from truth-out
Writing for Occupy.com and truth-out.org, Andrew Gavin Marshall looks at the origins and increasing influence of transnational organizations with a free market ideology and stated goals of the 'scientific management of society' and 'social control'. These corporate-policy networks are composed of politically active business leaders heading large industrial corporations and financial institutions 'based in capitalism's core regions'.
from Diablogue
Health Canada has been asked to consult before licensing the for-profit Canadian Plasma Resources in a public letter signed by 28 organizations, including the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
from Diablogue
from the National Union of Public and General Employees
The recent dismissal of the provincial health services board is "just the latest in a long history of mismanagement and bungling," said Elisabeth Ballermann, president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta.
from the Canadian Union of Public Employees
CUPE Airline Division President Michel Cournoyer and NDP Transport, Infrastructure and Communities critic Olivia Chow are urging the Conservative government to stop compromising airline passenger safety with the recent decision to reduce the number of flight attendants on board all Canadian airplanes.
from the Ontario Public Service Employees Union
Nearly 300 people gathered in Kingston June 10 for a discussion on rising inequality, its effects, and next steps for tackling it head-on.
from the Canadian Union of Public Employees
Staff providing home care services at Strathmore Lodge have been given termination notices after Alberta Health Services gave the contract to Bayshore Home Health, a for-profit health care provider.
from Counterpunch
Franklin C Spinney of Counterpunch says a recent report by Elaine Grossman at the Global Security Newswire indicates there are 700,000 service contractors employed at the Pentagon doing work traditionally done by public and military employees. Contractors privy to Pentagon secrets, hired to audit Pentagon books, are not only an obvious conflict of interest but a "most outrageous abuse of neo-liberal privatization."
from The Guardian
A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of prisoners at the privately-owned East Mississippi Correctional Facility for mentally ill prisoners reveals horrific abuses, writes Jill Filipovic for The Guardian. Although treatment is advertised as part of the prison contract, not only are prisoners denied treatment, they face rape, beatings, rat infestations and solitary confinement, sometimes for years. Business as usual in America's private prisons, where the population has grown by 790 percent since 1980.
from iPolitics
Unannounced by Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, an inter-sessional Trans-Pacific Partnership meeting was held in Vancouver June 14-16, on the topic of the TPP's investment chapter, the first such negotiation on Canadian soil. According to iPolitics' BJ Siekierski, we have the Peruvian media to thank for the information.
