NATIONAL – Federal public-service workers across the nation came together in various municipalities on March 19, to protest against the government’s proposed changes to a sick-leave policy. Organized by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and its provincial and territorial branches, the nationwide rally included events in several cities in every province. “We are coming together to call for a stronger public service for all Canadians,” PSAC national president Robyn Benson said in a press statement on the day before the rallies. “We all reject the Treasury Board’s ‘Go to Work Sick’ plan. Instead, we want to negotiate measures for healthier workplaces.” Background information from the union noted that all federal public-service collective agreements were up for renewal and that cutbacks had led to unhealthy work environments and poor morale among PSAC members. Mental-health claims had been rising in public-service work, and the government had been ignoring buildings in poor shape and toxic workplaces, the PSAC said. The union represents more than 170,000 public-service workers in Canada.
Category Archives: productivity
Are elderly construction workers sufficiently fit for heavy manual labour?
Einar Jebens, Jon Ingulf Medbø and Kaj Bo Veiersted, National Institute of Occupational Health, Oslo, Norway; Asgeir Mamen, Norwegian School of Health Sciences, Kristiania University College, Oslo, Norway; and Oddvar Knudsen, Lia HMS, Trysil, Norway
This study analyzed the work ability of elderly construction workers. Forty male construction workers, 20 young (age < 33 yrs.) and 20 senior (age > 44 yrs.) workers, were tested regarding aerobic power (VO2max) and muscle strength. The aerobic demand of a number of tasks in construction work was measured and compared with the workers’ aerobic power. VO2max was higher for the young, and they performed better on most muscle-strength tests. The measurements showed that about half of the senior workers had to use more than 30 per cent of their maximum oxygen uptake on some tasks. In conclusion, because elderly construction workers decline in physical fitness, they are more exposed to overload when performing heavy manual work than are their younger peers. Increasing their individual fitness or adjusting their workload may be important for staying in the workforce for such workers. Construction workers must occasionally perform strenuous work tasks that may endanger their safety. This was more often the case for elderly workers investigated here. Elderly workers should therefore be particularly observant of their physical fitness and should possibly train during leisure time to improve their fitness.
Ergonomics, Volume 58, Issue 3, pages 450-462. Correspondence to: Asgeir Mamen, Norwegian School of Health Sciences, Kristiania University College, Oslo, Norway; email: asgeir.mamen@nhck.no.
Summit discusses ways to deal with work-related mental stress
TORONTO, Ont. – Representatives from government, healthcare, social services, corrections, police, fire services and other sectors came together on March 5 for the Summit on Work-Related Traumatic Mental Stress. Recommended by the Ontario Ministry of Labour’s (MOL) October report, Roundtable on Traumatic Mental Stress: Ideas Generated, the summit allowed professionals to discuss possible ways to reduce the effects and stigmas of traumatic mental stress in the workplace. “The lessons learned and best practices shared here will propel sectors in which traumatic mental stress is prevalent to implement cultural and organizational change, with an emphasis on prevention, making workplaces healthier and safer,” provincial Labour Minister Kevin Flynn stated in a press release following the event. The summit included an opening address by former lieutenant-general Roméo Dallaire and talks by experts on innovative approaches to the issue. A backgrounder from the MOL noted that the Ontario government was investing $4.4 million into resources addressing operational stress injuries for Ontario Provincial Police officers.
Ontario to probe changing nature of the modern workplace
Ontario is set to launch consultations on the changing nature of the modern workplace.
The public consultations, which will be launched in the spring, will focus on how the Labour Relations Act and the Employment Standards Act could be amended to protect workers more effectively, while supporting businesses in the changing economy, the provincial Ministry of Labour (MOL) said in a statement.
Workplace trends to be examined include:
- The increase in non-standard working relationships, such as temporary jobs, part-time work and self-employment;
- The rising prominence of the service sector;
- Globalization and trade liberalization;
- Accelerating technological change; and
- Greater workplace diversity.
“We are currently developing the plan for the research and analysis that will be undertaken during these consultations,” said MOL spokesperson William Lin, adding that the process and schedule of meetings, including regional public meetings, would be announced in the near future. “Once finalized, details around the consultation process will be posted on the Ministry of Labour website,” Lin said.
The consultations will be led by C. Michael Mitchell, formerly of Sack Goldblatt Mitchell LLP, and John Murray, a former justice of the Superior Court of Justice and prominent management labour lawyer. Mitchell has practised law for more than 37 years and recently opened a new practice as a full-time arbitrator and mediator, the MOL said in a backgrounder. Murray became a full-time mediator and arbitrator in January and has regularly provided legal advice to major private and public sector corporations, along with public sector institutions such as universities and hospitals.
Mitchell and Murray will lead and coordinate the public consultations and provide the Minister of Labour with a final written report with recommendations.
The Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) welcomed the announcement. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to modernize Ontario’s outdated labour laws,” said OFL president Sid Ryan in a media release. “Over the past 20 years, there has been a massive rise in precarious employment in Ontario, as good paying manufacturing jobs have been replaced by low-paying and part-time jobs in expanding retail and service sectors. It is time for employment and labour laws to be updated to provide protection for an increasingly vulnerable workforce.”
Ryan said that he was looking forward to the upcoming public hearings and that the OFL “will be full participants in what we believe will be a vigorous and healthy discussion about the future of the province’s five million workers.”
Live-in caregivers unsung contributors to oilsands economy, report says
Live-in caregivers in northern Alberta’s oilsands region help ease work-life stresses for families in the intensive environment, but do so at great personal and financial costs, a new study has suggested.
Led by University of Alberta sociologist Sara Dorow, the study, Live-in Caregivers in Fort McMurray: a Socioeconomic Footprint, found that live-in caregivers — foreign nationals living in Canadian homes and employed to provide child or adult care — faced many challenges, including unpaid overtime, underpayment and illegal or poor working conditions. The online survey involved interviews with 56 temporary foreign workers living and working in dwelling units in and around Fort McMurray under the federal Live-in Caregiver Program, as well as qualitative information from individual interviews and focus groups with caregivers conducted between 2008 and 2014. The study was estimated to have captured approximately 10 per cent of the local live-in caregiver program.
In particular, 20 per cent of the surveyed caregivers reported that they were not paid or only occasionally paid for overtime hours and worked an average of 10.4 overtime hours a week. Eighteen per cent reported receiving less than the Alberta prevailing gross hourly wage, and illegal or poor working conditions was the second most important reason cited for changing employers while working in Fort McMurray.
“Residents of Fort McMurray work the longest hours in the country, often on rotational shifts,” said Dorow, the report’s lead author and an associate professor of sociology at the University of Alberta. “Live-in caregivers help to make the oilsands work regime sustainable by absorbing some of its stresses. At the same time, they experience stresses of their own, including the uncertainties of both the oilsands economy and the foreign worker policies coming out of Ottawa.”
The study noted that residents of Fort McMurray work the longest hours in the country, with residents who work 50 hours or more a week accounting for 32 per cent of the population, compared to only 17 per cent at the national level. On a weekly basis, live-in caregivers work 53.7 hours on average and tend to work even longer when one or both of their employers works at the site.
“Long and variable working hours combine with high mobility and turnover to contribute to both social opportunities and social stresses, including shortages of time for volunteering, leisure, family and daily care activities,” the study said. “Live-in caregivers in Fort McMurray have sacrificed substantial financial savings and long years without their own spouses and children to work for families in the oilsands region. The opportunity to immigrate is what keeps them going.”
Other findings include:
- The majority of live-in caregivers (88 per cent) were female and from the Philippines;
- Eighty-two per cent were between 25 and 44 years of age;
- Seventy per cent of the sample surveyed each invested between $4,000 and $8,999 overall to move to work in Canada, while each of their employers likely spent about $3,000 (for Labour Market Impact Assessment processing fee and airfare); and
- Live-in caregivers found cold weather, limited social activities, homesickness and cultural adjustment to be key challenges.
The summary of the survey is available online at http://www.onthemovepartnership.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Live-in-Caregivers-in-Fort-McMurray-Report-Overview-Dorow-et-al-Jan-2015.pdf. The full report is available at http://www.onthemovepartnership.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Live-in-Caregivers-in-Fort-McMurray-Dorow-et-al.-January-2015.pdf.
Engagement, leadership identified as significant challenges in 2015
Morneau Shepell, Canada’s largest administrator of retirement and benefits plans and the country’s largest provider of integrated absence management solutions, has identified employee engagement and leadership as the most significant challenges to workforce productivity in 2015.
Morneau Shepell’s 60-Second Survey for December was completed by 442 Canadian human resources professionals. It found that 43 per cent of respondents cited employee engagement as the major impediment to higher productivity and about one in five (22 per cent) named leadership as a significant challenge to productivity.
Nathan Gibson, manager of corporate communications with Morneau Shepell, told COHSN that the survey did not provide a specific definition of employee engagement or leadership, as those were left to the interpretation of the respondent. “The challenge that employers face is in knowing how to address these issues effectively in order to increase productivity,” added Stephen Lintrap, executive vice-president with Morneau Shepell, in a press release on Jan. 5.
According to Gibson, the survey also found that mental health was rated “significantly more often than physical health as a challenge to workplace productivity and as a priority for 2015.” In addition, the best indicator of an organization’s 2015 priority was 2014’s biggest challenge. For example, if the organization indicated that engagement was a major challenge, the majority of those respondents identified engagement as their 2015 priority. “In other words, organizational decision makers are focusing their attention on the issues that challenge them the most,” Gibson said.
Lintrap said that the key to maximizing employee engagement and productivity was to start with a solid foundation. “Ensuring that your workplace is healthy before embarking on other initiatives to drive engagement and increase productivity is essential,” he said in the release. “Otherwise, you run the risk of having employees who are highly productive for a while, but eventually burn out. This leads to job dissatisfaction, increased turnover and disability.”
He also noted the importance of mental health in the workplace, noting that almost five times as many survey respondents planned to focus on workplace mental health over physical health in 2015. “Employees aren’t going to be interested in helping the organization achieve goals if they’re too stressed or depressed to come to work,” he said.
Lintrap recommended that organizations reduce the stigma of mental illness by building awareness and educating leaders, managers and co-workers around mental health triggers and treatment. Second, they should ensure that support services, such as employee and family assistance programs that integrate with other benefit plans, are in place to help employees with personal and professional stress, as well as mental health conditions. “Once you have a healthy workplace, then you’ve created the foundation necessary for higher employee engagement and increased productivity,” he said.