Jobs and the Economy

Three Labour Action Centres in Ontario will continue providing support for laid off workers until 2022 after Unifor successfully pushed the Ontario government to extend their operations.

Originally published in The Hill Times

The past 20 months have been devastating for Canada’s aerospace workers.

Analysts agree that even though air traffic is slowly filling the skies again, the aerospace industry isn’t in the clear yet. Not by a long shot.

The first vehicle rolled off the newly reopened General Motors assembly line in Oshawa at an event on November 8. The Chevy Silverado drove off the line following an address by Unifor National President Jerry Dias.

“Today is an incredibly important day for all of you, your families, and the community of Oshawa,” Dias told hundreds of workers who participated in the event. “It is so incredible to see so many of you who maintained your recall rights and those of you that are brand new to the operations—we want to welcome you to the Unifor family.”
 

By: Angelo DiCaro, Unifor Director of Research

Ontario’s recent decision to raise the provincial wage floor to $15 (including for servers) caught many by surprise. The governing Progressive Conservatives campaigned to scrap this exact pay hike when they ran for government back in 2018. Nonetheless, the 65-cent increase is welcome news and – once again – sparks a conversation on the need for living wages across the country.

TORONTO- New legislation to set a $15 minimum wage in Ontario will help the province’s lowest-paid workers and raise wages for thousands of Unifor members with minimum wage plus clauses in their collective agreements.

“Workers on the frontlines of our retail, wholesale, gaming, warehousing and broader service sectors who are paid a fraction of their worth will see this increase directly,” said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. “I’m glad this government has reversed course and has now decided to raise workers’ wages.”

TORONTO – The steps taken by the Ontario government to protect temporary workers and regulate unscrupulous temp agencies are a good start, but further action is needed to improve health and safety for such workers, Unifor says.

“These fly by night agencies have damaged communities by exploiting the most vulnerable workers, including racialized workers, women, newcomers and migrant workers,” Unifor National President Jerry Dias said.

“We commend the government for listening to advocates and community members and introducing these changes.”

By Lisa Smith, FFAW-Unifor Policy Lead

In the Premier’s Economic Recovery Team Report (better known as the PERT Report or Greene Report), Dame Moya Green recommends corporate concentration in the fisheries as a necessary measure for our economic recovery, but the fishery is already thriving. The industry continues to fuel a prosperous inshore sector with lucrative species, essential employment, and economic benefits that flow to communities throughout the province. Changing that will remove value from Newfoundland and Labrador. 

By Jim Stanford

Fiscal conservatives always claim that the necessity of balancing the government’s budget is a matter of ‘hard mathematics’. A government only takes in so much revenue. Basic arithmetic implies that’s all it can spend – at least in the long run. Cue the requisite analogy to household finances, and the image of prudent pilgrims sitting at their kitchen tables, trying to balance their own budgets. “Ma and Pa know they can only spend as much as they take in; it’s time governments learned the same thing.”