CANADIAN POLITICS:

AVOIDING A RECESSION-THE CEO WAY:

If you think you've had it bad the last year-you're probably right, but not if you are a member of Canada's management elite. According to a report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives this country's top ten CEOs had an average income of $7,352,895 in 2008, shortly before the recession began to "bite hard". This was 174 times the average Canadian wage. To put this in further perspective, from 1998 to 2008 the average Canadian wage packet dropped 6% when adjusted for inflation. During the same period the average compensation for top CEOs increased !!! by 70% !!!!. The Globe and Mail weighed in today with an editorial on this report. Not denying the facts of the study, as per usual, because they are pretty rock solid. What the Globe opined is that nobody should pay attention to the difference between the average wage and that of top CEOs, nor to the difference in increase versus decrease. According to the Globe the only matter of concern is that the average wage is declining, and it is all fine and good that corporate executives increase their income.

Well finagled I must say. A few little problems are, however, contained in this little excuse. one is that there just might be a connection between the two arms of this lever. It is entirely possible that corporate executive plunder is inversely correlated with employee compensation, and not just because this sort of thing is a zero sum game where money given to one class is unavailable to another. It is also more than likely that one of the things that corporate executives are rewarded for is their ability to "reduce labour costs and increase productivity". In plain language this means quite deliberately reducing the income of their employees. Quite deliberately. It is also a certain fact that this excessive executive compensation is in another zero sum game where the upper levels of management (and lower ones too to a lesser degree) bleed corporate entities at the expense of the stockholders. In a managerial society such as ours the term "stockholders" means, more often than not pension and other mutual funds held in dispersed ownership by the same employees whose wages are being reduced.

Then there is, of course, simple justice. Nobody in his right mind would try and claim that corporate executives work 174 times as long as the average Canadian does. Neither can one claim that their jobs are 174 times as disagreeable as the average job. Then we come to value. No doubt the value produced by a corporate executive may sometimes be high. Can it be, however, 174 times as valuable as that of the work of people such as nurses, firefighters, ambulance drivers, farmers, miners and to put it bluntly pretty well everyone else ? Think about it for awhile.



The following article from the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) gives a general summary of the report in question.
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Canadian corporate CEOs average $7,352,895 each:
New CCPA study says top 100 Canadian CEOs pocketed 174 times each what average Canadian workers earn all year.





Ottawa (5 Jan. 2010) - Canada's highest-paid CEOs raked in an average of $7,352,895 in 2008, the latest year for which statistics are available. That's 174 times more than the average wage of the typical Canadian worker.





"To put that in perspective, Canadians will work full-time throughout the year to earn the national average of $42,305," says Hugh Mackenzie of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), which has just released a new report on the subject.





Yet as of 1:01 p.m. on their first working day of this year (Jan. 4) the top 100 CEOs in the country had already pocketed as much as the average Canadian worker will in all of 2010.
The CCPA study says average compensation for the top CEOs has outpaced inflation by 70% between 1998 and 2008. During the same period, Canadians earning the average income lost 6% to inflation.
Here are the top 10 hogs at the corporate trough:
Thomas Glocer, Thomson Reuters Corp. - $36,595,233.
Ted Rogers, Rogers Communications Inc. - $21,484,708.
J. M. Lipton, Nova Chemicals Corp. - $19,753,245.
George Cope, BCE Inc. - $19,551,345.
Robert Brown, CAE Inc. FY end March 08 - $17,293,144.
William Doyle, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan - $17,026,317.
Hunter Harrison, Canadian National Railway Co. - $13,350,048.
Dominic D’Alessandro, Manulife Financial Corp. - $13,251,274.
Stephen Wetmore, Bell Aliant Regional Com. Income Fund - $11,563,250.
For the entire 100 names please go to the link below and read as much as you can stand. Caution: Not for those with weak stomachs.
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE
More information:Full Report: A Soft Landing - Recession and Canada's 100 Highest Paid CEOs
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A MOLLY PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
I've tried the link to the publication by the CCPA in the report above, and it doesn't seem to work. Here is A LINK that does work, at least for Molly. The report is actually a great report, and it deserves far more publicity than it has been given in the mainstream press. As to the "why" of the astronomical executive compensation, much of the standard justification has been dealt with in my introduction to this post. The real "why" is a totally different matter.




Where I have to part company with the CCPA is not in what they have reported. It's obviously true. Neither, unlike the Globe and Mail, do I disagree with them that this sort of inequality is a "bad thing" and totally unjustified. I do, however, have to disagree about the realism of the remedy that they, as good left wing social democrats, have proposed. The simplistic way of summed up their solution (see the report) is "tax the bastards heavily". I wish them well in this enterprise, though it makes me a bit queasy knowing that social democrats rarely find a tax that they cannot love. The CCPA is under the impression that they can find a realistic way to tax such things as "stock options" (whereby management steals from the shareholders- as I said above usually ordinary citizens with dispersed portfolios). Maybe yes. Maybe no. What they will be unable to do , however, is find some magical formula in the byzantine tax regulations that will prevent upper management from switching their compensation to non-taxable benefits. That's the way that tax law has operated in the past, and that probably the way that it will operate in the future despite the best laid schemes of social democrats.




For what it is worth Molly has her own proposals that can be summed up in the brief bon mot of "abolish management". No doubt there will be tax law changes in such a process-mostly involving exceptions for ordinary people rather than attempts to penalize the ruling class. The main steps, however, depend more upon the easing of the legal burden of the state that prevents actual democratization of the workplace. It does not depend upon the failed illusion (demonstrated by the failure of over a century of attempts to build a more egalitarian society by taxation policy that the ruling class evades) of government largess rather than citizen action. That's why I am an anarchist, what I consider a "realistic socialist" and not a left social democrat.




Just in closing, here is the press release of the CCPA about their report, something that will probably never be quoted in anything but brief excerpts in the mainstream press.
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Soft landing for Canada’s CEOs:
January 4, 2010
TORONTO—Canadians may have been hit hard by a worldwide economic recession, but it appears Canada’s 100 highest paid CEOs are enjoying a soft landing.





A report on executive compensation by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), a progressive think tank, reveals Canada’s 100 highest paid CEOs pocketed an average $7.3 million in 2008, the year recession broadsided the nation.





“Canada’s top 100 CEOs earned 174 times more than the average Canadian wage,” says economist Hugh Mackenzie, CCPA Research Associate.





“To put that in perspective, Canadians will work full-time throughout the year to earn the national average of $42,305. The top 100 CEOs pocket that amount by 1:01 p.m. on January 4 – the first working day of the year.”





Soft Landing: Recession and Canada’s 100 Highest Paid CEOs shows executive compensation remains as resilient to worldwide economic forces as ever.





“Between 1998 and 2008, Canada’s top 100 CEOs’ average compensation outpaced inflation by 70 per cent,” says Mackenzie. “In contrast, Canadians earning the average income lost six per cent to inflation over that period.”
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Soft Landing: Recession and Canada’s 100 Highest Paid CEOs is available at www.policyalternatives.ca
For more information please contact: Kerri-Anne Finn, CCPA Senior Communications Officer, at 613-563-1341 x306.
Related Reports & Studies
A Soft Landing
Recession and Canada’s 100 Highest Paid CEOs
Canadians may have been hit hard by a worldwide economic recession, but it appears Canada’s 100 highest paid CEOs are enjoying a soft landing. The total average compensation for Canada's 100 highest paid CEOs was $7,352,895 in 2008—a stark contrast from the total average Canadian income of $42,305. They pocketed what takes Canadians earning an average income an entire year to make by 1:01 pm January 4—the first working day of the year. During the worst of economic years, the...January 4, 2010 National Office
Read the full Report

CANADIAN LABOUR-SASKATCHEWAN:

ANTI-UNION LEGISLATION IN SASKATCHEWAN:

The following is from the website of the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE). It's all about labour legislation that has been introduced by the recent 'Saskatchewan Party' (read right wing conservative) government of Molly's old stomping grounds-the province of Saskatchewan. It's also interesting to note the lurking presence of the 'CLAC' (Christian Labour Association of Canada) in this scenario. Molly has blogged on this outfit several times before. It seems that, every time there is a bosses' attack on workers that the CLAC is there to get its thirty pieces of silver. Here's the story.

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Wall government’s Bill 80 is pay back to big business and phony unions:
(16 Oct. 2009) - The objectives of the legislation are threefold: to eliminate sectoral bargaining, to allow the establishment of employer-dominated company unions and to greatly reduce the power of unions in the construction industry.
By James Clancy National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE)

Ottawa - Over the past year and a half a lot of attention has been paid to two pieces of anti-union legislation that the Brad Wall government introduced and passed in its first six months in office.

Bill 5, the Public Service Essential Services Act (PSESA), the most sweeping and heavy-handed essential services legislation in Canada, renders most strikes in the public service ineffective. Bill 6, the Trade Union Amendment Act, makes it much more difficult for workers in Saskatchewan to join unions and to engage in collective bargaining. It also leaves workers with less protection against unfair practices from employers.

Both bills were proclaimed in June 2008 and both have been condemned widely in Canada and around the world. Both laws are currently facing a Charter of Rights and Freedom challenge as well as a complaint before the International Labour Organization (ILO).

But there is a third piece of anti-union legislation introduced by the Wall government that has not received as much national attention. Bill 80, the Construction Industry Labour Relations Amendment Act (CILRA), was introduced in March of this year and recently has been going through legislative hearings.
Attack against workers
Make no mistake about it, Bill 80 represents as harsh of an attack against the rights of workers as Bills 5 and 6. Like Bills 5 and 6, it is being driven by pure ideology and is far more disturbing than it appears on the surface.

The objectives of the legislation are threefold: to eliminate sectoral bargaining, to allow the establishment of employer-dominated company unions and to greatly reduce the power of unions in the construction industry.

Currently, most of the commercial construction workers who work in specific trades in Saskatchewan are organized into province-wide unions based on the trade they practice. There is a closed shop and workers on all unionized sites must join the union representing their trade.
Bill 80 will take away these provisions by opening the door to “wall-to-wall” certifications, where all workers on a site, regardless of trade, are in one union. It also redefines “construction” to completely exclude “maintenance” which means a significant portion of unionized construction work will no longer be covered by the act. Further, the law will allow employers to select a union of its choice on currently non-union sites, and to resurrect old inactive spin-off companies and pick a union of choice for “wall-to-wall” certification.
Why change a successful model?
Trades-based certifications in the construction industry have been a fairly standard practice and far from new. Construction projects have been organized on a trade basis since the beginning of the 19th century.

More importantly, the system has existed to the benefit of workers, employers and the entire construction industry. It has provided flexibility and stability of labour supply, a skilled workforce for contractors, uniform wage rates and high standards of workmanship.
Why change this successful model?

By virtue of the government’s own statistics, there doesn’t appear to be a problem from an economic or employer standpoint. In 2008, Saskatchewan was able to boast a record $2 billion in building permits and 37,000 construction jobs.

Added to that, there hasn’t been a strike in Saskatchewan’s construction industry in 17 years – a period where employers and unions representing tradespersons have been able to successfully negotiate provincial collective agreements.
Payback to the business community
The Wall government presents Bill 80 as “giving construction workers the choice" of which union to join. It’s hard to imagine how they can say this with a straight face – only months after amending the Trade Union Amendment Act (Bill 6) to make it more difficult for Saskatchewan workers to join unions.

Make no mistake about it, Bill 80 is all about payback by the Wall government to its key supporters. Consider the organizations which asked for the legislation. The Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, a financial backer of the Saskatchewan Party, is one of the primary boosters of the legislation. It has had a long-standing demand to reduce the power of unions in the construction industry. Its members are pleased to have the door open to non-unionized employers to bid on construction projects and to the establishment of employer-dominated company unions.

The other big booster of this legislation is that phony national organization representing employer-dominated unions across the country – the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC). In many of the workplaces organized by CLAC, the boss – not the workers – chooses the union.
Facts about CLAC
If you’re not familiar with the undemocratic principles of CLAC, then check out The Truth About CLAC. Here are just a few facts about CLAC and its phony unions:
**Many of CLAC’s bargaining units exist without one worker signing a union card. They are formed through voluntary recognition agreements – sweetheart deals negotiated behind closed doors between employers and CLAC staff.
**CLAC is also well known for attempts to raid other unions.
**CLAC frequently negotiates sub-standard agreements with provisions below the minimum standards of the law.
**CLAC staff has authority to “conclude, execute or administer collective agreements” without having to go back for a membership vote.
**CLAC often lobbies governments against anti-scab legislation, supports back to work legislation, promotes open shop and opposes the Rand formula.
**So-called “unions” like CLAC claim to have the best interests of working people at heart but they’re really nothing more than phony, defanged employer front groups.

This legislation, like Bills 5 and 6, is totally unwarranted. The labour relations climate between contractors and trade unions in Saskatchewan’s construction industry is healthy, balanced and stable.
Labour movement must act
The Wall government cannot provide any fair or balanced reason for Bill 80. Unfortunately, this is another example of where the government’s stubborn right-wing ideology gets in the way of common sense. They are prepared to sacrifice the health of an important and growing industry in Saskatchewan to move their anti-union, anti-worker agenda along.

Certainly in this precarious period of the Canadian economy, we don’t need governments that promote division and confrontation. We need governments that focus on productive and cooperative approaches to rebuilding our economy.

The only positive outcome that Bill 80 can achieve is to strengthen the solidarity of our movement. It serves as a strong reminder that when it comes to laws that restrict the rights of workers, we must be guided by labour’s old adage – an injury to one is an injury to all.

We cannot look at a bad law as a single piece of legislation negatively impacting on a sector of our movement in a specific jurisdiction. A bad labour law, regardless of what workers and what jurisdiction it covers, negatively impacts on the entire labour movement. Fightback against a bad labour law has to be a commitment that the entire Canadian labour movement makes on behalf of all workers.

James Clancy

National President
NUPGE
James Clancy is the national president of the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE
More information:

• President's Commentaries

• The Truth About CLAC

CANADIAN LABOUR-MANITOBA:

AN OFFER THEY COULDN'T REFUSE ?:

When the United Food and Commercial Workers-Canada (UFCW-C) signed up migrant farm workers at Mayfair Farms the other year it seemed like a breakthrough and the start of an encouraging trend. It was less encouraging this year when workers at Mayfair voted to decertify the union, citing lack of benefit from their membership in the union. While it may or may not have been true that the UFCW union didn't do all that it could to press workers' interests a brief glance at the figures presented showed that they did benefit, even if only marginally. At the time when this was reported I was suspicious that there was more to the story than was initially reported.

Indeed there was, as the following from the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), with information from our local paper the Winnipeg Free Press lays bare. The first question was whether union supporters had been deliberately weeded out from the pool of migrant labour returning to Canada each spring. Yup true, but that wasn't all. No less a personage than the Mexican Consul took it upon himself earlier this year to visit all farms in Manitoba employing Mexican nationals to give a little "sweet advise". Read all about it below.

I wonder how you say "leaned on" in Spanish ?

CLCLCLCLCLCLCL

Mexican consul tampered with migrant farm vote
Threatened Mayfair Farms workers with blacklisting before union decertification vote was held.

Winnipeg (17 Aug. 2009) - The Mexican consul visited migrant Mexican farm workers in Manitoba and threatened to blacklist them from ever coming to Canada again if they did not vote to decertify their union at Mayfair Farms in Portage La Prairie, says a spokesperson for group supporting the workers.

The vote to abandon the union, which they had previously chosen to join, was announced earlier this month.

Jennifer deGroot, a member of a coalition supporting seasonal workers in Manitoba and a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), outlines what happened in an article published by the Winnipeg Free Press on Friday.

"Recent media reports state that workers at Mayfair Farms in Portage La Prairie chose to decertify after the long struggle to unionize," deGroot writes.

"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," she reports.

"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."

The full Winnipeg Free Press article is available at the links below.
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) has signed a formal protocol with the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW Canada) to support the union in its ongoing drive to organize long-exploited migrant farm workers in Canada.
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE
More information:
Winnipeg Free Press: How clean are your carrots? - PDF version
More than 12,000 Mexican agricultural workers in Canada in 2009

CANADIAN LABOUR:

NOMINATIONS OPEN FOR HEALTH AND SAFETY ACTIVIST AWARD:

April 28, Workers Memorial Day, a day devoted to the memory of workers killed and injured on the job, is coming up soon. Please see the post 'Workers' Memorial Day' on April 28 2007 here at Molly's Blog for further details and references. Just to set the tone, the ILO estimates that two million people die each year of work-related accidents and diseases, and that there are 270 million work related accidents each year in the world. This carnage surpasses the death toll from war in most years.

This year the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) has opened nominations for the recognition of individuals who are trying to reduce this toll. They hope to honour such activists. here is their press release....

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National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job -- Health and Safety Activist Recognition
Monday, April 28th, 2008 is the National Day of Mourning for Workers Killed or Injured on the Job. This is a time to mourn for those lost on the job, as we work to strengthen safety standards and reduce the health and safety risks that workers take each day.

This April we will take time to applaud the remarkable gains that have been made in the protection of workers' health, safety, and environment. Health & safety activists work the front-line in the battle to establish standards and compliance with legislation.

Over the history of the health and safety movement there have been difficult fights against employers and a culture that too often accepts workplace risk. Worker safety has not always been a top concern.

We appreciate the battles fought and the sacrifices made by health and safety activists for the benefit of us all. This year we would like to pay special tribute to these labour activists.
Nominate a Health and Safety Activist
If you know a person in your union who has made a special contribution in health and safety nominate them for National Union recognition!

All nominees will be featured on a special National Union web page. Nominees will be contacted to confirm their acceptance of the nomination and the publishing of their information on the web site.
Receive a free copy of Tony Mazzocchi's biography
If you nominate someone we'll send you and your nominee a copy of Les Leopold’s new biography, “The Man Who Hated Work and Loved Labor: The Life and Times of Tony Mazzocchi”. Tony Mazzocchi was a legendary union leader who saw the need for a massive movement that would popularize workplace health and safety issues. This new release is a must read for every trade union activist.