Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Linda Tirado writes about life in poverty – and the real prospect that anybody short of the extremely wealthy can wind up there: I haven’t had it worse than anyone else, and actually, that’s kind of the point. This is just what life
Continue readingTag: labour.
Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – In the context of Scotland’s referendum on independence, Polly Toynbee reminds us why fragmentation can only serve to exacerbate inequality – a lesson worth keeping in mind as the Cons look to devolve responsibility for taxation and public services in Canada: What’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Dan Lett discusses Stephen Harper’s callous disregard for missing and murdered aboriginal women – and how it should serve as a call to Canadians generally to take a broader look at the causes of social inequality: Why so much resistance to a broader,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Rick Smith discusses the growing public appetite to fight back against burgeoning inequality – along with the need to make inequality a basic test for the fairness of any policy: (I)t is significant that a finance minister of our decidedly right-wing government showed
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On intended consequences
Shorter Joe Oliver: Hey, I’ve got a bright economic idea! Let’s pay businesses not to pay workers! If there’s any long-term bright side to the Cons’ announcement, it’s that it should serve so nicely to undercut any “job creation” or “better off” narrative: surely every opposition party can identify workers
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – The Broadbent Institute studies wealth inequality in Canada, and finds not only that the vast majority of Canada’s capital resources remain concentrated in very few hands but that the disparity continues to grow: The new Statistics Canada data show a deeply unequal
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Scott Clark and Peter DeVries criticize the Cons’ choice to prioritize right-wing dogma over sound economic management: What should Canada do? For starters, the passive approach isn’t working. In the face of global economic uncertainty and a secular decline in growth, Canadian policy
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On advance notice
Between Joan Bryden’s report, Paul Wells’ interview and Murray Dobbin’s column among other coverage, there isn’t much room for doubt that the federal NDP’s economic focus – including a national minimum wage alongside a restored retirement age of 65 and reversal of corporate tax cuts – is earning some media
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Bryce Covert writes that U.S. workers are receiving a lower share of economic output than at any point since 1950 – and that the decline in wages has nothing to do with the quality or quantity of work: Workers aren’t earning less because
Continue readingwmtc: 150 cities + 500 arrests = whatever it takes for $15
Last Thursday, fast-food workers in more than 150 US cities went on strike. Some 500 workers were arrested for civil disobedience, including this man, José Carillo, an 81-year-old McDonald’s worker. In Detroit, there were so many arrests that the police gave up: they ran out of handcuffs. There’s a very
Continue readingwmtc: thank you, charley richardson! your legacy lives on
On Labour Day, I happened to see this on Twitter: I am on my union’s labour-management committee, the group that meets monthly with management to discuss members’ concerns and try to resolve issues. I was intrigued and followed the link that Rank and File had posted. To my surprise, the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Jordan Brennan examines the close links between strong organized labour and improved wages for all types of workers: U.S. scholars have found that higher rates of state-level unionization help reduce working poverty in unionized and non-unionized households and that the effects of unionization
Continue readingwmtc: fast-food workers are on strike today. you can support their cause.
Fast-food workers all over the US are on strike today, demanding a living wage and the right to form a union without retaliation. Did you know that the majority of fast-food workers are adults trying to support families on those crap wages? Their pay is so low, they qualify for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Eve-Lyne Couturier discusses the rot in the state of Canadian labour negotiations, as workers outside of the 1% are being systematically denied any of the benefit of economic growth. – Meanwhile, Dean Baker points out that it’s only by choice that the vast
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Labour Day reading. – Andrew Jackson discusses the future of Canada’s labour movement, while Gil McGowan highlights the fact that unionization can be no less important in Alberta and other booming areas than elsewhere. And Jerry Dias notes that there are some reasons for celebration this
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Eric Reguly examines Apple as a prime example of how supposed market successes actually reflect the private capture of public investments – and suggests the public should benefit financially from its investments which facilitate corporate growth: Apple is such a runaway success that
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Gerald Caplan suggests that Rogers and Bell might be ripe for nationalization – though it’s also worth pointing out that we don’t have to guess what happens when a Crown delivers telecommunications services: The British Labour Party has begun to make the case
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Ralph Surette suggests that Nova Scotia’s tax and regulatory review pay close attention to the fact that it can do more than simply slash both: Nova Scotia already has relatively low corporate taxes and lower than average taxes for the highest earners. Yet
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – James Meek writes about the UK’s privatization scam, and how it’s resulted in citizens paying far more for the basic services which are better provided by a government which actually has the public interest within its mandate: Privatisation failed to demonstrate the case
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – Matthew Yglesias writes that while increased automation may not eliminate jobs altogether, it may go a long way toward making them more menial. And Jerry Dias recognizes that we won’t see better career opportunities emerge unless we make it a shared public
Continue reading