Some interesting employment data

Apparently employment has now risen to pre-recession levels. But there's a catch:

All the jobs lost during the recession in Canada have now been recouped, a feat that suggests the labour market has repaired itself in a mere four quarters, much faster than in previous recoveries.

But a closer look at Statistics Canada data shows the quality of the labour market has deteriorated by many measures compared with the pre-recession scene.

Manufacturing, traditionally a source of higher-paying work, now sits at a 34-year low. Contract jobs are proliferating, and part-time jobs have been added at a faster clip than full-time work.

The average duration of unemployment is longer than it was a year ago, even as some new jobs are being created. Nearly a third of people working part time are doing so involuntarily, meaning they'd rather be full time. Hours worked remain below the previous level, suggesting many people are still feeling their incomes squeezed.

From the Globe. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is likely to continue for some time. Thanks to peak oil, energy is going to become more and more expensive for quite some time to come, and the money to pay for that is going to come out of workers' pockets long before it comes out of profits. This is doubly true given that the worker's first line of defense -- unions -- are decidedly out of fashion these days.

What are the prospects for a resurgence in the union movement? The thing is, globalization has given management a potent threat - namely, to close factories and move their operations overseas if unions ask for something outrageous such as a living wage. This could change soon, however, again due to peak oil. As transportation costs make it less practical to manufacture stuff offshore, the old threat of "we'll pack up and do our manufacturing in China" will be a lot more expensive to follow through on. So maybe a resurgence of the labour movement is possible. Let's hope so, because I think we're going to need it.

Workers at 32 Toronto hotels vote to strike

Just in time for the G20 summit:

Just three weeks before the G20 summit, workers at 32 Toronto hotels have voted 94 per cent in favour of authorizing a strike if negotiations break down.

“If we do not reach an agreement, we intend to take a strike action on June 24,” Paul Clifford, president of Unite Here Local 75, said Thursday.

However, Clifford said that workers at only one hotel – the Novotel on the Esplanade – would actually go on strike, even though a third of the unionized hotels are currently in negotiations. About 100 workers at the Novotel are Local 75 members.

Local 75 does not want to disrupt the city during the summit of world leaders, he said.

From the Star. If I was them, I wouldn't have any compunction against striking at all 32 hotels; the G20 is already disrupting the city in a huge way, so why not stick it to them? Of course, the government would probably declare hotel workers an essential service and legislate them back to work if that happened...

Rush Limbaugh on the West Virgina mine disaster

His comments are predictable:

Limbaugh often attacks unions. On Friday he attacked the union for not making sure safety concerns were addressed in the mining disaster in West Virginia. Unfortunately for Rush and the miners there is no union. The present boss advanced by busting the union some time ago. Maybe Rush should be blaming the boss for the lack of action on safety concerns. From this site. You would think that Rush would have the funds to hire a few researchers to get facts straight. Maybe he figures this will just get him more publicity. Maybe he is like his comrade Glenn Beck who came out an said that he did not give a crap about the political process. Entertainment and making money is what is important.

From here, via captainsblog (in a comment to a Blaque post).

A couple of auto industry stories

As we know, Ford is the only American automaker that didn't need a bailout. Why might that be? Well, maybe it's because they don't suck:

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. has secured its position as the only domestic automaker with world-class reliability, according to a report released last week by Consumer Reports.

The findings for the trusted magazine's 2009 Annual Car Reliability Survey are from 1.4 million consumer surveys combined with its own performance testing.

Of the 51 Ford, Mercury and Lincoln cars and trucks surveyed by Consumer Reports, 90 per cent were average or better.

The Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan midsized sedans ranked higher than any other family sedan, except for the Toyota Prius hybrid car.

That's noteworthy because the Ford Fusion, which is the 10th best-selling vehicle in America so far this year, outperformed the better-selling Toyota Camry (No. 2) and Honda Accord (No. 4).

Interesting; so much for "found on road dead". Maybe GM and Chrysler are being held back by their unions... Oh, wait. Our friends on the Kitco and iTulip boards will be a bit nonplussed by that, but maybe there's another reason? Like, say, that the management at GM and Chrysler don't know what the hell they're doing, while those at Ford do?

But there's good news for Wilmington, Delaware, whose GM plant closed this year. Fisker Automotive is buying the plant to build electric cars:

NEW YORK -- Electric-car start-up Fisker Automotive said Tuesday that it will invest nearly $200 million to buy and retool a former General Motors plant in Wilmington, Del., facing off against Honda Motor Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and other big manufacturers in the nascent market for electric vehicles.

Topped off by an appearance from U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden at the plant in Delaware, Fisker Automotive said it hopes to support 2,000 factory jobs and more than 3,000 vendor and supplier jobs by 2014 at the site, with a production target of 75,000 to 100,000 vehicles per year.

The Irvine, Calif.-based company will spend about $18 million to buy the plant from Motors Liquidation Co. and then spend an additional $175 million to retool the plant to begin production in 2012. "This is a major step toward establishing America as a leader of advanced vehicle technology," said Henrik Fisker, the firm's chief executive.

Fisker Automotive received $529 million in government-loan guarantees in September to develop plug-in vehicles, after breaking into the business as the maker of a luxurious, $80,000 electric car with a range of up to 483 kilometres. That car, called the Karma, is expected to go on sale in 2010.

Given the need to reduce our greenhouse emissions, this could be the best news of all in the long run, if the cars work as advertised. I am curious, though, as to whether Fisker will hire laid off workers from the plant, or if they'll hire kids straight out of school? The former would probably be better for the community, but it remains to be seen whether Fisker will choose that route. After all, many companies don't like to hire people who have worked for other companies in the same industry. The Toyota plant in Cambridge has a reputation for this, for instance. I suppose this could be rationalized in terms of differing corporate cultures, and preferring to train a worker who is, relatively speaking, a tabula rasa than one who's already habituated to a different corporate culture. I suspect, though, that these companies' real fear is that people who have worked in a unionized environment might have traits that they might not want in their company -- like, say, knowing what their rights are.

On the farm workers' decertification vote

You may have heard about the migrant workers at a farm in Manitoba who first voted to unionize, then to decertify. Predictably, the usual spin by the MSM is that unions are no good for farm workers, blah blah blah. Interestingly, though, the Winnipeg Free Press (of all things) has published an opinion piece which puts a rather different light on things:

Recent media reports state that workers at Mayfair Farms in Portage La Prairie chose to decertify after the long struggle to unionize. What those reports don't talk about is the threats that workers received when they expressed interest in unionizing. At least one strong union supporter was denied return to Mayfair Farms this year.

The day before the decertification vote the Mexican consul -- which has a vested interest in keeping workers in Canada, as their remittances are a major source of national income -- held a closed-door meeting with workers at Mayfair Farms. Early this summer the Mexican consul visited all farms with seasonal agricultural workers in Manitoba letting workers know that should they unionize they would be blacklisted.

The lack of permanent status, the ever-present threat of being sent home, their isolation and their inability to communicate in either official language leave them among the most exploited of Canadian workers. Yet, they keep coming back.

As Diego explains; "I know I'm exploited here. At least if I work here my children eat. At home I'm exploited and my children don't eat."

Workers are keen to get as many hours as they can while they are in Canada -- up to 110 hours/week. A major gain for unionized workers had been the equal distribution of overtime hours. Without a union, in periods of work shortage, only those workers closest to the boss, such as crew foremen, would work overtime. With a union, overtime hours were shared equally. The union contract also ensured that workers who became sick were taken care of, instead of being sent home.

Unfortunately, the important gains that the unionized workers achieved were offset by the employer's decision to undermine the union by reducing the work week to a maximum of 70 hours. This sudden and arbitrary reduction in the work week meant that workers lost up to 30 per cent of their income, a move Mayfair Farms knew would be devastating to workers trying to send as much money as possible to their impoverished families. Clearly this was a very effective strategy in reducing union support. Now that the union has been decertified, workers are only protected by provincial legislation.

The CBC article linked to above is actually far more right wing in its spin than this piece. I find this a bit strange, given the accusations generally leveled at the CBC for having a "left wing bias".

Dubious accusations of violence against union activists

Perhaps you've heard of Kenneth Gladney. He's the guy who claims that those wicked union thugs beat him up for daring to oppose Obama's evil socialist agenda (you know, stuff like ensuring that everyone can get health care). Thing is, there's a video of part of the confrontation, which calls Mr. Gladney's account into question:



Via Media Matters. Note that the guy lying on the ground at the beginning is not Gladney, but an SEIU member. Note too that Gladney doesn't appear to be hurt in the video, yet according to Crooks and Liars he showed up at a press conference in a wheelchair. Now sure, it's possible that one of the SEIU activists started the confrontation (since the video doesn't catch the beginning) but there's certainly no more reason to believe this than there is to believe that Gladney started it. I suspect less, because union activists know they're not going to be cut much slack. And even if it turns out that some SEIU person did start this, it's clear that Gladney wants to milk this for all it's worth, as do his fellow conservatives. And the wheelchair stunt suggests that he's not one to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

But it falls to Blaque to point out the most delicious irony. Gladney's right wing buddies are taking up a collection, because he doesn't have health insurance! You'd think that might make them reconsider their position...