tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/low-wage-workers-70025/articlesLow-wage workers – The Conversation2023-11-22T13:17:20Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2168872023-11-22T13:17:20Z2023-11-22T13:17:20ZAre rents rising in your Philly neighborhood? Don’t blame the baristas<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559130/original/file-20231113-26-z577xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sociology researchers at Temple University interviewed 61 Philadelphia baristas who work in gentrifying neighborhoods. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-barista-using-coffee-filter-at-cafe-royalty-free-image/991180452">Maskot/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Baristas who work in specialty coffee shops, along with hipsters more generally, have been referred to as the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/nyregion/on-a-wall-in-the-west-bronx-a-gentrification-battle-rages.html">shock troops</a>” of urban gentrification – and it’s no different in Philadelphia. These servers of artisanal coffee contribute to economic and demographic changes in neighborhoods in two ways.</p>
<p>First, they work in coffee shops that appeal to a new wave of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6040.2009.01269.x">middle-class residents</a> who can afford higher rents – while at the same time alienating longtime and less economically advantaged residents. </p>
<p>Second, these baristas almost invariably live in gentrifying neighborhoods. They don’t have much money, but they tend to exude a cool, white middle-class presence. The appearance of specialty coffee shops and baristas signifies that a neighborhood is becoming trendy and more expensive.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://liberalarts.temple.edu/academics/faculty/moss-geoff">professor of sociology</a> at Temple University who is fascinated with urban artistic subcultures, I recently published a book called “<a href="https://www.routledge.com/Barista-in-the-City-Subcultural-Lives-Paid-Employment-and-the-Urban-Context/Moss-McIntosh-Protasiuk/p/book/9781032272030">Barista in the City</a>” with co-authors <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=944Dq8MAAAAJ&hl=en">Keith McIntosh</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bBhibN8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Ewa Protasiuk</a>. In 2019, we interviewed 61 baristas in a variety of gentrifying neighborhoods in Philadelphia, including Fishtown, Kensington, Point Breeze and West Philadelphia. </p>
<p>We wanted to understand why baristas become gentrifiers and how they view their role as agents of change. </p>
<h2>Privileged but low-wage workers</h2>
<p>A few baristas whom we interviewed were managers or assistant managers. Some were employed by Starbucks, but the vast majority worked in specialty coffee shops that strive to outdo Starbucks by offering coffee that is slightly more expensive and relatively high in quality, sustainability and fairness to coffee farmers. </p>
<p>We classified most of the baristas we interviewed as either artistic baristas or coffee careerists. </p>
<p>Artistic baristas work in coffee shops primarily because they offer flexible employment that allows time for low-paid artistic activities, or enables them to finance their undergraduate education at art schools or other academic institutions.</p>
<p>Coffee careerists, on the other hand, have a strong interest in artisanal coffee. They aspire to become coffee shop managers, coffee roasters or coffee buyers who travel to other countries in search of the best beans. </p>
<p>Both types of baristas were attracted to the relatively relaxed coffee shop environment. They enjoy chatting with their co-workers and favorite customers. Many stated that they have nothing against those who do corporate work but wouldn’t feel comfortable in that environment. “I would probably like lose my mind in a 9-to-5 kind of thing,” an artistic barista explained. “I just am not that type of person. I don’t like paperwork. I also don’t like the feeling of not being able to be myself. … I just know I would end up hating it.”</p>
<p>Most come from middle-class families and have attended, if not graduated, from college. As such, they have rejected relatively well-paid, middle-class positions in favor of an occupation suited to the lifestyle they wish to lead.</p>
<p>Living in a gentrifying neighborhood not only enables them to be near their job, but also to be near emerging art and music scenes, thrift shops or vegan eateries. It also provides relatively low-cost housing that is compatible with their budgets. The average barista in our sample earned $23,000 per year in 2019 and typically worked 32 hours per week. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560195/original/file-20231117-23-u4oo72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Rowhomes with Philadelphia skyline in background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560195/original/file-20231117-23-u4oo72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560195/original/file-20231117-23-u4oo72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560195/original/file-20231117-23-u4oo72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560195/original/file-20231117-23-u4oo72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560195/original/file-20231117-23-u4oo72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560195/original/file-20231117-23-u4oo72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560195/original/file-20231117-23-u4oo72.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">A view from Fishtown, a former working-class Philadelphia neighborhood that’s been heavily gentrified.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/fishtown-district-in-philadelphia-pennsylvania-royalty-free-image/641120274">peeterv/iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>On being a gentrifier</h2>
<p>The baristas we interviewed tended to view gentrification as a process that is harmful to lower socioeconomic class and mostly minority populations. A barista who observed affluent university students move into a low-income West Philadelphia neighborhood and displace working-class Black residents stated: “Obviously, it’s terrible.”</p>
<p>They felt a degree of guilt about being part of this process. But their low-wage employment and need for affordable urban space that is compatible with their lifestyle caused them to feel they have little recourse to make other residential decisions. </p>
<p>“I understand that I’m also part of the problem when it comes to gentrifying an area,” one of the baristas said. “My boyfriend tends to disagree with me on that. He’s like, ‘Well, where are we going to move, then?’ And it’s true. Like, I don’t know, we can’t afford to live in Rittenhouse Square. I can just barely afford to live in Fishtown at this point. I thought this would be a good area for meeting other creatives. And I don’t want to live in the suburbs.”</p>
<p>Many baristas, however, were ignorant of the role that their coffee shop plays in commercial gentrification. They tend to believe that such shops open only after a neighborhood has already gentrified. As one barista put it: “I think coffee shops are a symptom rather than a cause of gentrification. They spring up in neighborhoods that have already been taken over by gentrifiers.” </p>
<p>Urban scholarship suggests that the relationship is more complicated, with coffee shops being both a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/04/coffee-shops-hipsters-gentrification-communities">cause and effect</a> of neighborhood gentrification.</p>
<p>While specialty coffee shops generally present themselves as progressive and inclusive, longtime residents often view them as expensive, culturally alienating and what American sociologist Elijah Anderson referred to as “<a href="https://news.yale.edu/2022/03/24/elijah-anderson-burden-being-black-white-spaces">white spaces</a>.” Furthermore, these cafes often <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6040.2009.01269.x">displace other retail businesses</a> that long-term residents relied on.</p>
<p>There are, of course, some specialty coffee shops in Philadelphia that have designed their prices, programming and decor to <a href="https://billypenn.com/2019/01/28/these-philly-coffee-shops-do-the-opposite-of-gentrification">attract customers and residents that often feel excluded</a> from such shops. These include <a href="https://www.unclebobbies.com/">Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee & Books</a> in Germantown and <a href="https://www.kayuhcafe.com/">Kayuh Bicycles & Cafe</a> in Francisville. Some, like <a href="https://www.instagram.com/quakercitycoffee/">Quaker City Coffee</a> and <a href="https://www.themonkeyandtheelephant.org/#home-page-test-section">The Monkey & the Elephant</a> in Brewerytown, employ vulnerable populations such as <a href="https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/meet-the-disruptor-quaker-city-coffee/">formerly incarcerated people</a> and <a href="https://themonkeyandtheelephant.squarespace.com/program-overview">former foster youth</a>. But specialty coffee shops designed to appeal to those that often feel excluded are rare, and they employ only a handful of baristas. </p>
<h2>Blame the barista?</h2>
<p>The coffee shops that the baristas we interviewed work for are not the main drivers of urban gentrification. Such gentrification is pushed mainly by real estate developers and by local governments seeking to <a href="https://www.constructiondive.com/news/the-gentrification-effect-what-new-development-means-for-communities/445529/">enhance their tax base</a>.</p>
<p>Gentrification, furthermore, is fundamentally a result of <a href="https://www.planetizen.com/news/2022/07/117708-whos-blame-gentrification">larger structural forces</a> such as zoning rules that prohibit multi-unit and mixed-use construction, and government acquiescence to <a href="https://citylimits.org/2023/07/19/opinion-can-a-science-based-approach-break-the-nimby-yimby-divide-on-housing/">NIMBY resistance</a> to high-rise buildings. These forces limit the supply of housing in walkable urban neighborhoods. In Philadelphia, such neighborhoods include, but are not limited to, <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/venice-island-construction-philadelphia-infill-development-20221019.html#loaded">Chestnut Hill, Germantown, Society Hill, Mount Airy, Strawberry Mansion and Point Breeze</a>.</p>
<p>To ease residential gentrification, baristas could relocate. But they are low-wage service workers, and their housing options are limited by affordability issues and the <a href="https://cityobservatory.org/everything-that-causes-gentrification-from-a-to-z/">shortage of urban neighborhoods</a> – issues that zoning boards, community groups and political leaders have <a href="https://cityobservatory.org/everything-that-causes-gentrification-from-a-to-z/">failed to address</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216887/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoff Moss does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When it comes to gentrification, Philadelphia baristas say they’re ‘part of the problem.’ But as low-wage workers, where else should they live and work?Geoff Moss, Professor of Sociology, Temple UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1902182022-09-12T12:13:56Z2022-09-12T12:13:56ZBarbara Ehrenreich helped make inequality visible – her legacy lives on in a reinvigorated labor movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483819/original/file-20220910-33476-urzf6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=185%2C38%2C2989%2C2027&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Best-selling author Barbara Ehrenreich in a 2005 photo.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ObitBarbaraEhrenreich/94d9e557d24841718a544e81910d1472/photo?Query=%22barbara%20ehrenreich%22&mediaType=photo,video,graphic,audio&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=3&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Andrew Shurtleff</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Have you heard of <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/starbucks-union-jaz-brisack/">Jaz Brisack</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/04/24/amazon-apple-google-union-busting/">Liz Fong-Jones</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/02/1090353185/amazon-union-chris-smalls-organizer-staten-island">Chris Smalls</a>?</p>
<p>Those names might not be familiar to all Americans, but their recent accomplishments amount to a potential sea change in labor rights. </p>
<p>As union organizers or advocates for better work conditions at some of the biggest and most powerful companies in the world – Starbucks, Google and Amazon, respectively – these three young people have highlighted just how far out of whack the balance between workers and organizations has grown.</p>
<p>I believe that their work, part of a <a href="https://mitsloan.mit.edu/institute-work-and-employment-research/new-report-u-s-workers-organizing-efforts-and-collective-actions">surge in labor organizing</a> and other kinds of <a href="https://theconversation.com/building-something-better-how-community-organizing-helps-people-thrive-in-challenging-times-181397">community-building efforts</a>, has its roots in the <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/media/2022/09/the-long-fight-of-barbara-ehrenreich/">scholarship and journalism</a> of <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/6/headlines/nickel_and_dimed_author_barbara_ehrenreich_dies_at_81">Barbara Ehrenreich, who died</a> on Sept. 1, 2022. </p>
<h2>Opening a window on inequality</h2>
<p>Ehrenreich is best known for her 2001 book “<a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312626686/nickelanddimed">Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America</a>.” </p>
<p>It begins with a deceptively simple premise: investigating whether and how workers can live on what they earn from low-wage jobs. Operating essentially undercover by taking on retail jobs, cleaning houses and waiting tables, <a href="https://openstax.org/books/writing-guide/pages/8-2-analytical-report-trailblazer-barbara-ehrenreich">Ehrenreich chronicled her experiences</a> and observations as she <a href="https://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/external/title/9780312626686/">roved from Florida to Maine to Minnesota</a>. She showed readers that it was virtually impossible to make a living with this work. </p>
<p>Once hired, Ehrenreich refused to rely on her savings or assets, instead paying for rent, food and utilities out of her hourly wages. She quickly found out that doing so left her uninsured, in poor health, sometimes hungry, often tired and always struggling. </p>
<p>“Nickel and Dimed” is an <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780805088380">unforgettable best-selling expose</a> that highlights what many low-wage workers already know: It’s impossible to get ahead when you can’t even break even.</p>
<h2>A model for sociologists</h2>
<p>I first read “Nickel and Dimed,” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/books/barbara-ehrenreich-dead.html">one of 21 books she published</a> in her lifetime, in 2002 when I was finishing my coursework for a doctorate in sociology. Ehrenreich’s work <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_allsubj=all&as_sauthors=%22Wingfield%2C+Adia+Harvey%22&as_q=">resonated with me</a> because of her focus on the grind of low-paying jobs.</p>
<p>She earned her own <a href="https://pulitzercenter.org/people/barbara-ehrenreich">doctorate in cell biology</a> and had no formal training as a sociologist. But she adopted what I like to think are the strengths of my discipline.</p>
<p>That is, she asked questions to help understand various groups’ experiences, as well as the relationships between institutions and individuals. She also forcefully recommended policy changes that could potentially improve the lives of people who are suffering due to powerful forces, such as corporations, the government and school systems.</p>
<p>In my view, Ehrenreich’s ability to document in clear, accessible prose exactly how low-wage work forced people into an unavoidable grind is the best kind of sociological research.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1565757561617391622"}"></div></p>
<h2>Opening a path</h2>
<p>Her work also set an example for many other sociologists studying workers, labor markets and the economy. Ehrenreich laid a clear path for sociologists who have examined the inner lives of employees, the obstacles they face and the strategies they use to survive. </p>
<p>Subsequent studies of how <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520283015/cut-loose">autoworkers try to thrive</a> in a declining industry, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0891243220948218">why workers blame themselves</a> when they struggle to find employment, or of the relationship between <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674725119">union decline and pay differences</a> for Black and white workers – all of that research followed Ehrenreich’s lead.</p>
<p>This body of work can push people to look at the consequences of these economic arrangements.</p>
<p>It also casts light on how “<a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/09/05/right-to-work-laws-impact">right to work</a>” laws hamper union operations in 27 states. In addition, this research is scrutinizing <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22651953/americans-gig-independent-workers-benefits-vacation-health-care-inequality">short-term, contract work</a> without job stability or benefits. The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/15/business/economy/gig-work.html">growth of gig work</a> is adding to the gap between “good jobs” and “bad jobs,” and <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/269735/jobs-better-worse-workers-wellbeing.aspx">those with the bad ones are suffering</a>. </p>
<p>This research, like <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2005/09/bait-and-switch-interview-barbara-ehrenreich/">much of Ehrenreich’s work</a>, forces readers to ask why <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/us-inequality-debate">economic inequality has become so severe in the U.S.</a>, with wages stagnating while wealth concentrates among those with the most. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483822/original/file-20220910-7447-vt4wg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a red sweatshirt stands in front of an 'Amazon Labor Union' banner." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483822/original/file-20220910-7447-vt4wg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483822/original/file-20220910-7447-vt4wg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483822/original/file-20220910-7447-vt4wg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483822/original/file-20220910-7447-vt4wg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483822/original/file-20220910-7447-vt4wg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483822/original/file-20220910-7447-vt4wg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483822/original/file-20220910-7447-vt4wg4.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">Chris Smalls, a former warehouse worker, led the first successful U.S. union campaign for a group of Amazon employees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AmazonUnion/af8777f4d78742db85d828d4b16febc5/photo?Query=%22chris%20smalls%22&mediaType=photo,video,graphic,audio&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=49&currentItemNo=24">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</a></span>
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<h2>New generation of labor leaders</h2>
<p>Brisack, Fong-Jones and Smalls, along with countless less prominent workers, know these things already.</p>
<p>Smalls <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23145265/amazon-fired-chris-smalls-union-leader-alu-jeff-bezos-bernie-sanders-aoc-labor-movement-biden">built a labor movement at Amazon</a> based on his and other workers’ <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/04/amazon-workers-staten-island-christian-smalls">demands that the company do a better job protecting them from COVID-19</a> at the warehouse where he had been employed on Staten Island, New York. In April 2022, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/apr/01/amazon-union-groups-see-hope-workers-vote-alabama-new-york">National Labor Relations Board certified</a> that the workers had prevailed in their efforts to form the first union to represent any of Amazon’s workers. </p>
<p>Brisack, likewise, objected as a Starbucks barista in Buffalo, New York, to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/12/rhodes-scholar-barista-fight-unionize-starbucks/">what she said were hazardous workplace conditions</a> that heightened employees’ exposure to COVID-19. In December 2021, the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/starbucks-union-vote-buffalo-stores/">campaign she organized</a> led her workplace to become the first of the company’s nearly 10,000 locations to be represented by a union. By the end of August 2022, <a href="https://sbworkersunited.org/new-page-2">some 230 Starbucks stores had voted to unionize</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-harassment-andy-rubin.html">Fong-Jones</a>, a former <a href="https://hub.packtpub.com/liz-fong-jones-reveals-she-is-leaving-google-in-february/">Google engineer who resigned</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22848750/whistleblower-facebook-google-apple-employees">became an activist</a> who supports the rights of women, trans people and people of color in tech industries, hasn’t unionized her former coworkers. Instead, she teamed up with others to establish a <a href="https://coworkerfund.org/about-the-fund/">nonprofit that supports tech whistleblowers and labor organizers</a>.</p>
<p>The many recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/america-is-in-the-middle-of-a-labor-mobilization-moment-with-self-organizers-at-starbucks-amazon-trader-joes-and-chipotle-behind-the-union-drive-189826">successes in organizing workers</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/building-something-better-how-community-organizing-helps-people-thrive-in-challenging-times-181397">demand collective changes</a> – safer workplaces, higher pay, better benefits – are right in line with what Ehrenreich always stood for. I hope she saw their achievements as an extension of her own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190218/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adia Harvey Wingfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The author, who died Sept. 1, 2022, inspired countless researchers to probe the injustices working people face.Adia Harvey Wingfield, Professor of Sociology, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1867172022-07-12T19:23:57Z2022-07-12T19:23:57ZNZ has reached ‘full employment’ – but not all workers will benefit from a tighter labour market<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473485/original/file-20220711-9214-l1f8dt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=77%2C33%2C7227%2C4825&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>New Zealand’s unemployment rate hit a low of 3.2% in the fourth quarter of 2021 and again in the first quarter of this year. That’s the lowest the rate has been since at least 1986, both overall and separately for men (3.1% in both quarters) and women (3.3% in both quarters). </p>
<p>However, that low unemployment rate still represents over 90,000 people without jobs who are actively seeking work. So, why are some commentators starting to talk about <a href="https://www.interest.co.nz/public-policy/116102/rbnz-governor-takes-heart-nzs-full-employment-levels-country-braces-itself">“full employment”</a> when it is clear that not everyone who wants a job has one? </p>
<p>Also, if businesses are struggling to fill positions, does this mean all workers will be able to flex their muscles in negotiations on pay and work conditions?</p>
<p>To understand New Zealand’s current labour market, we first need to understand the concept of full employment.</p>
<h2>So what is full employment?</h2>
<p>Economists define full employment as the absence of any “cyclical unemployment”, which is unemployment related to the rise and fall of the economy – also known as the business cycle. </p>
<p>As the economy reaches a peak in the cycle, employers increase production, requiring a high number of workers. The availability of these extra jobs reduces the number of unemployed, eventually reaching full employment. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473530/original/file-20220712-18-2hry3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Graph showing decline in unemployment rate" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473530/original/file-20220712-18-2hry3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473530/original/file-20220712-18-2hry3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473530/original/file-20220712-18-2hry3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473530/original/file-20220712-18-2hry3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473530/original/file-20220712-18-2hry3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473530/original/file-20220712-18-2hry3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473530/original/file-20220712-18-2hry3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&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 unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since 1986.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stats NZ</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But that doesn’t mean that when there is full employment there is no unemployment at all. There will still be some employment that is “frictional” (because it takes time for unemployed workers to be matched to jobs) and “structural” (because some unemployed workers don’t have the right skills for the available jobs).</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-income-inequality-is-the-policy-issue-to-make-or-break-governments-56351">Why income inequality is the policy issue to make or break governments</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Rather than “full employment”, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) prefers to use the term <a href="https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/monetary-policy/about-monetary-policy/inflation-and-maximum-sustainable-employment">“maximum sustainable employment”</a>, which they define as “the highest amount of employment the economy can maintain without creating more inflation”. </p>
<p>Maximum sustainable employment reflects the RBNZ’s “<a href="https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/hub/news/2018/03/new-pta-requires-reserve-bank-to-consider-employment-alongside-price-stability-mandate">dual mandate</a>” to maintain low and stable inflation (between 1% and 3%) while “supporting maximum levels of sustainable employment within the economy”.</p>
<p>Clearly, in imposing the dual mandate on the RBNZ, the government believes full employment is an important goal. “Work, care and volunteering” is one of the domains of individual and collective well-being in Treasury’s <a href="https://lsfdashboard.treasury.govt.nz/wellbeing/">Living Standards Framework</a>, because these “are three of the major ways in which people use their <a href="https://www.treasury.govt.nz/sites/default/files/2022-04/bp-trends-wellbeing-aotearoa-new-zealand-2000-2020.pdf">capabilities to contribute to society</a>”. Full employment means more people are contributing to their own and society’s well-being. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman circling job advertisements in the newspaper" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473344/original/file-20220711-12-zt3px7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/473344/original/file-20220711-12-zt3px7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473344/original/file-20220711-12-zt3px7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473344/original/file-20220711-12-zt3px7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473344/original/file-20220711-12-zt3px7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473344/original/file-20220711-12-zt3px7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/473344/original/file-20220711-12-zt3px7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Zealand’s unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in decades, leading some commentators to say we are at full employment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/photo/job-searching-royalty-free-image/170618633?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A worker’s job market?</h2>
<p>So, what does full employment mean for low-income workers?</p>
<p>When there is full employment, it starts to become more difficult for employers to find workers to fill their vacancies. We are seeing this already, with job listings <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/300613241/tight-labour-market-means-a-struggle-to-find-staff">hitting record levels</a>. </p>
<p>A tight labour market, where there are relatively more jobs than available workers, increases the bargaining power of workers. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/job-guarantees-basic-income-can-save-us-from-covid-19-depression-133997">Job guarantees, basic income can save us from COVID-19 depression</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But that doesn’t mean workers have all of the power and <a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-record-vacancies-australians-shouldnt-expect-big-pay-rises-soon-180416">can demand substantially higher wages</a>, only that workers can push for somewhat better pay and conditions, and employers are more likely to agree. </p>
<p>This shift in bargaining power is why some employers are now willing to offer significant <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/468678/tight-labour-market-leads-to-10-000-finder-s-fees-large-sign-on-bonuses">signing bonuses</a> or better <a href="https://www.timescolonist.com/business/employers-getting-creative-in-tight-labour-market-5552035">work conditions and benefits</a>, including flexible hours or free insurance.</p>
<h2>Low-wage workers will still feel the pinch</h2>
<p>If you look closer at the types of jobs where signing bonuses and more generous benefits packages are being offered, however, you will quickly realise those are not features of jobs at the bottom end of the wage spectrum. </p>
<p>Many low-income workers are in jobs that are part-time, fixed-term or precarious. Low-wage workers are not benefiting from the tight labour market to the same extent as more highly qualified workers. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, a period of full employment may allow some low-wage workers to move into higher paying jobs, or jobs that are less precarious and/or offer better work conditions. That relies on the workers having the appropriate skills and experience for higher-paying jobs, or for increasingly desperate employers to adjust their employment standards to meet those of the available job applicants.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-just-a-number-defining-full-employment-15248">Not just a number: Defining full employment</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Overall it is clear that not all low-wage workers benefit from full employment. Those who remain in low-wage jobs may even be worse off in a full-employment economy. If wage demands from other workers feed through into higher prices of goods and services it will exacerbate cost-of-living increases. </p>
<p>The RBNZ is already implementing tighter monetary policies to <a href="https://www.rbnz.govt.nz/hub/news/2022/05/monetary-conditions-tighten-by-more-and-sooner">address high inflation</a>, leading to higher mortgage interest payments for home owners. Renters will likely face higher rents as landlords pass on the increased interest rates. These higher housing and living costs will hit low-wage workers particularly hard.</p>
<p>Although a full employment economy seems like a net positive, not everyone benefits equally, and we shouldn’t ignore that some low-wage workers remain vulnerable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael P. Cameron receives funding from Te Hiringa Hauora/Health Promotion Agency. </span></em></p>New Zealand has reached the lowest unemployment rate in decades but low wage workers may still struggle to negotiate an increase in wages.Michael P. Cameron, Associate Professor in Economics, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1662512021-11-10T13:39:40Z2021-11-10T13:39:40ZThe federal poverty line struggles to capture the economic hardship that half of Americans face<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429733/original/file-20211102-29191-p6bxrc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=251%2C242%2C2452%2C1302&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Low-wage workers march in Washington on Aug. 2, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-poor-peoples-campaign-rallied-and-marched-in-washington-news-photo/1234447749?adppopup=true">Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Michael Chase works two jobs in southeast Ohio: one as a hotel night clerk and one as retail support – sorting through donations, setting new merchandise out, cleaning – at a nonprofit. </p>
<p>His schedule is not fixed in either job, and his hours are not guaranteed. Some weeks he works back-to-back eight-hour shifts. Some weeks he works fewer than 30 hours. Neither job offers sick leave, vacation time or health insurance. </p>
<p>Chase shares an apartment with three other people, something he finds stressful. And he is not always confident that he can make his portion of the rent. Between the two jobs, Chase earns less than US$16,000 a year. While it may not sound like a lot, that places him well above the federal <a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines">poverty line for a single person</a>: $12,760. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://cmpascale.org/">sociologist</a> concerned with inequality, I spent one year conducting field work and interviews across the country for <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351391040_Living_on_the_Edge_When_Hard_Times_Become_A_Way_of_Life">my recent book</a>, which examines how Americans cope with economic struggles amid stagnant wages and rising costs of living.</p>
<p>Nearly everyone I interviewed worked multiple service industry jobs. Yet I didn’t meet anyone who thought of themselves as poor. </p>
<p>More commonly they referred to themselves as the struggling class: They struggle economically and hold an often unfounded hope that things will get better. But you can’t work your way out of poverty in low-wage jobs.</p>
<p>Low-wage jobs in the 21st century are not only the lowest rung on a career ladder, they are often the only rung. </p>
<p>Across the country, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/02/the-7point25-minimum-wage-doesnt-help-families-pay-the-bills-in-any-state.html">millions of low-wage workers</a> like Chase struggle to pay their bills each month, despite holding multiple jobs. </p>
<h2>Defining poverty</h2>
<p>“I’m fine,” Chase told me. “I don’t consider myself poor … I guess I would say I am struggling a little bit. For me, people who don’t have food are poor. Or someone who can’t feed their kids, or you might not have running water or even electricity. You don’t have the right things you need to even survive.” </p>
<p>Chase was not unusual in his assessment of poverty. </p>
<p>The economic struggles of millions in the United States are erased by the federal definition of the poverty line and by outdated conceptions of low-wage work.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2019/11/21/low-wage-work-is-more-pervasive-than-you-think-and-there-arent-enough-good-jobs-to-go-around/">A recent study</a> by the Brookings Institution defined low-wage work as a median hourly wage of $10.22, or $17,950 per year. By this measure, 44% of all workers in the U.S. are low-wage earners. </p>
<p>In 2021, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a worker needs to earn <a href="https://reports.nlihc.org/oor">$20.40 per hour</a> to be able to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country. That’s an annual salary of $40,800 – more than twice what Brookings refers to as the median wage for low-wage work. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429734/original/file-20211102-54186-m0mg54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Low wage workers protest." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429734/original/file-20211102-54186-m0mg54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429734/original/file-20211102-54186-m0mg54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429734/original/file-20211102-54186-m0mg54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429734/original/file-20211102-54186-m0mg54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429734/original/file-20211102-54186-m0mg54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429734/original/file-20211102-54186-m0mg54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429734/original/file-20211102-54186-m0mg54.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Low-wage workers and supporters protest for a $15 an hour minimum wage on Nov. 10, 2015 at Foley Square in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/low-wage-workers-and-supporters-protest-for-a-15-an-hour-news-photo/496587478?adppopup=true">Cem Ozdel/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Federal data shows that roughly <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2019">51% or workers</a> live on less than $35,000 annually. Low wages, unreliable hours and a lack of benefits have come to dominate the U.S. economic landscape. </p>
<p>To understand the economic hardship that more than half of Americans face, it is critical that researchers shift their thinking away from an outdated federal measure of poverty. Instead, they should focus on measures of self-sufficiency. </p>
<h2>Economic self sufficiency</h2>
<p>Economic self-sufficiency is the ability to reliably meet basic needs, including food, housing, transportation, child care, medical expenses and other necessities.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.epi.org/about/">Economic Policy Institute</a>, a nonpartisan think tank, provides a <a href="https://www.epi.org/resources/budget/">Family Budget Calculator</a> that calculates measures of economic self-sufficiency across the country. </p>
<p>The organization provides a transparent estimate of what it costs to be economically self-sufficient. It is not a calculation of poverty. </p>
<p>The calculations are based on <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp/usda-food-plans-cost-food-reports">Department of Agriculture data</a> such as food costs and <a href="https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/fmr.html">Fair Market Rent</a>, a measure developed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to determine payments for housing assistance programs. </p>
<p>In southeast Ohio, the self-sufficiency budget for Chase provided by the Economic Policy Institute calculator is $34,545 – more than twice what he earns and nearly three times the federal poverty line. </p>
<p>If Chase lived in San Francisco, his economic self-sufficiency budget would be $69,072. Across the bay in Oakland, California, it would be $57,383. Keep in mind that the federal poverty line for a single person living anywhere in the U.S. is $12,760. </p>
<p>For families, the gap between the federal poverty line and economic self-sufficiency is even wider. Self-sufficiency for two adults with two children who live in San Francisco requires an annual income of $148,440, while the federal poverty line for this same <a href="https://aspe.hhs.gov/topics/poverty-economic-mobility/poverty-guidelines/prior-hhs-poverty-guidelines-federal-register-references/2020-poverty-guidelines/2020-poverty-guidelines-computations">family of four in 2020 was $25,701</a>.</p>
<p>[<em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/politics-weekly-74/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=politics-important">Get The Conversation’s most important politics headlines, in our Politics Weekly newsletter</a>.</em>]</p>
<p>Self-sufficiency calculations vary by region. For example, self-sufficiency for this same family of four in Athens County, Ohio, would require an income of $72,284; in the Sioux City metro area of South Dakota, this family would need $78,935 to meet all of their basic needs.</p>
<p>Self-sufficiency measures are not perfect. </p>
<p>The Economic Policy Institute calculations do not consider debt, which can be significant. Further, the calculation relies on Fair Market Rent, which designates regional rents in the 40th percentile as fair market. This means that in any area, 60% of housing is more expensive than Fair Market Rent. </p>
<p>For Chase in Ohio, a livable one-bedroom apartment runs $800 to $1,300 a month, but Fair Market Rent allocates only $605 for rent.</p>
<p>Despite these problems, measures of self-sufficiency are more effective than the federal poverty line. By delineating the costs of basic expenses, they draw a far more accurate line of where poverty begins.</p>
<p>It might seem like a matter of common sense that the nation needs to calculate how much families actually need to spend on basic expenses in order to understand where poverty begins. But policymakers still rely on the federal poverty line for calculating economic safety nets. A measure of self-sufficiency would enable the nation to identify levels of economic need as they exist – and therefore to establish effective safety nets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166251/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Celine-Marie Pascale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Millions of Americans struggle to pay their bills each month, despite earning wages well above the federal poverty line and holding multiple jobs.Celine-Marie Pascale, Professor of Sociology, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1624862021-07-18T12:28:09Z2021-07-18T12:28:09ZWhat Canada can learn from Sweden about creating middle-class retail jobs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410924/original/file-20210713-27-1q9sri0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C206%2C3212%2C1759&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canadian grocery-store workers earn low wages compared to their counterparts in Sweden. Why?
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jacques Boissinot </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Grocery-store cashiers and other frontline retail workers have helped get us through the pandemic, but do we value them? Why are retail jobs middle-class in Sweden, but low-wage work in Canada?</p>
<p>These were some of the questions I tried to answer over several years of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12596">published research</a> on grocery-store workers in different countries.</p>
<p>My research has shown that in the late 1970s, Canadian grocery-store jobs were middle-class union jobs. Full-time hours were common, and Canada’s grocery store-workers were well paid by global standards for the industry.</p>
<p>Major grocery chains held oligopolies in their respective provinces and had considerable discretion in setting prices, focused more on quality, and could use these aspects of their business strategy to justify high wages in the industry.</p>
<p>The opening of discount chains like Super Carnaval in Québec in 1982 and megastores like the Real Canadian Superstore in 1979 forced traditional grocers to rethink their human resources strategies. In addition to making profit margins narrow, many of these new discounters — like Walmart <a href="https://www.walmartcanada.ca/about-us/history">which entered Canada in 1994</a> — were non-union.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man walks to The Real Canadian Superstore in Coquitlam, B.C." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410926/original/file-20210713-21-1pfmuvm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A man walks to The Real Canadian Superstore in Coquitlam, B.C. in 2005.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CP PHOTO/Chuck Stoody)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wages were reduced</h2>
<p>The chains demanded that the unions work with them to lower labour costs and prevent them from losing money. Fearing what would happen to their members’ jobs if the chains went bankrupt (and some did), most of the unions worked with major grocers to cut wages and erode other key conditions set in collective agreements.</p>
<p>The result was a drastic reduction in the real wages of unionized workers from 1980 to 2016. Today, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/06/16/pay-premiums-for-grocery-store-workers-have-ended-did-their-essential-status-change-labour-rights-advocates-say-no.html">unionized retailers start at the minimum wage, or just above it</a>. </p>
<p>In Sweden, the wages of grocery-store workers in 1980 were good, but workers in some Canadian chains were better off. Like Canada, the Swedish grocery market was dominated by an oligopoly of players (until the early 2000s, when discounters like Netto and Lidl entered the market).</p>
<p>But unlike in Canada, working conditions did not erode with the rise of discount retailers in Sweden. In key areas, they improved.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12484">Swedish wages grew by over 50 per cent</a>. Today, <a href="https://handels.se/pa-jobbet/lagstaloner/butiksanstalld/privata-och-kooperativa-butiker/">the starting salary in Sweden is just over CA$20 an hour</a>. But most workers earn more than this. The collective agreement ensures that they earn more than $31 an hour on evenings, and over $40 an hour on weekends. They also receive pay in addition to what’s stipulated in the collective agreement.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People shop on a sunny Stockholm street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410928/original/file-20210713-19-1yj7bcl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People shop in Stockholm, Sweden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tomas Williams/Unsplash</span></span>
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<p>What’s more, Swedish workers have substantial scheduling protections, including one month’s notice for schedules, strong rights to limit work performed on weekends and the right to be consulted on working hours. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/2.1.3612.5767">Swedish retail workers are also remarkably satisfied with their work</a>. </p>
<p>In Canada, the most employees get is usually the right to a few days’ notice on their scheduled hours.</p>
<h2>Sectoral bargaining is key</h2>
<p>So why do Swedish retail workers have remarkably superior working conditions? In a nutshell, their labour laws strongly support what’s called <a href="https://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/economy/news/2020/03/02/176857/what-is-sectoral-bargaining/">sectoral bargaining.</a></p>
<p>Sectoral bargaining ensures every worker who works for a major retail chain in Sweden is covered by what’s called a sectoral bargaining agreement. This is a common agreement that stipulates working conditions for retail employees, and it applies across the entire sector.</p>
<p>Sectoral bargaining takes wages and other working conditions out of competition. In Canada, retail unions are always nervous that asking for high wages and significant improvements to other working conditions will hurt the profitability of their stores, which could lead to job loss. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/labors-rank-and-file-still-believe-in-collective-bargainings-power-to-bolster-middle-class-49160">Labor's rank and file still believe in collective bargaining's power to bolster middle class</a>
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<p>Since working conditions differ across stores, even across unionized outlets, unions are forced to accept wage concessions to help their employers compete for low prices.</p>
<p>In Sweden, the opposite is true. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12484">Their retailers are not competing with each other by lowering labour costs</a>. Grocers want all their competitors to offer the same working conditions. That’s because sectoral bargaining prevents a non-union market entrant from gaining an unfair price advantage by operating with lower labour costs.</p>
<h2>All-encompassing agreements</h2>
<p>Employers want the union to organize workers and ensure that collective agreements are all-encompassing. <a href="https://portal.research.lu.se/portal/files/94935911/Unions_in_social_dialogue_Kjellberg_Workplace_Innovation.pdf">Approximately 70 per cent of the Swedish workforce is unionized</a>, more than double that of Canada.</p>
<p>Why is sectoral bargaining uncommon in Canada, and absent in retail? Basically, our labour laws don’t support it.</p>
<p>Swedish unions work in solidarity to force firms to sign collective agreements. For example, when <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/03/18/sweden-retail-unions_n_6888328.html">Toys “R” Us refused to sign a collective agreement in the mid-1990s</a>, unionized workers in other industries blocked the company from operating in Sweden. </p>
<p>Transit unions instructed their workers to stop delivering goods to the company. Bank unions told their workers to stop processing financial transactions for the company.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Shoppers in a Toys 'R' Us." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411104/original/file-20210713-25-6gcyxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Toys ‘R’ Us faced an unfriendly reception when it entered the Swedish market.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Alan Diaz</span></span>
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<p>In the end, the company had no choice but to sign the collective agreement. In fact, they turned these stores into a franchise operated by Scandinavians, since the American managers discovered that they did not understand how to operate in countries like Sweden.</p>
<p>Conflicts like this have set the stage for retailers wishing to operate in the country. For example, Lidl, a German discount food retailer known for its anti-union stance throughout Europe, signed the collective agreement when entering the Swedish market in 2002. </p>
<p><a href="https://handelsnytt.se/2021/02/22/vi-later-inte-amazon-komma-undan-utan-schyssta-villkor/">Amazon has entered the Swedish market but has yet to open its own warehouses in the country</a>. If it does, there’s little doubt the union will be successful in getting the company to sign a collective agreement. </p>
<h2>Patchwork unionization</h2>
<p>In Canada, the law encourages collective bargaining by store or chain. Sympathy actions aren’t part of the system. Among stores that are unionized, it’s not always by the same union.</p>
<p>The result is a fragmented system where working conditions diverge considerably. When unionized stores are operating under different collective agreements, their unions face immense pressure to compete with each other to lower labour costs and hence maintain poor working conditions. </p>
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<img alt="A customer and a little girl look at the seafood counter at a Metro store in Ste-Therese, Que" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/410933/original/file-20210713-13-1ng7rz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A customer looks at the seafood counter at a Metro store in Ste-Therese, Que.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz</span></span>
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<p>The existence of non-union operators like Walmart and Dollarama makes matters even worse. Many union officials argue that preserving modest privileges through collective bargaining is better than letting non-union chains dominate the industry, which would be considerably worse for workers. </p>
<p>Without providing Canada’s unions with legal supports to effectively extend workplace standards across all major chains, including Walmart and Dollarama, these workers will never win the conditions they deserve. </p>
<p>There are many benefits to supporting unionization in the grocery industry, including a wage scale, employee benefits and access to a voice for employees.</p>
<p>But if Canada wants to expand its middle class by substantially improving working conditions in sectors like retail, it must fundamentally reform its labour laws.</p>
<p>Sectoral bargaining is probably our best bet. In fact, <a href="https://cepr.net/documents/publications/low-wage-2012-01.pdf">we have long known that low-wage work is much rarer in countries where sectoral bargaining is encouraged and widespread</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1331&context=all_papers">We’ve had opportunities for such a reform in the past</a>. We need to create new opportunities and show our front-line workers that we truly value them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean O'Brady receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and has received funding from the Fonds de recherche du Québec en Société et culture (FRQSC).</span></em></p>If Canada wants to expand its middle class by substantially improving working conditions in sectors like retail, it must fundamentally reform its labour laws to be similar to Sweden’s.Sean O'Brady, Assistant Professor, Labour Relations, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1558102021-02-26T20:14:50Z2021-02-26T20:14:50ZEnsuring the minimum wage keeps up with economic growth would be the best way to help workers and preserve FDR’s legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/386566/original/file-20210225-13-j7yss6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=186%2C102%2C4106%2C2755&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It may seem like a lot, but it's not the most important change in the bill.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MinimumWage/1e273d0f0be14fb2802f3e2f8683051b/photo?Query=minimum%20AND%20wage&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=2614&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The US$1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill that the House <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-vote-biden-s-1-9-trillion-covid-relief-bill-n1258883">just passed</a> includes a <a href="https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/15-federal-minimum-wage-whos-for-it-whos-against-it-whats-next/">gradual increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025</a>. While <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/02/25/minimum-wage-coronavirus-relief-bill-471648">its chances in the Senate appear slim</a>, the proposal has brought national attention to the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/raising-the-federal-minimum-wage-to-15-by-2024-would-lift-pay-for-nearly-40-million-workers/">Supporters argue</a> a higher minimum wage would translate into higher incomes for millions of low-wage employees, such as restaurant waiters, retail salespeople and child care workers, and thereby lift a lot of people out of poverty. Opponents claim <a href="https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/e6663010-d095-4db8-9cb9-ae64da9fa165/the-case-against-a-higher-minimum-wage---may-1996.pdf">it would hurt businesses</a> and lead to a lot of job losses. </p>
<p>As an <a href="https://www.felixkoenig.com">economist who studies labor markets and income inequality</a>, I believe both claims exaggerate the impact and miss a key point of what the minimum wage is meant to achieve. The current debate offers a perfect opportunity to restore the wage floor’s original purpose, as laid out by FDR over 70 years ago. </p>
<h2>Preventing employer abuses</h2>
<p>The federal minimum wage <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart">was first implemented</a> under the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 at a very modest 25 cents an hour – <a href="https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm">about $4.61 today</a> – and applied only to “employees engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce.” Think manufacturing workers, miners and truck drivers. </p>
<p>It took 18 years before Congress raised it to a buck, and the wage was soon expanded to include lots of other workers, such as retail employees, gas station attendants and nursing home aides. The latest increase, in 2009, set the wage at $7.25. <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/faq">It now applies to almost all workers</a> except the self-empoyed, small-farm laborers, teenagers and those who receive tips, as well as a handful of other exempted groups.</p>
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<p>But the principal intention was not to provide a “living wage” sufficient to live on alone. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt <a href="https://www.history.com/news/minimum-wage-america-timeline">included it as part of his New Deal legislation</a> to prevent <a href="https://ogletree.com/insights/the-flsa-after-80-years-part-ii-eight-decades-of-the-fair-labor-standards-act/">the abuse of an employer’s inherent bargaining power over employees</a>. Setting a floor, even a low one, limited an employer’s ability to underpay workers, ensured a minimum measure of purchasing power and allowed for fair competition between businesses.</p>
<p>Although companies decried the 25-cent wage back in 1938, <a href="https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/radio-address-of-the-president/">FDR explained</a> how the new minimum was both deeply significant yet hardly the revolutionary act some portrayed it to be. </p>
<p>“Except perhaps for the Social Security Act, it is the most far-reaching, the most farsighted program for the benefit of workers ever adopted here or in any other country,” he told Americans in one of his popular fireside chats. “Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day … tell you … that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry.” </p>
<h2>Analyzing the impact on jobs</h2>
<p>Nonetheless, that hasn’t stopped some businesses and advocacy groups from <a href="https://www.aei.org/op-eds/a-15-minimum-wage-would-wreck-us-economic-recovery/">forecasting doom</a> every time Congress has considered lifting it. </p>
<p>Many economists, think tanks and policymakers have measured the impact of raising the minimum wage over the years. Most recently, the Congressional Budget Office analyzed the latest bill and <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56975">estimated that over 10 years it would cost about 1.4 million jobs</a> by driving up business’s labor costs, while lifting 900,000 people out of poverty. </p>
<p>On the first point, <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1257/jep.35.1.3">past economic research is surprisingly clear</a>: Raising the minimum wage doesn’t seem to lead to many job losses. One of the most exhaustive studies of the employment effects <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz014">was a 2009 review of 138 U.S. state and federal minimum wage changes</a> over the past three decades. It found that the overall number of jobs essentially stayed unchanged after previous hikes. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the proposed reform will really affect workers in only a little over half the states in the near term. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1319/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22minimum+wage%22%5D%7D&r=1&s=3#toc-H96B11BD6C41D4D4A8284C3FC82676CAD">current proposal in the House version of the bill</a> would increase the minimum wage immediately to $9.50 and then incrementally by $1.50 each year until it hits $15 in 2025. It would also end the exemption for tipped employees.</p>
<p>Eight states representing about a third of the U.S. population <a href="https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx">already require companies to pay workers at least $15</a> – or will within a few years – while a <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080515/top-5-us-cities-highest-minimum-wage.asp">few major cities have even higher minimums</a>. A little over half of all states, representing just 41% of the U.S. population, set their wages at less than $9.50 an hour, with no plans for an increase. </p>
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<p>Also, many major retailers, including Walmart, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/why-amazon-really-raised-minimum-wage/">Amazon</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/02/25/971338686/costco-to-raise-minimum-wage-to-16-an-hour-this-isnt-altruism">Costco, beginning in March</a>, already pay their workers at least $15 an hour. </p>
<p>So could it lead to a loss of over a million jobs? Possibly, but this projection is likely overly pessimistic. The experience with similar recent reforms on average suggests that the impact is less severe.</p>
<h2>Incomes tell a similar story</h2>
<p>As for its impact on poverty and actual incomes, the evidence also doesn’t suggest lifting the wage will be as radical as its proponents might hope.</p>
<p>While the research cited above shows that minimum-wage hikes do increase incomes for poorer households – and the CBO’s estimate of 900,000 people lifted out of poverty is plausible – the gains aren’t that much compared with the <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html">more than 30 million people currently in poverty</a>. For one thing, the minimum wage is <a href="https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-public-cost-of-a-low-federal-minimum-wage/">not the only source of income for many poorer families</a>. Consider a household that receives half its income in benefits, like <a href="https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/613">Temporary Aid for Needy Families</a>, and half from a minimum-wage job. Even a doubling of the minimum wage would lead to a total income increase of just 25%.</p>
<p>Even more importantly, many benefits depend on earnings and are reduced when that income increases. As a result, part of the wage increase will be offset by less income from benefits, weakening the overall impact further. </p>
<p>How much workers can potentially gain from the higher wage will depend significantly on where they live. Living costs <a href="https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area#:%7E:text=Regional%20price%20parities%20(RPPs)%20measure,and%20New%20York%20(116.3)">vary substantially across the U.S.</a>, as much as 20% above or below the average, which means the same federal minimum wage is worth a lot more in low-cost states than in high-cost ones. For example, $15 buys 35% more food, gas and other stuff in Mississippi, the least expensive state, than in Hawaii, the most expensive.</p>
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<p>So in Mississippi, Arkansas and other low-cost states, the impact of the higher minimum wage will be substantial. But in many others that haven’t already raised their minimum wages to $15 but are costly to live in, like Hawaii and New Hampshire, the gains will be more modest.</p>
<h2>Giving workers a share of prosperity</h2>
<p>In other words, lifting the minimum wage to $15, on its own, isn’t that radical a change. </p>
<p>It’s not likely to lead to a large net reduction in jobs, and while it increases wages for low-paid workers, it is not a going to reduce poverty dramatically. Improving the minimum wage is nevertheless important for exactly the pro-competion reasons that FDR outlined. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>The bill does contain a very significant change in that direction and would make the minimum wage more effective in the long run. Currently the wage level changes only when Congress acts and passes new minimum-wage legislation, which is why the minimum wage now has a <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/congress-has-never-let-the-federal-minimum-wage-erode-for-this-long/#:%7E:text=Over%20the%20last%2010%20years,over%20%243%2C000%20in%20annual%20earnings.">buying power 20% lower than when it was last set in 2009</a>. The real value of the minimum wage peaked in the late 1960s, when it was worth around $11 in today’s dollars.</p>
<p>The House legislation would index it to median hourly wages, which means it wouldn’t require a political consensus to increase it. It would just happen, automatically, every year beginning once it reaches $15 in 2025.</p>
<p>Similar nonpolitical decisions about minimum-wage levels are common in other high-income countries, such as the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/low-pay-commission#:%7E:text=The%20Low%20Pay%20Commission%20is,Business%2C%20Energy%20%26%20Industrial%20Strategy.">U.K.</a> and <a href="https://en.dgb.de/fields-of-work/the-minimum-wage-in-germany">Germany</a>, reducing partisan tensions around the issue.</p>
<p>I would make one change, however. Since the purpose of a minimum wage is to prevent employers from underpaying workers and to ensure that wages grow in line with the value workers bring to companies, I believe it makes more sense to index it to changes in productivity. This would ensure that the benefits of economic growth – including gains from increased automation – <a href="https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/">are shared more evenly</a> with workers. </p>
<p>While Democrats’ narrow control of the Senate means it’s unlikely a $15 minimum wage will become law anytime soon, a <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/what-if-dems-raised-minimum-wage-not-15-hour-n1258611">less generous compromise, such as $11</a>, is still a possibility. Whatever the compromise on the headline number, I mainly hope Congress can agree to keep the automatic adjustment in there. That way the minimum wage could better serve its intended purpose of giving workers more bargaining power with their employers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155810/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felix Koenig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The federal minimum wage’s purchasing power has rarely been lower since it created in 1938 as part of the New Deal.Felix Koenig, Assistant Professor of Economics, Carnegie Mellon UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1535382021-01-26T14:58:31Z2021-01-26T14:58:31ZCOVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care highlight the urgent need for paid sick leave<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380362/original/file-20210125-23-1hgkaym.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C0%2C3600%2C2382&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A personal support worker with West Neighbourhood House's Parkdale Assisted Living Program on her way to see a resident at Toronto's May Robinson apartments seniors' housing on April 17 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It was welcome news to see vaccination efforts against the COVID-19 virus begin in Ontario in December, and that the first recipient was a personal support worker from a long-term care home, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/covid-19-coronavirus-ontario-december-14-vaccines-arrive-1.5840092">Anita Quidangen</a>. However, a successful vaccination campaign will not end the crisis in long-term care. </p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in catastrophic levels of illness and death: <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-new-data-show-canada-ranks-among-worlds-worst-for-ltc-deaths/">81 per cent of the total COVID-19 deaths</a> that occurred in Canada during the first wave were in long-term care homes, which is almost twice as high as other countries within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Long-term care homes have also been hit with <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/covid-outbreak-lynnwood-edmonton-longterm-care-1.5882617">devastating outbreaks</a> during the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-covid-19-variant-ontario-long-term-care-1.5885900">second wave of the pandemic</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380363/original/file-20210125-13-8z5i1x.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a mask gets an injection in her arm from another woman, while Premier Doug Ford stands in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380363/original/file-20210125-13-8z5i1x.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380363/original/file-20210125-13-8z5i1x.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380363/original/file-20210125-13-8z5i1x.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380363/original/file-20210125-13-8z5i1x.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380363/original/file-20210125-13-8z5i1x.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380363/original/file-20210125-13-8z5i1x.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380363/original/file-20210125-13-8z5i1x.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ontario Premier Doug Ford looks on as personal support worker Anita Quidangen gets her second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine from registered nurse Hiwot Arfaso in Toronto on Jan 4, 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The age of frail residents and their complex co-morbidities are not the only reasons for the vulnerability in this sector. </p>
<h2>Crisis in care homes is rooted in precarious work</h2>
<p>The novel coronavirus is <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2021/01/covid-19-business-work-public-health">an occupational disease, which is a hazard that spreads rapidly at work</a>. The crisis in the long-term care sector as well as many other susceptible workplaces reflects long-standing precarious conditions consisting of a predominantly <a href="https://theconversation.com/inquiry-into-coronavirus-nursing-home-deaths-needs-to-include-discussion-of-workers-and-race-139017">racialized</a>, immigrant and female workforce, combined with a novel viral pandemic, which results in presenteeism — in other words, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-nursing-home-aides-exposed-to-covid-19-arent-taking-sick-leave-150138">continuing to work despite exposure to or falling ill from COVID-19</a>. </p>
<p>As echoed in previous research, not only do precarious employees work at <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344352723_COVID-19_and_Healthcare_Workers%27_Struggles_in_Long_Term_Care_Homes">multiple sites</a>, but there are significant financial consequences for workers if they call in sick. These workers are often employed in low-income jobs such as <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5218838/">ancillary workers or support staff</a> in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-need-an-ethical-compass-for-fixing-long-term-care-during-the-covid-19-crisis-140119">health-care sector</a>, gig-economy employees, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-015-0427-z">taxi drivers and temporary, contract or agency workers</a>. They face financial penalties for missing work. </p>
<p>Although federal employment insurance sickness benefits offer qualifying workers <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/ei-sickness/benefit-amount.html">a portion of their wages</a>, the maximum benefit is only 55 per cent of wages. In addition, there are <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/ei/waiting-period.html#h2.1">waiting periods</a> that may serve as disincentives. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman and a man in face masks and winter coats, holding a cardboard sign reading '43 dead their lives mattered'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380376/original/file-20210125-19-p24lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380376/original/file-20210125-19-p24lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380376/original/file-20210125-19-p24lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380376/original/file-20210125-19-p24lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380376/original/file-20210125-19-p24lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380376/original/file-20210125-19-p24lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380376/original/file-20210125-19-p24lgd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People protest on Dec. 29, 2020 outside the Tendercare Living Centre long-term care facility in Scarborough, Ont., a facility that has been hit hard during the second wave of COVID-19 .</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, the <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/benefits/recovery-sickness-benefit/crsb-who-apply.html">Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit</a> offers income support for workers with COVID-19, but it’s only $450 a week after taxes. In addition, workers can only apply after missing 50 per cent of their work week, meaning they cannot use it to stay home when sick on the first day of symptoms. </p>
<p>All of this means that precariously employed, low-wage workers have little incentive to be away from work when sick if they are already struggling to make ends meet on their full salaries. Indeed, recent research suggests that in the long-term care sector, workers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-8288-6">did not earn enough</a> to adequately provide for their families. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113524">Income inequalities combined with racism</a> have also been reported. So while the COVID-19 vaccine seems promising, an important question is: How does one vaccinate against precarious work? </p>
<h2>Paid sick days for all amount to health equity</h2>
<p>Addressing the current crisis requires both a vaccine against the coronavirus and policies that support precarious workers, such as paid sick days. The <a href="https://www.decentworkandhealth.org/">Decent Work and Health Network</a> has been advocating for paid sick days for years. As the network explained <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/dwhn/pages/135/attachments/original/1604082294/DWHN_BeforeItsTooLate.pdf?1604082294">in its recent report</a>, paid sick days are crucial for public health and for achieving equity. </p>
<p>The report notes that groups who are in most urgent need of paid sick days — those who have experienced higher rates of COVID-19 and greater economic repercussions during the pandemic — are the low-wage racialized workers who are among the least likely to have these benefits: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Like vaccines, paid sick days must be universal in order to protect the most vulnerable. The crisis in long-term care illustrates how precarious work and gaps in paid sick days expose the most vulnerable.” </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380375/original/file-20210125-21-g7oj3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women in PPE and an elderly man sitting in a chair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380375/original/file-20210125-21-g7oj3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380375/original/file-20210125-21-g7oj3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380375/original/file-20210125-21-g7oj3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380375/original/file-20210125-21-g7oj3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380375/original/file-20210125-21-g7oj3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380375/original/file-20210125-21-g7oj3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380375/original/file-20210125-21-g7oj3z.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">Personal support workers Ana Nguyen and Olivia Proudfoot tend to Israel Gorlick at Springhurst Manor, part of Parkdale Assisted Living, a programme run by West Neighbourhood House, in Toronto in December 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dr. Teresa Tam, the chief public health officer of Canada, has called for paid sick days, both to counter the current pandemic and to make society healthier and more equitable. As she describes in her <a href="https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/documents/corporate/publications/chief-public-health-officer-reports-state-public-health-canada/from-risk-resilience-equity-approach-covid-19/cpho-covid-report-eng.pdf">Report on the State of Public Health in Canada 2020</a>, the long-term care crisis is rooted in long-term precarious work. She identifies several factors that were significant for personal support workers in long-term care: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“… these disadvantages include economic and employment insecurity, a lack of paid sick leave, and the need to work multiple jobs to make ends meet.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Among the specific actions she calls for are minimum staffing levels and quality full-time jobs with benefits that include paid sick leave. </p>
<p>The Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table’s new report on <a href="https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Science-Brief_Full-Brief_COVID-19-and-Ontarios-Long-Term-Care-Homes_published.pdf">COVID-19 and Ontario’s Long-Term Care Homes</a> has evidence-based measures to reduce outbreaks and deaths both with and without the COVID-19 vaccine. These include improved working conditions and guaranteed paid sick leave.</p>
<p>The need to address precarious work has never been so urgent, and the call for paid sick days <a href="https://ipolitics.ca/2021/01/19/ontario-mayors-join-opposition-in-demanding-paid-sick-days/">has never been so widespread</a> — from nurse and physician associations to mayors and chief medical officers of health. </p>
<h2>Address the conditions that nurtured outbreaks</h2>
<p>Addressing the effects of the pandemic requires both vaccinating against the virus and improving the working conditions that nurtured it, especially those of low-wage immigrant, racialized and female groups working in long-term care. Paid sick days are an essential complement to the vaccine, and part of returning to a new, healthier normal. </p>
<p>We need to vaccinate against COVID-19 but also inoculate society against precarious work by following the advice in Dr. Tam’s report and supporting “full-time quality jobs with benefits such as paid sick leave.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153538/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>One of the factors that has made COVID-19 so catastrophic in long-term care homes was lack of paid sick leave for low-wage workers.Iffath Unissa Syed, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Pandemics, Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation (IHMPE), Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of TorontoJesse McLaren, Emergency physician and Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1406192020-07-23T12:14:42Z2020-07-23T12:14:42ZLow-wage service workers are facing new emotional hazards in the workplace during COVID-19<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/349012/original/file-20200722-24-1xam6xj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=169%2C177%2C4752%2C3099&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Service workers are often tasked with enforcing company mask and social distancing policies. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Nati Harnik</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Low-wage service workers increasingly are facing new physical and emotional hazards in the workplace as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to interviews with workers we conducted in April. We found that in addition to being afraid and anxious about their own health and possible exposure to COVID-19 while working, these employees said dealing with unpredictable customer emotions was taking an additional toll. </p>
<p>The workers we spoke with reported that interactions with customers were becoming emotionally charged over issues such as mask requirements and other safety guidelines. Workers of color said they were experiencing increased racial harassment. </p>
<p>Exposure to these emotional hazards was widespread among the workers we interviewed and was also spilling over into their home lives. A grocery worker with underlying health conditions told us her son “was super worried, like borderline tears, because he didn’t want me to go [to work] because he knows it’s not safe. And I felt horrible because I didn’t want to go, but I knew that I had to.”</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>As states and businesses try to reopen <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html">with a mix of safety guidelines and protocols</a>, workers have often been on the front lines of enforcing health measures such as requiring customers to wear a mask or maintain social distancing. Some <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2020/06/retail-rage-**is-new-reality-for-workers-in-age-of-coronavirus.html">customers have even turned violent</a>, which adds a threat of physical harm to workers who are already <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/news/2020/04/08/482881/federal-government-can-protect-essential-workers-fight-coronavirus/">disproportionately exposed</a> to a lethal virus.</p>
<p>The experiences of the workers in our study, most of whom worked throughout the shutdown, reveal the need for government and companies to address these new emotional hazards and protect them from customer harassment. <a href="https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/news/nation/michigan-gov-whitmer-calls-for-federal-mask-mandate-biden-says-shes-still-in-running-for/article_92e4ccb1-66c9-56c2-b462-676d45ec7cdf.html">Without clear governmental safety mandates</a>, for example, workers easily become the targets of harassment as they tried to enforce their companies’ policies. Workers also said their companies often had weak enforcement mechanisms, frequently adjusted their policies and didn’t provide support in dealing with intense interactions with customers. </p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>These results are part of a series of ongoing studies we’re conducting with essential workers in a variety of roles, such as home care and food processing, to examine how they are navigating these new emotional risks during the pandemic. We are also looking at efforts by workers to organize to demand better protections and how these challenges are affecting their families. </p>
<h2>How we do our work</h2>
<p>As a team of sociologists at the University of Oregon, we rely on rich qualitative data from in-depth interviews, focus groups and participant observation. Our results here come from interviewing dozens of workers in Oregon’s hospitality, retail and food services industries whom we first met in 2019 as a part of an ongoing longitudinal study.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140619/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lola Loustaunau and this research team has received funding from the Ford Foundation, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, the United Association for Labor Education, the University of Oregon Sociology, and the University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ellen Scott receives funding from UFCW555, UALE, the Ford Foundation, and the University of Oregon.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Larissa Petrucci receives funding from Ford Foundation, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, United Association for Labor Education, University of Oregon Sociology and University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lina Stepick and this research team has received funding from the Ford Foundation, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555, the United Association for Labor Education, the University of Oregon Sociology, and the University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center.</span></em></p>A new survey found that dealing with emotional customers over issues such as wearing a mask is taking an increasing toll.Lola Loustaunau, Ph.D Candidate, University of OregonEllen Scott, Professor of Sociology, University of OregonLarissa Petrucci, Research Assistant at the Labor Education & Research Center, University of Oregon , University of OregonLina Stepick, Labor Policy Research Faculty, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1161332019-04-29T20:29:20Z2019-04-29T20:29:20ZOn May Day, assessing what a Sanders presidency would mean for labour<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271490/original/file-20190429-194609-1bnorsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders reaches out to supporters before a recent rally in Houston. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Brett Coomer/Houston Chronicle via AP)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2020 Democratic primary race is a crowded field. However, the <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/04/26/the-democratic-presidential-field-already-looks-crowded">latest polls</a> suggest it’s likely to be a battle between Bernie Sanders and former vice-president Joe Biden. </p>
<p>With Biden’s <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/837515/biden-vs-bernie-what-two-long-records-say-about-2020">troubling voting record</a>, Sanders remains a clear choice for progressives and labour advocates. Sanders’ stump speeches and campaign platform reiterate many of the themes and policies that in 2016 transformed him from someone relatively unknown outside the Northeast into one of <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/xww4ek/bernie-sanders-is-the-most-popular-politician-in-america-poll-says-vgtrn">the most popular politicians in the United States.</a></p>
<p><a href="http://time.com/3836834/may-day-labor-history/">With May Day upon us</a>, it’s a good time to consider what a Sanders presidency could mean for workers. So far, Sanders <a href="https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/03/bernie-sanders-vs-the-billionaire-class">is once again</a> putting economic equality and workers’ rights front and centre, skewering “the billionaires” and “special interests” and spotlighting <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-sanders-erie-wabtec/">striking workers</a>. As well, Sanders continues to promote <a href="http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-workers-rights/">a living minimum wage, policies to make unionization easier and various paid leaves.</a> </p>
<p>While recognizing how important these policy changes would be if enacted, labour advocates need also to reflect on what governmental functions would have to be strengthened, not only to promote and secure Sanders’ program, but also to ensure labour standards compliance more generally. </p>
<p>At a time when <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/union-density-united-states-2018-bls">union membership is at a historic low</a> and employer violations of basic workplace rights are <a href="https://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/career-services/David%20Weil%20Enforcing%20Labour%20Standards%20in%20Fissured%20Workplaces.pdf">pervasive and systemic</a>, it would be crucial for a Sanders administration to develop the policy tools to both enhance and enforce workers’ rights. </p>
<h2>Economic restructuring, worker vulnerability</h2>
<p>With unions in decline, the service sector at slightly <a href="https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/employment-by-major-industry-sector.htm">over 80 per cent</a> of the workforce and many low-wage and insecure jobs at the bottom of the income ladder, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, with its mandate to enforce the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), has its hands full. </p>
<p>First, <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2012/03/art4full.pdf">the average size</a> of businesses has been shrinking since 2000. This effectively means that labour inspectors now have more businesses, each with fewer workers, to keep watch over. <a href="http://closeesgap.ca/download/841/">Researchers studying labour standards</a> in the United States and other common-law countries consistently find that small firms are far more likely to break the law.</p>
<p>However, shrinking firm size is but an indication of a broader pattern of economic restructuring. Increasingly, lead firms in various sectors have reduced their number of direct employees considerably, producing what David Weil, former Department of Labor official under former president Barack Obama, refers to as <a href="http://www.fissuredworkplace.net/the-problem.php">“fissured workplaces.”</a> </p>
<p>Focusing instead on their “core competencies,” many businesses now rely on independent contractors, sub-contractors and temporary help agency workers to meet labour needs. </p>
<p>This has generated significant increases in employer non-compliance with the law. For many contracted suppliers, reducing labour costs is their primary means of cost containment, which routinely means violating labour standards pertaining to pay, working time and other basic standards. </p>
<p>These changes in the economy also disproportionately affect the most vulnerable workers. <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/laborstandards-2011.pdf">Immigrant workers</a> in particular are highly concentrated in industries rife with labour violations. The <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/forbrn.pdf">foreign born</a>, 17 per cent of the U.S. population as of 2017, are more likely than their native-born counterparts to work in the service sector, to earn low wages and to thus have their labour rights violated.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/271491/original/file-20190429-194630-1cudfyu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators march for immigrant and workers rights in a May Day parade last year in Seattle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Inadequate enforcement, pervasive law-breaking</h2>
<p>If the U.S. labour department was dealing with all this with steady funding and staff levels, the situation would be challenging enough. However, as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0032329210381240">professors Janice Fine and Jennifer Gordon report</a>, in the last 30 years the number of workers without a union contract, and who therefore rely solely on the Fair Labor Standards Act for workplace protection, has increased by 55 per cent.</p>
<p>At the same time, the number of establishments that the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division should be covering has jumped by 112 per cent.</p>
<p>Over the same period, the number of labour inspectors precipitously shrank from a high of just over 1,300 at the beginning of Ronald Reagan’s administration down to 709 when Obama took office. Although <a href="https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/WorkingForYou-2009-2016.pdf">Obama’s Department of Labor</a> hired an additional 300 inspectors, this still left approximately 1,000 people overseeing 7.3 million workplaces and over 135 million workers. </p>
<p>The likelihood of a business being inspected to ensure labour standards compliance is therefore remarkably slim, and low-wage employers know it. </p>
<p>Employers violate basic standards extensively, especially those dealing with overtime pay, working off the clock and rest periods. Among low-wage workers in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/501437/pdf">researchers</a> found that in the previous work week, fully 75 per cent had worked unpaid or underpaid overtime, 71 per cent worked “off-the-clock” without pay, nearly 82 per cent had been denied a break and one in four was not paid the legal minimum wage. </p>
<p>Additionally, employers looking to evade labour standards frequently misclassify workers as independent contractors. In sectors such as trucking, construction, in-home care and cleaning services, <a href="https://www.epi.org/press/independent-contract-misclassification-is-a-large-and-growing-problem/">employee misclassification</a> impacts anywhere from 10 to 20 per cent of workers. </p>
<p>Although Obama made improvements that saw both inspections and awards to workers increasing, this barely made up for what was lost over the years between the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, and could be eviscerated under Trump. </p>
<h2>What could a Sanders administration do?</h2>
<p>At minimum, to strengthen enforcement, a future President Sanders would need to invest heavily by expanding the Department of Labor’s resource base and hiring many additional inspectors. But there is also a need to overhaul the Fair Labor Standards Act to reflect changes in American workplaces that are unlikely to ever be addressed through unionization.</p>
<p>Sectors with high numbers of violations are generally characterized by large firms at the top and an ecosystem of contractors and labour service providers who compete for their business. </p>
<p><a href="https://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/career-services/David%20Weil%20Enforcing%20Labour%20Standards%20in%20Fissured%20Workplaces.pdf">As David Weil</a> suggests, strategic enforcement should utilize this network of business connections, perhaps taking a cue from Australia, where the <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/news-and-media-releases/archived-media-releases/2014-media-releases/august-2014/20140829-trolley-collectors">Fair Work Ombudsman</a> instituted a program that made big firms more responsible for the labour standards of their contractors. </p>
<p>Importantly, the Department of Labor must increase targeted, proactive inspections and rely less on worker complaints. As the <a href="http://closeesgap.ca/">Closing the Employment Standards Enforcement Gap</a> research project in Ontario has demonstrated, proactive inspections are able to target persistent violators and high-risk sectors, can often uncover substantive employer noncompliance and generally do a better job correcting future business behaviour. </p>
<p>Finally, unions and other worker advocates could be more involved with the enforcement of labour standards. <a href="https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1002&context=ohlj">Projects in California</a> that allow unions to partner with labour inspectors to police labour standards compliance in the construction sector show that such relationships can be quite effective. </p>
<p>Robust changes are needed to address the negative social consequences resulting from the growth in nonstandard work. And although revitalizing the labour movement is undoubtedly necessary, policy changes are required to address the sizable problems at the bottom of the labour market.</p>
<p>Of all Democratic primary candidates, Bernie Sanders is the most likely to undertake this project. A future Sanders administration could improve conditions for millions of workers by reforming basic labour standards and ensuring the necessary resources to enforce the law.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam D.K. King is a Post-Doctoral Visitor with funding from the Closing the Employment Standards Enforcement Gap and Canada Labour Code Data Analysis Infrastructure research projects. </span></em></p>American employers routinely violate workers’ rights. A Bernie Sanders presidency could change that.Adam D.K. King, Post-Doctoral Visitor, Department of Politics, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.