has an unemployment support system that is relatively strong at protecting job seekers, particularly those who have previously been in work. It is among the developed countries that spend the most on active labour market policies, which aim to move unemployed people into work. </p>
<p>In 2013, the French state <a href="http://www.oecd.org/employment/activation.htm">spent 0.87%</a> of its GDP on policies such as training, unemployment benefits and employment incentives. While lower than the level spent by Sweden, at 1.35% of GDP, it was considerably higher than Germany’s 0.67% or the UK’s 0.23%. France’s generous social safety net is effectively paid for by the country’s relatively <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-are-british-workers-less-productive-than-germans-and-french-37829">high levels of productivity</a>. </p>
<p>The exact amount that unemployed job seekers in France receive each week depends on their personal circumstances. <a href="https://research-content.glassdoor.com/app/uploads/sites/2/2016/02/GD_FairestPaidLeave_Final.pdf">Research in 2016</a> found unemployed people in France were offered 60-75% of their previous salary for between 16 and 52 weeks. For comparison, in the UK there is <a href="https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/overview">a flat rate</a> of £57.90 per week for 18 to 24-year-olds, and £73.10 for those over 25. </p>
<p>As part of <a href="http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/12270/">my own PhD</a> research, I interviewed 19 out-of-work couples with children under the age of 13 in Lille, northern France, and 19 couples in a similar situation in Sheffield, northern England. I found that the greater investment in unemployment support in France than the UK clearly affected the couples’ experience. </p>
<p>Beneficiaries of the RSA – the main minimum income programme in France for those aged 25 or over, unemployed or on a low salary – told me that they benefited from reactive and personalised support. The French couples generally described strong relationships with their advisers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Whenever I want something, whatever it is, she is there … I get things off my chest … We explain things, we talk, we laugh … If I need to do a CV or whatever it is, I go to see her and she knows how to do it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>By contrast, couples in the UK who were claiming Jobseekers’s Allowance – a benefit supporting unemployed people or those working below 16 hours per week – reported greater tension with their advisers. The French couples also reported being enrolled on longer-term, more comprehensive and more personalised training schemes than parents in the UK.</p>
<h2>Jobs for the young</h2>
<p>Despite the level of support, unemployment <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tsdec450&plugin=1">remains a challenge in France</a>. In 2016, the overall unemployment rate in France and the rate for 15 to 24-year-olds <a href="https://data.oecd.org/unemp/youth-unemployment-rate.htm">were</a> both well above EU averages – as the graph below illustrates. </p>
<p><iframe id="kVCXc" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/kVCXc/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Macron’s election is an opportunity for the French government to address the reasons behind persistently high unemployment in France. But policies should focus on the most disadvantaged unemployed people, particularly the young. </p>
<p>Perhaps the French government should consider extending the budget of the Missions Locales, local employment centres across France that aim to accompany young people aged 16-26 and to provide them with personalised support to find work. These centres, which receive government and EU funding, <a href="http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/var/storage/rapports-publics/164000750.pdf">have been found</a> to achieve impressive results in helping disadvantaged young people into employment, but suffer from financial instability. </p>
<p>Macron’s attempt to liberalise the French economy by making it easier to hire and fire employees may reduce some of the reluctance among French firms to take on young people. But it is not yet clear that his government plans to do enough to address the wider barriers affecting youth unemployment. In 2016, the IMF <a href="http://worksim.lip6.fr/cr16228.pdf">argued</a> that France was suffering from a skills mismatch which appears to have worsened since the global economic crisis. </p>
<p>It is still early to judge Macron and Philippe’s policies on unemployment, but so far their proposals do not go very far in helping France’s most disadvantaged job seekers. Indeed, cuts to the unemployment insurance system as well as the number of subsidised jobs could lead to a rise in unemployment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abigail Taylor received funding for her PhD from the University of Sheffield through a University Prize Scholarship.</span></em></p>Amid wider reforms to labour law, proposals to reduce subsidised jobs for the unemployed raise concerns.Abigail Taylor, Teaching Associate in French, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/804842017-07-05T10:49:48Z2017-07-05T10:49:48ZBank of England strike threat signals failures in plan to dent union power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176878/original/file-20170705-30015-1b2tx0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=150%2C98%2C2000%2C1206&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bank-england-city-london-uk-night-119973589?src=qSXPIUB9WxCUoEnW4xzJfw-1-25">Bikeworldtravel/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Bank of England isn’t known as a hotbed of worker activism, but it might be about to offer the firmest proof yet that the UK government’s efforts to dent union power have gone awry. The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/trade-union-act-becomes-law">Trade Union Act 2016</a> was supposed to reduce strike action still further from <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/workplacedisputesandworkingconditions/articles/labourdisputes/latest">current historic lows</a>. Instead, it looks as if the length of individual strikes will increase, creating more days “lost” per strike. </p>
<p>At the Bank of England, Unite union members in the maintenance and security departments are to go on strike for <a href="http://www.unitetheunion.org/news/bank-of-england-staff-to-strike-for-first-time-in-50-years/">four days at the end of July</a> to try to end the continued imposition of below-inflation pay rises. The union has told the bank’s governor, Mark Carney, that he can “no longer turn a blind eye to what is happening on his own patch” and is calling on the bank to agree to talks on a pay deal which <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/cab4e12e-5fd2-11e7-91a7-502f7ee26895?mhq5j=e2">might avert the first walkout in more than 50 years</a>. </p>
<p>Under the Trade Union Act, unions now have to pass two new thresholds to gain a lawful mandate for strike action. In addition to getting a simple majority of those voting for action, the turnout has to be at least 50%. In a number of sectors deemed “essential”, such as transport and education, all those voting for action must also represent 40% of all those entitled to vote. In other words, non-voters are counted as “no” votes. </p>
<p>The changes have delivered a couple of significant defeats for the unions so far – for UNISON <a href="http://www.unison-scotland.org/service-groups-and-sectors/local-government-pay2017/">local government workers in Scotland</a> and RMT members <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/tube-strike-over-clash-with-fare-dodger-is-called-off-a3568786.html">on the London Underground</a>. And it’s not yet clear whether more or less ballots for action are now being organised. We won’t know that until the figures for 2016 are published by the government next summer.</p>
<h2>Fight or flight</h2>
<p>But what is clear so far is that among the ballots that have resulted in mandates for action, the predominant strategy of one-day strikes, (or a series of one-day strikes) is coming to an end. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176876/original/file-20170705-29986-1wxwb9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176876/original/file-20170705-29986-1wxwb9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176876/original/file-20170705-29986-1wxwb9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176876/original/file-20170705-29986-1wxwb9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176876/original/file-20170705-29986-1wxwb9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176876/original/file-20170705-29986-1wxwb9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176876/original/file-20170705-29986-1wxwb9v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clouds gather for BA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/martin_hartland/6228401858/in/photolist-auobSW-UfsBGL-v1GG5m-5no488-4dCLRe-TTngyc-rj95wM-qcb8eS-SCCeMX-nuZN7H-3fdAbF-oMve9Q-pw7wRM-hx9fs2-pwnwud-efXfo6-r1iWRz-fQCAN8-rkazn9-kFNPoJ-fcTzMo-qkakRo-qYHT3t-qm5nCJ-RCpKAs-TG5zR5-R4aGni-SJhQ6b-HziLfd-oBgPJ9-kuucuG-nuBG9z-EYHVZK-U6Hftx-nzDVQE-nZk1CU-p8eWSj-meZvup-UkzJcF-pLRF21-ovznuU-miBFWz-rDfVPe-prADS2-4qsWjZ-qK2Nrz-kQqMMZ-UdN4sL-noFjWj-fNRJ1L">Martin Hartland/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The strike at the Bank of England is only the most recent case to gain prominence. At British Airways, fellow members of the Unite union have <a href="http://www.unitetheunion.org/news/british-airways-accused-of-seeking-to-punish-workers-on-poverty-pay/">just begun a 16-day strike</a> while other Unite members at Manchester housing repair company, Mears, have announced they <a href="http://www.unitetheunion.org/news/mears-manchester-housing-workers-set-to-begin-all-out-strike-action/">will strike for four weeks</a> from Saturday July 8. </p>
<p>Workers at both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/05/british-airways-ba-cabin-crew-begin-six-days-strikes">British Airways</a> <a href="http://www.constructionenquirer.com/2017/05/09/meers-manchester-housing-upkeep-workers-to-strike/">and Mears</a> have already taken considerable strike action. There are dozens of other examples of action taken by Unite, backed by strike pay from the union’s own <a href="http://unitelive.org/dark-day-rights/">£35m fund</a>. There is also mounting evidence elsewhere – from the education unions (EIS, NUT, UCU) to the PCS civil servants’ union <a href="http://reidfoundation.org/2017/06/trade-union-act-2016-examining-the-impact-of-the-new-act-upon-strikes-and-industrial-action/">that this clear pattern is emerging</a>.</p>
<p>The three cited Unite examples of strike all have quite different causes: pay at the Bank of England, victimisation at British Airways and new contracts at Mears. But the new law is making them act in a very similar fashion. This is because of two other important parts of the Trade Union Act. First, unions are required to give 14 days’ notice of action to employers – up from seven. And the length of a lawful mandate is capped at six months, which can be increased to nine but only with the agreement of the employer. Previously, there was no cap on the length of the mandate. </p>
<p>So, in order for action to be effective, it has to be more hard-hitting because employers have longer to prepare for it. This means unions are front-loading their action into longer and more concentrated actions in smaller time frames. They are also doing this because they know they have to get their skates on. Unions cannot afford to have their mandates eroded by employers that play for time by stringing out negotiations. The clock is always ticking in their heads towards the six-month expiry date. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176882/original/file-20170705-30009-azh1lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176882/original/file-20170705-30009-azh1lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/176882/original/file-20170705-30009-azh1lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176882/original/file-20170705-30009-azh1lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176882/original/file-20170705-30009-azh1lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176882/original/file-20170705-30009-azh1lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176882/original/file-20170705-30009-azh1lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/176882/original/file-20170705-30009-azh1lt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tick tock.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/29008389@N03/5937058272/in/photolist-a3CYzE-n4frBm-qqKqan-7wVtPq-fUfXdX-8n7hC5-58y9YD-dZf9Uc-k66EEC-SMsxrk-4H5MtF-7NhG7h-UTUdm7-GfqBS-kpx3ch-dUEnqt-juBCAE-9AgDky-bugVJs-8QLNKa-fEUN9F-oGm94c-6KDfND-ciJxhb-4LLTh1-buCpGE-doY8SD-f1EtaB-8QLNoF-8AGyag-2s1oN-5mc2Gv-fEUKtp-8Mfmvr-uUxw1U-mL8Eq4-dtiW6i-oBfkAQ-8AGxdT-cb8HoL-9iofY7-asfinm-oEfYXN-niyrbd-P9aKsy-62gDom-4gErVt-qGBcDi-5KCCXT-amUBd3">Cindy Schultz/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ballot boxing</h2>
<p>There is also evidence that some workers have decided to increasingly ignore the new law by taking unofficial, unballoted action. Wildcat action has been seen <a href="https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/44588/Post+workers+unofficial+walkout+forces+Royal+Mail+bosses+to+lift+reps+suspension">at the Royal Mail</a> and among <a href="https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/44400/Unofficial+action+by+migrant+workers+at+London+hospital+beats+back+multinational">hospital workers in London</a>. This has the element of surprise and the nature of the action is not limited by the balloting restrictions. Of course, it is unlawful, but so far no one has been sacked for organising such action – as they can be under the Employment Act 1990.</p>
<p>Even if the Trade Union Act does lead to fewer strike ballots, fewer votes for strikes and fewer strikes themselves, it has already not only lengthened the duration of those strikes that do occur but it has also made them more difficult to resolve because it has forced union members to act in a more assertive and aggressive manner. </p>
<p>All this was entirely predictable. During public consultation on the new Act in 2015, human resources professional body, the Chartered Institute of Professional Development (CIPD), warned the new provisions were always likely to “<a href="http://www2.cipd.co.uk/pm/peoplemanagement/b/weblog/archive/2015/09/09/trade-union-reforms-are-outdated-response-warns-cipd.aspx">harden attitudes</a>”. In truth, this is exactly what happens when a government introduces an act to solve a problem that does not actually exist, and for which there is no public demand.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gregor Gall is editor of the Scottish Left Review magazine and director of the Jimmy Reid Foundation.</span></em></p>New legislation has forced stronger action and might see the first walkout at Threadneedle Street in more than 50 years.Gregor Gall, Professor of Industrial Relations, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/766842017-05-17T04:17:34Z2017-05-17T04:17:34ZOur 24/7 economy and the wealth of nations<p><em><strong>This article is the third in our series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/global/topics/globalisation-under-pressure-38722">Globalisation Under Pressure</a>, on what the changing nature of work means for families and society.</strong></em> </p>
<hr>
<p>We now live in a world where – thanks to information and communication technologies – we are able to produce and distribute goods, services and capital around the globe virtually nonstop. </p>
<p>To keep merchandise and consumers moving across time zones and national borders, employers must increasingly staff workplaces around the clock. And after worldwide <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3184959">labour deregulation during the past decades’ neoliberal reforms</a>, they are now free to hire workers on a casual or on-call basis to reduce labour costs. </p>
<p>This relentless schedule has led prominent sociologist <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/working-247-economy-0">Harriert Presser</a> to call ours the “24/7 economy” – a market that works relentlessly, 24 hours a day and seven days a week.</p>
<h2>Working nonstandard schedules</h2>
<p>Shift work is on the rise in the 24/7 economy. The definition of this phenomenon, which is also known as “nonstandard work schedules”, varies somewhat among scholars and across countries. But it essentially refers to schedules in which the majority of an employee’s work hours fall outside a typical daytime Monday-to-Friday schedule. </p>
<p>This includes evenings, nights, rotating shifts (alternating between day, evening, or night shifts but on a fixed schedule), split shifts, irregular hours and regular weekend work.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/working-247-economy-0">In the United States</a>, some groups are <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2007/12/art1full.pdf">more likely</a> to work nonstandard hours than others. Young people, men, those with less education and low-skilled workers have higher incidence of nonstandard hours. As do married couples with young children and single mothers. </p>
<p>Broadly speaking, jobs in the private sector, the service industry and in sales are more likely than other occupations to require nonstandard hours. These include janitors, waitresses, retail workers, nurses and personal-services providers, among other frequent shift workers.</p>
<p>Not coincidentally, these are among <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sageworks/2013/12/29/industries-to-watch-in-2014-the-10-fastest-growing-fields/#1f831aea3d09">the fastest-growing sectors</a> in the US and globally.</p>
<h2>Health, well-being and relationships</h2>
<p>We wanted to know the consequences of the 24/7 economy on workers, family life and children, so we conducted <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10935-013-0318-z">a comprehensive review</a> of the evidence from 23 quantitative empirical studies spanning three decades (1980-2012) and five countries: the US, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Croatia. </p>
<p>Our research mainly focused on studies that examined the impact of 24/7 economy on children’s development – their social and emotional well-being, physical health, cognitive ability and academic outcomes – but reviewed the evidence on how families, parents and couples are affected as well. </p>
<p>When it comes to adults, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1479-8425.2010.00432.x/abstract">the evidence</a> that working nonstandard schedules are associated with poor physical and mental health is clear. Physical health problems include increased fatigue, insomnia, stomach and digestive issues, higher cardiovascular risks, being overweight. And the group is also tends to make unhealthy lifestyle choices, such as smoking and drinking alcohol. </p>
<p>Chronic fatigue, sleep deprivation and the resulting stress are all major obstacles to productivity. There are also psychological disturbances associated with sleep deprivation, including adverse effects on memory and reaction time, as well as chronic anxiety and depression. </p>
<p>Such stressors are correlated with a greater risk of workplace accidents among employees on nonstandard schedules.</p>
<p>There is also evidence that shift work can negatively impact <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10935-013-0318-z">the relationship between parents and couples</a>, and that working evenings or nights is associated with greater depressive symptoms among mothers and fathers. </p>
<p>Overall, people who work nonstandard hours tend to have <a href="https://www.russellsage.org/publications/working-247-economy-0">lower life satisfaction</a> and higher levels of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10834-012-9308-1">family conflict and marital instability</a>.</p>
<p>Such schedules do have one notable benefit, though: greater paternal involvement in child rearing. Regardless of whether it is the mother or the father who does shift work, in such families fathers spend more time with children than in those where both parents work standard day schedules. </p>
<p>Whether greater paternal involvement in child rearing might counterbalance some of the negative effects that nonstandard work schedules have on family life is a question that merits further study. </p>
<h2>Impact on children</h2>
<p>What’s clear is that the negative impact of the 24/7 economy clearly trickles down to kids. </p>
<p>Research shows <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10935-013-0318-z">consistent evidence</a> that nonstandard parental work schedules are linked to adverse developmental outcomes, with children more likely to <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2011.00862.x/abstract">exhibit social and emotional problems or have lower maths and language skills</a>. </p>
<p>These children are also more likely to be overweight or obese, engage in <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740907001181">risk-taking behaviors</a> (smoking, drinking, using drugs, delinquency and risky sexual activity) and to be at <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2950649/">higher risk for depression</a> compared to those whose parents work standard day schedules. </p>
<p>This impact has been observed throughout child developmental stages, from infancy to adolescence, and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10935-013-0318-z">across countries</a>. Our review revealed several pathways that can lead parental nonstandard schedules to correlate with poor childhood outcomes. </p>
<p>When parents show signs of depression, are harsh and insensitive with their children or create a generally unsupportive home environment, for example, those are vectors. So, too, are reduced child-parent interaction and intimacy and a lack of quality time spent doing developmentally important activities such as homework, parent-teacher meetings, sports and music lessons. </p>
<p>Our research also reveals that the 24/7 economy does not uniformly impact families and children. While shift work does have a negative effect on children from different socioeconomic backgrounds, disadvantaged families are hit hardest – that’s kids of low-income or single-parent families – along with families in which one or both parents work full-time on a nonstandard basis.</p>
<h2>National differences</h2>
<p>While the negative impact of the 24/7 economy on families and children has been reported across different developed countries, it is pronounced in some places and muted in others. </p>
<p>Consequences seem most pronounced in the US. Generally speaking, American workers <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/26/u-s-lacks-mandated-paid-parental-leave/">do not benefit from many family-friendly workplace policies</a>, such as flexible arrangements and sick or leave days. This is particularly true in low-wage and low-level jobs, and it impacts most directly those who work outside normal business hours.</p>
<p>In Australia, on the contrary, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616305184">the adverse effect</a> of shift work on adolescent children’s mental health was limited to those who come from single-parent households.</p>
<p>While in the Netherlands, working nonstandard schedules does not seem to have any detrimental impact on <a href="http://www.springer.com/de/book/9789401774000">family well-being</a>. One <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740916304479">study</a> comparing the UK, the Netherlands and Finland found that nonstandard parental work schedules are associated with less sociable behaviour among children in the UK but not elsewhere. </p>
<p>A plausible explanation for this difference is that in Finland the government provides early childhood education during nonstandard work hours, while the Netherlands offers flexible and reduced work hours. Such policies enable parents to organise child care during work hours, whereas in the UK – which is, like the US, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/apr/16/legacy-margaret-thatcher-neoliberalism">a typical neoliberal state</a> – no such provisions exist. </p>
<p>Understanding country-based differences in how the 24/7 economy impacts families and children is critical. So we are currently developing a larger international comparative project involving scholars from eight countries across three continents to elucidate national variations. </p>
<h2>Help, please</h2>
<p>The past four decades have witnessed the rise and triumph of neoliberalism worldwide. This has gone hand-in-hand with the deregulation of labour and financial markets, privatisation and cutbacks on social spending. </p>
<p>The process culminated in the <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/schoolsbrief/21584534-effects-financial-crisis-are-still-being-felt-five-years-article">global financial crisis of 2008</a> and persistently rising social inequality. Both have spurred a larger debate on the benefits and disadvantages of neoliberal globalisation.</p>
<p>Even so, the 24/7 economy is likely to continue expanding, particularly since digitalisation worldwide has rendered it increasingly feasible to work outside the office and beyond normal business hours. </p>
<p>It is critical for governments to make policies that support parents, enabling them to balance work and family so that children may grow and flourish. Families are the social and economic fabric of society, and the future prosperity of the world depends on the healthy development of the next generation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76684/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jianghong Li is affiliated with Telethon KIDS Institute, The University of Western Australia; Centre for Population Health Research, Faculty of Health Sciences, Curtin University, Perth Western Australia
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wen-Jui Han does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ever more people are stuck with shift work in a globalised economy that operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.Jianghong Li, Senior Research Fellow, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.Wen-Jui Han, Professor and Director of the PhD program of the Silver School of Social Work, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/769322017-05-02T02:40:39Z2017-05-02T02:40:39ZWhen exploiting kids for cash goes wrong on YouTube: the lessons of DaddyOFive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/167422/original/file-20170502-17277-1wirwwy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">DaddyOFive parents Mike and Heather Martin issue an apology for their prank videos.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">YouTube</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The US YouTube channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8lV8KIVWvfsaqOi_d3Wu3w">DaddyOFive</a>, which features a husband and wife from Maryland “pranking” their children, has pulled all its videos and issued a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoYTdYRPPpw">public apology</a> amid allegations of child abuse. </p>
<p>The “pranks” would routinely involve the parents fooling their kids into thinking they were in trouble, screaming and swearing at them, only the reveal “it was just a prank” as their children sob on camera. </p>
<p>Despite its removal the content continues to circulate in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvoLmsXKkYM">summary videos </a>from Philip DeFranco and other popular YouTubers who are critiquing the DaddyOFive channel. And you can still find videos of parents pranking their children on other channels around YouTube. But the videos also raise wider issues about children in online media, particularly where the videos make money. With <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8lV8KIVWvfsaqOi_d3Wu3w/about">over 760,000 subscribers</a>, it is estimated that DaddyOFive earned between <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/tech/abusive-pranks-youtube-family-vloggers-195031531.html">US$200,000-350,000 each year</a> from YouTube advertising revenue.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Philip DeFranco / WOW… We Need To Talk About This…</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The rise of influencers</h2>
<p>Kid reactions on YouTube are a popular genre, with parents uploading viral videos of their children doing anything from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h5mwoTwDBk">tasting lemons for the first time</a> to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JmA2ClUvUY">engaging in baby speak</a>. Such videos pre-date the internet, with America’s Funniest Home Videos (1989-) and other popular television shows capitalising on “kid moments”.</p>
<p>In the era of mobile devices and networked communication, the ease with which children can be documented and shared online is unprecedented. Every day parents are “<a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2015/06/17/managing-your-childs-digital-footprint-and-or-parent-bloggers-ahead-of-brit-mums-on-the-20th-of-june/">sharenting</a>”, archiving and broadcasting images and videos of their children in order to share the experience with friends. </p>
<p>Even with the best intentions, though, one of us (Tama) has argued that photos and videos shared with the best of intentions can inadvertently lead to “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/11736307/Born_Digital_Presence_Privacy_and_Intimate_Surveillance">intimate surveillance</a>”, where online platforms and corporations use this data to build detailed profiles of children.</p>
<p>YouTube and other social media have seen the rise of influencer commerce, where seemingly ordinary users start featuring products and opinions they’re paid to share. By cultivating <a href="https://www.academia.edu/24831025/Abidin_Crystal_and_Mart_Ots._2016._Influencers_Tell_All_Unravelling_Authenticity_and_Credibility_in_a_Brand_Scandal._Pp._153-161_in_Blurring_the_Lines_Market-driven_and_Democracy-driven_Freedom_of_Expression_edited_by_Maria_Edstr%C3%B6m_Andrew_T_Kenyon_and_Eva-Maria_Svensson._G%C3%B6teborg_NICMCR">personal brands</a> through <a href="http://adanewmedia.org/2015/11/issue8-abidin/">creating a sense of intimacy</a> with their consumers, these followings can be strong enough for advertisers to invest in their content, usually through advertorials and product placements. While the DaddyOFive channel was clearly for-profit, the distinction between genuine and paid content is <a href="http://theconversation.com/when-authenticity-and-advertising-collide-on-social-media-50397">often far from clear</a>.</p>
<h2>From the womb to celebrity</h2>
<p>As with DaddyOFive, these influencers can include entire families, including children whose rights to participate, or choose not to participate, may not always be considered. In some cases, children themselves can be the star, becoming <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3775110/Micro-celebrity_and_the_Branded_Self">microcelebrities</a>, often produced and promoted by their parents.</p>
<p>South Korean toddler Yebin, for instance, first went viral as a three-year-old in 2014 in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN29b1-hhZ0">video</a> where her mom was teaching her to avoid strangers. Since then, Yebin and her younger brother have been signed to influencer agencies to manage their content, based on the reach of their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/lilyebin/about">channel</a> which has accumulated over 21 million views.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Baby Yebin / Mom Teaches Cute Korean baby Yebin a Life Lesson.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As viral videos become marketable and kid reaction videos become more lucrative, this may well drive more and more elaborate situations and set-ups. Yet, despite their prominence on social media, such children in internet-famous families are not clearly covered by the traditional workplace standards (such as <a href="http://www.dir.ca.gov/DLSE/ChildLaborLawPamphlet.pdf">Child Labour Laws</a> and that <a href="http://www.sagaftra.org/content/coogan-law">Coogan Law</a> in the US), which historically protected child stars in mainstream media industries from exploitation. </p>
<p>This is concerning especially since not only are adult influencers featuring their children in advertorials and commercial content, but some are even grooming a new generation of “<a href="http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/1022">micro-microcelebrities</a>” whose celebrity and careers begin in the womb.</p>
<p>In the absence of any formal guidelines for the child stars of social media, it is the peers and corporate platforms that are policing the welfare of young children. As prominent YouTube influencers have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akffH4gnlWA">rallied to denounce</a> the parents behind the DaddyOFive accusing them of child abuse, they have also leveraged their influence to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/04/25/the-saga-of-a-youtube-family-who-pulled-disturbing-pranks-on-their-own-kids/?utm_term=.eb642a8848ce">report the parents of DaddyOFive to child protective services</a>. YouTube has also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/04/25/the-saga-of-a-youtube-family-who-pulled-disturbing-pranks-on-their-own-kids/?utm_term=.eb642a8848ce">reportedly responded initially by pulling advertising</a> from the channel. YouTubers collectively demonstrating a shared moral position is undoubtedly helpful. </p>
<h2>Greater transparency</h2>
<p>The question of children, commerce and labour on social media is far from limited to YouTube. Australian PR director Roxy Jacenko has, for example, defended herself against accusations of exploitation after launching and managing a commercial Instagram account for her her young daughter Pixie, who at three-years-old was dubbed the “<a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/lifestyle/sunday-style/the-rise-and-rise-of-pixie-rose-curtis-3-the-princess-of-instagram/news-story/6e3a471bbf17e203576453eb7ae548c0">Princess of Instagram</a>”. And while Jacenko’s choices for Pixie may differ from many other parents, at least as someone in PR she is in a position to <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4454194/Roxy-Jacenko-warns-parents-online-predators.html">make informed and articulated choices about her daughter’s presence on social media</a>. </p>
<p>Already some influencers are assuring audiences that child participation is voluntary, enjoyable, and optional by broadcasting behind-the-scenes footage.</p>
<p>Television, too, is making the most of children on social media. The Ellen DeGeneres Show, for example, regularly mines YouTube for viral videos starring children in order to invite them as guests on the show.
Often they are invited to replicate their viral act for a live audience, and the show disseminates these program clips on its corporate YouTube channel, sometimes contracting viral YouTube children with high attention value to star in their own recurring segments on the show. </p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Sophia and Rosie Grace featured on Ellen after their viral Nicki Minaj video.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ultimately, though, children appearing on television are subject to laws and regulations that attempt to protect their well-being. On for-profit channels on YouTube and other social media platforms there is a little transparency about the role children are playing, the conditions of their labour, and how (and if) they are being compensated financially. </p>
<p>Children may be a one-off in parents’ videos, or the star of the show, but across this spectrum, social media like YouTube need rules to ensure that children’s participation is transparent and their well-being paramount.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/76932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tama Leaver receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Crystal Abidin receives funding from the Swedish Retail and Wholesale Development Council.</span></em></p>As the case of US YouTube channel DaddyOFive shows, there’s a fine line between pranking your kids and exploitation.Tama Leaver, Associate Professor in Internet Studies, Curtin UniversityCrystal Abidin, Adjunct Research Fellow at the Centre for Culture and Technology (CCAT), Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/632282017-01-26T16:02:15Z2017-01-26T16:02:15ZHow globalisation brought the brutality of markets to Western shores<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154386/original/image-20170126-30410-ceuiut.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=377%2C33%2C1394%2C938&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/47997385@N00/16671154594/in/photolist-rpb2rU-74XjFQ-5wNCES-aBQ9y2-7XcmS6-myDGwt-dntUxm-pUqfBY-hxmBDe-a4u7aw-oa7E4y-8kwtZq-4VzhLz-a8cdrz-3bBbZj-j98JBn-r97Fj9-dq8sDC-6M9YVu-cjHsFb-4FGfCU-7KVXw5-bzRQ6K-CUfqpT-9NGKPy-7E3Hgu-dq8iog-aStPtP-9itvqs-cjHrvS-j9akRg-dugFe5-dSTNGi-ecAx9o-aCBqaF-qpbhaE-ikgqdz-rpaWxq-fQZ5Sd-5bHe6b-soLxR8-dGtnhq-pE6aCK-aPbg7V-3LzLci-9cmtqw-i7kAN1-spx285-snpxA1-s4zRjC">objectivised/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The story of contemporary globalisation is, at its heart, the story of how we created a vast and impoverished working class. It is abundantly clear that the dynamics behind this have now hit home. First <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/eu-referendum-2016">Brexit</a>, then Donald Trump. We have been told that these votes were a primal scream from those forgotten parts of society. </p>
<p>Both campaigns identified immigration as a core cause of worker impoverishment and social exclusion. Both argued that limiting immigration would reverse these disempowering trends. It is true that poverty remains high and has even been expanding <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/20/child-poverty-rise-uk-halts-progress-charities-claim">in the UK</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/sep/16/us-census-bureau-stagnant-report-figures">and the US</a>, but the cause, and the solution, lie far deeper. </p>
<p>According to the charity Oxfam, one in five of the UK population live below the official poverty line, meaning that they experience life <a href="http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/our-work/inequality/food-poverty">as a daily struggle</a>. In the US, the richest country in world history, one in five children <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/sep/16/us-census-bureau-stagnant-report-figures">live in poverty</a>. In the UK, austerity has played a role but is not the only cause. According to a Poverty and Social Exclusion project published early in <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/biographies/commons/george-osborne/1458">George Osborne’s</a> first wave of austerity, the proportion of households that fell below society’s minimum standards <a href="http://www.poverty.ac.uk/pse-research/going-backwards-1983-2012">had already doubled</a> since 1983. </p>
<p>Poverty pay and working conditions are proliferating across the UK. A recent study of the clothing manufacturing sector around the city of Leicester found that employers often consider welfare benefits as a “wage component”, forcing workers to supplement sub-minimum wage pay with welfare benefits. In this sector 75-90% of workers <a href="http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/for-journalists/media-resources/Leicester%20Report%20-%20Final%20-to%20publish.pdf/">earn an average wage</a> of £3 an hour. Companies get round the law by paying cash-in-hand and by grossly under-recording the hours worked. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154368/original/image-20170126-23867-y1xtpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154368/original/image-20170126-23867-y1xtpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154368/original/image-20170126-23867-y1xtpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154368/original/image-20170126-23867-y1xtpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154368/original/image-20170126-23867-y1xtpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154368/original/image-20170126-23867-y1xtpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154368/original/image-20170126-23867-y1xtpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154368/original/image-20170126-23867-y1xtpb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Worker rights no longer set in stone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/warsaw-poland-august-12-social-realist-557580751?src=53nRAmdcgiIhVP8F6EXM6Q-1-23">Martyn Jandula/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recent news <a href="https://theconversation.com/hermes-inquiry-shows-how-unions-are-finding-new-forms-of-leverage-67411">about working conditions</a> at Sports Direct, Hermes, Amazon, and others show that far from being an isolated case, the Leicester example is part of an increasingly common trend towards low-wage, exploitative practices, greatly facilitated by a state-directed <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-relevant-are-the-tuc-and-unions-today-65183">reduction in trade union power</a>. </p>
<h2>Income attacks</h2>
<p>Mainstream portrayals of globalisation present it as a relatively benign market expansion and deepening. But this misses out the bedrock upon which such growth occurs: the labour of new working classes.</p>
<p>Following the end of the Cold War, the global incorporation of the Chinese, Indian and Russian economies served to <a href="http://eml.berkeley.edu/%7Ewebfac/eichengreen/e183_sp07/great_doub.pdf">double the world’s labour supply</a>. De-peasantisation and the establishment of export processing zones across much of Latin America, Africa and Asia has enlarged it even further. The International Monetary Fund calculates that number of workers in export-orientated industries <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2007/01/pdf/text.pdf">quadrupled between 1980 and 2003</a>.</p>
<p>This global working class subsists upon poverty wages. Forget the problems in the clothing sector around Leicester, The Clean Clothes Campaign found that textile workers’ minimum wages across Asia equate to as little as 19% of their <a href="http://www.cleanclothes.org/resources/national-cccs/shop-til-they-drop">basic living requirements</a>. To survive they must work many hours overtime, purchase low quality food and clothing, and forego many basic goods and services. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154375/original/image-20170126-10546-1v68t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154375/original/image-20170126-10546-1v68t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154375/original/image-20170126-10546-1v68t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154375/original/image-20170126-10546-1v68t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154375/original/image-20170126-10546-1v68t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154375/original/image-20170126-10546-1v68t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154375/original/image-20170126-10546-1v68t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154375/original/image-20170126-10546-1v68t1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cut from the same cloth? Workers in Asia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/asiandevelopmentbank/15927526085/in/photolist-3yUhPb-qgsJAH">Asian Development Bank/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A core element of globalisation has been the outsourcing of production from relatively high-wage northern economies to these poverty-wage southern economies. This enables firms to pay workers on the other side of the world 20 to 30 times less <a href="http://example.com/">than former, “native” workers</a>. They can then pocket the very significant cost difference in profits. For example, Apple’s profits for the iPhone in 2010 constituted over 58% of the device’s final sale price, while <a href="http://pcic.merage.uci.edu/papers/2011/value_ipad_iphone.pdf">Chinese workers’ share was only 1.8%</a>. </p>
<p>Outsourcing is celebrated by proponents of globalisation because, they argue, rather than produce goods expensively, they can be imported much more cheaply. This is true for many economic sectors in the global north, of course, but the downside is that wages and working conditions in remaining jobs are subject to colossal downward pressure. </p>
<h2>Not working</h2>
<p>What can be done? Limiting immigration will have no effect on these global dynamics, and may exacerbate them. You see, if wages are pushed up by labour shortages after any block on immigration, then the pressure and the incentive for firms to further outsource production, or to relocate, will increase. The anti-immigrant rhetoric and the mooted solutions of Donald Trump, UKIP, and much of the UK Conservative party will not help native workers one bit. Nor are they intended to. Rather, they represent a divisive political strategy designed to keep at bay any criticism of a decades-long assault on workers’ organisations. </p>
<p>For a problem brought about by globalisation it should shock no one that the progressive solution to poverty wages at home and abroad must be a global one. One thing that could work is the establishment of living wages across global supply chains. This would increase the price of labour in the global south, which in turn would limit some of the downward pressures that poverty wages here exert upon global north workers’ pay and conditions. </p>
<p>Doubling the wages of Mexican sweatshop workers would increase the cost of clothes sold in the US <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cje/article/28/2/153/1681263/Global-apparel-production-and-sweatshop-labour-can">by only 1.8%</a>. Increasing them ten-fold would raise costs by 18%. That cost increase can either be borne by northern consumers, who are themselves increasingly suffering from the wage-depressing dynamics of globalisation, or by reducing, only slightly, outsourcing firms’ profits. The outcome depends on politics and an understanding from voters that the dynamics that pushed towards Brexit and Trump are rooted in the systemic dynamics of corporate-driven globalisation. Contrary to its supporters claims, this mode of human development is based upon the degradation of labour worldwide. </p>
<p>The key question here is whether companies can be convinced to raise, significantly, their workers’ wages? Given capitalism’s cut-throat competitive dynamics, probably not right now. But there are many workers’ organisations toiling to achieve such objectives across the globe. Recognising that success in these struggles would contribute to improving the conditions for workers in the global north is a small, but necessary, first step towards realising these goals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63228/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Selwyn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In work poverty is a sign the icy tide of capitalism is now lapping at our ankles in the global north.Benjamin Selwyn, Professor of International Relations and International Develpoment and Director of the Centre for Global Political Economy, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/600712016-07-06T03:36:59Z2016-07-06T03:36:59ZLeave for surrogate parents in South Africa: no time for baby steps<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129411/original/image-20160705-793-19vf7xp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A proposed new law is set to allow surrogate parents in South Africa to also take leave to care for their babies.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>South Africa took a progressive step by legitimising surrogate parenthood with its <a href="http://www.justice.gov.za/legislation/acts/2005-038%20childrensact.pdf">Children’s Act</a>. However, it somehow failed to provide for leave from work for the concerned parents to care for their infants.</p>
<p>This could change if the <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/39448_1174.pdf">Labour Laws Amendment Bill</a> of 2015 is accepted.
The Bill proposes amendments to South Africa’s <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/downloads/legislation/acts/basic-conditions-of-employment/Amended%20Act%20-%20Basic%20Conditions%20of%20Employment.pdf">Basic Conditions of Employment Act</a>, which regulates various types of leave. </p>
<p>Although the Bill is welcomed, there are a number of concerns pertaining to the duration and management of the various types of proposed leave that need to be urgently addressed – especially concerning the best interests of the child. </p>
<h2>Dawn of a new era</h2>
<p>Surrogate parenthood arises where one or two commissioning parents (the parties who enter into a surrogate motherhood agreement with a surrogate mother) agree with another woman to carry a child for them, as they are medically incapable of doing so themselves. </p>
<p>The Children’s Act stipulates that after the birth of the child, the commissioning parties will become the legal parents of that child. The surrogate mother must hand over the child as soon as reasonably possible.</p>
<p>The surrogacy agreement is controlled by the high courts and needs to meet certain requirements. These include, among others, consent by all the parties, the use of the gametes of one or both of the commissioning parents, and that they should be unable to produce a child themselves. The requirements furthermore guard against commercial surrogacy and other prohibited practices.</p>
<p>A shortcoming exists in the law. Although the commissioning parents receive their newborns shortly after birth, they do not have access to particular leave from work to fulfil their parental obligations, like natural parents would. </p>
<p>This failure led to an important Labour Court <a href="http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZALCD/2015/20.html">decision </a>in 2015. The matter involved a male employee in a same-sex civil union who had applied for maternity leave as his only recourse to properly care for the newborn that had been born to him and his partner through a surrogate agreement. </p>
<p>The employer denied him such leave, arguing that it applied only to pregnant, female employees. The employee claimed unfair discrimination based on gender, sex, sexual orientation and family responsibility.</p>
<p>After arguing that there was no reason why “someone in the position of the applicant” could not also receive “maternity leave” to serve the interests of the child, the Labour Court mentioned in passing that amendments to current labour legislation would be necessary to appropriately address similar situations by specifically catering for commissioning parents.</p>
<h2>South Africa’s leave regime</h2>
<p>From the various types of leave available in terms of South Africa’s <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/downloads/legislation/acts/basic-conditions-of-employment/Amended%20Act%20-%20Basic%20Conditions%20of%20Employment.pdf">Basic Conditions of Employment Act</a>, only two are arguably relevant to surrogacy: maternity and family responsibility leave. </p>
<p>However, maternity leave of four months (16 weeks) is only available to pregnant employees to protect the health of both the mother and child before and after birth. The International Labour Organisation <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_242615.pdf">supports this notion</a>. We submit that maternity leave is not accessible to parents in terms of a surrogacy agreement, given that they do not meet the requirements.</p>
<p>Maternity leave will naturally be available to a surrogate mother who bears the child, as she qualifies as a pregnant employee. We argue that, similarly to circumstances of a miscarriage or stillbirth noted in the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, the mother should only be entitled to six weeks statutory leave <a href="http://www.labour.gov.za/DOL/legislation/acts/basic-conditions-of-employment/read-online/amended-basic-conditions-of-employment-act-21">after the birth</a>. In addition, provisions should nevertheless be made for the possibility that she could use the full maternity leave period if she could provide a medical certificate to support the necessity of extended leave beyond the statutory six weeks. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129404/original/image-20160705-795-1bb8p11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129404/original/image-20160705-795-1bb8p11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129404/original/image-20160705-795-1bb8p11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129404/original/image-20160705-795-1bb8p11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129404/original/image-20160705-795-1bb8p11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129404/original/image-20160705-795-1bb8p11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129404/original/image-20160705-795-1bb8p11.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mothers-to-be at an ante-natal class.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Family responsibility leave, on the other hand, also provides for employees to take leave at the birth of their children in terms of the Act. This type of leave is not gender specific or based upon any health reasons. It can consequently be used by anyone who is the <a href="http://www.labourguide.co.za/conditions-of-employment/343-family-responsibility-leave">legal parent of the child</a>.</p>
<p>In light of the scope of family responsibility leave, the conclusion can be reached that this type of leave will be the only form of recourse that exists for the commissioning parents. Unfortunately the period of leave available in these circumstances only amounts to a period of three days. </p>
<p>Needless to say, the duration of this leave is insufficient to meet the needs of the commissioning parents to care for the child. This gives rise to concern, as commissioning parents have the same parental obligations as traditional parents towards their child. The need for legislative reform can therefore not be denied.</p>
<p>In light of the shortcoming identified by the Labour Court, the <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/39448_1174.pdf">recent Bill</a> proposes ten weeks of leave for one commissioning parent. It also proposes another ten days ordinary parental leave to the other parent, to be taken from the date of birth of the child.</p>
<p>It is deduced that this leave will be unpaid as the Bill provides, in the proposed section 26, for unemployment benefits to be claimed in terms of the <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/39448_1174.pdf">Unemployment Insurance Act</a>. It is argued that the disparity between maternity, commissioning and ordinary parental leave could open the door to possible claims of unfair discrimination. The periods proposed could also be extended to serve the best interests of the child during the early development stages.</p>
<h2>Lessons from the UK</h2>
<p>Legal developments in the UK regarding surrogacy provide the best guidance for improving the proposed South African law. The UK law protects all the relevant parties in a surrogacy agreement, including the affected children.</p>
<p>The UK’s <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/6/contents/enacted">Children and Families Act</a>, together with the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2014/9780111118856/contents">Shared Parental Leave Regulations</a>, brought about significant changes to the country’s labour market by expressly providing shared parental leave to employees who become parents in terms of a surrogacy agreement. </p>
<p>After obtaining a parental order, one commissioning parent qualifies for statutory adoption leave. Should the parent decide not to make use of the full leave period, he or she may transfer the remainder of the leave to the other parent – hence the term “shared parental leave”. One of the key aims of making leave available to both parents, despite their gender, was to enable working parents to equally share in the care of their children.</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>Even though the conclusion of surrogacy agreements is acknowledged and regulated in South Africa, the country is lagging behind in addressing surrogacy-related issues in the labour market. Proper legislative intervention is needed to keep track of the changing values of society.</p>
<p>Similar practices to that of the UK in sharing available leave between the parties to a surrogate agreement could be adopted to address the issues above. This would consequently guard against falling behind on issues that are critical to the interest of parents and their children, irrespective of how they were born.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60071/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South African law requires surrogate mothers to hand infants to their legal parents without undue delay. But it doesn’t provide leave for these parents to care for their infants. That is set to change.Anri Botes, Senior Lecturer in Labour Law, North-West UniversityLaetitia Fourie, Lecturer in Mercantile Law, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/577062016-04-14T09:34:58Z2016-04-14T09:34:58ZAre France’s #NuitDebout protests the start of a new political movement?<p>It’s a familiar script for anyone who knows recent French history: the government rolls out a reform, citizens react with outrage, and Paris is filled with demonstrations and strikes. </p>
<p>The current turmoil began in March, when President François Hollande proposed reworking the country’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/09/end-of-term-protests-threaten-francois-hollande-labour-legacy">labour code</a>. Known as the “El Khomri law” after the minister responsible, Myriam El Khomri, the reform shares some elements with earlier attempts – including providing companies with more flexibility in hiring and firing – but the results have been the same: widespread resistance.</p>
<p>This started with an <a href="https://www.change.org/p/loi-travail-non-merci-myriamelkhomri-loitravailnonmerci">online petition</a> that gathered more than a million signatures in two weeks, and has since shifted into the public realm. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/08/nuit-debout-protesters-occupy-french-cities-in-a-revolutionary-call-for-change">Thousands</a> of protestors have occupied the city’s Place de la République with all-night meetings and debates, and the protest is now known as “<em>Nuit Debout</em>” (roughly, “standing up all night”). </p>
<p>The ambition is to create a shared space that allows citizens to exchange stories, express shared outrage, and imagine a better world. Recently, the movement has spread beyond Paris to <a href="http://www.nicematin.com/index.php/politique/les-visages-de-la-contestation-du-mouvement-nuit-debout-a-nice-40449">Nice</a>, <a href="http://www.sudouest.fr/2016/04/11/le-pari-des-citoyens-noctambules-2327158-2780.php">Bordeaux</a> and <a href="https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/france/060416/lyon-une-nuit-debout-est-improvisee-sous-un-pont">Lyon</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"719976231891034112"}"></div></p>
<p>In early 2006, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/16/AR2006031601908.html">similar protests</a> broke out in France against a proposed “first-hire contract”. Students, unions and left-wing political parties united against the proposed contract, and after months of protests, then-prime minister Dominique de Villepin <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/85c031e6-c8f7-11da-b642-0000779e2340.html">abandoned the idea</a>.</p>
<p>In <em>Nuit Debout</em> key roles have been played by author, filmmaker and activist François Ruffin, whose film <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/arts/international/the-film-merci-patron-emerges-as-a-rallying-cry-in-france.html">Merci Patron!</a> has been a touchstone for the protesters, and economist Frédéric Lordon. There are echoes of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/sep/19/occupy-wall-street-financial-system">Occupy Wall Street</a> and Spain’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/28/spain-indignados-protests-state-of-mind"><em>indignados</em></a> (“the outraged”). In Spain, the protest movement gave rise to the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/31/podemos-revolution-radical-academics-changed-european-politics">political party Podemos</a>, which made significant gains in the December 2015 election and is now playing a key role in the negotiations to <a href="https://theconversation.com/just-a-reminder-that-spain-still-doesnt-have-a-government-55884">form a national government</a>.</p>
<p>And as the protests have grown in France, supporters have gone beyond the initial objective of forcing the withdrawal of the labour law, as happened in 2006, to the idea of launching a wider political movement.</p>
<h2>The law that started it all</h2>
<p>Of course, simple frustration isn’t enough to launch a mass mobilisation – a trigger is needed. The proposed labour reform allowed the protests to spread beyond the core group of <a href="https://theconversation.com/qui-sont-les-organisations-etudiantes-quel-est-leur-role-et-qui-representent-elles-56311">high-school students</a>, activists and labour unions, and to gain visibility in the mass media. The law also provided the framework for a regular series of demonstrations, allowing the movement to establish a cohesive form. As <a href="http://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/actualite-economique/frederic-lordon-l-economiste-qui-dit-merci-a-la-loi-el-khomri_1779193.html">Frédéric Lordon said</a> during the first <em>Nuit Debout</em> on March 31:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We will never be able to sufficiently thank the El Khomri law for having woken us from our political slumber.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What distinguishes social movements from mere protests is that they have a larger purpose, not one specific demand. From the first meetings of university and high school students on March 9, the El Khomri law served as an opportunity to express general indignation. In protest leaflets, students called for resistance “against government policy” rather than just this one bill. During marches, protesters expressed their disappointment with the political left in general and the ruling Socialist Party in particular.</p>
<h2>Standing up to the elites</h2>
<p>The students denounced the collusion between the country’s political and economic elites, much like the Occupy movements that swept the world in 2011. They joined many activists, intellectuals, and progressive politicians from the “left of the left”, a political movement that forced a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/16/french-prime-minister-vote-of-confidence-parliament">vote of confidence</a> against Prime Minister Manuel Valls in 2014.</p>
<p>The lack of viable political alternatives in France makes it a particularly favourable time to mobilise outrage and propose a more participatory democracy, centred around the people. French citizens no longer identify with national and European political elites. The system appears to them to be “democracy without choice”, where voting for either the left-wing Socialist Party or the right-wing Republicans barely changes the government’s social and economic policies.</p>
<p>Debates over finance minister Emmanuel Macron’s <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/11/business/france-labor-market-jobs-unemployment.html">economic programme</a> (passed only with a manoeuvre that sidestepped a parliamentary vote) only strengthened this conviction. As did the failed proposed constitutional amendment to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/30/francois-hollande-drops-plan-to-revoke-citizenship-of-dual-national-terrorists">strip French citizenship</a> from convicted terrorists with dual nationality.</p>
<p>With disappointment in the government widespread, and established leftist movements such as the Green Party and the <em>Front de Gauche</em> torn by internal dissent, the only option for progressive citizens has been to express disapproval and build “another policy” from the streets. In <em>Nuit Debout</em>, as in the Occupy camps, it has all been about “getting our act together as citizens” to question the relevance of representative democracy.</p>
<h2>A youth with no future?</h2>
<p>During the events on the Place de la République and on social networks (<em><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23OnVautMieuxQueCa&src=typd">#OnVautMieuxQueCa</a></em>, <em><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NuitDebout?src=hash">#NuitDebout</a></em>, <em><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=loitravail&src=typd">#LoiTravail</a></em>, <em><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/32mars">#32mars</a></em>), young people express their fears of being “deprived of their future”.</p>
<p>If Occupy, the <em>indignados</em> and <em>Nuit Debout</em> aren’t specifically youth movements, young people are the driving force behind them. Through these demonstrations, they affirm and express themselves as individuals, as a force for democracy, willing to re-imagine the world. This all-encompassing desire can be seen embodied in a <a href="https://twitter.com/marillerpat/status/706267757965344768">single tweet</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We need to think of tomorrow’s society, with humanism, freedom, equality, fraternity.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Where next?</h2>
<p>So will <em>Nuit Debout</em> fizzle like Occupy or follow the same path as <em>Los Indignados</em>, which sparked political change in Spain? </p>
<p>While both movements refused to engage in the electoral process, some of their activists chose to do so. The campaigns of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/jeremy-corbyn">Jeremy Corbyn</a>, elected to the head of the British Labour Party in 2015, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/bernie-sanders">Bernie Sanders</a>, currently running against Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee for US president, have been empowered by young activists angry and frustrated with politics as usual. </p>
<p>The rise of the Podemos political party in Spain was both the continuation and inversion of the <em>indignados</em> movement: it showed that political change is possible, but only by moving from <a href="http://www.laviedesidees.fr/Espagne-de-l-indignation-a-l-organisation.html">indignation to organisation</a>. To do so, Pablo Iglesias, secretary-general of Podemos since 2014, betrayed certain core values of the <em>indignados</em>, including its leaderless structure and the requirement that decisions be made by the largest possible number of participants.</p>
<p>While <em>Nuit Debout</em> borrows some of the Spanish movement’s codes, the political situation in France and Europe is quite different from 2011, with the rise of far-right parties and security concerns. <em>Nuit Debout’s</em> centre on the Place de la République is where the huge public memorials were held after <em>Charlie Hebdo</em> and the November 13 attacks. Some politicians, including former prime minister and presidential candidate François Fillon, have criticised the movement as being a <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2016/04/10/francois-fillon-critique-le-mouvement-nuit-debout-tolere-en-plein-etat-d-urgence_4899572_823448.html">security risk</a>. </p>
<p>With France’s recently extended <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/22/france-considers-extending-national-state-of-emergency">state of emergency</a>, authorities haven’t just targeted potential terrorists. Muslims and young people are regularly brutalised by the police, and some student demonstrations have been <a href="http://www.liberation.fr/france/2016/04/05/un-policier-m-a-dit-que-ca-lui-faisait-plaisir-de-nous-matraquer_1444126">violently suppressed</a>.</p>
<p>The <em>Nuit Debout</em> movement in France will have to find its own way forward, building on both the successes and the limitations of its predecessors. Without predicting what its future may be, bringing together thousands of citizens of all generations to reaffirm that “another world is possible” – that there are progressive alternatives centred on democracy, social justice and dignity – is already a huge success.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Leighton Walter Kille.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Pleyers is president of the "social movements" research committee of the International Association of Sociology.</span></em></p>Proposed labour reforms in France have sparked mass protests led by young people who want to reclaim democracy from the elite.Geoffrey Pleyers, Sociologue, FNRS-Université de Louvain & Collège d’études mondiales, Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/562122016-03-23T03:33:46Z2016-03-23T03:33:46ZFactCheck: has the level of casual employment in Australia stayed steady for the past 18 years?<blockquote>
<p>While many different views will be expressed about the benefits of increasing or reducing flexibility to engage casuals, one indisputable fact is that the level of casual employment has not increased in Australia for the past 18 years. ABS statistics show that it remains at 20% of the workforce, the same level as it was in 1998. – <strong>Australian Industry Group (Ai Group), <a href="http://www.aigroup.com.au/portal/site/aig/template.MAXIMIZE/mediacentre/?javax.portlet.tpst=0328197f3ace113a24afbc100141a0a0_ws_MX&javax.portlet.prp_0328197f3ace113a24afbc100141a0a0=index%3D1%26docName%3DHEARINGS%2BIN%2BFWC%2BCASUAL%2BEMPLOYMENT%2BCASE%2BSTART%2BON%2BMONDAY%2B-%2BUNION%2BASSERTIONS%2BOF%2BINCREASED%2BCASUALISATION%2BARE%2BA%2BMYTH%26folderPath%3D%252FLIVE_CONTENT%252FMedia%2BReleases%252F2016%252FMarch%252F%26viewID%3Dcontent&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken">media release</a>, March 13, 2016</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Changing work patterns are back in the headlines, with unions calling on the <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/awards-and-agreements/modern-award-reviews/4-yearly-review/am2014197-casual-employment">Fair Work Commission</a> to consider new rules to <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/battle-begins-over-demands-to-make-casual-workers-permanent-20160314-gnie0p.html#ixzz43D64IETN">convert casual employees into permanent staff after six months</a> of working for the same employer. </p>
<p>The Australian Industry Group (Ai Group), which represents employers, has argued against the move, saying that the level of casual employment has not increased in Australia for the past 18 years.</p>
<p>Is that right?</p>
<h2>Checking forms of employment data</h2>
<p>When asked for a source to support the assertion, a spokesperson for the Ai Group referred The Conversation to a document the group produced using a mix of data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The document, titled <a href="http://www.aigroup.com.au/portal/binary/com.epicentric.contentmanagement.servlet.ContentDeliveryServlet/LIVE_CONTENT/Economic%2520Indicators/Fact%2520Sheets/2016/casual_employment_factsheet_Mar_2016_version_3.pdf">Casual employment in Australia: numbers and trends</a>, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In August 1998, the ABS identified 1,681,700 people as casual employees, or 20.1% of the workforce.</p>
<p>In November 2015, the ABS identified 2,396,500 people as casual employees, or 20.1% of the workforce. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The ABS, however, does not calculate a specific “casualisation” rate. Rather, the casual employment share has to be inferred from data on the proportion of employees (excluding business owner managers) who don’t get paid annual leave and sick leave entitlements. This is a commonly used proxy measure of casual employment.</p>
<p>In its <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/sites/awardsmodernfouryr/common/AM2014196-197-sub-AiG-290216.pdf">submission</a> to the Fair Work Commission, the Ai Group refers to the ABS <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6359.0">Forms of Employment Survey</a>. That survey, a supplement to the monthly Labour Force Survey, was held every few years between 1998 and 2013.</p>
<p>It showed that, in 1998, <a href="http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/88468976D148255ECA2570050078FAEE/$File/63590_nov%202004.pdf">the share of all employed persons who were employees without paid leave entitlements was 20.1%</a>.</p>
<p>ABS release number 6105.0, <a href="http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/6F92017D0B6FD2B3CA256F1F007313B9/$File/61050_oct%202004.pdf">Australian Labour Market Statistics</a>, also looks at the proportion of employed people who are employees without paid leave entitlements. The October 2004 release for that data set has the figure at about 19.8% for 1998.</p>
<p>The most recent <a href="http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/250E534BC4602DA9CA257CD000283290/$File/63590_november%202013.pdf">Forms of Employment Survey data available</a>, from November 2013, estimated that 19.4% of all employed people were employees without paid leave entitlements.</p>
<p>And what happened to the casual employment rate between 1998, when the Forms of Employment Survey began, and 2013 when it ended? The short answer is not much; it hovered around 19% or 20% throughout this period.</p>
<p>In other words, the ABS Forms of Employment Survey data support Ai Group’s assertion that the rate of casual employment has remained stable in recent years.</p>
<h2>Checking more recent data</h2>
<p>The ABS stopped doing the Forms of Employment Survey in 2013, but it has long collected data on the presence of paid leave entitlements in the August month of the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0">Labour Force Survey</a>.</p>
<p>These numbers are now published in spreadsheets as part of the detailed quarterly release of Labour Force Survey data.</p>
<p>According to the most recent estimates, for November 2015, there are 2,396,500 employees without paid entitlements. Given a total pool of 11,919,100, that implies a casual employment share of 20.1%. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/hilda/">Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey</a>, which commenced in 2001, also asks its respondents about whether they receive paid sick leave and paid annual leave. In addition, HILDA respondents are asked whether they would describe their employment arrangements in their main job as casual.</p>
<p>On both measures, the HILDA Survey data show a rise in the share of casual employment in total employment between 2010 and 2014 – however, it is still no higher in 2014 than it was in 2001. </p>
<p>Indeed, the casual employment shares are both about half a percentage point lower in 2014 than in 2001.</p>
<h2>Casual work is more pervasive than in the past</h2>
<p>But surely casual employment is much more pervasive now than in the past? </p>
<p>This is true, but all of the growth occurred prior to the late 1990s.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the earliest data we have only goes back to 1984 (which labour market academics Peter Dawkins and Keith Norris wrote about in their paper <a href="http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/nils-files/publications/abl/ABL%20Archive%20(vol%201-20).pdf">Casual employment in Australia</a>, published by the <a href="http://www.flinders.edu.au/sabs/nils/publications/australian-bulletin-of-labour/">Australian Bulletin of Labour</a> in 1990).</p>
<p>But the data we do have show that the casual employment share grew by a whopping 70% between 1984 and 1998; since that time it has fluctuated around the 20% mark. </p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>The Ai Group is correct. Its assertion that the level of casual employment has not increased in Australia for the past 18 years is supported by ABS data. <strong>– Mark Wooden</strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This is a fair analysis. The overall trend is that the share of casual employment in Australia has remained relatively stable since the late 1990s. <strong>– Sue Richardson</strong></p>
<hr>
<p><div class="callout"> Have you ever seen a “fact” worth checking? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56212/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Wooden receives funding from the Australian Research Council Grant. He also directs the HILDA Survey project, which is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sue Richardson receives funding from the ARC, the NHMRC and from commissioned consulting work via the National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University. </span></em></p>The Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) said that casual employment has not increased in Australia for the past 18 years. Is that right?Mark Wooden, Professorial Fellow, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.