• Economic Literacy,  Research,  Trade Unions

    Ideas Into Motion: Progressive Economics and Social Change Movements

    Our research at the Centre for Future Work is motivated by a deep commitment to improving the jobs, working conditions, and living standards of working people in Canada and around the world. We combine our knowledge of economics, our quantitative and qualitative research, and our connections with trade unionists and social movements to develop arguments and evidence that supports campaigns for decent work, stronger communities, and sustainability. Our Director, Dr. Jim Stanford, was recently asked to contribute his ideas on the links between progressive economics and real-world social change movements for a forthcoming collection: The Handbook of Alternative Theories of Political Economy, edited by Frank Stilwell, Tim Thornton, and David…

  • PowerShare,  Research,  Technology,  Time & Working Hours,  Trade Unions

    Bargaining Tech: Shaping New Technologies to Improve Work, not Devalue It

    The Centre for Future Work has published another major paper in its PowerShare project, dealing with the impact of new technology on the quantity and quality of work in Canada – and strategies for ensuring that new technology produces more benefits for workers. The paper is entitled Bargaining Tech: Strategies for Shaping Technological Change to Benefit Workers, co-authored by Jim Stanford and Kathy Bennett. It provides an overview of the complex, contradictory ways that technological change is affecting jobs in Canada. It also discusses how technology could be better managed and implemented to achieve better, fairer, more inclusive high-tech outcomes. The report reviews recent debates about whether new technology will…

  • Future of Work,  PowerShare,  Research,  Trade Unions

    Strengthening Workers’ Voice in the Future of Work

    The Centre for Future Work has published a major new report on the economic and social benefits of workers’ voice. There is abundant evidence that jobs are better when workers can provide input, express opinions, and influence change in their workplaces. Providing workers with regular, safe channels of “voice” increases their personal motivation and job satisfaction. It benefits their employer, too, through reduced turnover, enhanced productivity, and better information flows. And it contributes to a range of positive economic and social outcomes: from stronger productivity growth, to less inequality, to improved health. Given the dramatic changes occurring in Canadian workplaces (including automation, digital employment platforms, climate change, and pandemics), the…

  • Employment & Unemployment,  Environment & Work,  Future of Work,  Research

    Transition Plan for Workers can Prevent Unemployment as Fossil Fuels are Phased Out

    New research from the Centre for Future Work demonstrates that with prudent long-term planning, the coming phase-out of fossil fuel production and use can be managed without causing unemployment for fossil fuel workers.  Employment Transitions and the Phase-Out of Fossil Fuels, by Jim Stanford (Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work) shows that fossil fuel industries directly account for 170,000 jobs in Canada – less than 1% of total employment. A 20-year phase-out of fossil fuels implies an annual reduction of fossil fuel employment of around 8,500 jobs annually: the number of jobs typically created by the Canadian economy every ten days. With a clear timetable for phase-out,…

  • COVID,  Employment & Unemployment,  Gender and Work,  Research

    Child Care Expansion Would Boost Economic Recovery, Study Finds

    Implementing a new national child care system would generate several important benefits for Canada’s economy as it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and recession, according to new research from the Centre for Future Work.  A universal national early learning and child care (ELCC) program would create over 200,000 direct jobs in child care centres, 80,000 more jobs in industries which support and supply the ELCC sector, and facilitate increased labour force participation and employment by up to 725,000 Canadian women in prime parenting years. The report, prepared by economist Dr. Jim Stanford (Director of the Centre for Future Work), also projects large increases in Canadian GDP as a result of…

  • Inequality,  Labour Standards,  PowerShare,  Research,  Trade Unions

    The Surprising Resilience of Trade Unionism in Canada

    Trade unions in Canada and globally have been on the defensive for years. Economic and political cultural changes have tended to undermine the power, visibility, and viability of trade unions and traditional forms of collective bargaining. As a result, union density (the proportion of workers with the protection of a union and a collective agreement) has declined in most countries through the neoliberal era. Canadian unions are not immune to these challenges. However, comparative data compiled by Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford provides surprising evidence that despite these challenges, Canadian unions have exerted a relatively stable influence on wages, income distribution, and labour policies. This helps to explain…

  • Fiscal Policy,  Industry & Sector,  Macroeconomics,  Research

    The Broken Promises of Corporate Tax Cuts

    The pace of business capital spending in Canada has been weak in recent years, for several reasons – including the slowdown in the petroleum industry, the erosion of Canadian manufacturing, and now the impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic and recession. This has spurred a resurgence of demands from the business community for lower company tax rates, which advocates claim will accelerate business capital spending. In this analysis, published originally by the Canadian Tax Foundation, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford agrees that stimulating more capital investment (both private and public) is a vital goal. But there is no evidence from either recent Canadian history or international comparisons that…

  • COVID,  Employment & Unemployment,  Future of Work,  Labour Standards,  Research

    Rebuilding Canada’s Economy Must Start with Rebuilding Work

    The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have shone an unforgiving spotlight on several long-standing fractures in Canada’s labour market. Repairing those structural weaknesses is an essential precondition for re-opening the economy — and keeping it open — once the immediate health emergency passes and we start heading back to work. Failing to address those challenges will amplify the consequences of this crisis for millions of Canadians, as well as our overall social and economic stability. And it will leave us more vulnerable to the next pandemic, or comparable shock of some other sort. Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford was invited to participate in a new project, Rebuild…

  • COVID,  Employment & Unemployment,  Future of Work,  Income Security,  Labour Standards,  Research

    Ten Ways to Improve Work After COVID-19 Pandemic

    Governments, employers, and unions must all work urgently to address several critical weaknesses in Canada’s employment laws and policies to ensure the post-COVID re-opening of the economy can be safe and sustained. That’s the core message of a new research report from the Centre for Future Work. The report is the first publication from the Centre’s new PowerShare research program, undertaken in partnership with the Atkinson Foundation and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The study, by the Centre’s Director Jim Stanford, lists 10 specific ways jobs need to be protected and strengthened in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, which has shut down large sections of the national economy.…

  • Globalization,  Research

    WTO’s Overreach Explains its Growing Irrelevance

    Contrary to the optimistic predictions of free trade theorists (and their seemingly scientific economic models), free trade agreements haven’t been beneficial for all participants in international commerce. Rather, for many reasons (including the emergence of large trade imbalances, deindustrialization, and lasting unemployment), business-friendly trade agreements have produced ‘losers’ as well as ‘winners.’ Moreover, losses have been concentrated in particular industries, regions, and social groups – fostering a backlash that has disrupted trade flows, and thrown into question the future viability of the WTO itself. Ironically, part of the failure of neoliberal trade policy rests with the overreach of those trade agreements (including the WTO), which have gone far beyond simply…