Labour Law: Notes: Complete
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Labour Law: Complete Notes: Benedet: 2010/2011 Term 1 • These notes are a compilation of my class notes, my notes from the textbook, and my notes from the course package. • The spelling and grammar below is atrocious, but I couldn't be bothered to fix it. • Good luck! Hopefully some of this is helpful. Legal Response to Labour Issues • Discrimination o hard to claim, but there are legal discrimination o becomes easier with clear standards and benchmarks o most remedies available only to those employees who have already less • Global Labour Standards o could be enforced via tariffs, tax incentives • non-citizens particularly vulnerable • income inequality o not directly a labour law question, but does have a labour implication Arthurs "The Transformation of Work, the Disappearnce of "Workers" and the Future of Workplace RegulatioN" 2009 • from 1950s to 1970s, wokers enjoyed rising wages, more job security, greater workplace protections, and so on • we have stuff like minimum wages, progressive income taxation, living wage campaigns, etc as a result of unions and social democratic parties o all in the context of favorable labour market conditions, by an expanding and increasingly productive economy • changes started happeing in the 1970s • Changes • Technology o intensified the division of labour and its geographical dispersal o polarized workforce by creating some knowledge workers, but consigning unskilled workers to the margin o increasingly self-managed workers in knowledge sector, unskilled increasingly disciplined and monitored by computers o accelerating change and rapid obsolecense of woker skill • Shfit from Manufacturing to service o manufacturing jobs lost, moved to lower paying, less benefit jobs in the service sector with low levelf o unionization • flexibilization of the workforce o jobs no longer permanent, employees will be let go ASAP where needed o part=time, sort-time work used as a reserve army of labour • demography o increasingly heterogenous workforce, more women and visible minorities o young people older than they used to be when (and if) they get jobs o so more and more diverse, but perhaps solidarity more challenging • globalization o outscouring in a global labour market o emloyers have the option to move manufacturing and service jobs away from well-paid unionized workers to cheaper countries . mere threat of moving has downward effect on wages. • Disappearance of Workers • idea of people identified as "workers" or "working class" increasingly sounds anachronistic • people identify as consumer, or perhaps when experiencing unfairness as members of a disenfranchised group • solidarity building exercise of workers working together under poor conditions no longer exists • Shouldn't pretend some things haven't gotten better- working people are better off than they used to be, but as a qualtitative description of a group "workers" have disappeared as a sociological category • but in a quantitative sense, there are still a great many workers o and they have a lot to be mad about o income inequality, inequality in livign conditions, paritcipation in politicas, educational and occupational opportunities, etc. • but for whateever reason, labour movement in disarray o labour issues rarely central to political debates o unions increasingly unable to "deliver the vote" o labour ministries shrinking in response o workers not viewed as a constituency, but rather as a resource that must be trained, developed, and so in order to improve business • The future of workplace regulation o interest in creating new labour standards very low o as is restructing the labour market to ensure full employmnet . globalization and monetarist policies have put unemployment int he hands of bankers, and neo-liberalism makes regulation anatehma o collective bargainig weaked as well . US failure to pass card-check o even putatively pro-labour government aren't adopting new labour legislation . everyone focused on keepign the economy going . economy dictating policy to government o because the average worker and the average job is changing, labour policy needs to adjust . can't just focus on the male breadwinner in the vertically integrated company . different kinds of workers have different kinds of needs and must be accomodated • and unions sometimes view this as zero-sum, accomodating one person means depriving another . colective bargainign on a plant-to-plant basis makes little sense when everyone is changing jobs so ofte . flexible workforce aso makes provision of benefits more complicated, and part-time workforce often not getting access to these "employment" benefits. manufacturing jobs no longer the norm . may need some transnational law since employers can pick up and leave . may need to consider who should be responsible for paying for the constant retraining necessary for a worker to adapt with the rapidly changing technology and employment . how do maximum hours, overtime, etc function in a "Just in time" world where businesses are expected to be open around the clock. • Three options o forget abotu labour law, and focus on human rights rather than workers' rights o try and work within capitalism and laissez fair . afterall, under capitalism some employers realized high-performance systems that reqarded "emplowered" workers and treated them well increased performance and productivity o try and resusicitate the labour movement . there are some new successful organizing campaigns among low-paid service workers . unions and social movements may unit to try and get gains for everyone via. living wages, work-life balance . professionals, skilled technicians, athletes all have new strategies and institutions of collective action that may be exportable. this will depend to the extent that crises in capitalism will make people aware of the precariousness of their position, and remind them of the fallibility of capitalism • so it is possible that like the street railways being revived as LRT, labour standards may reappeare in the 21st centurty, re-engineered, renamed, and ready to go as a vehicle of a revived workers' movement towards the goal of social justice in the workplace. Fudge, The New Workplace: Surveying the Landscape 2009 • looks at changes over time of the labour market • 1950s: Standard Employment Relationship o served as the basis of an historical compromise between workers, employers, and governments follow ww2 o aimed at protecting employees from economic/social risk, reduce social inequality, increase economic efficiencies o highly regulated by laws and collective bargaining via union . members typically male, semi-skilled worker in a large industrial corporation o men supported women, women looked after children o few vicisble minoirties o in early 1970s public sector bargaining begins, real wages continued to rise and led to a rising Canadian union density . also, more and more women entered the labour force • 1980s: the Feminization of Labour o in 1980s productivity decreased and unemloyment and inflation grew . union membership peaked at 40 precent . women continued to enter the labour force in order to keep household livign standards stable in the face of falling male wages o women pressed for workplace rights, including protections from harrassment, job protection, pregnancy benefits, pay equity o meanwhile, labour market outcomes polarizing profoundly, and the old norm collapsing • Risk and Reward in the New Economy o Globalization and Neo-Liberalism . undercut the nationstate and the goals and means for labour protections . IMF and WTO blame labour market rgidiites for unemployment and poor performance • aim at decentrializing bargaining • new focus on employing every adult, male or female • workfare . more just-in-tiem requires more workplace flexibility . small business profliefarte, which meant fewer "Fordist" integreated procution enterprises . NAFTA led to ocntinental integration . benefits in Canada began to mirror the US, and our economic and welfare policies converged • tax cuts, expenditure cuts o Creating a Flexible Labour Market in Canada . Canada underwent a dramatic restructuring as a result of free trade and new logistic system . maunfacturing rapidly shrank, as did union denisty • very low in consumer services and financial and business services, much higher in public services • women slightly mor elikley to be unionized as a result of more likely to be teachers, nurses, etc . Young workers very rarely unionized . high levels of education increasingly required for all work . more people working for smaller companies, who pay less, prvide fewer benefits and job security, and union representation less common . more and more part-time, precarious work • especially for women and new immigrants, visible minorities • rarely room for promotion . while fewer jobs fit the "standard model", they still make up 63% of jobs • proportion of good and bad jobs have been constant • but quality of new jobs questionable • more likely to be temporary, ununoized, without a retirement plan . growth in real wages stagnant . male median income falling, while female median rising (thogh should regress ot the mean) . so polarization of income • some winners, some losers • this rising tide is not lifting all boats . labour supply also more heterogenous than ever, but visible minorities tend to be concetrated in metropolitan centers • paid less, less job security, more liekly ot be employed • women of colour more likely to do manual labour • visible minorities more likely to be low paid, face discrimination . aboriginal