Home sick: How hybrid workplaces and employees can navigate flu season

Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press

While many workplaces have shifted to hybrid setups coming out of the pandemic, employment experts say workers should be cautious about using that added flexibility to work from home when feeling sick.

It's a situation that some observers of remote work trends predict could become more prevalent as companies increasingly make their hybrid arrangements permanent.

"There is a bit of a return to ... people's comfort level with doing things while not feeling 100 per cent, but that's not everybody by any means," said John Trougakos, a University of Toronto professor of organizational behaviour and human resources management.

With a current uptick in COVID-19 cases in Canada linked to two new variants, along with the usual cold and flu season, employment lawyer Brittany Taylor said it's crucial that both employers and employees take the time now to consider how to handle sick days.

"I'm expecting as we get into the fall these issues are going to be more at the forefront," said Taylor, a partner at Rudner Law.

The growing popularity of hybrid work arrangements has been documented throughout the past year. As of May, 41 per cent of Canadian workers that were considered remote had hybrid schedules, splitting time between on-site and at-home, up from one-quarter a year earlier, according to a report released last month by Indeed Canada.

Recruiting company Robert Half found hybrid working arrangements were favoured by 54 per cent of hiring managers, compared with 49 per cent of professionals surveyed — suggesting a growing alignment that could mean a mix of in-office and work-from-home could be here to stay.

Stephen Harrington, national lead for workforce strategy at Deloitte Canada, said while plenty of Canadian organizations have plans for how people can work flexibly, he has not seen many prescribe rules around sick days.

"This is very early days for organizations figuring out exactly how this is going to work for themselves and their workforce," said Harrington.

People who work from home even part of the time are far more likely to consider working while sick than those who work from an office, he said. 

But that poses risks both for the worker, who could exacerbate their illness by not getting proper rest, said Harrington. It's also a risk for the employer, as evidence shows people are not as effective and are more prone to error when working while ill. 

"I think there may be organizations that are underestimating the social and cultural pressures when you're working and there are deadlines or you feel an obligation," said Harrington.

Employees in hybrid work situations should proactively seek clarity from their superiors on what level of accommodation they should expect when it comes to illnesses and the remote aspects of their work, Taylor said, especially when it's inconvenient or unsafe to come into the office.

That means checking whether they're allowed to work from home while sick on a day of the week designated for in-office work, and if so, whether that would mean they have to come in another day instead.

"Is it going to be a one-for-one scenario like that or is it a lot more flexible?" she said.

"Ultimately, unless (an employee's) employment agreement gives them the right to work from home at their discretion, the employer is entitled to set the rules of the workplace, including when remote work is going to be permitted. So understanding those rules as an employee is key,"

Trougakos said businesses would be wise to adopt hybrid work models that are less "rigid" about which days staff are required to come in.

"If it's not a well-thought-out model and it's just put in a cookie cutter kind of way together, saying, 'Well, you have to be there X number of days with no flexibility,' then they'll run into some pushback from employees," he said.

"There will be some issue when people are inevitably going to get the next wave of COVID, flu, whatever other illnesses are going to be popping up."

Sunira Chaudhri, founder and partner at Workly Law, noted that although workplaces have made efforts to offer accommodations in recent years, the balance of power has started to shift back to the employer. That has even played out with some employers using software to monitor their employees' productivity when working remotely.

"I think flexibility comes with costs," Chaudhri said.

"Employers have trended away from being as forgiving or tolerant of greater vacation and sick day policies with remote workers."

Chaudhri said it's important for employers to set clear boundaries on whether they will even allow their staff to work while sick. She urged employees to adhere to those boundaries when they are outlined.

Offering to work from home when sick can blur the lines, said Chaudhri. 

"No employee should work while sick. A sick day should be a sick day and confirming that and being very clear … actually increases morale. It increases communication and reduces friction and potential liability."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 8, 2023.

Online gig work is growing rapidly, but workers lack job protections, a World Bank report says

Fatima Hussein, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Online gig work is growing globally, particularly in the developing world, creating an important source of employment for women and young people in poorer countries where jobs are scarce, according to a World Bank report released Thursday.

The report estimates the number of global online gig workers at as many as 435 million people and says demand for gig work increased 41 per cent between 2016 and the first quarter of 2023. That boost is generating concern, though, among worker rights advocates about the lack of strong job protections in the gig economy, where people work job to job with little security and few employment rights.

While location-based gig services such as Uber, Lyft and TaskRabbit require labour like moving and delivery, online gig assignments can be largely done at home. Tasks include image tagging, data entry, website design and software development.

For women in the developing world, “there aren’t enough opportunities and they really struggle to get good quality jobs because of constraints and household responsibilities,” said Namita Datta, lead author of the World Bank report.

She said online gig work provides women and underprivileged youth “a very interesting opportunity to participate in the labour market.” Roughly 90 per cent of low-income countries’ workforce is in the informal sector, according to the report.

Worker advocates stress the precariousness of gig work and the lack of job security, accountability from management and other social protections to workers' health and retirement.

“The economic conditions in developing countries are different from the U.S., but one thing that is universal is the importance of developing and prioritizing good jobs — with a basic minimum wage and basic labour standards," said Sharon Block, executive director of Harvard Law School’s Center for Labor and a Just Economy. ”There might be different pathways and timelines of getting there, but that's a universal value.”

The report outlines how social insurance coverage is low among gig workers globally. Roughly half of the surveyed gig workers did not have a retirement plan and as much as 73 per cent of Venezuelan gig workers and 75 per cent of Nigerians did not have any savings for retirement.

Lindsey Cameron, a management professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said “because there are so few options available to workers in these developing nations,” online gigs — with or without social protections — were better than no job options for many workers.

“And since workers are economically dependent on this work, and they don’t have any sort of basic protections, that’s what is ultimately exploitive. The odds are always in the platform’s favour, never the workers favour.”

In the United States, gig workers, both online and onsite, represent a growing portion of the workforce and there is ongoing contention about worker rights on these platforms.

A 2021 Pew Research study, the latest available, shows that 16 per cent of U.S. adults have earned money through an online gig platform, and 30 per cent of 18- to 29-year-olds have done so.

Transportation and delivery companies Uber, Lyft, and Grubhub have been entangled in dozens of lawsuits over minimum wage, employment classification and alleged sexual harassment.

“Right now, there are too many jobs where workers are misclassified,” Block said. “Which means many workers are not guaranteed minimum wage, do not have a social safety net, they don't get unemployment, or workers compensation.”

“Now some states have stepped in to mandate paid leave, but if you don't live in one of those states, you have to play the good boss lottery."

The World Bank report was based on surveys across 17 countries, including Egypt, Argentina, Nigeria, Russia and China.

 

Airlines face growing pressure from pilot unions, as threat of brain drain looms

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

Pilots are demanding better wages and benefits from their employers, raising financial pressure on airlines that are just starting to recover from the pandemic.

The union representing some 320 aviators at WestJet Encore, the carrier's regional service, announced Tuesday they plan to launch negotiations on their second collective agreement.

The move by the Air Line Pilots Association comes after 1,800 pilots with WestJet's main operation and its budget subsidiary Swoop ratified a new deal in June that brings them onto a level pay scale, giving flight crews a 24 per cent wage bump over four years and resulting in Swoop's shutdown at the end of October.

Days later, some 4,500 Air Canada pilots kick-started the bargaining process, as unions seek gains that will bring them closer to deals in the U.S. 

Between March and September, pilots at Delta Air Lines, United Airlines and American Airlines secured agreements that included four-year pay hikes ranging from 34 per cent to 40 per cent.

John Gradek, who teaches at McGill University's aviation management program, said losing a pilot is a big deal to an airline because replacing them is time consuming and expensive.

"The airlines will do whatever it takes in order for them to protect their pilot base. And that approach is going to cost a lot of money," Gradek said.

Increasingly, aviators have been seeking sunnier skies south of the border.

While the trickle has been creeping up since 2017, the number of Canadian pilots applying for certification to fly commercial aircraft in the U.S. nearly quadrupled to 147 last year from 39 in 2021, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

"We're in a world where attrition is a key concern of the airlines," Gradek said of Canadian carriers.

"Where do you go and get pilots? You go to regional carriers, you go to the bush pilots to get them. But they're running out of pilots as well, so it gets to be really, really tricky."

Labour shortages continue to plague the aviation industry as the sector emerges from COVID-19 and the travel turmoil of the past year, with a dearth of workers in areas ranging from the flight deck to air traffic control and ground handling.

The dearth of workers also lends leverage to their bargaining efforts, particularly for pilots in short supply.

"That leverage has certainly been demonstrated through the negotiations that we've seen so far," said Duncan Dee, former chief operating officer for Air Canada.

"The U.S. wage settlements have been looming over the Canadian industry for quite some time. But really what has set the tone was the pilot negotiations that took place at WestJet earlier in the year, where they settled for quite important uplift in pay and changes in work rules."

 

WestJet Encore pilots file notice to begin contract negotiations with management

The Canadian Press

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Pilots with WestJet Encore are gearing up to bargain their second collective agreement.

The Air Line Pilots Association says it's filed notice to open contract negotiations with the regional carrier for WestJet. 

The association says WestJet Encore needs to give its nearly 400 pilots drastic improvements on wages, career progression and more to keep them.

It says management has been unwilling to address pilots' main concerns despite what it calls a mass exodus from their ranks so far this year. 

Earlier this year, WestJet acquired Sunwing Airlines, announced it would be shuttering its discount subsidiary Swoop, and then announced it was merging Sunwing with its mainline business. 

In May, WestJet narrowly avoided a long-weekend pilots strike after it reached a last-minute deal with its mainline and Swoop pilots.

UNION VICTORIES ARE FOR ALL WORKERS

Grocery store workforce stands to benefit from gains made by Unifor with Metro strike

Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press

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As Metro workers at 27 Toronto-area grocery stores return to work after a month-long strike, experts and union representatives say their new collective agreement raises the bar for grocery store workers across the country.

“It's the workers' time to be recognized for what they've given to these companies,” said Kim Novak, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union Local 1518 in British Columbia. 

More than 3,700 Metro workers went on strike at the end of July after rejecting their first tentative agreement, fighting for better pay. On Aug. 31, they voted ‘yes’ on a second agreement, which included front-loaded wage gains beginning with a $1.50 hike.

The Unifor-Metro deal helps set a floor for future agreements, though they won’t be identical, said Stephanie Ross, an associate professor in the school of labour studies at McMaster University. 

“They’re going to ... these next tables with a victory in their pocket,” she said.

Unifor has made it clear that it intends to use the Metro agreement to pattern bargain, meaning it will try to seek similar gains in upcoming negotiations with grocers. 

The union said it has 13 contracts with grocers, mainly in Ontario, that are set to expire before the end of 2024, covering a total of more than 6,000 workers. Another two are currently being negotiated and one recently expired. 

But Unifor isn’t the main union for grocery store workers in Ontario, or in the country. Now, there’s pressure on the UFCW to make similar inroads, said Ross. 

The UFCW calls itself the union for grocery store workers, representing around 140,000 people in food retail countrywide. In B.C., Novak's Local 1518 represents around 18,000 grocery workers, and in 2023 its two biggest contracts were up for negotiations. 

One was with Save-On-Foods, covering stores across the province under the chain owned by Jim Pattison Group. Aggressive negotiations resulted in a deal with the highest wage increases those workers had seen in 25 years, said Novak. 

But she said at the other big bargaining table, talks with Empire Co. Ltd.-owned Safeway have not gone as well. Eight months in, the grocer has offered wage gains that amount to less than one per cent a year over a five-year deal, she said. The union is holding a strike vote next week. 

Empire did not respond to requests for comment on the Safeway negotiations. 

Empire, Loblaw and Metro make up the Big Three grocers, which take up a large chunk of the market. Those grocers have come under fire in recent years for their high profits amid skyrocketing inflation. Workers are asking for their fair share, said Novak, especially after losing their pandemic-era 'hero pay.' 

If the Safeway workers strike, it would affect 40 B.C. stores, including 29 on the Lower Mainland, said Novak. While meat, deli and seafood workers are covered by a different agreement, they could be in a position to strike at the same time, effectively shutting down the stores, she said. 

Working at a grocery store once offered a decent job with good pay, but that’s changed, said York University associate professor of labour geography Steven Tufts. Unions took concessions at the bargaining table over the 1990s and 2000s as grocers tried to compete with Walmart. 

Now that the Big Three grocers are on solid ground and reporting strong profits, Tuft said the proverbial chickens are coming home to roost. 

“The Walmart threat is over,” he said. “They are all very profitable institutions.”

The Unifor-Metro deal doesn’t mean grocery negotiations will be easy going forward, said Alison Braley-Rattai, an associate professor of labour studies at Brock University, in an email.

“Workers will still have to be prepared to walk, if negotiations aren’t shaping up,” she said. 

“But the past year seems to signal that workers are increasingly saying, ‘Enough is enough’, and that they are pushing not just their employers, but their own unions by rejecting tentative agreements that were recommended to them.” 

One challenge is that union coverage for grocery workers is fragmented across the country between different unions, locals and agreements, said Tufts. 

Unions need to scale up bargaining, he said, so that they can negotiate with employers at a higher level — like the UFCW’s B.C.-wide contracts with Save-On-Foods and Safeway.

The unions should also work together and strategize their sector-wide bargaining, but likely aren’t doing that, he said. 

Regardless, the Metro deal in the GTA will help both Unifor and the UFCW argue for more at the table amid labour market conditions that are also giving workers more power, said Tufts. 

In a market where the grocers are also competing for workers, even non-unionized workers will likely stand to gain from the improvements Unifor and UFCW are making, Ross said. 

Right now, the landscape has shifted and grocery store workers are in a position to make real advances across the country, Novak said. 

“I think it is a really powerful moment.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 8, 2023.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M ON THE SEA

Samskip Admonishes Iceland for Misrepresentations Over $32M Collusion Fine

Samskip strongly commended the Icelandic Competition Authorities' finding of collusion (Samskip file photo)

PUBLISHED SEP 1, 2023 4:57 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The long-running Icelandic investigation into the alleged collusion between Dutch shipping company Samskip and Iceland’s Eimskip heated up with the release of a report finding serious violations and illegal actions by Samskip and announcing a $31.7 million fine. Samskip released a response using strong accusatory language to reject the “assumptions and conclusions” of the Icelandic Competition Authority and promising to use all available means by law to overturn the decision.

The investigation into the purported collusion between the two shipping companies has been going on for 13 years. The Icelandic Competition Authority started the action in 2010, followed by raids on Samskip and Eimskip’s offices in 2013 and 2014. Samskip accused them of “seizing large amounts of information.”

The ICA issued initial reports in 2018 and again in 2019, with a third and final report in November 2020. The reports are more than two thousand pages and the accompanying documents number in the tens of thousands. The full report was published on August 31 in 15 volumes plus an appendix. Samskip says that it submitted detailed comments on the reports illustrating how the ICA’s preliminary conclusions were fundamentally incorrect. 

The ICA concludes that Samskip violated the country’s competition law and conducted illegal consultations with Eimskip. Further, they reported that the investigators believed Samskip during the investigation provided “incorrect, misleading, and insufficient information and data delivery.” In addition to making recommendations for measures that the company needs to take to “prevent further infringements and promote competition,” the ICA is leveling a $31.7 million administrative fine.

The investigation had initially centered on the time from 2008 to 2013 alleging continuous collusion with the main objective to restrict competition. The investigation was exploring charges that the companies colluded by making changes to their operating schedules and routes. They said it was done to maintain or increase prices to customers. During the investigation, the time span was expanded to reach back as far as 2001, looking at actions for the transport services to North America between 2004 and 2009, actions in 2005, and alleged collusion in 2007 on stevedoring in the Iceland port of Reyðarfjörður.

“Samskip is deeply disappointed by the ICA’s procedure in the case. The ICA’s conclusion is characterized by half-truths, misleading statements, and misrepresentations of facts,” Samskip said in its public response to the report and the imposition of the fine.

The company went on to call the process “extraordinarily cumbersome,” saying that it has had a “crippling effect” on its operations. They contend that they had submitted detailed comments on the reports illustrating how the conclusions were “fundamentally wrong.” 

Eimskip in June 2021 settled with the ICA acknowledging that there was communication and collusive behavior with Samskip between 2008 and 2013 in violation of Icelandic law. Eimskip paid a nearly $12 million administrative fine and agreed to certain actions to prevent further violations and promote competition.

The ICA in its report released yesterday says that when Samskip became aware that Eimskip was in settlement negotiations, they too requested settlement talks. The ICA says the discussions took place in June and July 2021, but it was “clear that they would not produce a result in the opinion of the ICA that included a satisfactory outcome.” They terminated the negotiations.

The Icelandic Competition Authority reports that Samskip has one month to pay the fine. Samskip said in its response that it would “not abide by the ICA’s decision,” and use all legal means to overturn the decision.

Police Investigate Co-CEOs of Stellar Daisy Shipowner Polaris

Polaris Shipping file image

PUBLISHED AUG 31, 2023 8:06 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

Police in Seoul have raided the offices of Polaris Shipping, the operator of the ill-fated bulker conversion Stellar Daisy, in connection with alleged breach of trust. The new round of law enforcement attention comes just as the company's owners were preparing to sell the firm.

On August 28, the Seoul Metropolitan Police's Financial Crimes Investigation Unit dispatched a team to Polaris' headquarters with orders to seize record books and computer hard drives with data on the firm's accounts. The authorities suspect that the firm's co-CEOs - Kim Wan-joong and Han Hee-seung - extracted about $38 million from Polaris' holding company, Polar Energy & Marine. The alleged transactions took the form of loans and were used "arbitrarily" to secure management rights, the Seoul police said. 

Kim already faces criminal charges in connection with the sinking of the Stellar Daisy. He was convicted of failing to report known defects aboard the vessel in 2020, and was sentenced to six months in prison. The case is currently on appeal at South Korea's supreme court. In 2022, he was also indicted on charges of negligence and "ship-burying" in connection with the case. 

Polaris was put up for sale in May, and about 20 firms have expressed interest, according to Chosun Daily. The value of the transaction is estimated at about $425 million. A sale would also buy out the firm's second-largest shareholders, NH Private Equity and Aeneas Private Equity.

Polaris is a leading owner of very large ore carriers (VLOCs), the super-large bulkers used to transport iron ore from Brazil to East Asia. It has 15 ships in this size category, and it holds valuable contracts with some of the world's largest ore mining companies and ore importers.

The firm came under intense scrutiny after the sinking of the Stellar Daisy, an aging VLCC-to-VLOC conversion that suddenly disappeared in the Atlantic in March 2017. The flag state, the Marshall Islands, determined that "catastrophic structural failure" was the cause of the casualty. Extensive cracking in the hull was identified as early as 2011, six years before the sinking. 

Polaris sold its last VLCC-to-VLOC conversions for scrap in 2021, bringing its exposure to this vessel class to a close.