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Is There Really a Shortage of Labour?
With restaurants and stores opening up again after the pandemic, loud complaints are emerging from employers in the hospitality and retail sectors that they can’t find enough workers. Many point the finger at government income supports which supported people through the pandemic (including the former CERB, cancelled last September, and subsequent improvements in EI benefits). Many also want the federal government to open the taps on Temporary Foreign Workers, to bring in more low-cost labour from other countries. However, the hard economic evidence does not support this complaint about a supposed ‘labour shortage.’ Yes, it is certainly an operational challenge for restaurants and stores to reconnect with former employees after…
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Our Times Feature Article on PowerShare Voice Report
The Spring 2021 edition of the Canadian labour magazine Our Times features a cover article on workers’ voice: how Canadian workers can express their concerns, and win meaningful change, in their workplaces. The article is based on the recent Centre for Future Work report, Speaking Out, Being Heard, Making Change: The Theory and Practice of Workers’ Voice in Canada, by Jim Stanford and Daniel Poon. That report was published earlier this year as part of our PowerShare project. With the kind permission of Our Times, we are reposting the feature article here. Please see the 5-page article, which is a useful resource for union educationals, train-the-trainer sessions, and other uses:…
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Media and Video Coverage of New PowerShare Report: “Bargaining Tech”
The Centre for Future Work recently released the third major paper in its PowerShare project, titled “Bargaining Tech: Strategies for Shaping Technological Change to Benefit Workers,” by Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett. The report was launched with a special webinar, held in conjunction with the recent (online) convention of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC). The webinar featured presentations by the authors, who were joined by two Canadian union leaders who have confronted the challenges of new technology with innovative collective bargaining strategies: Jan Simpson, National President of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and Bob Dhaliwal, Secretary-Treasurer of ILWU-Canada (representing longshore workers and other transportation and logistics industries). The webinar…
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Cryptocurrencies: The Most Useless Speculative Bubble Ever
The financial pages of newspapers continue to be obsessed with the violent ups and downs of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. And Canadian financial regulators have recently started to crack down on some of that industry’s ‘Wild West’ marketing tactics. In this commentary, originally published in the Toronto Star, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford questions whether these digital products have any useful value whatsoever – and urges policy-makers to actively discourage crypto-speculation in favour of policies promoting actual jobs and production. Good Riddance to the Cryptotraders by Jim Stanford Binance runs one of the largest cryptocurrency trading operations in the world – helping customers speculate on the wild price…