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2.1 The Changing World of Work (CWW)

CWW Issues: Broadly, the issues can be described as the linkage (and role) of labour standards with such issues as the quality of the work environment, life-long learning, and the quality of family life. The changing world of work (CWW) is a general issue which dominates this phase of our work. A number of features of the CWW and how it is seen in Canada today can be described under the following topics (see Appendix C.1 for additional details):⁴

• Rapid growth in self-employment: Between 1989 and 1996, self-employment accounted for over three-quarters of new jobs created in Canada.
• Contingent or non-standard work: Such work is growing more rapidly than regular, full-time paid employment. Temporary work has expanded significantly in the 1990s. There has also been a very rapid expansion in the pool of part-time workers.
• Telecommuting and home (office) work are being sought out both by employers and by workers. However, there are a number of regulatory challenges associated with this new kind of work.
• Job insecurity remains high, in spite of the economic expansion which has been going on.
• There has been a surprising absence of good jobs in the 1990s (with benefits, a future, etc.).
• Disguised unemployment and technological unemployment are both major constraints on job creation in the 1990s.
• The polarization of working-time distribution has substantially increased in the 1990s, with increasingly long working hours.
• A new emphasis is seen on flexible working schedules and high levels of shift work, work on weekends, and so on.

These key features identified above flow from an assessment based on experience from working in this area. This classification is not a definitive catalogue of all of the changing aspects of the world of work, but it serves as a useful start for this evaluation report. It was beyond the scope of this work and the terms of reference to deal with all of these facets of the CWW. Therefore, a choice was made to emphasize aspects of the CWW which link most closely to labour standards and the key policy concerns identified by HRDC.⁵

Sociological Issues: Important sociological and demographic changes have dominated the past several decades and still both affect and are affected by the new working arrangements. These developments include the continuing emergence of the single-parent family, the impact of the growing prevalence of the two-earner family, the increasing need for elder care, and the growing need for child care.

These issues affect the workplace, labour productivity and workers' ability to balance work and family pressures. Obviously, labour standards must also take into account these demographic and sociological changes. Consequently, these issues are carefully probed in the surveys completed as part of this evaluation and are examined throughout the report.

2.2 The Changing Workplace and New Challenges for Part III of the Code

The Canada Labour Code is being challenged in ways which could not be thought of as recently as only two decades ago. The basic raison d'être of the Code is still admirable. The primary objective of the Code is "to establish and protect workers' right to fair and equitable conditions of employment consistent with prevailing social and economic conditions." But the key elements in the above statement are being challenged from many directions. The key phrases are:

• protect workers' rights;
• fair and equitable conditions of employment; and
• consistent with prevailing social and economic conditions.

Information gathered for this report suggests that despite certain benefits associated with the CWW, it has become more difficult for the Code to protect workers' basic rights in the 1990s. Social and economic conditions and attitudes have changed significantly in Canada in the 1990s, and the evolution of the economy in the 1990s makes it more difficult to provide equitable distribution of employment opportunities.

What follows is a discussion of how the labour market has changed in Canada in the 1990s, including a brief sketch of some of the forces behind these changes. The main point is that these changes have in effect placed constraints on workers' protection under the Code, raising questions as to how to possibly alleviate this situation.

A Myriad of Forces Are Changing Canada's Workplace: Labour markets in the industrial countries have been experiencing monumental changes over the past 10 years. These changes are so dramatic that one can quite accurately describe them as a new industrial revolution. We are seeing this new industrial revolution play itself out in the workplace, as firms and governments are more determined than at any other time over the past half century to achieve higher levels of production with fewer workers.

Competitive pressures and new technologies are also displacing labour in a manner not seen since the first industrial revolution. This new industrial revolution, combined with increased global competitive pressures and the legacy of recent hard times, makes it more difficult for employers to think of expanding their workforces as they might have in the past. The corporate sector has been at the forefront of downsizing and restructuring stemming from increased competitive pressures, as well as the introduction of new technologies.

Government Capacity to Protect Workers Is Reduced: At the nation-state level, a number of forces are at work, including the erosion of the Keynesian welfare state and a sense that government intervention in markets has to be reversed. Virtually all governments have been facing major fiscal constraints and have been curbing spending in order to either lower taxes or pay down their outstanding debt.

The counterpart to the fiscal squeeze has been a shift in non-budgetary delivery mechanisms — public-sector intervention in markets is less acceptable today than in the past, and many of the changed policy directions of the past 10 years have been moves to extricate the public sector from markets and to deregulate the markets as much as is feasible. The deregulation-of-markets trend has important meaning for all government policies, including labour standards.

While economists have comfortably argued for generations that mass unemployment is not possible as long as the economy is growing quickly enough, this proposition has less validity today. Even if Canada were lucky enough to replicate a 1980s-style economic boom, the number of regular, full-time new jobs created would likely be considerably smaller.

In this new, less interventionist government era, it is very common for governments and the central bank to set targets for inflation and budget deficits, but rarely are targets for job creation established. Moreover, the 1950s-1960s concept of full employment has been completely displaced (and discredited) by the concept of NAIRU (the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment), as a desired public-policy priority. This concept in effect means that society is faced with much higher unemployment than in the past.

This new industrial revolution and the observed trend of slow growth in quality jobs have immense implications for the stability of our society and the regulatory structure which governs the labour market. For some individuals, the opportunities associated with this new industrial revolution and the corresponding CWW, provide opportunities for greater personal growth, improved personal flexibility in terms of balancing work and leisure, and opportunities for more stable and higher incomes. For others, however, a reversing of these elements is a reality. The opportunities, or lack of opportunities for these persons, translate into major economic and family problems.

The bottom line is that portions of the public feel far more insecure and continue to look to governments to play a role in alleviating their insecurities. Determining, in this context, how governments can best protect workers and pursue key related policy goals is a major challenge.

2.3 Key Questions in Phase II

The following basic questions guided the evaluation research and analysis underpinning this report.

Selected Quotations from the Literature

"Even those who advocate flexible work scheduling as a liberating measure which increases people's [ability to control time] admit that the vested interests of employers are more often satisfied by such measures than are those of the workers." (William K. Roche, Brian Fynes and Terri Morrissey, "Working Time and Employment: A Review of International Evidence," International Labour Review, Vol. 135, 1996, No. 2, 152)

"In a lifelong learning strategy, it is especially critical to assist less-qualified workers in upgrading their skills and getting them into jobs that utilize those skills....Options such as raining levies and individual training vouchers have been explored, but with mixed success. One avenue that would deserve further exploration is the establishing of national certification/recognition arrangements as one way of improving the functioning of the labour market." (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development news release, Employment Outlook, 1997, July 10, 1997)

"Enterprise-based training may no longer be sufficient to meet the needs of future media workers. The employment structures of many firms in these converging industries rely on a diminishing core of permanent, or at least long-term, employees and on a growing proportion of contingent workers employed part-time, temporarily or on a project-by-project basis. Because of their part-time status and especially in the instance of short-term engagement, these workers rarely, if ever, benefit from employer-provided training packages, which are largely directed to permanent staff." (ILO Symposium on the World of Work, No., 19, March 1997)

"Employees with more difficult, more demanding jobs and less supportive workplaces experience substantially higher levels of negative spillover from work into their lives off the job-jeopardizing their personal and family well-being." (1997 National Study of the Changing [US] Workforce; Synthesis of Findings, June 16, 1998)

"Since 1987, Canadian trucking firms have faced two important changes, each having left its own mark on the industry. Deregulation, introduced a level of competition unequalled in the past ..... Free trade legislation, under the FTA [Free Trade Agreement] and NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement], opened up opportunities for Canadian firms abroad, but it also intensified the level of competition by bringing in other players, namely US trucking firms. The fact that these policy changes have occurred within the span of less than a decade implies that Canadian carriers did not have the benefit of time on their side in learning to adjust to a global market." (Statistics Canada, Canadian Economic Observer [profile article on the trucking industry], November 1997, p. 3.11)

"The failure to enforce internationally-recognized labour rights could prevent GATT from achieving its objectives of raising living standards and ensuring that workers in all countries benefit from trade." (Stephen Hertzenburg, Institutionalizing Constructive Competition: Internationally-Recognized Labor Standards and Trade, January 1988, mimeo, p. 2).

Footnotes

4

These features have been widely commented on in the domestic and international literature, as well as in the media. Statistics Canada publications, particularly Canadian Social Trends and Perspectives on Labour and Income, have included a number of separate articles on the CWW and its impacts on individuals and families. For example, see Perspectives, Summer 1998, Volume 10, No. 2, or Canadian Social Trends, Winter 1996, No. 43.

5

Consequently, our report only indirectly considers the earnings inequality issue (i.e., the absence of high-paying jobs) or disguised unemployment. Technological unemployment arises in our work primarily through the changing nature of job requirements and the report's emphasis on training and life-long learning.