Vol.
28 No. 1 March 2002
Articles:
New
Evidence on Gender Pay Differentials: Does Measurement Matter?
Marie Drolet
Data
from the 1997 Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics are used to investigate
the extent to which factors not previously explored in the Canadian
context account for wage differences between men and women. Women's
average hourly wage rate is about 82 percent - 89.5 percent of the
men's average after controlling for a variety of productivity-related
characteristics.
Using
standard decomposition techniques, gender differences in actual work
experience explain 12 percent, differences in major field of study
justify 5 percent and differences in job responsibility account for
about 6 percent of the gender wage gap. Proxy measures for experience
overstate women's labour-market experience and explain virtually none
of the gender earnings differential. Despite the long list of productivity-related
factors used in this study, a substantial portion of the gender wage
gap cannot be explained.
High
Closing
Joel Fried
Price
manipulation in financial markets is a prohibited activity, but identifying
it is a problem in thinly traded securities markets. Clients expect
a portfolio manager to provide up-to-date valuations. Actions to obtain
these valuations are regarded as proper by the Exchange and, in the
past, have not been considered price manipulation, even though they
may give that appearance. I argue that the evidence in the RT Capital
high closing case suggests that it was attempting to obtain these
valuations rather than manipulate prices against its clients' interests.
In effect, the regulators have extended the definition of price manipulation
to prohibit activities that are to the benefit of the small investor
and market efficiency and cannot be justified on a cost-benefit basis.
Creating School Choice: The Politics of Curriculum, Equity and
Teachers' Work
Jane Gaskell
This
article examines the dilemmas of producing difference in the public
school system by focusing on one fine arts school that was designated
as a school of choice in its district. Limits to how much difference
could be achieved in the school were determined by complex district
politics, in which the market played only a small part. Teachers'
views of examinations and curriculum, decisions about admission and
public relations policies, and interpretations of the collective agreement
with teachers were the key issues. Change was incremental and contested,
but it engaged an important educational debate. The article concludes
with a discussion of the educational policy issues involved and their
relationship to a politics of pluralism.
Similar Challenges, Different Solutions: Reforming Labour Market
Policies in Germany and Canada during the 1990s
Thomas R. Klassen and Steffen Schneider
Canada
and Germany experienced considerable economic challenges and political
shocks during the 1990s. High unemployment and regional labour market
disparities raised concerns about the adequacy of labour market policies
in both countries. Yet despite similar challenges, the two federations
pursued different reform paths. Unemployment insurance programs were
only marginally changed in each nation. With regard to active labour
market policies, however, Canada pursued an asymmetrical decentralization
granting more power to the provinces, while Germany reinforced its
corporatist mechanisms. Explaining the different reform paths requires
consideration of a range of variables including the contrast between
Germany's intrastate and Canada's interstate federalism.
The
W. Irwin Gillespie Roundtables:
Minister of Labour's Roundtable on Modernizing Labour Policy
within a Human Capital Strategy for Canada
Introduction
Warren Edmondson
Human
Capital in an Information Era
Thomas J. Courchene
The
new economic order, or the information era, will do for human capital
what the Industrial Revolution did for physical capital. Human capital
and knowledge-based industries are emerging as the key to wealth creation.
Ensuring all Canadians an opportunity to devlop skills is emerging
as the principal way to ameliorate income polarization. And developing
skills and human capital is the touchstone for increasing living standards
in an information era. Hence, to succeed in the new economic order,
Canada needs to democratize the opportunity for all Canadians to develop,
enhance, and employ in Canada their human capital. In other words,
Canada's role in the twenty-first century is to become a "state
of minds."
Globalization and the Modernization of Canadian Labour Policy
Richard P. Chaykowski
This
paper considers the potential effects of globalization on a Canadian
approach to achieving greater economic competitiveness and social
well-being that relies heavily upon a new "human capital strategy"
as well as the need to modernize traditional labour policy. The discussion
focuses on issues that include the impact of globalization on equity
and distributional outcomes, economic integration and the utilization
of human capital, and globalization and the parameters of a new human
capital strategy. The paper concludes with some thoughts on globalization
and the need to establish a Canadian strategy to modernizing labour
policy, including a focus on a renewal of institutions, better coordination
across current policy domains, and greater focus on the international
dimension of labour, especially the development of supranational frameworks
Employment Relationships as the Centrepiece of a New Labour Policy
Paradigm
Graham S. Lowe
This
paper examines changes in employment relationships in Canada during
the late twentieth century. Despite well-documented transformations
in labour market structures and work contexts, we are only now grasping
the significance of these trends for the relationships between workers
and employers. Considerable debate revolves around the extent and
nature of new employment relationships. Still, it is clear that fewer
workers fit the historical benchmark of the post-WWII "standard
employment model." Consequently, the labour and employment policy
framework fashioned during the postwar decades no longer meets the
needs of an increasingly differentiated workforce. Furthermore, the
current policy emphasis on learning and skills for innovation and
productivity requires a fuller understanding of how trust, communication,
and other elements of employment relationships mediate human capital
development. The ideal focus for the next generation of labour policy
must be the workplace, which is where relationships among co-workers
and between workers and management can either hinder or enable the
achievement of major social and economic goals.
Alternative Forms of Employee Representation and Labour Policy
Daphne G. Taras
There
are many alternative types of collective representation among workers
in addition to unions and some of these might be useful platforms
on which to build labour policy initiatives. Between 42 and 48 percent
of Canadian workers have some form of collective representation (including
the 32 percent who are unionized). Concrete examples are offered of
the interplay among different labour market intermediaries (unions,
non-union employee-management committees, professional and staff associations,
and government agencies). These actors have developed innovative employment
policies and practices that match the needs of the Canadian workforce.
Future labour policy initiatives must incorporate new actors and new
models in order to be relevant.
Ten Key Ingredients of Labour Policy for the New World of Work
Morley Gunderson
Most
of our labour policies were established in the early 1900s when the
old world of work was vastly different from today's world of work.
These differences are elaborated upon, as are the basic background
factors that are shaping labour policy today. Ten key ingredients
of labour policy appropriate to the new world of work are then outlined
and illustrated with specific policy examples. The paper concludes
with a checklist of questions to ask with respect to policy initiatives
in the new world of work, as well as a list of research needs to guide
policy formation in this area. The suggested ingredients of a new
labour policy for the new world of work are substantially different
than those that were appropriate for the old world of work.
Commentaries
Labour Policy in Canada - New Platform, New Paradigm
Brian A. Langille
The
project of re-thinking Canadian labour policy within a human capital
policy is best understood as the domestic equivalent of the international
effort to reconceive the nature of development as requiring the integration
of the economic and the social. Changes in modes of productive relations
in the "new economy" require not just a complex reassessment
of the best ways to achieve the goals of various labour policies but,
more radically, involve a challenge to the conceptual basis of labour
law. This both requires and provides the opportunity for a reconceptualization
of the appropriate "platform" for delivering labour law
and a new paradigm for understanding labour law itself.
From Human Capital to Organizational Learning
Jacques Bélanger
In
view of current changes in the sphere of production and in the nature
of work, there is no doubt of the necessity for individual and public
investments in human capital formation. But starting from this premise,
the paper stresses the need to consider both the formation and the
use of employees' knowledge. The commitment to transform individual
knowledge into organizational efficiency relies largely on social
dynamics and its understanding requires that we make linkages between
the individual, the organizational, and the institutional levels of
analysis.
Changing Employment Relationships and the Unintentional Evolution
of Canadian Labour Relations Policy
Gilles Trudeau
As
Lowe (in this issue) discusses, employment relationships have undergone
significant changes in Canada, including the rise of non-standard
forms of employment, new types of work organization and a much larger
diversity in people's life course. Our current labour policy, which
was designed to match the postwar Fordist model of employment, leaves
large numbers of workers without an adequate level of social protection.
This calls for major innovations in the regulatory framework applying
to labour. Alongside the current policy regarding collective bargaining
and minimum labour standards, new policies aimed at ensuring the well-being
and the development of individuals throughout their career should
be defined.
