#workers right

This whole ordeal is finally coming to an end.

After a grueling 118 days, these are the tears of joy running down not only on Benjamin's face, but I'm sure on many other actors who have had been struggling during all these days.

Congratulations to everyone! 🎉🎉

Featuring the occupational range of our favorite fictional couple, in the third largest city in the U.S. Latest listicle starts below the gif; try to stay focused. :)

Illegal work - dangerous, cash / off-the-books:

Mickey: Running guns and drugs, Mafioso, pimp, sex worker

Ian: Underage dancer/Sex worker

Retail/Service work. This is typically hourly, low-wage work with minimal benefits except at the higher end (e.g., fine dining), in large corporations (e.g., Starbucks), or after a long period of employment  

Mickey: mall security, florist shop, Bartender, waiter

Ian: Macy’s seasonal hire, Amazon warehouse, teacher’s aide, waiter

Career ladder possibilities - highly dependent on wages, benefits, unionization, ownership, and potential for burnout. We often think of these as blue collar, pink collar, or working class labor in the US. 

Mickey: Sanitation worker, construction, electrician, police officer, IT/programming, chef, social worker, private security/private investigator, teacher, nurse, mechanic

Ian: EMT, paramedic, teacher, nurse, social worker, electrician, counselor/therapist

Protective/uniformed services - Typically good career ladders, especially for men, who are over-represented in law enforcement and emergency services. Often unionized with reasonable wages and benefits, with modest educational requirements.  

Mickey: police officer, federal agent

Ian: EMT, paramedic, federal agent, police officer

White collar - typically college or graduate degree required, high salaries, includes finance, business, law, research and consulting, tech, and medicine, mainly.

Ian: lawyer, doctor, tech sector (varied), corporate exec, actuary

Mickey: doctor, tech sector (varied)

Creative industries + sports - wildly varied - tattoo artist seems to be the most common for Mickey, and they’re both written as commercially successful more often than not when given these jobs:

Mickey: tattoo artist, visual artist, chef, professional sports (baseball, hockey, gymnastics), model, porn star, musician

Ian: poet, musician, comedian, professional sports (baseball, hockey, gymnastics), photographer, porn star, journalist

Over Two-Thirds of Unemployed Low-Wage Workers Are Not Receiving Employment Insurance: New Report

Fewer than one-third of unemployed Canadian workers let go from precarious, low-wage jobs accessed employment insurance benefits in 2017 even though those same workers contributed more of their incomes to EI than higher-wage earners.

According to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, only 28% of all unemployed workers who worked jobs that paid less than $15 per hour qualified for the program.

In contrast, 65% of workers who earn more than $15 per hour qualified for EI.

“EI began as a program targeting lower-wage workers,” the report states. “Yet today it fails to support most precariously employed, low-wage workers.”

Invest in Canada ⁠— the federal department established to promote foreign investment into Canada ⁠— is encouraging transnational agri-food corporations to take advantage of Canada’s lowest-paid workers.

An IIC fact sheet boasts Canada ranks “#2” in the G7 for “lowest costs in the agri-food processing sector.” That, IIC noted, is thanks to low “utilities, transportation, labour and other manufacturing costs.”

IIC based that ranking on a study by the Canada-ASEAN Business Council. That study, titled The Canada Advantage, read:

As the country with the lowest business costs among G7 countries, food processing facilities in Canada save 32.2% on total labour costs, including benefits, compared to their counterparts in the U.S.

While the average wage for Canada’s agricultural workers is $19.15 per hour, and only  $20.73 for food manufacturing workers, harvest workers hired under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program ⁠— who account for much of the work done in the sector ⁠— are often paid far less, despite not technically being exempt from the minimum wage.

Continue Reading.

The union representing Alberta’s nurses has instructed its legal team to launch a legal challenge of the United Conservative government’s Bill 9, arguing it’s a breach of contract and in violation of nurses’ Charter rights.

Bill 9 imposes a delay on wage talks for unionized workers who took pay freezes in the first years of their contracts, but had the right to reopen pay negotiations this year — with arbitration if needed.

The government says the delay is only until November, but unions and the NDP predict arbitration will never take place and the government will begin imposing wage cuts as early as this fall.

The Public Sector Wage Arbitration Deferral Act passed third reading on June 19, despite heated debate through the night and the NDP doing “all it could” to fight the bill.

Nurses joined other public sector workers in the gallery at the legislature during Question Period on June 20 to “demonstrate their displeasure with the violation of their rights,” the United Nurses of Alberta (UNA) said in a news release Friday.

Continue Reading.

Yes, the NDP supports transitioning fossil fuel workers to the new clean economy:

https://action.ndp.ca/page/-/2019/Q2/Power-to-change-full-announcement.pdf

There was a time when federal governments were committed to making training, employment insurance benefits, retirement security, and meaningful transition plans available to all workers when industries faced challenges. But in recent years, we have seen Liberal and Conservative governments make these supports harder to get, and it’s Canadian workers who are paying the price of their inaction. 

We can do better. New Democrats believe that any climate change plan that leaves Canadian workers or regions behind is no plan at all. There are real solutions that invest in good jobs in all communities and rebuild local economies with meaningful, family-sustaining work in every part of the country, all while helping to make the changes we need to succeed in a low carbon future. People will be able to find good jobs where they live, families can stay together, and our communities will prosper – in every region across Canada.

With the right support, Canadian workers can meet these challenges head-on, and thrive as the work world changes. Training for the future of work is a core part of our approach, including expanded access to training and re-training for the new job market, as well as labour market research to keep Canada on the cutting edge of the evolving work environment.

New Democrats are committed to supporting workers today, while equipping them with the skills and opportunities of the future. This means making sure that Canadian workers have access to meaningful training funds to use when they need them. We’ll set a national standard to ensure that Canadian employers continue to invest in training and employee development, and we’ll work with the provinces to focus on training for sectors with the strongest job growth, in order to ensure that everyone has access to the skills and knowledge that will be in demand in a low-carbon future.

At the same time, we also need to make our Employment Insurance system more responsive to the realities of a shifting economy. That’s why our plan will make it easier to qualify for EI, give workers the option of taking EI-based training before being laid off – and allow them to receive EI when they leave a job to go back to school.

Recognizing that access to education, training and skills development has historically been unequal, we’ll work with Indigenous communities to ensure that training programs and opportunities address their needs and priorities – and we’ll immediately close the gap in Indigenous education funding as a matter of fundamental justice. We’ll also invest in improving apprenticeship rates for skilled trades and put supports in place so that women, racialized Canadians, Indigenous peoples, and other under-represented groups can more easily choose careers in the trades