Right: Thomas Klassen

The has asked Klassen to conduct research on new policies for Korea’s labour force and to share his findings with decision-makers. The institute is responsible for contributing to public policy and raising awareness of labour issues through timely and analytical research. As well, Klassen will spend several months studying Korea's retirement policies. Specifically, he will examine how the changing labour market, particularly a rapidly aging population, impacts mandatory retirement practices.

His research in Korea will also provide insights for Canada, which also has a rapid increase in older workers.

An expert on retirement policies, Klassen teaches courses on the politics of aging. He is the co-editor of (2005), the only book on mandatory retirement in Canada. Last year, Klassen co-edited with Jae-jin Yang the book .

This will not be Klassen's first working stint in South Korea. In 2006-2007, he taught at Yonsei University in Seoul and wrote about the lighter side of the experience for 91��ɫU magazine under the title .

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Doorey says the main reason he started Doorey's Workplace Law Blog was to better connect with his students. “I wanted to make my courses in workplace law and industrial relations interesting and ‘real’ for the students. By linking course theory and readings to real cases and current news events, I can build student interest in the course in ways a textbook never can.”

Right: David Doorey

But then he thought he could do that even better through an app. “The iTunes app is the next step,” he says. “Most students today have smartphones, and this app means I can now communicate with students daily, wherever they are. They are learning in fun new ways that fit with their lifestyles.”

His central audience has always been students studying in his subject areas at 91��ɫ and at other institutions. His blog looks at all aspects of employment law and highlights some of the more interesting and current cases, such as Fraser vs. Ontario: Constitutional Right to Collective Bargaining Survives, a discussion on whether Target Canada will buy unionized Zellers, and how the City of Toronto Committee voted to fire 300 unionized garbage collectors. Doorey's Workplace Law Blog won a CLawBies – Canadian Law Blog Award – in 2008 and again in 2009, and was a CLawBies finalist in 2010.

“I'm trying to stimulate their critical thinking in the field and make them want to learn more,” says Doorey. “The blog has attracted a much wider audience than just students, including legal and human resources practitioners and other academics, and I anticipate that the app will allow me to connect to more of these busy professionals.”

The blog, and now the app, will help interested students and professionals keep up with what's going on in new case law and in the academic world “as they commute to
work or wait in line to order coffee.” Doorey sees the app as a way to provide a service to the professional community in his field by summarizing relevant news. “It connects me to a whole new audience that is interested in the subject matter of my blog, but whose lives are too hectic to read it,” he says. “With the app, they just tap an icon, and they can quickly see what's going in the field.”

Doorey points out, however, that writing blogs and creating apps is not for everyone. “They are a lot of work to keep up, and you need to be really committed to it over the long haul for it to work. My motivation is my students, who turn over every few months. The new students give me the energy to keep going, since they respond very favourably, and since the blog and app are always introducing new stories and issues to the classroom, it never gets boring for me or the students.”

He is grateful for the help he received from Oksana Silkina and Alex Neumann in 91��ɫ's e-Services office in getting his app created and submitted to Apple for its approval to be published.

For more information, visit Doorey’s Workplace Law Blog or . It is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Defining green jobs raises further questions. What is a green job? Do we need new green jobs or greener jobs? Who will benefit in the transition towards a low-carbon economy? What strategies do we need to transition to greener workplaces?

The panel discussion will explore these challenging issues on Thursday, January 20, 2011 beginning at 3 pm in Room 100A of the Jackman Humanities Building, located at , Toronto, ON.

Participants include expert activists, academics and policy makers:

• John Cartwright, president, Toronto and 91��ɫ Region Labour Council
• Tony Clarke, director, Polaris Institute of Canada
• Clare Demerse, associate director of the Climate Change Program, Pembina Institute
• Marjorie Griffin Cohen, professor, Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University
• Sara Letourneau, director, Labour Climate Project, BlueGreen Alliance (US)
• , principal investigator, Work in a Warming World (W3) and professor, Department of Work and Labour Studies, 91��ɫ University

Green/ing Jobs is organized by (W3). The $1-million project, funded by the , is addressing climate change's challenge to Canadian employment and work, and the ways in which the work world can contribute to the struggle to slow global warming. W3 is affiliated with the (IRIS).

By Sabreena Delhon, W3 project coordinator.

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Julie Tyios was already a savvy investor by her mid-20s, when the Great Recession hit. “I had played the markets before, and watched my parents live off their stock portfolios,” she says. But the small-business owner wasn’t prepared for seeing half of her portfolio wiped out in 2008, an experience that was, to say the least, “very upsetting.” Since then, Tyios has avoided the stock market altogether. The fear of losing so much again overshadows the possible joy she may glean from a gain. “As much as I would love to invest, the recession did a lot of damage to the market.” And, more than that, it did a lot of damage to the psychology of today’s investors.

. . .

, a professor of marketing at 91��ɫ’s , has been looking at the effects of fraud on investment behaviour, and he’s found that fraud by one firm induces an irrational suspicion among investors that causes them to lower their investments in other, unrelated firms. In other words, fear spreads fast and can spoil otherwise safe investments in people’s minds. This negative bias even applies to very well-known and otherwise trusted institutions, like Canadian banks. “While rationally you recognize you can trust the Royal Bank, motivationally you’re not willing to take a chance,” he says. “People become irrationally suspicious.”

Financial fears can also affect more than just stock choices. At 91��ɫ, , a psychology professor in the , has been conducting an international study that looks at the emotional and psychological effects of the economic downturn. So far, she’s found that people’s personalities (their fears and anxieties) impact things like their financial health and even their ability to find a job. “We are finding that debt, employability and financial well-being are all related,” she says. “If a [person] believes they are not going to get a job in the future, their financial well-being is lower.” Feelings of financial doom are also correlated to higher rates of anxiety and depression.

These findings reinforce the view of behavioural economists that “the way people approach the economy is not rational. Emotional factors influence how we react to the economic situation and to our own finances,” Greenglass says.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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This issue of includes articles that examine the changing nature of work, as well as strategies designed to improve working conditions in the contemporary context of employment insecurity. Contributors provide insight into new developments in labour law, advocacy programs for women workers in male-dominated workplaces and the potential to counter precarious employment through worker cooperatives.

Among the contributors are University of Victoria law Professor Judy Fudge; Athabasca University labour studies Professor Bob Barnetson; Laval University labour relations Professor Anthony Gould; Julia Woodhall, a sociology PhD student at the University of Waterloo, and Belinda Leach, a professor of sociology and anthropology at the University of Guelph; and Amanda Wilson, a PhD student in sociology at Carleton University.

CRWS was established in 1990 to address issues facing workers arising from the volatile transformation of the Canadian workplace. Just Labour, which was launched in 2002, reflects this tradition as the journal’s readers and contributors bridge both the academic and union research communities.

Just Labour’s contributors explore the complex ways new technologies, subcontracting, new management strategies and self-employment are undermining traditional employee-employer relationships. Its mandate includes investigating how union action is challenged by the international integration of capital, the proliferation of precarious employment and the increasingly anti-union practices of employers and the state.

The editorial committee, led by , editor-in-chief and CRWS director, looks for articles that address the culture and activities of Canadian workers and their unions as they face new challenges, and that bring the work of leading academics and trade union researchers to a broad readership in popular, accessible language.

Read the latest issue or see submission guidelines at , or get more information on CRWS at the Centre for Research on Work & Society website.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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That’s contrary to what most Canadians believe, says Raphael in his new book , which looks at who stays healthy, who gets sick and why. It’s written with the goal of educating the informed Canadian, as well as university students.

Most people think luck, treatment options and lifestyle choices shape whether they are healthy or not. After all, that is the current mantra – eating better and exercising will lead to a healthier existence – a mantra that Canadians have wholeheartedly internalized. But that’s only part of the equation, and not the biggest part, says Raphael, a professor in 91��ɫ's School of Health Policy & Management in the Faculty of Health.

“Decades of research and hundreds of studies in Canada and elsewhere tell a different story: the primary factors that shape the health and well-being of Canadians – the factors that will give us longer, better lives – are to be found not in those much-discussed areas, but rather in the actual living conditions that Canadians experience on a daily basis,” says Raphael in About Canada: Health and Illness.

These factors include whether people are wealthy or poor, employed or not, working conditions, access to quality education, health and social services, and the basics of food and affordable housing. These social determinants “are crucial factors in the health and well-being of Canadians,” he says.

“Contrary to the assumption that we have personal control over these factors, in most cases these living conditions are – for better or worse – imposed upon us in the normal course of everyday life.”

Left: Dennis Raphael

That’s in large part because of the policies, regulations and laws enacted by governments at all levels, which influence employment income, family benefits and social assistance, as well as the quality and availability of affordable housing, health and social services, and recreational opportunities. That includes “what happens when Canadians lose their jobs during economic downturns such as the one that Canada began experiencing in 2008,” says Raphael.

“Governments also determine whether our children have access to affordable and high-quality child care and better-quality schools, the working conditions that we experience, and whether as seniors we receive levels of public pensions that allow us to live in dignity.”

Raphael wants to see changes in public policy that will affect Canadians’ health in a positive way. Through About Canada: Health and Illness, he wants the average Canadian to understand the role social determinants play in shaping health and what can be done to improve the situation through better public policies.

Raphael is the editor of , co-editor of and author of . He served as an adviser to the California Newsreel documentary series and the Deveaux Babin Productions Canadian documentary .

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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“We need a new measure of success,” said Victor, who was the keynote speaker at Environment Hamilton’s annual general meeting earlier this month at the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board auditorium. “We have to knock the concept of economic growth off its pedestal. We are being sold a bill of goods that growth reduces poverty.”

He argues that as richer western nations pursue ever higher gross domestic product figures, they consume more land and energy, which only depletes the world’s resources, contributing to peak oil and climate change. If poorer nations, such as China, India and other so-called Third World countries follow the western nation economic model, the world’s finite resources will be consumed ever faster, just to meet the ideal western lifestyle. “Growth doesn’t solve the poverty problem,” he says.

Victor says western governments must change how they do business if the planet is to survive. He points out, for instance, that to help reduce poverty, western countries should look toward establishing full-employment measures, as some European countries have done. It means more people work, while receiving less in salary. “There would be less work, but more leisure,” he said.

Consumers should also start paying the correct price for products, he says. Victor advises that a carbon tax be added to goods so that prices “become more meaningful” in the marketplace. “(The goods) would become more durable (rather than continue what has become a throw-away culture). You would repair products. And there would be fewer status goods,” he said.

The complete article is available on the .

Victor was also quoted in the April 22:

91��ɫ economics Professor Peter Victor takes up the idea, writing Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster. He argues that growth isn’t achieving expected goals: eliminating or reducing poverty, protecting the environment and providing full employment.

But at the moment, the idea of changing our capitalist system is only talk and a far-off idea that no person or institution wants to think about. But the day will come when our blue planet will revolt and impose a harsher penalty to our profligate material needs than anything we as a society could impose on ourselves.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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91��ɫ political science Professor , , explores the precarious margins of contemporary labour markets in her new book, Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship, and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment, being launched tomorrow.

The book looks at how over the last few decades there has been much discussion of a shift from full-time permanent jobs to higher levels of part-time and temporary employment and self-employment, and the result that despite such attention, regulatory approaches have not adapted accordingly. Instead, in the absence of genuine alternatives, old regulatory models are applied to new labour market realities, leaving the most precarious forms of employment intact.

The book places this disjuncture in historical context and focuses on its implications for workers most likely to be at the margins, particularly women and migrants, using illustrations from Australia, the United States and Canada, as well as member states of the European Union.

provides a rigorous analysis of national and international regulatory approaches, drawing on original and extensive qualitative and quantitative material. It analyzes the historical and contemporary interplay of employment norms, gender relations and citizenship boundaries.

Vosko is also the author of : The Gendered Rise of a Precarious Employment Relationship (University of Toronto Press, 2000), editor of : Understanding Labour Market Insecurity in Canada (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2006), and co-author of : Law, Policy, and Unions (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005).

She is currently overseeing the Comparative Perspectives Database, a multi-year collaborative international research project on comparative perspectives on precarious employment linked to the project.

The launch for Managing the Margins (Oxford University Press, 2010) will take place Thursday, Feb. 25 at 7:30pm at The Annex Live, 296 Brunswick Ave. at Bloor Street in Toronto. The launch will feature remarks by Deena Ladd of Workers’ Action Centre, Professor Kiran Mirchandani of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto and Laurell Ritchie of the Canadian Auto Workers union, as well as a performance by jazz musicians Kye Marshall and Dan Ionescu and a display of photographic artworks by Susana Reisman.

Everyone is welcome to attend the launch. For more information, contact Gowry Siva, research project administrator in the Office of the Dean in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, at ext. 33962 or sgowry@yorku.ca.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Carla �����������-�ѳܳ���é, professor of work and labour studies in 91��ɫ's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and research fellow in 91��ɫ’s , has received $1 million over six years from the (SSHRC).

�龱�����:���䲹������ �����������-�ѳܳ���é

The award will fund an international project to study the challenge climate change presents to Canadian employment and workplaces. �����������-�ѳܳ���é will examine seven Canadian employment sectors to seek policy, training, employment and workplace solutions to effectively assist Canada’s transition to a low-emission economy. By combining research, workplace education, policy recommendations and pilot projects in transnational work adaptation, her project will allow Canada to re-enter the international debate about how best to engage the work world in the struggle to slow global warming.

“We need to know more about the chain of processes that comprise work, employment and training in key Canadian industries and professions – and how their decision-makers understand and respond to the challenge that global warming poses to these processes,” says �����������-�ѳܳ���é. “Our second goal is to engage community partners active in the work world and the environmental community in research that identifies critical spaces for adaptation, drawing on their hands-on experience and linking it to the expertise of the academics.”

(CURA) awards, among the largest awarded by SSHRC, bring postsecondary institutions and community organizations together as equal research partners to jointly develop new knowledge and capabilities, provide research training opportunities, and enhance the ability of social sciences and humanities research to build knowledge in areas that affect Canadians and their changing communities.

“This award is the latest in a series of funding successes that reflect 91��ɫ’s leadership in national and international collaborative research projects,” said Stan Shapson, vice-president Research & Innovation. “Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century and climate research and innovation are priorities for 91��ɫ. Our researchers are working with industry, government at all levels, academia, and the community to find ways to address the complex issues it raises.”

�����������-�ѳܳ���é’s research team includes nationally- and internationally-based climate scientists, senior labour market actors and academics from a wide range of disciplines. A total of 23 researchers, 20 partners, and 10 universities in three countries will participate, including 91��ɫ Professors David Doorey, , , Jan Kainer, John-Justin McMurtry, and Steven Tufts.

Gary Goodyear, Minister of State (Science & Technology), announced the funding yesterday in Kitchener, Ont. Lipsig-Mummé’s project is one of 20 large-scale research projects funded through SSHRC’s CURA program.

“These grants highlight the excellence of our country’s talented researchers and recognize the importance of fostering collaboration to keep Canada at the leading-edge of research, development and innovation in the 21st century,” said Chad Gaffield, president of SSHRC.

For a complete list of CURA awards, visit Web site.

Project Partners:

• Canadian Steel Trade and Employment Congress
• Canadian Union of Postal Workers
• Centre for Labour Studies
• Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union
• Environmental Defence
• Forest Products Sector Council
• Learning for a Sustainable Future
• National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy
• National Union of Professional and General Employees
• Ontario Centre for Engineering and Public Policy/Professional Engineers
• Prism Economics and Analysis
• The Clean Air Partnership
• The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
• Toronto Training Board
• United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Local 1000A
• United Steelworkers of Canada
• UNITE-HERE Canada
• Wood Manufacturing Council
• British Columbia Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

University Partners:

• Auckland University of Technology
• Institute of Land and Food Resources, University of Melbourne
• Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability, 91��ɫ
• Queen's University
• Ryerson University
• Simon Fraser University
• St. Thomas University
• University of British Columbia-Okenagan
• University of Manitoba
• University of Toronto

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer

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