Ontarians heading to the polls on June 7 face a stark choice between two visions of government and two styles of governing. The choice they make could reverberate across the country. A Progressive Conservative victory under the leadership of the right-wing populist Doug Ford would almost certainly usher in another period of harsh and unnecessary austerity, and has the potential to set racial and economic justice back decades.
Employment and labour
Vancouver — Although there are positive elements to today’s BC government announcement in response to the second report of the Fair Wages Commission, the government’s rejection of the recommendation to include farm workers in the basic minimum wage is extremely frustrating, says the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
The Nova Scotia Alternative Budget 2018 is a blueprint of a budget for the people. The report lays out a sustainable fiscal framework that supports the development of inclusive and prosperous communities, where we take care of each other and our environment.
Canada is only months away from legalizing and regulating the production, sale and use of cannabis for medicinal and recreational purposes. Yet, as we explore in our cover story this issue, the plan is rife with contradictions: a fledgling industry populated by former police chiefs; the fact bills C-45 and C-46 will create dozens of new pot-related offences in the process of removing some of the old ones; the continued prohibition on growing more than four or five plants at home while Canada's "licensed producers" are expected to make billions.
Despite being better educated than previous generations, there are fewer decent jobs for younger workers, even after they have paid their dues working entry-level jobs or unpaid internships. They’re taking on considerable student debt only to find a fractured labour market that denies them access to full-time jobs with decent pay and benefits. And it doesn’t seem to matter which sector of the labour market they turn to.
Photo by Memphis CVB (Flickr Creative Commons)
While post-secondary institutions are places of learning, they also employ thousands of people across a broad spectrum of job classifications. This report explores the extent to which workers in Canada’s post-secondary institutions are experiencing precarity. More precisely, it asks whether employment on university and college campuses in Ontario is becoming more precarious, for whom and for what reasons.
OTTAWA — Precarious employment is on the rise in Ontario’s post-secondary sector, a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has found. The report examines the prevalence of precarious work on campuses and finds that certain workers are becoming more vulnerable to precarity.
Fifty-three per cent of college and university workers in the province are to some extent precariously employed, according to analysis of Labour Force Survey (LFS) data. The study also includes first-hand accounts of the impacts of precarity from a recent survey of workers.
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