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Don’t be Fooled by Ontario’s ‘Minimum Wage’ for Gig Workers
Just months before a provincial election, the Ontario government has announced a plan to guarantee a ‘minimum wage’ of $15/hour for gig workers. It sounds good, but there are some big devils lurking in the details. In practice, the plan will have absolutely zero impact on the incomes of gig workers. Anyone who accepts that this ‘minimum wage’ will lift gig workers’ incomes does not understand how the gig business model works. The biggest problem is that the so-called minimum wage will only apply for time gig workers spend engaged on an assignment: driving a passenger, delivering a meal, or performing some other assigned task. But gig workers regularly spend…
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Federal Government Should Pay CERB-Like Benefits to Workers Affected by Ottawa Protest
The federal government should extend emergency income supports to workers who were prevented from working as a result of the 3-week occupation of downtown Ottawa by “freedom convoy” protestors, the Centre for Future Work’s Director Jim Stanford has urged. He called on the federal government to offer benefits similar to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to workers who lost significant hours of work and pay because of the occupation. “CERB and its successor benefits were designed to support Canadians who could not work because of lockdowns and other public health measures intended to fight the pandemic,” Stanford reasoned. “This was definitely a lockdown, although not one implemented by the…
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Real Truckers Have Real Issues That Could be Solved With Regulation, Investment, and Unions
Despite claims of organizers, the protests and blockades in Ottawa and at several of Canada’s border crossings are not really about issues faced by working truck drivers. Rather, they are part of an organized effort to overturn Canada’s public health rules – and, for some of the organizers, Canada’s elected government. But the references to “hard-working truckers” arising from the protests should spark a more genuine examination of the challenges truckers face in their jobs, and how their working lives could be improved. In this column, originally published in the Toronto Star, our Director Jim Stanford discusses several of the most pressing challenges facing real truckers: including low pay, misclassification,…