Efficiency is formidable. It rears its head most everywhere. Witness the tyranny of the target at more and more workplaces: from more greets per hour to more exam points per teacher. At the same time, efficiency also nurtures increasing tyrannies at home: get fit in 12 minutes per day instead
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PostArctica: Mammoth Miners Memorial, Mammoth, Arizona
Came across this remarkable art in honour of dead miners. “The Mammoth Miners Memorial honors 55 miners who lost their lives over the years in the San Manuel, St. Anthony and Tiger mines. Along with a statue of a hard-rock miner and ore buckets, the memorial features a sculpture of
Continue readingPostArctica: Mammoth Miners Memorial, Mammoth, Arizona
Came across this remarkable art in honour of dead miners. “The Mammoth Miners Memorial honors 55 miners who lost their lives over the years in the San Manuel, St. Anthony and Tiger mines. Along with a statue of a hard-rock miner and ore buckets, the memorial features a sculpture of
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Working class disarmed, Canadian redux
Looking at the prevalence of strikes in the US over the past six decades, Doug Henwood writes, Second Amendment fetishism aside, there’s an old saying that the working class’s ultimate weapon is withholding labor through slowdowns and strikes. By that measure, the U.S. working class has been effectively disarmed since
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Political Eh-conomy Radio: In and out of crisis with Sam Gindin
Today’s podcast is a feature interview with fellow political economist Sam Gindin. I interrogate Sam about the political economy of the present: the exit from the 2007 crisis, the role of states, austerity, the place of finance and the possibilities of resistance. Download: podcast-140314-sam-gindin.mp3 Sam Gindin is a left political
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Re-making markets with unpaid internships
From political proposals to street protests, unpaid internships have been making news in Canada. Rightfully so, as there is a litany of problems with unpaid internships. For individuals, unpaid internships can not only be a form of outright wage theft, they also help entrench class-based privilege that allows some the
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: We can’t all be workers: Putting inequality in the inequality debate
It’s easy to get confused about who is a worker and who isn’t these days. Your CEO may worker longer hours than you, not the top-hatted capitalist of the Monopoly board he. Indeed, it may seem that the leisure class of the turn of the last century has been replaced
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Economic history in the present: The wage fund and the minimum wage
How many bushels of wheat do you make a year? While this is not the most relevant question to be asking about wages today, some of the discussion around the minimum wage is taking inspiration from a very old economic idea according to which questions like this would be right
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: The political aspects of the minimum wage
Discussion of the minimum wage can easily slide into a technocratic back-and-forth that ignores the vital political aspect at play. We can see this in much of the response to the report just released by the Ontario government’s Minimum Wage Advisory Panel (MWAP). Andrew Coyne, for example, once again argues
Continue readingRebuilding the American middle class
When you consider that the United States is the richest country in the world, the state of its working class is shocking. The country now has the highest proportion of low-wage workers in the developed world. Fifty-two percent of fast-food workers’ families receive public assistance in an industry that last
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Precarious workers or satisfied customers: a fine line for giant retailers
This post is an appendix of sorts to my article, “Fired by Walmart for Christmas”, to be published this weekend by Common Dreams. In the article, I describe the stresses and difficulties faced by Walmart workers during the holidays. Overwork, a climate of fear and barely-organized chaos make for taxing
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Legislating a real raise: Minimum wages and real earnings growth
In a recent post titled, “What happened to the distribution of real earnings during the recession?”, Stephen Gordon presents a graphs that shows some significant growth in real (adjust for inflation) earnings in Canada between 2007 and 2012. In addition, plotting average annual growth rates in real earnings against the
Continue readingLeft Over: More Layoffs/Less Service? Happy Holidays!
Canada Post to phase out urban home mail delivery Up to 8,000 jobs will be cut, while cost of stamps is going up CBC News Posted: Dec 11, 2013 9:37 AM ET Last Updated: Dec 11, 2013 11:53 AM ET There is something the Feds find irresistible about throwing out some
Continue readingLeft Over: Still Squeezing the Poor…Into Inadequate Housing
Bad landlords face licensing crackdown With multiple tenants crammed into decrepit properties, one London borough is taking direct action Lisa Bachelor The Guardian, Friday 14 June 2013 14.46 BST Here in British Columbia, Canada, especially in Vancouver (and I suspect, any other major city in the country) such criminally sub-standard crowding
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: International report condemns Harper government’s attacks on workers, trade unions
By: Obert Madondo Twitter: @Obiemad A new report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) condemns the Harper Conservatives for repeated violations of union and worker rights. The annual report, titled Countries at Risk: 2013 Report on Violations of Trade Union Rights, was released in Geneva earlier this week. It suggests that labour conditions have deteriorated under Prime Minister
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Conservative attack on workers continues with “Private Members’ Bill”: PSAC
By: Public Service Alliance of Canada | Press Release On June 5th, Conservative MP Blaine Calkins for Wetaskiwin (Alberta) introduced Bill C-525, an Act to change the certification and revocation sections of the Canada Labour Code, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Parliamentary Employees Staff Relations Act. The purpose
Continue readingLeft Over: Strength in Numbers, or Just Numb?
Unifor: CAW, CEP Merger Creates Largest Private-Sector Union In Canada Posted: 05/30/2013 11:59 am EDT | Updated: 05/30/2013 5:12 pm EDT Considering that CUPE, the largest public sector union, seems to be powerless when it really matters, I’m not sure what difference this is going to make to the private sector…the same things apply
Continue readingThe Political Road Map: Someone Always Has To Die…
It has been a pretty busy week so far and this beautiful weather has been a much needed treat(ment) for the woes of working a stressful job and trying to get by. Fortunate for me, but unfortunately for 500 other people, there will no longer be good and bad days,
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: CUPE Day of Mourning reminder of fight for safer work places
By: Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE): April 28 is the International Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job. CUPE will honour these workers who have lost their lives or been injured at work, in special ceremonies across the country. WHO: Paul Moist, national president of the Canadian Union
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Catholic Teachers donate $43,000 to support striking Porter workers
By: Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association | Press Release: TORONTO, April 22, 2013 – The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA), together with local OECTA units, have donated over $43,000 to support striking Porter Airlines employees. The workers, who are members of the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union (COPE) Local 343, have been on
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