Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER June 13, 2016 38 INSIGHT W EIRD ORKPLACE THE Vol. 29 No. 11 – June 13, 2016 PUBLISHED BY Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 ©Copyright 2015 by Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. CANADIAN HR REPORTER is published 21 times a year. Publications Mail – Agreement # 40065782 Registration # 9496 – ISSN 0838-228X Director, Carswell Media: Karen Lorimer - (416) 649-9411 karen.lorimer@thomsonreuters.com EDITORIAL Publisher/Editor in Chief: Todd Humber - (416) 298-5196 todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com Editor/Supervisor: Sarah Dobson - (416) 649-7896 sarah.dobson@thomsonreuters.com Senior Editor: Liz Bernier - (416) 649-7837 liz.bernier@thomsonreuters.com Employment Law Editor: Jeffrey R. 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Address changes and returns: Send changes and undeliverable Canadian addresses to: SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Canadian HR Reporter One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 CUSTOMER SERVICE Call: (416) 609-3800 (Toronto) (800) 387-5164 (outside Toronto) Fax: (416) 298-5082 (Toronto) (877) 750-9041 (outside Toronto) Email: carswell.customerrelations@ thomsonreuters.com LETTERS TO THE EDITOR todd.humber@thomsonreuters.com CHRR reserves the right to edit for length and clarity. Todd Humber Editor's Notes DINNER WITH A SIDE OF HANDCUFFS? BEIJING — A father-daughter duo are enjoying brisk business at their Beijing restaurant after they started providing patrons with an S&M-themed experience. Drinks are served in breast-shaped cups and beers are opened with bottle openers shaped like penises, while mannequins wearing bondage gear gaze over customers, according to Reuters. e kitchen also serves up dishes such as "Horny" and "Sensuous World" and infl atable naked dolls sit on shelves while waiters wear aprons with breasts on them. "'Food and sex are the basic desires of humans,' and the phrase has not changed in more than 5,000 years," said owner Lu Lu. "'Release your basic instincts' and 'Liberate your- self ' are the two concepts we used as the basis for the restaurant." While the police have visited once, Lu said she has been left alone to run her business. However, she hopes to turn things up a notch by putting female customers in handcuff s and having their male companions feed them. She also wants to give customers the option of whipping waitresses. Scorching house prices scare workers T his is a battle. A war. And the casualties could be your hearts and minds." at's a phrase uttered by John Keating, the character played by Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society. He was talking about the importance of free thinking. But having just purchased a home in one of Canada's hottest real estate markets, I feel his words are far more applicable to real estate. Because buying a house is ex- hausting — and I'm not talking about the packing, tape guns or the move itself. at's child's play. Multiple off ers, no inspections, modest houses going into the low seven fi gures and losing your dream home to another buyer who decided to go in $150,000 over asking — it can be mind- numbing and soul destroying. For those not addicted to Real- tor.ca, perhaps that sounds a bit like hyperbole. But for those on the hunt in a tight market, Keat- ing's words will strike a chord. is headline from the Globe & Mail this week summed it up perfectly — "Universities struggle to attract professors amid soaring housing prices." At Vancouver's University of British Columbia (UBC), the school lost out on 18 new hires in 2015 because of the city's notorious housing prices. A 1,000-square-foot condo on campus sells for $800,000, and the average price for a detached home in the city is $1.8 million. We're not talking about mini- mum wage fast food workers struggling to put a roof over their heads. We're talking about highly paid professionals. e median salary for a post-secondary pro- fessor in Canada is nearly $94,000, according to PayScale. Run that salary through a mort- gage calculator and that professor could aff ord a maximum mort- gage of about $550,000. And a half-a-million dollars won't get you a shoebox in Vancouver. This quandary has led some universities in Ontario to ap- proach the government to see if they can get laws changed to allow them to build "aff ordable long-term housing for faculty," according to the Globe. e notion of employers pro- viding housing is hardly a new phenomenon. Over the last de- cade, oilsands employers in and around Fort McMurray, Alta., have built camps to house work- ers because housing construction couldn't keep up with demand. In resort towns such as Banff, Alta., employers often have to off er housing to work- ers because there aren't enough accommodations. But those are extreme examples driven by a booming remote in- dustry in one case and a lack of housing in densely populated re- sort areas in another. It reminds me of a history les- son I was taught in high school about the town of Walkerville, Ont. Today, Walkerville is a neigh- bourhood in the City of Windsor. But in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was a town of its own, founded by Hiram Walker, the renowned whisky maker. Its pur- pose? To house the workers at his booming distillery. A story in the Walkerville Times summed it up this way: "After 25 years of existence, the village of Walkerville had a population of 600 people. Most of the inhabit- ants of the village were Walker employees. ey were off ered a lease to a Walker-owned cottage in the village, none of which were privately owned by the workers. "In this way, Walker could con- trol the type of individual who lived in his village. e inhabitants used and drank water pumped through pipes laid by the Walk- ers. ey received police and fi re protection at Walker's expense. ey attended St. Mary's Church constructed by Hiram Walker and named after his late wife. e children of the village attended school on a site donated by Hiram Walker. "In the absence of a commercial bank, the Walker employees could deposit their savings in the Walker bank. Walkerville in the 1880s was a wholly owned family principal- ity and it had been developed with great care." e quandary facing universi- ties today goes far beyond the ivo- ry towers. e average Canadian job pays far less than a university professor earns — throwing up some plywood and shingles on campuses may ease the crunch for this relatively elite group, but it does nothing to solve the issue for other Canadians for whom home ownership is a mere pipe dream. Employers in smaller commu- nities, with relatively aff ordable housing, may suddenly have a recruiting gimmick to attract top talent: Start including MLS list- ings, and average selling prices, in job postings. e rest of us, toiling in "cities fi lled with the foolish," to quote Walt Whitman (well, to quote John Keating reading Whitman), are left to wonder: "What good amid these, o me, o life? Answer: at you are here. at life exists, and identity." at, and a lifetime of debt if you're actually lucky enough to win a bidding war. PRINT NOT DEAD IN DUBAI DUBAI — Dubai has opened what it is calling the world's fi rst 3D- printed offi ce building, according to Reuters. While traditionally the technology makes digitally de- signed, three-dimensional objects from plastic, this one used a spe- cial mixture of cement. "It has fully functional offi ces and staff ," said the United Arab Emirates Min- ister of Cabinet Aff airs, Moham- med Al Gergawi. "We believe this is just the beginning. e world will change." The arc-shaped, one-story building measures 250 square meters and was built in 17 days at a cost about $140,000. It's estimated the technique could cut building time by 50 to 70 per cent, and labour costs by 25 per cent, said Gergawi, adding it is Dubai's strategy to have 25 per cent of the buildings in the emirate printed by 2030. FORECAST: COLD FRONT EXPECTED LOS ANGELES — Dress code can always be a challenge in the workplace, as one meteorologist found out recently. Liberté Chan was delivering her weather report live on-air when an arm holding a sweater suddenly appeared to the right of the TV screen. "What's going on?" she asked, putting on the sweater over her black dress. e KTLA co-anchor told her the station was getting a lot of emails complaining about her attire. "What?!" said Chan. "(Now) I look like a librarian." After Chan posted the clip to her Facebook page, the video quickly went viral, according to Global News. "For the record, I was not ordered by KTLA to put on the sweater," she said in a blog. "I was simply playing along with my co-anchor's joke, and if you've ever watched the morning show, you know we poke fun at each other all the time." Chan and her co-anchor also read out emails allegedly sent by viewers, including one saying she "looked like she stayed out late at a party and came to work in the same dress. It's not appropriate for the morning weather report." PAINFUL POULTRY PRACTICES UNITED STATES — Workers on the processing line at large poultry producers in the United States are routinely denied adequate bath- room breaks, according to Oxfam America. "People regularly wear diapers to work in the plants. They feel they have to put up with this, to keep their jobs," said Minor Sinclair, director of Oxfam America's U.S. program. " e su- pervisors do whatever they can to keep the line running at break- neck speed, and the companies turn a blind eye, as they're racking up record profi ts." Poultry work- ers are some of the most vulner- able people in the country," said Deborah Berkowitz, senior fellow at the National Employment Law Project. "Most are minorities and immigrants; some are recently re- settled refugees. Poultry compa- nies know they can get away with unfair, intimidating and legally questionable practices because these workers are too fearful to speak up." CUTTING BACK ON STYLE ROCK HILL, S.C. — Larry om- as off ered very selective services at his barbershop in Rock Hill, S.C., a would-be patron found out re- cently. When Arthur Hill request- ed a haircut, omas responded he "does not cut black hair," ac- cording to the Washington Post. Hill then noticed the barber was holding a gun in his right hand. The barber was later arrested and charged with pointing and presenting a fi rearm at a person. He said he felt threatened but he was not racist. "I don't do fl at tops. White people wear fl at tops. I no longer cut women's hair because I'm not good enough to cut wom- en's hair anymore. e only thing I do is I stick with my middle-age group of men," said omas. "Be- ing an autistic individual, I pretty much stick to my routine." Credit: Ksyutoken (Shutterstock) providing patrons with an S&M-themed experience. Drinks are served in breast-shaped cups and beers are opened with bottle openers shaped like penises, while mannequins wearing bondage gear gaze over customers, according to Reuters. e kitchen also serves up dishes such as "Horny" and "Sensuous World" and infl atable naked dolls sit on shelves while waiters wear aprons with breasts on them. "'Food and sex are the basic desires of humans,' and the phrase has not changed in more than 5,000 years," said owner customers in handcuff s and having their male companions feed them. She also wants to give customers the option of room breaks, according to Oxfam America. "People regularly wear CUTTING BACK ON STYLE ROCK HILL, S.C. — Larry om- Credit: Ksyutoken (Shutterstock)

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