tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/working-conditions-5930/articlesworking conditions – The Conversation2023-12-27T20:26:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170892023-12-27T20:26:40Z2023-12-27T20:26:40Z‘You don’t know why they’re filming or what they’ll do with it’: flight attendants on being unwilling stars of viral videos<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558501/original/file-20231108-25-e7lp2r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C47%2C7951%2C5249&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/cabin-crew-air-hostess-working-airplane-2068194518">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As any frequent social media user knows, airline passengers often record and post in-flight incidents – from frightening turbulence to unruly members of the public.</p>
<p>Often, these viral videos feature flight attendants just trying to do their duties, while being filmed without their consent. </p>
<p>These videos usually portray flight attendants either as heroes effortlessly managing difficult passengers or “villains” accused of being rude and unprofessional. Either way, the trend is emerging as an industrial issue, with unions arcing up about it and airlines bringing in new rules aimed at curbing the practice.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/qantas-wont-like-it-but-australian-travellers-could-be-about-to-get-a-better-deal-on-flights-214718">Qantas won't like it, but Australian travellers could be about to get a better deal on flights</a>
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<h2>Unkind comments about appearance and age</h2>
<p>Going to work knowing that at any moment you may become the unwilling star of a viral video can exact a considerable toll on the wellbeing of flight attendants. </p>
<p>I (Liz Simmons) speak daily with flight attendants in Australia and abroad as part of my PhD research. From these discussions, I’ve heard from attendants who worry often about discovering videos of themselves featuring unkind comments about their appearance, age or employer.</p>
<p>One flight attendant, Kate*, described the disconcerting feeling of someone aiming a smartphone camera at her while she was simply trying to do her job, saying:</p>
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<p>You don’t know why they’re filming or what they’ll do with it. </p>
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<p>Marie spoke of being featured in a TikTok video during a safety demonstration, with viewers making fun of her appearance. </p>
<p>Charlotte, after refusing to serve more alcohol to an intoxicated passenger, had a camera thrust in her face, accompanied by threats to her job. </p>
<p>Mark told of how uncomfortable he felt having to ask a passenger to stop taking photos of the crew during service.</p>
<p>These personal accounts illustrate the <a href="https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/health-safety/flight-attendant-reveals-creepy-passenger-behaviour/news-story/3b2b1ad25f758e24ef37b74794684ea6">distress</a> flight attendants can experience when being filmed or photographed without their knowledge.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558502/original/file-20231108-19-x0238w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A flight attendant directs passengers to the nearest available exits." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558502/original/file-20231108-19-x0238w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/558502/original/file-20231108-19-x0238w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558502/original/file-20231108-19-x0238w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558502/original/file-20231108-19-x0238w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558502/original/file-20231108-19-x0238w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558502/original/file-20231108-19-x0238w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/558502/original/file-20231108-19-x0238w.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">Imagine going to work knowing that, at any moment, you may become the unwilling star of a viral video.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/plane-worker-conduct-safety-instruction-people-1992757586">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>A broader industrial issue</h2>
<p>This issue is drawing the attention of policymakers, airlines and the unions that represent flight attendants.</p>
<p>Japan recently introduced <a href="https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/crime-courts/20230408-102309/">laws</a> aimed at curbing sneak photography in a range of settings, which may be used to prevent passengers voyeuristically filming flight attendants. <a href="https://mondortiz.com/japan-flight-attendants-call-for-action-versus-stolen-photo-taking/">Research</a> by Japan’s aviation workers union found that about 70% of the 1,573 flight attendants surveyed believed they’d had their pictures taken surreptitiously while they were working.</p>
<p>Passengers have been arrested in <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/crime-in-israel/article-748799">Turkey</a> and <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-3554181/IndiGo-passenger-arrested-recording-video-flight-attendants.html">India</a> after unauthorised filming. </p>
<p>And flight attendant unions in <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/03/09/national/crime-legal/flight-attendant-photo/">Japan</a>, <a href="https://www.thestandard.com.hk/breaking-news/section/4/204104/Union-says-flight-attendants-can-ask-passengers-to-delete-photos-and-videos-taken-without-consent">Hong Kong</a> and <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/news/300750512/why-you-shouldnt-film-your-cabin-crew">Australia</a> have voiced concerns about the issue.</p>
<p>Of course, videos can occasionally play a crucial role in understanding what transpired during an <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/passenger-assault-attendant-detained-fbi-american-airlines-mexico-cabo-rcna48884">in-flight incident</a>, and flight attendants themselves can also be found on social media sharing their stories, consenting to the video. But many videos still feature airline staff simply going about their job (while being filmed, without their consent).</p>
<h2>Unclear rules</h2>
<p>News <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/reviews-and-advice/why-you-shouldnt-film-your-cabin-crew-20221122-h2813d.html">reports</a> suggest staff aboard Dutch carrier KLM “now commonly make an announcement during the safety briefing asking passengers not to take photos of any crew members.”</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.klm.com.au/information/legal/conditions-carriage">rules</a> on the KLM website are less clear, saying only that </p>
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<p>Recording videos and/or taking photographs other than personal videos and photographs is prohibited on board the aircraft.</p>
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<p>Virgin Australia’s rules state anyone travelling on their planes must</p>
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<p>use cameras or photographic devices (including mobile phones) for personal use only. You must comply with the directions of flight crew when using cameras or photographic devices while on board.</p>
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<p>In November 2023, Qantas introduced new <a href="https://www.qantas.com/au/en/book-a-trip/flights/conditions-of-carriage.html#conduct-during-flight">rules</a> requiring passengers to</p>
<blockquote>
<p>seek consent before filming or photographing Qantas Group staff, contractors or other customers. </p>
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<p>This is a start. For most airlines, however, there is a notable absence of clear guidelines against recording and publishing footage of flight attendants in their workplace. The existing rules are often buried in the fine print of terms and conditions, which few passengers take the time to read. This underscores the necessity for airlines to reconsider how these restrictions are communicated to passengers. </p>
<p>Looking ahead, it may be timely for more airlines to establish clearer rules on filming cabin crew while they work. There should be an acknowledgement that unsolicited filming is frequently unfair, invasive and distressing. Developing a framework to enforce these provisions and enhancing communication about these rules would help inform passengers about how to respect the privacy and comfort of flight attendants in their workplace. </p>
<p><em>* All names have been changed to protect identities.</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-air-turbulence-196872">What is air turbulence?</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Simmons is a member of the Griffith Institute For Tourism (GIFT), and a member of the Australian Aviation Psychology Association (AAvPA). She was an Australian-based cabin crew from 2004-2021, and during that time was a financial member of the Flight Attendant's Association of Australia (FAAA).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rawan Nimri is a current member of the Griffith Institute For Tourism (GIFT).
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gui Lohmann 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>Unions are arcing up about cabin crew being filmed without consent during flights. Some airlines have brought in new rules aimed at curbing the practice.Liz Simmons, PhD Candidate, Griffith UniversityGui Lohmann, Professor in Air Transport and Tourism Management, Griffith UniversityRawan Nimri, Lecturer in Tourism and Hospitality, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2195362023-12-18T12:08:46Z2023-12-18T12:08:46ZStrikes: when companies collaborate with unions, industrial action can benefit business<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565537/original/file-20231213-21-74z8oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C13%2C4511%2C3003&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/london-uk-june-24-2022-passengers-2171150547">Nigel J. Harris/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More than 4 million working days <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/bbfw/lms">have been lost</a> to industrial action in the UK in 2023. This is more than at any point since 1989 and around nine times more than the yearly average of 450,000 days in the 2010s. </p>
<p>This is level of activity is particularly high given the lower union membership levels at the moment – <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/646dcc477dd6e7000ca9b289/Trade_Union_Membership_UK_1995-2022_Statistical_Bulletin.pdf">22% of workers</a> were in a union in 2022, compared to 39% in 1989. But the uptick in industrial disputes has happened across a wide range of professions in which people are concerned about stagnating pay and conditions.</p>
<p>Indeed, the cost of living crisis has certainly been a key factor, but it’s not the only thing driving industrial activity at the moment. Supply and demand for labour <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment">has also changed</a>, with workers feeling more empowered to fight for improved working conditions. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly then, a number of strikes have already been <a href="https://www.strikecalendar.co.uk/">planned for 2024</a> and more workers could be balloted if these disputes are not resolved. It’s possible for organisations and their employees to collaborate to avoid protracted disputes – in fact collective labour movements can actually benefit companies by boosting employee wellbeing and motivation.</p>
<p>On the other hand, new legislation designed to diminish the effects of industrial action could weigh on workers’ enthusiasm for it. Policymakers and the judiciary have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24421680?casa_token=KuFaSFXhZRAAAAAA%3AT4tQmpCn1nypRxokLooWSWH0L-uY85qFZC469Scf_G8lE09VtxX2YWFdcCovzwDpdjfpdtN9PcgDjD7kls4Svz_RnPuwfrNGjky0h928guo9TTDJ-ss">a long history</a> of trying to curtail <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1945071">the collective labour movement</a>.</p>
<p>The latest attempt, the <a href="https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3396">Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023</a>, is designed to reduce the amount of industrial action and limit disruption to the general public. It will require employers to provide the union with a written “work notice”, which is formal notification of levels of service needed during a strike. Rail workers will be expected to ensure at least 40% of trains run, for example.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/strikes-bill-could-breach-uk-workers-human-rights-and-expose-the-government-to-legal-challenges-200685">Strikes bill could breach UK workers' human rights and expose the government to legal challenges</a>
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<p>The government passed this act to ensure that the public can continue to access services they rely on during strike action. Most European countries have had some form of minimum service level regime for many years and organisations such as the UN’s <a href="https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:70002:0::NO::P70002_HIER_ELEMENT_ID,P70002_HIER_LEVEL:3945998,2#:%7E:text=Minimum%20service%20should%20be%20restricted,not%20render%20the%20strike%20ineffective.">International Labour Organization</a> (ILO) have recognised that such approaches can be an appropriate way of balancing the ability to strike with the rights of the wider public.</p>
<h2>Preparing for minimum service levels</h2>
<p>Once minimum service levels have been set and are in force, employers will need to decide on the staffing resources required to meet them. They will also need to create procedures for issuing <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/minimum-service-levels-msl-issuing-work-notices/minimum-service-levels-issuing-work-notices-a-guide-for-employers-trade-unions-and-workers">work notices</a> to relevant trade unions. This must specify the people required to work and what needs to be carried out during the strike, after consultation with the relevant trade unions. Employers will also need to understand and monitor whether trade unions take proper responsibility for ensuring the relevant people comply with a work notice. </p>
<p>HR departments will need to implement contingency planning for periods of industrial action. Some organisations, such as the <a href="https://www.nhsemployers.org/publications/managing-industrial-action">NHS</a>, have already set out plans to manage strike action. </p>
<p>Employers can’t plug staffing gaps caused by strikes with <a href="https://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/content/news/employers-could-use-agency-staff-during-strikes-following-new-consultation/">agency workers</a>. But HR departments can reassign existing staff to do the jobs of striking workers. These non-striking staff can be temporarily replaced by agency workers if necessary, as long as the employer has the contractual right to do so or has gotten the employee’s consent beforehand.</p>
<p>Encouraging senior management to provide temporary cover is also a common approach. This can be viewed positively by other workers, as well as helping prevent further disruption to business operations. Once industrial action ceases, employers are then able to use agency workers to help clear backlogs.</p>
<h2>Wider benefits of industrial action</h2>
<p>While policymakers clearly think legislation is needed to deter industrial action and curb its impact on peoples’ lives, collective labour movements can also have benefits for businesses.</p>
<p>Once a strike is over, provided it was settled amicably, companies sometimes see a <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/ielapa.078391466098123">productivity bounce</a>. Industrial action can have a profound and positive psychological effect on workers who feel they have re-established control over their working life. </p>
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<img alt="Group of people at a conference table talking, relaxed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565546/original/file-20231213-21-kjm7hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565546/original/file-20231213-21-kjm7hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565546/original/file-20231213-21-kjm7hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565546/original/file-20231213-21-kjm7hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565546/original/file-20231213-21-kjm7hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565546/original/file-20231213-21-kjm7hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565546/original/file-20231213-21-kjm7hu.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">
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<span class="caption">Working with union representatives can help businesses support employee wellbeing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-mature-businessman-attending-meeting-his-2055147128">Jacob Lund/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>More generally, working with trade unions can not only avoid action in the first place, it can actually <a href="https://www.tuc.org.uk/added-value-trade-unions">benefit the workplace</a>. Boosting pay, improving training and striking a better work-life balance helps maintain a stable workforce and can increase motivation and innovation by employees. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cipd.org/uk/the-people-profession/careers/roles/employee-relations/#:%7E:text=Employee%20relations%20specialists%20play%20a,help%20develop%20effective%20people%20practices.">Employment relations specialists</a> have become a dying breed in recent decades due to the rise of a more <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/00483480910977992/full/html">“unitarist” approach to industrial relations</a>. This theory assumes compatible goals, a common purpose and a single (unitary) interest shared by an organisation and its employees. If this interest is managed effectively, the organisation will function harmoniously and avoid conflict, particularly industrial action.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk-strikes-why-the-government-must-start-mediating-talks-according-to-negotiation-experts-196403">UK strikes: why the government must start mediating talks, according to negotiation experts</a>
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<p>Indeed, research shows the benefits of a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09585192.2012.667429">more “pluralistic” approach</a>, in which employers and trade unions acknowledge their <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265752824_Employment_Relations_Integrating_Industrial_Relations_and_Human_Resource_Management">strategic relationship</a> and continually discuss working conditions in a clear and transparent way. This can help head off disputes before they happen. For example, the <a href="https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/bank-of-england-heads-off-strike-action-despite-below-inflation-pay-hike-20230125">Bank of England</a> prevented strike action in 2023 by agreeing to a 3.5% pay rise for its 4,200 staff, as well as a 1% salary top-up (which benefited the lowest paid in its ranks the most) and a 1% benefits uplift that could be taken in cash.</p>
<p>Minimum service levels may affect people’s appetite for prolonged industrial action in 2024, but <a href="https://www.strikecalendar.co.uk">there are already strikes planned for the new year</a>. Companies should communicate positively with their employees so that disputes do not become protracted like they have done over the last 18 months. </p>
<p>It’s possible to defuse a strike by understanding the other party’s perspective and avoiding extreme demands. In many cases, simply bridging the worker-management divide could help provide employees with the information and support they need to feel comfortable that they’re getting fair pay and conditions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219536/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Lord 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>It’s been a big year for industrial action but what’s in store for 2024?Jonathan Lord, Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Employment Law, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2021782023-11-05T18:15:02Z2023-11-05T18:15:02ZTwo faces of dignity: a Kantian perspective on Uber drivers’ fight for decent working conditions<p>On November 3, 2016, Emmanuel Macron, who had recently launched a presidential bid, mentioned what he felt was Uber’s positive role in providing work opportunities to low-income or unemployed youth (our translation and emphasis):</p>
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<p>“You go to Stains [a low-income town outside of Paris] to tell young people who are Uber drivers that it is better to loiter or deal […]. Our collective failure is that the neighbourhoods where Uber hires these young people are neighbourhoods where we haven’t managed to offer them anything else. Yes, they sometimes work 60 to 70 hours to get the minimum wage, but they return with dignity, they find a job, they put on a suit and a tie.”</p>
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<p>A year later, the perspective of many Uber drivers in Paris was quite different, as witnessed by a handout distributed by an activist group in November 2017:</p>
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<p>“You’ve been used by Uber, regain your dignity!” (“UberUsé, regagne ta dignité!”)</p>
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<h2>Dignity as work</h2>
<p>These two quotes refer to quite distinct concepts of dignity. On the one hand, French president Emmanuel Macron tells unemployed youth from low-income towns they ought to consider themselves lucky when Uber offers them the opportunity to don a suit and a tie and get behind the wheel. On the other, Uber drivers see themselves as being exploited by management and are ready to put up a fight to regain their dignity. So does Uber restore or take away workers’ dignity?</p>
<p>The French president’s notion of dignity is what some philosophers refer to as <em>social standing dignity</em>, the traditional conception (Sensen 2011). Rooted in an individual’s rank or office, it centres on the world of behavioural rules, rights and duties that surround these positions.</p>
<p>Hierarchical societies are structured through higher and lower social positions and with each one comes different ranks and different degrees of dignity. Thus, Macron contends that young people from poor areas are better off by taking on work from Uber, even if this means long hours and low wages. Here, employment is presented as the fundamental condition to social dignity.</p>
<h2>Migrant roots</h2>
<p>It is important to note that most people who take on an Uber job hail from a migrant background, sometimes stretching back to several generations. In France, these are mainly from North and Sub-Saharan Africa. As the <a href="https://www.puf.com/content/UberUs%C3%A9s">sociological research from Sophie Bernard shows</a>, most were not unemployed before. Instead, they took on unskilled, low-paying, painful, and precarious jobs – quite a different situation to trafficking drugs or loitering. They became Uber drivers to improve their condition by gaining freedom and higher wages.</p>
<p>But they soon realised they were subjected to a new form of algorithmic management and forced to work more and more to earn less and less. This form of control is exercised remotely and indirectly by algorithms that enable the quasi-automatic supervision of many workers. Drivers are rated by customers for every journey they make. All it takes is one complaint from a customer for their account to be deactivated. Uber drivers are no longer subject to hierarchical control, but rather to customer demands. Nor are they totally free to organise their working hours as they see fit. To entice drivers to work for Uber, the company first offered them bonuses and high remuneration. Once the platform has enough drivers, <a href="https://www.puf.com/content/UberUs%C3%A9s">it removes the bonuses, lowers the fares and increases the commission</a>.</p>
<p>While they thought they were improving their conditions, they found themselves once again in another job as exploited migrants. As if Macron were telling them: “We have this opportunity for you to gain your social dignity with a job that other people in our society don’t want and don’t need, but it’s good enough for you.”</p>
<h2>Kant’s concept of equal moral worth</h2>
<p>The second notion of dignity is that of human dignity, the idea that was implemented into the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and into many constitutions after the Second World War. It is expressed in Kant’s idea of equal moral worth of all human beings. In his famous <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/persons-means/"><em>Formula of Humanity</em></a> of the Categorical Imperative, Kant states:</p>
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<p>“So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.”</p>
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<p>Is that the notion Uber drivers can refer to? As we will see it is, but it needs some clarification, and Kantian philosophy has its blind spots when it comes to dignity violations. What does it mean to use someone merely as a means? Kantians think that you are used as a mere means if you cannot (reasonably) consent to the treatment of others. This is especially so if your will is manipulated by deception or coercion. According to Kant, this is addressed by the criteria of deception and coercion that manipulate or enforce consent. Now one could wonder what the problem is from a Kantian perspective, since Uber drivers took on the job willingly, as Macron emphasises.</p>
<p>And indeed, Kant did not think in categories like <em>exploitation</em>. We think that exploitation can also be understood in terms of instrumentalisation. The accusation that Uber drivers formulate: “UberUsé” refers directly to this: not to be used merely as a means to another’s purposes; not to be exploited, in the sense that platform capitalism puts you in a position where long working hours don’t give you the minimum wage, where you take all the risks for a platform that reaps all the benefits, where there’s no reasonable alternative for you and where there’s reasonable alternatives to pay you a decent wage for Uber, since their profit would allow for it. Let’s remember that while Uber defines drivers as self-employed workers who provide the platform with labour and part of the production tools, it is the platform that sets the prices and takes a commission on each trip by passing on all the risks.</p>
<p>Moreover, there is another problem, and this one cannot be captured by the Kantian prohibition of instrumentalisation. It is the unequal social positions in a hierarchical and racist society that lead to an inequality of opportunity. This goes against the Kantian requirement to treat others as ends in themselves: as persons with equal moral standing. Degradation of migrants in the form: “this job is good enough for you” contradicts that requirement. So what Uber drivers could see violated on Kantian terms is their human dignity, their equal moral standing, that would recommend to provide them with equal opportunities in the French society and not just with opportunities that are “good enough for them” because “their” social standing is already at the bottom.</p>
<p>What is striking about how Uber drivers’ striving for social dignity can be abused when it comes to exploitation of their work force. As they fight Uber’s working conditions, they are more faithful to Western Kant-induced values than Macron. The president, by contrast, offers them a glimpse of social dignity in a kind of job that keeps them in an exploitative and precarious situation. One could say in the spirit of Kant that Uber drivers show self-esteem by their protest which aims at (re)gaining their dignity. Kant states in the Doctrine of Virtue: “Do not let others tread with impunity on your rights.”</p>
<p>As <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10677-022-10288-7">Mieth and Williams argue</a>, there are wrongs beyond instrumentalisation when it comes to migration, which concern exclusion and inequality. Under the circumstances Uber drivers find themselves in, they put on a fight to express their human dignity, not their social dignity in Macron’s terms. But this human dignity implies social dignity in another sense: to be acknowledged as an equal member of society which implies equality of opportunity. So we think that Uber drivers’ fight to regain dignity is in line with Kant’s notion of human dignity. Their protest is even giving the notion of equal human dignity reality.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Corinna Mieth a reçu des financements de Fondation Maison de science de l'homme (FMSH) et du Kant-Zentrum NRW. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sophie Bernard a reçu des financements de l'Institut Universitaire de France. </span></em></p>With an eye to Kant’s work, a philosopher and a sociologist argue that the Uber project robs drivers of their dignity.Corinna Mieth, Legal and political philosopher, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (FMSH)Sophie Bernard, Sociologue, professeure des universités, Université Paris Dauphine – PSLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130222023-10-11T13:42:31Z2023-10-11T13:42:31ZMale domestic workers in South Africa – study sheds light on the experiences of Malawian and Zimbabwean migrants<p>An estimated <a href="https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/The_Thinker/article/view/2672/1644">800,000 people work as domestic workers</a> in South Africa. Most are black women from marginalised backgrounds. It’s therefore not surprising that the bulk of the literature about domestic work focuses on females performing cleaning, cooking and care work. What’s missing in debates about domestic workers’ job-related experiences and relationships with their employers is the experiences of men performing domestic work, a job traditionally linked to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24713312">femininity</a>. </p>
<p>However, paid domestic work in South Africa hasn’t always been dominated by women. In the 1880s when the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/New_Babylon_New_Nineveh.html?id=DiDtAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">mining industry</a> was being established in Johannesburg, black men, rather than women, were the preferred servants in white households. Known as <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/From_Servants_to_Workers.html?id=ha_3GUYK6FwC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=houseboy&f=false">houseboys</a>, they cooked, cleaned, nursed and cared for white colonial families.</p>
<p>But over the next decade the landscape of domestic work underwent significant changes. This was due to a few factors, among them:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a scarcity of labour in the mines, which drew black men away from domestic roles to join the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/brief-history-domestic-service-south-africa">mining sector</a> </p></li>
<li><p>the increasing <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/brief-history-domestic-service-south-africa">urbanisation of black women</a> </p></li>
<li><p>racial stereotypes about black men as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2637313">sexually aggressive or promiscuous</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>A small proportion of men still work as domestic workers, however. Some are <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---africa/---ro-abidjan/---ilo-pretoria/documents/vacancynotice/wcms_789648.pdf">migrants</a>. Due to South Africa’s relative stability and economic opportunities, there has been <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/south-africa-immigration-destination-history">an increase in migration</a> from countries like Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique since apartheid ended in 1994. The migrants come seeking education, employment and improved livelihoods. They rely on friends and family already in South Africa <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-92114-9_2">to find jobs</a>. </p>
<p>While African migrant women from poor backgrounds often find work in <a href="https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/edar2018_BP1_en.pdf">domestic service or the hospitality sectors</a>, most migrant men work as <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/2019-05/20767_mangezvo_xenophobic_2015.pdf">gardeners, painters or security guards</a>. Some Malawian and Zimbabwean male migrants work as <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/2019-05/20767_mangezvo_xenophobic_2015.pdf">waiters or domestic workers</a>, jobs that are traditionally associated with women. </p>
<h2>Exploring unfamiliar territory</h2>
<p>As a researcher of domestic work in South Africa, I noticed that few studies had focused on male migrants performing domestic work in South Africa. Consequently, such work is commonly viewed as an employment arrangement involving affluent female employers and black female domestic workers from marginalised backgrounds. The intersections of race, class and gender between employers and domestic workers often lead to <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/74795/Masterson_Domestic_2019.pdf?sequence=1">unequal power relations and economic exploitation</a> entrenched within the employment relationship. </p>
<p>In my study, I examined <a href="https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/The_Thinker/article/view/2677">the experiences of migrant male domestic workers in Johannesburg</a>, with the aim of shedding some light on their duties and working conditions. </p>
<p>A male Malawian domestic worker employed by an acquaintance referred me to other male domestic workers in Johannesburg. Interviews were conducted with six male Malawian and four male Zimbabwean domestic workers employed by affluent white employers in Johannesburg. All had been employed for more than five years. </p>
<p>Migrant men’s experiences add a new layer of complexity to the study of domestic work, where complex intersections of class, race and gender occur. </p>
<h2>Migrant male domestic workers in South Africa</h2>
<p>My study showed that domestic work offered a viable employment path for men. </p>
<p>They faced similar challenges to their <a href="https://www.academia.edu/13215366/_Help_somebody_who_help_you_The_Effect_of_the_Domestic_Labour_Relationship_on_South_African_Domestic_Workers_Ability_to_Exercise_their_Rights">female counterparts</a>. These included long working hours, a paternalistic employer-employee dynamic, and a marginalised job status.</p>
<p>The respondents said they had an array of indoor and outdoor responsibilities. Indoors, their tasks encompassed cleaning and tidying their employers’ residences. They also handled laundry and ironing, alongside duties such as grocery shopping and meal preparation.</p>
<p>Outdoors, their responsibilities extended to garden maintenance, swimming pool upkeep, pet waste disposal, cleaning outdoor grilling areas (braais), and sweeping driveways. They were also entrusted with securing the homes and taking care of pets when their employers were away. </p>
<p>The daily life of male live-in domestic workers was much the same as <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---travail/documents/publication/wcms_230837.pdf">live-in female domestic workers</a>. The working day started at 06:30, preparing breakfast for employers. Once employers had left for work, they cleaned the house, prepared lunch, did laundry and attended to the garden.</p>
<p>The long working day often ended at 20:00 after dinner was prepared for employers. Most weekends were spent on additional piece jobs, working as gardeners or painters for others.</p>
<p>While the homes of employers were opulent, male domestic workers, just like their female counterparts, lived in small rooms in the back yard, hidden away from the employers’ gaze, as other researchers have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3514408?seq=1">also found</a>. The one-room accommodation was often equipped with basic furniture, differing little from the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=c89wfLEahEIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=living+quarters+of+domestic+workers+apartheid&ots=oumA3GgaGq&sig=Cjco7oSLcK6vGAgKpM_kgF0HTzQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=living%20quarters&f=false">squalid living quarters of domestic workers during apartheid</a>.</p>
<p>The men said they considered their wages reasonable. They earned on average between R5,000 (US$260) and R8,000 (US$416) a month. This was much higher than <a href="https://personal.nedbank.co.za/learn/blog/domestic-workers-minimum-wage.html#:%7E:text=The%20minimum%20wage%20for%20domestic%20workers%20in%202023&text=Employing%20someone%20for%20more%20than,with%20the%20Department%20of%20Labour.">the minimum wage of R4,067</a> (US$216) for a domestic worker working eight hours a day, five days a week in South Africa. Most said they could engage in wage negotiations, which enabled them to improve their wellbeing and that of their families.</p>
<p>None of the male domestic workers in this study had written employment contracts with their employers, or were members of a trade union, such as the <a href="http://www.sadsawu.com/">South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union</a>. Work contracts need to be renewed every few years, which is costly and time consuming. Job security is precarious. </p>
<h2>The recurring issues of domestic work</h2>
<p>In South Africa, domestic work continues to be associated with <a href="https://journals.uj.ac.za/index.php/The_Thinker/article/view/2672/1644">marginalised black individuals</a>, perpetuating a historical and societal imbalance. </p>
<p>Paid domestic work continues to occupy a low-status position. No formal qualifications and little specialised expertise are required. Domestic workers’ contributions to the functioning of households are essential but frequently taken for granted, as other studies have <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/42905/">also confirmed</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the <a href="https://www.pulp.up.ac.za/edited-collections/exploited-undervalued-and-essential-domestic-workers-and-the-realisation-of-their-rights">legislation</a>, domestic workers work long hours and perform physically demanding work. While male domestic workers in this study could negotiate better working conditions and pay, others might not be successful, and might remain in a precarious working environment. </p>
<p>Job security is not assured, a vulnerability most <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---migrant/documents/publication/wcms_535598.pdf">migrant domestic workers</a> experience. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---africa/---ro-abidjan/---ilo-pretoria/documents/vacancynotice/wcms_789648.pdf">Practical protection remains constrained</a>. For instance, migrant domestic workers often encounter difficulties when seeking healthcare.</p>
<p>To safeguard this group from exploitation and elevate their overall livelihoods, regulators, enforcement agencies and trade unions must protect and recognise all domestic workers, including migrants, in South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213022/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David du Toit 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>Paid domestic work has a low status in South Africa. The labour of domestic workers is often undervalued and unrecognised.David du Toit, Sociology Lecturer, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2129132023-09-08T15:58:13Z2023-09-08T15:58:13ZHow unions could help reality TV cast and crew win better pay and working conditions<p>“Just because you can exploit young, doe-eyed talent desperate for the platform TV gives them, it doesn’t mean you should.” Original Real Housewives of New York star Bethany Frankel <a href="https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/bethenny-frankel-reality-union-strike-1235674531/">recently issued</a> this rallying call for unionisation of reality TV. She hopes to instigate a “<a href="https://mashable.com/article/reality-tv-reckoning-union-bethenny-frankel">reality reckoning</a>” that will help other unscripted TV performers realise their rights to better pay and working conditions.</p>
<p>And so just as actors and screenwriters are <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-hollywood-actors-and-writers-afraid-of-a-cinema-scholar-explains-how-ai-is-upending-the-movie-and-tv-business-210360">going on strike</a> in the US, reality TV stars are asking whether it’s their time to demand better protections and rights as workers. </p>
<p>US union the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists certainly thinks it’s time. It’s <a href="https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-statement-representation-and-protection-reality-performers">supporting Frankel</a> in her fight for reality TV star unionisation. </p>
<p>Our research has <a href="https://thesociologicalreview.org/magazine/august-2021/film-and-television/grafting-on-love-island/">highlighted the need</a> for a greater focus on the conditions for participants in these shows, who are often filmed in controlled environments (think contestants locked in a house together for weeks without clocks, with meals and free-time restricted) and under contractual arrangements that can involve non-disclosure agreements and tie-ins after the show. </p>
<p>Research into <a href="https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/sites/default/files/asset/document/BU_State_of_Play_2021%20%281%29.pdf">working conditions for production staff</a> in this sector also suggests that long hours, bullying, harassment, sexism, lack of accommodation for childcare, stress and mental health problems are rampant. </p>
<p>Reality television has often been at the centre of screen labour discussions, particularly after its relatively cheap production costs led to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/reehines/2023/05/17/reality-tv-to-the-rescue-amid-writers-strike-abc-and-fox-lean-on-unscripted-shows/?sh=682b15757916">a production boom</a> during the previous Writers Guild of America strike in 2008-9. It was largely regarded as a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118599594.ch2">scab genre</a> by the wider industry as a result. But this time around, reality show participants are making their own demands that could change the nature of television production.</p>
<p>And this is not only a US issue. UK cast members from The Only Way is Essex reportedly <a href="https://employeebenefits.co.uk/towie-boycott-itv-party-pay-dispute/">went on “strike”</a> in 2019. They boycotted ITV’s summer party in protest at the amount they were being paid and <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/9603820/itv-towie-stars-strike-low-pay/">are thought to have received</a> a bump in pay within 24 hours.</p>
<p>Even more significantly, in 2011 a French court ruled that participants on Temptation Island (a show where couples are sent to an island to try the single life) should be treated as salaried staff, setting a precedent for <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203843567-10/reality-tv-job-fran%C3%A7ois-jost">considering reality television as work</a>. Discussing the kinds of working conditions they endured, their lawyer, Jérémie Assous, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/06/france-reality-tv-contestants-ruling">said at the time</a>: “The principle is universal and simple. You cannot make people work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That is slavery.” </p>
<p>In 2019, an Australian reality TV participant <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/22/house-rules-channel-seven-ordered-to-pay-compensation-to-reality-show-contestant">won her case</a> for compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder against Australian home renovation show House Rules. The broadcaster, Channel 7, had argued contestants were not workers.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-house-rules-landmark-ruling-could-trigger-other-workers-compensation-claims-from-reality-tv-stars-125801">New house rules: landmark ruling could trigger other workers' compensation claims from reality TV stars</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While these cases could set precedents for better treatment of people on reality TV shows, their rights are in a grey area that depends on local labour laws in a global TV production industry. Reality television participants as a group have long made money and built brands for the sector, with little compensation for their time and toil. </p>
<p>In the UK, Love Island participants reportedly earn <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/tv/11020100/love-island-prize-contestants-paid/">a £250 weekly fee</a> while on the show – although this seems to have <a href="https://www.ok.co.uk/lifestyle/love-island-contestants-weekly-fee-29175531">increased over the years</a>, it’s still well below <a href="https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates">the UK minimum wage</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, the show becomes a platform for <a href="https://www.heart.co.uk/showbiz/celebrities/molly-mae-hague-tommy-fury-net-worth/">the lucky few</a> who launch lucrative (but <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_dialogue/@actrav/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_161381.pdf">precarious</a> careers such as social media influencing, brand endorsements or other lower-level public appearances. But this kind of unwaged “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1q31skt">hope labour</a>” is prevalent in the digital economy and creative industries.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Blurred image of three couples on a beach on a tv screen, with hand holding remote control in the foreground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/547203/original/file-20230908-29-jdzebm.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 often sign up for reality TV shows hoping to develop lucrative social media-based careers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/reality-tv-show-stream-on-television-2029589708">Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What do reality TV workers need?</h2>
<p>Problems around workers’ rights in reality TV come from two directions. </p>
<p>First, concerns about pay and <a href="https://variety.com/2023/music/global/rebecca-ferguson-x-factor-itv-ofcom-abuse-1235636204/">the contracts that participants might sign</a>. Some hand over their rights “in perpetuity throughout the universe” – a common legal phrase that indicates the unending ownership rights of these production companies over performances. </p>
<p>During our research, we found a report (not available online) from <a href="https://www.equity.org.uk/">UK union Equity</a> to the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-minimum-wage-low-pay-commission-report-2011">Low Pay Commission</a> that said talent show contestants have signed contracts that waive protection over worker time laws via a loophole under the National Minimum Wage Act for competitions.</p>
<p>The second issue is around the treatment of participants during the production process. In the UK this issue was raised as part of <a href="https://committees.parliament.uk/work/6345/reality-tv-inquiry/">a 2019 parliamentary inquiry into reality television</a> as a direct result of a number of high-profile suicides linked to reality television. </p>
<p>A subsequent Ofcom consultation led to <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/consultations-and-statements/category-2/protecting-tv-radio-participants">a change in the Broadcasting Code in 2020</a>. Broadcasters must now demonstrate adequate duty of care and a more robust approach to informed consent. This means placing a greater emphasis on welfare support, mental health and analysis of psychological risk. But this change has not led to a conversation about worker rights and pay.</p>
<h2>Joining a union for reality TV workers</h2>
<p>The UK has fewer long-running reality shows with regular fixed cast members than the US. And given the complexity and uncertainty around reality TV work in general, it remains to be seen how unionisation could apply across multiple formats and sub-genres. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://thesociologicalreview.org/magazine/august-2021/film-and-television/grafting-on-love-island/">it’s still important</a> for duty of care issues to be thought about alongside questions of workers rights, pay and contractual obligations.</p>
<p>As part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project called Re-CARE TV: Reality Television, Working Practices and Duties of Care, we are researching this issue. We are partnering with <a href="https://bectu.org.uk/about/">Bectu</a> (the creative industry workers’ union), to find solutions to improve the <a href="https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/35897/1/BU_State_of_Play_2021%20%281%29.pdf">working conditions of crew</a>. </p>
<p>We are also working with Equity to examine the benefits of more formalised union representation to better inform reality participants of their contractual rights and expectations of care. </p>
<p>It’s important to take this type of entry into a media career seriously so participants and production staff can lay the foundations for a fruitful career – just like people in any other profession. </p>
<p>Reality television has pioneered precarious, competitive, exploitative and non-unionised models of work that are now endemic across the creative industries. So, while it might be surprising that the “scab genre” is now at the forefront of calls for a more caring industry, it is clear that it is about time for change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212913/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Wood receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council, UKRI and has previously received funding from the ESRC and British Academy. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Newsinger receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council, UKRI, and has previously received funding from the British Academy and the British Film Institute. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jilly Kay receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council, UKRI. </span></em></p>Reality TV workers may not need their own union but they could benefit from joining existing unions serving the creative industries.Helen Wood, Professor in Media and Cultural Studies, Aston UniversityJack Newsinger, Associate Professor in Cultural Industries and Media, University of NottinghamJilly Kay, Lecturer in Media and Communication, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2068112023-08-31T08:22:58Z2023-08-31T08:22:58ZFrom menstrual leave to chronic illnesses: what if workplaces were kinder to our bodies?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545224/original/file-20230829-15-cdhi8y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C0%2C1888%2C1276&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In 2021, more than one third of people in the EU reported from a long-standing health issue. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/fr-fr/photo/femme-appuyee-sur-la-table-3767411/">Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With schools due to reopen soon, many of us will also be returning to work after the summer holidays. For those suffering from health issues especially, the past weeks will have provided a well-needed break from the daily grind, or what the French would colourfully refer to <em>métro-boulot-dodo</em> (metro-work-sleep). </p>
<p>That chronological straitjacket may be in the process of being loosened, however. Some of the world’s biggest companies, Google included, are <a href="https://www.jumpstartmag.com/5-companies-that-let-you-take-power-naps-at-work/">now offering sleep pods</a> to help with workers’ sleep issues, while Spain passed a law this year allowing women suffering from severe period to take <a href="https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/02/16/spain-set-to-become-the-first-european-country-to-introduce-a-3-day-menstrual-leave-for-wo">menstrual leave</a>. Increasingly, corporations are also taking measures to accommodate employees with different neurological profiles. So, are timetables and workplaces based on our individual biologies the way forward?</p>
<h2>Considering biological factors</h2>
<p>That interrogation arose five years ago, when I was pregnant. I experienced a chronic condition myself and tried to adjust in my work as a professor at a school of management. As an expert in work and employment practices in the workplace, I knew companies may offer flexible work arrangement to accommodate the social life of their employees. But what about their health?</p>
<p>Before turning to that question, we could do well with identifying <em>how</em> our bodies differ from one another. Looking at current research from various scientific disciplines, it is possible to distinguish between three broad biological conditions that have repercussions on people’s ability to work:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><strong>Chronic illnesses</strong>. Common debilitating conditions include diabetes, cancers, mental illnesses as well as lung, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular diseases. In 2021, <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Self-perceived_health_statistics&oldid=509628">more than one third (35.2%) of people in the EU</a>) reported suffering from a long-standing health problem. Women are particularly exposed through their biological cycles including periods, pregnancy and menopause.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Neurodiversity</strong>. Not all brains pan out the same way. Some go on to develop autism, Down syndrome, attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity, dyslexia, dyspraxia and other conditions beginning with <em>dy</em>. Like chronic illnesses, neurodevelopmental differences affect a significant sample of the population, with <a href="https://www.ameli.fr/medecin/exercice-liberal/prise-charge-situation-type-soin/troubles-neurodeveloppement-autisme">one in ten people in the world impacted</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Circadian rhythms</strong>. Far from a myth, the reality of early birds and night owls has long been backed by science. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013700609755344">Research</a> shows that health predispositions mean our most productive hours vary from one individual to another. Going against one’s rhythm can upset sleep, metabolism as well as cardiovascular and immune systems.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Band-aid solutions</h2>
<p>While <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/emploi/article/2023/05/29/la-qualite-de-l-emploi-et-du-travail-en-comparaison-europeenne-une-contre-performance-francaise_6175274_1698637.html">33% of European workers</a> say that their health is at risk because of their employment activity, arrangements to accommodate our bodies are lacklustre at best. Although remote working is often thought to empower employees to manage their health more effectively, we also now know that it can act as a double-edged sword by undermining their <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-workers-in-small-businesses-can-struggle-with-mental-health-and-presenteeism-208877">right to disconnect</a>.</p>
<p>More formal solutions are also riddled with shortcomings. In France, where I come from, an employee struggling with chronic health issues or a neurodiverse condition can apply for the status of disabled worker, which is conferred following a medical examination. The label then compels the workplace to accommodate the employee – for example, by providing a flexible schedule to a worker suffering from severe insomnia, an adapted desk for another suffering from a spinal injury, or by excluding the employee from particular types of activities.</p>
<p>That’s for the theory. In practice, workers are often reluctant to apply, partly due to the procedure’s medical complexity and cost, which is not covered by the national health insurance. Too often, the status also carries too heavy a stigma, with many opting out for reasons of pride. Finally, there is a real chance that companies, particularly small business, will not be able to accommodate the employee’s demands, and therefore lay them off for ineptitude.</p>
<p>For want of a medical diagnosis, certain employers may negotiate special employment terms with some employees. This is what is known in management literature as <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20159261">“i-deals”</a>. For instance, work schedules or remuneration can be defined according to the employee’s preferences. The problem is that this solution hinges on the bargaining power they have over their employer. Hence, so-called key employees may get what they want by contrast with employees who are seen as underperforming.</p>
<p>To my knowledge, no government has yet thought out work policies to optimise our respective circadian rhythms. Rather, their focus is on limiting the damage of night- and shift work. While we could imagine to allocate early or late shifts to individuals whose metabolisms are better suited to it, the practices are not based on chronotype diversity. Instead, a growing number of companies offer the possibility of flexible working to their employees on the condition that they fulfil their obligations.</p>
<h2>When teamwork takes the hit</h2>
<p>Inevitably, such arrangements come at the cost of <a href="https://www.cairn.info/les-grands-courants-gestion-ressources-humaines--9782376874638-page-199.htm">the company’s teamwork and collective productivity</a>. Indeed, how can one possibly go about juggling the needs of a person working from home due to chronic pain, with those of another who comes in at midday while colleagues are there by 9 a.m.? And that’s without forgetting that colleague’s exemption from using certain work tools due to their neurodiversity.</p>
<p>Not to mention that managers in charge of overseeing these arrangements have their own health issues to contend with. Nearly half of French managers (48%) report that they are stressed at work. They are over-represented in terms of sick leave, and have scored <a href="https://newsroom.malakoffhumanis.com/actualites/avec-plus-de-40-de-salaries-arretes-chaque-annee-labsenteisme-maladie-reste-un-probleme-majeur-2f9e-63a59.html">2 to 5 percentage points higher than the employee average since 2018</a>. Nearly a quarter of managerial staff (24%) report using sleeping pills or anti-depressants compared to 18% of employees.</p>
<h2>Retraining managers</h2>
<p>In April, the French government released a report, <a href="https://travail-emploi.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/assises_du_travail_-_rapport_des_garants.pdf">“Rethinking work”</a>, aimed at sparking a debate with trade unions on these questions. It found that transforming managerial practices will be essential if companies are to “[give] employees more responsibility, autonomy and recognition” and calls for a shift from a “culture of control to a culture of trust”. Recommendations include training to raise managers’ awareness over possible health issues. The idea is to create and maintain a <a href="https://www.ips-journal.eu/work-and-digitalisation/improving-working-life-in-france-and-the-eu-6858/">culture of risk prevention</a> in work situations.</p>
<p>On the one hand, raising managers’ awareness of health issues has shown some promise. For example, research on the retention of employees suffering from <a href="https://www.ameli.fr/rhone/assure/sante/themes/polyarthrite-rhumatoide/comprendre-polyarthrite-rhumatoide">rheumatoid arthritis</a> showed the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09585192.2020.1737175">importance of managers having knowledge or personal experience of the disability</a> in terms of introducing policies that would be beneficial to both employee and employer.</p>
<p>If that approach is to be successful, managers will also need to <a href="https://www.hbrfrance.fr/chroniques-experts/2016/06/11208-comment-manager-sans-sepuiser/">abandon the idea of being the perfect supervisor and accepting their limits</a>.</p>
<h2>Collective, not individual solutions</h2>
<p>But training managers anew is hardly a silver bullet. For one, it still results in an uncoordinated organisation. Moreover, when I reviewed the <a href="https://www.cairn.info/les-grands-courants-gestion-ressources-humaines--9782376874638-page-199.htm">past 40 years of research on flexibility practices</a> in 2021, I found that companies’ organisation suffered biggest setbacks when they tailored work arrangements for specific individuals rather than for the collective of workers. </p>
<p>Looking away from a frazzled patchwork of individual solutions, an increasing number of companies and governments are contemplating organisational shifts benefiting all, including in terms of working days. In February 2023, Belgium became the first country to legislate to enable employees to choose to work four-day weeks if they want it, providing they worked the same hours as in a day-week. Others are <a href="https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/06/21/the-four-day-week-which-countries-have-embraced-it-and-how-s-it-going-so-far">also following suit</a>, with trials having taken place or about to take place in Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Iceland, Germany and the United Kingdom. The latter was the object of a scientific study with <a href="https://podcast.ausha.co/explorhation/semaine-de-4-jours-marie-rachel-jacob">results</a> showing that British companies have been able to transition to four-day weeks (with reduction in working-week hours) without losing productivity.</p>
<p>Placing the onus on the organisation of the whole company, or even country, has the merit of protecting team work, while also liberating time for caregivers. It can also prevent envy toward what can be perceived as the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2023/01/25/4-ways-people-with-disabilities-can-have-privilege-too/?sh=498f6ec87f3a">material privileges</a> of those living with a condition. After all, <a href="https://www.europe1.fr/economie/La-grande-histoire-des-allocations-de-la-Liberation-a-aujourd-hui-681878">this is the same logic</a> that drove French politicians in 1945 to vote for the same family allowances to be distributed based on the number of children, regardless of income; if all citizens benefited from the welfare state, then support for it would be stronger, or so the left and right argued at the time.</p>
<p>Most will agree that those living with chronic illness, neurodiversity or/and different circadian rhythms deserve our full support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie-Rachel Jacob ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Should companies offer tailored timetables and workplaces on the basis of our different bodies, or are universal solutions, such as the four-day week, the way forward?Marie-Rachel Jacob, Professeur-chercheur en management, EM Lyon Business SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084762023-08-09T14:31:07Z2023-08-09T14:31:07ZA ‘shadow economy’ of firms like hand car washes and nail salons is exploiting workers – and regulations are making things worse<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541785/original/file-20230808-25-2tqj1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C28%2C3837%2C2556&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">elly johnson/unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Almost a million UK workers do not receive holiday pay and the UK continues to lag behind most European countries in <a href="https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2023/04/Enforce-for-good.pdf">tackling the exploitation of these workers</a>.</p>
<p>Our research indicates this is because the UK’s regulatory framework for businesses is too permissive. Its complexity also gives certain types of business cover to flout the rules. And regulators just don’t have the resources to monitor these businesses properly and force them to abide by the rules. </p>
<p>The regulatory framework for UK businesses needs to be redesigned to suit the current economic environment of restricted resources for investigating and punishing businesses for unlawful activities.</p>
<p>The permissiveness of the current rulebook is clear among business types such as hand car washes, nail bars, food delivery, construction and those operating within the gig economy. Businesses in these sectors often exist in a “<a href="https://pr.euractiv.com/pr/shadow-economy-contributes-over-10-uk-gdp-155969">shadow economy</a>” , providing legal goods or services but operating out of sight of regulators. </p>
<p><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0268580919836666">Research</a> demonstrates that, across the UK economy, <a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/measuring-the-global-shadow-economy-9781784717988.html">2 million people</a>, or roughly 9% of the employed private sector working population, work in the shadow economy. Their employers often openly display non-compliance with the minimum wage, health and safety regulations, paid holiday requirements and broader employment standards for worker welfare. </p>
<p><a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1143364/uk-labour-market-enforcement-strategy-2022-2023.pdf">Successive</a> labour market <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/labour-market-enforcement-strategy-2021-to-2022">enforcement strategy documents</a> highlight business types such as hand car washes and nail bars as some of the most common to break these rules. These reports say enforcement agencies must act decisively because such problems are more or less universal.</p>
<p>For hand car washes, for example, regulatory complexity enables non-compliance because regulators are too stretched to police them properly. Businesses in this sector are more likely to copy each other. This creates an alternative regulatory environment where unlawful activity occurs in plain sight – on the side of the road or on our high streets.</p>
<h2>Investigating problematic businesses</h2>
<p>The Home Office’s Modern Slavery Prevention Fund <a href="https://bit.ly/WIPRCWSreportHOMSPF">recently supported our team</a> at the Work, Informalisation and Place Research Centre and the Responsible Car Wash Scheme in mapping, classifying and investigating the most visibly problematic businesses across the three local authority areas of Leicester, Norfolk and Suffolk. </p>
<p>We shared the 12 “riskiest” businesses with local agencies including police, local authority staff and voluntary and community partners. These companies were identified by our research as most likely to flout rules and regulations. We visited and assessed these firms against the <a href="http://www.rcws.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Code-of-Practice-version-for-print-and-distribution.pdf">Responsible Car Wash Scheme Code of Practice</a>. </p>
<p>The businesses were told the team would return for another assessment and were given a period of time to improve their practice. This was to allow owners to locate key documents such as insurance papers, trade effluent consents and employment contracts before our second visit. </p>
<p>But our team <a href="https://www.ntu.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0037/1876780/HOMSPF-Report-RCWS-WIP_NTU-Final-Report.pdf">recorded a significant level</a> of unlawful practice overall. There were also little, if any, attempts by these business owners to become compliant after our first visit. This mirrors our <a href="https://www.ntu.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0034/1782295/WIP_GLAA_RCWS-Report-CAN-HAND-CAR-WASHES-BE-IMPROVED.pdf">previous work on voluntary licensing</a> of hand car washes in Slough, Luton, Hillingdon and Watford.</p>
<p>In a second part of our Home Office funded work, we ran workshops to discuss these problems. We included key enforcement agencies and local partners such as trading standards, fire and rescue services, the UK National Crime Agency, and voluntary and community organisations. When we talked to them about the challenges of working with businesses, they often blamed non-compliance on the UK’s complicated regulatory environment. </p>
<p>A lack of legal recourse to easily compel businesses to operate lawfully was also seen as a key factor. When businesses are caught breaking the rules, they can often “phoenix”, relaunching with a new legal owner. This further restricts regulators from properly censuring these companies.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Back of man scratching head in front of white wall with " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536061/original/file-20230706-20-8zbmnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=179%2C67%2C7283%2C4540&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536061/original/file-20230706-20-8zbmnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536061/original/file-20230706-20-8zbmnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536061/original/file-20230706-20-8zbmnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536061/original/file-20230706-20-8zbmnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536061/original/file-20230706-20-8zbmnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536061/original/file-20230706-20-8zbmnd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trying to decipher complex regulations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/businessman-looking-connection-between-two-things-1348095338">ra2 studio/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Building a better enforcement strategy</h2>
<p>The current government has been unable to address this issue. But the opposition may struggle to do much better without focused engagement. Our paper on <a href="https://academic.oup.com/cje/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/cje/bead007/7099480?utm_source=advanceaccess&utm_campaign=cje&utm_medium=email">the fragmentation of labour market enforcement in the UK</a> coincided with an event to mark the release of a report called <a href="https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/enforce-for-good/">Enforce for Good</a> by the Resolution Foundation. The keynote speaker <a href="https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/playing-by-the-rules/">at the event</a>, Labour party deputy leader Angela Rayner, outlined how an incoming Labour government would make labour market regulation less complicated and more effective.</p>
<p>Rayner talked about introducing a single enforcement body for labour market regulation in the party’s first 100 days of parliament, if it wins the next election. This is something <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/good-work-plan-establishing-a-new-single-enforcement-body-for-employment-rights">the current government</a> has also explored but not enacted.</p>
<p>A single enforcement body could help resolve some of the problems around non-compliance on workers rights in the shadow economy. But its power relations and status with other important organisations such as HMRC needs to be clarified from the outset. Guidelines for joint operations would be needed early on to ensure efficient collective action.</p>
<p>This attention to enforcement is a positive first step. But more systemic change is needed to tackle all forms of unlawful practice. Even then, some sectors such as hand car washes will require a more specific approach. </p>
<p>Our research indicates that the complex and fragmented nature of regulation and enforcement of businesses must end. This should form a cornerstone of any policy development by current and future governments.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208476/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rich Pickford has received funding from the AHRC, Home Office and the National Crime Agency in relation to work in this article. He runs Nottingham Civic Exchange a think tank based at Nottingham Trent University. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Clark receives funding from The Art's and Humanities Research Council and the National Crime Agency in relation to the research in this article. Ian has also received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the Director of Labour Market Enforcement at the Department of Business and Trade. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Collins 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>Enforcement of labour market regulation among small businesses such as hand car washes and nail salons is too complicated.Rich Pickford, Manager of Nottingham Civic Exchange, Nottingham Trent UniversityAlan Collins, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Nottingham Trent UniversityIan Clark, Professor in Work and Employment, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2069232023-08-01T21:00:35Z2023-08-01T21:00:35ZLearning from Lululemon: If Canada wants to get serious about forced labour, disclosure laws won’t do<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531197/original/file-20230609-15-z5uk83.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C0%2C5711%2C3274&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A recent investigation into Lululemon casts doubt on the ability of Canada's new Modern Slavery Act to tackle labour abuse.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span></figcaption></figure><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/learning-from-lululemon-if-canada-wants-to-get-serious-about-forced-labour-disclosure-laws-wont-do" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The Canadian government recently passed <a href="https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/S-211/third-reading">the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act</a>. The new law is designed to address forced labour and child labour in supply chains by requiring companies to disclose their efforts in eliminating labour abuse from their supply chains. </p>
<p>The legislation, known colloquially as Canada’s Modern Slavery Act, does not require large Canadian companies to actually take actions to prevent or reduce the risk of forced labour and child labour in their supply chains.</p>
<p>The act also doesn’t hold companies accountable when forced labour is found. Similar weak disclosure laws in <a href="https://oag.ca.gov/SB657">California</a>, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30/contents/enacted">the United Kingdom</a> and <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018A00153">Australia</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12512">have already been found to be ineffective</a> by academic researchers.</p>
<p>Our recent investigation at the <a href="https://gflc.ca/">Governing Forced Labour in Supply Chains Project</a> into the Canadian apparel company Lululemon Athletica casts doubt on the ability of this new law to tackle labour abuse.</p>
<p>The new law falls short of what is required to make large corporations exercise due diligence to prevent labour abuse from occurring within their supply chains. </p>
<h2>Remembering Rana Plaza</h2>
<p>This new Canadian law comes a decade after the tragic collapse of the nine-storey Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh that killed nearly 1,130 garment workers and injured over 2,500. The disaster <a href="https://theconversation.com/years-after-the-rana-plaza-tragedy-bangladeshs-garment-workers-are-still-bottom-of-the-pile-159224">raised concerns about the ability of voluntary corporate initiatives</a> to address labour rights violations and protect workers.</p>
<p>In response to the tragedy, an agreement between brands, retailers and trade unions called <a href="https://wsr-network.org/success-stories/accord-on-fire-and-building-safety-in-bangladesh">the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh</a> was established. The accord was designed to improve workplace safety and prevent future accidents in the garment sector. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people march down a street with protest signs and a large banner written in Bengali." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531194/original/file-20230609-22144-k2hwj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531194/original/file-20230609-22144-k2hwj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531194/original/file-20230609-22144-k2hwj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531194/original/file-20230609-22144-k2hwj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531194/original/file-20230609-22144-k2hwj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531194/original/file-20230609-22144-k2hwj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531194/original/file-20230609-22144-k2hwj4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bangladeshi garment workers, activists and relatives of workers participate in a protest marking the four-month anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh in August 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/A.M. Ahad)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Building on this initiative, <a href="https://internationalaccord.org/about-us">the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry</a> — with 198 brand and retailer signatories — was introduced in 2021.</p>
<p>Remarkably, only one Canadian garment company — <a href="https://www.thestar.com/business/opinion/2023/04/29/10-years-after-the-rana-plaza-disaster-canada-needs-to-do-more-to-protect-worker-rights.html">Loblaw Companies Ltd., the parent company of the Joe Fresh brand</a> — has signed the accord. Other Canadian companies prefer their own voluntary initiatives. </p>
<p>Legislation aimed at addressing forced labour in supply chains has the potential to address these weak corporate initiatives — but only if the law is strong enough.</p>
<h2>Lululemon report</h2>
<p>Our report, <a href="https://gflc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Lululemons-Conundrum_GFLC_final.pdf"><em>Lululemon’s Conundrum: Good Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives and the Persistence of Forced Labour</em></a>, examines Lululemon’s efforts to address potential labour abuse in its supply chain.</p>
<p>In 2021, <a href="https://knowthechain.org/about-us/">KnowTheChain</a> — which evaluates companies’ efforts to address forced labour risks in their supply chains based on international labour standards — <a href="https://knowthechain.org/wp-content/uploads/2021-KTC-AF-Benchmark-Report.pdf">ranked Lululemon first among 129 apparel and footwear companies</a> for its measures to address forced labour risks. </p>
<p>Despite being recognized as an industry leader in this area, an investigation by researchers at Sheffield Hallam University in England found that <a href="https://www.shu.ac.uk/helena-kennedy-centre-international-justice/research-and-projects/all-projects/laundered-cotton">Lululemon was at a high risk of sourcing from the Xinjiang region</a> in China — <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/china/un-expert-concludes-forced-labour-has-taken-place-xinjiang-2022-08-18/">which has been associated with forced labour and human rights abuses</a> — that same year.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/responses-to-uflpa-outreach/">response to this accusation</a>, Lululemon stated it had zero tolerance for forced labour, was committed to all the workers in its global supply chain and regularly monitored vendors globally through a due diligence process.</p>
<h2>Lululemon supplier concerns</h2>
<p>Lululemon does not own or operate any of the manufacturing or raw materials facilities used to make its apparel. <a href="https://corporate.lululemon.com/%7E/media/Files/L/Lululemon/lululemonSupplierListFinal050923.pdf">Its April 2023 supplier list</a> revealed the company sourced from suppliers located in four out of the 10 <a href="https://files.mutualcdn.com/ituc/files/ITUC_GlobalRightsIndex_2021_EN_Final.pdf">worst countries for workers’ rights violations</a> according to the 2021 Global Rights Index created by International Trade Union Confederation: Bangladesh, Colombia, the Philippines and Turkey.</p>
<p>According to the supplier list, one of Lululemon’s largest manufacturing facilities is in Bangladesh, with over 13,000 workers — 70 per cent of whom are women. Despite this, Lululemon has not signed the 2021 International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A person wearing a face mask and work uniform picks a large spook of yarn up from a pile" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540249/original/file-20230731-271165-grpb0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540249/original/file-20230731-271165-grpb0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540249/original/file-20230731-271165-grpb0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540249/original/file-20230731-271165-grpb0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540249/original/file-20230731-271165-grpb0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540249/original/file-20230731-271165-grpb0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540249/original/file-20230731-271165-grpb0x.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">A worker packages spools of cotton yarn at a Huafu Fashion plant, as seen during a government organized trip for foreign journalists, in Aksu in western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, in April 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.fairlabor.org/reports/charter-link-clark-inc">Two reports found that from 2018 to 2019</a>, workers at a Lululemon supplier factory had to work two to three nights without being allowed to go home or take necessary breaks. </p>
<p>While a <a href="https://www.fairlabor.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Charter-Link-Verification-Report-MO-Final-4-27-22.pdf">2022 follow-up investigation</a> determined this situation had been rectified by Lululemon and the supplier, some workers reported they still felt unable to refuse overtime requests.</p>
<p>According to the follow-up report, the supplier at the same factory also engaged in serious union-busting tactics, including firing the union’s elected leaders and reports from workers that some managers had threatened to close the factory if the workers unionized.</p>
<p>The follow-up report found that while many of the anti-union issues had been addressed, some supervisors reportedly made comments that could be construed as still discouraging workers from joining the union.</p>
<h2>Corporate transparency issues</h2>
<p><a href="https://corporate.lululemon.com/our-impact/reporting-and-governance/reporting-and-disclosure/policies-and-guidelines">Lululemon has several codes and policies in place to address forced labour</a>. One is the Lululemon Global Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, which states that employees and vendors are to adhere to labour and employment standards in the countries they operate in, unless the code sets a higher standard.</p>
<p>Employees are encouraged to report any violations to this code internally through Lululemon or externally using third-party tools such as the international Integrity Line. This phone line allows employees to anonymously report complaints at any time. </p>
<p>However, third-party complaint avenues pose challenges, including requiring tech access, trusting unfamiliar third parties and filing a complaint that protects one’s anonymity while still providing enough detail about worker issues.</p>
<p>Another code Lululemon has in place is the <a href="https://corporate.lululemon.com/%7E/media/Files/L/Lululemon/our-impact/vendor-code-of-ethics/vcoe-supporting-benchmarks.pdf">Vendor Code of Ethics</a> and its accompanying Benchmarks policy.
Vendors are responsible for enforcing key aspects of the code of ethics, including creating grievance and disciplinary systems for violations and training workers on the policy’s content. When vendors use subcontractors, they are the ones responsible for ensuring subcontractors adhere to the policy.</p>
<p>While Lululemon can conduct unannounced visits to monitor their compliance with the Vendor Code of Ethics, this is rarely done. Only <a href="https://pnimages.lululemon.com/content/dam/lululemon/www-images/Footer/Sustainability/lululemonKnowTheChainDisclosure_20210302.pdf">one per cent of assessments in 2019 were unannounced</a>. Lululemon also works with third-party auditors sometimes, which can be problematic since these auditors rely on their clients to stay in business, <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501754524/private-regulation-of-labor-standards-in-global-supply-chains/">raising questions about the authenticity of auditing reports</a>.</p>
<h2>Reliance on local labour laws</h2>
<p>Lululemon’s measures to address forced labour largely rely on the labour laws in the countries in which the suppliers are located. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/20414005.2021.2008763">Relying on local labour laws is a major shortcoming of many corporate initiatives</a>, since they often fall short of international legal norms and are not well enforced.</p>
<p>In California, the United Kingdom and Australia, Lululemon is required by law to report on its efforts to detect, remedy and eradicate forced labour in its supply chains. However, the information necessary for evaluating the effectiveness of these initiatives is not available to researchers, the public or workers.</p>
<p>Crucial information about all the participants and purchasing practices in a supply chain, such as the amount of lead time suppliers are given for orders and whether suppliers get paid on time, are not provided. Additionally, information on how workers navigate Lululemon’s policies and grievance mechanisms is not publicly available.</p>
<h2>Due diligence legislation needed</h2>
<p>Our study raises concerns about the effectiveness of current transparency and disclosure laws as an effective tool for combating forced labour in supply chains. </p>
<p>Disclosure laws, like those in Canada’s new act, will not require Lululemon to reveal the type of information needed to ensure its suppliers are not abusing workers. Nor does the new law require large multinational corporations to take any steps to eradicate labour abuses in the supply chains.</p>
<p>Our study suggests disclosure laws are a form of window dressing that can be used by companies to project an image of social responsibility to consumers, rather than genuinely improving the working conditions for supply chain workers.</p>
<p>It’s time to require companies to take real steps to rid their supply chains of labour abuse. If Canada is to truly eradicate force labour in global supply chains, it needs mandatory due diligence legislation that involves supply chain workers at every stage of the process — before another disaster like Rana Plaza occurs.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: Prior to publishing this story, The Conversation sought comment from Lululemon about how the company is complying with the new Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act, as well as some other issues raised in this article. Lululemon did not respond.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206923/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Judy Fudge receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gayathri Krishna and Kaitlyn Matulewicz 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>A new study suggests disclosure laws to prevent forced labour in the clothing industry are a form of window dressing designed to ease the conscience of consumers rather than protecting workers.Gayathri Krishna, PhD Candidate, School of Labour Studies, McMaster UniversityJudy Fudge, LIUNA Enrico Henry Mancinelli Chair of Global Labour Issues, School of Labour Studies, McMaster UniversityKaitlyn Matulewicz, Researcher, Governing Forced Labour in Supply Chains ProjectLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2015382023-04-22T16:20:10Z2023-04-22T16:20:10ZFast fashion still comes with deadly risks, 10 years after the Rana Plaza disaster – the industry’s many moving pieces make it easy to cut corners<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522252/original/file-20230421-26-yyte0s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C3%2C1019%2C679&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activists in Dhaka demand safe working conditions in 2019, on the anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/industry-all-bangladesh-council-activists-protest-to-news-photo/1139075620?adppopup=true">Mamunur Rashid/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On April 24, 2013, a multistory garment factory complex in Bangladesh called Rana Plaza collapsed, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-22476774">killing more than 1,000 workers</a> and injuring another 2,500. It remains the worst accident in the history of the apparel industry and one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the world.</p>
<p>Several factories inside the complex <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2014/04/26/these-retailers-involved-in-bangladesh-factory-disaster-have-yet-to-compensate-victims/?sh=3444108c211b">produced apparel for Western brands</a>, including Benetton, Primark and Walmart, shining a spotlight on the unsafe conditions in which a sizable portion of Americans’ cheap clothing is produced. The humanitarian tragedy hit home as wealthy nations’ shoppers wrestled with their own complicity and called for reforms – but a decade later, progress is still patchy.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://michiganross.umich.edu/faculty-research/faculty/ravi-anupindi">a professor of operations and supply chain management</a>, I believe it is important to understand how the complex and fragmented supply chains that are the norm in the clothing industry create conditions where unsafe conditions and abuse can flourish – and make it difficult to assign responsibility for reforms.</p>
<h2>Shamed into action?</h2>
<p>Rana Plaza was <a href="https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2022/06/05/the-worst-industrial-disasters-in-bangladesh-since-2005">not the first garment industry accident in Bangladesh</a>. While the government had stringent building codes “on the books,” <a href="https://ces.ulab.edu.bd/sites/default/files/Building_Code_Analysis-hi.pdf">they were rarely enforced</a>. Most workers lacked the information and power to demand safe working conditions.</p>
<p>Yet the fact that the Rana Plaza collapse was not only a humanitarian crisis, but a public relations crisis, prompted swift action by international organizations and Western brands and clothing retailers. A campaign for <a href="https://ranaplaza-arrangement.org/">full and fair compensation</a> for families of victims was launched immediately, facilitated by <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/lang--en/index.htm">the International Labor Organization</a>, a U.N. agency. Within a few months, two initiatives were designed to bring garment factories in Bangladesh up to international standards: the European-led <a href="https://bangladeshaccord.org/">Accord for Fire and Building Safety</a>, and the American-led <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/bangladesh-alliance-for-bangladesh-workers-safety-announces-end-of-its-tenure/">Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522273/original/file-20230421-1623-jworr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Uniformed rescue workers stand on top of a slab on top of a collapsed cement building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522273/original/file-20230421-1623-jworr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522273/original/file-20230421-1623-jworr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522273/original/file-20230421-1623-jworr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522273/original/file-20230421-1623-jworr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522273/original/file-20230421-1623-jworr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522273/original/file-20230421-1623-jworr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522273/original/file-20230421-1623-jworr4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rescue and recovery personnel on the site of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BangladeshBuildingCollapse/7f235631839d40e4ad3cbba1e0825166/photo?Query=(renditions.phototype:horizontal)%20AND%20%20(%22rana%20plaza%22)%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=297&currentItemNo=295">AP Photo/Wong Maye-E</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While the two initiatives differed in some important ways, both shared the common goal: to improve building and fire safety by leveraging the purchasing power of the member companies. In other words, Western brands would insist that production partners get up to standard or take their business elsewhere.</p>
<p>Altogether, the two agreements covered about 2,300 supplier factories. The coalitions conducted factory inspections to identify structural and electrical deficiencies and developed plans for factories to make improvements. The initiatives also laid the groundwork to form worker safety committees <a href="https://iosh.com/news/bangladesh-project-success-story/">and to train workers</a> to recognize, solve and prevent health and safety issues. Member companies set aside funds for inspections and worker training, <a href="https://cleanclothes.org/issues/faq-safety-accord">negotiated commercial terms</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/alliance-sets-plan-to-finance-bangladesh-factory-upgrades-1417791607">facilitated low-cost loans</a> for factory improvements.</p>
<p>Both were five-year agreements: the Alliance <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/bangladesh-alliance-for-bangladesh-workers-safety-announces-end-of-its-tenure/">was sunsetted in 2018</a>, whereas the Accord operated for a few more years before handing operations over to the locally created <a href="https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/bangladesh-rmg-sustainability-council-to-take-over-accord-operations-after-281-days/">Readymade Sustainability Council</a> in June 2020.</p>
<h2>The record since</h2>
<p>The onus and expense of making these improvements, however, were largely to be borne by the suppliers – a substantial financial burden for many factories, especially considering the low cost and slim profit margins of the clothes they were producing. </p>
<p>Under the Alliance and the Accord, thousands of factories were inspected for building and fire safety, identifying problems such as lack of fire extinguishers and sprinkler systems, improper fire exits, faulty wiring and structural issues. At the end of five years, both initiatives reported that <a href="https://issuu.com/nyusterncenterforbusinessandhumanri/docs/nyu_bangladesh_ranaplaza_final_rele?e=31640827/64580941">85%-88% of safety issues were remediated</a>. Around half of the factories completed more than 90% of initial remediation, while over 260 of the original 2,300 factories under the initiatives were suspended from contracting with member companies.</p>
<p>In addition, more than 5,000 beneficiaries, including injured workers and dependents of victims, were compensated <a href="https://ranaplaza-arrangement.org/">through the Rana Plaza Arrangement</a>, receiving an average of about US$6,500.</p>
<p>Overall, I believe that these initiatives have been successful in bringing safety issues to the forefront. In terms of infrastructure improvements, however, while there has been decent progress, much still needs to be done; for example, the initiatives covered just about <a href="https://pages.stern.nyu.edu/%7Etwadhwa/bangladesh/downloads/beyond_the_tip_of_the_iceberg_report.pdf">one-third of all the garment factories in Bangladesh</a>. Importantly, neither addressed company sourcing practices.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522275/original/file-20230421-26-smyb9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a pink shawl stares at the camera, with a green field amid tall buildings behind her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522275/original/file-20230421-26-smyb9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522275/original/file-20230421-26-smyb9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522275/original/file-20230421-26-smyb9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522275/original/file-20230421-26-smyb9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522275/original/file-20230421-26-smyb9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522275/original/file-20230421-26-smyb9q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522275/original/file-20230421-26-smyb9q.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">Family of Rana Plaza victims look at their relatives’ graves as they mark the disaster’s anniversary in 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/dhaka-bangladesh-april-24-2017-relatives-of-rana-plaza-news-photo/672595062?adppopup=true">Rehman Asad/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Clothes yesterday and today</h2>
<p>To understand why so much apparel manufacturing takes place in substandard conditions, we need to understand the underlying economic forces: extensive outsourcing to countries with low wages in the quest to meet demand for more – and cheaper – clothing to sell to customers in the West.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, the average American family <a href="https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/7939/madeinamerica">spent 10% of its income on clothing</a>, buying 25 pieces of apparel – almost all of it made in the United States. Fifty years later, around the time of the Rana Plaza disaster, the average household was spending only about 3.5% of its income on clothing – but buying three times as many items, 98% of which were imported.</p>
<p>Over these decades, low-income countries in Asia and Latin America started producing more garments and textiles. Apparel production is labor-intensive, meaning these countries’ lower wages were a huge attraction to brands and retailers, who gradually started shifting their sourcing.</p>
<p>On a $30 shirt, for example, a typical retailer markup is close to 60%. The factory makes a profit of $1.15, and the worker <a href="https://theconversation.com/years-after-the-rana-plaza-tragedy-bangladeshs-garment-workers-are-still-bottom-of-the-pile-159224">makes barely 18 cents</a>. Were a similar shirt produced in the U.S., labor costs would <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/05/02/world/asia/bangladesh-us-tshirt/index.html">be closer to $10</a>.</p>
<p>As labor costs rose in China, Bangladesh became <a href="https://qz.com/389741/the-thing-that-makes-bangladeshs-garment-industry-such-a-huge-success-also-makes-it-deadly">a very appealing alternative</a>. Garment exports now account for 82% of <a href="https://bgmea.com.bd/page/Export_Performance">the country’s export total</a>, and the industry <a href="https://www.bsr.org/en/blog/what-if-all-garment-workers-in-bangladesh-were-financially-included">employs 4 million people</a>, about 58% of whom are women. </p>
<p>The growth of this sector has <a href="https://dspace.bracu.ac.bd/xmlui/handle/10361/482">reduced poverty</a> significantly and also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2015.01.006">empowered women</a>. To meet the rapid growth of the apparel industry, however, many buildings were converted to factories as quickly as possible, often without requisite permits. </p>
<h2>Everyone and no one</h2>
<p>A common way that foreign companies source products from low-cost countries like Bangladesh is through intermediaries or agents. For example, when a brand places a large order with an authorized factory, the factory in turn may <a href="https://issuu.com/nyusterncenterforbusinessandhumanri/docs/nyu_bangladesh_ranaplaza_final_rele?e=31640827/64580941">subcontract part of the production to smaller factories</a>, often without informing the brand.</p>
<p>This highly competitive environment, with people at each step of the process looking for the lowest price and no guarantee of longer-term relationships, gives suppliers incentives to cut corners – particularly when under extreme pressure to deliver on time. This can translate into <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bangladesh-worker-rights/bangladesh-urged-to-stop-worker-abuse-in-garment-industry-idUSKBN20W25O">exploitative labor practices</a> or unsafe conditions that violate local laws, but enforcement capacity is weak. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522277/original/file-20230421-14-ssu9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman cries, her face hidden in her brightly colored headscarf." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522277/original/file-20230421-14-ssu9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522277/original/file-20230421-14-ssu9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522277/original/file-20230421-14-ssu9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522277/original/file-20230421-14-ssu9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522277/original/file-20230421-14-ssu9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522277/original/file-20230421-14-ssu9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522277/original/file-20230421-14-ssu9z8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nilufer Begum, an injured garment worker who survived the Rana Plaza disaster, during a 2018 interview with AFP in her small tea stall.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-this-photograph-taken-on-april-17-2018-nilufer-begum-an-news-photo/949797208?adppopup=true">Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>In their constant quest for lower prices, buyers may turn a blind eye to these practices. The supply chain’s opaqueness, especially when brands do not source directly, makes it difficult to investigate and remediate these practices. Since the 1990s, international <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7591/9781501727290-004/pdf">scrutiny of labor conditions</a> has grown, but reform efforts largely ignored building and fire safety, the prime reason for the Rana Plaza collapse. Because multiple buyers would often use the same factory, no single buyer felt obligated to invest in the supplier to ensure better conditions.</p>
<p>Garments traverse a complex global supply network by the time they reach stores thousands of miles away. Workers are caught in this web, exploited by factory management that is seldom held responsible by governments either <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/05/09/182637164/bangladeshs-powerful-garment-sector-fends-off-regulation">unwilling or unable to enforce laws</a>. Western brands escape the scrutiny of their governments by outsourcing production to low-cost countries and absolve themselves of direct responsibility. And consumers, eager for a bargain, shop for the lowest price. </p>
<p>This complex system makes it hard to assign ethical responsibility, because everyone, and therefore no one, is guilty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201538/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ravi Anupindi is affiliated with Fair Labor Association. </span></em></p>Ten years after the collapse at Rana Plaza in Bangladesh, the garment industry’s deadliest disaster, reforms are incomplete. The opaqueness of today’s complex supply chain is part of the problem.Ravi Anupindi, Professor of Technology and Operations, University of MichiganLicensed 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/1979362023-02-28T13:57:37Z2023-02-28T13:57:37ZWorking women in South Africa proved their resilience during COVID - as a result they’ve enhanced their well-being<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505382/original/file-20230119-25-zvz9ab.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women around the world have adjusted to new working realities after the COVID-19 pandemic.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kristin Hardwick/Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the outcomes of the COVID pandemic is that people’s working lives have changed. Working at home and hybrid work have become prevalent, after constantly changing government rules and guidelines.</p>
<p>Globally, employees report many pandemic-related <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w26984">challenges</a> – loss of employment, lack of career growth, loss of a sense of belonging with colleagues. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367282969_Universite_des_Mascareignes_Mauritius_12_WHO_HOLDS_THE_BABY_EXPLORING_THE_IMPACT_OF_THE_COVID-19_PANDEMIC_ON_THE_NATURE_OF_WORK_FOR_WOMEN_IN_SOUTH_AFRICA">study</a> investigated the impact of COVID-19 on working women in South Africa. We surveyed 402 working women. Most were in the 36-45 years age range, married or living together, and better educated than South African working women in general (44.5% held a postgraduate degree). We looked in particular at work-life balance, well-being and liminality (uncertainty during a time of change). </p>
<p>About half (52%) of the women home-schooled children during the pandemic. Of these, 30% stated they were solely responsible and 31% were mostly responsible for the home-schooling. These results support <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26947/w26947.pdf">findings</a> that working women were forced to rapidly adapt to remote working while dealing with diverse psychological, social and economic impacts on their work-life balance.</p>
<p>The emotional responses of the sample group during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic showed that initial anxiety, fear and a sense of being overwhelmed shifted to optimism in a relatively short period of time. This finding gives encouraging news about safeguarding women’s well-being during trying times and steps that can be taken to bolster well-being.</p>
<h2>Women’s experiences</h2>
<p>Well-being is the measure of an individual’s coping abilities. In particular it refers to their sense of being able to control their actions, and feeling that their behaviour matches their personal values and goals (often called “authenticity”).</p>
<p>Liminality is about passing from one social reality to another. A liminal state occurs when life is in transition and, as a result, uncertainty and confusion replace previously clear and well-established norms and roles. These transitions, while limited in time, are sufficiently uncertain and unclear to result in changes to established or traditional perceptions, beliefs and social role behaviour.</p>
<p>What the women told us can be summed up by three themes. </p>
<p>One was that they had to rapidly adjust to a new working environment and to the new reality of home-based work. The transition resulted in a level of complexity never experienced before. They were suddenly required to juggle the various responsibilities associated with this unexpected transition. They were faced with home-schooling, an increase in chores during the pandemic, and conflict with their spouse or partner about chores and finances.</p>
<p>Second, working women experienced complex emotional journeys as a result of the pandemic. Their well-being suffered as a result of the multiple, unplanned changes that they faced – and not by choice. </p>
<p>Finally, women had to set up a home office and adapt to changing working conditions, while coping with the responsibilities associated with being in a relationship and having children. Multiple dimensions of life, which previously could be separately managed to accommodate career choices, now needed to be blended in unexpected ways. </p>
<p><strong>Work-life balance</strong></p>
<p>1) Managers need to be aware of and help women employees to set boundaries. These boundaries will be specific to the individual. </p>
<p>2) Organisational culture needs to adapt and adopt a respect for technological boundaries in a world of hybrid and at-home work. A new “technological” etiquette needs to be defined. Insisting on entering a co-worker’s office, interrupting a family dinner or expecting an immediate work response late at night are all considered unacceptable and even antisocial. When it comes to remote work or electronic communications, this behaviour somehow is considered acceptable. The “always on” for working women may result in uncomfortable choices between their personal responsibilities and their careers. </p>
<p>3) Information technology needs to be reviewed to ensure that employees have the requisite remote work hardware, software and technical support to do their work productively. </p>
<p><strong>Well-being</strong></p>
<p>1) While women reported initial anxiety and fear, these feelings subsided quite rapidly. Managers should understand that the “new normal” of work has led to major disruption, and is still resulting in challenges and demands, which need to be explored on an individual basis. </p>
<p>2) Employers should take steps to increase employee independence and support at “work” – including the special challenges of home working – to enhance working women’s mental health. </p>
<p>3) Make flexible working the new norm to ensure that work-life balance and well-being of working women is enhanced. </p>
<p><strong>Liminality</strong></p>
<p>1) Lead with empathy. Check in with women employees, who have experienced far greater demands on their time than their male colleagues as a result of the pandemic, as to what their job-related expectations are. </p>
<p>2) Management will need to take explicit steps to avoid two-tiered hybrid workplaces, with some employees interacting at the office while others are left behind. </p>
<p>3) Management needs to sustain engagement and integrate remote employees into meetings and social events. Once again, with an emphasis on the special situation of female employees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197936/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>The pandemic affected working women in several spheres of life.Sydney Engelberg, Teaching Fellow, School of Public Health, Hebrew University of JerusalemCecile Gerwel Proches, Associate Professor, University of KwaZulu-NatalCristy Leask, Lecturer, Graduate School of Business and Leadership, University of KwaZulu-NatalUpasana Gitanjali Singh, Senior Lecturer, Information Systems and Technology, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1980272023-01-18T18:05:11Z2023-01-18T18:05:11ZInsomnia, headaches, and stomach pains: the hidden costs of gig workers’ flexibility<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505141/original/file-20230118-8082-1r7n63.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3876%2C2578&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Uber, which has operations in 72 countries, is a household name of the gig economy. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UBER_Eats_Delivery_Cyclist_Riding_Through_a_Busy_Oxford_Road_in_Manchester.jpg">Creative Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ever-expanding gig economy has brought with it the rise of the independent contractor, from delivery drivers to personal shoppers and dog walkers. Compared to traditional employees, independent contractors are classified as self-employed and do not benefit from a minimum wage, paid time off, or other protections. This kind of work arrangement is becoming increasingly common, with a <a href="https://www.upwork.com/research/the-great-resignation">recent study</a> showing 20% of professionals surveyed are considering switching to independent contract work.</p>
<p>Growing popularity has also raised questions about how to appropriately categorise and regulate workers in the gig economy. In <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-court-idUSKBN20R23F">France</a> and the <a href="https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1751796/ongoing-debate-over-worker-status">UK</a>, courts have held that rideshare drivers are employees entitled to protections like a minimum wage and paid time off. In the US, states such as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/technology/massachusetts-gig-workers.html">Massachusetts</a> viewing rideshare drivers as employees, while in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/technology/california-uber-lyft-prop-22.html">California</a>, a similar proposition failed to pass.</p>
<h2>The promises and perils of limitless flexibility</h2>
<p>Gig economy companies have a clear interest in influencing these public debates, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/california-voted-for-cheaper-uber-rides-it-may-have-hurt-drivers/">as was the case in California</a>, and have gone so far as to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/12/uber-paid-academics-six-figure-sums-for-research-to-feed-to-the-media">pay economists</a> in the United States, Germany, and France to produce research painting independent contractor arrangements in a favourable light. Gig economy companies often highlight the freedom workers have to set their own schedule as one key reason to preserve the independent contractor status. For example, <a href="https://www.uber.com/us/en/u/flexibility/">Uber’s website</a> seeks to recruit drivers by highlighting the flexibility their app offers, complete with statistics about how much current drivers value this autonomy. <a href="https://dasher.doordash.com/en-us?source=dx_about_page&internal-referrer=legacy-signup">DoorDash</a> and <a href="https://www.instacart.com/company/shopper-community/10-items-or-less-the-importance-of-flexibility/">Instacart</a> make similar claims on their websites.</p>
<p>But there is a downside to all this flexibility that is rarely discussed. Instead of an hourly rate or salary, independent contractors are paid for each task they complete with no minimum wage protections. Without guaranteed income, these workers experience “pay volatility”, or frequent changes in earnings over time. As a researcher interested in uncovering the ways that work affects our lives outside of work, I wanted to understand what impact pay volatility has on workers’ health. I recently conducted three studies dedicated to answering this question.</p>
<h2>Headaches, back aches, and stomach problems</h2>
<p>In my <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-22176-001">study</a>, I recruited 375 gig workers from across the United States using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online platform where workers complete small tasks for a fee. Because these workers are paid varying rates for each task they complete, they experience volatility in their pay. As one participant said, “I can make $80 one day and barely hit $15 the next. It is very unpredictable.” Assuming an eight-hour workday, that’s like switching between earning $10/hour on one day and $1.88/hour the next. I focused only on “dedicated” MTurkers – those who spent at least 20 hours per week on the platform and completed at least 1,000 tasks – and surveyed them over the course of three weeks.</p>
<p>My findings showed that gig workers who reported more volatility in their pay also tended to report more physical symptoms like headaches, back aches, and stomach problems. The reason why? Workers experiencing more pay volatility were more concerned about making ends meet and were preoccupied with thoughts about their personal finances. Dealing with pay volatility means never knowing how much money you’ll make in a given week or month, and that insecurity makes it difficult to cope with ordinary expenses. As one participant described, they like working from home on their own time, but:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Mturk is too unpredictable in terms of the money and effort required that it becomes frustrating and depressing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This challenge seemed to weigh on workers, enough to impact their physical health.</p>
<p>While the problem of pay volatility is clearly relevant for gig workers, they aren’t the only ones who experience it. People who rely on tips, such as restaurant servers, bartenders, valets, and hairdressers, also have constantly changing take-home pay. In a second study, I asked 85 tipped workers in the US about their earnings and health every day for two weeks. Here is one participant from that study reporting the tips they earned each day, underscoring how much volatility can exist for some:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504952/original/file-20230117-25-jm1g8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504952/original/file-20230117-25-jm1g8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504952/original/file-20230117-25-jm1g8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504952/original/file-20230117-25-jm1g8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=336&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504952/original/file-20230117-25-jm1g8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504952/original/file-20230117-25-jm1g8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/504952/original/file-20230117-25-jm1g8h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One worker in the study reported strong variations in the tips received per day, ranging from $250 to nothing at all.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Results indicated that earning more in tips on any given day didn’t make people feel better or worse that evening. But experiencing more <em>volatility</em> in tips over the two weeks was related to more physical symptoms and greater insomnia.</p>
<p>One thing that gig and tipped workers have in common is that they often have lower-than-average income. It might be that pay volatility is not harmful on its own, but only when coupled with low income. After all, Elon Musk probably wasn’t losing much sleep when Tesla shares recently <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/elon-musks-net-worth-slips-below-200-billion-tesla-shares-waver-2022-11-08/">dropped</a>, even if the effect on his net worth was substantial. Hard-pressed to find a sample of billionaires willing to complete my surveys, I conducted a third study with 252 higher-paid workers in sales, finance, and marketing in the United States. Commissions and bonuses are common in these industries, meaning that workers still experience pay volatility even if their income is higher. While the effects were not as strong, I saw the same pattern where workers who were more dependent on volatile forms of pay reported more physical symptoms and worse sleep.</p>
<p>I also considered how workers could protect themselves from the harmful effects of pay volatility. Mindfulness, for example, refers to one’s ability to focus on the present moment instead of worrying about the future and thinking about the past. Although people who are more mindful tend to show <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/guides/well/be-more-mindful-at-work">resilience</a> in the face of stress, they were equally affected by pay volatility in my study. Workers who were able to save a larger percent of their take-home pay were also similarly affected by pay volatility. These results show that pay volatility is equally harmful for most people. The only factor that actually weakened the observed effects of pay volatility was individuals’ reliance on volatile sources of pay. When volatile pay made up a smaller percentage of their total income, pay volatility didn’t seem to impact their health or sleep.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man wipes his eyes in front of a computer" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505108/original/file-20230118-19-n4qyym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505108/original/file-20230118-19-n4qyym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505108/original/file-20230118-19-n4qyym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505108/original/file-20230118-19-n4qyym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505108/original/file-20230118-19-n4qyym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505108/original/file-20230118-19-n4qyym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505108/original/file-20230118-19-n4qyym.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">Seesawing income is linked to poor health, with workers reporting increased headaches, back aches, stomach problems and insomnia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/fr/image-photo/young-indian-eastern-tired-exhausted-business-1979913266">Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Hidden costs demand consideration</h2>
<p>So what can be done? First, lawmakers need to consider both the benefits <em>and</em> drawbacks of these independent contractor work arrangements. The benefits like flexibility and job creation are well advertised by gig economy companies, but there are also hidden costs that receive less attention. As one participant in my survey stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There are no safeguards in place for workers to guarantee a fair wage on any tasks which, as you can imagine, is probably the one singular aspect of working that produces the most stress, angst and anxiety.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ensuring stronger legal protections for independent contractors can help create these safeguards.</p>
<p>Second, companies that employ independent contractors or pay workers based on piece-rate or commissions should carefully consider whether the perceived benefits to motivation or performance outweigh the costs to worker health. Aside from this economic calculation, there is also a moral imperative to offer decent work and preserve good health and well-being among employees, in line with <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals">UN Sustainable Development Goals</a>.</p>
<p>Third, companies could strike a balance by reducing workers’ reliance on volatile forms of pay, offering more substantial base pay instead. This strategy should weaken the link between pay volatility and health according to my findings. Overall, it’s clear that while work arrangements popularised by the gig economy hold benefits, we must also consider hidden costs and move toward improving conditions for this substantial swath of the population.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gordon M. Sayre ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Gig companies like Uber often promote the freedom that comes with independent contractor arrangements. They talk less about the impact that pay volatility can have on workers’ health.Gordon M. Sayre, Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior, EM Lyon Business SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1916602022-10-11T19:25:37Z2022-10-11T19:25:37ZPatagonia’s grand gesture sends the wrong message about ethical capitalism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488811/original/file-20221007-17489-ukzm2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=114%2C309%2C4378%2C2681&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We need businesses like Patagonia to set an example for what ethical capitalism can look like.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><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/patagonia-s-grand-gesture-sends-the-wrong-message-about-ethical-capitalism" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Patagonia’s recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/climate/patagonia-climate-philanthropy-chouinard.html">blockbuster announcement</a> that the company was “turning capitalism on its head by making the Earth our only shareholder” is generating a lot of attention. It is the start of another chapter in a long and storied history of a company that, more often than not, has been getting ethics right.</p>
<p>But is “turning capitalism on its head” the right move in these socially and economically precarious times? Patagonia will continue to operate as a private, for-profit corporation, with a catch: the company’s voting stock will be <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewerskine/2022/09/16/yvon-chouinard-and-the-patagonia-purpose-trust-what-is-it-and-will-it-work/">transferred to the Patagonia Purpose Trust</a>.</p>
<p>In explaining the move, Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard said that <a href="https://www.patagonia.com/ownership/">taking the company public would have been a disaster</a>. He said that “even public companies with good intentions are under too much pressure to create short-term gain at the expense of long-term vitality and responsibility.” </p>
<p>It’s clear Chouinard has lost faith in the ability for businesses like Patagonia to act ethically for the common good, despite the company’s history of doing exactly that.</p>
<h2>Patagonia inspired others</h2>
<p>I have long lauded Patagonia as the paradigm of an ethical company. Patagonia sells durable and lasting products, offers a <a href="https://wornwear.patagonia.com/">repair and reuse program</a> and <a href="https://www.patagonia.com/our-responsibility-programs.html">robust environmental</a> and <a href="https://www.patagonia.ca/our-footprint/responsible-wool-standard.html">animal welfare principles</a> for sourcing materials. It also offers safe, fair, legal and <a href="https://www.teenvogue.com/story/patagonia-fair-trade-program-future-fashion">humane working conditions</a> at all production facilities.</p>
<p>We need paradigms of good governance like Patagonia. In contrast, members of <a href="https://www.businessroundtable.org/business-roundtable-redefines-the-purpose-of-a-corporation-to-promote-an-economy-that-serves-all-americans">the Business Roundtable nonprofit</a>, made up of CEOs of top American companies “working to promote a thriving U.S. economy and expanded opportunity for all Americans through sound public policy,” went back on <a href="https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2020/08/18/was-the-business-roundtable-statement-mostly-for-show-2-evidence-from-corporate-governance-guidelines">their ethical promises</a> a year after pledging a new model of corporate responsibility.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A shopper browsing the racks of a Patagonia store" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488813/original/file-20221007-7794-40vkma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488813/original/file-20221007-7794-40vkma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488813/original/file-20221007-7794-40vkma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488813/original/file-20221007-7794-40vkma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488813/original/file-20221007-7794-40vkma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488813/original/file-20221007-7794-40vkma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488813/original/file-20221007-7794-40vkma.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">
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<span class="caption">Patagonia is known for its ethical business practices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>The Roundtable executives were right to conclude that focusing solely on maximizing shareholder value will not support success in today’s socioeconomic reality. But they didn’t know how to follow through on the required changes. </p>
<p>What’s needed is not grandiose ethical gestures, but businesses like Patagonia that model a viable type of ethical business and make meaningful commitments about ethics without alienating managers and customers. </p>
<h2>Avoiding conversation stoppers</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05248-1">recently published paper</a> in the <em>Journal of Business Ethics</em> my colleague and I looked to the American pragmatist Richard Rorty for ethical guidance. Rorty <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/332213/philosophy-and-social-hope-by-richard-rorty/9780140262889">explained</a> that morality begins only when controversy arises, and moral dilemmas are solved by how we justify our ethical positions.</p>
<p>Rorty warns against what he calls conversation stoppers. The argument that there is no hope for shareholder capitalism is one example of a conversation stopper that prevents us from making meaningful progress. Sometimes even the best moral arguments run the risk of having an averse effect. We shouldn’t be shutting down conversations about ethical capitalism — we should be starting them.</p>
<p>Instead of grand gestures, like Patagonia’s recent move, we should be committing to managing stakeholders in a way that shrinks the Us vs. Them divide. It is a mistake for managers of publicly traded firms to view their shareholders as part of the “Us” while all other stakeholders are the less important “Them.” And it is equally problematic for those who put ethics first to view public companies as part of a hopelessly immoral “Them.” </p>
<p>We need to strive for <a href="https://theconversation.com/push-for-ai-innovation-can-create-dangerous-products-186101">harm reduction</a> in our business activities, and work towards <a href="https://www.oecd.org/social/soc/Social-mobility-2018-Overview-MainFindings.pdf">social mobility</a> for all our stakeholders. These are things Patagonia does well that other firms can learn from.</p>
<h2>Difficulty with staying on track</h2>
<p>A recent scandal involving John Deere illustrates how difficult it is for companies to embody true corporate responsibility. Similar to Patagonia, John Deere has also been <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/deere-recognized-as-one-of-the-worlds-most-ethical-companies-301010874.html">lauded for its overall business ethics</a>. </p>
<p>The company’s current focus is on creating agricultural machinery using autonomous driving technology to help the world feed itself. It’s moving to automation in an <a href="https://www.cfa-fca.ca/getting-into-the-field-labour-issues-in-agriculture/">industry facing massive labour shortages</a>.</p>
<p>In 2020, it was revealed that John Deere was <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-05/farmers-fight-john-deere-over-who-gets-to-fix-an-800-000-tractor">selling tractors that farmers were locked out of repairing themselves</a>, meaning even the simplest repair would have to be done by a licensed dealer.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Green John Deere branded drivable lawn mowers sit on display." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488812/original/file-20221007-12-xfju56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488812/original/file-20221007-12-xfju56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488812/original/file-20221007-12-xfju56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488812/original/file-20221007-12-xfju56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488812/original/file-20221007-12-xfju56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488812/original/file-20221007-12-xfju56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488812/original/file-20221007-12-xfju56.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In September 2018, John Deere and several other tractor manufacturers promised farmers that repair tools and software would be made available to them by 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)</span></span>
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<p>This seems like a foolish choice, since the company’s <a href="https://d3.harvard.edu/platform-digit/submission/john-deere-pioneering-the-ag-tech-of-the-future/">future is in innovation</a> tied to its solid reputation, not exploiting <a href="https://www.courthousenews.com/john-deere-accused-of-monopolizing-tractor-repair-industry-in-antitrust-suit/">a repair monopoly</a>. The money gained by this piece of their value proposition is simply not worth the moral cost.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/liberate-the-tractors-the-right-to-repair-movement-thats-regaining-control-of-our-devices-188954">'Liberate the tractors': the right to repair movement that's regaining control of our devices</a>
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<p>John Deere promised that by 2021 it would make repair tools, software and diagnostics directly available to tractor owners. <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7m8mx/john-deere-promised-farmers-it-would-make-tractors-easy-to-repair-it-lied">This has yet to happen</a>.</p>
<h2>Turning the tide of anti-capitalism</h2>
<p>Back in 2005, Richard Rorty <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/business-ethics-quarterly/article/abs/is-philosophy-relevant-to-applied-ethics/3EAD6880ADDC1931494F2BFA0E343499">made a pitch to business thought leaders</a>: engage in big-picture imaginative projects to turn the tide of anti-capitalist resentment. </p>
<p>He observed that this resentment is “likely to produce social and political chaos.” He warned that if those in positions of power aren’t “dreaming up idealistic, utopian scenarios for the formation of a morally decent global society, it is unlikely that such a society will ever come into existence.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.patagonia.com/ownership">Chouinard claims to be acting in that spirit</a>, writing: “Truth be told, there were no good options available. So, we created our own.” But does Patagonia’s grand gesture get us closer to a better society? Not in my estimation. </p>
<p>Instead, it turns business ethics on its head by telling firms to not even bother striving for noble ethical outcomes. It’s a message that undermines a wider drive towards ethical capitalism. By inviting publicly held firms to question the value of even trying to do good, Patagonia may ultimately give them the grounds to cease trying at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191660/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Weitzner receives funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p>By giving up on corporate responsibility, Patagonia’s founder undermines current strides toward ethical capitalism.David Weitzner, Assistant professor, Administrative Studies, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1886212022-08-31T16:56:31Z2022-08-31T16:56:31ZWaste pickers in Lagos tell their stories about a dangerous existence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481014/original/file-20220825-20-y7xgw3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C3%2C2592%2C1677&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Waste pickers at the Olusosan landfill work in a hazardous environment. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lionel Healing/AFP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Lagos, Nigeria’s economic hub, with a population of more than <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/lagos-population">15 million</a>, generates an estimated <a href="https://www.scientific.net/JERA.35.11">12,000</a> metric tonnes of waste daily, which comes to about 4.3 million tonnes of waste annually. This ends up on the streets and in the city’s four officially designated landfills.</p>
<p>These sites support thousands of people who search through what’s discarded for materials with resale value. Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00207233.2022.2055344">survey</a> of two landfill sites discovered a total of about 2,800 waste pickers – men and women. </p>
<p>Most landfills have buy-back centres, where the waste pickers sell recyclables such as metal, glass, plastic and paper. We observed that the subsistence incomes of waste pickers fluctuated daily, depending on the volume of recyclable waste delivered to the landfill, its quality, and varying prices. The daily average income of the street waste pickers was N2,075 (US$4.99) while that of the landfill waste pickers was N5,530 (US$13.30). Though this average income is higher than the <a href="https://databankfiles.worldbank.org/data/download/poverty/987B9C90-CB9F-4D93-AE8C-750588BF00QA/AM2021/Global_POVEQ_NGA.pdf">poverty line</a>, the work and the environment are hazardous, and its value is not fully appreciated.</p>
<p>Waste pickers often work without protective gear, unassisted, and without access to primary care or first aid and employment regulations. They operate on the margins of or outside the formal process of managing solid waste, but play vital roles, especially in reuse, recycling and cost recovery. </p>
<p>They work in unsheltered environments and are unprotected from severe heat, sun, rain, and cold weather. These conditions have been linked with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/5530064">cardiovascular disorders</a>. Likewise, exposure to dust, micro-organisms and microbial toxins can result in chronic respiratory diseases, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7569875/">skin problems and gastrointestinal illnesses</a>. </p>
<p>Research on waste pickers has tended to focus on the health risks of their occupation. Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207233.2022.2055344?casa_token=PHnkskfO9ZIAAAAA:Y7PdgyDp5035bdZXV_0zHELhvZbD98vN9WUZGMDThwEHKpZEm0TfZfnQReqgqRZLAh4wM4DDSPeE">study</a> confirmed that Lagos waste pickers were exposed to occupational health hazards, but also aimed to reveal more about their well-being and their own perspectives. </p>
<p>The findings may help waste management authorities to make landfills a more dignified working environment that sustains waste pickers’ livelihoods without jeopardising their well-being.</p>
<h2>Occupational hazards of waste picking</h2>
<p>For our research, we interviewed 125 waste pickers in Olusosun landfill and 27 in Solous landfill. Olusosun is situated in Ojota, Kosofe Local Government Area and Solous in Egbeda, Alimosho Local Government Area of Lagos state.</p>
<p>We established that waste picking in landfills was mostly done by younger people: 88% of our respondents were aged between 18 and 45. The collection of recyclable materials and items was mostly done by men, while the sorting was mostly by women.</p>
<p>They operated at the landfill because of the abundance and concentration of waste there. In fact, 66% lived at the dumpsite. The majority worked seven days a week. The average number of years they had spent doing this work was seven.</p>
<p>Most of the waste pickers we spoke to had experienced illnesses or injuries. Body pain, bruises and fatigue were the most frequently mentioned conditions.
Most waste pickers had bruises or scars on their hands, arms and feet, mainly from cuts or piercings during sorting. </p>
<p>Other illnesses and injuries were caused by inappropriate posture and prolonged work hours. Many had sore or itchy eyes caused by exposure to smoke from burning garbage and to other hazards like methane gas, sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide.</p>
<p>The people in our study didn’t use personal protective equipment or go for regular medical checks. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nigerias-plastic-pollution-is-harming-the-environment-steps-to-combat-it-are-overdue-177839">Nigeria's plastic pollution is harming the environment: steps to combat it are overdue</a>
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<p>When we asked about their subjective feelings, we found that the waste pickers were very dissatisfied with their unhealthy working conditions, the extreme poverty they lived in, and the stigmatisation they experienced. Many used alcohol and drugs. Most said they were distressed by their work. </p>
<p>They experienced discrimination, prejudice and social rejection. </p>
<p>Yet with low education levels – 61% were illiterate – they could not find other work. They settled for waste picking as a last resort to earn a living.</p>
<h2>Value of waste pickers</h2>
<p>Nigerian authorities don’t fully appreciate the <a href="https://www.wiego.org/publications/feminizing-waste-waste-picking-empowerment-opportunity-women-children-impoverished-communities">beneficial role</a> of waste pickers. These workers contribute to environmental sustainability by reducing wastes in dumpsites and providing material for recycling and reuse. But they are never considered when waste management policies are designed.</p>
<p>Waste pickers should be recognised in waste management policies and their well-being should be taken seriously.</p>
<p>Waste management authorities, NGOs and multinational organisations must ensure that potable water, sanitary facilities and clinics are provided at landfills. Waste pickers must be allowed to use them free of charge, as is the case in Brazil.</p>
<p>In addition, waste pickers should be encouraged to develop workplace health frameworks to alleviate accidents and risks. </p>
<p>Training to build their capacity and expand their skills, giving them other work opportunities, could reduce their dissatisfaction. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/african-digital-innovators-are-turning-plastic-waste-into-value-but-there-are-gaps-188014">African digital innovators are turning plastic waste into value -- but there are gaps</a>
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<p>There is also a need for investment in regular occupational health and safety training through public/private partnerships. Waste pickers should be provided with personal protective equipment and monitored to ensure proper use. Non-compliance should be penalised.</p>
<p>Lastly, the rights of waste pickers must be protected. They should not be stigmatised but treated as essential to waste management.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188621/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Olanrewaju Dada 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>Lagos waste pickers were dissatisfied with their unhealthy working conditions, poverty and stigmatisation.Olanrewaju Dada, Lecturer, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria, Olabisi Onabanjo UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1878902022-08-05T15:41:23Z2022-08-05T15:41:23ZWhen do strikes work? History shows the conditions need to be right<p>There has been a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/30/strikes-in-uk-fall-to-lowest-level-since-records-began-in-1893">significant decline</a> in union-led strike action in the 21st-century UK. But with <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/bulletins/averageweeklyearningsingreatbritain/july2022">average public sector pay</a> increasing by 1.5% between March and May 2022 (versus 7.2% in the private sector) and households facing a <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/cost-living-crisis">cost of living</a> crisis, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/02/strikes-in-uk-at-highest-in-five-years-as-pay-is-hit-by-inflation">industrial disputes</a> are on the rise again in the UK.</p>
<p>Strike action has already picked up in <a href="https://www.rmt.org.uk/news/rmt-confirms-national-rail-strike-to-go-ahead22722/">recent months</a>, particularly among rail workers. Now <a href="https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/20513045.southampton-royal-mail-representative-confirms-strike-action-city/">unions in other sectors</a>, including those for <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2022/07/01/travel-summer-holidays-under-threat-from-airline-strikes-across-europe-16929191/">airlines</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-62332822">port workers</a> and <a href="https://schoolsweek.co.uk/aqa-staff-vote-in-favour-of-strike-action-over-pay/">exam markers</a>, are asking <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/07/25/british-airways-pilots-poised-launch-strike-action/">members to vote</a> on whether or not to follow suit. Unions are legally required to hold a ballot for members to approve industrial action.</p>
<p>Workers that vote in favour could look to history for insight into how to make a strike work. Some of the more successful campaigns waged by UK unions happened in the 1970s. Trade union membership had reached a peak of <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1077904/Trade_Union_Membership_UK_1995-2021_statistical_bulletin.pdf">13.2 million</a> by 1979, after years of sustained growth. Crucially, these unions also faced fragile governments and strong public support for striking workers. </p>
<p>On the other hand, many of the most famous national strikes in Britain are somewhat notorious for being unsuccessful. And even the victories have often been followed by greater restrictions on unions.</p>
<h2>The successful strikes of the 1970s</h2>
<p>In 1970, the Conservative prime minister Edward Heath had secured a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33772016#:%7E:text=expectations%20to%20win-,a%2030%2Dseat%20majority,-.%20Opinion%20polls%20had">30-seat parliamentary majority</a> but his government was beset by unemployment and inflation issues. In this environment, British coal miners struck for the first time in nearly 50 years in 1972. Polling showed <a href="https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30696148.pdf">55% of the public</a> were sympathetic to the miners’ pay demands and the strike ended following the publication of a government inquiry which recommended a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/jan/01/past.politics1">27% pay increase</a>. </p>
<p>But action resumed in 1974 when wages failed to reach this level. This resulted in a <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10012345/When-lights-DID-1970s-Britain-plunged-darkness-three-day-working-week.html">three-day week</a> in Britain, with electricity to commercial premises rationed as strike activity affected fuel supply. The Conservative government called a general election and Labour emerged as the largest party in a hung parliament in February 1974. The miners secured a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/6/newsid_4207000/4207111.stm">35% pay increase</a> under the new government.</p>
<p>By the end of the 1970s, the unions’ significant membership boosted their bargaining power, particularly against the fragile government of the day. (The narrow parliamentary majority Labour had secured in October 1974 had disappeared by 1976.) </p>
<p>But to combat economic difficulties – much like today, Britain was experiencing high levels of inflation – the Labour government introduced a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-15677-1_10?noAccess=true">social contract</a> to minimise pay rises. The trade union movement supported this deal until 1978 when then-prime minister James Callaghan attempted to introduce a further round of restraint with a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/winter-of-discontent/introduction/EFA36F1659546029FA89569172F7B81A">5% pay cap</a>. </p>
<p>Following the August 1978 Ford factory strikes, which secured a 16.5% pay rise for its workers, public sector workers began strike action in January 1979 across a variety of industries in what became known as the winter of discontent. In total, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/20/stuff-your-5-is-the-uk-facing-a-summer-of-discontent-and-what-can-we-learn-from-the-winter-of-1979">4.6 million workers</a> participated in the 1978-79 strikes. </p>
<p>Callaghan’s attempts to hold the line on the pay cap ultimately failed but might have worked with a more stable parliamentary majority, particularly since <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307570360_Institutional_Adaption_The_Trades_Union_Congress">84% of people</a> believed trade unions were too powerful at this time. </p>
<p>The results of the winter of discontent were mixed. Many sectors received pay rises, but the action encouraged a public backlash against trade unions. In March 1979, Callaghan’s government lost a no-confidence measure by one vote, paving the way for the May 1979 general election. Margaret Thatcher’s subsequent victory saw <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/49/enacted">significant restrictions</a> placed on union activity, including limitations on picketing, a ban on sympathy strikes, the end of the closed shop and a requirement for secret ballots for all unions.</p>
<h2>Strong governments and less public support</h2>
<p>In contrast, several well-known strikes waged against strong, well-prepared governments, and amid little public support for striking workers, were ultimately unsuccessful. </p>
<p>For example, Britain’s first – and so far only – general strike nearly 100 years ago saw up to <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/general-strike-cover-papers.htm">1.75 million workers</a> from various industries strike against pay cuts for miners. The government at the time enjoyed the support of the public, had a parliamentary majority of 209 and was prepared with alternative transport networks and volunteers to maintain services. </p>
<p>The Trades Union Congress called off the strike after 9 days with no major concessions granted to the miners. Indeed, the main impact of the strike was a clampdown on union activity by the government. The <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/strike-consequential-legislation.htm#:%7E:text=Trade%20Disputes%20and%20Trade%20Union%20Act%201927">1927 Trades Dispute Act</a> banned general strikes, sympathy strikes and large-scale picketing.</p>
<p>Another well-known miners’ strike in 1984 played out under similarly difficult conditions for unions. After refusing a 5.2% pay rise in 1983 and fearing pit closures, the National Union of Mineworkers called an unballoted strike in March 1984. </p>
<p>At its height, <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/thehistoryofstrikesintheuk/2015-09-21">142,000 miners</a> walked out, but all returned to work after a year without agreement. At this time, Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government had been re-elected by a landslide in 1983, while <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2015/04/15/was-the-british-governments-handling-of-the-19845-miners-strike-brilliant/">opinion polls during 1984</a> indicated public sympathy lay with the employers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Group of protestors with signs about pensions outside UK houses of parliament" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476685/original/file-20220729-14-yd6eov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/476685/original/file-20220729-14-yd6eov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476685/original/file-20220729-14-yd6eov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476685/original/file-20220729-14-yd6eov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476685/original/file-20220729-14-yd6eov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476685/original/file-20220729-14-yd6eov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/476685/original/file-20220729-14-yd6eov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Union members demonstrate outside UK parliament about government pension proposals, June 30 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-june-30-unidentified-members-unions-80227009">Matt Gibson / Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most recent large-scale action taken by trade unions happened during a period of similar political stability. Public sector strikes held in 2011 in response to pension reforms involved up to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/nov/30/strikes-public-sector-pensions-impact">2 million workers</a>, according to unions, and resulted in 60% of schools closing and 6,000 cancelled hospital operations. But it did not lead to large scale changes to public sector pensions and did little to halt public sector <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/03/lost-decade-hidden-story-how-austerity-broke-britain">austerity cuts</a>.</p>
<p>David Cameron’s Conservative Party had formed a stable coalition government with the Liberal Democrats a year before. The public also <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2011/06/30/strikes-divide-opinion">disapproved of industrial action</a> by teachers and civil servants, even though they opposed the government changes to public sector pensions that had led to the strike. </p>
<p>The Conservatives clamped down on such strike activity following their victory at the 2015 General Election. The <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/15/contents/enacted">2016 Trade Union Act</a> introduced a 50% turnout requirement for strike action, alongside a 40% support threshold among all workers in key public service industries.</p>
<p>For ongoing strikes today to have any prospect of success, unions must carefully balance industrial action with negotiation to maintain public support. And the government must seriously engage with public sector pay claims, particularly during the cost of living crisis, to avoid a further slide in political opinion polls.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187890/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Massey is a Principal Lecturer at Teesside University and a Labour Party Councillor for Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.</span></em></p>The strength of the government and public support can make a crucial difference.Christopher Massey, Principal Lecturer (Programmes) - Humanities and Social Sciences, Teesside UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1848952022-06-23T14:50:35Z2022-06-23T14:50:35ZWhy Uber drivers aren’t unionizing in Québec<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468243/original/file-20220610-28309-qtm2nc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Uber model hinders any possibility of drivers acting collectively and generates significant cognitive dissonance among them.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As of mid-June, the Uber platform will extend its services to the entire province of Québec. On a global scale, Uber is in nearly <a href="https://s23.q4cdn.com/407969754/files/doc_downloads/2021/07/Uber-2021-ESG-Report.pdf">10,000 cities and 71 countries and has more than 3.5 million workers</a>.</p>
<p>This model, based on on-demand work and the algorithmic distribution of tasks, fundamentally transforms ways of thinking about, organizing and carrying out work, both on an individual and collective basis.</p>
<p>The expansion of Uber’s service across Québec provides an opportunity to examine the reality of the work being carried out by thousands of drivers and delivery personnel in the province. What is their work day like? How do they make social connections?</p>
<p>To try to answer these questions, I observed Facebook groups of drivers and interviewed about 50 Uber workers in Québec.</p>
<p>As a doctoral student in communications at Université du Québec à Montréal and a research student at the Université du Québec’s Institut national de la recherche scientifique, my research examines the profile and motivations of Uber drivers, their ideas about collective action and, more generally, the psychosocial issues involved in work that is mediated by algorithms.</p>
<h2>Many encounters, but solitary work</h2>
<p>Although Uber workers encounter many people on a daily basis (customers, restaurant owners, passengers), their activity is essentially solitary. Their work takes place without ever meeting another human from Uber. Their registration on the platform is done online and their daily tasks are distributed to them by an algorithm through the Uber app.</p>
<p>If a problem prompts a driver to contact the company’s technical service, the people they interact with are located in <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520970632/html">out-of-country call centres</a>. What’s more, the answers they get are most often formatted by scripts, reinforcing the robotic nature of their relationship to work.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467558/original/file-20220607-18-79q23t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="man wearing a mask driving a car with an Uber badge" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467558/original/file-20220607-18-79q23t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467558/original/file-20220607-18-79q23t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467558/original/file-20220607-18-79q23t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467558/original/file-20220607-18-79q23t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467558/original/file-20220607-18-79q23t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467558/original/file-20220607-18-79q23t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467558/original/file-20220607-18-79q23t.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">The organization of their work limits Uber drivers’ possibilities to socialize and hinders the possibility of forming a union.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As for the few moments when workers might meet — in restaurants waiting for orders or in drop-off areas at airports — drivers’ interactions are limited to brief exchanges about the number of orders they got that day, as expressed by Katia, an Uber Eats delivery driver in Montréal:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I pass another delivery driver, I say “Hey Uber! Lots of business tonight,” or “Not much business tonight,” and that’s about it. After that, I probably won’t ever see them again, but if I do, I just say hello. I don’t even know their name.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A competitive atmosphere</h2>
<p>Uber drivers’ Facebook groups do provide a place to share information and vent about frustrating situations. However, these spaces play a very limited role in building a collective since they don’t make it possible for drivers to have extended conversations about work.</p>
<p>The architecture of the groups favours short-term interactions, with posts quickly fading into the thread. Constructive exchanges would require conversations over a long period of time in an atmosphere of listening and trust. However, the competition felt by drivers, combined with the brief and anonymous interaction mode of social networks, contributes to a hostile climate. As Diane, an Uber Eats delivery driver in Laval, says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think that the negative comments are made to discourage others because it’s not a group where we encourage each other. It’s a group where we try to discourage others, because it’s competition. If I want to earn a living, I have to run more races than you.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Collective action is a threat</h2>
<p>Surprisingly, this absence of a collective identity is not perceived as a problem by most of the workers I interviewed. Despite difficult working conditions over which they have no control, workers do not tend toward gathering and mobilizing in an effort to establish a power relationship with Uber.</p>
<p>While Uber drivers in other jurisdictions <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8816204/uber-union-reach-settlement-ontario-unionization-case/">have tried to unionize</a>, the idea of collective action is perceived as a threat by most of the Québec workers. The competitive climate pushes drivers to develop a repertoire of tactics and tinkering to stand out, as Bertrand, an Uber driver in Québec City, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We all go to the Facebook group for the same thing, to find others like us and see if they can give us tips and tricks to better understand how it works, to get information. But we quickly understand that, no, we are all in the same boat, we are all there for our own pocketbook.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Among the tactics used to optimize their income, some drivers will, for example, call customers to find out their destination before picking them up. If drivers feel the trip is unprofitable, given the distance to the customer, they will cancel the trip. Others use two phones to maintain access to the map and show the location of the surcharge zones.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467536/original/file-20220607-13238-andol3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Uber app on a Samsung phone showing several available cars" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467536/original/file-20220607-13238-andol3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467536/original/file-20220607-13238-andol3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467536/original/file-20220607-13238-andol3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467536/original/file-20220607-13238-andol3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467536/original/file-20220607-13238-andol3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467536/original/file-20220607-13238-andol3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467536/original/file-20220607-13238-andol3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In Québec, many Uber users appreciate the app’s ease of use and the convenience of the service.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>No sense of belonging</h2>
<p>To many workers, a work collective that strives to harmonize practices and replace individual tactics with collective strategies, looks like a loss of competitive advantage.</p>
<p>Now that Uber drivers’ struggles against cab drivers is over — thanks to <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5096891/taxi-drivers-protest-montreal-quebec-city/">the adoption of Bill 17 in 2020</a> which deregulated Québec’s taxi industry — they no longer share a common enemy.</p>
<h2>Fraught consequences</h2>
<p>Each driver has to learn how the business works and cope with its challenges on their own, cobbling together their own tactics, conscious that not all drivers benefit from the same resources. Moreover, drivers are deprived of the opportunity to develop a collective reaction about their working conditions. </p>
<p>The absence of meaningful exchanges, opportunities to listen and the presence of other drivers hinders the development of any meaningful relationships and solidarity between drivers. Their activity is reduced to their relationship with technology.</p>
<p>In fact, without the power to act collectively in the face of rigid working conditions, the dysfunctions and health problems of workers are always treated <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278777956_Collective_work_and_rules_re-writing_process_a_way_of_workers%27_health">as isolated realities rather than as a consequence of the way their work is organized</a>. As Kader, an Uber driver in Montréal, puts it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve never opened my heart on the Facebook group. All I have to do is make one comment and I feel attacked by the others. Often, drivers who speak honestly are verbally attacked. Drivers are suffering. We could discuss it. But the climate we need to do this does not exist in the group.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The profiles of Uber drivers in Québec vary greatly. For example, the fact that it’s impossible to negotiate higher incomes does not have the same consequences for a Tesla engineer, who drives three hours a week to take their mind off things, as it does for an immigrant who works 60 hours a week to support their family.</p>
<h2>Low revenues and lack of transparency</h2>
<p>For some individuals being an Uber driver brings in extra income, but the model also takes advantage of the precariousness of a part of the population. Those who carry out the activity as their only source of income, often do so because they lack a better option. </p>
<p>Although the majority of the drivers I interviewed do not aspire to become employees and are reluctant to join a union, many deplore the low income and the platform’s lack of transparency over how the algorithm and the remuneration system work.</p>
<p>Faced with this situation, they see the government as the only stakeholder that could establish a power relationship with Uber and force the platform to offer better working conditions to its drivers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184895/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucie Enel has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie, and the J.A. DeSève Foundation.</span></em></p>When it comes to dealing with Uber’s difficult working conditions, Uber drivers are on their own.Lucie Enel, Doctorante en communication, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1692852021-10-21T13:38:35Z2021-10-21T13:38:35ZHow Zambian trade unions’ good intentions hurt workers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427192/original/file-20211019-14-18s5aqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Zambia's mining industry is highly unionised but the unions are too weak to protect workers' interests.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Zambia’s mining industry, wages and working conditions have consistently declined for <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2017.1345731">30 years</a>. This is primarily because of <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=fr&lr=&id=_143DwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA39&dq=lee+precarity+in+Zambia&ots=oVU47F822L&sig=tfyaoC5jNAUAW0hL-yNtllvNXNA&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=lee%20precarity%20in%20Zambia&f=false">changes to labour laws</a>. Strikes have been banned, the subcontracting of workers has become easier, and wages are negotiated at each workplace, rather than for the industry as a whole. </p>
<p>Though the industry, which mines mainly copper and accounts for <a href="https://eiti.org/zambia#:%7E:text=According%20to%20the%20latest%20EITI%20reporting%20(2019)%2C%20the%20extractive,total%20employed%20persons%20in%20Zambia.">9.95% of GDP</a>, is heavily unionised, unions have been unable to protect workers. Zambian miners are <a href="http://www.daily-mail.co.zm/coward-union-leaders-let-downs/">disillusioned</a> with their unions. Their disappointment is made worse by the tendency of unions to portray themselves as strong. The mismatch of image and reality leads workers to see union leaders as corrupt or cowardly, rather than as disempowered by national laws and international capital. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.13420">research</a> suggests instead that Zambian unions are close to management because they are trying to help workers. However, through their attempts to assist miners with their daily needs, unions enabled lower wages and worse working conditions.</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>I <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2021.1908827">studied</a> Zambian mining unions between 2016 and 2019, to understand why they could not protect workers’ wages and what they did instead. </p>
<p>I examined the organisational practices of three of the country’s largest unions - the Mineworkers Union of Zambia, the United Mineworkers Union of Zambia and the National Union of Mine and Allied Workers. In more than 120 interviews, I also explored the daily lives of union members employed on mines, volunteer unionists and leaders. </p>
<p>The 12 months of participant observation culminated in two research reports. The first was published in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2021.1908827">April 2021</a>, the second in <a href="https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.13420">June 2021</a>.</p>
<p>Other studies often examine union tactics and workers’ daily lives without connecting the two. I see the daily lives of workplace-based volunteer union leaders (called branch executives) and the tactics of senior union leaders as entwined. </p>
<p>Based on both pieces of research, I argue that, by taking on moral responsibility for workers’ lives, unions subsidised an unjust employment system. This argument has two parts. <a href="https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.13420">Branch executives justified the low wages that miners received</a>. And, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2021.1908827">through framing themselves as entrepreneurs, selling goods and services on credit</a>, unions made it possible for their members to live on lower incomes. This subsidised employers, by enabling them to pay less than a living wage. </p>
<p>Unions made it possible for workers to survive even though actual wages were not enough to live on. This meant wage exploitation and poor working conditions could continue.</p>
<h2>Justifying low wages</h2>
<p>Zambia’s mining unions claimed to be powerful and militant. They motivated workers through chants like “The People United Will Never Be Defeated”. Union leaders argued that they negotiated the highest salaries by understanding economic data and by threatening strikes. But instead they worked closely with employers. </p>
<p>They also opened stores that sold food on credit and offered loans to miners. Union branch executives came to understand themselves as savvy technocrats. They invested heavily in learning the economic data and industry trends that they believed would shape wages.</p>
<p>Union leaders and members saw their union as a financially influential entrepreneurial entity, because of the businesses it ran. They understood these debt-centric businesses as a sign of unions’ strength, rather than workers’ poverty. </p>
<p>Miners and unionists came to see their wages and working conditions as determined by a just “free market”, instead of by a legal system that favoured employers and foreign investors. Seeing things this way also encouraged unions to provide goods and services that subsidised wages below the cost of living.</p>
<p>Union branch executives were typically popular miners who held leadership positions in their church and community. They assisted their coworkers daily, by resolving disputes with management and providing material support to struggling peers. They were also nominally in charge of negotiating wages.</p>
<p>Despite the union leaders’ popularity, miners often accused them of receiving bribes to accept low wages in salary negotiations, and to discourage strikes. </p>
<p>In contrast, I <a href="https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9655.13420">found</a> that the mentally and emotionally demanding process of negotiating wages forced union branch executives to draw strength from depicting themselves as technocrats. For example, when negotiating wages, they compiled shopping lists showing increased living costs. </p>
<p>This encouraged the union branch executives to believe that negotiations had been fair and had produced the highest wages the market allowed. This, even when legal structures made negotiations unlikely to result in higher wages. </p>
<p>Because union branch executives also offered their increasingly poor coworkers gifts and loans, miners were able to live off ever-decreasing salaries. They were thus more likely to listen to the branch executives when they discouraged strikes that had on occasion raised wages.</p>
<h2>Union entrepreneurship</h2>
<p>To fund the material support offered by union branch executives to miners, Zambian mining union head offices operate small businesses. These target members as customers and charge above-market prices. Despite this, they are popular because they offer long (albeit expensive) lines of credit. </p>
<p>Both in Zambia and elsewhere this is seen as a cynical form of business unionism. It entails unions profiting from workers rather than assisting them in their conflicts with management. I <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01436597.2021.1908827">found</a> that Zambian mining unions increasingly conceptualised themselves as entrepreneurs. The profits from the small businesses they operated paid for the costs of unionising workers, whose salaries were decreasing. </p>
<p>These unions-as-businesses also helped small businesses run by other miners and unemployed Zambians. Rather than seeing this as caused by the unions’ inability to obtain wages that covered living costs, the union leaders and local semi-employed miners conceptualised themselves as powerful entrepreneurs, within a “fair” free market. </p>
<p>Unions and workers assisted their unemployed and casually employed peers by offering them loans or buying their overpriced goods and services. </p>
<h2>Ways forward for Zambian unions</h2>
<p>My work calls for understanding Zambian unions’ closeness to management as caused by unionists’ attempts to improve the lives of workers, rather than by corruption or cowardice. This closeness occurs in the context of a global capitalism that they have either been taught to perceive as just or to accept as inevitable. </p>
<p>A core challenge going forward for the unions is maintaining membership numbers without promising victories that are unlikely to occur. Unions may need to continue using entrepreneurship and wage negotiating skills to assist members. But, they must also highlight that union businesses and negotiations occur within an unjust national and international labour system.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169285/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article was written as part of the WORKinMINING project (<a href="https://www.workinmining.ulg.ac.be">https://www.workinmining.ulg.ac.be</a>). The project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 646802). The ideas developed in this article reflect only the author’s view. The ERC is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. </span></em></p>Through their attempts to assist miners with their daily needs, Zambian unions enable lower wages and worse working conditions.Thomas McNamara, Lecturer, La Trobe University, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1693852021-10-15T10:25:39Z2021-10-15T10:25:39ZLow pay, long hours, high pressure: what it’s really like to be an HGV driver<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/426666/original/file-20211015-21-7md907.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=80%2C33%2C4372%2C2930&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/tring-uk-may-31-2020-single-1751851088">Shutterstock/Jarek Kilian</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/57810729#:%7E:text=They%20say%20the%20average%20age%20of%20HGV%20drivers,at%20the%20legal%20and%20business%20services%20group%2C%20DWF.">shortage of lorry drivers</a> in the UK has been blamed for <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/fuel-supply-crisis-why-is-there-an-hgv-driver-shortage-and-how-bad-could-the-problem-get-12417317">queues at petrol stations</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/03/call-for-action-as-uk-driver-shortage-hits-supermarket-shelves">warnings</a> of supermarket shortages. As a result, some companies have <a href="https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2021/08/ms-offers-new-lorry-drivers-2000-sign-on-bonus/">reportedly</a> been trying to attract drivers with signing up bonuses and substantial pay rises.</p>
<p>But what is the job really like? </p>
<p>Driving long distances carrying vital supplies may sound appealing to those who like the idea of solitude and being on the move. Yet our <a href="https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/beacons-of-excellence/rights-lab/resources/reports-and-briefings/2021/may/disposable-workers-full-report.pdf">recent report</a> highlights serious concerns from drivers about their work. </p>
<p>We analysed hundreds of messages from online discussion forums and interviewed drivers to investigate the reality of life on the road in a HGV.</p>
<p>We often saw discontentment about a lack of work-life balance, long, unpredictable hours and low pay. There were also worries about relationships with management and work pressures. </p>
<p>The apparent shortage of drivers has seemingly done little to provide those who drive HGVs with any power or leverage. Describing the culture in the industry, one person said: “Drivers have their place. They can’t complain, they can’t do anything.”</p>
<p>And many took issue with claims of a shortage in the first place. One explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a lie to get more people in so the hourly rate can go lower. It’s a con. If there’s a shortage of drivers, every company would be fighting for drivers [with offers of better pay]. It’s not happening.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another agreed, saying the situation “forces drivers to compete amongst themselves” because some employers offer such low wages. The implied message was, according to this driver: “If you don’t want to work for this money, we’ll find other people who do.”</p>
<p>Commenting on the competition for work, another admitted: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m doing all sorts of strange shifts because if I don’t do it someone else will get my shifts. I’ll go to work and drive even if I feel like I haven’t slept enough.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One participant who agreed there were shortages offered this explanation: “There’s a shortage of drivers because the industry is living in the past. Look at the way people are treated. People are leaving right away.” </p>
<p>The treatment of drivers came up frequently in our study, which revealed displeasure with high levels of surveillance and scrutiny. As well as tachographs, which monitor routes and journey times, many lorries have cameras fitted which film both the exterior of the vehicle and the interior of the driver’s cabin. While these devices can ensure legal driving hours are not exceeded and record accidents on the road, many felt they were used as tools of micro-management.</p>
<p>One explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The route is analysed to the nth degree by somebody sitting in an office. Why did you turn left at that junction and why didn’t you go straight on? Why have you done this, why have you gone that way, why were you late getting there?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another said: “What makes this job miserable is that I feel like I’m always being watched.” </p>
<h2>Breakdowns</h2>
<p>Others complained that the unpredictable shifts and long hours were incompatible with any kind of work-life balance.</p>
<p>One commented: “We don’t have a social life. Most lorry drivers are the same. They’re either working away all week or they work very long hours during the day so when they get home, they’re too tired to do anything else.” </p>
<p>Another said of drivers: “Their marriages are breaking down, their relationships are breaking down. A lot of them don’t see their children or their grandchildren.” </p>
<p>One told us how he was missing out on his childrens’ development, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I don’t go to no parents evenings, I don’t go to no Christmas shows, no plays. I don’t see nothing. I don’t pick the kids up from school.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Concerns around pay were common. As the sector is highly competitive with low profit margins, many workers believed that wages are kept low to reduce overall costs. </p>
<p>One argued that there were plenty of drivers with licences who chose not to work in the sector, saying: “We’re not 50,000 drivers short. We’re actually short of 50,000 people that want to work at minimum wage. They’re just fed up with it.”</p>
<p>While our report reflects personal experiences and perspectives, it also provides an insight into the reality of working in a sector that effects all consumers. While Brexit and COVID-19 may have fuelled the driver shortage, there are deeper underlying problems which need to be addressed.</p>
<p>HGV drivers are a vital part of the economy, and more needs to be done to ensure they are supported. This starts with listening to workers’ experiences and concerns. As one driver remarked: “Government investment in overseeing the health and welfare of the industry itself is non-existent. They don’t take the trouble to go and speak to drivers – nobody does.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169385/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research was funded by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK.</span></em></p>What drivers told us about life on the road.Akilah Jardine, Visiting Fellow in Antislavery Business, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1675972021-09-29T18:19:46Z2021-09-29T18:19:46ZHow the pandemic has changed China’s economy – perhaps for good<p>China was the first country to be affected by Covid-19 and took unprecedented lockdown measures that led to a <a href="https://www.lepoint.fr/economie/la-croissance-chinoise-reste-positive-en-2020-malgre-le-covid-18-01-2021-2410000_28.php">historic decline in growth of at least 6%</a> in 2020. But in 2021, the country has mounted a recovery and economic growth is <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/35897">projected</a> to reach 8.5 percent by the end of the year, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.</p>
<p>Yet the pandemic has still led to lasting changes the labour market in China, following which the country may need to pursue new avenues for growth.</p>
<p>In the hospitality and export industries, companies were forced to <a href="http://www.chinanews.com/gn/2020/05-20/9190092.shtml">lay off staff or delay their return to work</a> in 2020. The delivery sector, on the other hand, has been growing continuously for a number of years now and has recruited en masse during the pandemic, with many workers who lost their jobs in other sectors turning instead to more flexible roles as <a href="http://www.199it.com/archives/1086268.html">couriers and drivers</a>.</p>
<h2>Migrant workers</h2>
<p>Rural migrants have been the main architects of China’s remarkable growth over the past three decades, accounting for a third of the country’s more than 800 million workers. For the first time since 2008, they have decreased: <a href="http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjsj/zxfb/202104/t20210430_1816933.html">from 290.8 million in 2019 to 285.6 million in 2020</a>.</p>
<p>According to some surveys, some rural migrants are thought to have <a href="https://mri.meituan.com/research/home">returned to their original roles</a> when businesses began to recover. But others, many of who returned to their hometowns to mark the Lunar New Year <a href="https://www.yicai.com/news/100726880.html">never returned to the city</a>, owing to administrative constraints and later a lack of opportunities.</p>
<p>By the end of July 2020 there were <a href="https://www.yicai.com/news/100726880.html">over 13 million migrant workers employed locally</a>. Alongside those who became farmers or were taken on by companies, <a href="https://www.yicai.com/news/100726880.html">5% started making local products</a> and selling them directly via live-streaming, thus undermining the Chinese model of modernisation which had previously been based on the mobilisation of cheap and easily exploitable rural labour in towns and cities for the past three decades.</p>
<h2>Women lose out</h2>
<p>In China, as elsewhere, the position of women in the job market in particular has deteriorated, with the pandemic only serving to accentuate the <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS">steady decline in their rate of employment</a>, which had already dropped from 80% in the 1980s to 60% in 2019. In cities, <a href="https://www.sohu.com/a/394181402_260616.">family members</a> have once again been called upon to care for children and the elderly – a task normally entrusted to migrant women.</p>
<p>While some mothers <a href="https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/111899231">praise the strengthening of family ties resulting from the lockdown</a>, others have reported heightened levels of anxiety and an <a href="https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/107320328">excessive physical and mental burden</a>.</p>
<p>For upper-class women, leaving the job market leads to financial dependence on their husbands, who usually earn a salary that is sufficient to maintain the household’s standard of living. For working-class women, however, the pandemic has only reinforced the <a href="https://www.sohu.com/a/394181402_260616">precariousness</a> of the situations in which they already found themselves.</p>
<h2>A tough market for graduates</h2>
<p>Young graduates in the job market, the number of which is expected to reach an unprecedented peak of 9.09 million in 2021 – representing an <a href="http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/2021-03/19/content_5593988.htm">increase of 350,000 on 2020</a> – are particularly vulnerable.</p>
<p>The pandemic has made it all the more difficult for young graduates to find work in 2021 since large numbers of the previous cohort are still yet to find employment. Many of them are consequently preparing <a href="https://www.xianjichina.com/news/details_252113.html">to continue their studies</a> or to take the entrance exams for the civil service in an attempt to delay their entry into such a hostile market. A <a href="https://www.xianjichina.com/news/details_252113.html">survey</a> conducted in Hunan province estimated that 37.5% of young graduates intended to set up their own businesses, a move encouraged by the authorities, 20.8% to continue their studies and 10.5% to take civil service exams.</p>
<p>The competition for first jobs is all the more fierce given that students who had left to study and work abroad have been returning in droves since mid-2020 when Covid-19, which had been effectively contained in China, intensified in North America and Europe.</p>
<h2>The end of a cycle</h2>
<p>The pandemic has confirmed what a general slowdown had already been indicating for several years: China is at the end of a cycle and must find new drivers for its growth.</p>
<p>We can also assume that the health and geopolitical context will stem the flow of Chinese students travelling abroad in the future, and that the difficulties that potential host countries experience in dealing with Covid-19 and <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-vision-of-a-free-and-open-indo-pacific-quad-leaders-send-a-clear-signal-to-china-167896">international</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/aukus-is-an-arms-race-with-china-the-price-of-global-britain-168107">tensions</a> might result in well-off families deciding not to send their children to Australia, the United States or Europe.</p>
<p>As China becomes more powerful on the international stage, this process is likely to lead, in the long run, to the return of its economy and its society back to its own territory.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Renyou Hou has received funding from ANR, IRSC, AFD. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gilles Guiheux, Guo Ye, Ke Huang, Li Jun et Manon Laurent 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 poste universitaire.</span></em></p>In China, as elsewhere, the pandemic has turned the world of work upside down.Gilles Guiheux, Professeur, socio-histoire de la Chine, CESSMA (UMR 245), Université Paris CitéGuo Ye, Doctorante au Centre d’études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques (CESSMA), Université Paris CitéKe Huang, Doctorant en sociologie au Laboratoire de Changement Social et Politique (LCSP), Université Paris CitéLi Jun, Doctorante au Centre d’études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques (CESSMA), Université Paris CitéManon Laurent, Doctorante au Centre d’études en sciences sociales sur les mondes africains, américains et asiatiques (CESSMA), Université Paris CitéRenyou Hou, Anthropologue, postdoctorant de la Fondation Chiang Ching-kuo, au LESC (Laboratoire d'ethnologie et de sociologie comparative), Université Paris Nanterre – Université Paris LumièresLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1676142021-09-22T20:00:18Z2021-09-22T20:00:18ZWorker shortage? Or poor work conditions? Here’s what’s really vexing Canadian restaurants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422252/original/file-20210921-17-tgwmo9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=421%2C18%2C4894%2C3987&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A waitress wears a mask while carrying drinks for guests inside the Blu Martini restaurant in Kingston, Ont., in July 2021. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Restaurant operators across Canada are struggling to find enough staff to run their operations. This labour crisis has been <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/costofliving/deflated-by-inflation-and-paying-good-money-to-do-nothing-with-your-money-1.6180401/profit-sharing-signing-bonuses-and-health-benefits-food-service-bosses-try-it-all-to-lure-workers-back-1.6182637">highly publicized</a> by Canadian media as a “labour shortage.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.restaurantscanada.org/industry-news/restaurants-are-key-to-restoring-canadas-pre-pandemic-employment-levels/">A recent survey</a> by Restaurants Canada found that 80 per cent of food service operators were finding it difficult to hire kitchen staff and 67 per cent were having trouble filling serving, bar-tending and hosting positions.</p>
<p>Prior to the pandemic, Canada’s food service sector employed <a href="https://www.restaurantscanada.org/industry-news/a-third-of-canadas-foodservice-workforce-is-still-out-of-work/">1.2 million people</a>, and according to Statistics Canada it currently needs to fill <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210826/t003a-eng.htm">130,000 positions</a> to reach pre-pandemic levels. That said, the Canadian restaurant industry has been <a href="https://www.restaurantscanada.org/labour-shortages-second-greatest-concern-foodservice-operators/">struggling with hiring and retention problems</a> for many years. </p>
<p>Should the chronic hiring struggles of Canadian restaurants be referred to as a labour shortage, or can it be more accurately portrayed as a retention issue fuelled by a lack of decent work? Does the use of the term labour shortage take the onus off of restaurant operators for creating these shortages, and instead place it on Canadian job-seekers?</p>
<h2>First job for many Canadians</h2>
<p>A 2010 Canadian Restaurant and Foodservice Association <a href="https://m3.ithq.qc.ca/collection/00000240.pdf">report found</a> that 22 per cent of Canadians worked in a restaurant as their first job — the highest of any industry. The study also found that 32 per cent of Canadians have at one point worked in the restaurant industry.</p>
<p>These statistics show that millions of Canadians have been introduced to restaurant work and the industry has enjoyed a seemingly endless supply of labour for decades. So why is it that the restaurant industry is burning through so many people?</p>
<p>Our research on restaurant work conditions shows that working in a restaurant is difficult, requiring the sacrifice of work-life balance due to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15378020.2021.1950507">long hours and unpredictable schedules</a>. While restaurant work can be rewarding and fun, it can also be low-paying, stressful and physically demanding, all of which can have a negative impact on <a href="https://www.thestar.com/life/2021/07/02/for-those-in-the-restaurant-industry-theres-relief-at-coming-back-but-anxiety-about-whats-ahead.html">mental health</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A waiter wearing protective equipment collects the bill" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422681/original/file-20210922-25-1b2pl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422681/original/file-20210922-25-1b2pl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422681/original/file-20210922-25-1b2pl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422681/original/file-20210922-25-1b2pl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422681/original/file-20210922-25-1b2pl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422681/original/file-20210922-25-1b2pl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422681/original/file-20210922-25-1b2pl5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A waiter wearing protective equipment collects the bill at a restaurant in Saint-Sauveur, Que.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many restaurant workers spend at least eight hours a day on their feet with no time for breaks or meals. Workers are also required to forgo their social and family life by having to work late nights, weekends and holidays. </p>
<p>Many restaurant workers almost never know precisely when their shifts will end, and tend to be placed on unpredictable split shifts or “on call” shifts to save labour costs. </p>
<h2>Toxic work environment</h2>
<p>The restaurant industry has also been rampant with sexual harassment, abuse and <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-after-the-pandemic-is-over-lets-not-rebuild-chef-culture/">toxic work environments</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2018412-eng.htm">A Statistics Canada study</a> found that hospitality workers have the worst job quality out of any industry. This was largely due to low earnings, the inability to take time off, no paid sick leave, a lack of training opportunities and no supplemental medical and dental care. </p>
<p>This same study found that 67 per cent of hospitality workers work in jobs with work conditions that fall below decent work levels.</p>
<p>So what exactly is “decent work?” It’s a concept established by the <a href="https://www.ilo.org/global/topics/decent-work/lang--en/index.htm">International Labour Organization</a> and is linked to the United Nation’s <a href="https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal8">Sustainable Development Goals</a>. Decent work establishes universal conditions of work that are central to the well-being of workers. </p>
<p>These conditions are considered to be minimum labour standards that include living wages, work hours that allow for free time and rest, safe working environments and access to health care. Decent work is considered a human right but based on the conditions of restaurant work, it appears the Canadian restaurant industry is struggling to provide it to all of its employees. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Bartenders and wait staff, all wearing masks, inside a restaurant." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422682/original/file-20210922-27-15dfjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422682/original/file-20210922-27-15dfjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422682/original/file-20210922-27-15dfjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422682/original/file-20210922-27-15dfjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422682/original/file-20210922-27-15dfjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422682/original/file-20210922-27-15dfjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422682/original/file-20210922-27-15dfjc7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bartenders and wait staff wait for the lunch hour rush as patrons sit on the patio of a Toronto restaurant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Exodus of workers from the industry</h2>
<p>Through our research on restaurant work, and via conversations with many restaurant employees across the country, we’ve learned that many are <a href="https://ugsrp.com/2014/12/31/why-are-young-managers-leaving-the-restaurant-industry/why-are-young-managers-leaving-the-restaurant-industry-1/">fleeing the industry</a> because the work is a grind. What’s more, they don’t see any future in a job that will continue to hinder their well-being.</p>
<p>The pandemic allowed workers time to find <a href="https://nowtoronto.com/food-and-drink/food/toronto-restaurants-have-a-hiring-problem-and-it-goes-way-beyond-cerb">jobs in other industries</a> that provide more stability and feature regular work schedules, vacation time, higher pay and benefits.</p>
<p>These workers often felt neglected, and that their employers did not believe they were worth investing in. </p>
<p>While there are certainly good restaurant employers, the industry as a whole has failed to improve working conditions because historically, there were always new people to fill roles. </p>
<p>That raises the question: Could the continuous reference to a labour shortage in the restaurant industry actually be creating a lack of urgency in addressing longstanding issues of work quality?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A waitress wearing a mask serves patrons." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422680/original/file-20210922-27-148c4l7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/422680/original/file-20210922-27-148c4l7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422680/original/file-20210922-27-148c4l7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422680/original/file-20210922-27-148c4l7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422680/original/file-20210922-27-148c4l7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422680/original/file-20210922-27-148c4l7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/422680/original/file-20210922-27-148c4l7.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A waitress serves patrons at a restaurant in Carstairs, Alta.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If restaurants want to operate at full staff in the post-pandemic future, they need to invest in their employees because, after all, it’s impossible to run a restaurant without people working in it. </p>
<p>The restaurant industry has always spent money, time and resources to attract customers and increase revenues. It’s long past time for restaurant operators to consider their employees internal customers, and put as much effort into providing great experiences for them as they do for their external customers. </p>
<p>A good place for operators to start is by providing decent and dignified work for all that provides decent wages, benefits and healthy working conditions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Gordon is a volunteer with the Canadian Restaurant Workers Coalition. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce McAdams 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>Should the chronic hiring struggles of Canadian restaurants be referred to as a labour shortage, or can it be more accurately portrayed as a retention issue fuelled by a lack of decent work?Bruce McAdams, Associate Professor in Hospitality, Food and Tourism Management, University of GuelphRebecca Gordon, Graduate Student, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1576622021-03-23T16:07:09Z2021-03-23T16:07:09ZGoldman Sachs: banks benefit from trainees who think they must be superhuman to measure up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391135/original/file-20210323-17-8nid0q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Supertrainee!</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/business-success-celebrating-businesswoman-overlooking-city-403515793">PKPix</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The working conditions at leading investment bank <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/d853d6b4-1546-4435-9b7e-99e3e9475d50">Goldman Sachs</a> are “inhumane” and “abusive”, according to a group of junior bankers who work there. In an <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jyeu-wvS3Z10xQ0BlMIDOkh_INoP_Nnb/view">unofficial survey</a> circulating on social media, they complained of 95-hour average working weeks and getting only five hours of sleep a night, starting at 3am. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Listen to an audio version of this story here.</em></p>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/goldman-sachs-banks-benefit-from-trainees-who-think-they-must-be-superhuman-to-measure-up-157662&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<hr>
<p>This wasn’t entirely news. Such conditions are <a href="https://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2018/01/working-hours-banks">not uncommon</a> in financial services and have been for a long time, as explored so intelligently by the recent BBC series <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m000pb89/industry">Industry</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9yOjX8B53t4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Neither are the Goldman junior bankers demanding a radical change. They make clear in the survey that they knew they weren’t getting into a nine-to-five job. Their main demands are maximum 80-hour weeks and no work between 9pm on Friday nights and Sunday mornings. </p>
<p>One case we previously looked at was the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/05/moritz-erhardt-internship-banking">notorious story</a> of Moritz Erhardt, a summer intern at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, who died in August 2013 after attempting to work non-stop for three days and nights. The 21-year-old had been desperately trying to ensure a “return offer” – a job offer after finishing his university studies.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/611/740">analysed</a> Moritz’s case at the time. What struck us, among other things, was that his father, a psychoanalyst, emphasised that the bank was not exploiting his son. He believed that Moritz did it to himself:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>He wasn’t just interested in the money. He wanted to do good in the world. I’ve been sorting through some of his things and I found a quote from Marilyn Monroe he’d made a note of which went, ‘I don’t want to make money, I just want to be wonderful’. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It raises a question that we <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-012-1436-x">had been trying</a> to answer even before Moritz’s tragic death. Why are people in finance willing to work to such levels of intensity on a continuous basis? </p>
<p>The obvious answer would be the financial rewards, but it might not be as simple. Moritz’s father explained that “part of what Moritz loved about the work was the intensity and the <em>esprit de corps</em> that developed during those long days and nights in the office”.</p>
<p>To make sense of this, we have to look at the cultural context.</p>
<h2>Employability above all</h2>
<p>When the leading philologist George Steiner gave an extensive <a href="https://youtu.be/HPtJeGo0P6w">autobiographical interview</a> in 2007, he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The young in Europe have never been as hopeless … [They have] no sense of an ideology, no sense of any political or utopian future … Nobody is going to die for a hedge fund, nobody is going to die for the enormous entertainment industries, for the mass media, for athletic worship – which is all the young have.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Professor Steiner was a refined observer of society and culture, but did not somehow see that hedge funds, entertainment industries, mass media and sport have become prime sources of a new ideology of personal success and advancement. They mobilise, sometimes totally, the interests, energies and commitment of large numbers of people around the world. </p>
<p>It is a world in which money, success, status and celebrity are now central ingredients of culture. They dictate what is of value, and popular culture seems to reinforce them constantly. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391140/original/file-20210323-12-fd5zra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Goldman Sachs posters" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391140/original/file-20210323-12-fd5zra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391140/original/file-20210323-12-fd5zra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391140/original/file-20210323-12-fd5zra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391140/original/file-20210323-12-fd5zra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391140/original/file-20210323-12-fd5zra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391140/original/file-20210323-12-fd5zra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391140/original/file-20210323-12-fd5zra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sachs appeal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/july-2016-berlin-logo-brand-goldman-562464373">360b</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Having observed intake after intake of university students, they nowadays view their education as an “investment” in terms of how employable it will make them. Their primary preoccupation is with the status of the job they will get after graduation. Financial services are <a href="https://epigram.org.uk/2020/10/30/the-times-top-100-graduate-employers-indicates-graduate-job-prospects-remain-optimistic/">among the most</a> sought-after. As a result, financial institutions can create intense, almost desperate bonds of commitment from the people they hire. </p>
<h2>Super me</h2>
<p>The last two decades have witnessed the <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo25799564.html">exponential growth</a> of a new language about employment in major corporations. Replete with the superlative human qualities that these employers expect of candidates, the vocabulary of employability has been fused with the jargon of the “self”. </p>
<p>As one recent advert put it by quoting a successful graduate from its management scheme, “I’m still me, but the most confident, all-conquering version of me.” This was the supermarket chain Aldi, but it neatly sums up the mindset in financial services. </p>
<p>Something very powerful happens through this kind of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13639080600867083?journalCode=cjew20&">vocabulary</a>. It provides clues for understanding <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/amet.12630">why employability</a> has gained such overarching importance too: corporations have become almost like temples, and in an era obsessed with the self, we believe that we must become somehow superhuman to meet their standards – it’s a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/28905/brand-called-you">vicious circle</a> in which the self and perceptions of top corporations reinforce one another. </p>
<p>Working for such employers is not the only thing that validates people’s sense of self here. The accounting consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) advertised its graduate scheme some years ago with the following message: “Being the one who never stands still.” This is not to suggest that PwC shares a work culture with Goldman, but it encapsulates the other side of the coin to the complaints of the junior bankers: working for such organisations promises personal growth, development, learning, achievement, creativity and so on. </p>
<p>These now define the horizon of expectations for such jobs. But when workers reach breaking point, be it in the financial sector or elsewhere, we must recognise this as the moment when superlative expectations run into reality. None of this superlative human “potential” is endless. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391141/original/file-20210323-21-5nnfzu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="PwC poster" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391141/original/file-20210323-21-5nnfzu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391141/original/file-20210323-21-5nnfzu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391141/original/file-20210323-21-5nnfzu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391141/original/file-20210323-21-5nnfzu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391141/original/file-20210323-21-5nnfzu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391141/original/file-20210323-21-5nnfzu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391141/original/file-20210323-21-5nnfzu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Consultancy PwC capturing the personal rewards linked to working for top firms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PricewaterhoouseCoopers</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When performing at work is presented as a kind of absolute and inescapable test of the “self”, we need to grasp the broader cultural dynamic in which many young people need to be valued in this way. We are all “creative talents” now – we keep telling ourselves this constantly and demand recognition for it too. </p>
<p>This is why the revelations at Goldman Sachs do not feel surprising or exceptional. It means that calls for <a href="https://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2016/06/what-goldman-sachs-j-p-morgan-cs-baml-and-barclays-have-done-to-cut-junior-bankers-working-hours?_ga=2.228940572.1634445485.1616312795-1733034560.1616312795">intervention and regulation</a> to improve conditions might be futile. We need to have an urgent debate about the values that we have instilled in young people, and the ways in which they are judged by would-be employers. </p>
<hr>
<p>A Goldman spokesperson said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We recognise that our people are very busy, because business is strong and volumes are at historic levels … A year into COVID, people are understandably quite stretched, and that’s why we are listening to their concerns and taking multiple steps to address them.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157662/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>Working 95-hour weeks are the result of a culture that has melded two obsessions: top employers and gratifying the self.Bogdan Costea, Professor of Management and Society, Lancaster UniversityPeter Watt, International Lecturer in Management and Organisation Studies, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1561072021-03-08T01:39:51Z2021-03-08T01:39:51ZForget the ideal worker myth. Unis need to become more inclusive for all women (men will benefit too)<p>Movements like <a href="https://time.com/5189945/whats-the-difference-between-the-metoo-and-times-up-movements/">#metoo</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/black-lives-matter-everywhere-44608">#blacklivesmatter</a> have increased voice and visibility of gender and race disparities in society and, in particular, workplaces. That includes universities. As we recover from the pandemic, we need innovative approaches to reshaping workplace rituals, rules and routines to advance gender equality and ensure safe workplaces. </p>
<p>Universities, where we prepare professionals and leaders of tomorrow, should be demonstrating and leading these changes. It’s time to:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>embed an inclusive leadership approach</p></li>
<li><p>move more quickly towards gender equality</p></li>
<li><p>challenge the barriers to greater diversity</p></li>
<li><p>acknowledge the unequal power relations that exist in universities. </p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-change-at-the-top-for-university-leaders-as-men-outnumber-women-3-to-1-154556">No change at the top for university leaders as men outnumber women 3 to 1</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Stop assuming the <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/05/the-pandemic-has-exposed-the-fallacy-of-the-ideal-worker">ideal worker exists</a>: the myth is busted. Chaining people to their desks or labs for every available productive hour is not responsible or effective. Nor does it create a sense of autonomy, wellness or active connections to the workplace or community. </p>
<h2>Finding better ways of working</h2>
<p>Treating people with dignity and respect can achieve more meaningful ways of working. In particular, universities need to broaden the range of flexible work options. These options include: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>being adaptable about where work is done</p></li>
<li><p>changing start and finish times</p></li>
<li><p>a <a href="https://theconversation.com/working-four-day-weeks-for-five-days-pay-research-shows-it-pays-off-100375">shorter week</a></p></li>
<li><p>adapting role types and leave arrangements</p></li>
<li><p>ensuring meeting times allow for community and family commitments.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>More innovative approaches include <a href="https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2020-03/apo-nid277446_0.pdf">vertical job share</a>. For example, in an 80/20 split of time between two staff the division of role responsibility rests with the senior job share partner. Innovation calls for a work mindset shift from “no way” to “it starts with yes” when it comes to flexibility. </p>
<p>Women are traditionally seen as needing flexibility due to caring responsibilities. However, <a href="https://theconversation.com/helping-men-get-work-life-balance-can-help-everyone-43000">increasing flexibility for men</a> is an often neglected but necessary part of change. It’s an obvious way to increase options for men to share family and community involvement. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/helping-men-get-work-life-balance-can-help-everyone-43000">Helping men get work-life balance can help everyone</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When Australian universities have introduced more flexible and progressive arrangements the results have been positive. For example, “rules” on who gets a car park (such as accessibility based on caring responsibilities), promotion and lecture start times have been rewritten. Increased participation and productivity are among the many benefits that flow from <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02678373.2019.1686440?casa_token=kmLp5x9ML-UAAAAA%3A8jvR9DmHNh8_vW39vxabFUThK6uLlS6hSQ5zK86TO4Zp02Jc-vU5lHToNjnu1nSmgGKdN618Brb5RfE">more meaningful work and opportunities</a> for women (and men) across the hierarchy. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="smiling women takes notes as she chats with colleagues online" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388173/original/file-20210307-23-2k35xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/388173/original/file-20210307-23-2k35xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388173/original/file-20210307-23-2k35xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388173/original/file-20210307-23-2k35xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388173/original/file-20210307-23-2k35xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388173/original/file-20210307-23-2k35xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/388173/original/file-20210307-23-2k35xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workplaces that are adaptable about where work is done have seen increases in participation and productivity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-young-woman-headset-participating-online-1878904171">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Creating leadership pathways</h2>
<p>However, universities need to go further. Academic and professional promotion and reward structures need to measure and recognise the <a href="https://unswtwlp.mailchimpsites.com">impacts</a> of all the work academics and professionals do beyond traditional measures. Measures of social, environmental, cultural and economic impacts on communities, industries, government and media are vital to ensure we are contributing to equity in society. One innovative example of such impacts is <a href="https://www.westernsydney.edu.au/tax-clinic.html">tax clinics</a> that advise to lower-income taxpayers and small businesses while also providing practical experience for accounting/tax students.</p>
<p>Athena Swan has <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/Fac/Soc/Sociology/Research/Centres/Gender/Calendar/Certifying_Equality_A/Certifying_Equality_-_Critical_Reflection_On_Athena_Swan.pdf">exposed the dearth of data</a> in universities on workforce diversity such as LGBTQI+, Indigenous and migrant women. Acting on this will mean higher education encompasses a broader range of women’s diverse lives. This includes their experiences of cultural identities, disability and sexual orientation. </p>
<p>The HR data are meaningless unless the information adds value to the people it describes. And that requires a critical conversation about how to collect new types of data and willingness to provide it. </p>
<p>Universities, governments and countries cannot thrive without including all members of society. Women, especially those from diverse backgrounds, still have fewer pathways and <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-ways-higher-education-can-be-seen-as-hostile-to-women-of-color-140575">more barriers to leadership</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-ways-higher-education-can-be-seen-as-hostile-to-women-of-color-140575">5 ways higher education can be seen as hostile to women of color</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Universities have enormous opportunities to be at the forefront of ensuring more gender-diverse women, more women of colour, more women with disability and more LGBTQI+ women reach senior leadership positions. Indeed, they have a moral obligation to show the way.</p>
<p>Creating these pathways for diverse women will also challenge how universities operate in terms of visibility, dominant cultures and beliefs. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343400540_Imagining_a_More_Inclusive_University">Underrepresented women</a> (such as of colour) have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jul/28/uks-white-female-academics-are-being-privileged-above-women-and-men-of-colour">not benefited from anti-discrimination legislation or equity policies in the same way white women have</a>.</p>
<h2>Helping students become better citizens</h2>
<p>Academics have a duty to create <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew-Kitchenham/publication/249634386_The_Evolution_of_John_Mezirow%27s_Transformative_Learning_Theory/links/5d1e203b458515c11c1260e1/The-Evolution-of-John-Mezirows-Transformative-Learning-Theory.pdf">transformational educational experiences</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1541344607299394">ways of learning</a> in partnership with our students. In particular, they need a better understanding of the nature of privilege.</p>
<p>Universities must work to ensure the educational experience helps students develop their competencies in active, critical, empathetic and committed citizenship. These are essential aspects of 21st-century higher education. </p>
<p>In practice, this means continuing to create better pathways of access and participation for underrepresented students. Tutorials, labs and studios must become <a href="https://theconversation.com/5-tips-on-how-unis-can-do-more-to-design-online-learning-that-works-for-all-students-144803">inclusive learning environments</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-tips-on-how-unis-can-do-more-to-design-online-learning-that-works-for-all-students-144803">5 tips on how unis can do more to design online learning that works for all students</a>
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<p>All these measures will help improve opportunities for students from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds and for women in professions and disciplines where they are underrepresented. </p>
<h2>Diversity and inclusion underpin vitality</h2>
<p>A fundamental challenge universities face as we recover from the pandemic is to create and sustain organisational strategies that support and celebrate the investments of energy by women (and men) of diverse backgrounds. This applies both to their own careers and to realising the university’s mission. </p>
<p>At the core of the strategy is a deep understanding of the connection between gender and other identities for staff and students. We need to hear women’s voices from diverse backgrounds and experiences. In this way we can educate ourselves and improve our policies, practices and ways of leading. </p>
<p>This process of transformation is essential for universities to be safe, vital and innovative places of learning, work and research for all. Rising to this challenge means we will be well prepared for a more sustainable, equitable and just society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leisa Sargent has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eileen Baldry receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. She is affiliated with the Public Interest Advocacy Centre. </span></em></p>On International Women’s Day, universities should resolve to lead the way in reshaping workplace rituals, rules and routines to advance gender equality and ensure safe workplaces.Leisa Sargent, Senior Deputy Dean, UNSW Business School, Co-DVC Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, UNSW SydneyEileen Baldry, Deputy Vice Chancellor Equity Diversity and Inclusion, Professor of Criminology, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1558822021-03-07T19:09:51Z2021-03-07T19:09:51ZFlexible work arrangements help women, but only if they are also offered to men<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387628/original/file-20210304-21-1jk0bvw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=213%2C79%2C4253%2C3382&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ErsinTekkol/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Flexible workplace policies designed to improve gender gaps in employment and pay might actually make things worse for women.</p>
<p>Flexible work has been on offer to both men and women in many companies for decades. However, it is usually women who are in <a href="https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/3398464/HILDA-Statistical-Report2019.pdf">non-standard employment such as part-time work</a>, often to meet the demands of <a href="https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/who-is-doing-what-on-the-homefront">children</a>, sick parents or partners needing extra care.</p>
<p>Flexible arrangements might support women in maintaining a work-life balance. But policies that make it easier to transition to a part-time job or take leave may actually be weakening their position in the labour market and their lifetime earnings potential, therefore widening gender gaps in pay.</p>
<p>This highlights the need for equal policies for women and men.</p>
<h2>COVID-19 and the labour market</h2>
<p>The world changed under COVID-19 and the movement towards more flexible work may be one of the silver linings of the pandemic.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-women-get-paid-less-than-men-hours-and-commuting-provide-clues-155883">Why do women get paid less than men? Hours and commuting provide clues</a>
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<p>This <a href="https://www.internationalwomensday.com/">International Women’s Day</a> (March 8), we are in a unique position to tap into the learnings from the COVID-19 lockdowns, during which many men and women were working from home and sharing housework, home-schooling and childcare responsibilities. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-forced-australian-fathers-to-do-more-at-home-but-at-the-same-cost-mothers-have-long-endured-154834">Research</a> shows Australian fathers stepped into more involved roles in the household during the lockdowns and have maintained higher levels of involvement in housework and childcare as things return to normal. </p>
<h2>Job flexibility and gender pay gap</h2>
<p>New <a href="https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/3620390/ri2021n02.pdf">research</a> from the Melbourne Institute suggests flexible work conditions such as part-time hours could be a driving factor in the career decisions of women, but not men, and a key reason why the gender divide in employment is not narrowing.</p>
<p>Gender differences in labour force participation, wages and working hours in Australia are very similar to those in the Netherlands, so a study from there offers valuable insights for policymakers in Australia.</p>
<p><iframe id="TY1Ka" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/TY1Ka/6/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="https://www.iza.org/de/publications/dp/13779/fired-and-pregnant-gender-differences-in-job-flexibility-outcomes-after-job-loss">Researchers (including one of us, Jordy Meekes)</a> used data from Statistics Netherlands to analyse how men and women respond to job loss.</p>
<p>The study found women remained unemployed for longer than men. When they did find new jobs, women also experienced a larger reduction in working hours than men, which reduced their annual earnings. </p>
<p><iframe id="2e1pX" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/2e1pX/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>It appears women tend to put more emphasis on job flexibility than men, an explanation for <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-so-hard-for-women-to-return-to-the-workforce-men-provide-a-clue-155883">why it is hard for women to return to the workforce</a>. Women may even be willing to pass up job opportunities in favour of the flexible work conditions they rely on to balance work and family life.</p>
<p>Women remain largely responsible for the organisational and physical work of making sure kids are completing homework, lunches are prepared and attending numerous after-school activities.</p>
<p>Since work and school schedules are seldom aligned, someone has to do the juggle. To keep the family humming, mothers <a href="http://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/2874177/HILDA-report_Low-Res_10.10.18.pdf">spend more time on housework and care and less time on employment</a> after the birth of the first child.</p>
<h2>Part-time mothers</h2>
<p>The career penalty for women that comes with having a child in the current system is felt long beyond the period of maternity leave.</p>
<p>It is commonly acceptable for women to return to work in a part-time capacity. And it is often women who are culturally and socially expected to use flexible conditions to leave work and care for a sick child, for example. Less so for men.</p>
<p>The Melbourne Institute <a href="https://www.iza.org/de/publications/dp/13779/fired-and-pregnant-gender-differences-in-job-flexibility-outcomes-after-job-loss">study</a> found men who worked part-time in their previous role took longer to secure another job and were more likely to have to take a pay cut than men who worked full-time.</p>
<p>Men who previously worked part-time earned on average 10% less in the new job. This finding suggests employers attach a penalty to part-time work for men, explained by the fact it is relatively uncommon for men. </p>
<h2>Equal policies for women and men</h2>
<p>Our beliefs about <a href="https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/who-is-doing-what-on-the-homefront">gender norms are shifting</a> but this is not reflected in workplace and government policies on paper or in practice. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/that-extra-youre-about-to-get-in-super-most-of-it-will-come-from-you-but-dont-expect-the-ads-to-tell-you-that-154723">That extra you're about to get in super, most of it will come from you, but don't expect the ads to tell you that</a>
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<p>A review of existing policies is an important step in determining how suitable workplace policies are to support all employees.</p>
<p>Having written policies to support diversity and inclusion or flexible work practices is positive but it is not a sign of success. Particularly if, in practice, only a small number of employees can avail of the benefits – and at what cost?</p>
<p>The COVID-19 lockdowns, while challenging for many, have given us an insight into what flexibility could truly look like for men and women alike.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155882/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Ruppanner receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordy Meekes is affiliated with the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course</span></em></p>Flexible arrangements might help women maintain a work-life balance, but can also weaken their position in the labour market and lose them earnings in the long term.Leah Ruppanner, Associate Professor in Sociology and Co-Director of The Policy Lab, The University of MelbourneJordy Meekes, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1432302020-08-11T17:04:14Z2020-08-11T17:04:14ZPublic relations is bad news<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351992/original/file-20200810-20-1fm63r2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C2658&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mourner in Calgary places flowers at a memorial for a Cargill worker who died from COVID-19. A PR campaign that alleged workers would rather collect government assistance than work failed to mention their employment in industries hit hard by COVID-19.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the Canadian economy slowly recovers from COVID-19 lockdowns, <a href="https://www.cp24.com/news/some-employees-cite-cerb-as-reason-to-refuse-return-to-work-cfib-survey-says-1.5027100">there have been news articles</a> suggesting the Canada Emergency Response Benefit is <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7184365/businesses-staff-refusing-return-to-work-survey/">encouraging workers to stay off the job</a>. </p>
<p>But a peek behind the headlines reveals the source of the story to be a business lobby group using a powerful and classic public relations strategy — <a href="https://www.cfib-fcei.ca/en/media/news-releases/more-one-quarter-small-firms-report-workers-refusing-return-work-preference">the news release</a> — to manipulate headlines.</p>
<p>The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) represents more than 100,000 members who operate small businesses across Canada. The association advocates for specific policy changes that advance the goals of their membership. </p>
<p>In recent years, the CFIB has lobbied <a href="https://www.cfib-fcei.ca/en/media/15-minimum-wage-job-killer-ontarios-youth-cfib-report">against increasing the minimum wage</a> and <a href="https://www.cfib-fcei.ca/en/media/new-federal-labour-law-changes-giant-step-backwards-innovation-and-productivity">against guaranteed personal leave for workers</a>, among other causes. </p>
<h2>Swaying public opinion</h2>
<p>To rally support for these changes, organizations like the CFIB employ public relations strategies designed to secure headlines that sway public opinion and put pressure on governments. This is especially important when their policy goal is at odds with public sentiment. </p>
<p>For example, polling suggests Canadians <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-ca/news-and-polls/Canadians-Split-On-Future-Of-CERB-Half-Believe-CERB-Should-Be-Discountinued-At-Its-Earliest">overwhelmingly support</a> the federal Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit, known as the CERB, which pays $500 a week to workers who are out of work due to the pandemic. </p>
<p>The CFIB, however, said in its news release that the CERB is a “disincentive” to work and wants to see wage subsidies expanded to include more profitable small businesses. To campaign for this, organizations like the CFIB use PR techniques to undermine public support for CERB and advocate for their own policy solutions.</p>
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<img alt="An employment insurance form on a laptop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351656/original/file-20200806-24-1u5r4kq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351656/original/file-20200806-24-1u5r4kq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351656/original/file-20200806-24-1u5r4kq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351656/original/file-20200806-24-1u5r4kq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351656/original/file-20200806-24-1u5r4kq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351656/original/file-20200806-24-1u5r4kq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351656/original/file-20200806-24-1u5r4kq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The employment insurance section of the Government of Canada website is shown on a laptop in Toronto on April 4, 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jesse Johnston</span></span>
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<p>PR makes it a challenge to know what is fact and what is spin, even from reputable news sources. Since the 1950s, critics have questioned the intent of PR practices. They have examined how organizations use the authority of mass media outlets to advance specific policy agendas that better fit their aims. </p>
<p>PR is a form of manipulation: it’s used to shift public opinion. It is expressly designed to benefit the organization wielding it.</p>
<p>This tension can be found in the early 20th century, when modern PR was established as a coherent set of business practices. During this period, activists and journalists alike pressured state and provincial governments into developing aggressive regulatory regimes that would soften the sharpest edges of industrial capitalism.</p>
<p>In the early 1900s, massive scandals fuelled public mistrust in business in North America. Labour activists, journalists and academic critics wrote shocking exposés that revealed the wealthy’s <a href="https://archive.org/details/historyofstandar00tarbuoft">gross consolidation of corporate power</a>, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/54710/54710-h/54710-h.htm">their influence in municipal politics</a> and their attempts <a href="https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Treason_of_the_Senate.htm">to game the highest levels of government</a>. </p>
<h2>Progressive policies</h2>
<p>To the dismay of wealthy capitalists, progressive governments responded to the revelations by developing policies that regulated <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=59#">working conditions</a>, <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/221/1/">reined in corporate power</a> and bolstered the protections of ordinary people <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-xvii">as citizens</a> <a href="https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exhibitions/artifact/s-88-draft-bill-pure-food-and-drug-act-december-14-1905">and consumers</a>. </p>
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<img alt="Two boys working in a glass factory in the early 1900s." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351659/original/file-20200806-16-3n0hhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351659/original/file-20200806-16-3n0hhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351659/original/file-20200806-16-3n0hhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351659/original/file-20200806-16-3n0hhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351659/original/file-20200806-16-3n0hhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351659/original/file-20200806-16-3n0hhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351659/original/file-20200806-16-3n0hhg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Midnight at the glassworks in Indiana, with children on the job. Child labour was among the practices outlawed by progressive governments in the early 1900s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Library of Congress)</span></span>
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<p>As corporate interests lost public support, they fought back with canny public relations strategies designed to flip the story, framing business as a public service and businessmen and capitalists as allies, not enemies, to ordinary people.</p>
<p>These tactics were further formalized during the First World War when PR men, advertisers and government officials came together to form the United States federal government’s Committee on Public Information (CPI). </p>
<p>The CPI enlisted advertisers, commercial illustrators and public relations experts to build a home front propaganda campaign that would rally support for the war effort. CPI illustrator Charles Dana Gibson called for evocative campaigns that showed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1918/01/20/archives/cd-gibsons-committee-for-patriotic-posters-artists-have-been.html">“the more spiritual side of the conflict.”</a></p>
<p>The success of the CPI helped legitimize the American advertising and PR industries. It taught public relations experts an invaluable lesson: It paid dividends to link their clients — titans of industry and major corporations — to the promise of democracy. </p>
<h2>Collective well-being</h2>
<p>It was only through the careful management of public opinion regarding industrial capitalism, PR experts began to argue in the 1920s, that true democracy and collective well-being was possible.</p>
<p>Today the news release, along with public opinion surveys, are immensely influential PR tools for shaping what gets covered as news and how it’s covered. </p>
<p>PR has become <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616700701767974">the backbone of news production</a> globally, capitalizing on underfunded newsrooms and overworked journalists. </p>
<p>The news release is designed to make life easy for the busy journalist. It provides them with ready-made narratives and interpretations that are easily translated to a news article. In fact, news releases are often presented as a standardized genre, with countless guides listing the same <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2017/11/02/writing-a-press-release-14-elements-you-need-to-include/#4324c25b719f">10 to 14 elements</a> that <a href="https://www.shopify.ca/blog/how-to-write-a-press-release">every news release </a> should include in order to <a href="https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/external/news/publicising/how-to-write-a-press-release/inverted-pyramid">quickly communicate</a> the organization’s point of view and message. </p>
<p>This standardization makes news releases easy to circulate and easy to critically examine. For example, the recent CFIB release announced both the results of their membership survey on the CERB and provided an interpretation of it. </p>
<p>The survey provides the gloss of objectivity (by allowing an organization to point to findings rather than blatant ideological posturing) while a pull-quote from their president offers an interpretation: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is clear that CERB has created a disincentive to return to work for some staff, especially in industries like hospitality and personal services … CERB was created as emergency support for workers who had lost their job due to the pandemic, not to fund a summer break. This is why it is critical that all parties support the government’s proposed change to end CERB benefits when an employer asks a worker to return to work.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The CFIB news release made for a quick and easy story turnaround.</p>
<h2>Misleading interpretations</h2>
<p>But we should be wary of such ready-made interpretations, because they’re often misleading. For example, the CFIB president’s commentary quickly fell apart when economist Armine Yalnizyan, an <a href="https://atkinsonfoundation.ca/atkinson-fellows/">Atkinson Fellow</a> on the Future of Work, <a href="https://twitter.com/ArmineYalnizyan/status/1284096946874068998">took a closer look</a> at the CFIB survey data. </p>
<p>The hardest jobs to fill were in meatpacking, hospitality and food processing, all jobs identified as <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-class-divide-the-jobs-most-at-risk-of-contracting-and-dying-from-covid-19-138857">high-risk for COVID-19 transmission</a>. It’s not that workers prefer a measly $500 a week over their regular paycheque. It’s that they feared for their lives.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man wearing a mask carries a sign that says lives are more important than profits outside a Cargill meat-processing plant." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351658/original/file-20200806-18-141pf4r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351658/original/file-20200806-18-141pf4r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351658/original/file-20200806-18-141pf4r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351658/original/file-20200806-18-141pf4r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351658/original/file-20200806-18-141pf4r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351658/original/file-20200806-18-141pf4r.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/351658/original/file-20200806-18-141pf4r.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">Protesters stand on the side of the road as workers return to the Cargill beef processing plant in High River, Alta., that was closed for two weeks because of a COVID-19, in May 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In 1959, <em>New York Post</em> columnist Irwin Ross sought to pull back the curtain on PR in <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/image-merchants-the-fabulous-world-of-public-relations/oclc/4840671&referer=brief_results"><em>The Image Merchants: The Fabulous World of Public Relations</em></a>.</p>
<p>“In an atmosphere drenched with the clichés of public relations,” he wondered in his book, how could anyone discern truth? </p>
<p>Today’s public relations techniques can be used by just about anyone. They are taken up by a host of organizations, from large corporations to unions to activist groups. </p>
<p>But the organizations that can most afford to hire expensive professionals stack the deck against smaller groups and officials. Even in the 1950s, “the biggest budgets, the highest priced and usually most expert talent are maintained by industry,” Ross wrote.</p>
<p>PR, he concluded, is a fundamentally hollow, anti-democratic enterprise. Corporate interest groups and politicians may state their commitments to the public good, but their real goal remains the “public acceptance of the status quo in our economic arrangements.” </p>
<p>Faced with a global pandemic that is laying bare the gross inequities of Canadian society, we would do well to heed his warning.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143230/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Guadagnolo 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>Public relations is a form of manipulation, used to shift public opinion. It is expressly designed to benefit the organization wielding it, something we’d be wise to remember during the pandemic.Dan Guadagnolo, Postdoctoral Fellow in American Studies, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1412042020-07-08T14:41:15Z2020-07-08T14:41:15ZOutsourcing has not improved conditions for domestic workers in South Africa<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345004/original/file-20200701-159820-1itxtcs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Domesic workers in South Africa continue to be neglected.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In South Africa, approximately <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/publications/P0211/P02111stQuarter2020.pdf">one million people</a>, mostly black women from marginalised backgrounds, are employed as domestic workers by the middle class. </p>
<p>Some are employed as full-time domestic workers and live on the premises of their employers, usually in backyard rooms. For live-in domestic workers, their work and personal lives are often blurred. They lack freedom and independence, as they are required to devote most of their time to the needs of employers.</p>
<p>Others are employed as full-time domestic workers but live elsewhere. They typically rely not only on the wages of their employers but also their goodwill in times of need. Live-out domestic workers’ output and performance continue to be controlled by their employers. They have little autonomy over workloads and have the additional burden of being pressed for time by completing duties before returning home.</p>
<p>A large proportion of domestic workers are also employed part-time or temporarily, where they work on various time and wage schedules for different employers. This makes for economic insecurity and instability.</p>
<p>In recent years, <a href="https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/sites/core/files/pages/Ehrenreich_Maid_To_Order.pdf">outsourced domestic cleaning services</a> have increased, changing the dynamics of paid domestic work. </p>
<p>The outsourcing of domestic work and its impact on domestic workers has not been well researched in the South African context. To understand this development, I did my <a href="http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/19921">Masters</a> and <a href="http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/108026">PhD</a> studies on the growth of outsourced domestic cleaning services. The aim was to gain a better understanding of how outsourced domestic cleaning service firms operate, how it changes domestic work and what the costs for domestic workers are. </p>
<p>My findings show that outsourced domestic cleaning service firms contribute to the race, class and gender stereotypes of domestic work. Outsourcing has not been enough to elevate the status of this occupation, or to improve the working conditions of domestic workers.</p>
<h2>The problem with paid domestic work</h2>
<p>Despite various employment arrangements, the relationship between employers and domestic workers is characteristically <a href="https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=33757">personal and unequal</a>. Where domestic workers are considered as “part of the family”, employers have the power to provide or withdraw support as they please. Employers may provide gifts, kindness and care to elicit harder work and favours from domestic workers, which is often a tension-filled part of the employment relationship.</p>
<p>The second issue is the dehumanised treatment of domestic workers. Employers often call their domestic workers by derogatory names but expect to be addressed formally and respectfully. Some employers treat their domestic workers as child-like, reinforcing their inferiority.</p>
<p>Thirdly, the demeaning working conditions contribute to the devaluation of domestic work. The lack of employment contracts, poor wages and little social security reinforce the race, class and gender inequalities of this occupation. In essence, personalism is an issue and adds to the exploitative conditions of domestic work. </p>
<p>In the case of outsourced services, the main feature of domestic cleaning service firms is the transformation of a personal bipartite employer-domestic worker relationship, with all its dependencies, into a tripartite employment relationship between a client (former employer), a domestic worker and a manager or franchise owner. Contact and dependency between domestic workers and clients are reduced, and interaction remains focused on work duties. Clients pay a fee for the cleaning session and have no further responsibilities towards domestic workers. Managers perform the emotional labour by (it’s assumed) taking care of the well-being of domestic workers.</p>
<p>Another feature is that workload, duties and working hours are controlled to formalise domestic work. Domestic cleaning services attempt to professionalise the services provided. They often use checklists for cleaning duties, methods and cleaning products. Some domestic workers are accompanied by a supervisor to monitor services.</p>
<p>Thirdly, cleaning is not only rendered professionally on a physical level but also an emotional and aesthetic level. Domestic workers are required to be friendly and professional when in contact with clients. Domestic workers are mostly dressed in neat uniforms and transported in the firm’s vehicles.</p>
<p>By emphasising the necessity to professionalise domestic work, domestic cleaning service firms portray themselves as providing experts in the field of domestic work. In doing so, domestic workers benefit from a perceived elevated status and supposedly better working conditions. </p>
<p>But what are the costs for domestic workers employed through these domestic service firms?</p>
<h2>The costs</h2>
<p>First, domestic workers have little influence on the power dynamics of the employment relationship. In a bureaucratic, rationally organised system, domestic workers lack agency and control over the work process. They have to follow instructions on how to clean and when, and they have to engage in emotional labour by providing friendly and professional services to clients.</p>
<p>Second, the division of labour within teams increases supervision and control by team leaders, clients or managers of firms. Comparing workers and teams to each other, and classifying them according to skill, speed and feedback from clients, breaks down the agency of domestic workers further.</p>
<p>Third, domestic work is depersonalised to such an extent that clients do not recognise domestic workers. They do not know them or want to know anything about their personal life. Contact between clients and domestic workers is stripped to the bare minimum – they come in to clean as quickly and efficiently as possible. They become nameless bodies that clean homes.</p>
<p>Fourth, domestic workers often lack the respect and dignity from their managers expected in a professional work environment. Many domestic workers are employed on a part-time basis, reinforcing the lack of job security and stability. They are paid poorly and receive few or no service benefits. Domestic workers clean under a new set of rules and they are disciplined and punished by different authorities (such as clients, supervisors, managers and franchise owners).</p>
<p>Hence, the shift from personal employment of a domestic worker to an outsourced anonymised team of cleaners suggests that South Africa may be heading towards a society where paid domestic work is disposable, dehumanised and temporary. To use outsourced domestic cleaning services is to avoid the duties and responsibilities of the middle class, to evade dealing with issues of poverty and to devalue paid domestic work in the process.</p>
<p>The country needs to rethink the practice of outsourcing as it seems that domestic workers continue to be neglected. Even under the practice of “professional” domestic cleaning services, domestic workers are undervalued in South African society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141204/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David du Toit 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 outsourcing of domestic work contributes to the race, class and gender stereotypes of domestic work. It has neither elevated the status nor improved the working conditions of domestic workers.David du Toit, Sociology Lecturer, University of JohannesburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.