Social impact bonds wrong model to address homelessness, unemployment and poverty | CUPE
CUPE has submitted a brief to HRSDC on the negative implications of using social enterprise funded through social impact bonds to address social ills.
Graham Cox
Graham Cox is a labour union researcher at Unifor focusing on economic, bargaining, and policy in the energy, road, rail, and marine sectors.
Previous to Unifor, Graham was a researcher at the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE). At CUPE his work focused on economic and policy analysis for the anti-privatization, trade, post-secondary education, utilities, employment insurance, special projects, and organizing files.
Before working at CUPE, Graham served the student movement as National Researcher of the Canadian Federation of Students and chairperson of the National Graduate Caucus.
Graham has worked as a union organizer for the PSAC, CUPE, and the CFS with a focus on graduate student teaching assistant, research assistant and contingent academic staff union drives. This included leading drives to organize academic workers at the University of New Brunswick, UPEI, and Memorial University of Newfoundland.
Please also see articles under the author Editors (What’s left).
Changes to EI and TFW Programs Drive Down Wages for All Workers
The drastic reform of the Employment Insurance (EI) system brought in with last year's omnibus budget will work with the Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFW) to drive down wages for Canadian workers.
Income Inequality in Canada | House Finance Committee Submissions
Cynical Use of Tories' TFW Program by RBC is an Attack on Workers' Rights, Just Like Bill C-377, RTW Laws & EI Changes | Citizens' Press
The Royal Bank of Canada is trying to replace some of its Canadian workforce with lower paid workers from India, in-spite of posting another banner year for profits. The bank is using recent changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers program brought in by the Tories. The effect of these changes to the TFW program is the driving-down of wages for Canadian workers. It seems that another side effect is the actual loss of good jobs in Canada through the exploitation of workers around the world.
CUPE Research Brief: Employment Insurance Usage Profile by Region and Gender
The Conservative government's omnibus budget (Bill C-38) changed much of the way the Employment System will run. Overall, the changes will alter labour market pressures in favour of employers offering low wage jobs. As a result of this bill, it has become even harder to qualify for Employment Insurance. Further, the process of appealing the decision has been changed to eliminate worker and employer seats on the appeals panels. Even before the budget changes, fewer than 40 per cent of unemployed workers qualified for EI even though they are unemployed through no fault of their own.
Poor People Should Take on Debt to Pay Taxes says Fraser Institute
Our favourite people to point and laugh at have released another ridiculous report. This time complaining that the poor are not paying enough in tax. It is not clear from the Fraser Inst. how people with no money will be able to pay more in taxes, but we assume that they mean for the poor to go further into debt.
#BDGT13 Resources of Note for Labour #canpoli #canlab
WTO Declares Ontario's Green Energy Act Illegal | New Fact Sheet
In December 2012, the World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled part of the Ontario Green Energy and Green Economy Act (GEA) illegal. A WTO panel decided that “Buy Local” conditions on wind and solar power projects, designed to ensure local development and jobs benefits to Ontarians, violate international free-trade rules. This decision exposes the very real barrier that these rules put in front of our economic and environmental policy options, and to the idea of sustainable development more generally.
Bon Appetit from Stephen Harper | PSAC - NCR Video
New video ad from PSAC National Capital Region.
If journalism is a public good, then it should be a public service | Citizens' Press
A response to Don Lenihan's article (which is a near copy of many other articles) on the coming death of independent news organizations because of their implementation of paywalls. The paywall model is the expression of more than just the decline in people buying newspapers and advertisers finding other avenues. It is an expression of the contradictions that exist between private funding and journalism as a public good.