Minimum-wage whack-a-mole is the best way to describe what I’ve been up to the past couple months. It seems like every week or so in August and September, the business lobby in Ontario was serving up a plate of inaccurate yet headline-grabbing predictions for consumption in the public debate. Going
Continue readingTag: workers
Michal Rozworski: What do we do when we Fight for $15
On this episode, three guests provide some perspective on the politics and the economics of the Fight for $15. First, I speak with Jonathan Rosenblum, campaign director at the first Fight for $15 at SeaTac Airport, just outside Seattle, Washington. Workers there won an immediate raise to $15 via a municipal ordinance
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Canadian economists support $15, media round-up
53 Canadian economists, myself among them, have signed an open letter in support of the $15 per hour minimum wage. The letter follows on the immense bottom-up campaign in Ontario led by the Fight for $15 and Fairness, which has successfully pressured the provincial government to announce a move to $15 by 2019.
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Neoliberalism restructures work and pensions
On today’s show, two sociologists talk about aspects of neoliberal restructuring. First, Nicole Aschoff, sociologist, author of The New Prophets of Capital and until very recently managing editor of Jacobin magazine speaks with me about the auto industry, Trump and why globalization shouldn’t be solely blamed for the destruction of
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Four (more) arguments against real-world basic income
With the Ontario Liberals rolling out their basic income pilot project to much fanfare this week, it’s an opportune time to dive into the debates around BI once again. 1 Political aspects of unemployment A few weeks ago I attended a debate on basic income and left in Toronto hosted
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Women on strike in the US and Poland
For International Women’s Day, two interviews on women’s protests and strikes, in the USA and in Poland. My first guest is Barbara Smith. Barbara is an icon of the US women’s movement, particularly it’s Black radical wing. She helped establish Black women’s studies as a discipline, was a founding member
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Trudeau’s Growth Council is back with more bad ideas
Justin Trudeau’s friends in finance, consulting and big business dominate the grandly named Advisory Council on Economic Growth. A few months after recommending a giant privatization scheme, the gang is back with more ideas, many very good for them but very bad for you and me. The biggest news: a recommendation to
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: No shortcuts: Jane McAlevey on organizing that can transform unions and society
Today’s epsiode was recorded live at an event with union organizer and author Jane McAlevey in Toronto last week to launch her new book, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age. I was honoured to share the stage with Jane and Stephanie Ross, who teaches in labour studies at McMaster,
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Elites debate boosting the economy, but for whom?
Elites and the talking heads in the media are arguing about how to respond to Canada’s soured economic outlook. Who should try to boost the economy, the federal government via fiscal stimulus or the Bank of Canada via monetary policy? But while elites argue amongst themselves, the overriding context is a transfer and concentration of […]
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Podcast: The return of the modernist left
In the past few years, what has been loosely called the modernist left has seen some revival. Whether coming out of the ultimate failures of the Occupy movement, dissatisfaction with moralistic lifestyle politics or an attempt to analyze the current conundrum of moribound but hegemonic capitalism, some have returned to the idea of the […]
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Podcast: The return of the modernist left
In the past few years, what has been loosely called the modernist left has seen some revival. Whether coming out of the ultimate failures of the Occupy movement, dissatisfaction with moralistic lifestyle politics or an attempt to analyze the current conundrum of moribound but hegemonic capitalism, some have returned to the idea of the […]
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Uber and the Luddites
The fight against the sharing economy, and Uber in particular, can be disorienting. Opposition is often painted as techno-phobia. The good guys in this story are Uber and progress; on the other side are opponents afraid of flexibility and smartphones, kicking and screaming against a future already here. In many ways, this is like the […]
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Having the hard conversations: Interview with Jane McAlevey
My interview with Jane McAlevey has been published at Jacobin. The podcast is available here. Due to a lot of upheaval in my personal life (moving and a new job), there was no podcast last week and this will have to do in lieu. Normal podcasting resumes next week! Michal
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Podcast: Jane McAlevey on organizing to win today
http://rozworski.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Podcast150831-Jane-McAlevey.mp3 I’m very happy to have an extended interview with Jane McAlevey this week. Jane is a well-known US labour organizer and author. During the 2000s, she worked for the SEIU, organizing mostly service and care workers. Much of her work was in right-to-work states, places where the labour movement has
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: The case for a $15 minimum wage the NDP should make
A piece of mine published in Ricochet yesterday, making the best possible case for a $15 minimum wage in federally-regulated industries. Here it is in full: Of all of the NDP’s campaign promises so far, one of the simplest has gotten the most press: the $15 minimum wage for workers
Continue readingMichal Rozworski » Political Eh-conomy: Podcast: A labor journalism resurgence?
http://rozworski.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Podcast150803-Labour-reporting.mp3 As unions and workers suffered defeats over the past few decades, so has labor journalism dwindled from a mainstay of major media outlets across Canada and the US to a relatively niche reporting interest. The past few years, however, have seen a still small but noticeable resurgence of
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Nope, Alberta still needs to raise the minimum wage
Last night, Andrew Coyne published a column in which he champions introducing a minimum income over raising the minimum wage as a radical policy suggestion for Alberta’s new NDP government. Coyne couches the column in his typical pseudo-contrarianism. Here he is supposedly advocating socialism…gasp! In reality, however, Coyne gets it backwards: a minimum income in
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Calling capital’s bluff in Alberta
The votes had barely been counted in Alberta when stories purporting to herald capital flight, particularly from the oil sands, were already appearing in venues like the Financial Post. As if on cue, the TSX fell 2%,the day after the Alberta election. What are we to make of this? Is Notley’s Alberta in the
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Minimum wage workers not the only ones getting screwed
I have a populist piece in The Tyee this morning on how last week’s paltry $0.20 minimum wage increase in British Columbia actually reflects stagnant wages across the economy and why the Fight for 15 is everyone’s fight. Here it is in full. Last week, the B.C. government reacted to the
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Some notes on precarious work
Here’s a few more notes on a point that seems to be made with increasing frequency: working for a wage has always been precarious. The current focus on precarity as a defining feature of our age is not unwelcome; indeed, its popularity shows that it clearly harmonizes with the everyday experience
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