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  • Debates

    Scrapping labour reforms is damaging Ford’s popularity: poll

    posted November 13, 2018 / No Comments

    “Ford needs to do a better job telling workers why getting rid of those measures is a good thing for business and a good thing for workers. He hasn’t done that.” Indeed, 77 per cent of Ontarians oppose the premier’s decision to scrap two paid sick leave days while 17 per cent favoured that and 6 per cent were unsure. About half of those polled — 52 per cent — were opposed to Ford stopping a planned increase of the minimum wage to $15 on Jan. 1.

  • Policy Context

    OCUFA submits recommendations on Bill 47, calls for reinstatement of fair labour laws

    posted November 8, 2018 / No Comments

    Rolling back equal pay, options for consolidating bargaining units, fairer rules for joining unions, and other basic rights represent a major step backwards in efforts to address precarious work across the province… Workers on university campuses and in communities across the province are counting on these modest but important labour law improvements to support themselves and their families

  • Policy Context

    University and college faculty, students, and staff call on Ontario government to protect workers’ rights and withdraw Bill 47

    posted November 6, 2018 / No Comments

    Faculty, students, and staff across Ontario know first-hand how important existing labour laws are for the well-being of our families and communities. Ontario workers deserve fair wages and good jobs, including at our universities and colleges. If this government is truly for the people, it should do the right thing and withdraw Bill 47 immediately.

  • Delivery System

    Loan program makes dreams possible for newcomers aiming to upgrade their skills

    posted November 5, 2018 / No Comments

    Windmill, formerly known as Immigrant Access Fund Canada, received a $1 million grant from TD Bank as one of 10 winners of a challenge for fresh ideas to increase income stability and give people the skills for the future economy… Since its inception, the charity has helped more than 4,000 immigrants and refugees restart their careers in Canada, and many have seen their earnings double or triple as a result. More than half of recipients are in health care, including doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and medical technicians. The loan repayment rate is 97.5 per cent.

  • Policy Context

    Doug Ford’s fight against carbon pricing puts us on the wrong side of history

    posted November 3, 2018 / No Comments

    Already, 53 governments worldwide have put a price on GHG emissions. They include six Canadian provinces and all three territories; the European Union, world’s largest economy; Japan, third-largest economy; several of China’s largest manufacturing centres; and powerhouse economy California. That carbon pricing is an affordable remedy is evident in the mid-income countries that have adopted it, including Mexico, Slovenia, Latvia and Kazakhstan.

  • Debates

    Labour leader says Pay Equity Act should also address income disparity in minorities, disabled

    posted November 2, 2018 / No Comments

    … research shows that visible minorities – the term Statscan uses – earn almost 20 per cent less, on average, than Canadians who are not visible minorities. That gap widens further for women of colour, who earned, on average, 70 per cent of what a man who is not a visible minority earned… research considered factors such as education, experience and hours worked. “After controlling for all characteristics that may drive earning gaps, we still see some gaps that then we can say that’s discrimination”…

  • Debates

    Doug Ford government spins fake news to ditch minimum wage hike

    posted October 31, 2018 / No Comments

    After two years of public consultations, special advisors leading “the largest review of Ontario’s labour laws conducted in decades” concluded in the 400-page Changing Workplaces Review report “that there are too many people in too many workplaces who do not receive their basic rights.” … for business lobbies to now say there has been no input and that Bill 148 is “too much too soon” is disingenuous… In fact, some of the changes… were modified by the business community.”

  • Policy Context

    Ford driving a race to the bottom for Ontario’s lowest-paid workers

    posted October 26, 2018 / No Comments

    … the perverse thinking behind the economic philosophy that has dominated North American politics in recent decades: that workers must offer themselves up at the lowest possible wage with the fewest possible benefits in order to create an attractive investment climate for businesses that might otherwise move elsewhere… most low-wage countries remain that way, while the high-wage nations of Europe and Scandinavia continue to excel in global competitiveness.

  • Policy Context

    Ontario is taking a big step back by freezing minimum wage

    posted October 25, 2018 / No Comments

    The government says the new law will “create good-paying jobs with benefits.” In reality, it will do just the opposite by clawing back planned wage increases, rights and protections contained in the former Liberal government’s Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, passed late last year. That certainly isn’t good for employees, and as many economists have argued it isn’t good for the economy as a whole either.

  • Debates

    No sign minimum wage hike was ‘job killer’ Doug Ford says it was

    posted October 25, 2018 / No Comments

    Now that Premier Doug Ford’s government is scrapping nearly every change the Liberals made to the employment laws and freezing the minimum wage until October 2020, it’s time to assess whether the claims that it’s killing jobs and devastating the economy are true. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce predicted (in what it called an independent economic analysis) that the reforms would put 185,000 jobs at risk. The fact is Ontario’s unemployment rate over the past year is as good as it has been this century.

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