Some Key Areas Where Neoliberal Policy Undermines both the Industrial Economy and Canadian Democracy Under the Harper Regime, the investor class is constantly being protected at the expense of the real industrial economy, for just about all policy decisions privilege both the financial sector, with its market-driven initiatives and debt-driven
Continue readingTag: unions
Politics, Re-Spun: School employers seek to force BCTF members to volunteer
This is kind of amazing – the BC Public Schools Employers’ Association (the arms-length thing the government created to manage negotiations with the BCTF) is going to the LRB to try to have the withdrawal by teachers from voluntary activities declared illegal. Uhh, what? So the BC government thinks that
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: More Worker Bashing in BC, with Squishy Numbers
Below is a recent tweet from a new worker/NDP/union attack Twitter i.d. talking about how awful unionized workers are. Read it, then let’s de-spin it for sanity: Average salary in BC $44k, average teacher salary $70k bced.gov.bc.ca/reporting/ #Underpaid #Overworked #Lies #BCPoli #BCNDP #BCTF via Twitter / @NotBCNDP: Average salary in
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Opting Out of Union Dues
Murray Mandryk’s excellent column today saves me the trouble of writing a lengthy blog post on the Saskatchewan government’s recent musings about labour legislation. From an economic perspective, it’s worth noting that enabling unionized workers to opt-out of paying union dues would create a classic free-rider problem. Indeed, Wikipedia’s article
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: If You Could Change One Thing
I had a great change of pace last week, when I stayed out at the CAW Family Education Centre at Port Elgin to teach a 5-day course on “Economics for Trade Unionists” through the CAW’s Paid Educational Leave program. While I have guest lectured many times at Port Elgin, I
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Let’s Have an End to People Dying at Work
Ben Isitt is a Victoria city councillor, historian, professor, lawyer and optimist. Rarely have I been so moved by an account of the struggle working people have in the face of this new world order of anti-worker 1%ism. We are so effectively trained to accept the balance of power is
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Fraud, fear and greed
If Romney Hates Government And Its Workers So Much Why Is He Running For President?, Dave Johnson, Campaign for America’s Future Mitt Romney says government workers are paid too well and in general government is a bad thing. But he wants to run it. Romney made his fortune by buying
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ontario to Mine for More Revenue
Last week’s provincial budget promised a mining sector review “to ensure Ontario receives fair compensation for its non-renewable resources,” a proposal advanced by this blog and the United Steelworkers before appearing as a Drummond recommendation. The relevant budget section begins with the following observation: “Ontario has the highest value of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Lockouts Almost Derail GDP Growth
Statistics Canada reported today that economic growth dropped to a bare 0.1% in January. The New Year began with Rio Tinto locking out former Alcan employees at Alma, Quebec, and Caterpillar locking out former Electro Motive employees at London, Ontario. Closing these major facilities contributed to cutting growth in durable-goods
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Budget 2012: Pennywise But Pound Foolish
Marc, Andrew and Toby have posted substantial analyses of yesterday’s federal budget, but here are my two cents about its economic forecasts. Table 2.1 envisions a 7.5% unemployment rate this year, slightly above last year’s rate of 7.4%. That seems like an admission of failure from a budget ostensibly about
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ontario Budget Emulates Drummond
Perhaps the most striking feature of today’s Ontario budget is how close it comes to last month’s Drummond report. Drummond’s recommendation for 2017-18 was $134.7 billion of provincial revenue, $117.5 billion of program spending and $15.3 billion of interest payments. By comparison, today’s budget envisions $135.9 billion of revenue, $118.9
Continue readingcmkl: And again with the pre-emptive legislation, Lisa Raitt
I’m beginning to think this might be a pattern. Same company, same rhetoric, same lies. They’re all in favour of letting workers try to defend their livelihoods at the bargaining table, so long as no one notices. What I said before still goes too. I’m sorry Madeleine, things seem to
Continue readingBigCityLib Strikes Back: A Cheery Chart For A Friday Morning
Unions Not In Decline (Quite)! Time to slam a celebratory 6-pack in the parking lot, lads! Then its off to build cars.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: “Globalization” and Unions
Last weekend I participated in a labour law conference at the University of Western Ontario, speaking on a panel which was asked to weigh in on the impact of trade and investment on labour rights. I weighed in somewhere between my co panelists Kevin Banks and Marley Weiss, arguing that
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: BC isn’t broke: putting teacher bargaining in perspective
Last Monday, BC teachers held a Day of Action in communities across the province to protest the BC government’s decision to legislate a contract and put an end to their collective bargaining process. I was invited to speak to teachers at the Surrey rally, where I had the opportunity to
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: What will Canada be?
I wonder if evangelical christian Stephen Harper would agree with views of American fundamentalist Franklin Graham. That million dollar a year American preacher is the son of Billy who began in the Christian and Missionary Alliance church favoured by Canada’s Prime Minster. Stephen Harper seems at least to share the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Trans-Pacific Partnership
The United Steelworkers’ union made the following submission to the Government of Canada earlier this week: The United Steelworkers union welcomes the opportunity to comment on Canada’s proposed entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade negotiations. Our union represents 200,000 Canadian workers, employed in every sector of the economy.
Continue readingNorthern Insights / Perceptivity: Canada too!
Will American Anti-Labor Policies Infect Europe?, Dave Johnson, Campaign for America’s Future The threat is in the air: “Shut up and take the wage cuts or we will move your job to China.” “…Workers in countries like China where people have no say have low wages, terrible working conditions, long
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Liveblogging Today’s NDP Leaders Debate
Today’s NDP leadership debate lands in Quebec. I’m using 14 criteria to evaluate who I’ll be voting for. Let me know if you have suggestions for improved criteria. 2012.02.12 NDP Leaders Debate February 2, 2012 — NDP Leaders, By the Numbers and the Intangibles (0) August 27, 2011 — Liveblog
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Is Labour Doomed?
Last week (Feb. 2nd) I drove up to London, Ontario, to shoot some film footage of the locked-out workers picketing outside the Electro-Motive Diesel plant for a documentary I am working on. The company, the only one to make locomotives in Canada, is owned by Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest
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