A Life, Lived

Retailers

Hmmm . . . there might be a reason why no one wants to work retail these days . . .

Travel Tuesdays - Bangkok

In the summer of 2019 I had the opportunity to travel to Thailand to join 5000 teacher unionists from around the planet at the Education International World Congress.  It was a brilliant experience.

When you travel that far for a big meeting you build in some vacation time.

Here are some shots from tours I took.

Happy Labour Day

The 22nd ETFO Annual Meeting

This is the view from my hotel room where I will be spending the next week. The 22nd ETFO Annual Meeting takes place at the Sheraton hotel. Yes, I have been to all 22. I must admit, some of that early excitement has worn off a bit after all of these years. :-)

Over the next 4 days we will debate resolutions that will set the direction for the organization, pass a budget, elect a new Provincial Executive, hear from inspirational speakers, and most importantly - reconnect with colleagues from across the province.

That was fun!

Yesterday 20,000 education workers, community members, and random people who like a protest gathered at Queen's Park to protest proposed cuts to education.

I think it turned out well . . .

Goodbye Edmonton

After five days of meetings we are leaving Edmonton today.

We will wake up tomorrow in the Okanagan. To say that I am looking forward to a week in wine country would be a gross understatement.

We didn't get to see or do the things in Edmonton that we had hoped to. I shall blame that on work, a horrific hotel location, and the plane issues last Sunday. Of course, Paul was able to escape the suburbs while I was busy with meetings and using his large supply of bus passes able to get out and see interesting things. Nonetheless, we did have some amazing meals and I got to the legislature and wandered around the grounds.

Best meal in Edmonton . . . our dinner at Canteen. I sent my colleagues there and they raved about their meal as well.

Best dish - the Cacio e Pepe at Uccelino.

Best street art . . .

On Labour Day I Remember My Grandparents . . .

Here is some family history suitable for Labour Day. This picture was taken in 1941 in Kirkland Lake. During the gold miner strike of 1941, the Ontario government marched 500 police down the main street of Kirkland Lake to intimidate the miners. The next day, a two-mile march of women and children showed the mine bosses that the families weren't afraid.

My grandfather on my mother's side was a foreman at the mine. He refused to cross the picket line and was fired on the spot for supporting the workers.

I suspect that my grandmother, with two babies under the age of two was not amused.

Happy Labour Day Weekend

This list is good, but American. Here in Canada we would add Maternity Leave, Parental Leave, subsidized childcare spaces, pensions, Family Medical Leave, and Critically Ill Child Leave.

Then there was the creation of the middle class and a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth.

All brought to you by the struggle and lobbying of your Union brothers and sisters who believe at the core that what we wish for ourselves we wish for all.

I understand we in the union movement can make life challenging for those who are not in the union movement. Unfortunately none of the achievements were willingly given. From time to time we need to use a strong collective hand to convince those with power and resources to do the right thing.

Enjoy the Labour Day Weekend (of yes, thank your Union bros and sisters for that too).

Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Happy Sunday!

This is my view this morning . . .

I'll be here for the next 5 days. Our Provincial Executive meets all day today (yes, on a Sunday) and the ETFO Annual Meeting runs from Monday until Thursday.

While I have been to 20 Annual Meetings of the union over the years but this will be my first in this new role. I confess that I am a bit nervous. I used to just show up, listen do my assigned tasks, and leave. Now there is a level of responsibility that I have not experienced before. Instead of hiding at the back with my colleagues I will be sitting up at the main table where people will be watching what I am doing and searching my facial expression. This is going to be a challenge for ADHD non poker player expression Jerry.

:-)

Americans Don’t Miss Manufacturing — They Miss Unions

Another great article about the important roles played by unions in our society. This was written by Ben Casselman in the wonderful blog fivethirtyeight.

U.S. manufacturing jobs, I argued a few weeks ago, are never coming back. But that doesn’t stop politicians from talking about them. Donald Trump scored his knockout blow in Indiana in part by railing against the decision by Carrier, a local air-conditioning manufacturer, to shift production to Mexico. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have sparred throughout their race over who would best protect manufacturing jobs. And the man they are all trying to replace, President Obama, pledged during his reelection campaign to create a million manufacturing jobs during his second term; he’s still about 700,000 jobs short of that goal.

Candidates talk about manufacturing because of what it represents in the popular imagination: a source of stable, well-paying jobs, especially for people without a college degree. But that image is rooted more in nostalgia than in reality. Manufacturing no longer plays its former role in the economy, and not only because there are far fewer factory jobs than in the past. The jobs being created today often pay less than those of the past — sometimes far less.

A new report this week from the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley, found that a third of production workers — non-managers working on factory floors and in related occupations — earn so little that their families receive some form of public assistance such as food stamps or the Earned Income Tax Credit. Many of those workers are temps, who account for a growing share of factory employment. The median wage for a manufacturing production worker, according to separate data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was $16.14 an hour in 2015, below the $17.40 an hour for all workers.

On average, manufacturing jobs still pay better than most jobs available to people without a college degree. The median manufacturing worker without a bachelor’s degree earned $15 an hour in 2015, a dollar more than similarly educated workers in other industries.¹ But those averages obscure a great deal of variation beneath the surface. Average manufacturing wages are inflated by high-earning veterans; newly created jobs tend to pay less. And there are substantial regional variations. The average manufacturing production worker in Michigan earns $20.80 an hour, vs.$18.86 in South Carolina, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Why do factory workers make more in Michigan? In a word: unions. The Midwest was, at least until recently, a bastion of union strength. Southern states, by contrast, are mostly “right-to-work” states where unions never gained a strong foothold. Private-sector unions have been shrinking across the country for decades, but they are stronger in the Midwest than in most other parts of the country. In Michigan, 23 percent of manufacturing production workers were union members in 2015; in South Carolina, less than 2 percent were.²

Unions also help explain why the middle class is healthier in the Midwest than in the Southeast, where manufacturing jobs have been growing rapidly in recent decades. A new analysis from the Pew Research Center this week explored the state of the middle class in different parts of the country by looking at the share of households making between two-thirds and double the national median income, after controlling for the local cost of living. In many Midwestern cities, 60 percent or more of households are considered “middle-income” by this definition; in some Southern cities, even those with large manufacturing bases, middle-income households are now in the minority.

Even in the Midwest, however, unions are weakening and the middle class is shrinking. In the Indianapolis metro area, where the Carrier plant Trump talks about is located, the share of households in the middle tier of earners has shrunk to 54.8 percent in 2014 from 58.9 percent in 2000. And unlike in some parts of the country, the decline in the middle class there has been primarily driven by people falling into the lower tier of earners, not moving up. The Carrier plant, where workers make more than $20 an hour, is unionized.

Cause and effect here is complicated. Unions have been weakened by some of the same forces that are driving down wages overall, such as globalization and automation. And while unions benefit their members, economists disagree over whether they are good for the economy as a whole. Liberal economists note that overall wages tend to be higher in union-friendly states; conservative economists counter that unemployment tends to be higher in those states, too.

But this much is clear: For all of the glow that surrounds manufacturing jobs in political rhetoric, there is nothing inherently special about them. Some pay well; others don’t. They are not immune from the forces that have led to slow wage growth in other sectors of the economy. When politicians pledge to protect manufacturing jobs, they really mean a certain kind of job: well-paid, long-lasting, with opportunities for advancement. Those aren’t qualities associated with working on a factory floor; they’re qualities associated with being a member of a union.