Growing number of Alberta businesses commit to living wage for employees

Tomasia DaSilva - Tuesday


A push to get more Alberta employers to pay their employees higher wages — or at least a living wage — appears to be paying off.

A living wage is a regional calculation that looks at the amount of money that a family of four (two adults working full-time) needs to earn to meet their expenses and support the successful development of their children.

The Alberta Living Wage Network, which launched the Alberta Living Wage Employer program last November, told Global News 34 employers have already signed up.

"We’re very buoyed by the (initial) response of employers in our province, and we’re very hopeful that the numbers will greatly increase in the months and years to come,” group chair Franco Savoia said.

The employers who have already joined come from a variety of industries including retail, grocery, industrial and professional organizations. The bulk of them are in Calgary (14) and Edmonton (14) with a few others spread out across the province.

Watch:
Cost of living climbs in Calgary prompting renewed calls for a ‘living wage’

Calgary-based cleaning company Home Spritz is one of the employers to officially sign on. It has offices in Calgary and Edmonton as well as the Vancouver area and employs about 22 people. It said paying its cleaning contractors a living wage is a win-win.

"It supports the quality of life for everybody," COO Yeonsil Kang said, "without anyone left behind."

Kang co-founded the company three years ago, making it more of a marketplace platform. The cleaners are vetted and screened but not considered employees per se, rather contractors.

She said she has found that partnership, along with paying them a living wage, has resulted in respect and success.

"It's really helpful for us to hire higher-quality cleaners," Kang added. "The retention rate is very good. They end up staying with our clients longer, and it makes our clients happy.

"We just try to pay sufficient amount for them to support their family on their own."

Kang said as an immigrant, she knows how hard it can be to build a life in Canada and she wanted to make it easier for others to get ahead.

Cleaning contractor Dione Livingstone said it has certainly made her life easier, adding before working for Home Spritz, it was a challenge.

"You're just making it. You're just making it," she said. "You can make ends meet, but it's hard."

Now Livingstone said depending on the job, she can clear up to $40 an hour. Home Spritz takes 18 per cent of the total cost of any job, but she gets the rest.

"Now I make the same amount of money that I would independently cleaning, so it makes it more feasible for me to live."

She added because she is a contractor and not an employee, she can also choose her own hours making it ideal for single moms or people who choose to work part time.

"It's made a huge difference. I can do what I love. I can make what I deserve."

Read more:

Calgary business owner shows support for living wage with decal campaign for store windows

According to the Alberta Living Wage Network, the living wage varies across the province.

In Calgary and Edmonton, it came in at $18.60 and $18.10 in 2021. But in places like Cochrane and Canmore, those numbers rose to $22.60 and $37.40, respectively, while the living wage rang in at $27.35 in Fort McMurray.

Home Spritz said it adjusts the wages for its contractors depending on the region. Kang added that has cost the company but also allowed it to grow.

"While we are taking smaller margins, we can still expand in a bigger region to make this happen."

The company has now set its sights on expanding across Canada and North America in the next five years.

Arbitrator upholds NAIT's decision to fire instructor over sexual harassment of 3 workers

The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) was right to fire an employee who repeatedly sexually harassed three co-workers, an arbitrator has ruled.


© Codie McLachlan/CBC

NAIT dismissed employee Dwayne Rurka in 2019 for sexually harassing colleagues. In January an arbitrator dismissed his union's grievance, upholding NAIT's decision.

Madeleine Cummings - Yesterday 

NAIT fired Dwayne Rurka, a co-ordinator of evening and weekend programs in the School of Applied Sciences and Technology, on Aug. 19, 2019.

In Rurka's termination letter, NAIT said it had investigated and concluded that he had "repeatedly, and without consent, made unwanted comments and/or jokes to three employees that were sexual in nature, or had sexual connotations or undertones, while in the workplace."

The letter also said Rurka subjected two employees to "unwanted touching while in the workplace."

The NAIT Academic Staff Association (NASA), the union representing the school's more than 850 academic workers, filed a grievance on Rurka's behalf.

Following a hearing last year, arbitrator Greg Francis dismissed the grievance, saying NAIT's decision to dismiss Rurka was the just and reasonable response to his harassment of his colleagues.

"The evidence against the grievor is simply overwhelming," Francis wrote in a Jan. 19 decision.
Sexual comments

Rurka, who is 54 and lives in St. Albert, started working as an instructor at NAIT in September of 1998.

In May 2017, he became an evening and weekend delivery co-ordinator, which involved scheduling instructors, finding new instructors, purchasing and other duties.

NAIT argued at the hearing that Rurka, who was in a leadership position, had a pattern of sexual harassment for which he failed to accept responsibility.

One of NAIT's witnesses, a temporary employee who worked with Rurka, said he made inappropriate sexual comments to her at work, including remarks about her appearance.

She recalled him ogling her body, growling and saying, "God, I love you in that dress." She testified that she felt increasingly anxious each morning as she chose what to wear to work.

She would change three or four times while trying to select which outfit to wear, not wanting more ogling or comments.

The same witness said she was standing behind a desk counter when Rurka came up behind her and, without warning, wrapped his arms around her upper abdomen.

She testified that she felt shocked. A colleague mentioned that she looked uncomfortable with the hug. She testified that Rurka replied: "Why, because I'm the only man with big enough balls to hug her beside[s] her husband?"

After that incident, she confronted Rurka by email, privately copying the message to her superiors. NAIT soon launched an investigation into his conduct.

Other witnesses said Rurka often made sexual comments at work.

One woman, another temporary employee, said he put his hands on both sides of his crotch and said, "You couldn't handle this."

On several occasions, Rurka told her he wanted to date her daughter, the woman testified. She said he also said he wanted to have sex with her daughter.

Another colleague testified that Rurka had dry-humped her cubicle and once told her, "I would like to see you in nothing else but your boots."

She stopped wearing boots to work.

Francis wrote that there was a "compelling and consistent" harmony among the witnesses' stories.

He said they had all been friendly to Rurka and had acknowledged that he had redeeming qualities.

All were reluctant to challenge his behaviour because of his power and their own precarious employment.
'They're all wrong'

Rurka testified that the investigation process was unfair. He said there were no opportunities for restorative justice or an alternative form of dispute resolution.

He said he didn't want to offend anybody or make anyone feel uncomfortable and that he would have changed had he been confronted.

Emails presented in NAIT's evidence showed that when Rurka received his colleague's email about the unwanted hug, he apologized immediately, telling her he was deeply saddened to have caused her to feel uncomfortable.

He testified that he emailed her to try to fix things and wanted to maintain good relationships with his colleagues.

One of Rurka's colleagues testified that their department was "huggy," that multiple instructors had made off-colour comments without anyone objecting, and that she had not heard Rurka say anything inappropriate.

Rurka denied saying much of what the NAIT witnesses had alleged, including humping a colleague's desk and saying he wanted to have sex with a colleague's daughter.

He said he shook the desk because his colleagues had continued to talk, despite his asking them to be quiet. He said he couldn't recall commenting on anybody's boots.

Francis wrote that after a series of his denials during cross-examination, Rurka was asked, "So they're all wrong?"

Rurka responded: "I can't speak to how they interpret my remarks." When pressed, he said: "Yes, they're all wrong."

In his decision, Francis wrote: "I can appreciate [Rurka's] need to minimize, parse, and explain his words and actions, for to accept the version of the complainants would be to admit some truly despicable treatment of others in the workplace. But I cannot believe him when he does so."

Francis wrote that Rurka had been dishonest and he could only consider reinstating his employment had he accepted full or near-full responsibility for his actions.
Rurka 'devastated': lawyer

Rurka is devastated, angry and disappointed by the arbitrator's decision and NAIT's investigation process, Jim Fyshe, an Edmonton lawyer retained by NASA, told CBC News.

Key to NASA's argument was that the school did not follow its respectful workplace policy but instead conducted its own investigation. In his decision, Francis wrote that NAIT's failure to comply with the policy did not seriously detract from the fairness of its process.

Fyshe said that from Rurka's perspective, the process was unjust, in part because an investigator told him the policy would apply, and because the nature of the allegations did not justify his firing without a chance to change his behaviour.

"Mr. Rurka doesn't agree that he didn't take responsibility for the things that he acknowledged that he did, but it's challenging for him to apologize and take responsibility for things that he truly believes he didn't do," Fyshe said.

Fyshe said NASA has a duty to represent its members, but at the same time, the association understands and supports the need for respect in the workplace.

There is no appeal process for arbitration decisions, but unions may pursue a judicial review. Fyshe said NASA will not be doing so.

CBC News contacted four of Rurka's former colleagues this week about this story. Two declined to speak; the others have not responded.

A NAIT spokesperson said the school cannot comment on personnel matters but is committed to fostering a safe, respectful and inclusive work and learning environment free from harassment, bullying and violence.

Immigration supported by most Canadians: poll


In the wake of the government’s plan to attract more than 1.3 million newcomers to Canada over the next three years, a new poll shows that the majority of Canadians think immigration is having a mostly positive effect in the country.

Three-in-four Canadians, or nearly 75 per cent, “believe the hard work and talent of immigrants makes Canada better,” and nearly 65 per cent “believe immigrants should only be allowed in Canada if they adopt Canadian values,” the final report from the online poll of 1,000 adults conducted by Research Co. found.

According to Mario Canseco, president of Research Co. and the author of the report, the poll conducted last week showed that some political and regional disparities persist across the country.

“Majorities of Canadians who reside in Ontario (58%), Quebec (56%), Alberta (also 56%), Atlantic Canada (54%) and British Columbia (also 51%) hold favourable views on immigration,” he writes.

“Conversely, 36% of residents of Saskatchewan and Manitoba call for a reduction in immigration levels.”

When it comes to political stripes, “almost seven-in-ten Canadians who voted for the Liberal Party in the 2021 federal election (69%) think immigration is having a mostly positive effect in Canada, compared to 60 per cent among those who supported the New Democratic Party (NDP) and 46% among those who cast ballots for Conservative Party candidates.”

The study continues: “Canadians who voted for the Conservatives in the 2021 federal election are more likely to call for newcomers to Canada to adopt Canadian values (80%) than those who cast ballots for the Liberals (65%) or the New Democrats (55%).”

Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) Sean Fraser announced yesterday that Canada aims to attract about 1.3 million new immigrants over the next three years to help fill critical labour shortages and fuel post-pandemic growth.

The 2022–2024 Immigration Levels Plan aims to continue welcoming immigrants at a rate of about one per cent of Canada’s population, including 431,645 permanent residents in 2022 (an increase of about 21,000 people from its original plan), 447,055 in 2023, and 451,000 in 2024.

“We think it is a good plan, albeit a very ambitious plan,” said Betsy Kane, a steering committee member of the Vancouver-based Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA).

Kane clarified that CILA did not call for the government to “pause” the intake of newcomers as was previously reported by NCM based on an article on the association’s website published prior to yesterday’s announcement.

More specifically, NCM’s report was grounded on CILA’s suggestion that the IRCC use this year as an opportunity to “catch its breath” to allow many of those who have been waiting in limbo during the pandemic to finally land as permanent residents.

“Canada needs to continue to welcome more immigrants but announcing more ambitious targets under the 2022-2024 levels plan may be ill-timed…While using this year as an opportunity for IRCC to catch its breath would be far from ideal, it would be beneficial for several reasons,” CILA said in the post.

Jasraj Singh Hallan, the opposition Conservative Party of Canada’s Shadow Minister for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, said “the historic nearly two million immigration cases in backlog are holding back families and hurting businesses.”

“This is just another example of how Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government will say one thing and do another. Canadians and new Canadians alike deserve better,” said the MP for Calgary Forest Lawn in an email to NCM.

East Vancouver MP Jenny Kwan, who’s also the NDP’s Immigration Critic, called on the Liberal government to provide temporary foreign workers landed status on arrival.

“There are over 500,000 people who are already here in Canada. I am calling on the Liberals to bring in special immigration levels to regularize these workers to meet Canada’s labour skill shortage and implement the principle that if you are good enough to work, you are good enough to stay and grant temporary foreign workers landed status on arrival now,” she said.

Andrew Griffith, a policy analyst and former director general of IRCC’s Citizenship and Multiculturalism Branch, said the new levels are a continuation of the government’s strategy of growing the economy through increased immigration.

“I strongly believe a royal commission or equivalent is needed for a more independent look at immigration, one with a broader and more critical focus than the immigration industry perspective,” he says.

Fabian Dawson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Canadian Media

MLB LOCK-OUT
Group praises big leaguers for refusing minor league cuts


NEW YORK (AP) — An advocacy group for minor league players has praised locked-out big leaguers for refusing to consider a proposal from Major League Baseball that would give teams the flexibility to cut hundreds of minor league jobs.

MLB proposed that the Major League Baseball Players Association agree that management has the flexibility to decrease the number of domestic players with minor league contracts to 150 if it chooses starting in 2023, down from 180. MLB also asked for the flexibility to increase the figure.

While the proposal would allow a reduction of up to 900 minor league contracts, MLB says teams currently have differing amounts under contract and two teams are under 150, so the potential drop under the proposal would be less.

The union said during ongoing bargaining it is not interested in that proposal, part of a larger package of 28 items, and that it has rejected it at least three times.

“We were glad to learn that the MLBPA has repeatedly rejected MLB’s short-sighted proposal to cut yet more minor league jobs,” Advocates for Minor Leaguers said in a statement Tuesday. “The proposal itself again highlights that minor leaguers need and deserve a say over their wages and working conditions.”

Players with major league contracts are unionized, covering those on 40-man big league rosters. Players with minor league contracts are not covered by collective bargaining.

The proposal was first reported by ESPN.

Players proposed in July to cut the amateur draft from 40 to 20 rounds, a plan MLB agreed to.

MLB cut guaranteed minor league affiliates from 160 to 120 ahead of the 2021 season as part of its takeover of minor league operations. MLB said it would guarantee the 120 figure through 2030.

After successfully lobbying Congress to exempt minor leaguers from federal minimum wage laws, MLB raised wages between 38% and 72% when the minor leagues returned last year from a one-season absence caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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More AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

The Associated Press

The World's Largest Tokamak Just Crushed the Record for Nuclear Fusion Energy


Caroline Delbert - Yesterday 
Popular Mechanics
© EUROfusion


England's Joint European Torus (JET) tokamak has produced 59 megajoules of energy for five seconds, breaking the previous nuclear fusion record from 1997.
JET is a training ground for the much larger, more ambitious ITER reactor.
The 59-megajoule record has a power ratio of Q=.33, with an industry goal of Q=1.

The Joint European Torus (JET) experiment housed in England has set a new record for the power generated by a burst of unfathomably hot plasma. The circular tokamak reactor, which looks like a donut, reached 59 megajoules of energy—a new high for a family of reactors that require an enormous amount of energy to get up to operational speed.

JET is part of the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy just outside Oxford, England. The Centre is the national laboratory for nuclear fusion research in the United Kingdom, previously known as "UKAEA Culham" after the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority. It's awkward that the Joint "European" Torus is no longer a part of Europe, but that's partly because the project dates back 40 years to the early 1980s.

☢️ You love nuclear. So do we. Let's nerd out over it together.

For about ten years, the original JET tokamak operated with the same goal that fusion projects have today: to generate enough energy to be productive against the fusion reactor's enormous energy cost for operation. For decades, the reactor iterated, meaning it was adjusted and refined over time to continue trying to reach its goals. Then, in 2009, it shut down completely for more of an overhaul. Today's JET is almost unrecognizable when you compare it to what the 1980s researchers built.

JET is a tokamak, which is basically a donut- or spherical-shaped tunnel where hydrogen isotopes are contained by a powerful magnetic field and then superheated until they're far hotter than the sun. It's at these high temperatures that the atoms' nuclei smash together, literally nuclear fusion. The reaction generates enormous energy relative to the amount of fuel required.

Over time, JET has learned lessons from the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a project that started later, but had massive funding and truly global participation. Results from ITER experiments helped JET to further tailor its goals, proving especially helpful while revamping JET between 2009 and 2011. Now, the two are working together to design experiments at JET that will help researchers at ITER make better decisions.

One way JET has led the way globally is by using fuel made of deuterium and tritium, names for two isotopes of hydrogen. Protium is the most common form of hydrogen, consisting of just one proton. Stable deuterium has a proton as well as a neutron (its name meaning two, like "deuce"), while radioactive tritium has one proton and two neutrons. The fuel sources are far better than protium, but the extra neutrons are sprayed around and can cause problems. To counter this, JET now has a special tungsten and beryllium shielding that will also be part of ITER.

All this background leads us to the exciting new record. In December, JET created an astonishing 59 megajoules of energy and sustained that for five full seconds—the longest possible amount of time before the reactor overheats. With nuclear fusion, the goal is to reach an advantageous power ratio of Q=1, where Q is the amount of energy generated divided by the amount of energy the reactor requires to operate. That means each facility's Q value is made from different parts: 59 megajoules might mean a Q of 20 at some tiny fusion reactor.

At JET, 59 megajoules is.33Q, which is still a step in the right direction, scientists say. They insist that at the massive ITER, which will be the largest fusion reactor in the world by far, the same processes that led to the record at JET will mean ITER is reaching productive fusion, or a Q greater than 1. Time will tell, because ITER isn't set to power up its first plasma run for years to come.

Granholm to tour nuclear program at South Carolina HBCU

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is visiting South Carolina this week, stopping at a historically Black university to tout what the Biden administration says is a commitment to funding nuclear engineering at such institutions around the country.

On Thursday, Granholm is set to tour the nuclear engineering program at South Carolina State University, officials told The Associated Press. Along with U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, an alumnus of the Orangeburg school, Granholm plans to discuss federal funding for programs related to science, technology, engineering and math at historically Black colleges and universities.

The visit, Granholm's first to South Carolina as secretary, comes as President Joe Biden and other officials tout progress made in implementing the administration's $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, following setbacks on other issues including voting rights and other economic efforts.

The South Carolina trip also features a roundtable discussion between Granholm and HBCU leaders, as well as a visit to Clemson University’s Wind Test Facility, which tests wind turbine drivetrains. It follows Granholm's discussion of similar funding initiatives during trips to other HBCUs.

At Howard University in May, she announced more than $17 million in funding to support college internships, research projects and opportunities to bolster investment in underrepresented HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions. According to the administration, efforts like that one underscore a commitment to helping strengthen an energy-focused pipeline from such schools.

South Carolina State is the only HBCU in the country to offer a four-year nuclear engineering program. In June, the Energy Department awarded more than $2.85 million aimed at nuclear and particle physics research trainee programs for students at HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions.

S.C. State is often a popular stop for national-level Democrats campaigning in South Carolina, thanks in part to the area’s heavily Black and Democratic electorate, as well as its connection to Clyburn, the state's sole congressional Democrat and the highest-ranking Black member of Congress.

Clyburn's public endorsement of Biden ahead of South Carolina's 2020 primary helped the then-candidate overcome a string of earlier losses, serving as an awaited signal for many Black voters that Biden would be the candidate to stand up for their interests.

But Republicans, including former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, have also toured the nuclear research facilities, with Haley stopping by the school in April in one of her first public appearances since moving back to her home state and possibly ramping up for a future run at higher office.

At Clyburn’s behest, Biden gave the December commencement address to S.C. State graduates, saying he would be “proposing historic investment to create and expand HBCU programs in high-demand fields like cybersecurity, engineering and health care.”

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Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press

Pakistani police arrest media owner after scuffle in capital

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani authorities Wednesday raided the home of a media owner and arrested him after a dramatic scuffle in which the man fired a pistol toward police and hit one officer in the head with the weapon, injuring him, police said.

Mohsin Baig, owner and editor-in-chief of news outlet Online and the Urdu-language Daily Jinnah newspaper, was arrested days after he appeared on a TV talk show. On the show he suggested that Prime Minister Imran Khan had showed favoritism by granting an award to a government minister, Murad Saeed, with whom he has a close friendship.

Authorities say police and the Federal Investigation Agency went to Baig’s home on a complaint from Saeed, who is the minister of communication. In his complaint, Saeed had accused Baig of tarnishing his character.

As officers tried to arrest Baig, he pulled out a pistol and fired in their direction but didn’t hit anyone, said Mohammad Ali, a police inspector. Pictures circulating on social media showed Baig beating an officer from the Federal Investigation Agency. Baig was then arrested.

Police later opened a separate case against Baig on charges he attacked FIA officers and injured one of them.

Baig’s family told reporters that police and officials from FIA arrested him without giving any reason for the arrest.

Baig’s arrest drew condemnation from Pakistani journalists on social media. Dozens of journalists also rallied outside Baig’s media house to express solidarity with him.

The government gave no immediate comment.

Pakistan has long been an unsafe country for journalists. In 2020, it ranked ninth on the Committee to Protect Journalists’ annual Global Impunity Index, which assesses countries where journalists are regularly killed and the assailants go free.

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Associated Press writer Asim Tanveer in Islamabad contributed.

Munir Ahmed, The Associated Press

Edmonton Public Schools to spend $6M on HEPA filters for classrooms

PROVINCE SHOULD FUND THEM FOR ALL SCHOOLS
Caley Gibson 

The Edmonton Public School Board has been given approval from the province to spend millions of dollars in reserve funding on improving ventilation in its classrooms.

On Tuesday, EPSB chair Trisha Estabrooks said the minister of education approved the board's request to access $6 million in reserve dollars to purchase HEPA filters.

"This is good news," Estabrooks said.

"HEPA filters will go a long way in terms of increasing our ability to take what we keep calling our 'layered approach' to mitigating the spread of COVID and keeping our classrooms and our kids and our staff as safe as possible."

Read more:
Edmonton schools making changes to air filtration as calls grow for HEPA filters

Estabrooks said parents have also been pushing for this, with many sharing their concerns about air quality during public board meetings.

"To finally see some guaranteed action on this, I think, is really positive news and a good step forward," she said.

"I wish it had happened sooner, to be frank."

Ontario’s investment in improving school air quality provides benefits beyond pandemic, experts say

The Public Health Agency of Canada says proper ventilation can help reduce the risk of COVID-19 and the use of HEPA filters could be considered as additional protection.

The board heard Tuesday that the number of self-reported cases of COVID-19 within public schools is on the decline. However, Estabrooks noted it remains to be seen how the school community may be impacted by the decision to lift the mask mandate for children in schools, which came into effect on Monday.

Apple’s Severance turns office life into purgatory

Andrew Webster - 
The Verge


True work-life balance can be as hard to achieve as inbox zero. It’s so challenging, in fact, that the characters in Severance go to a particular extreme to reach it: brain surgery. The show, which is streaming on Apple TV Plus, takes its name from a surgical procedure in which someone’s brain is essentially severed in two, creating two distinct persons: one for work, one for home life. The result is a show that feels a bit like a cross between Black Mirror and The IT Crowd, exploring the horrors of capitalism and technology with a banal kind of cheer.

At the center of the story is a company called Lumon Industries, an Amazon-style megacorporation that dabbles in a little of everything. (“What don’t they make,” one character asks early on.) This means there are lots of sensitive documents to sort through. In lieu of an NDA for those tasked with sorting, the company uses a procedure called severing, in which access to someone’s memories becomes “spatially dictated.” Basically, your memories are tied explicitly to a place. What happens in the records department at Lumon headquarters stays there.

It may sound like a novel way of separating your life, with work troubles staying at work, so you can focus on the rest. In practice, the procedure creates two minds in the same body: one living a normal life, the other trapped in a hellish existence where they can never leave the office. And the two are never able to interact.


© Image: Apple

Apple’s Severance turns office life into purgatory

You’re first introduced to how this plays out through Helly (Britt Lower), a new Lumon recruit who wakes up on a conference table with no memory of where she is or how she got there. As her new manager, Mark (Adam Scott), starts asking her questions, she realizes she doesn’t remember anything at all. Not even her name. And everyone in her department is in the same position; the only life they know is inside of the office.

]
Where the show succeeds the most is in painting just how messed up this really is for the people stuck in the office. Think about it: all of the good parts of their day don’t happen to them. They don’t even sleep. For them, they leave the office one second, and the next, they’re right back. Mark says that he can feel the effects of sleeping, but it’s not something any of them actually experience for themselves. Life is just nonstop work — a never-ending purgatory inside of a cubicle. To make matters worse, they don’t have a say in being there either. The only way to quit is to file a request with their other self, and since that self has no idea how bad things are inside the office, the answer always comes back no.

Lumon tries to paint over this nightmare scenario with a kind of blind optimism. Employees get excited about having a melon party and work hard so that they can get caricatures drawn of themselves. (That work involves a Minesweeper-like file system for encrypted data where workers need to find the “scary” numbers in a spreadsheet, which they do on delightfully retrofuturistic computers that wouldn’t look out of place in Loki.) Negativity is not permitted, and handshakes are available on request.


© Image: Apple

Apple’s Severance turns office life into purgatory

The office is clean and mostly empty, but there’s a darkness lurking underneath. In order to improve their “mental wellbeing,” after periods of prolonged stress, employees go to wellness sessions that involve silently listening to some (probably made-up) facts about their non-office doppelgänger. The office manager, Milchick (Tramell Tillman), seems very calm and pleasant right up until he is most definitely not. And when someone breaks the rules, they’re forced into the “break room,” which involves an unsettling kind of punishment that I won’t spoil. You can’t even sneak messages to the outside work, thanks to some sci-fi tech in the elevator that detects any symbols. There’s also a not-so-subtle religious quality to how employees are forced to view Lumon and its founder, sort of an extreme version of the cult-like fandoms that form around tech moguls like Elon Musk.

The doppelgängers, meanwhile, go on blissfully unaware of just how bad things are. Life is normal, except they skip over the work bits and have to deal with very nosy questions about what being severed is like. In Mark’s case, he took on the job in hopes of coping with the loss of a loved one; he figured eight hours of not remembering the pain would help. That, of course, turned out not to be the case. His days are still just as sad, only a bit shorter now.

The set-up has been enough to suck me into the show’s initial two episodes. In a time when the boundaries between work and life are blurring more than ever, it’s fascinating to watch these characters go in the exact opposite direction, distanced so far from work that they don’t even know what their job really is. It’s something I might even consider... if it weren’t for the whole “office hellscape” thing.

The real tension of Severance comes when Mark’s two lives start to converge, and his real-world persona is confronted with the realities of Lumon and the procedure’s impact. It’s too early to tell if that storyline will carry the show for an entire nine-episode-long season. But the way the show explores its core conceit with such detail and seriousness has helped it get off to a great start — and made me realize that I should probably clock out on time more often.

Severance starts streaming on Apple TV Plus on February 18th with two episodes, with a weekly release schedule after that.

WHITE COLLAR WORKERS

Working from home is more productive than going to the office, U.K. data shows

Working from home can be more productive than going into the office, according to data released by the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics.


Despite high productivity levels while working from home, as shown in the U.K. and Canada, some experts worry about burnout as increased productivity can lead to more stress.

Courtney Greenberg - National Post

A main point of the report revealed that October to December 2021 was the first quarter “in which output per worker was above pre-coronavirus pandemic levels” by 2.3 per cent. During the same time period, output per hour worked was also higher than the 2019 average. These findings indicate that productivity was not hugely impacted by working from home, even with the spread of the Omicron variant.

The report — which is an estimate based on U.K. gross domestic product and the most recent labour market statistics — is insightful but not final.

“I would say we have learned to work from home in a way that avoids significant productivity losses, but that’s as far as I would go,” Bart Van Ark, a professor of productivity studies at the University of Manchester, told the Daily Mail.

Researchers in Canada looked into the productivity of employees switching to remote work (or teleworking) after being in an office before the pandemic. The majority of them — 90 per cent — said they were “at least as productive at home,” in the Statistics Canada study released in April 2021.

“More than half (58%) reported accomplishing about the same amount of work per hour while roughly one third (32%) reported accomplishing more work per hour,” the report explained. “The remaining 10% mentioned that they accomplished less work per hour while working at home than they did previously in their usual place of work.”

Despite the increased productivity working at home — as shown in the U.K. and Canada — some experts worry about burnout and stress.

“I don’t think it’s an expectation so much in terms of companies saying, ‘Well, now you can work 10 hours a day.’ I think the expectation is around the production,” Janet Candido, founder and principal of Candido Consulting Group, told CTV News. “They’re burning out. They’re exhausted.”

Output in the U.K. report was measured by “gross value added (GVA) in chained volume measures (CVM), which is an estimate of the volume of goods and services produced for final use by an industry, and in aggregate for the UK, after adjusting for price changes. It is calculated as turnover (sales) minus purchases (intermediate consumption).”

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