Archive for the ‘Economy/Employment’ Category
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With right to strike, the Supreme Court returns balance to the workplace
This week, the Court has recognized again that in effect, workers collective rights are human rights. As the decision says, the right to strike is essential to realizing Charter values of “human dignity, equality, liberty, respect for the autonomy of the person and the enhancement of democracy.” As Justice Abella wrote in the Court’s decision, “clearly the arc bends increasingly towards workplace justice.”
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, rights
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Meet the man injured Ontario workers ‘love to hate’
… “tailor-made” programs with flexible recuperation deadlines… if you don’t get a worker back within 90 days of their injury, the chances that they ever go back to work drop by 50 per cent… the WSIB hired 300 additional staff to help those injured “negotiate” their way back… The unfunded liability has been shrunk from a high of $14.2 billion to just over $9 billion in five years, the number of workers not back to work after a year has dropped by more than half and lost time claims have dropped by 17 per cent
Tags: disabilities, economy, Health, pensions, standard of living
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Canada’s deficit drama is all theatre
The government’s focus on eliminating the deficit at all costs was misguided and destructive, and undermined the economic recovery. We should stop worrying whether next year brings a small surplus or a small deficit. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is why so much was sacrificed in the single-minded pursuit of a supposedly overarching goal – that the government quickly threw away for short-term political benefit.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology
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Stephen Harper discovers Ontario
Ontario could certainly use Ottawa’s help, regardless of Harper’s motivation. The manufacturing sector does need capital. Exporters do need access to foreign markets that the premier can’t pry open. There will be a time to press for a more far-sighted agenda. Auto plants, construction firms and food processing facilities aren’t a stable, sustainable industrial base. Tax incentives won’t kick-start new industries.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology
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Health unit supports municipal ‘living wage’ policies
Peace & Justice Grey Bruce asked Owen Sound council this week to adopt a policy that would require the city to pay, at minimum, a living wage for all part-time and full-time city employees as well as people who perform physical work on city property. The policy should be tied, the group said, to the living wage established each year by the United Way of Bruce Grey, which takes into account the cost of basic needs and “social inclusion” expenses…
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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Public investment gives private ingenuity a springboard
Tax incentives won’t trigger innovation… It takes government-led goal-setting backed up with public funds … mission-based investment — to generate transformative knowledge, spawn technical breakthroughs and improve the economic outlook for everyone, including those at the bottom of the income pyramid… governments can pull together multi-talented teams of problem-solvers, spur innovation, marry science and industry and trigger waves of economic growth.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
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Much Too Responsible
In Europe as in America, the excesses that led to crisis overwhelmingly involved private rather than public debt… officials in Berlin and Brussels chose to ignore the evidence in favor of a narrative that placed all the blame on budget deficits… its doyens of deflation… felt comfortable, emotionally and politically, demanding sacrifice (from other people) at a time when the world needed more spending.
Tags: budget, economy, globalization, ideology
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Aboriginal revenue sharing is an idea whose time has come
Aboriginal people deserve a financial return from resource development in their traditional territories and revenue sharing is an obvious way to make that happen… it may be the only significant tool at the disposal of aboriginal communities seeking to address the major infrastructure challenges they face around housing, roads and water supplies. … either through negotiations or legal action, resource revenue sharing will soon be commonplace in Canada.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, Indigenous, participation, standard of living
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Demonized ‘industrial policy’ puts corporate tax cuts to shame
Corporate tax cuts certainly boost after-tax corporate profits, but have had a negligible impact to date on actual business investment in machinery and equipment and in intellectual property, which are the key building blocks of our future prosperity… real business spending in these vital areas has been flat for the past three years… This raises the question of how much money should be funnelled to the private sector through costly across-the-board tax cuts as opposed to more targeted programs.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, tax
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Forget fairness, here’s why taxing the rich benefits us all
… if government taxes some of the richest people’s money, and hands it to less affluent households, consumption is likely to increase, spurring economic expansion. This would seem to be a better deal for everyone – even the ultra rich, who are likely to benefit disproportionately from the improved growth… policies that encourage economic growth, like free trade, are only going to be politically feasible if voters perceive the benefits to be distributed across a wide range of people, not just a few.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | 2 Comments »
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