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Solid Wage Gains for Construction Workers Needed to Cement Productivity Gains
Paycheques for workers in Ontario’s booming construction industry are coming up short despite surging productivity and a sharp rise in building activity, a new report from the Centre for Future Work shows. Relative to consumer prices, the real purchasing power of construction wages has been stagnant in recent years even though real labour productivity in the sector has grown very strongly. Workers are generating more output and revenue for their employers, but not getting their fair share of the value they’re creating. Nominal wages in construction grew at an average rate of 1.9% over the last five years, considerably slower than broader wages in Ontario’s labour market (which grew at…
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10 Paid Sick Days Would Have Little Impact on Business Costs
A proposed 10-day paid sick leave policy in B.C. will increase overall business costs by just one-fifth of one percent. That’s the finding of new research from the Centre for Future Work. The new report, by Centre Director Jim Stanford, calculates the impact of the proposed policy on sick leave entitlements, absences, replacement staff costs, and bottom-line business expenses. The ultimate impact of paid sick days is estimated at just 0.21% of existing business expenses, and will have no measurable impact on overall competitiveness or profitability. The findings discredit claims by some business lobbyists that 10 days of paid sick leave would cause widespread bankruptcies and job loss. Moreover, these…
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Ideas Into Motion: Progressive Economics and Social Change Movements
Our research at the Centre for Future Work is motivated by a deep commitment to improving the jobs, working conditions, and living standards of working people in Canada and around the world. We combine our knowledge of economics, our quantitative and qualitative research, and our connections with trade unionists and social movements to develop arguments and evidence that supports campaigns for decent work, stronger communities, and sustainability. Our Director, Dr. Jim Stanford, was recently asked to contribute his ideas on the links between progressive economics and real-world social change movements for a forthcoming collection: The Handbook of Alternative Theories of Political Economy, edited by Frank Stilwell, Tim Thornton, and David…
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Bargaining Tech: Shaping New Technologies to Improve Work, not Devalue It
The Centre for Future Work has published another major paper in its PowerShare project, dealing with the impact of new technology on the quantity and quality of work in Canada – and strategies for ensuring that new technology produces more benefits for workers. The paper is entitled Bargaining Tech: Strategies for Shaping Technological Change to Benefit Workers, co-authored by Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett. It provides an overview of the complex, contradictory ways that technological change is affecting jobs in Canada. It also discusses how technology could be better managed and implemented to achieve better, fairer, more inclusive high-tech outcomes. The report reviews recent debates about whether new technology will…
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Strengthening Workers’ Voice in the Future of Work
The Centre for Future Work has published a major new report on the economic and social benefits of workers’ voice. There is abundant evidence that jobs are better when workers can provide input, express opinions, and influence change in their workplaces. Providing workers with regular, safe channels of “voice” increases their personal motivation and job satisfaction. It benefits their employer, too, through reduced turnover, enhanced productivity, and better information flows. And it contributes to a range of positive economic and social outcomes: from stronger productivity growth, to less inequality, to improved health. Given the dramatic changes occurring in Canadian workplaces (including automation, digital employment platforms, climate change, and pandemics), the…
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Transition Plan for Workers can Prevent Unemployment as Fossil Fuels are Phased Out
New research from the Centre for Future Work demonstrates that with prudent long-term planning, the coming phase-out of fossil fuel production and use can be managed without causing unemployment for fossil fuel workers. Employment Transitions and the Phase-Out of Fossil Fuels, by Jim Stanford (Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work) shows that fossil fuel industries directly account for 170,000 jobs in Canada – less than 1% of total employment. A 20-year phase-out of fossil fuels implies an annual reduction of fossil fuel employment of around 8,500 jobs annually: the number of jobs typically created by the Canadian economy every ten days. With a clear timetable for phase-out,…
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Child Care Expansion Would Boost Economic Recovery, Study Finds
Implementing a new national child care system would generate several important benefits for Canada’s economy as it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and recession, according to new research from the Centre for Future Work. A universal national early learning and child care (ELCC) program would create over 200,000 direct jobs in child care centres, 80,000 more jobs in industries which support and supply the ELCC sector, and facilitate increased labour force participation and employment by up to 725,000 Canadian women in prime parenting years. The report, prepared by economist Dr. Jim Stanford (Director of the Centre for Future Work), also projects large increases in Canadian GDP as a result of…
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The Surprising Resilience of Trade Unionism in Canada
Trade unions in Canada and globally have been on the defensive for years. Economic and political cultural changes have tended to undermine the power, visibility, and viability of trade unions and traditional forms of collective bargaining. As a result, union density (the proportion of workers with the protection of a union and a collective agreement) has declined in most countries through the neoliberal era. Canadian unions are not immune to these challenges. However, comparative data compiled by Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford provides surprising evidence that despite these challenges, Canadian unions have exerted a relatively stable influence on wages, income distribution, and labour policies. This helps to explain…
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The Broken Promises of Corporate Tax Cuts
The pace of business capital spending in Canada has been weak in recent years, for several reasons – including the slowdown in the petroleum industry, the erosion of Canadian manufacturing, and now the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic and recession. This has spurred a resurgence of demands from the business community for lower company tax rates, which advocates claim will accelerate business capital spending. In this analysis, published originally by the Canadian Tax Foundation, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford agrees that stimulating more capital investment (both private and public) is a vital goal. But there is no evidence from either recent Canadian history or international comparisons that…
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Rebuilding Canada’s Economy Must Start with Rebuilding Work
The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have shone an unforgiving spotlight on several long-standing fractures in Canada’s labour market. Repairing those structural weaknesses is an essential precondition for re-opening the economy — and keeping it open — once the immediate health emergency passes and we start heading back to work. Failing to address those challenges will amplify the consequences of this crisis for millions of Canadians, as well as our overall social and economic stability. And it will leave us more vulnerable to the next pandemic, or comparable shock of some other sort. Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford was invited to participate in a new project, Rebuild…