A Benevolent Uyghur Employment Opportunity in China?

"[Such allegations are] nothing but vicious lies concocted by anti-China forces. [The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act is interference in China's internal affairs]."

"[All residents in Xinjiang] enjoy happy and fulfilling lives."

"Xinjiang-related issues are not human rights issues at all, but in essence about countering violent terrorism and separatism."

Washington Chinese Embassy 

 

"Uyghur society is going to be changed in the long term through labor transfer. So it's a long-term strategy, and that’s why China is doubling down on it."

"China is intensifying it because with labor transfer you can achieve cultural assimilation."

"You can achieve linguistic assimilation. You can break apart communities – traditional communities – and break apart families."

German Scholar Adrian Zenz, director, China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Washington

 

"The so-called forced labor is only a groundless accusation."

"Isn’t there any right to work for minority ethnic groups such as the Uyghurs in Xinjiang?"

"If you make them unemployed, unable to work, and unable to sell their products under the pretext of forced labor, is this humane?"

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivers a speech at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Feb. 17, 2024. (Matthias Schrader/AP)

 

Supply-chain auditors and border and customs officials involved in identifying labour abuses and blocking import of tainted goods, appear to have little knowledge around China's more recent placement of Uyghurs from Xinjiang in factories across China, involved in the production of a wide range of goods that will be identified with brand-name products around the world. The United States and the European Union adopted laws to prevent consumers and businesses from funding the persecution of China's Uyghurs.

 

Tracking the relocation and treatment of workers from Xinjiang to factories across China is an endeavour vexed with practical difficulties, quite unlike targeting imports known to emanate from Xinjiang province. Tens of thousands of Uyghurs have been dispatched by China's government to work in factories located outside of Xinjiang. Although the workers earn salaries, labour conditions of their workplace are unknown. U.N. labour experts, scholars and activists claim the programs reflect well-documented patterns of forced labour.

 

According to China, participation by Uyghurs in these out-of-province, across-China programs is strictly voluntary. A great favour is being done the Uyghurs by the Beijing in moving them to workplaces across the country, in the process exposing them to economic opportunities, a situation that ends up addressing chronic poverty in Xinjiang. The rejoinder by experts and activists is that Uyghurs have little choice but to accept job assignments. 

 

The programs, they insist, fold into Beijing's design to exert control over a minority population  historically engaged in resisting Chinese rule. Uyghurs, a Central Asian, Muslim people live in Xinjiang, up to 12 million-strong, on the border with Kazakhstan.  

 

Two layers of barbed wire fencing ring the Hotan City apparel employment training base where Hetian Taida Apparel Co. has a factory, in northwestern China's Xinjiang region, Dec. 5, 2018. The U.S. blocked shipments from Hetian Taida in 2019 over accusations the manufacturer was using forced labor. (Ng Han Guan/AP)

 

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act bars imports into the United States from Xinjiang made with forced labour. Reports place forced labour in various places; prisons, mass internment camps and large-scale relocation programs regionally. The regional production of cotton, textiles, critical minerals and solar panels is involved. Videos demonstrate other Central Asian minorities from Xinjiang -- Kazakhs and Kyrgyz people included -- who also are persecuted, and the U.S. law covers their work production as well.

 

A number of discreetly interviewed workers hesitatingly suggest they labour under close supervision at arranged jobs, requiring permission to leave factory grounds, new on arrival. At some factories, security guards confirm Uyghur workers had been sent by government agencies. Other workers interviewed claimed to have willingly agreed to take the offered jobs, and remain as workers of their own accord. 

 

A worker in Hubei Province spoke of himself and 300 other Uyghurs living in a dormitory separate from staff comprised of the majority Han Chinese population. The Uyghurs were assigned minders from their home counties in Xinjiang, and were permitted to leave factory premises and should they wish to return to Xinjiang, a month's notice is required. Working up to 14 hours daily, a monthly salary up to 6,000 yuan ($837) is earned; the national average for a factory worker in China. 

 

The SAIC-Volkswagen plant is seen on the outskirts of Urumqi, capital of northwestern China's Xinjiang region, April 22, 2021. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

 

 The government identified 3.2 million transfers of Xinjiang's labour in 2023. The U.N. agency, International Labor Organization, reported in February that the labour transfer programs appear to use measures "severely restricting the free choice of employment". A wide range of multinational companies rely on suppliers to which Uyghur workers have been assigned. The programs are part of China's dominant role in the global economy.

 

The Uyghur workers process chicken for McDonald's and KFC restaurants in China while others make products for export, such as washing machines for LG Electronics and footwear for Crocs. German automakers, including Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and BMW attempted to address the sensitive forced labour issues. Over 100 companies were identified as receiving Uyghur workers or parts or goods produced by them, including LG, Tesla, Midea and KFC.

 

If suppliers are found to have been using forced labour they risk having their imported goods seized by U.S. customs officials. Some companies deny the  use of forced labour by their suppliers. "Based on recent audits, we do not have reason to believe that any of our suppliers are in violation of our policies", stated Colorado-based Crocs. 

 

Over a million Uyghurs were held by China in internment camps from 2017 to 2019, ostensibly to fight extremism. Once the camps closed, an estimated half million Uyghurs were sentenced to prison, according to rights groups. Xi Jinping, China's leader, informed officials during a visit to Xinjiang in 2023 that they should be vigilant against threats to stability and "encourage and guide Xinjiang people to go to the Chinese interior to find employment". 

 

"This is not about poverty alleviation. This is about dispersing Uyghurs as a group and breaking their roots", charged Rayhan Asat, a rights lawyer at the Atlantic Council, whose brother has been imprisoned since 2016 in Xinjiang. 

 

Residents line up inside the Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center, which was revealed by leaked documents to be a forced indoctrination camp at the Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux in western China's Xinjiang region, Dec. 3, 2018. Voice of America

 

 

The New Working Normal

"Surveys of those entering college almost invariably report that the No.1 reason given for enrolling is to increase their earning potential -- in other words, to become prepared for success in the world of work."

"Though that is clearly happening for many, the coddling culture that has grown up at too many schools might actually be setting some young people back instead of readying the, to launch the careers to which they aspire."

"That won't produce a workforce built for prosperity -- for any of us."

Mitch Daniels, senior adviser, Liberty fund, president emeritus, Purdue University, former governor of Indiana

Today's students are the least working generation in U.S. history   Getty

 

The permissive, student-ego-centric as opposed to education-committed public and private education system throughout North America from elementary school on up to college and university has committed itself to the diversity inclusion equity mantra, setting aside the primacy of education for education's sake. Students moving through the elementary school system arrive at institutes of higher education ill equipped through their educational exposure to take their place at college or university when they function at a low level in reading and writing.

This is the material that higher education institutions work with and around, adding their own levels of entitlement to earn degrees even with low academic scores. What has become vital in the education system is awareness of the 'feelings' and 'emotional' safety offered students, where the focus on academics comes second to providing a 'safe' and 'secure' emotional environment for young adults. Their impressions and values are prioritized over the firm academic guidance inherent in motivating students to become educated.

There are plentiful opportunities for employment in today's job market, an estimated ten million available for young graduates in the U.S., the tail end of Millennials and Gen Z members. Exposure to young job applicants with college diplomas ostensibly giving evidence of preparedness for adult job responsibilities has taught employers over a period of recent years that those bearing these diplomas lack a traditional education. They have discovered instead, the unreliability of job seekers to be responsible workers.

That has led greater numbers of employers to rely less on the old requirement of a Bachelor's degree with job applications. Even state governments enlightened to the situation have taken to eliminating these prerequisites in hiring state employees. Some demonstration of relevant job skills, on the other hand has become increasingly valued over a college diploma that no longer is viewed as a guarantee of academic training or readiness for employment.

Qualities as basic as punctuality, the reliability to appear on time for every scheduled workday, an acceptable degree of performance, the sense of responsibility to perform productively and honestly have become the sought-after characteristics for employers in this era of countless job openings. These character traits and learned sets of employment values were once assumed as non-negotiable credits, but are now recognized as traits that cannot be assumed in a job applicant.

Employers now seem to agree with the basic qualities of self-initiative, eagerness to learn, imbued with a solid work ethic, present in a candidate, these standard and required platforms of employee readiness makes them willing to invest in training young new employees. The Wall Street Journal was informed by a Fortune 500 CEO that new hires today possess a totally variant concept of "full time": "Who works 40 hours a week? No one under 35 suddenly does."

 

istock

 

Businesses have become self-reliant in their own success by the realization that they are required to become often-remedial institutions of higher education themselves. Business spending on training exceeded US$100 billion last year in the United States for the first time, averaging over $1,200 per employee, as a commitment to their own futures as well as that of the employee. 

 

Anxious to acquire productive workers, companies are willing to absorb the burden of skill teaching relevant to their enterprise, as long as they can access new hires with those values considered at one time obvious and given, and now the price of entry for any new job. The current situation was predicted a decade ago when reports emerged quantifying a major drop in industriousness among the prime working-age population.

A team from the Mary Christie Institute, Morning Consult, American Association of Colleges and Universities, the Healthy Minds Network and the National Association of Colleges and Employees conducted a joint survey, finding that close to 40 percent of  young professionals, aged 22 to 28 with at least a bachelor's degree claim their college "did not help them develop skills to prepare them for the emotional or behavioural impact of the transition to the workplace".

"If you have an employer where you spend all your time and effort focusing on things that have nothing to do with the business, and you're putting them through DEI training, instead of getting them the training they need to be good at their job - that actually can be demoralizing to people."

"What we're hearing over and over again is that young people don't want to work. They simply are a generation that hasn't been hungry, they don't have this desire to work. And so they'll do interviews with people who simply are like, 'Well, I could show up at 10 if that works,' and the employers like, 'How about eight,' and they're like, 'I just don't see that happening.'"

"They're now getting to that real world. They're getting to an office environment where there's a lot of tension with coworkers, there's an opportunity to get fired or get a demotion, and they're just not ready for it."

Andrew Crapuchettes, CEO and founder, RedBalloon.work 

New graduates walk into the High Point Solutions Stadium before the start of the Rutgers University graduation ceremony  WSJ

Placing Convention in Gender-Employment on its Head

"One of the biggest take-aways is that economic conditions really matter for whether men go into female-dominated jobs."
"[Unemployment] may act as a trigger event that encourages them to consider new alternatives."
"Unemployment is not a viable strategy for getting more men to go into female-dominated jobs [however]."
Jill Yavorsky, sociologist, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

"You have to be somehow taken out of your routine."
"If you're just sitting there talking to a guidance counsellor, it may not jump out at you that you want to work in health care, but we're in an economy right now where [not everyone] has a lot of options."
Christine Williams, sociologist, University of Texas, Austin

"I was going from job to job [where] there was an income ceiling I couldn't break through."
"My closest friends, they poked at me a little bit, but they're not laughing anymore."
Mike Ward, vice-president, American Association for Men in Nursing, Fort Worth

A new study finds that one particular factor — the loss of a job — could explain why some men are willing to take jobs in female-dominated industries, such as nursing. (iStock)

A new study published in the January edition of the journal Social Science Research, went through eight years of data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau in its Survey of Income and Program Participation, finding that among men working in male-dominated industries or mixed-gender workforces when they became unemployed, 19 percent elected to divert into female-dominated occupations, whereas in comparison, 12 percent of men decided on a similar move who hadn't lost a job.

We've been accustomed over the past decades to seeing women entering into male-dominated industries such as medicine, law and finance; less noticeable has been men, usually loathe to enter occupations dominated by women in fields such as nursing or education, who have done so. The study reached the conclusion that one of the factors involved was the 'shock' of losing a job, to explain why it is that some men become willing to take employment in traditionally female-dominated occupations.

According to the most recent jobs report, women outnumbered men among payroll jobs for the second time, reflecting higher job growth in fields such as health care and education, considered traditional female occupations. Men continue to outnumber women in the total workforce when adding in workers who are self-employed or farm workers. But traditional female-dominated occupations are on a fast-growth track compared to those fields dominated by men; manufacturing and goods production.

Another impact of men occupying female=dominated jobs beyond becoming employed, was that on average those men realized a four-percent wage increase along with a boost in the "prestige" rating in their occupation compared with the job they held before it was lost to them. An explanation for this may be found in the fact that men are willing to take positions stigmatized as "pink-collar" only if they are more highly compensated through status or pay.

Occupations such as  home health aides remain at the bottom of the wage scale, with nurse practitioners at the high end, both areas where the growth in female-dominated occupations has risen. Jobs that conventionally offered a path for women to the middle class are evaporating, with over 2.1 million administrative support and office support jobs lost since 2000.

As one example, Mike Ward recently completed a master's program to become a nurse practitioner, following eleven years spent in emergency room and intensive care as a unit nurse. He had made the decision to go into nursing when he was laid off as an oilfield roughneck back in 2000. He then worked for a drilling company in the Gulf of Mexico, following which he spent several years fuelling airplanes, working in a paper mill and performing jobs for an electrical company.

He had a long-time interest in medicine, but was initially stalled by stigma attached to men in nursing. Eventually, he qualified for financial aid and entered school in 2003. At this point in his working career, he earns a six-figure salary, serving as vice-president of the American Association for Men in Nursing. He broke his own fragile pink-tinted glass ceiling to fulfill his medical ambitions.

"Think about how big the unemployment shock was in 2008, and we didn't see a big realignment."
"I think one of the challenges for men is we need to see more cultural images that reshape our notions of traditionally female jobs as actually being jobs that are more gender-neutral and more consistent with masculinity."
Betsey Stevenson, professor, public policy and economics, University of Michigan

Only by revealing and eradicating the disincentives to work in female-dominated occupations — both economic and social — will it be possible to achieve gender equality in the labor market.

Image: REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

Really?!!!

"We got the idea that a really useful way to look at people's appearance might be to look at something like acne, because, turns out that acne affects people pretty randomly."
"And we thought that acne was a good vehicle for investigating this relationship [the link between physical appearance and education and labor market outcomes] because a lot of people get acne and it happens to everyone regardless of their socioeconomic status."
"We’re hesitant to say that we find iron-clad proof."
Erik Nesson, economics professor, Ball State University, Indiana

"[Basically, acne] is associated with reduced participation in sports clubs and increased participation in non-sports clubs, suggesting a possible shift from physical to intellectual pursuits."
"Knowledge of long-term benefits associated with having had acne has the potential to reduce teen suicides."
"Our findings are consistent with a mechanism where severe acne limits socialization so much as to affect long-term outcomes that may depend both on studying and on sociability."
"Skin problems are also associated with increases in cumulative overall high-school GPA [grade point average] and cumulative science high-school GPA, and we find some evidence that skin problems are related to cumulative mathematics and science high-school GPAs."
"Skin problems are not consistently related to earnings among the entire sample, but skin problems are positively related to personal earnings for women and white women."
U.S. study, adolescent acne outcomes

"Overall, this is an interesting study in that it suggests that what might be considered as a disadvantage when growing up ends up translating into positive outcomes later on in life."
"In this regard, the finding contrasts with similar studies which show that other kinds of disadvantages [being short or not beautiful] are typically linked to labour market penalties."
Vera Brencic, economics professor, University of Alberta

Many youth need to treat skin conditions such as acne, which can be exacerbated when pores on the surface of the skin become clogged.(Photo11: liza5450, Getty Images/iStockphoto)

 Teens plagued with skin-blemishing acne see no upside in their affliction and would do almost anything to find a miracle 'cure' for their acne. However, two American professors of economics put their heads together, scoured scholarly articles on acne -- and there are plenty of them -- and came to the conclusion that there's an upside for having acne, as long as the sufferer is patient and endures. Their study was published in the Journal of Human Capital in late 2018.

And they found, convincingly enough to write with a  high degree of confidence, that having acne in one's adolescent years was correlated with higher grade point averages alongside a higher likelihood of graduating from college and singularly for women, they detected through their study that evidence exists that having acne is associated with higher earning potentials for women.

There is a rational enough reasoning here, that teens with acne were uncomfortable with their appearance and preferred to shelter themselves from public view as much as possible, meaning they were less likely to socialize and likelier to spend that time on their studies. There you have it: problems with skin blemishes point to a more intellectually-flavoured lifestyle and that in turn equates with improved grades, more intensive academic studies and eventually, higher incomes.

Greatist

That's the good news, and there was no way of ignoring the bad news, that acne strongly correlates with adolescent suicide; the detrimental effect of severe acne even while it seems that lighter bouts of occasional acne result in labour market success. If we're weighing quality of life as opposed to cessation of life, there's really no contest, is there?

The paper and its conclusion is considered one piece of a larger puzzle relating to work that explores how physical attractiveness matches with greater success in life outcomes, a well-studied phenomenon where it is recognized that comely people have a tendency to reach for greater success through their aspirational pursuits.

Professor Nesson partnered for this study with Hugo Mialon, both analyzing data collected by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human development where studies were run of adolescent development in waves from 1994-95. Information was available through that research relating to academic performance, perception of physical attractiveness, acne, and adding research that followed over the years, educational attainment and income.

Having acne through the adolescent years correlates with a 3.8 percent increase in chances of obtaining a bachelor's degree.

Grestist

Abstract
We use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to investigate the association between having acne in middle to high school and subsequent educational and labor market outcomes. We find that having acne is strongly positively associated with overall grade point average in high school, grades in high-school English, history, math, and science, and the completion of a college degree. We also find evidence that acne is associated with higher personal labor market earnings for women. We further explore a possible channel through which acne may affect education and earnings.
Hugo M. Mialon
Emory University - Department of Economics
Erik Nesson
Ball State University - Department of Economics

Family, Home and Hearth

"After a discussion with your Mother, we have decided that you must leave this house immediately. You have 14 days to vacate. You will not be allowed to return. We will take whatever actions are necessary to enforce this decision."
"Michael Joseph Rotondo, You are hereby evicted from 408 Weatheridge Drive, Camillus, New York effective immediately. You have heretofore been our guest and there is no lease or agreement that gives you any right to stay here without our consent."
"A legal enforcement procedure will be instituted immediately if you do not leave by 15 March 2018."
Michael, here is $1,100 from us to you so you can find a place to stay."
"There are jobs available even for those with a poor work history like you. Get one -- you have to work! If you want help finding a place your Mother has offered to help."
Mark Rotondo

Christina and Mark Rotondo in court   Reuters

"I am just so outraged."
"[I had] never been expected to contribute to household expenses, or assist with chores and the maintenance of the premises."
"I don't see why they can't just, you know, wait a little bit for me to leave the house. [Six months is] a reasonable amount of time for someone who has been depending on persons for support."
Michael Rotondo

Michael Rotondo (left) at his eviction proceeding in Syracuse, New York. His parents, Mark and Christina, confer with their lawyer in the court gallery behind.  Douglas Dowty, The Syracuse Newspapers via AP 

Upstate New York State Supreme Court Justice Donald Greenwood informed Mark and Christina Rotondo that their lawyer would be instructed to draft an eviction order giving their son Michael reasonable time to vacate the home they no longer wished to share with him. They had, in fact, been resentful of their 30-year-old, unemployed son living with them for quite some time.

A situation not made any easier by the fact that he would not speak with them, nor do anything remotely useful around the house; much less that he paid no rent for his accommodation.

The couple's request for an eviction order was granted by the judge who also indicated that adult protective services would be engaged to check on matters in the home that appeared to him to be rather concerning. As for their son, Michael Rotondo informed the judge he was well aware his parents wished him to leave their home, arguing that as a member of the family he felt entitled to six months additional time to make alternative arrangements for himself.

When Michael Rotondo spoke to the media he pointed out that he did his own laundry and provided for his own food. His exasperated parents, feeling it was beyond time their adult son became an adult rather than a recluse who felt no urge to find employment and to be responsible for himself, preferring to live in a bedroom in their split-level ranch home, gave him an initial note requesting he leave in March, repeated it in February, and then again when their son made no move to honour their request.

They felt finally driven to taking legal means when he ignored all their requests, including that he remove his Volkswagen from outside their home, despite offering financial assistance to have it repaired to working order. The eviction order was their last desperate attempt to force their son to take steps toward overdue responsibility for himself. In view of a gaggle of curious reporters, the Rotondo son engaged the judge in a 30-minute verbal sparring, when the judge suggested he address his parents directly, and he refused.

"It really seems kind of outrageous that someone in this day and age could be in someone else's home for six months" before they agree to leave, when requested to do so, remarked the judge. "I want you out of that household." At the hearing's conclusion, the son invited television camera crews to meet him outside the court where he responded to questions and stated baldly that he is not prepared to leave home where he occupies a bedroom, will not speak to his parents and has a business.

Refusing to respond when asked what the business was other than to state tersely "My business is my business".

According to a recent study, an estimated 22.5 percent -- 12 million -- Americans between 24 and 36 years of age live at home with their parents, a notable increase from the 14 percent that did so in 2005.

They all, obviously, believe wholeheartedly in the old adage that "There's no place like home", unwilling to make one of their very own.

The home near Syracuse, New York that is at the centre of the family dispute   Google Maps

Cannabis Legalization Employment Headaches

"Most employers are not at all prepared for legalization. They're getting quite frantic about it -- about what types of policies to put in place, and about what types of policies would be lawful."
"My view, and I think the view of most employment lawyers, is that it wouldn't be sufficient to simply apply your alcohol policies to marijuana use for at least one reason -- a growing number of employees use marijuana as a legal medication."
"Just as in a workplace where there is no zero-tolerance alcohol policy, unless there is a zero-tolerance marijuana policy, there is absolutely nothing that would prevent an employee from having a toke and coming back to work."
"Alcohol has been legal since prohibition, but it's not as if employees show up drunk to work all the time. You'd expect that there would be a similar reaction with marijuana."
"That employees don't generally want to be impaired at work, they don't generally want to create safety problems, or employment issues for themselves."
Danny Kastner, principal, founder, Kastner Law, past chair Ontario Bar Association labour and employment executive

"This is not an accommodation issue anymore [employers] are going to have to deal with it properly."
Scott Allinson, vice-president, public affairs, Human Resources Professionals Association

Some employer groups are asking Ottawa not to legalize recreational marijuana until workplace safety issues are resolved. (CBC)

"We're caught in a potential Catch 22: how do you protect the worker and those around them as well as deal with legalized marijuana?" 
"It is a pressing concern for the industry because of the … potential catastrophic impacts of somebody doing a critical safety job when they're impaired."
Cameron MacGillivray, president of Enform, Calgary-based oil-and-gas safety group 

One of many campaign promises that led to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's ballot-box victory in 2015 over the-then Conservative-led government was the implementation of legalized recreational marijuana. Medical marijuana by prescription is legal, while recreational use of cannabis is not, but it will be by around July first of 2018. Companies involved in production and services relying heavily on safety in the workplace have lobbied the federal government ahead of legalization to declare the use of cannabis prohibited in safety-sensitive workplaces.

As far as this government is concerned, it will have completed its electoral promise when cannabis is legalized, and the problems inherent in use of a product that has the potential of impacting on users' actions and reactions and mental state is not their problem. This is a 'gift' the federal government has given voters who consider it as such, and a burden it has laid upon provincial governments, municipalities, police, the medical community and employers. In other words, here is a problem but it's not ours; you look after it.

Internal federal government documents point to federal officials disinclined to any particular measures relating to workplace marijuana use; the employer will have to figure it out on their own and establish best-practices reactions. Labour lawyers are rolling up their sleeves, recognizing the issue for the challenge it represents and will, without doubt, work in tandem with employers on addressing cannabis use during working hours.

According to the 2017 Canadian Cannabis Survey, 21.5 per cent of the nearly 10,000 respondents admitted to using marijuana to get high before or during work last year, and 7.7 per cent said they do so weekly — and even daily.  (AP FILE PHOTO)

"It’s a concern that’s been growing, and we know we are not alone in that growing concern. The Toronto Transit Commission is not taking any view on the legalization of marijuana. Our interest and our focus is on safety in the workplace. The steps we’ve taken really pre-date the discussion around legalization."
"Random testing is not about, ‘ah ha, I got you’. Random testing is a mechanism to further enhance safety and to deter unsafe behaviour."
"You need sophisticated occupational health programs."
Megan MacRae, executive director of human resources, TTC

"[There’s also no such thing as] over-communicating [to both workers and managers to promote safety in the workplace]."
"[Boeing has an ongoing campaign that pushes the concept] be smart, be sober, be safe  [and to let everyone know there is an Employee Assistance Plan there to help, aside from a 'zero-tolerance' policy]."
"We work with the managers to focus on impairment indicators in the workplace: the bloodshot eyes, the odour of marijuana and slurred speech."
"We have also ramped up our employee training materials to talk to them about: ‘Do you want to be working next to co-worker who has impaired judgment or slow reaction times?’ — which are really critical from a safety standpoint."
Julie Daugherty, certified substance abuse program administrator, Boeing Canada

The Human Resources Professionals Association along with the Public Services Health & Safety Association and the Business of Cannabis (cannabis sector platform) group conducted a survey in January that found 71 percent of employers surveyed felt uneasy about marijuana legalization -- stemming from the simple fact that they are unprepared, and have no idea how to go about feeling prepared to handle this hot-potato issue.

The new Cannabis Act, Bill C-45 along with the regulations accompanying it, make no mention of marijuana and the workplace. Health Canada's Cannabis Act Q&A notes "impairment in the workplace is not a new issue, and is not limited to cannabis", implying employers might take steps to handle cannabis impairment in a manner similar to how they deal with other on-the-job types of impairment issues.

The most commonly encountered substance on workplace drug tests long before legalization, the issue itself is not new. The legalization of a product that has the potential of complicating the workplace is, however. "[Employers] want to know, what can we tell them to do, tell them not to do, and what investigative steps can we take? Where will we have to draw the line in the sand?", explained  an associate at labour and employment firm Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP.

At present, businesses are permitted by law to ban the use of alcohol and reacting when employees appear under the influence of alcohol during work hours; similar reactions could be viewed as suitable applied to cannabis. Workplaces where vehicles, large equipment and machinery are in use mostly ban all drug and alcohol use in particular positions, placing employees who must 'medically' use intoxicating substances out of bounds of those positions.

Those, on the other hand that don't fall into the category of safety-sensitive and which haven't established zero-tolerance policies may wish to reconsider their policies. According to a Human Resources Professionals Association survey of 2017, 11 percent of the 650 participating companies held a policy addressing medical marijuana. It is the issue of impairment that concerns employers, questioning how they can detect impairment, what kind of mechanism has the precision of a breathalyzer, and if random testing is feasible.

Some licensed producers will enter the recreational market if marijuana is legalized but others will remain strictly medical.

Image courtesy of Alcatr/iStock

 

Coming to an Airline Near You....

"I never would have thought I'd still be flying at 65 [years of age, post-retirement]."
"The jets I used to fly were highly automated. But now, with the propeller planes, I can enjoy a freer, more visual kind of flying. It means getting back to the basics as a pilot."
"When you're young, you can pull an all-nighter. But I read the textbooks [to attain a new commercial flying license] in half-hour chunks. At my age, you have to manage your time."
"I have at least three years left, maybe five [before mandatory retirement at age 70]. As long as I have my health, I want to make the most of them."
Shigekazu Miyazaki, Nagasaki, Japan

"If places like Germany and the United States are raising the age where people can collect pensions to 67, there's no reason Japan shouldn't go to 70."
"We're reaching a point where a 40-year career is just half the average life span, and having people become inactive too early is unsustainable."
Atsushi Seike, expert, labour economics, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan

Airline pilots appear to be in short supply world-wide. Partially this is a factor of new airlines opening in heavily populated parts of the world where, as for example in China, the middle-class is exploding and with disposable income people are becoming more invested in tourism, flying to and seeing other parts of the world they live in, near and abroad. Airline pilots are in high demand, as a result.

Mr. Miyazaki at age 65, retiring from four decades at All Nippon Airways, the largest airline in Japan where 65 is the top for employment, was given an offer of employment that he felt he just couldn't turn down. And which took him right back to doing what he most enjoyed in life; flying. The new airline for which he has become an employee doesn't recognize an age ceiling of 65; he was hired for his experience and his ability by Oriental Air Bridge, flying between Nagasaki to a group of remote islands.

Mr. Miyazaki is quite happy that his work life has been extended. At the same time he is reminded of his age when he realizes how difficult it is for his elder brain to function as it once did as for example, studying for a new license to enable him to fly the Dash 8s the new airline uses. The 39-seat propeller aircraft has an instrument-crammed dashboard, nothing whatever like the jets he was accustomed to flying during his commercial flying career.

His co-pilots are young enough to be his grandsons. And while he's enjoying the new challenge and the opportunity to go on piloting aircraft through the skies over Japan, the transition has been demanding of him. So that he admits to having felt "a little uneasy" with the need to study to enable him to pass the tests to acquire his new pilot's license. It took him eight months to complete the study-test-license process. So he knows his brain has slowed down, its cells grown a little whiter than grey.

True, Japan has the distinction of being known as having the world's longest life expectancy. And because of the pride Japan takes in its 'homogeneity' (read resistance to immigration from other parts of the world), plus its low birth rate, it suffers a general shortage of workers as the population fails to grow other than among its aged population. Over half of Japanese men over 65 years of age perform paid employment of some kind.

Unemployment stands at an enviable 2.8 percent; enviable if there were enough younger workers to fuel Japanese production. Adequate staff to fill the need of employers is difficult to come by even while retirees draining the pension system, alarms government sufficiently to raise the benefit age from 65 to 67, something other nations' economies are persuading them to turn to as well.

When Mr. Miyazaki flew for All Nippon Airline as captain of Boeing 767s mostly to southeast Asia, his salary was generous at several hundred thousand annually, with an excellent pension Oriental Air Bridge, a tiny airline, can afford to compensate him with roughly a third of his former salary. But it is not the salary that has any measure of importance to this man; it is the opportunity to continue flying; compensation is secondary; he has a new lease on extending his professional career.

He emphasizes that to qualify for his new flying license he underwent physical testing that was more rigorously extensive than what a younger candidate would face inclusive of MRIs, electrocardiograms, treadmill tests for stamina. He managed to pass to achieve his prized license. At the present time under federal regulations he can continue flying commercially until reaching age 67; even so government is considering raising the maximum age to 70.

One can only wonder what airline passengers think, what goes through their minds when a pilot the age of their grandfathers clambers into the cockpit to ferry them to remote places, and perhaps whether they will reach their destination. Mr. Miyazaki is having a great old time, and he may have many more healthy and active years to live, but the profession of an airline pilot is one upon which many paying passengers depend on the assumption that the man in command of the vessel is hale as well as experienced in the air, that his reaction time is not age-impaired.

The rise of budget airlines in Asia is said to be one reason why Japan raised the maximum age limit for pilots of commercial airliners to 67 from 65.    Travel Pulse

Disciplining Vulnerable Employees

"Mr. Mohammed did not consider the particular circumstances or make any assessment of the actual seriousness of Ms. Ram's conduct before deciding to terminate her employment."
"He claimed that he did not do so because it is necessary to ensure that employees know that taking food without authorization will not be tolerated."
"[Mr. Mohammed had testified that Usha Ram] was a good and valued employee, with no record of any formal discipline] with the Burger King chain before she was fired."
"[Janif Mohammed and co-owner of the franchise Michael Lacombe] behaved in an unreasonable, unfair and unduly insensitive manner."
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Lisa Warren

Usha Ram has been awarded $46,000 after being fired from a Vancouver Burger King. (Jesse Johnston/CBC)

A 55-year-old woman who had come to Canada in 1987 from Fiji with a basic amount of English at her disposal having achieved a Grade 8 education in her country of birth, worked as a cook in a Burger King franchise for 24 years. As a full-time worker the woman, who was the sole family earner whose salary enabled her to care for a physically handicapped husband and an adult daughter who is mentally disabled, earned an annual wage of $21,000.

Her long employment and dependability marked her as a valuable employee, a fact her employers agreed upon. Yet she was fired because of a miscommunication and a company policy that ensnared this woman into a situation that was both demeaning and crudely and cruelly dismissive of her work record, her dignity as a human being, as well presenting as an acute instance of total disinterest in her welfare at age 55, with few other skills and poor English, in a search for replacement employment.

Her firing transpired as 2013 came to a close when her employer accused her of stealing from the company. Her crime was that she understood she had been given permission to take home with her a fish sandwich, french fries and a soft drink as she went off shift. She had asked the duty manager at the fast food outlet for permission to take home with her a "fish fry" free of charge as she had forgotten her wallet.

The manager agreed, under the impression that she would be taking the fish sandwich only, not accompanied by french fries and a soft drink. At the Burger King franchise employees were given entitlement to free drinks during shifts and outside of shifts, half-price food. Miscommunication aside, the cost of the the food items that Usha Ram had taken home with her would represent a value of $1.00. But management was offended that she was under the impression that she owed them nothing.

The manager bided his time, waiting for Ms. Ram to pay for the 'extra' food she had taken, but when she neglected to do so, he notified the owners. That resulted in Janif Mohammed accusing Usha Ram of theft. She wept, offering to pay for the food, hoping her job would not be in peril. But the decision had been made to fire her. This is a woman whose loyalty to her employers was evident in her willingness to be assigned to various sites.

The franchise locations in Vancouver, included a number of sites, and she was transferred to one site after another over the 24-year period when she was employed by the franchise owners. Justice has now finally been done. She has been awarded $46,000 for wrongful dismissal. Justice Warren ordered that the franchisee pay this ill-done-by woman general damages of $21,000, reflective of a year's salary, along with $25,000 in aggravated damages.

Drug Use Impeding Safety and Security Protocols

Police block off access to Weeds, a marijuana dispensary on Danforth Avenue in Toronto on May 26, 2016. (Don Peat / Postmedia Network)

"There are safety implications associated with alcohol and drug use and abuse in the workplace." 
"That has to be appropriately managed and mitigated by employers, and that is not going to change in the future."
Barbara Johnston, employment lawyer, Calgary

"If I have a beer on a Friday night, I'm fit for work Monday morning; it's not an issue. That's the analogy that you're likely going to see, if and when marijuana does get legalized."
Tom Duke, lawyer, Miller Thomas, Edmonton

"I feel that it's not my company's business what I do in my own time. If marijuana were to be legalized, and nothing changes in regard to how they test and why they test, people could be fired left and right for nothing."
"I feel generally the risk is pretty low for me, because I know what I'm doing. The only time I really do it [smoke a joint] is when I know for sure that I'm not going to have to go for a pre-employment test. Say I just took one now; I would probably go home and smoke a joint."
Anonymous oilfield crane operator

"The urine tests can't identify people who are impaired. The tests are just picking up users, not those that are a safety risk."
"If the test for alcohol could only tell if you've had a drink in the last two or three days, would that be justified? Most people would laugh at that because drinking is so commonplace."
"But this is basically what is being done with drug testing."
Scott Macdonald, assistant director, Centre for Addictions Research, British Columbia

"If somebody has an addiction, it's a bit clearer that the employer has a duty to accommodate the addiction."
"Where it can get tricky is if somebody is a recreational users; they don't have an addiction."
Monette Maillet, senior general counsel, Canadian Human Rights Commission, protection branch

Since marijuana has been legalized in 23 states – including Colorado, where this woman was photographed –employers have had to navigate between long-held workplace standards and new legal protections. Photograph: Mark Leffingwell/Reuters

THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, remains in the human system and detectable longer than alcohol would, along with heroin, cocaine and other water-soluble substances. Marijuana, on the other hand, can be detected through urine tests for up to 30 days because THC is fat-soluble. According to scientists, screening urine measures for inactive metabolites and not active substances.

With this in mind, a Vancouver company, Cannabix Technologies, is collaborating with chemists in Florida hoping to develop a breathalyzer test for THC, to replace current detection methods. The experience of a recreational pot smoker who was hired as a receiving inspector at an Alberta oilsands operation -- a safety-sensitive position -- is instructive in this regard. He informed his superiors before taking the urine test that he smoked pot five days before taking the test.

THC stays in a person’s system longer than alcohol, heroin or cocaine. (Mark Yuen / Postmedia News)

When the test confirmed marijuana in his urine, he was fired. He responded by filing a human rights complaint on the basis of discrimination on the grounds of disability. But this man had conceded he was a recreational smoker and for him addiction was not the issue. When workers believe they have been let go on the issue of addiction, they can fall back on the disabilities claim, one that under Canadian law has protected legal status.

A precedent was set by the Ontario Court of Appeal on a different case, finding drug-testing technology is unable to measure an employee's relative intoxication and that being so, random tests do not justify claims when employers attempt to achieve the "Legitimate goal of a safe workplace free of impairment." The above Alberta oilsands case challenged employers working to make certain dangerous workplaces remain safe, bearing in mind the need to avoid allegations their decision making is unfair or discriminatory.

A file photo of a crane in Fort McMurray, Alberta. (Carl Patzel / Postmedia Network)

Suncor Energy has focused its efforts in this regard on a lengthy court battle to achieve their goal of introducing random drug and alcohol testing at its Fort McMurray operations, with the union Unifor representing workers, arguing that random tests violate personal privacy rights even as they fail to increase safety since tests  do not measure impairment, but rather "off-duty conduct".

In response, the company retorts that the measures have been unsuccessful in solving safety concerns at job sites in view of the fact that an "out of control" drug culture permeates society, and this is a deep social issue it has been dealing with. To support its case, the company presented evidence in court of 2,300 security incidents linked to drugs and alcohol over a nine-year period.

Of seven workers who died at their job sites at Suncor from the years 2000 to 2012, three workers were found to have been suffering under the influence of drugs or alcohol. "We wouldn't be pursuing this if we didn't feel it was absolutely necessary", commented Sneh Seetal, Suncor spokeswoman.

In workplaces where the anonymous crane operator felt entitled to his recreational activities, largely involving smoking joints, the game is to outsmart those random checks. The unnamed worker manages that by timing himself so that when a new worksite is being contemplated for him to report to, coinciding with the administration of a urine test, he abstains from marijuana use prior to the test, then resumes his habit immediately the test is taken.

Heavy equipment operators, miners, truck drivers and other safety-sensitive positions are the sole concern of employers subjecting employees to urine tests for the presence of THC. Where the presence of an intoxicant mild enough not to be thought to impair someone in an ordinary workplace with no danger factor involved, employer tests for THC will not likely be an issue once marijuana is legalized in Canada.

But where safety and sobriety loom large in importance to job performance the issue of on-the-job drug testing representing an invasion of privacy and likely discriminatory action to be settled by the human rights commissions they are referred to, are unlikely to get a free pass, given the issues involved. The crane operator who feels justified in taking steps to avoid getting caught as a recreational marijuana user is gambling with safety, feeling he is always in control.

He is also gambling with his future job prospects, with the security a steady job ensures, enabling him to support his wife and two young children. But he is prepared to take that gamble, that if he is somehow caught out he can be fired for a positive test just for having marijuana detectable in his urine, irrespective of whether he was high on the job at the time the test was taken.

No such employees can claim in their self-defence that they had no idea of the potential consequences of their habit. The union representing their interests as a matter of course is obligated to inform employers that failure to pass such tests "can affect your entire career." On the other hand, if and when a detection device more accurate in determining the reflex condition of an employee on the job comes into action, this will all become moot.

Unemployed, Under-employed Medical Specialists

"This is me on my way out, and he on his way in, able to bill for that transition year. It's good for me, it's good for him, it's good for patients."
John Cameron, 72, orthopedic surgeon, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto

"We strongly encourage senior surgeons to plan for job-sharing when transitioning towards retirement."
Canadian Orthopedic Association

"It is hard to quantify the wasted resources that are consumed by an unemployed surgeon -- our tax dollars subsidized a decade of medical and residence training for each. Many feel justifiably angry at a system that demanded so much of them during their training."
Commentary, Canadian Journal of Surgery

"Everybody should think about giving back at some point and not hanging on to the bitter end. You don't have to be in the operating room all the time."
Dr. Robin Richards, president, Canadian Orthopedic Association

Errol McGihon / Postmedia  --  Doctors perform knee surgery in an operating room at the Ottawa Hospital-Civic Campus

Dr. Cameron spoke of an interest in mentoring young surgeons curious enough and sufficiently capable in their early professional lives to learn innovative new procedures tending to "make everybody nervous" until they eventually become just another protocol used in medical science correcting and ameliorating wear and tear on the human body. He took Sebastian Tomescu, 32, under his wing as it were, as a postgraduate fellow for a year's probationary period.

And then he invited him to join his practise for another twelve-month period, where they would split the practise. "If you find someone who says, 'I'm going to retire in a few years, why don't you come on and we'll work together and share resources', I think anybody would really jump at that", explained Dr. Tomescu who has witnessed newly trained orthopedic-surgery peers on fellowships, locums (fill-ins for absent doctors) and casual on-call work endlessly with no prospect of a permanent position in view.

Dr. Hamish Hwang published a study of the experience of stressful emergency work taking its toll on surgeons in hospitals. Vernon Jubilee Hospital in British Columbia has chosen a new route; to divide five full-time positions among six surgeons, thus hiring an additional surgeon who would have gone jobless when five were hired. The hospital made that decision in the wake of one of their stressed surgeons having had a major heart attack in 2013.

There is a startling unemployment rate that dates from about five years back, among health specialists. In 2014, 14 percent of graduating specialists and sub-specialists were unable to find full-time posts, according to a Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons survey. Although this is twice the rate of unemployment among the general population, it is an even more dire situation in surgery and other specialties where doctors must be taken on by a hospital where facilities, technology and support staff are provided.

Over half of graduating radiation oncologists and 43 percent of ophthalmologists have been afflicted by an inability to place themselves in full-time work situations. According to the professional certifying College of Physicians and Surgeons, the problem lies in the fact that the number of medical professionals in training applying for the positions that hospitals can afford to offer through limited funding remain a poor match. This is compounded by the fact that older doctors are increasingly loathe to retire.

For the scores of highly trained surgeons and other physicians for whom the search for full-time work remains an elusive struggle, the growing initiatives across Canada to launch work sharing among specialists may be a godsend. The system is analyzing and opening up to dividing practices with a particular emphasis in gradually replacing older doctors with their younger peers, whom they have monitored and encouraged, and assisted in finding their competence level, encouraging them to become more innovative in the process.

At the University of Toronto, Dr. Stan Feinberg, 59, and Dr. Elliot Wakeman, a fourth-year surgery resident at the University, advocate that newly graduated surgeons share practices with those long in the field, anticipating their retirement. Putting theory into practise, that combining of skills-based experience and new enterprise benefits both principals as well as the community at large. Providing mentorship as well as allowing older surgeons a break, and younger ones the opportunity to organize their private lives as well.

As Dr. Hwang in British Columbia says, "In terms of just being exhausted all the time and getting burnt out, this has helped immensely."

Hatch and Dispatch

"I think people are feeling a little, either lost -- that 'this is just how the system is[' -- or they are expecting that support is going to be there when they get to that age or that situation and finding out that it's not."
"The majority of our clients come to us in a crisis, and they're shocked ... or people who need home care, or are going to a retirement home. People don't realize this stuff isn't covered."
Kyla Cullain, registered nurse, founder, Next Step Transition

Age happens. What could be more inevitable? Life's journey takes us on a slow but steady transition from birth to childhood, maturity to old age. Old age is the precursor to the finality of life. When existence becomes an issue of how much longer, when each day is precious and not to be wasted, and when the aging body starts its own journey of breakdowns and the mind becomes troubled with the certain knowledge that time is an essence beyond our control.



Of a population of 35.9-million people there are now 5,580,900 Canadians 65 years of age or older. An amazing statistic when it is paired with the fact that there are now fewer Canadian children of 14 years of age and under than there are adult Canadians over 65. That proportion of the elderly population in the country comprises 16.1% of the total. But wait: by 2055 that number is set to rise to a projected quarter of the population: 25%.

At the present time the median age for women overall in Canada stands at 41.4, while for men that median age is 39.6. This does not bode well for the future of a country in need of youth to take their place in society, which is to say replacing the elderly who move from productivity in society to the temporary stasis and eventual disintegration when they depart this mortal coil.

Gloomy thoughts, all. But a reflection of reality. And so, with an eye to the future, little wonder it is that a country that was built on immigration continues to count on ongoing immigration to build up its population and its workforce. Immigrants from other countries bring to Canada their youth, their skills, their growth prospect in having families, all contributing to the welfare of the country.

All provinces are not equal; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan had a median age of 34.5 years in comparison to that of Ottawa, the capital in Ontario, at 39.1. New Brunswick, points out Statistics Canada, has the largest proportion of people age 65 or older at 19 percent, while Nunavut has the smallest at 3.7 percent. According to StatsCan, the general population is "aging more slowly in the territories and Prairie provinces" with more children age 14 and under than elsewhere in the country.


Needless to say, the elderly are more costly to society, requiring medical care at a greater rate, more frequently than other portions of the population, as they age. The care and concern for their well-being is a problem that governments at all levels focus on because there is an obvious need to do so. Problem is, with fewer people available to be employed, pay taxes and ensure that the wherewithal to continue social programs benefiting the elderly, the issue of affordability arises.

Canada is certainly not unique in its ageing population and the relative decline in birth rates resulting in a lopsided population base; too few youth, too many aged. Of the industrialized countries of the world, this is an issue that is common to all, one that Japan, as an example, has been struggling with for many years. Among G7 nations the United States alone with 15 percent of its population in the elderly category is lower than Canada's 16.1 percent.