Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER November 14, 2016 26 INSIGHT VACATED IN VANCOUVER VANCOUVER — Another recent fl ight didn't go nearly as well when a British Airways plane fl ying from San Francisco to London had to be rerouted to Vancouver for an emergency landing. Twenty-two cabin crew members and three pilots immediately disboarded and went to three local hospitals — but were released shortly after, according to the CBC. " e captain came on and said there was some minor technical difficulties and we were diverting to Calgary instead of London," said passenger Jaakko Virtanan. "I didn't smell any smoke… I just smelled the roast beef or whatever that I didn't get, because they stopped serving dinner at that point." It's unclear what happened on the Airbus 380 but making that kind of landing with such a big plane suggests a major problem, said one expert. INEBRIATED INVESTIGATION BRAZIL — Having to investigate a dead body as a forensic expert is, no doubt, an unpleasant job. But falling on top of your corpse is probably not the best way to go about it. Unfortunately, that's what happened recently in Brazil when an apparently drunk investigator approached a body lying in a sandy hole. e man stumbled toward the corpse and knelt down to examine the body but ended up falling face- down on top of it, according to the New York Post. A video of the inci- dent shows a large crowd laughing at the scene, as a military offi cer tries to help by grabbing the foren- sic expert by his belt to pull him back up. e investigator managed to stand up and then tried to pull the dead person out of the hole by their legs — but ended up falling backwards into the sand. NOT SO TRUE-TO-LIFE LONDON — While he might have impressed both book and movie fans for decades, James Bond would not get a job as a British spy, according to Alex Younger, head of the U.K.'s exter- nal intelligence agency MI6. Real spies have to cope with complex moral and physical challenges in forbidding environments, he said, and 007 lacks a strong ethi- cal core, according to Reuters. "It's safe to say that James Bond wouldn't get through our recruit- ment process," said Younger. "An intelligence offi cer in the real MI6 has a high degree of emotional in- telligence, values teamwork and always has respect for the law — unlike Mr. Bond." TIPSY TO THE RESCUE BERN, SWITZERLAND — An alcohol ban for volunteer fi refi ght- ers and other emergency workers using heavy vehicles in Switzer- land has been lifted because of staffi ng shortages, especially dur- ing crises in smaller towns. As of Jan. 1, slightly tipsy fi refi ghters and off -duty members of professional "blue light" organizations respond- ing to urgent situations will no lon- ger face punishment — as long as their blood-alcohol level does not exceed 0.50 per cent, according to Reuters. "With the ban, theoreti- cally, it would have been impos- sible for somebody enjoying even a nice glass of red wine during the Christmas holidays to fulfi ll their duty in the event of an emergency," said Peter Wullschleger, a Zurich emergency services commander. W EIRD ORKPLACE THE Vol. 29 No. 19 – November 14, 2016 PUBLISHED BY Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. One Corporate Plaza 2075 Kennedy Rd. Toronto, ON M1T 3V4 ©Copyright 2016 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 News Editor Marcel Vander Wier - (416) 649-7837 marcel.vanderwier@thomsonreuters.com Employment Law Editor: Jeffrey R. Smith - (416) 649-7881 jeffrey.r.smith@thomsonreuters.com Labour Relations News Editor: John Dujay - (416) 298-5129 john.dujay@thomsonreuters.com Web/IT Co-ordinator: Mina Patel - (416) 649-7879 mina.patel@thomsonreuters.com ADVERTISING Account Executive: Nicholas Cholodny - (647) 537-4705 nicholas.cholodny@thomsonreuters.com Production Co-ordinator: Pamela Menezes - (416) 649-9298 pamela.menezes@thomsonreuters.com MARKETING AND CIRCULATION Marketing & Audience Development Manager: Robert Symes - (416) 649-9551 rob.symes@thomsonreuters.com Marketing Co-ordinator: Keith Fulford - (416) 649-9585 keith.fulford@thomsonreuters.com PRODUCTION Manager, Media Production: Lisa Drummond - (416) 649-9415 lisa.drummond@thomsonreuters.com Art Director: Dave Escuadro SUBSCRIPTIONS Annual subscription: $169 (plus GST) GST#: 897 176 350 RT To subscribe, call one of the customer service numbers listed above or visit www.hrreporter.com. 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 Problems in the sharing economy L ast issue, I wrote of my love of Uber and the an- tics of its drivers that were both funny and a bit maddening. is time, though, the tale of the Uber driver takes a darker and more serious tone in the wake of a research paper that landed on my desk. There are problems with the sharing economy, folks, and they lie squarely at the feet of discrimination. Researchers in the United States found that drivers for ser- vices such as Uber and Lyft are avoiding picking up people with African-American-sounding names. e professors — from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the University of Washing- ton — sent graduate students out on rides in Seattle and Boston and found "signifi cant evidence of racial discrimination in both experiments." In real numbers, it looks like this — in Seattle, African-Ameri- can riders had to wait between 29 and 35 per cent longer to get a ride from UberX. Uber drivers can only see the names and photos of passengers after they agree to pick the person up. What the study found is that, in Boston, an African-American man was three times more likely than his white counterpart to have his ride cancelled after the Uber driver agreed to pick him up. ose are what academics call "statistically signifi cant" numbers. From this chair, they're just plain disturbing. e news doesn't get any bet- ter for women, either. In Seattle, researchers noted that drivers had taken female riders on longer rides than males on similar trips. In the Boston study, the research- ers focused more on this issue and found female riders were driven about fi ve per cent further. And the anecdotal evidence from the women who were par- ticipants in the study underscored the fact there's an issue. In some cases, drivers started the trip be- fore actually picking the passen- ger up or by not ending it when the passenger got out. "Other female riders reported "chatty" drivers who drove ex- tremely long routes, on some oc- casions even driving through the same intersection multiple times," wrote the authors. "As a result, the additional travel that female rid- ers are exposed to appears to be a combination of profi teering and fl irting to a captive audience." e fl irting portion is more dis- turbing given recent headlines in- volving Uber drivers. Last month, Nephat Sizba, a 55-year-old Uber driver, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a 20-year- old woman in Toronto. In response, the company re- leased a statement noting that drivers go through a rigorous screening process that includes police background checks and that the company takes "every safety incident very seriously and (is) committed to the safety of ev- eryone who uses Uber." Given the nature of the sharing economy, and turning the spot- light off companies like Uber and Lyft, how exactly do we do that? In a traditional organization, this would be the purview of HR. If these were employees, you could reprimand, send them for training, or revise discrimination and ha- rassment policies as needed. But in a world of independent contractors doing pretty much what they want when they want to, it's a much murkier situation. e study authors presented a few solutions that could cut down on blatant discrimination and hid- den biases such as not using names and photos to identify passengers and drivers, and performing pe- riodic audits of driver behaviours that appear discriminatory. Another solution goes the other way and embraces the fact some people are racist jerks. Lyft, for example, immediately shows drivers the name and photo of the passenger. It results in fewer ride cancellations because the racist driver can simply choose not to pick up the passenger in the fi rst place, rather than agreeing to pick the person up and then cancel- ling when seeing a race they don't like. e end result is passengers actually end up with shorter wait times. But we can do better. No em- ployer would simply accept that racism exists. Companies in the sharing economy benefi t from not having employees on the payroll. at doesn't absolve them from poor behaviour. If anything, these organizations should be invest- ing more in solid HR practices to ensure independent contractors are following the law and societal norms. Better screening, better train- ing — in other words, more HR. That's what this new sharing economy needs to stamp out this behaviour. FEATHERY FLIGHT ATTENDANT NORTH CAROLINA — Usually it's fl ight attendants who trundle up and down the aisle, but on a recent fl ight from Charlotte to Asheville, N.C., travellers were surprised to see a feathered friend waddling by — Daniel the duck. Wearing red "shoes" and a Captain America diaper, Daniel Turducken Stinkerbutt is a four-and-a-half-year-old Indian Runner duck who's also an emotional support animal for Carla Fitzgerald, according to the Washington Post. A former horse-and-carriage driver in Milwaukee, Fitzgerald adopted Daniel in 2012 and about a year later, was involved in a serious car accident. She was immobile for months and suff ering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but found the duck was responsive to her needs. So she took him on the fl ight — and he quickly became a celebrity of sorts thanks to tweets, with photos and a video, by passenger Mark Essig. "I heard a few maybe semi-critical mutter- ings, like 'Now I've seen everything,'" said Essig. "But most everybody was delighted to have a duck on a plane. As they should be." After- wards, the crew posed for a picture with Daniel. Credit: Aksenova Natalya (Shutterstock) — Another recent fl ight didn't go nearly as well when a British Airways plane fl ying from San Francisco to London had to be rerouted to Vancouver for an emergency landing. Twenty-two cabin crew members and three pilots immediately disboarded and went to three local hospitals — but were released shortly after, according to the CBC. " e captain came on and said there was some minor technical difficulties and we were diverting to Calgary instead of London," said passenger Jaakko Virtanan. "I didn't smell any smoke… I just smelled the roast beef or whatever that I didn't get, because they stopped serving FEATHERY FLIGHT ATTENDANT NORTH CAROLINA — Usually it's fl ight attendants who trundle up and down the aisle, but on a recent fl ight from Charlotte to Asheville, N.C., travellers were surprised to see a feathered friend waddling by — Daniel the duck. Wearing red "shoes" and a Captain America diaper, Daniel Turducken Stinkerbutt is a four-and-a-half-year-old Indian Runner duck who's also an emotional support animal for Carla Fitzgerald, according to the horse-and-carriage driver in Milwaukee, Fitzgerald adopted Daniel in 2012 and about a year later, was involved in a serious car accident. She was immobile for months and suff ering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but found the duck was responsive to her needs. So she took him on the fl ight — and he quickly became a celebrity of sorts thanks to tweets, with photos and a video, by passenger Mark Essig. "I heard a few maybe semi-critical mutter- ings, like 'Now I've seen everything,'" said Essig. "But most everybody was delighted to have a duck on a plane. As they should be." After- wards, the crew posed for a picture with Daniel. Companies in the sharing economy benefi t from not having employees on the payroll. That doesn't absolve them.

• Cover