INTRODUCTION I'm sending below a brief note, "Sweating out the census", I wrote shortly before census day in Canada, May 15, 2001. Since that time more of the workings of this so-called census have been revealed to me and I have started to work on a longer and more comprehensive piece. My first premise is that the census in enumeration area 462 was a farce that revealed a "leadership" that could care less about getting the job done or doing it right. My second premise is that this particular tip of the iceberg is attached to an iceberg. My conclusion is that while EA 462 may have presented an extreme case, it probably wasn't exceptional. As someone with a bit of technical expertise in geography, survey methodology, organizational behavior, program evaluation and training I was in a position to observe, from below, a colossal pantomime in motion. And as someone with a bit of articulateness and chutzpah, I had no reservations about raising the issues with my supervisors. Last thursday evening, the census commissioner for my area called to let me know that my services were no longer required. Why does this matter? A population census is a banal and archaic thing. It's about as riveting a political issue as tap water -- or, more precisely, as riveting an issue as tap water used to be before people started dying from drinking it. No doubt the adepts at head office have more arcane and professionally rewarding matters to concern themselves with than the choreography of the quintennial schlep. Above all, there are asses to be covered and a surfeit of finely woven gold and silver cloth -- invisible to fools like me -- to cover them with. So what if electoral apportionment and federal/provincial transfers supposedly rely on census returns? Either they do -- in which case there is a potentially huge misallocation of power and money -- or they don't. Not to put too fine a point on it: a poorly conducted census combined with a winner- take-all, riding-based electoral system are just what is needed to steal an overwhelming parliamentary majority. Only in Florida, you say? Pity. SWEATING OUT THE CENSUS Anti-sweatshop activists needn't go further than the 2001 Canada census to discover remarkably sweatshop-like working conditions. Census representatives are paid on a piece rate that they are told will average $10.75 an hour, provided they work at an adequate pace. They are also required to correct any "errors" that occur in their work for no additional pay. What they aren't told is how the piece rates have been determined and what happens if they are given inaccurate maps, inadequate training or incomplete instructions. I signed up for a census job as a way of learning more about Bowen Island, where I have been living since October. $10.75 is less than a third of what I earned hourly on my latest research contract, but it's $10.75 an hour more than waiting for the phone to ring. Besides, it's outdoor work in a beautiful locale and I get to meet a lot of local characters. It is, therefore, not a complete personal tragedy for me that my hourly rate has been averaging less than $5.50 an hour instead of the claimed $10.75. But the discrepancy does offend my sense of justice and I can well imagine that there are many people for whom such a miscalculation could be a serious financial hardship. The first clue that something was amiss was the so-called "map" that I was provided with for my census enumeration area. Add a few winged sea serpents and the map could as easily have been of Terra Incognita as Bowen. Questions in training session about the inaccurate maps were answered with the advice to "use your judgement" and, in effect, "make your own damned map as you go". Such counsel to cartographic ad-libery is a bit disconcerting when one is also *told* [in the offical authoritative govt. voice of the manuals and the contract} that one must follow a specified order of numbered census blocks. But the bad map started me wondering, "if they don't know the territory, how could they tell what the piece rate for covering it will work out to?" When I shared my misgivings with the census commissioner, he gave me vague and not entirely convincing re-assurances that my rate would probably have to be adjusted to more accurately reflect my time and kilometres. Nothing on paper, mind you. Not being entirely convinced, I called the president of the StatsCan local at P.S.A.C. He commiserated with me in a decidedly non-committal way, which I would paraphrase loosely as "that's the way it is, and it's too bad." My angle was that us sweatshop temporary workers were being required to do for free technical work that properly should be the jurisdiction of union members. His angle appeared to be that working on the census was pocket change for pensioners. It also occured to me that the phony piece-rate structure would be in violation of federal employment standards -- IF the work was covered by employment standards. That's when it dawned on me that it probably was exempt. So I called the federal employment standards office. Yep. The census sweatshop is not covered by federal or provincial employment standards. It is a law unto itself. As a social policy analyst, I am a frequent user of StatsCan data -- especially labour market data. Now that I've done an informal participant observer study on the labour of collecting the data, I would be less inclined to assume the quality of StatsCan data for a couple of proverbial reasons: 1. "you get what you pay for" and 2. "garbage in, garbage out". I can't imagine how the data coming out the other end of the pipeline could transcend the travesty of a map that was used to guide its collection. We are told that census data is used in planning social policies. Well, I'd like to know what kind of a "social policy" it is to deny census workers the minimal protection of employment standards? Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213
