Strategic Abandonment of Youth: forced labour and conditionality in England

The United Kingdom is grappling with a double-dip recession and a disturbingly high youth unemployment rate which has left over one million young workers without the prospect of gainful employment. The situation in the United Kingdom has been marked by widespread protests by students opposing neoliberal reforms that have trebled tuition costs at post-secondary institutions and last summer's riots which rocked urban environs. 

Underscoring all of this is the austerity agenda of the Cameron government which has slashed social spending, reduced government expenditures, decimated economic growth, and pushed the unemployment rate sky-high. Austerity is a highly suspect policy tool that has been roundly criticized as an policy approach defying the lessons of history, a hundred years of economic theory, and lacking common-sense. The vast human toll is astounding and one of the groups most impacted by this agenda are young people - this blog post will examine a recent decision on the Cameron government's forced labour initiative which are a key feature of the austerity agenda.

A British decision from last week deserves comment as it stands as a great example of the strategic abandonment perpetrated by political classes in advanced economies against young people. The decision in Reilly & Wilson v. DWP deals with a challenge to the Jobseeker's Allowance Regulations, the sector-based work academy scheme, and the community action program scheme.

Caitlin Reilly

The claimants, Caitlin Reilly and Jamieson Wilson, were unemployed jobseekers forced into participating in government mandated workfare programs. Reilly was a recent university graduate forced to work for free at the British grocery giant Poundland, while Wilson was an unemployed truck driver who was forced into living with friends after being cut off benefits.

The claimants challenged the regulations and schemes on four grounds: the regulation were ultra vires the governing statute; that s. 4 of the regulation failed to warn participants about the consequences of failing to participate in the schemes; that the government failed to publish a policy clearly delineating the particulars of the schemes; and, that the schemes violated the Human Rights Act 1998 and Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibiting the use of forced or compulsory labour.

For the most part Justice Foskett rejected the main arguments of the claimants and upheld the schemes as legally sound, but found some problems surrounding the government's failure to warn the participants about what the consequences would be if they didn't participate in the program and found problems about how s. 4 of the regulation was explained to the claimants. Despite the schemes being found legal, the decision could be a pricey one for the government as now tens of thousands unemployed workers could now claim that they had their jobseeker benefits illegally cut off as the government failed to provide proper information to the unemployed.

The decision is disturbing as Justice Foskett avoids addressing the neoliberal punitive ideology behind the forced labour initiatives that holds that the unemployed are solely responsible for their condition rather than addressing the wider social inequalities that persist in the English labour market. The forced labour initiatives are premised on conditionality which Guy Standing comments on in his excellent book The Precariat that: "Part of the libertarian paternalism agenda is to make social policy more 'conditional', providing state benefits as long as recipients behave in ways set by the state, ostensibly in their best interests. This includes programmes that require to accept jobs or training after a short period of benefit entitlement or lose benefits and risk a permanent blot on their record, held somewhere in an online database". 

The unstated policy goals behind forced labour is to make claiming social benefits undesirable, push people out of the labour market, and artificially push the unemployment rate down. This type of policy has also been recently seen in Canada with the Harper government's move to reform employment insurance benefits and push workers to take jobs at much lower salaries than their previous positions - this all being part of the Harper government's anti-worker low wage labour market strategy.

This decision appears that will be appealed by both sides and we'll follow up on it as it winds it way through the appeals process. For more information on unpaid work in England take a look at the Boycott Workfare website and watch this video about youth unemployment and forced labour in England:

Why can't Bell Canada pay its interns?

Bell Mobility, a division of BCE Inc., runs an initiative called the Professional Management Program ("PMP"). The initiative is run by Henry Mar, a Senior Director with Bell Mobility, out of offices in Mississauga. Henry Mar is a graduate of Harvard University and a telecommunications veteran with past stints at Industry Canada and other BCE Inc. divisions. The activities that have been going on within the PMP are disturbing to say the least. Essentially, Bell Mobility is getting thousands of hours of free labour per year from a small army of unpaid interns under the direct control of Henry Mar. These interns are over-worked and treated unfairly. Recently I spoke with a former PMP intern who agreed to give an interview about their experience within the program. To protect them and their future career interests the interview was conducted anonymously. The interview appears below and check out this slick video justifying the PMP.

Q: The Professional Management Program ("PMP") is an internship program run by Bell Mobility's Market Analysis and Intelligence department. Can explain what the program is exactly?

Henry Mar, Senior Director at Bell Mobility

A: Bell’s Professional Management Program is an internship program set up ostensibly so that students and recent graduates can get real-world experience in an office environment, working for one of Canada's biggest telecommunications companies. It acts as a microcosm of a real office, with different departments and roles within it, so it takes graphic designers, videographers, marketers, analytics, human resources and communications graduates as applicants, all working for the program.

Q: What sort of representations and promises are made to interns who sign up for the PMP?

A: Most of the promises interns were given all involved experience in a real office environment, doing real office work to gain real office experience. They're told that the PMP was designed, at least in part, to assist its interns in making the transition to a real career from school, based on the assumption that colleges and universities left huge gaps that needed to be filled before someone was ready for such a move. 

Q: What sort of work were the interns given? Was it educational?

A: Much of the work given was the exact opposite. A lot of time was spent promoting the PMP in completely internal fashion, developing internal advertising campaigns - posters that would be stuck up around the office, etc. - as well as planning theme events, setting up and tearing down party rooms. There were some projects that have benefitted my career indirectly, but a lot of what we were given was decidedly out of anyone's expectations. That being said, long hours are common, with a rigorously - enforced 9 AM start time at the office and some interns being asked to stay past 7, 8, 9 PM on an almost daily basis. 

Bell Canada's CEO George Cope.

Q: Given that Bell Canada is a corporation that's immensely profitable, why do you think it's running a program that exploits recent graduates and foreign trained professionals? How does it exploit interns in the PMP program?

A: Obviously, most of the interns are completely unpaid. Once someone's stuck with the program for a certain amount of time, or they make too much noise about leaving due to a lack of income, some are given the opportunity to go into a 'management' position, essentially supervising the fresher interns. They're still underpaid, though--given the extended work hours they're still expected to be present for over and above regular employees, they're costed out to around $10 an hour - and those managers, called AMP's, are even more overworked than the regular interns. 

The interns' days are usually filled with busywork - presentations on topics wholly unrelated to Bell and telecoms, with attendant slideshows and videos - occasionally punctuated by focus group sessions. By using the interns for more than just analytics and information-entering drudgery, the Marketing And Intelligence department is getting a lot of very valuable information for no investment. 

Q: I've had a number of people write to me complaining about the PMP. It sounds like there is a lot of psychological and emotional manipulation of interns by managers. Is this the case? If so, can you give a couple examples?

A: Yes, the director and his team of 'management' interns engage in a very strange, draining psychological war on their own staff. They're very obvious about monitoring your activity at the PMP, requiring interns to punch a virtual timeclock and tally their hours for the day. This wouldn't be a problem, but because the program is structured in such a stressful, high-pressure environment, people begin to 'race to 400'- 400 being the number of hours you need to put in to 'graduate' from the PMP. 

The director will routinely come into each department simply to tear apart any work they've done in the last while. When much of your work is party planning, or sourcing rubber spiders for a Halloween party or comparing prices on spray paint for a Christmas display, being told, quite seriously, that you're doing a terrible job and are lazy, entitled Gen Y employee feels bewildering. The interns are asked to put their all into the program, frequently for goals that, in retrospect, seem ridiculous. 

If you're found lacking in any area - punctuality, quality of work, or otherwise - you may be called into a meeting and taken to task by AMP's, who themselves have no real training in management - they're just regular PMP interns who've been around for longer. This raises the question of how one can be expected to receive constructive criticism, or even a rebuke about behavior, from someone who knows no methods for delivering such and is only themselves experienced in the high-pressure, toxic office environment at the Bell PMP?  Lacking any real instruction on how to manage staff, the meetings led by these interns can be understandably counterproductive, to say the least. 

Q: The PMP sounds like a renegade department within Bell Canada that doesn't receive a lot of oversight. If you had something to say to Bell's human resources staff about the PMP what would it be?

A: I think, sooner or later, someone in upper management is going to take a hard look at the PMP, and at that point, I would expect several people to lose their jobs. Personally, I wouldn't accept even a properly-compensated position at Bell at this point, after the psychological games and pressure I was witness to and subjected to at the PMP. My entire perception--and those of many of my peers - has been shaped by my experience there, and I'm not inclined to forgive Bell. 

Q: Would you like to share anything else about the PMP with my readers that I might have missed?

A: This program really seems to attract some of the best and brightest around--many have gone on to get high-profile, well-compensated, real jobs, just like the PMP promised to assist them with. However, I remain unconvinced that any of that was due to the PMP. Instead, I think that the kind of people who are willing to put themselves through the kind of experiences I saw, are the kind of people who will naturally get ahead - ambitious, confident, and eager to be challenged. The 'graduates' of the PMP are probably good people to watch out for, but not because they were duped into taking a raw deal from a rogue department of a multinational corporation; instead, it's because they were willing to take even as obvious a scam as that in order to get even the little bit of experience they did get. These interns are just starved for opportunity, taking whatever they can.

Law Commission of Ontario Releases Interim Report on Precarious Work

The Law Commission of Ontario has released its interim report on vulnerable workers and precarious work. The press release from the LCO states that the includes report: "includes draft recommendations designed to respond to the challenges faced by vulnerable workers in order to either reduce their vulnerability to, or the impacts of, precarious work. The Project focuses, in particular, on improvements to the statutory and policy framework of the Employment Standards Act and the Occupational Health and Safety Act in protecting these workers".

The report covers a wide ranges of topics with the aim towards recommending changes to the statutory regime regulating employment in Ontario. A few highlights from the report include sections on: identifying precarious work; employment standards reforms; and, the suggestion that the Ontario Government tie reforms to workplace law in with the provincial poverty reduction strategy.

The report doesn't contain much in the way of youth specific policy prescriptions, but does frequently reference youth as a specific segment of the labour market that needs attention from the Ministry of Labour and recommends that the Ministry of Labour "develop strategic, proactive enforcement initiatives that target high-risk for violation workplaces, including those comprised of concentrations of...youth". Any movement on this issue would be good considering there's little proactive enforcement by the Ministry of Labour relating to unpaid internships and other employment standards violations which heavily impact youth.

There's also an interesting passage about the intersection of youth and precarious work, it states: "Ontario youth (aged 15 to 24) have a significantly higher unemployment rate than older workers. In January 2012, this rate was 16.6% as compared to 6.6% for workers 25 years and over. The difficulty youth experience entering the labour force has caused many youth to accept non-standard forms of employment such as temporary, seasonal or part-time employment and unpaid internships. In 2011, over 50% of young workers were in part-time employment in comparison to just under 14% of workers aged 25 and over. Youth are also over-represented in temporary forms of employment. Of course, many youth continue to pursue education in addition to working and this partly explains their tendency to accept non-standard employment."

The Law Commission of Ontario is accepting submissions and feedback on the interim report until October 1, 2012, so if you have thoughts about precarious work in Ontario consider giving feedback on the report. The final report is scheduled to come out in the early 2013. Finally, check out this short, informative video which gives a concise snapshot of the rise of precarious work in Canada in the wake of the recession, see:

What's behind Laurel Broten's move to assist young teachers?

This morning Laurel Broten, Ontario's Minister of Education, moved to assist younger teachers in Ontario find jobs through a range of strategies and regulatory changes. She stated at a news conference that "Young teachers are the fuel that keeps the engines of the education system running. Their energy, enthusiasm, and fresh perspectives are exactly what our schools need. Every time a retired teacher steps into the class to supply teach it means a young teacher in need of experience and exposure is denied that opportunity." This blog post is going to delve into the background, the government's reasoning, and why young teachers face a perfect storm of negative labour market conditions.

Background

Before we delve into an analysis of Broten's reasoning it's important to place this move in the context of Dalton McGuinty curious foray into hardball labour relations against Ontario's teachers. This has seen him attempting to  dictate the terms of the new collective agreements between Ontario's teachers' unions and school boards. 

Essentially, McGuinty is stealing a page from public sector labour relations strategy of British Columbia  and Saskatchewan which have used legislative fiat to usurp the collective bargaining process and impose terms on unions and employers in the public sector. McGuinty's reasoning is that given Ontario debt and fiscal pressures teachers have to make certain sacrifices to assist the Ontario government in paying down the debt. For some analysis on this issue, see: here, here, and here.

What's Behind Broten's Move?

At first blush Broten's move to help young teachers seems to be simply another move in trying to soften up the membership of teachers' unions by pitting young teachers against older teachers, but that being said young teachers do face a reality where it's extremely difficult to establish themselves in the profession. If one looks at the press release and backgrounder put out by the Ministry of Education it lists some of the motivations as being: to establish a transparent hiring process; pushing more teachers to retire; and, reducing the number of days retired teachers can work in schools per year from ninety-five to fifty.

While I would be the first to argue that there's a sore need for vastly increased intergenerational equity within the labour markets of the Ontario Public Service and the broader public sector in Ontario it shouldn't come at the cost of abrogating the collective bargaining process or amid threats to force a standardized contract onto schools boards and teachers. Sadly, it seems that young teachers have become the latest pawn of the Ontario government in an increasingly high stakes game to achieve fiscal stability via broader attacks on the working class.

The foregoing being said, I'm not opposed to any of the specific regulatory changes that Broten is proposing that target young teachers. Young teachers face an extremely competitive and depressed labour market. Most young teachers have zero chance of finding a job in Ontario. Many young teachers I personally know have decamped far-flung rural locations or overseas to obtain a teaching position. 

Young teachers face this depressing situation due to a confluence of factors: the end of mandatory retirement; the financial crisis which forced many teachers to remain in the classroom to bolster their savings; the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and University and university administrators which allowed teachers' colleges to admit an excessive number of students far in excess of the what the labour market required; shrinking budget amid fiscal austerity; declining enrollment across the province as the number of school age children fall as the birthrate drops and immigration slows; a Ministry of Education and teachers' unions that have historically refused to implement ameliorative programs to increase intergenerational equity; and, nepotism within school boards which sees the children of teachers and those with connections hired long before those with an "in".

Conclusion

While Broten push to assist young teachers is long overdue, it's reeks of divisive partisanship that leaves one questioning the motivations behind the move. While I'm certain that young teachers will be happy with today's announcement, it remains to be seen whether the Ministry of Education can actually operationalize changes that will result in increased intergenerational equity amid systemic resistance from teacher's unions and school boards . If you're a teacher, be it young or old, I'd love to hear your perspective on this matter - leave a comment below or drop me an email.

An Interview with Angella MacEwen: The State Youth Unemployment in Canada

This summer hasn't been good for youth employment. A lot of youth are simply dropping out of participating and the overall number employed is down from the summer of 2011. Take a look at the most recent Labour Market Survey and the one from July. What we're seeing is a prolonged slack labour market in the wake of the recession that's have a terrible impact on young Canadian worker. Below is an interview that I recently did with Angella MacEwen, an economist with the Canadian Labour Congress, that gives us a snapshot of where young unemployment stands in Canada and where we might be going.

Q: Can you give us a snapshot of the current situation regarding youth unemployment in Canada?

A: The labour force participation rate dropped off markedly for youth age 20-24 during the recession in the early 1990's (from 82% in 1989 to 76% in 1998). There was some recovery during the 2000's, but with the last recession we are back to the historic lows of the late 1990's (77% in 2011). The unemployment rate for 20-24 year olds is actually lower now than after the past two recessions, but so is the overall unemployment rate.  In June 2012, there were 195,000 20-24 year olds looking for work. This doesn't count the number of discouraged workers, or underemployed workers. Statistics Canada produces an unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers and involuntary part-time work.  From 2009 to June 2012, the 'real' unemployment rate for youth has been around 20%. The main story for youth employment is the growth in part-time work, and the fall in full-time work. At the end of the 1980 recession 10% of youth were employed part-time, in the '90's it was 18%, and in 2011 it was nearly 23%.  In 1980 nearly 65% of youth age 20-24 were employed full-time, in 2011 that number was only 46%. It's also important to note that EI reforms and the growth in youth part-time employment seriously impact the probability that youth will be able to qualify for EI.

Q. There doesn't seem to be much of a recovery in the job prospects of young workers. Why does this segment of the labour force continue to lag behind?

A: Youth tend to suffer more during a recession, and take longer to recover from its effects.  They often lack the experience and / or connections that older workers have cultivated.  As Canadians are living longer and working longer, there are fewer openings for youth.  And in uncertain times, businesses are leery of hiring an unproven entity.

Q. In your opinion, are senior governments in Canada (provincial and federal) doing enough to address youth unemployment? If not, what more could be done?

A: Absolutely not.  We should identify jobs that are (or will be) in demand, and ensure there is enough funding to those apprenticeship, college and university programs.  The federal Youth Employment Strategy, which helps young people gain invaluable work experience, only reaches 1.5% of 15-24 year old Canadians.

Q: Are we going to see a rise in the youth unemployment rate in the second half of 2012?

A: I expect that the youth unemployment rate will continue to improve slowly or stay where it's at in the second half of 2012.

Q: Are there any regional disparities in the youth labour market within Canada? If so, what sort of trends are we seeing?

A: As you might expect, youth unemployment is lowest in the Prairies, and highest in Newfoundland & Labrador.  The real (R8) youth unemployment rate for Alberta and SK is still high, at around 12%.  And although  Newfoundland & Labrador  has the highest unemployment rate for youth, it has been improving at a faster rate than other provinces since the end of the recession in 2009.