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Search results for: “site/human rights”

  • Economic Security Project (BC)

    Harvest of Shame

    Especially in the spring and summer, British Columbians enjoy fruits and vegetables grown in the Fraser Valley. But consumers may know little about the people who cultivate and harvest the food we eat. Ironically, at a time of general labour shortages, the BC government has rolled back employment protections for…

  • June 2002: A U.S.-Financed Military Dictatorship

    Pakistan has long, bloody history as terrorist arm of U.S. The United States’ choice of Pakistan as an ally in its “war on terrorism” provides the spectacle of the two leading terrorist states on Earth “fighting terrorism.” The U.S. has killed more than eight million people in the Third World…

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    Just transition planning for a managed wind-down of fossil fuels in BC

    Resource development has long been central to BC’s economy. But commodity prices swing, industries consolidate and patterns of demand change over time. When they do, resource industry workers are often left holding the bag. The price is often much more than just involuntary unemployment for laid-off workers, but also includes…

  • Trade and Investment Research Project

    Does the TPP Work for Workers?

    Analyzing the labour chapter of the TPP Download 377.8 KB20 pages This study examines the Trans-Pacific Partnership’s labour chapter and finds it cannot adequately protect, let alone enhance, labour rights across the TPP region, as promised by the Canadian and U.S. governments. This is because the TPP chapter largely reproduces…

  • CCPA joins global campaign to #MakeAmazonPay

    Amazon’s rise from online bookseller to trillion-dollar global logistics, internet, merchandising and entertainment behemoth was fast and ferocious. Behind the same-day deliveries and trend-setting television series is a company committed to ruthlessly destroying productive economic activity and debasing workers. It is helped along in this pursuit by aggressive (but legal) tax…

  • Access to Knowledge Restricted

    Intellectual property protection primarily protects profits Affordable access to food, pharmaceuticals, and scientific advancement is essential for the well-being of Canadians and society in general. Intellectual property (IP) protection is one area or policy that has the ability to jeopardize this access.  Unfortunately, the policies that govern IP—the regulations that…

  • Economic Security Project (BC)

    Workplace Rights for Recent Immigrants

    Boom times in BC are reflected in low unemployment rates and robust economic growth. But missing from that picture is the fact that some people are having a harder time earning a decent living than others. Among those people are recent immigrants. Statistics Canada reports that, in 2006, very recent…

  • Deportable by design – banner

    Exploitable and deportable by design: Why migrant workers’ housing is harmful to their health

    Canada’s treatment of migrant workers is drawing international scrutiny after UN investigator Tomoya Obokata warned that its Temporary Foreign Worker Program “serves as a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery, as it institutionalizes asymmetries of power that favour employers and prevent workers from exercising their rights.” Migrants, activists, and…

  • Thinking the Apocalyptic Unthinkable

    Oil-dependent “civilization” faces collapse before mid-century Whether our “civilization” will survive this century is now — or should be — the main concern of everyone. It’s no longer a far-fetched Chicken Little “the-sky-is-falling” bugaboo. Enough evidence has been found to show us beyond doubt that the next several decades will…

  • Labour Matters

    Labour Notes – Equal Rights in the Workplace

    Why We Need Anti-Scab Legislation in Manitoba Download 293.66 KB4 pages

  • “Unfree” Farm Labour in British Columbia?

    The sudden firing and repatriation of 14 Mexican agricultural workers from an Abbotsford greenhouse earlier this month once again highlights the exploitive nature of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). A growing proportion of BC’s agriculture now depends on hiring migrant SAWP workers who are in practice “unfree.” Their unfree…

  • Boom in temporary migrant workers creates a vulnerable workforce, increases workplace inequality

    In 2013, for the first time in Canadian history, retirees will outnumber young people entering the workforce. Immigration is a sensible way to offset population shrinkage and economic decline and, for decades, federal programs have invited new workers to settle in Canada for precisely that reason. But now, on the…