This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Economic Policy Institute charts how inequality and precarity are growing in the U.S. – and how that can be directly traced to the erosion of organized labour. And the World Inequality Report examines the trend toward increasing inequality on a global
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Accidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your holiday reading. – The Star tells the stories of a few of the people working to make sure Christmas runs smoothly. And Erin McCormick points out other workers stuck in precarious (and largely care-related) positions who don’t have a choice but to take on holiday shifts
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Joan Hennessy writes that instead of limiting ourselves to holiday-season charity, we should insist on fair wages and dignity for our fellow citizens throughout the year: ll the while, the economy has been on the mend and corporate earnings have risen, but the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – PressProgress points out Statistics Canada’s latest numbers on Canada’s extreme wealth disparity – with 60% of the population owning only 10% of the wealth while a lucky few amass gigantic fortunes. – Jordan Brennan discusses how a lack of labour conflict has led
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Christopher Ingraham discusses the U.S.’ distorted distribution of wealth – and how both existing inequality and the Republicans’ plan to exacerbate it run contrary to the values of the general public: Among rich nations, the United States stands out for the extent of
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Skip the Dishes: Poster child for precarious work
Photo by Alex Tétreault In March of this year, Winnipeg-based food delivery company SkipTheDishes came under fire for cancelling the second interview of a prospective employee after she asked about wages and benefits. “If I do end up filling this position,” wrote Taylor Byrnes in an email to the startup’s
Continue readingCanadian Dimension: Precarious workers fight for their rights!
Photo from The Independent Over the past year, delivery riders working for U.K.’s largest fast food delivery company, Deliveroo, have taken effective industrial action, giving lessons on how to organize in the gig economy. On August 11 last year, London-based Deliveroo drivers received a text message from their employer announcing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Joseph Stiglitz writes about the need to learn from past mistakes in order to build a sustainable economy for the future: To someone like me, who has watched trade negotiations closely for more than a quarter-century, it is clear that US trade
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Murray Dobbin writes that corporate power is the greatest threat to our health and well-being – and reminds us that government focused on the public interest is a necessary counterweight: The revelations of the Paradise Papers, the earlier Panama Papers and numerous articles
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Matt Bruenig writes about the U.S.’ alarming growth in student debt – which combined with diminished career prospects is leading to dim future outlooks for far too many young workers. And Eric Grenier’s look at the latest release of data from Canada’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Uberrific!
Cover-ups!Scandals! Sexual harassment!Tax evasion! Employment standards violations! Deliberate dishonesty!And all in the service of a business model built on becoming too big to ban while operating as a regulatory-evasion company! Yep, that sounds like the Saskatchewan Party’s kind of business. Which means the only question left is: how much public
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Karl Nerenberg writes about Bill Morneau’s conflicts of interest – with particular attention to the NDP’s justified criticism of legislation aimed at privatizing pension management to benefit forms like Morneau’s. And Brent Patterson discusses a push back against the Manitoba PCs’ plan
Continue readingThings Are Good: Take a Moment and Really Think about Unions
2017 has been anything but a successful year for unions. For a multitude of reasons unions have a bad reputation, although it’s thanks to unions that we have labour rights and weekends. Unions are really good at helping individuals deal with institutions that want to exploit their work; and history
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – David Climenhaga writes that Canada needs a lot more of Jeremy Corbyn’s critical analysis of an unfair economic system, and a lot less Justin Trudeau-style cheerleading for it. And Bill Curry reports on a new push to cut down on poverty at
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Canadians for Tax Fairness discusses the appallingly small tax contributions made by Canada’s largest companies, the vast majority of whom have foreign subsidiaries to avoid paying their fair share. – Meanwhile, Robert de Vries and Aaron Reeves point out the unfortunate reality
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This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Rupert Neate reports on a new Credit Suisse study showing that the 1% owns half of the world’s wealth. And Heather Long notes that hundreds of U.S. millionaires are pushing not to have their taxes cut when it will only serve to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Abacus Data has polled the Canadian public on climate change, and found far more appetite for meaningful action than we generally hear from the political class (and particularly right-wing parties): Twenty years ago, when the world’s leaders were debating the Kyoto Accord,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Andrew Jackson writes that widespread precarity in work is keeping wages down even as unemployment stays relatively low: (W)age pressures and inflation might remain persistently low even with a low unemployment rate due to the seemingly inexorable rise of precarious work. Marx’s reserve
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Wanda Wyporska writes that increasing inequality is the main factor behind public distrust and discontent with our politics: Rising inequality is not inevitable, it is largely a result of the political and economic decisions taken by governments. This is clear from the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Michal Rozworski writes that the bidding war surrounding Amazon’s second headquarters is just a symptom of a grossly dysfunctional relationship between governments and businesses: We shouldn’t be surprised that Amazon can get away with using a few billion dollars of private investment as
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