Workplaces

May 142013
 
Hugh Segal

Senior Conservative Senator opposes Harperite Bill 377's onerous reporting requirements.

from Hansard

Hon Hugh Segal:
Honourable senators, I rise with the permission of Senator Ringuette, who has adjourned this motion, to speak on Bill C-377. I believe the bill must be amended and critically examined before committee. As I do believe that, I do not oppose second reading, although I cannot vote for the bill in principle and will not. Let me share my best judgment as to why Bill C-377, dealing with broadening trade union disclosure to CRA, is bad legislation, bad public policy and a diminution of both the order and the freedom that should exist in any democratic, pluralist and mixed-market society.

Continue reading »

May 142013
 

New Union constitutional highlights now out, regional tour makes its way across Canada.

from the New Union project

Local union leaders and activists from the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP) have been gathering in regional meetings to hear details of the plan to create a new union at a founding convention in Toronto this Labour Day weekend.

Continue reading »

May 132013
 

Report on developing countries shows majority of youth face serious job market challenges.

from the International Labor Organization

GENEVA (ILO News) – Two thirds of working age youth in some developing countries are either unemployed or trapped in low-quality jobs, according to the ILO Global Employment Trends for Youth 2013 report.

In six of the ten countries surveyed, over 60 percent of young people are either unemployed, working but in low quality, irregular, low wage jobs, often in the informal economy, or neither in the labour force nor in education or training. In Liberia, Malawi and Togo, the figure exceeds 70 per cent.

Continue reading »

May 062013
 

'Fix' fails to improve Canada's Foreign Temporary Workers program.

from the Union of Food and Commercial Workers

OTTAWA, April 29, 2013 — The union that represents thousands of temporary foreign workers is frustrated — but not surprised — at the glaring lack of substance in the federal government’s announcement today about “fixing” the shameful state of Canada’s temporary labour and immigration system.

Continue reading »

May 012013
 
FruitPickers

Weakened employment laws leave lower-wage workers struggling.

by David Fairey and Marjorie Griffin Cohen

BC has acquired the sad distinction of being home to Canada’s largest income gap, highest poverty rate, and second highest child poverty rate. It also has greater employment insecurity and lower wages than the national average, even though BC is the province with the highest cost of living in Canada.

How has this occurred in such a rich province?

The answer is at least partially due to the low-wage policies the BC government has implemented in the twenty-first century through changes to the Employment Standards Act (ESA). These changes, beginning in 2001, represented a dramatic roll-back of worker rights.

Continue reading »

Apr 222013
 

Let's break the silence of indifference and vigorously work to make workplaces safe.

from the Workers' Health and Safety Centre

More than twenty years ago, the Canadian Labour Congress declared April 28 a National Day of Mourning for workers who have been killed or suffer disease or injury as a result of work. Every year since, unions, labour councils, families and community partners gather by the thousands to "mourn for the dead." What began through the efforts of Canada's labour movement is now observed in more than 100 countries.

On April 28, honour those who have lost their lives or paid with their health. You can:

  • encourage others to attend a Day of Mourning event
  • draft a message for your organization's publication or website
  • work with local media to promote the Day's significance, write about worker monuments and cover Day of Mourning events
  • lobby politicians to recognize the Day through proclamation
  • invite faith communities and social justice groups to observe the Day
  • convince employers and public institutions to lower flags to half-mast.

The Day of Mourning, though, is also intended to focus attention on what we can do to break the silence of indifference and say "Enough!" to the suffering caused by hazardous working conditions. On April 28, let's resolve to take action that restores and promotes dignity and health in our workplaces and our communities. On this day and each that follows you can:

  • educate others about basic health and safety rights and prevention measures
  • help social justice and other groups educate at-risk members of our communities
  • negotiate greater decision-making power for worker representatives and joint committees
  • make health and safety a collective bargaining priority
  • encourage local media to report on health, safety and environmental issues
  • encourage MPs and/or MPPs to support ergonomic and violence regulations and stronger enforcement of existing legislation
  • create monuments to promote public awareness of workplace health and safety.

The Workers Health & Safety Centre (WHSC) mourns with you on April 28. But what began as Canada's Day of Mourning has also become an annual day to breathe new life into efforts aimed at securing safer and healthier workplaces.

For more information about April 28 or how the WHSC can help you pursue prevention through training and other information resources, contact a WHSC near you.

Reference
View our 2013 Day of Mourning brochure
Learn about the economic costs of inaction
Learn about the many worker memorial monuments in Ontario

Review a brief summary of workers rights translated to 17 different languages

Arabic German Portuguese Tamil
Chinese Gujarati Punjabi Urdu
English Italian Russian  
Farsi Korean Spanish  
French Polish Tagalog  

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 152013
 

At 1:50, actor declares, "We're a target, because we're a threat to unions." Then the slagging starts.

from International Workers of the World

All new Target employees are forced to watch this video so that they are indoctrinated into fearing unions. It's filled with misrepresentations, deceptions, and even outright lies, because Target knows that its employees desperately need a union.

YouTube Preview Image

If you're a Target employee, please don't be deceived by your bosses. Target Corporation made over 2.9 billion dollars last year. You deserve better wages, benefits, and working conditions, and your employer can afford to give them to you.

If you want to learn more about your rights and are interested in organizing, please contact the Industrial Workers of the World, a union for all workers that can help empower you on the job.

Don't trust the boss.  Organize and get what's yours.

 

Apr 112013
 

RBC foreign worker scandal may mark the turning point in public opinion.

by James Clancy

Massive stories sometimes start small — a simple break-and-enter in 1972 eventually led to the downfall of the world’s most powerful politician — and a small story that broke this past weekend here in Canada is building momentum and has the potential to become huge. Is this a Watergate for our business leaders? I hope so.

It started when the CBC reported that a multinational outsourcing company called iGate used the federal government’s Temporary Foreign Workers Program to bring a worker into Canada as part of a contract it has with RBC. This particular worker was allowed into the country to be trained in the processes of the bank’s “investor services” department by the very people whose work is about to be outsourced. Forty-five RBC workers will lose their jobs in the process.

RBC is the most profitable of Canadian banks, and yet its leaders believe they’re perfectly justified in fundamentally disrupting the lives of a couple dozen of their employees in the pursuit of a sliver more in short-term profit.

The numbers may be small — it’s just one temporary foreign worker of the tens of thousands brought into Canada every month, and just 45 of hundreds of thousands of middle-class Canadians who’ve lost their jobs to outsourcing over the past decade — but the story has shone a glaring light on the practice of outsourcing, the unabashed greed that underlies it, and the damage that it is doing to us all.

Across the country, people are outraged by this story. RBC is the most profitable of Canadian banks, one of the most stable and successful corporations in the world, and yet its leaders believe they’re perfectly justified in fundamentally disrupting the lives of a couple dozen of their employees in the pursuit of a sliver more in short-term profit.

Outsourcing is often sold as a necessary business tactic in an ever-more competitive global economy, with the claim that Canadian companies risk outright bankruptcy if they’re not able to use cheap labour offshore. For some companies, this might be a credible argument. But RBC is hardly a company fighting for its life. As RBC CEO Guy Dixon said while presenting the company’s annual report last year: “2012 was a record year — our annual profit was the largest not only for RBC, but also for any Canadian company… ever.”
A few more quick stats show just how well-fed this bank is:

  • It made more than $2 billion in profits in the first three months of 2013
  • It paid CEO Dixon more than $12 million last year — and another $27 million to his top four VPs
  • Its total tax burden has dropped from 32.9 percent in 2010 to 28.9 percent in 2012

And yet despite these clear signs of near-bullet-proof stability and health, RBC’s leaders have hired an aggressive offshore company specializing in cheap labour (one of whose slogans is “It’s criminal to pay for time and materials”) in order to squeeze more profit from its largely Canadian business. What’s worse is that the extra profits they’ll realize from outsourcing the work done by these 45 workers will be minuscule — considering that RBC employs 57,000 Canadians, will saving a few tens of thousands of dollars even register on their financials?

Considering that RBC employs 57,000 Canadians, will saving a few tens of thousands of dollars even register on their financials?

No, there’s something larger at play here. RBC’s leaders have shown us the consequences of living in a society that celebrates unmitigated greed. We've arrived here after more than 30 years of assurances from our political leaders that greed is a virtue and that our only responsibility in life is to our own self-gratification. The RBC 45 are just the latest of many whose lives have been crushed under this dangerous and corrosive dogma.

This one small story illustrates the larger danger of greed unchecked. All of our jobs and all of our communities are vulnerable to outsourcing and its cousin, privatization. These strategies might boost profits, but at a terrible cost.

Turning the tide on the dogma of greed will not be easy nor quick. But we have an opportunity now to start. Each of us must stand up against corporations and politicians driven only by greed. We yearn instead for more from our leaders: more responsibility, more community-mindedness, and more engagement with the lives of the people who contribute to their own success.

We can send a message that our corporate and government leaders won’t be able to ignore.

Apr 082013
 

Despite resistance from unexpected quarters,  working from home makes sense to many employers as well as workers.

by Jon Messenger and Laura Addati

There’s been much debate about the merits — and demerits — of teleworking, since Yahoo’s CEO, Marissa Mayer, issued a ban on working from home.

According to a confidential internal memo leaked to the press, Mayer said speed, quality, communication and collaboration are often sacrificed when staff work remotely, including from home. The best decisions, she said, are often made at impromptu meetings in the workplace.

Continue reading »