Aging and Work in Canada: Firm Policies

Few Canadian firms have explicit policies dealing with the aging of their workforces, other than pension policies geared to a conventional retirement age. However, other firm policies have unanticipated consequences that apply differentially to older and younger workers. This paper reviews several relevant firm practices used in Canada, including pension and benefits practices, training policies and programs, and work and family practices. The most dramatic firm practice that has an impact on the older worker is restructuring through downsizing the workforce by means of retirement incentives and layoffs. We introduce the issue by considering available national-level Canadian data, and then consider five case studies representing different configurations of firm practices. These cases are: Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, NOVA Corporation, Slater Steels, Bell Canada, and the garment industry in Montreal. Both management and employee level data are presented. We argue the importance of organizational latitude in establishing firm-based policies that dramatically change the nature of the life course in Canada.aging workforce; firm policies

Jim Wallis

The Reverend Jim Wallis is the founder of Sojourners, a Christian community in Washington, D.C., as well as editor of a magazine of the same title that covers social justice issues. He is also the convener of Call to Renewal, a religious ecumenical organization committed to, according to their mission statement, overcoming poverty, dismantling racism, affirming life, and rebuilding family and community. A charismatic speaker and prolific writer about religion and politics, he is often hailed as the voice of the religious left

Common Schools Movement

The common schools movement was the effort to fund schools in every community with public dollars, and is thus heralded as the start of systematic public schooling in the United States. The movement was begun by Horace Mann, who was elected secretary of the newly founded Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837. Mann and other reformers argued that schools were necessary to inculcate nonsectarian Christian moral values and to educate every citizen to participate in a democracy. This dual mission is sometimes known as the common school movement\u27s “Protestant-republican” ideology. The common schools movement advanced other progressive ideals popular at the time, and was adopted by other states throughout the rest of the 1800s. Schools were free, locally funded and governed, regulated to some degree by the state, and open to all White children

The New-England Primer

The New-England Primer was one of the first textbooks used in U.S. public schools. It cost two to four pence and was commonly found in colonial households. The first U.S. edition was most likely printed by Benjamin Harris of Boston before 1687, and it was reprinted consistently for the next 150 years. Although its authorship is unknown and its contents occasionally changed across editions, The New-England Primer always contained core elements used to teach literacy and Christian morals, explicitly embedding Protestant Christianity in the curriculum. The earliest existing version in print is the 1727 edition; others have been lost to time

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of three major branches of Christianity (the other two being Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy) and is the majority religion in the United States. As of 2004, however, that majority edges just over 50%