Jobs

Hey Dears,

Today's post will feature some Labour Related jobs.
I am sure most people do not know what you could do with a Labour Studies degree.Well, at the end of the day, with a LS/LR degree, your knowledge will be around these issues: (judging from the courses you take)

-The Canadian Labour movement

-Working for a Living

-Political economy of Labour

-Employees, Employers and the State

-Labour Law

-Employment Law

-Workplace Health and Safety

-Pensions & Benefits

-Worker's self management

-Globalization and Labour

-Negotiations and Bargaining

-Working class and Labour history

-The skills and knowledge from the field placement.

Here are some jobs you could utilise: Be it in a Gov't position, NGO, private businesses, Union...

-Worker Advocate

-Employment Standard Officer

-Health and Safety Officer

-Human Rights Investigator

-Human Resource Manager

-Labour Relations Board Officer

-Workers Compensation Board caseworker

-Worker Advisor

-Legislative Assistant

-Policy Researcher

-Union Representative

-Union organizer

-Labour Lawyer

PS: My University,-UofM- helps students to attend Mel Myers Labour conference each year. This is a way of networking. You never who you meet and what the person can do for you. Well, I attended last year's Mel Myers Labour conference which had over 350 people. I'm also fortunate to be attending this years conference on March 20 and 21st at Victoria Inn. I am looking forward to interact with like minded people!

Pensions & Benefits

Hey Dears

   So this time, one of my summer courses is Pensions & Benefits (LABR3140) taught by Karen Naylor. It is quite interesting to learn about Pensions. I know most people hardly know anything about Pensions beside them being deducted off their pay check. Well, its important to get some knowledge on them. One should know the kind of pensions he or she is eligible to...is it a defined benefit or contributory? A defined benefit pension is the one which an employer promises to give you a certain amount of money after you retire- Usually every month. There are terms and conditions that come with this...for instance, how many years you have worked with the employer?...It usually depends how the amount of money will be calculated. Again, there are ways to calculate it like by taking:

the accural rate x salary/earnings x pensionable service 

for instance 3% x 60,000 x 30yrs

The common used way of calculating pension benefit also known as the "gold plate" where the calculation will be based on your best working years for instance the highest period within the ten years so your last five years. It depends. I'm just giving examples. Or the other method of pensions benefit plan is by unknown earnings where it will depend.

The other type of pensions is called defined contribution pension. As it says, "contribution" so both the employee and employer do have to put in a certain amount of money into the plan. It will be difficult to have an actual figure on how much pension will be given back once an employee retires. So the actuaries become useful here, they help in assuming how much will be given back based on the life expectancy and the investment returns from the funds.

So my dears, don't just let that money go off the pay check without knowing whats going on...its good to find out & understand how things are running. I'm always happy with a clear mind. Besides, Its your right to acquire knowledge about anything based on given opportunities... You have a Right to know, Right to Participate and Right to Refuse. There you go...Be sure to find out what type of pension plan you are in? In the first place, Does your workplace have pensions plan?

xxx

Labour & Poverty in Rural Tanzania

Hey dears,

Its been almost a month,less four days, since i received my copy of the book "Labour and poverty in rural Tanzania-Ujamaa and rural development in the United Republic of Tanzania". Good news is, i did not have to buy it nor did i get it from Paul Collier. Guess who give it to me?

Oh well, i got it as a present from someone soo dear to me. A very important person in my life. I actually got it as a suprise. I did not know it was the book i wanted for so long...because i had given up on it and other stuff kept on piling up, so actually,  i literally forgot about it. Then THERE! JUST LIKE THAT! i got it...Anyways, so im gonna read it, understand it and share it with y'all!

God bless you all and most importantly to the person who gave me the book! I Love youuuu!

 

Waiting to hear all about the book huh? Okay till then xxx

I'm doing my exams now so not anytime soon dears.

Left with LABR1260

I thank God for his mercies. I'm only left with one exam to complete this semester.

Yes continue to pray my dears. God does wonders coz I believe if you act, God acts too.

The last exam is from my major course for the degree. Almost everything educational in "MonLabourWorld" comes from this particular course called "Working for a Living". So yes, i do have a giant understanding in the field but still i wont be able to look at my notes during the exam so it is not a guarantee that i have an A* :) still alot has to be done. I have fourteen topics that need to be reviewed. I'll share them with you...

1. Work before Capitalism
2. How Capitalism Transformed Working Life Part A
3. How Capitalism Transformed Working Life Part B
4. Unpaid Work
5. Working For Wages
6. Work in the South
7. Work in the North
8. Workplace Rights in Canada
9. Work and Health
10. Live to work or Work to Live? Part A
11. Live to Work or Work to Live?Part B
12. Young workers
13. Working class responses
14. Working class alternatives

So this is how my weekend is gonna be :( just digging into books books and books!

Anyways, Yes its all about the history of WORK! WORK WORK and WORK!...This is what i chose to study. I have to stay I love what i'm studying. These topics are so interesting and very flexible. The analysis of the topics could be used in any country not just in Canada. Although yes!, an emphasis is placed on Canadian Employment standards particularly Manitoba Employment Laws.

For the love of my motherland, I do alot of comparisons between Tanzania and Canada. Yes, solutions will one day be found for better working conditions in both countries. For now, let me get the knowledge first :)

Be blessed Dears and don't forget to Pray for my last exam xxx

Working Life

Hey Dears,

 "Special Sunday" is here!!! So whats our special dish for today?

This week I learnt a lot about Work in the North, then for the past few weeks I have been learning about Work in the South. Then I thought, oh wow! Its good to come with comparisons between the two sides and share it with you.

 First of all, 

As a starter/appetizer, we all do ask ourselves questions about jobs....I will provide answers to what i think. Understand my answers to these questions are highly subjective

Why are jobs sooooo important?

Zee's answer

Income earning "work hard, play hard"

What do we want from jobs?

Zee's answer

1. An interesting, satisfying and trusting job which offers security.
2. Financial security meaning good pay
3. Meaningful or useful to the society sometimes to achieve self satisfactions

What do we get from the jobs and why so?

Zee's answer

Unless self employed but control over the job is plays a key role.

No wonder when it gets to Friday, for those who feel tooo controlled at their workplace they think of "TGIF"-Thank God its Friday and find relief in the sense that they don't have to be answerable to their duties assigned by their bosses during the week days.

Understand that most interesting jobs tend to be least alienated, for instance teaching, a teacher has to follow the curriculum but as a professor at university, more control over what he or she teaches. But still control is present.

Wages and Fringe Benefits

Jobs gives us wages and other fringe benefits like free health care, housing, a free car etc. This provides us job security on top of the contract.

I'm sure if i was to ask you the list of questions on jobs, then the questions will go on and on and on but those are a few I chose.

Main meal

Work in the South	Work in the North	Comparisons
Climate ideal for agriculture (farming, largest sector)	Short growing season plus cold makes farming difficult	Type of jobs
The economy wholly based on agriculture, nowadays mining and tourism	The economy is based on manufacturing	economy
Most employees are paid at the end of the month as Salary	Most employees are paid according to hours worked in every two weeks, "pay day".  In Manitoba the minimum hourly wage is $10.25 as per October 1st	Payment method
Usually, most people have one job, starting from 8am to 4pm a duration of 8 hours work per day	Usually having two jobs is common, for instance a day job or weekend job and an overnight job	Number of jobs

Dessert

 I hope this delicious dish filled you up  :) 

xxx

Daily Sundays aka Sunday Special

I noticed that most of my free time falls on Sunday. 

So I will keep up with the "Sunday Special" updates on MonLaborWorld. However, I'm subject to changes within the week, if something special comes up and I cant wait for Sunday then i'll pop by and alert you.

Sawa, until the next "Sunday Special" , Enjoy the week ahead.

Keep on walking with me as I pursue my Labour Degree

Mwl. Julius Kambarage Nyerere

I was trying to see what influence our late Mwalimu Nyerere had on Labour studies.

The best i could find was a link to" Labour and poverty in rural Tanzania: Ujamaa and rural development in the United Republic of Tanzania, Oxford University Press, New York 1991, ISBN 0-19-828315-6 by Paul Collier". 

"Paul Collier is currently an Advisor to the Strategy and Policy Department of the IMF, advisor to the Africa Region of the World Bank; and he has advised the British Government on its recent White Paper on economic development policy. He has been writing a monthly column for the Independent, and also writes for the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. His research covers the causes and consequences of civil war; the effects of aid and the problems of democracy in low-income and natural-resources rich societies." source: http://www.users.ox.ac.uk/~econpco/

So I decided to get in touch with Paul Collier to get a copy of the book. I'm still waiting for his feedback.

Otherwise, Happy Nyerere day. Long live his contributions to our society.

Source: google images

The Legacy of Julius Nyerere: a very good documentary video of Mwalimu

video credits to  kwaghafla on Oct 11, 2011

Forms of Labour

Usually, we dont exactly take notice of other forms of labour except for the paid labour. If someone says "work", all that comes first in mind is "pay=work". Definitely i had the same thing in mind not untill i walked into my Labour class and learnt about different forms of Labour.

• Unpaid Domestic work
• "free" paid labour
• "unfree" wage labour
• Volunteer labour
• Slave labour

We might be familiar to these forms, but i would like to give a very nice example which my prof used during the lecture.

For instance Child care

• Unpaid Domestic work-when mothers stay at home and take of their kids with no pay of course, nowadays, men too :) *thumbs up*
• "free" paid labour- is when a nanny or "dada" is hired to take care of the kids and paid for doing so
• "unfree" wage labour- care-giver or aupair where a nanny goes to a foreign land and takes care of the kids but she or he is only allowed to stay with that family alone. it is 'unfree" because the nanny is tied to that job and can not freely move to another job.
• Volunteer labour- offering to baby sit for a friend or relative without any form of payment
• Slave labour- when a slave is bought to look after kids ( common in the past)

Having said that, ill show you some forms of labour in picture :)

My trip with Sabrina and Saning'o to Misigiyo village was volunteer labour :)

My trip with Jessica and Diana to Kibaoni school was also volunteer labour :)

The pleasure of volunteering is self, it just feels nice to be able to share your time to those who need it most. Try volunteering as much as you can, you will be shocked how much happiness will be built within self.

"Free" paid labour, my dada Rukia can move freely move whenever and wherever she wants to leave however at the moment its been years and years with her so she is like my blood SISTER. Love her.

Unpaid Domestic work. I remember Pamcakes and I had to look after the kids in one afternoon. That was fun :)

As for slave labour, I dont have any specific picture of my own but i have one taken from Bagamoyo, last year July, as a sample of a slave.

Finally, unfree wage labour,coming soooooooooooon, im thinking of being an aupair so perhaps if all goes well, i'll update you with a picture. As for now, i have nothing to share for "unfree" wage labour.

xxx

Labour Studies?

Hey dears,

So if you are wondering what Labour Studies (L.S) is all about, i would love to share my knowledge with you.

So far im doing one major course called working for a living. I have to complete two of each level to acquire my L.S degree. This means, I have to take two courses from 1000 level, two courses from 2000 level and 2 courses from a 3000 level. This is just a General major degree in labour studies if you want to specialize, you may attempt to go further with masters. 

Anyways, As for now... If you are thinking what is L.S? why LS? where should I take a L.S degree? how? who? etc etc and etc....well, ill try answer some of your questions with what i know.

I'm doing my Labour Studies degree as a major and a minor in management from the University of Manitoba. My main prof is David Camfield. a very good prof, he is even making me like the course more and more and even moooooore....he is very interesting. Karen Naylor is also my other prof plus Julie Guard. Okay, it doesnt matter where you acquire your degree, all in all is the usage. If the opportunities are there then grab them as much as you can because a golden chance never comes twice. I thank God i got this chance to pursue a canadian Labour studies degree.

Soo, what are the elements in L.S?

Personally, I would say LS may be more  political but it has both business and Arts qualities although mostly in Arts. Initially, I wanted a HR degree under Bcomm but then since i had to take maths, which i did but it did not go well, so i had to look for a pathway that would led to the same career of dealing with employees and employers which was why i chose L.S.

With L.S, I get to learn topics like the history of work, how the workplace has changed and what could be done to improve the working conditions. Seriously, when you think about it, we spend alot of our lives working, so basically it is essential to know about the workplace, most of it may be logic but then there may be deeper meanings which is what L.S provides.

Yes, I enjoy my course soo much to an extent i decided to write on it hahaaa

We all know, studying is not easy, and we do not just want to "study to study" as my dad says. We all try to Study with a purpose and atleast say we attend a course and know by the end of the course, something will have changed in terms of expanding our knowledge.

However, sometimes we have no choice but to attend a "filler" or an "elective" course just to fulfill a specific  requirement.

Anyways, feel free to share some of your courses in brief and what you like about them. You can send me an email to zarlgal@yahoo.com and i will publish them or you might want to just mention them below as a comment.

Walk with me as i pursue my Labour degree xxx

Number 1

Together we can make the world a better place. "KARIBU"

Thank you for your time, I would love to take this opportunity to thank you again for visiting zithoinetta.blogspot.ca

To begin with,

Zithoinetta is derived from ZITA and ANTOINETTA.

Zita aka Zitty is the one typing, who made MONLABORWORLD possible. Lets see if Antoinetta will be interested to continue with blogging. But for now, I am the only one writing.

Why are you here?

Okay, this spot right here will act like a "warm bath" after a loooong tideous day.

Basically, I want to share with you my passion for studying towards a Labour degree.

Oh well! EDUCATION! EDUCATION! EDUCATION! Noooo, come down, its not just EDUCATION! EDUCATION! EDUCATION! MONLABORWORLD will consist of everything not just studies although studies will take up most space in the blog. 

The reason "Mon" is there and not just "Labor World" means there's a roller-coaster of events. In life we all have our own interests and desires. The best thing is to have that "done" feeling after accomplishing a desire that you have long craved for. As for me, interacting with people as much as possible, brings in that "done" feeling to have said "I increased my network of connections". Therefore, blogging will enhance my people skill and i hope you enjoy the daily sessions of Monlaborworld. "ASANTE"