Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
TORONTO - By the time most Canadians roll up their sleeves to begin a new year of work, Canada's best paid 100 CEOs will already be having a good year: They'll pocket the national average wage of $38,998 by 10:33 am January 2 nd.
And they will continue to earn the average Canadian wage every nine hours and 33 minutes for the rest of the year, according to a new report on CEO pay by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
"Most Canadians are heading back into work with a mound of Christmas bills and financial worries but for Canada's best paid 100 CEOs it's like Santa Claus delivers every nine hours," says the report's author, CCPA Research Associate Hugh Mackenzie.
"That's what happens when you make an average of $8,528,304 – which is the average of what Canada's 100 best paid CEOs made in 2006."
On average, the best-paid 100 CEOs make more than 218 times as much as a Canadian working full-time for a full year at the average of weekly employment earnings.
"That represents a significant gap between the rich and the rest of us – especially the working poor who earn the minimum wage," Mackenzie says.
By 1:04 p.m. New Years' Day, the best paid 100 CEOs pocketed what will take a minimum wage worker all of 2008 to earn. Every four hours and four minutes, they will keep pocketing the annual income of a full-time full-year minimum wage worker.
"We have to ask ourselves, are those at the top of the income heap really worth so much? And are those at the bottom really worth so little?"
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/Reports/2008/01/ReportsStudies1792/index.cfm?pa=BB736455
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Monday, November 19, 2007
UN Says Market Privatizations Would Be the Worst Scenario for the Environment
By Herv Kempf
Le Monde
Saturday 27 October 2007
The planet's ecological future directly depends on the political choices that will be exercised: this observation had never before been clearly spotlighted by a United Nations decision-making body. Now it's done: the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) asserts in a thick report, the so-called "GEO 4", published Thursday October 25, that generalized privatization of resources and services would be the worst scenario from an environmental perspective.
That's the conclusion of an original approach to possible futures that a group of international experts has been conducting the last two years: it models each scenario as a function of the type of policies put into place. The point of departure for this modeling effort is the major ecological crisis, which the planet is already experiencing.
By actualizing the description through numerous sources, the UNEP report synthesizes changes in climate, biodiversity, soils' health, water resources ... It highlights the shrinkage in available resources per inhabitant, with the available earth surface for each human being going from 7.91 hectares in 1900 to 2.02 hectares in 2005.
The rapidity of the phenomenon is emphasized: the breadth and the composition of terrestrial ecosystems that "are being modified by populations at an unprecedented speed." The experts insist on the concept of a threshold: "The cumulative effects of the continuous changes in the environment may reach thresholds that will manifest themselves as abrupt and irreversible changes." This idea of "tipping points" is applicable not only to climate change, but also to the phenomena of desertification, drops in water tables, collapse of ecosystems, etc.
Tipping Points
The continuation of present trajectories inescapably leads to these tipping points, the UNEP indicates. That's where the work with models comes in. The experts have defined four scenarios, according to the type of policy that is followed. In the first model, the State takes a back seat to the private sector; unlimited trade develops; natural goods areprivatized. The second scenario is based on a centralized intervention that aims to balance high economic growth with an effort to limit its
environmental and social impacts.
A third route would be to favor security to respond to civil disorders and external threats: a significant effort would then be devoted to security. Finally, the fourth option is one in which society chooses environmental sustainability and equity, with citizens playing an active role.
Modeling allows the influence on the environment of each one of these scenarios to be measured in terms of energy consumption, polluting emissions, the type of agricultural activity, water extractions and numerous other parameters.
The last scenario (sustainability) appears preferable from a social and ecological point of view, while the first scenario (privatization), although it assures the strongest growth, also manifests an environmental impact deemed unbearable, all while generating ever-greater social inequalities. In that case, "the environment and society rapidly reach, even cross over the tipping point."
The scenarios that are less bad for the environment are not exempt from flaws, however: the second scenario, which favors a strong policy intervention, may generate bureaucracy; the fourth, which emphasizes sustainability, demands that much time be devoted to cooperation among actors. And they do not guarantee a carefree future: in all these cases, "climate change and the loss of biodiversity will remain significant challenges."
Le Monde
Saturday 27 October 2007
The planet's ecological future directly depends on the political choices that will be exercised: this observation had never before been clearly spotlighted by a United Nations decision-making body. Now it's done: the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) asserts in a thick report, the so-called "GEO 4", published Thursday October 25, that generalized privatization of resources and services would be the worst scenario from an environmental perspective.
That's the conclusion of an original approach to possible futures that a group of international experts has been conducting the last two years: it models each scenario as a function of the type of policies put into place. The point of departure for this modeling effort is the major ecological crisis, which the planet is already experiencing.
By actualizing the description through numerous sources, the UNEP report synthesizes changes in climate, biodiversity, soils' health, water resources ... It highlights the shrinkage in available resources per inhabitant, with the available earth surface for each human being going from 7.91 hectares in 1900 to 2.02 hectares in 2005.
The rapidity of the phenomenon is emphasized: the breadth and the composition of terrestrial ecosystems that "are being modified by populations at an unprecedented speed." The experts insist on the concept of a threshold: "The cumulative effects of the continuous changes in the environment may reach thresholds that will manifest themselves as abrupt and irreversible changes." This idea of "tipping points" is applicable not only to climate change, but also to the phenomena of desertification, drops in water tables, collapse of ecosystems, etc.
Tipping Points
The continuation of present trajectories inescapably leads to these tipping points, the UNEP indicates. That's where the work with models comes in. The experts have defined four scenarios, according to the type of policy that is followed. In the first model, the State takes a back seat to the private sector; unlimited trade develops; natural goods areprivatized. The second scenario is based on a centralized intervention that aims to balance high economic growth with an effort to limit its
environmental and social impacts.
A third route would be to favor security to respond to civil disorders and external threats: a significant effort would then be devoted to security. Finally, the fourth option is one in which society chooses environmental sustainability and equity, with citizens playing an active role.
Modeling allows the influence on the environment of each one of these scenarios to be measured in terms of energy consumption, polluting emissions, the type of agricultural activity, water extractions and numerous other parameters.
The last scenario (sustainability) appears preferable from a social and ecological point of view, while the first scenario (privatization), although it assures the strongest growth, also manifests an environmental impact deemed unbearable, all while generating ever-greater social inequalities. In that case, "the environment and society rapidly reach, even cross over the tipping point."
The scenarios that are less bad for the environment are not exempt from flaws, however: the second scenario, which favors a strong policy intervention, may generate bureaucracy; the fourth, which emphasizes sustainability, demands that much time be devoted to cooperation among actors. And they do not guarantee a carefree future: in all these cases, "climate change and the loss of biodiversity will remain significant challenges."
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Canada's Rich Not Contributing Fair Share in Taxes: CCPA Study
CANADA'S RICH NOT CONTRIBUTING FAIR SHARE IN TAXES: STUDY
TORONTO – More than a decade's worth of tax cuts have disproportionately lined the pockets of Canada's most affluent families, says a new tax study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The study finds the top 1 percent of families in 2005 paid a lower total tax rate than the bottom 10 percent of families.
"Canada's tax system now fails a basic test of fairness," says Marc Lee, senior economist with the CCPA's B.C. office and author of the study. "Tax cuts have contributed to a slow and steady shift to a less progressive tax system in Canada."
The study, which is the first comprehensive review of tax changes at all levels of government in Canada within the past 15 years, finds the system is delivering larger tax savings for high income families. This reinforces the growing gap in market incomes between high income families and the rest of Canadians.
"Most Canadians will be surprised by these findings because they believe we have a progressive tax system – but looking at all taxes combined, that's no longer the case."
The study, Eroding Tax Fairness: Tax Incidence in Canada, 1990 to 2005, is available at http://nl1630.policyalternatives.ca.
TORONTO – More than a decade's worth of tax cuts have disproportionately lined the pockets of Canada's most affluent families, says a new tax study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The study finds the top 1 percent of families in 2005 paid a lower total tax rate than the bottom 10 percent of families.
"Canada's tax system now fails a basic test of fairness," says Marc Lee, senior economist with the CCPA's B.C. office and author of the study. "Tax cuts have contributed to a slow and steady shift to a less progressive tax system in Canada."
The study, which is the first comprehensive review of tax changes at all levels of government in Canada within the past 15 years, finds the system is delivering larger tax savings for high income families. This reinforces the growing gap in market incomes between high income families and the rest of Canadians.
"Most Canadians will be surprised by these findings because they believe we have a progressive tax system – but looking at all taxes combined, that's no longer the case."
The study, Eroding Tax Fairness: Tax Incidence in Canada, 1990 to 2005, is available at http://nl1630.policyalternatives.ca.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
LABOUR DAY SEPTEMBER 2007: Reviving the Labour Movement Through Reviving Class Solidarity
by Socialist Project Labour Committee
As Canada and Ontario's labour movement marches in this year's Labour Day Parade it does so with something to celebrate: an increase in the provincial minimum wage. That victory, all the more significant for victories being so rare in recent times, was partial – amongst other things it is only being phased in over three years – but all victories for working people are partial. Why this achievement merits special celebration is that:
- It materially matters for hundreds of thousands of workers.
- It demonstrated the exciting possibilities of creating spaces through which immigrant workers and youth could express their frustrations and mobilize to improve their conditions.
- It opened a new door through which the unionized labour movement – in various stages of crisis since the Days of Action – might be revived: supporting the struggles of non-union workers because it is both the morally right thing to do and because it contributes to uniting and building the working class as a potential social force agent.
What next?
That victory poses a number of questions. First what will the labour movement now do to build on this momentum? One option is to move on to fight for improvements in other standards (such as paid time off). Another is to raise the ante and get unionization itself more clearly on the agenda. New minimum standards are themselves an opportunity to do so because in many cases, these minimum standards are not enforced. And so there is a powerful opening for the need for a union just to get what the law allegedly guarantees you. A further campaign might be to take on the 'temp agencies' – parasites that live off the back of workers – and restore this function to public agencies providing a social service.
Second, having experienced the potentials of collective action at the community level, how can the labour movement strengthen these capacities? One step is internal: if we really want to make some organizing breakthroughs, we will have to overcome our sectionalism (divisions over who 'gets' new members) and develop an effective degree of cooperation that puts workers and the movement first. Another is external to formal unionism: there are groups like the Workers Action Center in Toronto that currently provide services to non-union workers (and have been long-time activists in the struggle for raising the minimum wage); they should be encouraged and supported in expanding their work.
What about the people on welfare?
A third question relates to the shameful conditions of those members of the working class who, for various reasons, are currently not in the workforce or only marginally attached and who consequently depend on welfare. Welfare rates are today 40% lower in purchasing power than they were when the Conservative government launched its own version of the 'War on Poverty' in the mid-90s (and they were hardly overgenerous before then). This too must be of fundamental concern to all working people simply because of the injustice it exposes in how we treat those with disabilities, single mothers trying to raise a family on their own (poverty rates are stunningly higher for women and 280,000 Ontario children live in families who rely on social assistance), and workers who have been laid off (such as those now benefiting from the higher minimum wage but at risk of not getting full-year employment or seeing rising housing prices and the lack of affordable housing eroding any gain they thought they made). Furthermore, the low standards brought on by unemployment represent pressures to stay at any job, no matter how poor the pay and conditions and no matter how sick you might be. And this can't help but increase pressures on standards for other workers.
A coalition of anti-poverty and related groups is planning a protest this fall (September 26) to profile their plight as the Ontario election takes place. Their goal is to 'raise the rates' (bring the $10 minimum wage forward and return welfare and disability rates to their former levels with a 40% increase), build affordable and accessible housing, and access without fear to government services for non-status immigrants. This coalition – Toronto Anti-Poverty (TAP) – is committed to continuing that struggle after the election. For organized labour, the question is where do we stand? Will we identify the fight against poverty as not just a matter of charity, but a dimension of solidarity against all the manifestations of exploitation and injustice working people experience?
We have no alternative
It is crucial, in all our struggles, to recognize that we are not simply fighting against 'bad policies', but something deeper. Governments seem to have concluded that capitalism in its present phase can only reach and maintain the profits it needs by: a) limiting 'diversions' to those not in the labour market and therefore not contributing to profits; and b) keeping those in the labour market insecure and fragmented from each other – insecure about their jobs, increasingly cut off from essential services, and struggling to survive on their own rather than collectively. This will not be fundamentally changed unless we can mobilize in a way that scares them the way they have worked so hard to scare us. Real change will only come if we reject their cramped and debilitating vision of what is possible and develop the solidarity, structures and capacities to move towards an alternative vision. Their own mantra of 'there is no alternative' within capitalism is essentially an admission that capitalism has itself become a barrier to human progress and that we 'have no alternative' but to challenge capitalism itself. •
This article was originally published in The Bullet, a Socialist Project e-bulletin.
Friday, September 7, 2007
TORONTO STAR: Public historically cool to faith-based funding
Doug Hart and D.W. Livingstone
September 06, 2007
Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory's new position on funding all faith-based schools is a poor fit with public opinion.
In 20 years of polling, we have never found more than a minority in favour of any extension of public funding to private schools.
Moreover, the views of this minority do not privilege faith-based schools but prefer funding extended to all private or independent schools meeting provincial standards.
Since 1984, the OISE Survey of Educational Issues has asked Ontarians every two years about extending public funding beyond the current public and Catholic systems. In 10 separate surveys over this period, support for funding religious schools has only once reached 10 per cent (in 1992) and has usually languished at between 4 per cent and 7 per cent. In contrast, support for extending funding to all private schools has fluctuated between 17 per cent and 27 per cent.
In 2004, the last year for which specific data are available (a different question was used in our soon-to-be released 2007 survey), 7 per cent favoured government funding of religious schools but 20 per cent wanted financial support extended to all private schools. This strongly suggests that among the minority who favour extended funding, the key issue is parental choice, not equity among faith communities. (In 2000, in the wake of the United Nations Human Rights Committee finding that Ontario's policy of funding Catholic schools but not other denominational schools was discriminatory under international human rights provisions, we asked people their preference if they were forced to choose between funding schools for all religious groups or no
religious groups, including Catholics. Forced to choose on this basis, the public split down the middle: 46 per cent to fund all religious schools, 47 per cent to fund none.)
Overall, willingness to extend funding at all to private schools has been and remains a distinct minority position. Between 1984 and 2004, support has fluctuated between 25 per cent and 35 per cent. Most Ontarians continue to support either a single public system or the status quo of public and Catholic systems.
The split between these options has fluctuated over time but neither option alone has ever come close to commanding majority support.
Since full funding was extended to Catholic schools by the Conservative government in 1984, around 40 per cent have supported this option. Support for funding a single public school system, with Catholic schools converted into it or losing their public funding, has hovered around 30 per cent.
Our 2007 survey uses a more general question (suitable for the national survey conducted with the Canadian Education Association this year) asking whether only currently funded public schools or all public and private schools should receive funding. In Ontario, we find 58 per cent in favour of currently funded public schools and 39 per cent willing to extend funding to all public and private schools.
The Conservative party proposal is in line with public thinking in making acceptance of the provincial curriculum, province-wide testing and teachers certified by the Ontario College of Teachers necessary conditions for public funding.
There is widespread unanimity on these conditions among all political parties and the general public. In 2002, when the issue was tax credits for parents of private school students, the OISE
survey asked whether the public agreed or disagreed that to be eligible for the tax credit system private schools should have to accept each of those three conditions. The overwhelming
majority (around 80 per cent) agreed that all three should be conditions for eligibility.
The whole issue of which schools should be funded is caught in a long-term gridlock as far as public support is concerned. There is no consensus on any basic option – a single public system, the status quo or extending funding to all private schools.
Hence, there is no net public pressure for change. The current Conservative policy to fund faith-based private schools charts a course through a political landscape at odds with most public opinion on the issue.
If politicians are going over this ground again, they might pause to check that their maps take account of the landscape as the electorate actually sees it.
Finally, while strong views on each of these options surely will be expressed in the current election, it should be kept in mind that whatever their views on extended school funding, Ontarians show similarly strong support for greater government funding of elementary and secondary education, and a willingness to accept higher taxes to improve public education.
In groups of all religious persuasions there is a similar acceptance of the need to improve the resource base for public schools.
Doug Hart and D.W. Livingstone are authors of Public Attitudes Towards Education on Ontario 2007: the 16th OISE/UT Survey.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
September 06, 2007
Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory's new position on funding all faith-based schools is a poor fit with public opinion.
In 20 years of polling, we have never found more than a minority in favour of any extension of public funding to private schools.
Moreover, the views of this minority do not privilege faith-based schools but prefer funding extended to all private or independent schools meeting provincial standards.
Since 1984, the OISE Survey of Educational Issues has asked Ontarians every two years about extending public funding beyond the current public and Catholic systems. In 10 separate surveys over this period, support for funding religious schools has only once reached 10 per cent (in 1992) and has usually languished at between 4 per cent and 7 per cent. In contrast, support for extending funding to all private schools has fluctuated between 17 per cent and 27 per cent.
In 2004, the last year for which specific data are available (a different question was used in our soon-to-be released 2007 survey), 7 per cent favoured government funding of religious schools but 20 per cent wanted financial support extended to all private schools. This strongly suggests that among the minority who favour extended funding, the key issue is parental choice, not equity among faith communities. (In 2000, in the wake of the United Nations Human Rights Committee finding that Ontario's policy of funding Catholic schools but not other denominational schools was discriminatory under international human rights provisions, we asked people their preference if they were forced to choose between funding schools for all religious groups or no
religious groups, including Catholics. Forced to choose on this basis, the public split down the middle: 46 per cent to fund all religious schools, 47 per cent to fund none.)
Overall, willingness to extend funding at all to private schools has been and remains a distinct minority position. Between 1984 and 2004, support has fluctuated between 25 per cent and 35 per cent. Most Ontarians continue to support either a single public system or the status quo of public and Catholic systems.
The split between these options has fluctuated over time but neither option alone has ever come close to commanding majority support.
Since full funding was extended to Catholic schools by the Conservative government in 1984, around 40 per cent have supported this option. Support for funding a single public school system, with Catholic schools converted into it or losing their public funding, has hovered around 30 per cent.
Our 2007 survey uses a more general question (suitable for the national survey conducted with the Canadian Education Association this year) asking whether only currently funded public schools or all public and private schools should receive funding. In Ontario, we find 58 per cent in favour of currently funded public schools and 39 per cent willing to extend funding to all public and private schools.
The Conservative party proposal is in line with public thinking in making acceptance of the provincial curriculum, province-wide testing and teachers certified by the Ontario College of Teachers necessary conditions for public funding.
There is widespread unanimity on these conditions among all political parties and the general public. In 2002, when the issue was tax credits for parents of private school students, the OISE
survey asked whether the public agreed or disagreed that to be eligible for the tax credit system private schools should have to accept each of those three conditions. The overwhelming
majority (around 80 per cent) agreed that all three should be conditions for eligibility.
The whole issue of which schools should be funded is caught in a long-term gridlock as far as public support is concerned. There is no consensus on any basic option – a single public system, the status quo or extending funding to all private schools.
Hence, there is no net public pressure for change. The current Conservative policy to fund faith-based private schools charts a course through a political landscape at odds with most public opinion on the issue.
If politicians are going over this ground again, they might pause to check that their maps take account of the landscape as the electorate actually sees it.
Finally, while strong views on each of these options surely will be expressed in the current election, it should be kept in mind that whatever their views on extended school funding, Ontarians show similarly strong support for greater government funding of elementary and secondary education, and a willingness to accept higher taxes to improve public education.
In groups of all religious persuasions there is a similar acceptance of the need to improve the resource base for public schools.
Doug Hart and D.W. Livingstone are authors of Public Attitudes Towards Education on Ontario 2007: the 16th OISE/UT Survey.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
TORONTO STAR: Textbooks economical with words about co-ops
Jack Quarter, Daniel Schugurensky, Erica McCollum and Laurie Mook
Sep 5, 2007
A recent study conducted through the Social Economy Centre at the University of Toronto raises questions about the narrow focus of business and economics textbooks in Ontario's high schools.
The research by professor Daniel Schugurensky and MA student Erica McCollum of OISE/ University of Toronto, examined the contents of 22 business textbooks containing 11,375 pages currently used in Ontario high schools.
In general, these textbooks had very little about non-profits and co-operatives.
When all of the materials referring to co-operatives were totalled, they amounted to 35 pages, or 0.3 per cent of the 11,375 pages in the 22 books.
For non-profits, this amounted to 107 pages, or 0.9 per cent of the total pages. In other words, there is not a lot about these types of organizations within the business texts used in Ontario high schools.
A similar study in 1995 (by professor Jack Quarter and then PhD student Alison Davidson also of OISE/UT), upon which the current study was based, had strikingly similar findings.
Not much has changed in the past 12 years with regard to the treatment of co-operatives and non-profits in business textbooks in Ontario.
Do these types of organizations have a place in business textbooks and business programs?
Arguably, these organizations are not in the mainstream of the business world, but they do have a significant impact upon the economy. A survey of the non-profit sector undertaken by Statistics Canada in 2003 (the National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations) found that there were 161,000 incorporated non-profits in Canada, about half of which had charitable status registrations.
The same survey estimated that non-profits had revenues of $112 billion, employ 2 million people (54 per cent full-time), and have a volunteer labour force estimated to be another 1 million full-time equivalent jobs (about 2 billion hours).
The stereotype of non-profits is that their revenues are unearned (donations and grants), but the Statistics Canada survey indicates that 35 per cent is earned through the marketplace; in fact, there are a significant number of non-profits that compete successfully in the market with private sector firms (for example, the YMCAs).
Likewise, the stereotype of co-operatives as small and economically insignificant is belied by the data. For instance, the Co-operatives Secretariat, a federal government agency, reported that in 2003 approximately 9,200 co-operatives brought in $35.8 billion of revenues and employed around 155,000.
Agriculture co-operatives, although having declined in importance due to the demutualization of some of the largest ones, were still marketing and processing a large share of farmers' production, notably in poultry, dairy and hogs. Two co-operatives are among the top 12 corporations in the food and beverage-manufacturing sector in Canada.
Moreover, eight non-financial co-operatives are among the top 500 corporations in Canada; two of these are among the top 100 corporations.
Le Mouvement des caisses Desjardins, the umbrella organization for credit unions/caisses populaires in francophone Canada, is the largest employer in Quebec and, with a workforce of more than 39,000, is the sixth largest financial institution in Canada with assets of $118 billion in 2005.
These organizations, a group that we classify as part of the social economy, provide flexible, sustainable and innovative approaches to achieving social and economic objectives.
Although they are not the mainstream of the economy, they employ and train people, create economic growth, provide social support, foster community development, and have valuable assets.
Furthermore, they mobilize large numbers of volunteers who contribute to these organizations but whose contributions are typically ignored in conventional accounting.
These organizations are critical to our diverse Canadian landscape, yet the business and economics textbooks of our high-school students and future leaders are strikingly silent about them.
Our research has focused upon the approved textbooks in Ontario's high school business and economics courses.
We haven't reviewed the major business programs in universities, but we know the terrain there is also relatively barren. Something is missing!
Jack Quarter and Laurie Mook are co-directors of the Social Economy Centre at the University of Toronto; Daniel Schugurensky is director of the collaborative graduate program in community development at the University of Toronto, and Erica McCollum is completing her MA at OISE/UT.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Sep 5, 2007
A recent study conducted through the Social Economy Centre at the University of Toronto raises questions about the narrow focus of business and economics textbooks in Ontario's high schools.
The research by professor Daniel Schugurensky and MA student Erica McCollum of OISE/ University of Toronto, examined the contents of 22 business textbooks containing 11,375 pages currently used in Ontario high schools.
In general, these textbooks had very little about non-profits and co-operatives.
When all of the materials referring to co-operatives were totalled, they amounted to 35 pages, or 0.3 per cent of the 11,375 pages in the 22 books.
For non-profits, this amounted to 107 pages, or 0.9 per cent of the total pages. In other words, there is not a lot about these types of organizations within the business texts used in Ontario high schools.
A similar study in 1995 (by professor Jack Quarter and then PhD student Alison Davidson also of OISE/UT), upon which the current study was based, had strikingly similar findings.
Not much has changed in the past 12 years with regard to the treatment of co-operatives and non-profits in business textbooks in Ontario.
Do these types of organizations have a place in business textbooks and business programs?
Arguably, these organizations are not in the mainstream of the business world, but they do have a significant impact upon the economy. A survey of the non-profit sector undertaken by Statistics Canada in 2003 (the National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations) found that there were 161,000 incorporated non-profits in Canada, about half of which had charitable status registrations.
The same survey estimated that non-profits had revenues of $112 billion, employ 2 million people (54 per cent full-time), and have a volunteer labour force estimated to be another 1 million full-time equivalent jobs (about 2 billion hours).
The stereotype of non-profits is that their revenues are unearned (donations and grants), but the Statistics Canada survey indicates that 35 per cent is earned through the marketplace; in fact, there are a significant number of non-profits that compete successfully in the market with private sector firms (for example, the YMCAs).
Likewise, the stereotype of co-operatives as small and economically insignificant is belied by the data. For instance, the Co-operatives Secretariat, a federal government agency, reported that in 2003 approximately 9,200 co-operatives brought in $35.8 billion of revenues and employed around 155,000.
Agriculture co-operatives, although having declined in importance due to the demutualization of some of the largest ones, were still marketing and processing a large share of farmers' production, notably in poultry, dairy and hogs. Two co-operatives are among the top 12 corporations in the food and beverage-manufacturing sector in Canada.
Moreover, eight non-financial co-operatives are among the top 500 corporations in Canada; two of these are among the top 100 corporations.
Le Mouvement des caisses Desjardins, the umbrella organization for credit unions/caisses populaires in francophone Canada, is the largest employer in Quebec and, with a workforce of more than 39,000, is the sixth largest financial institution in Canada with assets of $118 billion in 2005.
These organizations, a group that we classify as part of the social economy, provide flexible, sustainable and innovative approaches to achieving social and economic objectives.
Although they are not the mainstream of the economy, they employ and train people, create economic growth, provide social support, foster community development, and have valuable assets.
Furthermore, they mobilize large numbers of volunteers who contribute to these organizations but whose contributions are typically ignored in conventional accounting.
These organizations are critical to our diverse Canadian landscape, yet the business and economics textbooks of our high-school students and future leaders are strikingly silent about them.
Our research has focused upon the approved textbooks in Ontario's high school business and economics courses.
We haven't reviewed the major business programs in universities, but we know the terrain there is also relatively barren. Something is missing!
Jack Quarter and Laurie Mook are co-directors of the Social Economy Centre at the University of Toronto; Daniel Schugurensky is director of the collaborative graduate program in community development at the University of Toronto, and Erica McCollum is completing her MA at OISE/UT.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
THE CRISIS IN MANUFACTURING JOBS: STRUGGLING FOR ANSWERS
by Labour Committee, Socialist Project
The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), spurred on by initiatives from the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), United Steelworkers (USW) and Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), has moved to place Canada’s devastating loss of manufacturing jobs on the national agenda.
Judging from the CAW, where the campaign has, by spring 2007, been more developed, the enthusiastic membership response seems to have breathed some new life and hope into the union. It is clear that a good many local leaders, disheartened with the never-ending demands of concessions and frustrated with waiting for the next corporate threat or devastating announcement, have been anxious for such fightback campaigns.
But will the campaigns deliver?
Read more: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet050.html
The Socialist Project seeks to bring together individual workers and intellectuals, as well as groups and movements, who share an anti-capitalist orientation. Our intent is to offer some hopefully constructive ideas, and contribute to an open discussion with labour activists about how we can move ahead.
The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), spurred on by initiatives from the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), United Steelworkers (USW) and Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), has moved to place Canada’s devastating loss of manufacturing jobs on the national agenda.
Judging from the CAW, where the campaign has, by spring 2007, been more developed, the enthusiastic membership response seems to have breathed some new life and hope into the union. It is clear that a good many local leaders, disheartened with the never-ending demands of concessions and frustrated with waiting for the next corporate threat or devastating announcement, have been anxious for such fightback campaigns.
But will the campaigns deliver?
Read more: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet050.html
The Socialist Project seeks to bring together individual workers and intellectuals, as well as groups and movements, who share an anti-capitalist orientation. Our intent is to offer some hopefully constructive ideas, and contribute to an open discussion with labour activists about how we can move ahead.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Voice Your Choice in the Corporate Hall of Shame 2007!
Which of these corporations are the most abusive, manipulative and harmful? You decide.
Vote for the three nominees that deserve to be inducted this year—or use your votes to write in another corporate candidate. You can even post comments about why these corporations should be inducted. We’ll announce the three new inductees in June, so check back then, but vote now and spread the word to other voters.
Corporate Hall of Shame
Vote for the three nominees that deserve to be inducted this year—or use your votes to write in another corporate candidate. You can even post comments about why these corporations should be inducted. We’ll announce the three new inductees in June, so check back then, but vote now and spread the word to other voters.
Corporate Hall of Shame
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
May Day Alert: Only Global Unions Can Stop the Race to the Bottom
By Stephen Lerner, AlterNet
Posted on May 1, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/50495/
Editor's note: Stephen Lerner is a veteran union organizer with the Service Employees' International Union (SEIU) who headed the Justice for Janitors campaign. This is adapted from an article that originally appeared in the winter 2007 issue of the New Labor Forum.
At no time in history has there been a greater urgency or opportunity to form real global unions whose goal is to organize tens of millions of workers to win economic and social justice by counterbalancing global corporations on the world stage even as the power of the state declines.
Global labor solidarity, as currently practiced, is failing and will continue to fail in the face of the growing power of global corporations and the declining power of the state. Instead, global unions need to be formed whose purpose is to unite workers to negotiate global agreements with global corporations. The property services sector, which includes janitors and security officers, has many of the critical characteristics and immediate conditions needed to organize a true global union, and provides an important, but not unique, model of how a global union is possible. Globalization is creating change at an even faster pace than during industrialization. We need to understand how it is reshaping workers' lives and power around the globe, so that instead of being swept away by globalization, we can harness it to transform ourselves and the world. To win real power, workers and their unions need to build a movement defined not by what we are against, but by what we are for: a movement inspired by hope for a better world and a plan to achieve it. Anything else puts unions at risk of becoming as irrelevant as those who opposed industrialization in the hope of defending artisans and small craftsman.
Understanding globalization: the world is tilting
The world is tilting away from workers and unions and the traditional ways they've fought for and won justice -- away from the power of national governments, national unions, national solutions and government institutions developed to facilitate and regulate globalization. It is tilting toward global trade, giant global corporations, global solutions, and toward Asia, especially China and India. We can no longer depend on influencing bureaucratic global institutions, like the ILO, or fighting the entities that ultimately are accountable to or controlled by global corporations, like the WTO. Workers and their unions need to use their still-formidable power to counter the power of global corporations before the world tilts so far that unions are washed away, impoverishing workers who currently have unions and trapping workers who don't in ever-deeper poverty. The power equation needs to be balanced before democratic rule and institutions are destroyed.
Tilting toward global corporations
Since the formation of early global companies, like the English East India Co. (1600) and the Dutch East India Co. (1602), multinationals have spread around the world. In 1600 there were 500 global corporations. In 1914, there were 3,000; in 1992, 30,400; and by 2000, the total number of global corporations had ballooned to 63,000. Today, they are bigger and more powerful than ever before and no longer allegiant to the country in which they were born or are now headquartered.
As multinationals have grown, wealth and capital have become increasingly concentrated. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 52 are not nations -- they are global corporations (see here for data). The problem isn't that corporations operate in more than one country -- it is that multinational corporations are so powerful that they increasingly dominate what happens in whole countries, hemispheres and the entire globe.
Tilting away from the state
For 150 years, trade unionists and progressives have viewed influencing and trying to gain control of the state as central to any strategy of winning a more just society. National governments still have enormous influence, but their power is diminishing every day.
As corporations grow in power, the state will find it increasingly difficult to mediate their behavior to protect workers and their unions. The state must be pressured now to act as a vehicle that can assist unions in gaining the ability to deal directly with multinational corporations both in their own countries and across the globe. This is a crucial distinction. Instead of depending on national governments to control global corporations, as states become weaker and corporations stronger, we need to pursue a strategy that anticipates the continued decline of state power and works to rebuild workers' strength today so we can deal independently and directly with global corporations in the future. We need to do so quickly, while states still have some power to regulate corporate behavior.
Tilting away from national unions
As global corporations grow and state power declines, national unions are shrinking in membership and power. Union density is down across the globe. From 1970 to 2000, 17 out of 20 countries surveyed by the OECD had experienced a decline in union density. Though many of these countries experienced an increase during the 1970s and 1980s, density declined in the 1990s. While the specifics and timing are different in each country, what is remarkable over the last 30 years is how similar the story and the results are. No country, no matter how strong its labor movement or progressive its history, is immune from these global trends. Density is starting to decline in Scandinavia, South Africa, Brazil, and South Korea, countries that until recently had stable or growing labor movements. In France, general strikes and mass worker and student mobilizations have slowed the rollback of workers' rights, but these are defensive strikes desperately trying to maintain standards that workers in surrounding countries are losing.
In country after country, unions began declining from their peak at first slowly, and then more and more quickly. As density declined, so has the ability to protect both collective bargaining and legislative gains.
The antidote to global corporations: global unions
Why aren't there global unions? For 150 years much of the argument for global unions has been abstract, theoretical and ideological. The simple argument was: Capitalism is global, therefore worker organizations should be too.
However, even though capitalism was global, the reality was most employers weren't. Theoretically, workers were stronger if united worldwide, but the day-to-day reality of unionized workers enabled them to win in developed and some developing countries through organizing and bargaining and using the power of governments to help them. Unionized workers saw workers in other countries as potential competition for their jobs rather than their allies. There was not an immediate, compelling reason or pressure to go beyond national boundaries. It is an ironic twist of history that globalization is itself creating the greatest opportunity to organize global unions among the poorest and least-skilled workers employed in the historically least organized sectors of the world economy, which are increasingly dominated by giant corporations. Even as manufacturing and mobile jobs, aided by new technology, are being shifted and dispersed around the globe, the infrastructure of the FIRE sector (finance, insurance and real estate) and the jobs needed to support it are increasingly concentrated in some 40 global cities.
These economic hubs directly depend on these service jobs, dramatically increasing the potential power of these workers. It is among the most invisible and seemingly powerless workers that we can build a global movement, reinvigorate trade unions, and face global corporations with genuinely countervailing power sufficiently strong to ensure that workers have the chance to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty. This is not to argue that global unions can't be formed in manufacturing or other sectors characterized by mobile jobs, but instead to say that at this time in history the opportunity is greatest in service jobs based in cities that are driving the world economy.
Starting in property services
As sociologist Saskia Sassen has pointed out, the increasing scope and complexity of the global economy leads multinational corporations to massive growth in the demand for services (legal, accounting, insurance, real estate, etc.) by firms in all industries. These service firms tend to gather in 40 to 50 "global" cities. In some ways, these global cities act as "engine rooms" for multinational corporations, or as Sassen puts it, they are the "sites for concrete operations of the global economies." The concentration of service firms also leads to a massive disparity in wealth in these cities, an increase in the number of blue-collar jobs, such as janitors, mechanics and security officers, and an increase in the numbers of immigrants and minorities. As Sassen states, we can think of these cities "as one key place where the contradictions of the internationalization of capital either come to rest or to conflict." Ironically, the poorest and least skilled workers employed by global corporations in these cities may be in the best position to challenge growing corporate dominance.
Companies that clean, secure, and maintain commercial, residential and other properties around the globe comprise an industry that annually grosses more than $170 billion, and multinational property services companies directly employ more than 3 million workers.
Property Services allows us to organize in a global industry that offers unique opportunities to build off the strengths of both existing unions and movements for justice in the world as part of a new movement for global fairness and equality. The 3 million workers directly employed by property service multinational corporations can provide the platform to strengthen and expand existing unions and to organize and establish new unions in cities and countries where they don't exist. Strengthened by agreements with global multinationals, national unions can expand their unions, uniting workers employed by smaller local employers as part of a broader strategy of uniting a majority of property services workers on a national and global level.
The plan: a new global union movement
Global unions should be true international unions rather than unions that operate in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico and call themselves internationals. They must organize workers and negotiate contracts to raise living and working standards across the globe. They need to focus on organizing and negotiating agreements with global companies, while they support and help organize companies and workers within national borders. They must be global unions that grow to amass real power, so they are not relegated to making policy suggestions, but have the strength to negotiate with the entities that set the rules under which global corporations operate.
There were tremendous obstacles to birthing national unions within one country: battles over leadership, balancing local versus national interests, protecting democracy locally while making decisions and governing nationally. And so will it be in forming global unions. Nationalism is growing in some countries, and unions from the United States are viewed with suspicion because of their past ties to the CIA. National unions worry about loss of autonomy. These issues and many more create greater obstacles to forming global unions than workers faced in forming national unions.
The world economy has changed and is integrating globally. To have a meaningful role in the 21st century, we must create true global unions whose vision, goals, purpose and governance combine national interests in the same way that national unions were formed in the 20th century. The global unions that result must be capable of coordinating, directing and transferring power and resources to counter the power of global corporations. Experience makes it abundantly clear that this isn't possible by just federating national unions whose primary mission, resource allocation and internal political identity are limited to one country. Global corporations don't subordinate their interest to individual countries and neither can workers. Either through the transformation of existing institutions or by creating new ones, workers need unions that unite them globally to increase their power, instead of fighting global corporations from a position of weakness and with limited coordination on a country-by-country basis.
In addition, the mission and goals of global unions cannot be limited to just economic improvements. To unite hundreds of millions of workers and build support for global unionism, global unions must be part of a campaign to protect and expand democracy in the face of worldwide megacorporations. Global unions must be seen as and be part of global campaigns for economic and social justice. Their mission and role is nothing less than to replace the declining power of the state with global unions as the equal and counterbalance to global corporations on the world stage. And the time to start is now.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/50495/
Posted on May 1, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/50495/
Editor's note: Stephen Lerner is a veteran union organizer with the Service Employees' International Union (SEIU) who headed the Justice for Janitors campaign. This is adapted from an article that originally appeared in the winter 2007 issue of the New Labor Forum.
At no time in history has there been a greater urgency or opportunity to form real global unions whose goal is to organize tens of millions of workers to win economic and social justice by counterbalancing global corporations on the world stage even as the power of the state declines.
Global labor solidarity, as currently practiced, is failing and will continue to fail in the face of the growing power of global corporations and the declining power of the state. Instead, global unions need to be formed whose purpose is to unite workers to negotiate global agreements with global corporations. The property services sector, which includes janitors and security officers, has many of the critical characteristics and immediate conditions needed to organize a true global union, and provides an important, but not unique, model of how a global union is possible. Globalization is creating change at an even faster pace than during industrialization. We need to understand how it is reshaping workers' lives and power around the globe, so that instead of being swept away by globalization, we can harness it to transform ourselves and the world. To win real power, workers and their unions need to build a movement defined not by what we are against, but by what we are for: a movement inspired by hope for a better world and a plan to achieve it. Anything else puts unions at risk of becoming as irrelevant as those who opposed industrialization in the hope of defending artisans and small craftsman.
Understanding globalization: the world is tilting
The world is tilting away from workers and unions and the traditional ways they've fought for and won justice -- away from the power of national governments, national unions, national solutions and government institutions developed to facilitate and regulate globalization. It is tilting toward global trade, giant global corporations, global solutions, and toward Asia, especially China and India. We can no longer depend on influencing bureaucratic global institutions, like the ILO, or fighting the entities that ultimately are accountable to or controlled by global corporations, like the WTO. Workers and their unions need to use their still-formidable power to counter the power of global corporations before the world tilts so far that unions are washed away, impoverishing workers who currently have unions and trapping workers who don't in ever-deeper poverty. The power equation needs to be balanced before democratic rule and institutions are destroyed.
Tilting toward global corporations
Since the formation of early global companies, like the English East India Co. (1600) and the Dutch East India Co. (1602), multinationals have spread around the world. In 1600 there were 500 global corporations. In 1914, there were 3,000; in 1992, 30,400; and by 2000, the total number of global corporations had ballooned to 63,000. Today, they are bigger and more powerful than ever before and no longer allegiant to the country in which they were born or are now headquartered.
As multinationals have grown, wealth and capital have become increasingly concentrated. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 52 are not nations -- they are global corporations (see here for data). The problem isn't that corporations operate in more than one country -- it is that multinational corporations are so powerful that they increasingly dominate what happens in whole countries, hemispheres and the entire globe.
Tilting away from the state
For 150 years, trade unionists and progressives have viewed influencing and trying to gain control of the state as central to any strategy of winning a more just society. National governments still have enormous influence, but their power is diminishing every day.
As corporations grow in power, the state will find it increasingly difficult to mediate their behavior to protect workers and their unions. The state must be pressured now to act as a vehicle that can assist unions in gaining the ability to deal directly with multinational corporations both in their own countries and across the globe. This is a crucial distinction. Instead of depending on national governments to control global corporations, as states become weaker and corporations stronger, we need to pursue a strategy that anticipates the continued decline of state power and works to rebuild workers' strength today so we can deal independently and directly with global corporations in the future. We need to do so quickly, while states still have some power to regulate corporate behavior.
Tilting away from national unions
As global corporations grow and state power declines, national unions are shrinking in membership and power. Union density is down across the globe. From 1970 to 2000, 17 out of 20 countries surveyed by the OECD had experienced a decline in union density. Though many of these countries experienced an increase during the 1970s and 1980s, density declined in the 1990s. While the specifics and timing are different in each country, what is remarkable over the last 30 years is how similar the story and the results are. No country, no matter how strong its labor movement or progressive its history, is immune from these global trends. Density is starting to decline in Scandinavia, South Africa, Brazil, and South Korea, countries that until recently had stable or growing labor movements. In France, general strikes and mass worker and student mobilizations have slowed the rollback of workers' rights, but these are defensive strikes desperately trying to maintain standards that workers in surrounding countries are losing.
In country after country, unions began declining from their peak at first slowly, and then more and more quickly. As density declined, so has the ability to protect both collective bargaining and legislative gains.
The antidote to global corporations: global unions
Why aren't there global unions? For 150 years much of the argument for global unions has been abstract, theoretical and ideological. The simple argument was: Capitalism is global, therefore worker organizations should be too.
However, even though capitalism was global, the reality was most employers weren't. Theoretically, workers were stronger if united worldwide, but the day-to-day reality of unionized workers enabled them to win in developed and some developing countries through organizing and bargaining and using the power of governments to help them. Unionized workers saw workers in other countries as potential competition for their jobs rather than their allies. There was not an immediate, compelling reason or pressure to go beyond national boundaries. It is an ironic twist of history that globalization is itself creating the greatest opportunity to organize global unions among the poorest and least-skilled workers employed in the historically least organized sectors of the world economy, which are increasingly dominated by giant corporations. Even as manufacturing and mobile jobs, aided by new technology, are being shifted and dispersed around the globe, the infrastructure of the FIRE sector (finance, insurance and real estate) and the jobs needed to support it are increasingly concentrated in some 40 global cities.
These economic hubs directly depend on these service jobs, dramatically increasing the potential power of these workers. It is among the most invisible and seemingly powerless workers that we can build a global movement, reinvigorate trade unions, and face global corporations with genuinely countervailing power sufficiently strong to ensure that workers have the chance to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty. This is not to argue that global unions can't be formed in manufacturing or other sectors characterized by mobile jobs, but instead to say that at this time in history the opportunity is greatest in service jobs based in cities that are driving the world economy.
Starting in property services
As sociologist Saskia Sassen has pointed out, the increasing scope and complexity of the global economy leads multinational corporations to massive growth in the demand for services (legal, accounting, insurance, real estate, etc.) by firms in all industries. These service firms tend to gather in 40 to 50 "global" cities. In some ways, these global cities act as "engine rooms" for multinational corporations, or as Sassen puts it, they are the "sites for concrete operations of the global economies." The concentration of service firms also leads to a massive disparity in wealth in these cities, an increase in the number of blue-collar jobs, such as janitors, mechanics and security officers, and an increase in the numbers of immigrants and minorities. As Sassen states, we can think of these cities "as one key place where the contradictions of the internationalization of capital either come to rest or to conflict." Ironically, the poorest and least skilled workers employed by global corporations in these cities may be in the best position to challenge growing corporate dominance.
Companies that clean, secure, and maintain commercial, residential and other properties around the globe comprise an industry that annually grosses more than $170 billion, and multinational property services companies directly employ more than 3 million workers.
Property Services allows us to organize in a global industry that offers unique opportunities to build off the strengths of both existing unions and movements for justice in the world as part of a new movement for global fairness and equality. The 3 million workers directly employed by property service multinational corporations can provide the platform to strengthen and expand existing unions and to organize and establish new unions in cities and countries where they don't exist. Strengthened by agreements with global multinationals, national unions can expand their unions, uniting workers employed by smaller local employers as part of a broader strategy of uniting a majority of property services workers on a national and global level.
The plan: a new global union movement
Global unions should be true international unions rather than unions that operate in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico and call themselves internationals. They must organize workers and negotiate contracts to raise living and working standards across the globe. They need to focus on organizing and negotiating agreements with global companies, while they support and help organize companies and workers within national borders. They must be global unions that grow to amass real power, so they are not relegated to making policy suggestions, but have the strength to negotiate with the entities that set the rules under which global corporations operate.
There were tremendous obstacles to birthing national unions within one country: battles over leadership, balancing local versus national interests, protecting democracy locally while making decisions and governing nationally. And so will it be in forming global unions. Nationalism is growing in some countries, and unions from the United States are viewed with suspicion because of their past ties to the CIA. National unions worry about loss of autonomy. These issues and many more create greater obstacles to forming global unions than workers faced in forming national unions.
The world economy has changed and is integrating globally. To have a meaningful role in the 21st century, we must create true global unions whose vision, goals, purpose and governance combine national interests in the same way that national unions were formed in the 20th century. The global unions that result must be capable of coordinating, directing and transferring power and resources to counter the power of global corporations. Experience makes it abundantly clear that this isn't possible by just federating national unions whose primary mission, resource allocation and internal political identity are limited to one country. Global corporations don't subordinate their interest to individual countries and neither can workers. Either through the transformation of existing institutions or by creating new ones, workers need unions that unite them globally to increase their power, instead of fighting global corporations from a position of weakness and with limited coordination on a country-by-country basis.
In addition, the mission and goals of global unions cannot be limited to just economic improvements. To unite hundreds of millions of workers and build support for global unionism, global unions must be part of a campaign to protect and expand democracy in the face of worldwide megacorporations. Global unions must be seen as and be part of global campaigns for economic and social justice. Their mission and role is nothing less than to replace the declining power of the state with global unions as the equal and counterbalance to global corporations on the world stage. And the time to start is now.
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/50495/
Monday, April 23, 2007
Colleges Go Light on Women's Pay Inequity
Run Date: 04/23/07
By Hannah Seligson
WeNews correspondent
Some female college grads may be in for a rude awakening. Although they have enjoyed some key measures of parity with men while on campus, new data show they can expect to earn less than male counterparts immediately after graduation.
(WOMENSENEWS)--College women on the brink of graduation this spring may be in for a rude awakening.
While they have enjoyed majority status on campus and graduate with higher grade point averages than their male classmates, young women still conspicuously lag in one crucial area: income earnings immediately after graduation.
The American Association of University Women, the Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, released a report today that finds that one year after college graduation, women make 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn. As women's age increases they fall further behind men. Ten years out of school, women earn 69 percent of what their male peers do.
"We controlled for everything that could have had an effect on earnings," Catherine Hill, director of research at the American Association of University Women, told Women's eNews. "And we still found a wage gap among a demographic that you'd expect there to be very little difference with, given, for the most part, that they don't have caregiving obligations. But surprisingly, and unfortunately, we find that women already earn less; even when they have the same major and occupation as their male counterparts."
Researchers analyzed data of a nationally representative sample of over 19,000 male and female college graduates under the age of 35 and looked at two groups to measure the wage gap over time and to assess the most recent data on college graduates.
The first group received bachelor's degrees in 1992-1993 and was interviewed in 1994, one year after receiving their degrees, and in 2003, a decade after graduation.
The second group earned degrees in 1999-2000 and was interviewed in 2001, one year after receiving their degrees.
The study found that those who received their degrees in 1992-1993 and those who received degrees in 1999-2000 did not have any significant difference in their earnings one year out of school, revealing that the wage gap has remained stagnant over time.
There have been multiple data collection studies to document the gender wage gap by both government agencies and research entities in recent decades; because they vary in methodology and sampling, studies report subtle differences in measuring the gap.
Lack of Campus Interest
Jenni Daniels, 22, a coordinator for student programs at Tulane University in New Orleans and a 2006 Tulane graduate, says the findings are in sync with a ack of interest in the gender wage gap at her school.
"Students just don't often show up to career programs. It's kind of a hard sell," says Daniels. "These women haven't dealt with pay inequity yet, so it seems far removed from their reality."
Daniels says work-force preparation for women often plays second fiddle to issues such as sexual assault and body image. "Those issues feel more immediate to students than careers, in the sense that everyone knows someone who has been sexually assaulted or raped," she says. "How they feel about their bodies is also what these young women are thinking about. Eating disorders are rampant on college campuses."
Lauren Magnuson, 20, a senior at Tulane, says she can't remember a course or conference on campus that has focus on the professional woman. "The majority of speakers who come to campus to talk about careers are men."
Overlooked by Women's Studies
Ann Mari May, a visiting professor of economics at Middlebury College in Vermont, says pay equity is an important topic for young women. "It's estimated that a woman will lose $420,000 over the first 20 years of her career by not negotiating on her first salary."
May says campus interest in pay equity can be subdued because women's studies departments often skirt the subject. "Women's studies departments have lost touch with many day-to-day concerns for women, such as pay equity. It's why feminist economics is still a somewhat marginalized topic."
Kassidy Johnson, a campus organizer for the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Arlington, Va., group dedicated to women's social, political and economic equality, is in touch with dozens of colleges in the South. She agrees that campus programming for women focuses more heavily on sexual assault, emergency contraception and global women's issues.
However, Johnson says interest in pay equity was apparent at the group's recent national leadership meeting for younger women. "Young women want to know how to ask for a raise and negotiate their salary," she says.
University Group Funds 11 Schools
The American Association of University Women, for its part, is pushing women's workplace programming on a few campuses this year.
The group, which has 500 college and university partners nationwide,launched in 2005 a grant-giving program, called Education as the Gateway to Women's Economic Security, to help implement campus-based programs along annual themes.
This year it awarded grants of $5,000 each to 11 colleges to use in a variety of programs that fit the theme of planning for an economically secure future.
Students at the University of Guam in Mangilao, with the support of faculty advisors, are studying how woman-friendly their university is. Roger State University in Claremore, Okla., is offering conferences on nontraditional careers and workshops on salary negotiation and financial management. Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia sponsored a series of events, including an art competition and exhibit, roundtable discussions and a "Women and Work" film festival.
At Middlebury, students used the grant for a three-day symposium in March about women's economic security. Emily Theriault, 22, a senior and one of the co-organizers of the symposium, says it was the first time career issues were raised in such a visible forum in her four years on campus.
"We have been taught to think that because we've gone to a good college that we'll get jobs that pay well," Theriault said. "I've seen some research about Middlebury College graduates, however, and it found that over the past 10 years the majority of high-paying fields--such as finance and consulting--are dominated by male graduates and the women are entering fields that don't pay as well."
Hannah Seligson is a freelance writer based in New York. Her book, "New Girl on the Job," will be published by Citadel Press in June.
Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors@womensenews.org.
For more information:
American Association of University Women Study
Behind the Pay Gap:
http://www.aauw.org/research/statedata/index.cfm
Feminist Campus:
http://www.feministcampus.org/default.asp
Women Don't Ask
Negotiation and the Gender Divide:
http://www.womendontask.com/questions.html
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Corporate Social Responsibility: The Paths Taken by Two Ontario Credit Unions
Panel: Corporate Social Responsibility: The Paths Taken by Two Ontario Credit Unions
Full details at: http://sec.oise.utoronto.ca/english/lectures.php
Scott Windsor, Senior Manager, Corporate and Community Relations and Employee Communications, Meridian Credit Union
Kimberley Ney, Senior Vice President Marketing, Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility, Alterna Savings
Moderator: Denyse Guy, Executive Director, Ontario Co-operative Association
Wednesday, April 25, 2007, 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm.
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
Room 12-199, 12th floor, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto.
Scott Windsor of Meridian Credit Union and Kimberley Ney of Alterna Savings and Credit Union discuss Corporate Responsibility from their credit union perspectives. Scott will discuss the challenges of implementing a new CSR program following his organization's corporate merger. He will focus on the development of Meridian's Good Neighbour Program and the formation and implementation of the credit union's CSR, sponsorship and donation programs. Kimberley will present Alterna Savings' initiatives in community economic development and its role in shaping financial literacy, corporate accountability and environmental sustainability programs. She will share Alterna's perspective on philanthropy, including some unique "twists." Denyse Guy, Executive Director of the Ontario Cooperative Association, will moderate the session.
Bring your lunch and mug. Water, coffee and tea will be provided. To RSVP, or for more information, contact Sherap Winn: (416) 923-6641, ext. 2087 or swinn@oise.utoronto.ca
The webcast will be broadcast live at the time of the event. Go to http://sec.oise.utoronto.ca/english/webcast.php for instructions and to view the webcast
Full details at: http://sec.oise.utoronto.ca/english/lectures.php
Scott Windsor, Senior Manager, Corporate and Community Relations and Employee Communications, Meridian Credit Union
Kimberley Ney, Senior Vice President Marketing, Communications and Corporate Social Responsibility, Alterna Savings
Moderator: Denyse Guy, Executive Director, Ontario Co-operative Association
Wednesday, April 25, 2007, 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm.
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
Room 12-199, 12th floor, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto.
Scott Windsor of Meridian Credit Union and Kimberley Ney of Alterna Savings and Credit Union discuss Corporate Responsibility from their credit union perspectives. Scott will discuss the challenges of implementing a new CSR program following his organization's corporate merger. He will focus on the development of Meridian's Good Neighbour Program and the formation and implementation of the credit union's CSR, sponsorship and donation programs. Kimberley will present Alterna Savings' initiatives in community economic development and its role in shaping financial literacy, corporate accountability and environmental sustainability programs. She will share Alterna's perspective on philanthropy, including some unique "twists." Denyse Guy, Executive Director of the Ontario Cooperative Association, will moderate the session.
Bring your lunch and mug. Water, coffee and tea will be provided. To RSVP, or for more information, contact Sherap Winn: (416) 923-6641, ext. 2087 or swinn@oise.utoronto.ca
The webcast will be broadcast live at the time of the event. Go to http://sec.oise.utoronto.ca/english/webcast.php for instructions and to view the webcast
Monday, March 26, 2007
Response to the Ontario Budget 2007-8 - A short summary of a budget that’s short on anything new
March 2007
By Hugh Mackenzie
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Take the self-congratulation out of the 2007–8
provincial budget and you’re left with a very short
list of very modest initiatives spread out over a
very long period of time.
Most of the space consumed by the budget
speech and the background documents is devoted
to a repeat of announcements the government has
made over the past 3 ≥ years—many of them made
repeatedly—along with a running commentary
about what a good idea each and every one of
those announcements was. In Finance Minister
Sorbara’s own words, the purpose of the
government was to ‘celebrate’ the government’s
characterization of its own record.
In answer to a question in the media lock-up,
the Minister went as far as to describe his budget
as “magical”.
The worst-kept pre-budget secret, the new
Ontario Child Benefit, is the only new initiative
of any significance in the budget. But it is to be
phased in over a five-year period. It will be time for
the 2011 election before this new benefit is fully
phased in. This year the amount allocated to this
new initiative will be less than $200 million.
There is more money for child care. But at an
annual rate of $50 million per year, it is roughly
half Ontario’s share of the new child care spaces
transfer announced in the Federal budget. The
new funding for housing—$150 million—is less
than half Ontario’s $392 million share of new
Federal housing funding.
Despite the new postsecondary transfers
announced by the Federal government, the budget
is silent on how it will spend Ontario’s $320 million
share.
The budget promises to bring in a uniform
rate of tax for education on business, replacing
the current mish-mash of different rates across
the province, but it won’t be fully implemented
until 2014—a delayed day that would have set a
record for deferred promises if it weren’t for the
Nanticoke coal fired generating station.
The budget makes a big deal about property
taxes, announcing that it is going to develop a
new system after consulting with the Municipal
Property Assessment Corporation and the
Assessment Review Board—not the public. But
all it is really going to do with the system is move
to every-four year assessments from annual and
spread out the implementation of assessment
increases over four years.
The government is going to end a small part
of the download of provincial costs onto local
governments by ending the pooling of social
assistance costs across the GTA, at a cost to
the province of $200 million per year. But that
change is to be phased over seven years as well.
And the budget contains no response at all to the
complaints from municipalities about the much
larger downloads of responsibility for housing and
20% of social assistance costs.
Even if you take the budget on its own terms,
it falls far short. It touts itself as the answer to
child poverty. But by limiting increases in social
assistance rates to 2%, it persists in ignoring
the obvious—that children don’t live in poverty
by themselves. They live with parents who
live in poverty. Distinguishing between the
“deserving poor”—children—and the undeserving
poor—everyone else, including their parents—may
make for good politics, but it doesn’t deal with the
reality of families living in poverty.
And it has nothing new to say about one of
the fundamental issues of poverty in Ontario—
whether the working poor or the poor living on
social assistance—the lack of affordable housing.
The government says the new Ontario Child
Benefit will bring down the so-called “welfare wall“.
But while the provision of child benefits that will
be portable from social assistance to employment
is obviously a step forward, the government’s
continuing failure to deliver on the need for
affordable child care means that the biggest
obstacle to employment faced by social assistance
recipients—child care availability and costs—will
remain unchanged.
The budget continues the overriding political
theme of the McGuinty Government—ignoring
many of the glaring public services shortfalls it
inherited from the Conservatives in 2003-4 and
governing as if they had never happened.
The government congratulates itself on
increasing social assistance rates by 2%—an
increase that, when implemented in November
2007, will actually come close to matching
inflation since the government was elected. But
it continues to ignore the devastating impact on
the poorest Ontarians of the Harris Governments
22% cut and eight year freeze in Ontario Works
benefits and its eight year freeze of Ontario
Disability Support Plan benefits.
The government congratulates itself on having
delivered on its promise to end the clawback of
the National Child Benefit Supplement, but it
won’t get there until the Ontario Child Benefit is
fully phased in five years from now and even then
only gets there by counting general increases in
social assistance benefits against the cost.
In 2003 when the government was elected,
hundreds of thousands of Ontario families were
faced every day with the unacceptable choices
that go with incomes that fall far short of the
minimum required for a decent life. In 2007,
hundreds of thousands of Ontario families still
face those same choices every day.
When it is fully phased in by 2011, the
Ontario Child Benefit will deliver $745 million
more to Ontario families with children than the
programs that it replaces. Of that amount, only
$125 million will go to families receiving social
assistance—equivalent to an increase of 7.5%
in social assistance benefits for children—or an
additional 1.4% per year for five years.
That compares with the nearly 35% loss in the
purchasing power of social assistance benefits for
children under the Harris and Eves governments.
While the government has again increased
funding for elementary and secondary education
at well above the rate of inflation, the new funding
is focused entirely on the Liberals’ new initiatives
and does nothing to address the fundamental
flaws in the funding formula that it inherited from
the Conservatives—flaws that are at the root of
the problems faced by school boards struggling
to balance their budgets. And ultimately, these
flaws lead to underfunding of the very programs
to help students at risk for which the government
continues to congratulate itself.
The strategy of denial of what preceded
the government’s election repeats itself when
it comes to postsecondary tuition fees. It has
steadfastly refused to address the fact that, in the
ten years before it was elected in 2003, student
tuition fees had already more than doubled. And
its 5% cap on annual tuition fee increases will leave
tuition fees higher at the end of the government’s
term in October 2007 than they would have been
had the Eves government’s policy of matching
increases to inflation had remained in effect.
And while the government’s claimed increase
in operating grants for colleges and universities
from $2.9 billion in 2003–4 to $4 billion in 2007–8,
when you take into account the 22% increase
in enrolment and inflation since 2003–4, the
inflation- and enrolment-adjusted increase is less
than 3% over that four-year period.
Despite the obvious crisis facing
manufacturing industries in Ontario, with tens
of thousands of layoffs in the past year, the best
the government can come up with is an as-yetundefined
Manufacturing Council, an acceleration
of a cut in capital taxes that is of principal benefit
to banks, and a cut in business education tax rates
that won’t be fully implemented until 2014.
The Premier has announced that climate
change is the issue for our generation, but so
far all the government has really embraced
is recycling—of old promises. Despite the
heightened public concern about climate change
and the Premier’s declaration, the sum total of
new funding for climate change is a $2 million
grant to the Trees Ontario Foundation and a
rebate of up to $150 for individual home energy
audits—and all of that money comes from the
federal clean air and climate change trust.
On the fiscal side, those in the government
who insisted that the government had to appear
to be balancing the budget clearly won the day.
By cutting reserves and contingency funds and
delaying the implementation of its major new
initiatives, the government is projecting a deficit
of $400 million, less than the $750 million in
contingency funds.
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
410-75 Albert Street, Ottawa, on k1p 5e7
tel 613-563-1341 fax 613-233-1458 email ccpa@policyalternatives.ca
This report is available free of charge from the CCPA website at
www.policyalternatives.ca. Printed copies may be ordered through the
National Office for a $10 fee.
By Hugh Mackenzie
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Take the self-congratulation out of the 2007–8
provincial budget and you’re left with a very short
list of very modest initiatives spread out over a
very long period of time.
Most of the space consumed by the budget
speech and the background documents is devoted
to a repeat of announcements the government has
made over the past 3 ≥ years—many of them made
repeatedly—along with a running commentary
about what a good idea each and every one of
those announcements was. In Finance Minister
Sorbara’s own words, the purpose of the
government was to ‘celebrate’ the government’s
characterization of its own record.
In answer to a question in the media lock-up,
the Minister went as far as to describe his budget
as “magical”.
The worst-kept pre-budget secret, the new
Ontario Child Benefit, is the only new initiative
of any significance in the budget. But it is to be
phased in over a five-year period. It will be time for
the 2011 election before this new benefit is fully
phased in. This year the amount allocated to this
new initiative will be less than $200 million.
There is more money for child care. But at an
annual rate of $50 million per year, it is roughly
half Ontario’s share of the new child care spaces
transfer announced in the Federal budget. The
new funding for housing—$150 million—is less
than half Ontario’s $392 million share of new
Federal housing funding.
Despite the new postsecondary transfers
announced by the Federal government, the budget
is silent on how it will spend Ontario’s $320 million
share.
The budget promises to bring in a uniform
rate of tax for education on business, replacing
the current mish-mash of different rates across
the province, but it won’t be fully implemented
until 2014—a delayed day that would have set a
record for deferred promises if it weren’t for the
Nanticoke coal fired generating station.
The budget makes a big deal about property
taxes, announcing that it is going to develop a
new system after consulting with the Municipal
Property Assessment Corporation and the
Assessment Review Board—not the public. But
all it is really going to do with the system is move
to every-four year assessments from annual and
spread out the implementation of assessment
increases over four years.
The government is going to end a small part
of the download of provincial costs onto local
governments by ending the pooling of social
assistance costs across the GTA, at a cost to
the province of $200 million per year. But that
change is to be phased over seven years as well.
And the budget contains no response at all to the
complaints from municipalities about the much
larger downloads of responsibility for housing and
20% of social assistance costs.
Even if you take the budget on its own terms,
it falls far short. It touts itself as the answer to
child poverty. But by limiting increases in social
assistance rates to 2%, it persists in ignoring
the obvious—that children don’t live in poverty
by themselves. They live with parents who
live in poverty. Distinguishing between the
“deserving poor”—children—and the undeserving
poor—everyone else, including their parents—may
make for good politics, but it doesn’t deal with the
reality of families living in poverty.
And it has nothing new to say about one of
the fundamental issues of poverty in Ontario—
whether the working poor or the poor living on
social assistance—the lack of affordable housing.
The government says the new Ontario Child
Benefit will bring down the so-called “welfare wall“.
But while the provision of child benefits that will
be portable from social assistance to employment
is obviously a step forward, the government’s
continuing failure to deliver on the need for
affordable child care means that the biggest
obstacle to employment faced by social assistance
recipients—child care availability and costs—will
remain unchanged.
The budget continues the overriding political
theme of the McGuinty Government—ignoring
many of the glaring public services shortfalls it
inherited from the Conservatives in 2003-4 and
governing as if they had never happened.
The government congratulates itself on
increasing social assistance rates by 2%—an
increase that, when implemented in November
2007, will actually come close to matching
inflation since the government was elected. But
it continues to ignore the devastating impact on
the poorest Ontarians of the Harris Governments
22% cut and eight year freeze in Ontario Works
benefits and its eight year freeze of Ontario
Disability Support Plan benefits.
The government congratulates itself on having
delivered on its promise to end the clawback of
the National Child Benefit Supplement, but it
won’t get there until the Ontario Child Benefit is
fully phased in five years from now and even then
only gets there by counting general increases in
social assistance benefits against the cost.
In 2003 when the government was elected,
hundreds of thousands of Ontario families were
faced every day with the unacceptable choices
that go with incomes that fall far short of the
minimum required for a decent life. In 2007,
hundreds of thousands of Ontario families still
face those same choices every day.
When it is fully phased in by 2011, the
Ontario Child Benefit will deliver $745 million
more to Ontario families with children than the
programs that it replaces. Of that amount, only
$125 million will go to families receiving social
assistance—equivalent to an increase of 7.5%
in social assistance benefits for children—or an
additional 1.4% per year for five years.
That compares with the nearly 35% loss in the
purchasing power of social assistance benefits for
children under the Harris and Eves governments.
While the government has again increased
funding for elementary and secondary education
at well above the rate of inflation, the new funding
is focused entirely on the Liberals’ new initiatives
and does nothing to address the fundamental
flaws in the funding formula that it inherited from
the Conservatives—flaws that are at the root of
the problems faced by school boards struggling
to balance their budgets. And ultimately, these
flaws lead to underfunding of the very programs
to help students at risk for which the government
continues to congratulate itself.
The strategy of denial of what preceded
the government’s election repeats itself when
it comes to postsecondary tuition fees. It has
steadfastly refused to address the fact that, in the
ten years before it was elected in 2003, student
tuition fees had already more than doubled. And
its 5% cap on annual tuition fee increases will leave
tuition fees higher at the end of the government’s
term in October 2007 than they would have been
had the Eves government’s policy of matching
increases to inflation had remained in effect.
And while the government’s claimed increase
in operating grants for colleges and universities
from $2.9 billion in 2003–4 to $4 billion in 2007–8,
when you take into account the 22% increase
in enrolment and inflation since 2003–4, the
inflation- and enrolment-adjusted increase is less
than 3% over that four-year period.
Despite the obvious crisis facing
manufacturing industries in Ontario, with tens
of thousands of layoffs in the past year, the best
the government can come up with is an as-yetundefined
Manufacturing Council, an acceleration
of a cut in capital taxes that is of principal benefit
to banks, and a cut in business education tax rates
that won’t be fully implemented until 2014.
The Premier has announced that climate
change is the issue for our generation, but so
far all the government has really embraced
is recycling—of old promises. Despite the
heightened public concern about climate change
and the Premier’s declaration, the sum total of
new funding for climate change is a $2 million
grant to the Trees Ontario Foundation and a
rebate of up to $150 for individual home energy
audits—and all of that money comes from the
federal clean air and climate change trust.
On the fiscal side, those in the government
who insisted that the government had to appear
to be balancing the budget clearly won the day.
By cutting reserves and contingency funds and
delaying the implementation of its major new
initiatives, the government is projecting a deficit
of $400 million, less than the $750 million in
contingency funds.
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
410-75 Albert Street, Ottawa, on k1p 5e7
tel 613-563-1341 fax 613-233-1458 email ccpa@policyalternatives.ca
This report is available free of charge from the CCPA website at
www.policyalternatives.ca. Printed copies may be ordered through the
National Office for a $10 fee.
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