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Labouring under a few misapprehensions...
Sep. 7th, 2020 10:10 amWhen my partner and I were still writing every 6 weeks for an APA, there was one longstanding member, originally from the UK, who constantly railed against the way we Canadians celebrate certain holidays at the "wrong" time. Like Mothers' Day in May instead of March. Or Labour Day in September instead of May.
While it's true that much of the world commemorates Mayday (May 1 or in some countries, the closest Monday) as an international celebration of workers, Canada and the US are by no means the only outliers. Australia and New Zealand, for example, are all over the map in terms of when they mark Labour Day. Western Australia celebrates it on the first Monday in March, Victoria on the second one. Meanwhile, Tasmania also celebrates something called Eight Hours Day (which I suspect may be something similar) on the second Monday in March. Northern Territory and Queensland celebrate on the first Monday in May. Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and South Australia all celebrate on the first Monday in October, as does New Zealand. And over in Hong Kong, Labour Day is celebrated on May 1, regardless of what day of the week it is. Japan has a Labour Thanksgiving Day on November 23.
A quick disclaimer here: all the above information is taken from my Letts 2021 pocket planner, published in Great Britain some time in 2020. I have not hedged my bets by verifying it in other sources, and even this one source cautions that all these dates are "subject to change and regional and institutional variation."
What I planned to do in today's entry was speculate a bit about the future of labour and workers' organizing in a wired - or wireless - world. On the one hand, there are a lot of concerns, on the part of both employers and employees, surrounding monitoring of workers. Amount of time logged into a system or number of keystrokes may be pretty much meaningless, yet workers and bosses alike tend to be pretty obsessed with it, particularly for minimum-wage, data-entry jobs. Piecework done in the home - for example by garment workers - has long been undervalued and underpaid. During a pandemic, with so many people telecommuting while simultaneously juggling all the tasks of home and family, inequalities only tend to intensify. Now is definitely not the time to roll back hard-won gains that workers have fought for over the past decades and centuries!
But how well can labour actions work during a lockdown or a pandemic? A virtual march, sit-in, teach-in, protest or picket line does not have the impact of a physical one. We have no way of knowing if our co-workers are "scabbing" or our managers bringing in replacement workers. We can't really air our grievances in any meaningful way - sure, we can tweet and grouse and grumble to our hearts' content on social media, but when everyone is sniping at everyone else, it becomes very much like the boy who cried wolf. The information-overload or Too Much Information syndrome is essentially illusory. There's a surfeit of raw data but very few nuggets of gold there.
I don't know what will emerge from all this. Best-case scenario, perhaps we will all come to realize the need for something like a Universal Basic Income or minimally, a basic benefits package that accrues to the individual and is not contingent upon being with a particular employer. That may be challenging under federalism, with all its various jurisdictions. I don't know how much progress will be made during my lifetime but I do see hope for some evolution in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren.
While it's true that much of the world commemorates Mayday (May 1 or in some countries, the closest Monday) as an international celebration of workers, Canada and the US are by no means the only outliers. Australia and New Zealand, for example, are all over the map in terms of when they mark Labour Day. Western Australia celebrates it on the first Monday in March, Victoria on the second one. Meanwhile, Tasmania also celebrates something called Eight Hours Day (which I suspect may be something similar) on the second Monday in March. Northern Territory and Queensland celebrate on the first Monday in May. Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and South Australia all celebrate on the first Monday in October, as does New Zealand. And over in Hong Kong, Labour Day is celebrated on May 1, regardless of what day of the week it is. Japan has a Labour Thanksgiving Day on November 23.
A quick disclaimer here: all the above information is taken from my Letts 2021 pocket planner, published in Great Britain some time in 2020. I have not hedged my bets by verifying it in other sources, and even this one source cautions that all these dates are "subject to change and regional and institutional variation."
What I planned to do in today's entry was speculate a bit about the future of labour and workers' organizing in a wired - or wireless - world. On the one hand, there are a lot of concerns, on the part of both employers and employees, surrounding monitoring of workers. Amount of time logged into a system or number of keystrokes may be pretty much meaningless, yet workers and bosses alike tend to be pretty obsessed with it, particularly for minimum-wage, data-entry jobs. Piecework done in the home - for example by garment workers - has long been undervalued and underpaid. During a pandemic, with so many people telecommuting while simultaneously juggling all the tasks of home and family, inequalities only tend to intensify. Now is definitely not the time to roll back hard-won gains that workers have fought for over the past decades and centuries!
But how well can labour actions work during a lockdown or a pandemic? A virtual march, sit-in, teach-in, protest or picket line does not have the impact of a physical one. We have no way of knowing if our co-workers are "scabbing" or our managers bringing in replacement workers. We can't really air our grievances in any meaningful way - sure, we can tweet and grouse and grumble to our hearts' content on social media, but when everyone is sniping at everyone else, it becomes very much like the boy who cried wolf. The information-overload or Too Much Information syndrome is essentially illusory. There's a surfeit of raw data but very few nuggets of gold there.
I don't know what will emerge from all this. Best-case scenario, perhaps we will all come to realize the need for something like a Universal Basic Income or minimally, a basic benefits package that accrues to the individual and is not contingent upon being with a particular employer. That may be challenging under federalism, with all its various jurisdictions. I don't know how much progress will be made during my lifetime but I do see hope for some evolution in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren.
