Last week the Conservative Ontario government did what was previously unthinkable in Canada: take away charter rights from people who work. This unprecedented act was met with widespread opposition from unions coast to coast as the Conservatives made it clear that collective bargaining (like NHL and MLB players have) will
Continue readingTag: Union
Things Are Good: Unionized Workers Earn $1.3 Million More
Unions improve the working conditions across the board for any industry they are in, plus when unions work together they can inspire mass change. Anti unionists argue against unions because members have to contribute dues which, they argue, lowers total earnings. This is a flat-out lie. Researchers at Cornell University
Continue readingThings Are Good: Game Workers Uniting for Better Workplaces
In creative industries labour exploitation can happen because employers can get away with leaning into the passion creative workers bring to their field. The video game industry may be a young industry, but the tricks of getting free labour from workers are old ones. As a result, movements like Game
Continue readingThings Are Good: How Smalls Won Big Against Amazon
Chris Smalls took on one of the richest people on the planet and won. Smalls worked at an Amazon warehouse where he led a walkout due to the poor working conditions and treatment from the company, he was fired the day he led the walkout. This only gave Smalls the
Continue readingThings Are Good: People Share What They Changed Their Attitude to Unions
In America anti-union sentiment is strong due to the marketing efforts of large business owners that don’t like paying workers. Amazon’s anti-union efforts are a great example of this. In recent years the pro-union movement has been growing and the recent push by Amazon workers to get respect is an
Continue readingThings Are Good: Alphabet Union Wants Alphabet to Behave
The workers behind the unionization efforts at Google are expanding to take on the whole Alphabet, the parent company of Google. They’ve formed Alpha Global to be a common voice for issues facing Google workers around the world and for people who are being negatively impacted by the actions of
Continue readingThings Are Good: Google Workers Create Union
Unions are a reaction to poor working conditions, and it’s clear that some Silicon Valley companies have created the need for unions. Google, which has been actively suppressing workers who stand up against injustices are now seeing their workers unionize. This is a symbolic victory for the labour movement in
Continue readingThings Are Good: Unions Bring Big Benefits to California
If you work in a unionized environment you’re likely doing better than a person in a non-union environment according to a study done in California. You’re also less likely to make use of the state’s welfare system. What’s more this means that the whole state benefits from unions as more
Continue readingThings Are Good: In Ontario, People Support Education
vote Educators in Ontario are currently on rolling strikes because the provincial Conservative government has chosen to weak havoc on the education system. Since they’ve been elected they’ve sliced and diced all that matters to ensure Ontario has a functioning education system (they’ve even cited chronically-underperforming Alabama as an educational
Continue readingThings Are Good: Governments Reacting to the Failures of the Gig Economy
According to economists the economy is the labour market is fine as unemployment is relatively low. The truth is different from the on-paper measurements. High employment numbers don’t mean much if the jobs don’t pay well and the working conditions are miserable. The modern “gig economy” is to blame for
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: 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 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 readingThings Are Good: Take a Moment and Really Think about Unions
2017 has been anything but a successful year for unions. For a multitude of reasons unions have a bad reputation, although it’s thanks to unions that we have labour rights and weekends. Unions are really good at helping individuals deal with institutions that want to exploit their work; and history
Continue readingTrashy's World: EC group at CAPE – pay attention!
The rest of you need not read further as you’ll have no idea what I am writing about. But for the ECs… Please vote and vote against the 3 resolutions we are being asked to consider. The radical leadership of our once moderate labour group w…
Continue readingTrashy's World: CAPE budget vote passes…
But with only 62% of the vote, it is hardly a landslide. These votes usually are in the 90’s in favour. I’d love to see the breakdown by Local because I don’t know a single person who voted for this. Now. How does a Local leave a union? Stay tuned.
Continue readingTrashy's World: Yet another reason I hope that my union Local leaves CAPE…
I’ve bitched about this before. But “my” union – the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE) used to shy away from the militant activities of other public sector unions like PSAC. By and large, the Local’s members believe that a union serves two purposes: collective bargaining and representation and help
Continue readingTrashy's World: A few thoughts about my union…
I belong to a public sector union. It isn’t a huge Union, not the scale of PSAC, PIPSC, CUPE and the like. There are around 12,000 members, I think; the majority of whom work in one department. For me and for a great many of my colleagues, a union should
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Senate Saves Canada… Again
How do you save democracy from itself? You appoint a Senate. In 1990 the democratically elected House of Commons passed Bill C-43 which would have criminalized all abortions. That bill was defeated by the appointed Senate. To this day abortions remain legal solely because of the Senate’s actions. In 2013
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Senate Saves Canada… Again
How do you save democracy from itself? You appoint a Senate.In 1990 the democratically elected House of Commons passed Bill C-43 which would have criminalized all abortions. That bill was defeated by the appointed Senate. To this day abortions remain l…
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