Employment & labour

BC’s workers need a human rights commission

Dec 10, 2014
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Let me explain BC’s strategy for addressing discrimination. First, we ask someone to experience it. Then we ask that person to understand a complex area of law, investigate the facts and engage in a legal proceeding against their employer / landlord / service provider to enforce their rights. We ask many people to do this… View Article

Why teachers are still striking

Sep 12, 2014
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Speech to the Langley Teachers Association’s Public Forum on Education Delivered July 16, 2014. Check against delivery. I have a slightly different take because I don’t come from the labour movement or from the education sector – I come as an economist, so I’m going to talk a little bit about numbers. But before I… View Article

Temporary Foreign Worker Program changes – who do they help?

Jul 10, 2014
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The Conservative Government’s Minister of Employment and Social Development, Jason Kenney, announced on June 20th 2014 a draft of changes to the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP). The program has attracted controversy since at least 2006, most recently when the CBC reported that MacDonald’s outlets in Victoria were favouring temporary foreign workers over Canadians… View Article

Frameworks and photo-ops

May 26, 2014
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About a year-and-a-half ago, BC teachers and their employers approved a landmark framework agreement for their upcoming round of contract negotiations. In the wake of a difficult and divisive round of bargaining, and after many, many years of frustration and disappointment, the parties agreed to do things differently.  It was the first change to bargaining… View Article

Temporary Foreign Worker Program Takes Jobs Away from Canadians

Apr 24, 2014
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Yet another report, this time by SFU Public Policy Professor Dominique M. Gross, finds evidence that Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program is bad for domestic workers. The report looks at BC and Alberta specifically and concludes that the expansion of the TFW program between 2007 and 2010 resulted in an increase in unemployment levels by… View Article