(Vancouver) A report released today finds that the wage needed to cover the costs of raising a family in Metro Vancouver is $20.10 per hour. This is the 2014 Metro Vancouver living wage rate, the hourly wage that two working parents with two young children must earn to meet their basic expenses (including rent, child care, food and transportation), once government taxes, credits, deductions and subsidies have been taken into account.
Employment and labour
The Day of Mourning, more than any other day in the labour movement’s calendar, brings home why we must remain vigilant in the area of workers’ rights. As reported by the Canadian Labour Congress, more than 1,000 workers are killed on the job or die as a result of workplace conditions. As we commemorate another National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job, we are reminded of some of the issues that played a role in workers’ health and safety in 2013 -14.
Please note: The updated 2019 Living Wage report is now available.
Inside this issue:
BC Jobs Plan reality check: The first two years by Iglika Ivanova
Legal safeguards for tenants are meaningless without enforcement by Kendra Milne
Anti-poverty movement, meet the culture of medicine by Dr. Vanessa Brcic
You always learn something when accountants feud by Keith Reynolds
BC’s “big favour”: Will LNG exports reduce global greenhouse gas emissions? by Marc Lee
Canadian labour law has ensured that all workers who benefit from collective agreements contribute to the cost of maintaining those agreements through union dues. Today the security of unions is under attack within Ontario, and elsewhere in Canada. This paper looks at how Conservative proposals, imported from the US, would threaten union security in Ontario by removing the Rand Formula requirement of mandatory dues payment, and allowing workers to opt out of the bargaining unit.
This report documents how the growth of unions from the First World War to the mid 1970’s helped create a shared prosperity or “middle class” in Canada, which has been steadily shrinking with the rise of corporate power and the erosion of unions since the late 1970’s. It provides compelling empirical validation of the crucial role unions played in redistributing income from capital to labour (profits to wages) and from the upper to the lower parts of the income hierarchy.
It is well known that unions and collective bargaining allows workers to achieve progress in areas such as compensation, working conditions, and other "economic issues". This report examines how unions have also had a positive influence in their communities, in society at large and on the quality of our democracy.
Hennessy’s Index is a monthly listing of numbers, written by the CCPA's Trish Hennessy, about Canada and its place in the world. For other months, visit: http://policyalternatives.ca/index
Last year, the Ontario Equal Pay Coalition, in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' Ontario office, began tracking two key trends in its 2013 report, 10 Ways to Close Ontario's Gender Pay Gap:
(1) the pay gap between men and women in Ontario and,
(2) the date in the calendar year that demarcates how much longer women have to work to earn the amount that men earn in a year. This year's report examines whether there has been any change in the pay gap and denotes a troubling development.
Manitoba has embarked on aggressive immigration strategies to attract newcomers to settle in a variety of communities in the province with the purpose of meeting local labour force demands. In response to these trends, it is necessary to have appropriate and effective support systems to assist in the long-term settlement and integration of the increasing number of newcomers. Prior to the federal government’s changes to the delivery model of settlement services in 2012, these services were a provincial responsibility in Manitoba, Quebec, and British Columbia.