Employment Equality
Living Wage Calculation Now at $18.17 Hour
Read article in today's Vancouver Sun that explains why the living wage calculation has gone up from $16.74 in 2008, to today's living wage, $18.17 in 2010.
City's first Rooftop Farm will Supply Food to Downtown Eastside Residents
B.C.'s minimum-wage workers are falling further behind
Nova Scotia's lowest-paid workers get a raise today, 24 hours after a similar hike in Ontario. In fact, over the past year, the minimum wage has been raised in every province except one.For the eighth year in a row, people making minimum wage in B.C. got nothing.
Ontario's minimum wage was lifted to a nation-leading $10.25. B.C. used to have the highest minimum wage of any province, when it was increased to $8 an hour in 2001 at the same time the recently elected Liberal government created a new training rate of $6 an hour.
A Reason to Celebrate: The Lowest Paid in Ontario Just Got a Raise
Raise a glass today in honour of the hard-working souls who flip burgers, serve double-doubles and clean hotel rooms. In Ontario, they just got a decent raise: the minimum wage goes up 75 cents, to $10.25 an hour. That makes Ontario's minimum the highest in Canada - and today marks the first time the bottom rung of our labour market passes that $10 threshold.The new benchmark represents the completion of a promise made by the McGuinty government in 2007. Since then, minimum wage workers in Ontario have pocketed 28 per cent in wage increases.
Tories cut funding for library Internet access
The Conservative government is quietly cutting funding to hundreds of community groups and even hospitals that provide free Internet access to Canadians who might not otherwise have a chance to get online.The Cleveland Model : Green worker Co-ops
Something important is happening in Cleveland: a new model of large-scale worker- and community-benefiting enterprises is beginning to build serious momentum in one of the cities most dramatically impacted by the nation's decaying economy. The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL)--a worker-owned, industrial-size, thoroughly "green" operation--opened its doors late last fall in Glenville, a neighborhood with a median income hovering around $18,000.
Economics of Poverty Workshop: A Half-Day Primer on the Economics and Statistics of Poverty
Krishna Pendakur, SFU Professor of Economics, is offering an exciting half-day, free workshop on the economics and statistics of poverty:
The Ministry of Labour's fight to hide Employment Standards violations makes a mockery of the Freedom of Information process
For three years now, the BC government has been fighting requests to disclose Employment Standards enforcement records. Whither freedom of information, public accountability and transparency?I am an independent public policy researcher, part of an academic and community research team investigating how changes to employment standards have affected BC's vulnerable farmworkers.
More Companies are Adopting the Four Day Work Week
In an effort to counter soaring gas prices and to keep employees happy, companies across North America are adopting the four day work week. The benefits to this restructuring of hours include more time for employees to be with their families, and less time spent commuting. Read more here.Foreign Farm Workers Join Union, a First in BC
The BC Labour Relations Board recently made a historic decision allowing foreign workers at Surrey's Greenway farms to join the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) of Canada. The UFCW has helped farm workers in Manitoba get contracts and is currently working on unionizing four farms in Quebec.