Workers leave Flint Assembly plant early Monday, September 16, 2019 while taking part in a national strike against General Motors after stalled contract negotiations with General Motors. Photo by Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press. On September 16, 2019, forty-six thousand defiant General Motors (GM) workers streamed out on strike. This eruption
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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Daniel Tencer reports on Ray Dalio’s recognition that the economic system which made him a multi-billionaire is broken. And Harvey Cashore, Chelsea Gomez and Gillian Findlay report on the Liberal-connected tycoons who lobbied against any steps to stop the offshoring of wealth. –
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – David Jones writes about the important benefits enjoyed by workers as the result of the efforts of the labour movement. And Arindrajit Dube studies the international effects of minimum wage increases, finding that they consistently improve lower-end wages while having little effect on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Edgardo Sepulveda writes about Chile’s popular revolt against austerity and inequality – while at the same time pointing out how Canada is foregoing the revenue needed to provide for people’s basic needs. – Nicole Aschoff discusses a few trends highlighted by actors
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Justin Fox writes that there are plenty of options available to push for the wealthiest few to pay their fair share toward a functional and compassionate society. And Christine Berry discusses the need for a progressive plan of attack to fundamentally restructure
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Vrishti Beniwal writes about Abhijit Banerjee’s call to put concentrated wealth to better social use by taxing it. – Yutaka Dirks interviews Linda McQuaig about the corporate takeover of far more public wealth than is normally recognized. And Matt Coughlin discusses how
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee discuss the utter failure of corporate-driven “market” incentives to produce fair outcomes: If it is not financial incentives, what else might people care about? The answer is something we know in our guts: status, dignity, social connections. Chief
Continue readingwmtc: bcgeu 100: six short videos about labour history in the province of bc
I love history — the history of anything that I’m interested in. Music, baseball, science and technology, and of course, the history of people’s movements. Women, peace, civil rights, LGBT — and above all, I love labour history. Learning about how working people organized and fought for justice in the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Robert Frank reports on the latest galling threshold in wealth inequality, as millionaires consisting of less than 1% of the population now control effectively half of the wealth on Earth. And Steven Greenhouse asks why actual workers aren’t being included in talks about
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Alexandra Zannis discusses the need to treat the end of poverty as a core policy goal. Peter Gilmer highlights how voters motivated by Christian ethics should be particularly focused on improving the condition of marginalized people. And Lynn Giesbrecht reports on Cindy Blackstock’s
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Doug O’Halloran, 66, Alberta union leader for more than 30 years, never shied from tough fights for his members
Doug O’Halloran, a pillar of the labour movement in Alberta and one of Canada’s last old-style union leaders, died peacefully yesterday. Mr. O’Halloran, who was 66, succumbed to cancer after a long illness. “It is fitting that he chose to leave us on Thanksgiving, a day for celebrating the two
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Joao Medeiros writes about Mariana Mazzucato’s push to have governments use collective wealth and power for the common good. – Matt Elliott wonders why the Libs and Cons have nothing meaningful to say about housing or transit in an election where those
Continue readingPaul S. Graham: Bryan Palmer: The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike heard around the world
Winnipeg, July 20, 2019: Professor Bryan Palmer at the 14th annual forum of the World Association for Political Economy. Photo: Paul S. Graham The 1919 Winnipeg General Strike was followed with great interest by people around the world, says Dr. Bryan Palmer, Professor Emeritus at Trent University. Professor Palmer was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Peter Gowan and Thomas Hanna write about the urgent need to free people from the market forces which currently trap them in precarity and debt: A flourishing and prosperous society that works for all, not just a privileged few, requires a foundation
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Franklin Foer writes that young climate activists are right to be anxious about the future that’s being imposed on them – and that it’s long past time for earlier generations to stop being comfortable with leaving wreckage in our wake. – Bill
Continue readingwmtc: picket lines, pupdates, and the 51st parallel: 10 things on my mind
It’s been a while. 1. Mom went home. My mom went home two weeks ago, after spending seven weeks here. I was sad to see her go! We had a great time, and it got better as we went along and settled into a routine. The dogs must especially miss
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – The L.A. Times’ editorial board comments on the need for everybody to pitch in toward a just transition which preserves a habitable planet – including by moving away from reliance on fossil fuels. But Natalie Hanman interviews Naomi Klein about what instead looks
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Meghna Charkabarti interviews Branko Milanovic about the destructive amount of inequality embedded in capitalism as it’s currently structured. Connor Kilpatrick and Bhaskar Sunkara argue that the corporate class has only tolerated an acceptable distribution of income and wealth when it’s been accompanied by
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: The United Auto Workers and the Big Three Automakers: A Tale of Corruption
A Michigan Assembly Plant employee, trains to install seats in a Ford Ranger. Photo: Ford Motor Co. What follows is a somewhat complex tale of what happens when a labor union, structured to be unaccountable to the rank-and-file membership, embraces a system of labor-management cooperation rather than a class-conscious understanding
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Giri Savaraman and Jim Stanford point out the importance of a more collaborative and inclusive economy, even as Australia’s right-wing government pushes in the opposite direction: The problem has not been an absence of productivity growth: our productivity can always be improved, but
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