Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
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Raising minimum wage a no-brainer
… medical professionals who are finally speaking the truth about the impact of a society that pays its CEO millions of dollars a year while thousands of our citizens are working hard every day just trying to survive. This is income inequality in its rawest and most brutal form and anyone who condones this situation is complicit in allowing it to continue. / What kind of society tolerates a situation in which hard-working people must still endure poverty?
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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PSW’s earnings sickening
The new contract “awarded” 4,500 Ontario personal support workers… is both disgraceful and insulting… 1.4 per cent won’t buy even a small cup of coffee. In fact, it leaves PSWs in the position where they might be better off manning a drive-through window… $18,423 a year, just below the poverty line for a single adult in Ontario… is the average yearly income of PSWs.. as well as being many clients’ lifeline, PSWs are the grunts in the medical system’s battle to reduce costs
Tags: budget, disabilities, Health, ideology, mental Health, poverty, standard of living, women
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Loonie’s Fall Not a Moment Too Soon
The present downturn is a welcome, but overdue, reversal to a decade-long, pointless, and destructive financial detour for our currency… almost 500,000 [manufacturing jobs] disappeared since the currency took off… Tourist visits to Canada, for example, plunged by almost half since 2000… Exports plunged from 44 percent of GDP in 2000 to just 30 percent last year – making a mockery of the federal government’s supposed “trade agenda.”
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
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Ontario health workers prescribe $14 minimum wage
A $14 minimum wage would put a full-time worker about 10 per cent above Ontario’s poverty line of about $19,000 a year, after taxes. Almost 500,000 Ontarians — one in nine workers — earn the minimum wage of $10.25, which has been frozen for almost four years… The situation is even worse for immigrants who, despite their higher education levels, are twice as likely to work for minimum wage as the average Ontarian
Tags: economy, ideology, immigration, poverty, standard of living
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Public sector pay promotes equality
With the passage of Bill C-4, the Conservative government not only “stacked the deck” in terms of collective bargaining process, but it will also eliminate the only independent federal organization that provides comparative information on the compensation of federal public service workers… In fact, pay comparisons are not straightforward and how public sector workers are paid affects all workers, but in different ways than most might immediately think.
Tags: budget, ideology, privatization, standard of living
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Workers deserve a higher minimum wage
… working for the minimum wage dooms you to poverty… a simple living wage in Ontario is really around $18 – and that doesn’t go far… those already making more than $14 can barely get by… Giant corporations, who actually employ most of the working poor and could easily absorb the cost, oppose even a trivial rise in the minimum wage, while governments feel little serious pressure to raise the levels. So corporate execs are able to keep prices down, wages down even more, and their own compensation up, up, up.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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U.S. firms staunchly resist disclosure of CEO pay ratios
This relatively minor rule… has inspired a major pushback from big corporations. They say the number is difficult to compile, costly to calculate and meaningless for investors – and as a result, they’re seeking to dilute or postpone the requirement… The regulation’s supporters, including pension funds and other socially-minded investors, disagree. They argue disclosing the ratio can help rein in excessive executive pay and put a spotlight on the compensation framework within a single company.
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living
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Canada’s new super-union expands its membership to include everyone — even people without a job
Unifor — Canada’s largest private sector union… has opened its doors to part-time workers, the self-employed, those without a job and even political activists by asking people to organize “community chapters” around a common cause, rather than an employer… the union expects groups to organize around broader community issues, because members are also citizens who can “change the world around [them].”
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Now trending: Mass layoffs
By now, it’s clear that wide swaths of employees are at risk from the combined forces of technology and globalization. The global economy is exhibiting a tectonic shift from scarcity to the economics of abundance. Industry can produce whatever’s needed efficiently – companies are just having trouble making money from it… Technological solutions are steadily replacing both blue- and white-collar jobs, and the problem is only going to get worse.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Insidious attack on jobless insurance
The purpose of EI is not… to dole out money equitably; it is to support Canadians who have lost their jobs. And replacing EI with personal unemployment accounts is not fair trade; it serves the interests of those with safe, steady, permanent jobs and leaves the rest of the workforce without a cushion in hard times.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
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