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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonder who wrote (31626)	6/7/2005 9:58:33 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 116555

Yeah, when we all know they are responsible for their own suffering in the first place. Grit your teeth. Suck it up. Shake it off. And other idiotic sports metaphors.

To: zonder who wrote (31626)	6/7/2005 11:12:18 AM
From: mishedlo	Respond to of 116555

Looks like the Province of Ontario, CAN is Implementing work until you die. tinyurl.com Ontario will become the latest province to take steps outlawing mandatory retirement at 65 when Labour Minister Chris Bentley details his plan today at a store where many seniors work: Home Depot. The chain was chosen for the announcement because of its policy of hiring seniors and people over 50 — many of them tradesmen and women — who form 20 per cent of staff and provide a great base of experience for do-it-yourselfers. "A lot of people don't want to come in and talk to someone who's 18 years old," said Home Depot spokesman Nick Cowling. The Ontario legislation — long called for by human rights advocates concerned about age discrimination — will be introduced in the Legislature today, Bentley confirmed. Some exceptions to the law are expected — in such fields as firefighting where physical ability and endurance are key determinants of performance. But a law likely won't be passed until fall at the earliest, and it's unclear when it will take effect. It's all too late to help people like Carleton University professor Weixuan Li, who expects a pension of just $600 a month from his employers when his job teaching computer science and math ends later this month. "I'd hoped it would be sooner," said Li of the law. He emigrated from China in 1989 but didn't get a full-time job at the Ottawa university until 1998. He expects government pensions to give him another $1,400 a month and is hoping to continue teaching on a contract basis to make ends meet. Li recalls Ontario's previous Progressive Conservative government introducing legislation to scrap mandatory retirement in 2003, just months before voters kicked the party out of office. The Liberals promised to do the same, and held more than a month of public hearings last year, but it has taken until now for legislation to be unveiled. "We think they have dragged their feet. We are puzzled by the delay," said Michael Doucet, president of the Ontario Council of University Faculty Associations, which has pushed for mandatory retirement to be ended as quickly as possible. Bentley wouldn't comment yesterday on the timing, which comes as the Legislature is expected to rise for a summer break soon. Proposed legislation could fall by the wayside. Ending mandatory retirement has been a growing trend, aimed at helping ease financial troubles for seniors, new immigrants, women who have left the workforce to raise children, and anyone who truly enjoys their career and wants to keep at it. Even Prime Minister Paul Martin, who is over 65, has said it should be scrapped. The University of Toronto recently decided to end mandatory retirement for faculty members starting next year over concerns experienced professors would go to jurisdictions where they could work past 65. Manitoba scrapped mandatory retirement in 1982 and other provinces have followed suit, including Quebec, Alberta, Prince Edward Island, the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Despite the trend, the average age of retirement has fallen to 61 in Canada. Today's proposed legislation comes as activists, such as the Ontario Human Rights Commission, complain that age discrimination inherent in mandatory retirement is on a par with racial or gender discrimination. As the law now stands in Ontario, workers can be forced to retire at 65. And workers whose companies don't force them out at 65 can keep working or find new jobs, but lose protections against age discrimination. Bentley's legislation comes with challenges for employers who must decide how to amend pension plans and deal with the tricky issue of evaluating the productivity of older workers. The New Democrats are already signalling that they won't give the legislation an easy ride. "Let's understand that the real debate should be about adequacy of pensions, not about designing ways for people to have to work longer," said MPP Peter Kormos (Niagara Centre). "We saw generations of Ontarians and Canadians struggle to earn earlier retirement so that they could live out their retirement years in some reasonable health and do the things folks want to do with their grandkids or volunteer work in the community," Kormos said. Advocates of ending mandatory retirement say it is merely about providing more choice, particularly to academics, business executives and other so-called knowledge workers whose careers do not take a physical toll. But that is not the case for many Ontarians, notes Kormos. "Where I come from, when you come out of the pipe mill, the steel mill, nobody in those industries looks forward to working into their 70s and 80s. They look forward to getting out of there as soon as possible."