A stable US is important to all of us. A very imperfect democracy but nonetheless by far the most important, it is the central pillar of global liberty. Recently that pillar has been looking shaky. The election of the neo-fascist Donald Trump in 2016 and the threat of his return
Continue readingTag: workers
Views from the Beltline: UCP to loosen reins on unions … charitably
Alberta’s UCP government likes to keep a tight rein on labour unions. One of the first pieces of legislation brought in after their election in 2019 was the infamous Bill 32, the inappropriately named the Restoring Balance in Alberta’s Workplaces Act, 2020. The Bill, among other things, split union activities
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: The brilliance of the Sustainable Jobs Act
Last week the feds tabled Bill C-50, the Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act, in the House of Commons. The bill would create a Sustainable Jobs Partnership Council to advise the government on clean energy jobs, require that Ottawa come up with a sustainable jobs plan every five years, and establish a Sustainable Jobs Secretariat. The
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Congratulations to Ms. Payne
In the first contested election in a decade, the members of Unifor elected Lana Payne their new president last week. Representing over 300,000 workers, Unifor is the largest private-sector union in the country. Ms. Payne’s election is, in a sense, long overdue—she is the union’s first woman president. I may be
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Unionizing Apple
I have long been a fan of Apple products. In fact, I have never bought another desktop. I am also a great believer in labour unions. So reading about an Apple store in Maryland unionizing made my day. Two of my favourites making a perfect couple—a marriage made in heaven.
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Smalls vs. Amazon as David vs. Goliath
The recent success of employees at Amazons’s New York fulfillment centre in forming a union might be the best example of David defeating Goliath since the biblical incident. The union, spearheaded by Christian Smalls, a former Amazon employee and now president of the union, is the first Amazon union in
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Oil workers at the centre—getting transition priorities right
“They will not be left behind.” So said Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan at a news conference this week. The “they” he was referring to are workers in the oil industry. “Workers,” he continued, “will be at the centre of a clean energy future.” If Canadians are to get onside
Continue readingThings Are Good: UK: Uber Drivers are Employees not Individual Entrepreneurs
Uber drivers in the UK will now get better treatment from Uber thanks to the courts ruling the company can’t as robustly exploit their drivers. The way drivers get gigs and subsequently paid by the company structurally mean the company has control all aspects of the process, which means the
Continue readingNorthern Currents: Workers deserve a 32 hour work week with no loss of pay
Share this: Since the industrialization of the world, workers organized in unions have fought for many key rights Canadians enjoy today. In the early days of Capitalism, it was not uncommon for a worker to spend 80 hours per week at their job in strenuous working conditions. Thanks to organized
Continue readingThings Are Good: Amazon VP Resigns to Protest Poor Working Conditions
Amazon has grown from an online book retailer to the seller of all things and destroyer of established businesses. It also treats humans like robots and gives them no respect while also dismissing human concerns like good working conditions and a breathable atmosphere. The lengths of which Amazon has gone
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: Happy International Workers Day #MayDay
Billy Bragg We’ve been experiencing what we refer to as ‘Andy Warhol Weather’ here today: fifteen minutes of rain, fifteen minutes of sun, fifteen minutes of hail etc etc. As a result, I couldn’t take my guitar amp out onto the rubble mound this week for the #ClapForNHS #ClapForCarers #ClapForKeyWorkers
Continue readingThings Are Good: A Union in the Kitchen will Improve Your Life
Thanks to the efforts of billionaires, and other corrupt individuals, union workers have been portrayed as lazy and inept. If anything, the opposite is true. Workers in unions have different goals than business owners insofar that workers just want to earn a good living while owners want to extract profit
Continue readingThings Are Good: It’s Time the Gig Economy Paid
Foodora workers are looking for justice for the way they have been ripped off and poorly treated by Foodora. Foodora is like any other gig economy company insofar that it takes an existing business model but places the operating costs onto independent contractors. Due to legal loopholes Foodora workers are
Continue readingThings Are Good: May Day: When Rules Don’t Apply
Unions have got a bad reputation in North America for reasons I don’t understand. Counterintuitively, large corporations have convinced millions of workers that their jobs are negatively impacted by workers helping each other. It’s been proven that when CEOs talk about how much they make their average wage goes up;
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Is this the best they can do? The weak case against $14 in Ontario
Today the libertarian Montreal Economic Institute think tank released a short report claiming that Ontario’s $14 minimum wage is costing thousands of young workers their jobs and raising prices for everyone else. These overblown claims, based on skewed and cherry-picked data, came out—purely coincidentally to be sure—on the same day
Continue readingThings Are Good: Unions Help Every Worker Earn More
Unions have a bad reputation thanks to years of corporate lobbying and companies blaming workers for executive-induced problems. Despite the negative view of unions they have helped all workers get paid more and get more benefits. Research out of the University of Illinois concludes that unions are directly connected to
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Labour’s fate and revival in the US and Canada
This week, two labour historians talk about their new books on Canadian and US workers’ movements in the 20th century, books which offer important and practical lessons for unions today. First up, I speak with Barry Eidlin, Assistant Professor of Sociology at McGill University, about his just-published book, Labor and
Continue readingThings Are Good: Worker-Owned Companies can Save Capitalism
We’re all well aware of the harm caused by the box-box retailers on local communities and their international suppliers; indeed, the people hurt the most are the workers. As a result of the pressures of large multinational corporations mixed with poor working conditions an old solution is gaining new traction.
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: West Virginia teachers strike to win
This episode is dedicated to the recent, inspiring and victorious teachers’ strike in West Virginia. West Virginia teachers went out on strike in late February over low pay and continued attacks on the health insurance plan they share with all other state workers. They stayed out despite an initial deal
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Media get it wrong on Bank of Canada minimum wage study
Over a million workers in Ontario just got a big raise thanks to tireless, bottom-up orgainizing, but if you look to the media it’s a bad news story. The same, tired headlines are back. Yesterday, the CBC ran a story titled, “Minimum wage hikes could cost Canada’s economy 60,000 jobs by
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