This column originally appeared in the Globe and Mail
The pandemic has demolished many conventional wisdoms when it comes to our economy, equality and work – especially essential work, so much of which is done by women.
Where would we be without the labour of women this past year? And yet as critical as that labour has been to the well-being of the country, we are still fighting for respect and fair pay.
This past year, workers experienced unemployment on a scale never before seen in Canada. At its first wave peak in June 2020, some 2.7 million workers in this country had no job. The magnitude of these losses effectively paralyzed the Employment Insurance system, requiring alternative means of income support via the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).
This column originally appeared in the Toronto Star.
When Canadians need them most, media outlets are being forced to trim their budgets, and newsrooms, as the pandemic continues to hit the bottom line.
The pandemic, now almost a year long with many dark months still ahead, is both the cause of much of media’s immediate troubles, and one of the big reasons we need it.
This column originally appeared in the Globe and Mail
People are going to work sick. They always have. The difference is now it’s deadly.
In Alberta, major outbreaks at a meat packing plant have seen hundreds contract COVID-19 and too many deaths. People reported going to work even as they displayed symptoms, under pressure from their employers to come in.
The lockdowns needed to combat COVID-19 have been costly and difficult for many people across Newfoundland and Labrador.
We’ve stayed away from relatives – older ones who need our help, younger ones reaching milestones we’ve missed – to contain COVID-19. Businesses have shut. Workers have been on furlough or laid off.
We can’t let all this hard work and sacrifice go to waste.
Every day there’s a new study or argument published in newspapers or magazines, demanding paid sick leave to curb the spread of COVID-19 and its super-spreading variants.
Canada is a big country. That is why, as a nation we are so heavily reliant on our airline industry with routes reaching every corner of the country. That is why there is so much at stake right now.
Think about it. Families today are spread across vast distances. Atlantic Canadians finding work in the oil patch. Western kids moving east for jobs in Toronto, Montreal or Ottawa. Older Canadians living out their dreams of retirement somewhere quieter.
While we continue to wait on the federal government’s belated promise to implement a $15 federal minimum wage, questions often arise as to how future rate increases should be handled. While the government has identified wage increases based on the rate of inflation as a possible way forward, other metrics, such as using the median hourly wage, proposed in U.S.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Unifor made two broad demands of government.
The first was to protect public health and ensure all workers had access to sick leave and immediate income assistance. The second was to build an economic stimulus package big and bold enough to speed Canada’s economic recovery and build the Canada so many of us believe is possible.
