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Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links

Apr

25

2018

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Oleg Komlik takes note of Wade Cole’s research showing how income inequality affects political dynamics. And Hannah Finnie recognizes that young people are joining unions (among other forms of social activism) in order to gain some much-needed influence on both fronts, while Paul Krugman weighs in on the ...

Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links

Apr

24

2018

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Louis Uchitelle discusses how the decline of organized labour in the U.S. has harmed not just workers’ direct interests, but the economic sectors where unions previously thrived: Want to make America great again and keep factories in the United States? Try strengthening labor unions. That may seem ...

Joe Fantauzzi: Strategic Voting in Ontario: An Ineffective Project

Apr

23

2018

This post contends that current, relevant research does not support an argument that strategic voting is an effective way to counter an undesirable election outcome. Two papers — one published in March 2018, which relates to Toronto municipal elections, and one published in 2017 about labour-led strategic voting initiatives (typically known as “ABC” or ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

Apr

22

2018

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Denise Balkissoon writes about the importance of ensuring a just transition for fossil fuel workers – rather than using their jobs as bargaining chips to preserve oil industry profits. And Andrea Olive, Emily Eaton and Randy Besco point out that there’s plenty of public support for carbon ...

Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links

Apr

20

2018

Assorted content to end your week. – PressProgress crunches the numbers on tax loopholes and finds that more and more revenue is being lost to the most glaring loopholes every year. And Andrew Jackson hopes for a sorely-needed response from the federal government to rein in tax avoidance by the wealthy. – Sam Cooper reports ...

Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links

Apr

17

2018

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Paul Krugman writes that a transition to a clean energy economy is well within reach – as long as politicians don’t put the interests of oil money over our economic and environmental future. But Gordon Laxer notes that NAFTA already limits Canada’s ability to take the steps ...

Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links

Apr

11

2018

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Linda Givetash reports on the increasing cost and decreasing availability of housing in Canada. And Patrick Greenfield and Sarah March note that an appalling increase in the number of homeless people in the UK is being reflected in the number of deaths on the street. – Tithi Bhattacharya ...

Things Are Good: Productive Companies Include Workers on Their Board

Apr

11

2018

Since the late 1970s (coinciding with the rise of neoliberalism) wages have stagnated while executive pay keeps rising. This has led to inequality being one of the largest issues facing companies and countries in the 21st century. Accordingly, people sick of neoliberalism have been looking into ways to address inequality and the subsequent economic stagnation. ...

Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links

Apr

10

2018

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Matthew Yglesias examines the direct effects of social programs, and finds there’s every reason to invest more in them: Mercury emissions (mostly from coal plants) end up in the water, where they end up in fish, from whence they end up in the bloodstreams of children and ...

Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links

Apr

9

2018

Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Suresh Naidu, Eric Posner and Glen Weyl highlight how the economy as a whole suffers when employers exercise too much control over wages and working conditions: In a competitive labor market, employers must vie for workers; they try to lure workers from other firms by offering them more ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links

Apr

8

2018

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Michael Savage discusses new projections showing that the luckiest 1% could control two-thirds of the world’s wealth in a little more than a decade: World leaders are being warned that the continued accumulation of wealth at the top will fuel growing distrust and anger over the coming ...

Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links

Apr

3

2018

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Amy Remeikis reports on new research showing how educational inequality translates into an even wider economic gap. – Hannah Johnston and Chris Land-Kazlauskas examine (PDF) the gig economy and the need for workers to be able to organize around it. But Rebecca Moss discusses another of Donald ...

Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links

Mar

28

2018

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Nathaniel Lewis laments the state of the U.S.’ woefully insufficient social supports, while emphasizing the importance of public social spending in particular: (P)rivate “social spending” is, for the most part, regressive and narrowly distributed. Households are bearing the cost directly for the goods and services that they themselves ...

Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links

Mar

27

2018

This and that for your Tuesday reading. – James Wallace calls out the Ontario Libs’ track record of consistent cuts to health care and other vital public services (with the exception of election-year promotional items). And Tom Parkin contrasts that pattern against Rachel Notley’s protection of public services from the cuts threatened by her competitors. ...

wmtc: sheraton hotel’s "green choice" is really just precarious work

Mar

27

2018

These days, most hotel rooms contain some sort of green messaging, as companies are expected to show how eco-friendly they are. Usually guests have the option of not having their towels changed daily, which is supposed to yield big energy savings. Last week at the Sheraton Parkway in Toronto, I learned that Sheraton’s green policy ...

wmtc: in ontario election, the choice is clear. put down the polls and pick up your vote.

Mar

26

2018

I am very frustrated by progressive reaction to the appointment of Doug Ford as leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. People are acting as if Ford has already won an election that is three months away. I understand there is great — and well deserved — anger against Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal party. But are ...

wmtc: from the 2018 cupe ontario library workers conference: libraries and the opioid crisis

Mar

25

2018

I recently attended the CUPE Ontario Library Workers Conference, which has become a highlight of my year since I first attended (and was elected to the organizing committee) in 2015. It has eclipsed and replaced the OLA Superconference as the most relevant and enjoyable must-attend conference in my schedule. When I first got my librarian ...

Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links

Mar

23

2018

Assorted content to end your week. – Owen Jones discusses the need for wealth taxes as part of any plan to meaningfully reduce economic inequality: Much is made of income inequality, and rightly so. Labour’s 2017 manifesto, which proved the tombstone for a neoliberal political consensus that has prevailed for a generation, pledged modest rises ...

Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links

Mar

22

2018

This and that for your Thursday reading. – Dylan Walsh interviews Jeffrey Pfeffer about his book Dying for a Paycheck, and the ways in which employer demands make people worse off: Has this connection always been there, or has there been an evolution in workplace culture that got us to this point? I think the ...

Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Evening Links

Mar

21

2018

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Andre Picard notes that contrary to our self-image, Canada actually lags behind international peers in health and social spending. And PressProgress points out the same conclusion in new OECD research. – Andrew Mitrovica writes that Doug Ford’s ascendancy in Ontario politics suggests that Canada is catching the Trump ...

Accidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links

Mar

19

2018

Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Jim Stanford discusses what can be done to make international terms of trade serve the public, rather than merely offering multinational corporations control over all participants: Acknowledging that globalisation produces losers as well as winners, allows us to imagine policies to moderate the downsides of trade – and ...

Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links

Mar

17

2018

Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne writes about the need for real wage increases to relieve the financial stress on Canadian workers. – Sheila Block examines the relative effects of tax cuts and minimum wage increases on lower-income workers, and finds that people are far better off receiving fair pay for their ...

Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links

Mar

15

2018

This and that for your Thursday reading. – Matt Bruenig highlights Norway’s high level of social ownership, with 76% of non-home wealth in public hands in an extremely prosperous country. And Patrick Collinson reports on the latest World Happiness Survey, showing Norway within a group of relatively equal Nordic countries at the very top. – ...

Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links

Mar

11

2018

This and that for your Sunday reading. – Elizabeth Bruenig makes the case for the U.S. to make a much-needed turn toward democratic socialism: In fact, both Sullivan’s and Mounk’s complaints — that Americans appear to be isolated, viciously competitive, suspicious of one another and spiritually shallow; and that we are anxiously looking for some ...

wmtc: beyond #iwd: fight for women by opposing privatization

Mar

10

2018

Visit We Own It for all the facts on privatization. When public services are privatized, everyone loses — except, of course, shareholders of a private company, who increase their wealth with our money. But did you know the pain of privatization hits women disproportionately harder? As this excellent article by Jane Stinson in Canadian Dimension says: ...