Trade unions are on the defensive all over the world, under immense pressure from strong economic and political forces. We are facing a multiplicity of crises. Employers are attacking on all fronts, and the pandemic is being used as an excuse further to undermine unions, wages and working conditions.
Of the many crises provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic across Canada, the dire situation in long-term care facilities and retirement housing may be the most widely and urgently recognized. Even Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose own party engineered the significant shift to more privatized and ‘marketized’ long-term care (LTC) provision in the 1990s, recently declared the system to be “absolutely broken.”
The ‘recycling centre’ is packed with nearly 15 times more waste than its permit allows, and nearby residents complain of headaches, nausea and nosebleeds
We are trespassers.
That fact dawns on us as we crouch in the bushes, waiting to sneak onto a landfill in Mohawk territory. When we hear the last car leave the property, “Dave” motions to us and we set out for the dump at the edge of the woods.
In a first-of-its-kind action worldwide, representative proceedings were issued in the Victorian Registry of the Federal Court against the Australian Government and named officers for allegedly failing to disclose to investors the climate change risks attached to sovereign bonds.
This brings together growing trends in Australia for:
Author George Monbiot points toward a new way of conceptualizing the common good and forging a politics of belonging in his book, Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis. (Dave Stelfox/Verso Books)
From tech-billionaires to socialist leaders, Universal Basic Income (UBI) has caught the imagination of many across the political spectrum. This mechanism, which would give everyone regular cash payments that are enough to live on, regardless of income or work status, is increasingly promoted as a key policy to maintain social stability and ensure a decent standard of living.
Canada's housing shortage is almost at a "crisis level," said the CEO of an investment firm that owns dozens of B.C. apartment buildings. "The good news for investors is there is no easy solution in sight.”
In early March, Mark Goodman flew to Toronto to meet with CEOs of six of that city’s seven biggest institutional investors in multi-family residential real estate.
In the midst of a global pandemic, unprecedented economic collapse, mass unemployment, hunger and desperation, the stock market is booming and the richest of the rich are richer than ever before.