By Haseena Manek Jane Finch Action Against Poverty (JFAAP) will be launching their new report, Permanently Temporary, at an event in Toronto this evening. The community-led report details experiences of community members working with temporary employment agencies and the challenges they face as a result of their precarious working status. The report includes the anonymous Continue readingJFAAP to launch report on the rights of temp workers
Articles
By Rachel Gnanayutham, Injured Workers Community Legal Clinic In April, the Ford government announced a devastating 30% cut to legal aid funding, as part of its first provincial government. Yesterday, Legal Aid Ontario implemented the cuts to legal clinics. Many clinics providing services to marginalised, discriminated and vulnerable people in Ontario are facing drastic cuts. Continue readingLegal aid cuts hurt workers and low-income Ontarians
Read Part 1 of this look into the conditions of long term care in Ontario here. By Zaid Noorsumar On Jan. 23, 2007, 73-year-old Betty Moseley-Williams testified to the legislative standing committee about Bill 140, the Long-term Care Homes Act. Moseley-Williams, who had worked as a nurse for 50 years, harkened back to a conversation Continue readingIs it Time to Care Yet?
Public transit infrastructure and services have been actively under attack over the past several years. In 2017, the Sask Party shutdown the Saskatchewan Transit Company, which provided intercity bus transit in Saskatchewan. Last year, Greyhound pulled out of all but one of their bus routes in Western Canada, with no provincial or federal governments stepping Continue readingFighting Uber & Lyft to Expand Public Transit
By Ritch Whyman Picket lines went up across cities, towns and worksites in Ontario this week as 12,000 members of the United Association of Plumbers and Steamfitters walked out on strike. This is the first major strike under the Ford government and could have serious effect on several major industrial and infrastructure projects in Ontario. Continue readingPlumbers and Steamfitters Strike Against Concessions
By Zaid Noorsumar Punched. Groped. Kicked. Violence in long-term care homes has to stop. Staff and residents are caught in a vicious cycle of violence in Ontario’s nursing homes. Caregivers who are punched, kicked, and spat on as they tend to residents. Caregivers who are scratched and bitten. Accustomed to bruises and burns. Groped and Continue readingBreaking Point: Violence in Long Term Care
by Haseena Manek Thirteen labour council presidents from across Canada have signed onto an open letter calling for the theme of Labour Day 2019 to be #UniteAgainstRacism. The letter was released by the Migrant Rights Network (MRN) as part of their ongoing anti-racism campaign. It calls for the labour movement to endorse the campaign by Continue readingLabour council presidents across Canada #UniteAgainstRacism
This week, Alberta premier Jason Kenney introduced Bill 2, an Act to Make Alberta Open for Business. This bill overall reduces labour costs for employers by reducing holiday and overtime pay, and introducing a youth minimum wage at 13$ which is lower than the $15 minimum wage introduced by the NDP. The bill also removes Continue readingFighting for $15 on the Prairies
by Emily Leedham Update May 31, 2019: ATU 1505 Members have voted 97% against the City’s offer. Voter turnout was 84%. No job action announced for the weekend, but the union says there will be action in the “coming days,” and will inform the public ahead of time. ATU 1505 also invited the City back Continue readingWinnipeg Transit drivers may take job action this weekend
By Greg Albo, Bryan Evans and Carlo Fanelli The eminent conservative scholar of public budgeting Aaron Wildavsky characterized annual budgets as a record of “victories, defeats, bargains, and compromises.” The province of Ontario’s 2019 Budget, the first of the new Conservative government of Doug Ford, does indeed tell us something of this – additional fiscal supports for Continue readingAnother Round of Punishing Austerity in Ontario
By David Newberry and Sarah Neath In Ontario’s current climate of extreme austerity, you might think that injured workers have little to celebrate. And yet, on Saturday, June 1, that is exactly what they will be doing. For the 36th year in a row, injured workers and their allies from all over the province will Continue readingInjured Workers Day: Resistance Continues
As activists organizing with the Our Time campaign put together town halls in cities across Canada to discuss what a Green New Deal would look like for Canada, the wildfire season had already begun. Alberta’s High Level fire forced over 4,000 town residents and nearby First Nations communities to evacuate their homes. What does wildfire Continue readingWhat is it like to fight wildfires?