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This is our feature article in a series that will shine the spotlight on the different jobs our members do. To protect them from possible retribution in the workplace, we have concealed the identity of the individuals interviewed.<\/em><\/p>\n Would your boss ever send you to a crack house?<\/p>\n That kind of thing used to happen all the time to our members who work as field interviewers for Statistical Survey Operations. These members collect data for Statistics Canada, by going door-to-door and engaging everyday Canadians.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first started, it was just before we were unionized. There was a really cavalier attitude towards health and safety. It was almost like a competition as to who could do the more precarious thing,\u201d said Woman 1, who works as a field interviewer.<\/p>\n Woman 1 described employees boasting about the dangerous places they\u2019ve entered and supervisors coaxing other interviewers into going into these same places because others before them had done it.<\/p>\n \u201cGenerally, that would not happen today,\u201d said Woman 1. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a good culture at all. It was just putting people in peril.\u201d<\/p>\n A lot of progress has been made to change this culture. \u201cMuch has improved since health and safety committees were established. There is much better awareness,\u201d said Woman 1. These days, dangerous buildings and high-crime areas are listed in a registry of unsafe places to prevent interviewers from walking into dangerous situations.<\/p>\n But the nature of the work has field interviewers coming into contact with all sorts of people. \u201cYou just don\u2019t know what\u2019s behind that door,\u201d said Woman 1.<\/p>\n In fact, it\u2019s not just drug-addicted criminals that interviewers come into contact with. Some interviewers encounter racism in the raw form. \u201cPeople in their own house figure they can do things they wouldn\u2019t do in their workplace,\u201d said Woman 1. She added that the job can be especially hard for racially-visible people.<\/p>\n This is one of the few jobs where there is a bias against men. Respondents can often be weary of speaking to men, letting them into their homes and speaking to them about sensitive subjects. \u201cIt\u2019s a hurdle for men to do this job,\u201d said Woman 1. The workforce at SSO tends to be predominantly female.<\/p>\n This workforce also has to deal with problems commonly faced by people who work on the road. Woman 1 said that the job can sometimes take her in very rural areas.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere are we? Out in a lonely country gravel road where the next house is half a kilometer away. And if something happens, like our car breaks down, we don\u2019t have a phone.\u201d<\/p>\n Like most members at SSO, Woman 1 feels the employer should provide cell phones to its field interviewers, to use in case of emergency.<\/p>\n Woman 2, who also works as a field interviewer, said that after the 2006 census, Stats Canada had a number of cell phones left over. \u201cThey should have given them out to field interviewers, but instead, they gave them to senior interviewers who work out of their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n While precarious work conditions are a great concern, another is the workload\u2019s unpredictability.<\/p>\n \u201cThe real basic problem for this group is that there\u2019s no guarantee of work,\u201d said Woman 2. \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous. There\u2019s no guaranteed minimum hours.\u201d<\/p>\n A common practice when dealing with employees who have irregular work hours is to have some basic guaranteed minimum salary. For example, flight attendants are normally guaranteed a set amount of hours each month; if the employer fails to assign that many hours, flight attendants can nonetheless expect to be paid that minimum.<\/p>\n Not so for field interviewers! The hours can fluctuate from week to week. \u201cIt\u2019s feast or famine,\u201d remarked Woman 1.<\/p>\n The nature of the work also means that if too many respondents refuse to answer questions, interviewers end up earning fewer hours as a result.<\/p>\n The job also demands a lot of discipline. \u201cYou charge your time as you do it,\u201d said Woman 1. \u201cYou can feel like you worked 10 hours, but only have worked four because it\u2019s broken up.\u201d In other words, it\u2019s like working multiple shifts in one day.<\/p>\n Back when the group organized in 2001, the labour force was smaller. Woman 2 said it was made up primarily of retired school teachers, who would use the small sum of money they earned for spending on inessentials. \u201cBack then, it was a lot like the kind of work people do around elections \u2013 it\u2019s something extra, but not something you depend on,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n But gradually, more and more federal departments began needing information. A stable workforce was needed. And of course, the union had an uphill battle when it came to promoting health and safety and a host of other issues. That battle continues today.<\/p>\n The SSO bargaining team recently reached an impasse. Among some of the demands are wage increases to have field interviewers reach parity with comparable workplaces. The bargaining team hopes arbitration will lead to a fair deal.<\/p>\n But health and safety are not part of the negotiations; health and safety isn\u2019t negotiable. It\u2019s a must.<\/p>\n Woman 2 said the best way for field interviewers to stand up for their rights is to use their health and safety committees properly and challenge the employer.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they hear of something that went wrong, they need to put it in an incident report,\u201d said Woman 1.<\/p>\n \u201cHealth and safety is serious. We don\u2019t want people putting their safety at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the many challenges faced by field interviewers, Woman 1 said she really enjoys the work.<\/p>\n \u201cYou get to meet people from all walks of life \u2013 all kinds of different characters \u2013 people you wouldn\u2019t meet and conversations you wouldn\u2019t have if you weren\u2019t doing this job.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you have a suggestion for a job that we should feature in our Day in the Life series? Send an email to <\/em>communications@une-sen.org<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is our feature article in a series that will shine the spotlight on the different jobs our members do. To protect them from possible retribution in the workplace, we have concealed the identity of the individuals interviewed. Would your boss ever send you to a crack house? That kind of thing used to happen … <\/p>\n