How do YOU define determination? One of them gave birth the day before the vote. As soon as her baby was nursing properly and her bloodwork came back okay, she made the trip to the hotel to vote. via Inside a union drive at The Trump Hotel | Toronto Star.
Continue readingTag: Work
Politics, Re-Spun: 5 Things You Must Know About the Internet and Social Entrepreneurs
No one knows for sure what a social entrepreneur is, or supposed to be, or whether it’s altruistic or a PR meme. “Disruption” is very trendy now, in terms of how to smash around organizations to make them better [or weaker, depending on your purpose]. No one reads anything on
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Vancouver’s Co-Working Co-op Stimulates Worker Empowerment
Tuesday night in the back room of The Tipper bar/bistro/restaurant on Kingsway at Victoria we are holding our Inception Meeting for a new kind of co-working space in Vancouver, one structured as a co-op. You can read about the project in The Georgia Straight piece last week, and on the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: What’s Wrong with Canada? We’re Not Denmark-ish
And I don’t mean we need to become Denmark, but we need to have the dialogue about why they can do what they do and we choose not to. When Canadians are surveyed, a very large majority of us support these public goods. But those desires get subsumed with corporate,
Continue readingWork ain’t what it was—it’s worse
Work is getting worse. In any case, that’s the tale told by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in its Employment Quality Index. The index measures three key areas of job satisfaction: the distribution of part-time vs. full-time jobs; self-employment vs. paid employment; and compensation for full-time jobs. It indicates
Continue readingThings Are Good: Focus Less on Work to Improve Everything – Even Your Job
Stressed about not getting enough done at work? Don’t be. It turns out that you can improve how much you get things done at the office by not thinking about it. Turn your attention elsewhere and focus on things that do matter instead. But, how can performance at work improve
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Being a Better Ally: #IWD
Click me; it’s good for you! International Women’s Day is a check-in point for me: I try to take stock of what has improved or worsened since last year. Doing so helps me be a better ally. Our soul as a nation has suffered this past year. It has suffered
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: You Deserve Better Wages and Benefits
Right wingers want to pay no tax. It’s hard to bleat about that in public without sounding like the greedy, selfish people they are. Instead, they say that public sector workers are paid too much, and that we should privatize everything. THAT way, governments get to starve themselves to the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Which BC Corporations Would YOU Like to Euthanize?
Oh, what a list it would be! Enbridge? Kinder Morgan [the zombie child of Enron]? Imperial Metals [fanciful producers of the Mount Polley Mine disaster]? Other companies that treat workers badly like IKEA or Rocky Mountain Railtours? Capitalism is all about worshiping Frankencorporations that are immortal, legally a human being,
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: Robocalls from Real Robots
“mmm…buzzz…. click…. This is your friendly….buzzz…. automated calling device…click…hummmm… reminding you that….mmmm….buzzz…..click… there are only three days left to…. zzzzz…. take advantage of the Black Friday sales at…. mmmm…. buzzzz….. your…. zzzz… Collingwood…..insert box store name…. mmmm…buzzz…. click….thank you…” Well, maybe robotic telemarketers won’t sound like the solenoid robots on
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Fire Your Boss?!
If you are interested in: social and economic justice equality and less income inequality workplace democracy and autonomy work-life balance improving the world because you are young and you have the most to lose with a rapidly decaying planet, Then, read this paragraph. It comes from a document you should
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Work, Dignity and Living Wages?
A strong union. Corporations that understand the social contract. Corporations that know a tad smaller profit here contributes to more dignity throughout society. Corporations that recognize the value of unions. The living wage in Vancouver this year is $20.10, almost double the minimum wage. The “precariat” are precarious proletariats. We
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Green Office is a Productive Office
Workplaces aren’t associated with fun, but there are certain designs of places that can make places more enjoyable. It turns out that buildings designed with sustainability in mind tend to be a better, more productive place to work. You should convince your boss that you should move to a green
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Against Collective Forgetting
Workers must do our part to Stop Harper! Happy Labour Day! 🙂 In Stephen Harper’s Canada, we keep enumerating the things we’re losing: meaningful legislative debate, evidence-based policy, public science, a free and open society, among other things. But what happens if we go too long with a slow erosion
Continue readingThings Are Good: Walk It Off, Structured Downtime for Productivity
Working all day is hard – so don’t do it. In many desk jobs one doesn’t need to be there from 9-5, indeed we can be more productive by not being there. More evidence keeps cropping up that we are animals that need exercise and a diversity of daily experiences.
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Occupy Movement Has Changed the Narrative, But We’re Not Done
Recently, with the WEF spending the last few years acknowledging global income inequality is a problem, I’ve declared a kind of victory for the Occupy Movement: getting the lexicon on the 1% and inequality on the tongues of the sly gazillionaires who rule the world, and into mass consumption. Now
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The 1% Has More Solidarity Than We Do
In Davos, the 1% rule the world. Literally. They also have the guns. The 1% are claiming we have it out for them; that if we don’t tone down the rhetoric and stop calling them names like “the contemptuous rich,” we might end up starting a class war. But they
Continue readingThings Are Good: France Pays People to Cycle to Work
France is experimenting with new way to subsidize transportation by getting more people to bicycle to work. Traffic in Paris is particularly awful and with ongoing population growth and car-focused infrastructure the transportation problems are only going to increase. France is hoping that getting people to ride bicycles will stymie
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Hey, BC: Want More Jobs? Dump the LNG and Pipelines!
Well, I found yet another [like this] study showing how many MORE jobs we’d get by moving to a post-carbon energy infrastructure and dumping LNG, tarsands, pipelines and all the other Mordor Industrial Complex BC and Alberta are embracing. Not only is dumping the carbon energy infrastructure essential to do
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Most BCers Want to Get Off Fossil Fuels. Not Joking.
#PostCarbonEnergyInfrastructure. I know, I know, it’s a really clunky Twitter hashtag, so let’s just think of it as a concept for a second! Infrastructure: the systems in place for things like water systems, roads, the interwebz, electrical cabling, train tracks; and social infrastructure are things like the health, education, welfare,
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