Press release: Last year, Justin Trudeau promised “a federal minimum wage of at least $15 per hour, starting in 2020 and rising with inflation, with provisions to ensure that where provincial or territorial minimum wages are higher, that wage will prevail.” The year-end is quickly approaching, and yet there has been no movement to honour this commitment.
Danny CAvanagh: On Tuesday, the CEO of the J.A. Douglas McCurdy Sydney Airport said they have received notification Air Canada flights to Toronto and Halifax will be cut effective Jan. 11, 2021, and the local Jazz aviation station will be closed until further notice. This is a devastating blow to Cape Breton residents, workers and businesses.
Press release: Nova Scotia Federation of Labour President Danny Cavanagh is asking why the provincial government is not offering any help to families without childcare whose children are facing extra time off from school in January 2021.
PSA: A Change.org petition (Change.org/HalifaxTransitMasks) started on behalf of transit workers is calling for enforcement of mandatory face masks on all public transit in Halifax. While masks have been technically mandatory on all transit buses since July, there is currently no enforcement or penalties for not wearing a mask.
Press release: On November 17th, a fire destroyed the family home of a Nova Scotia migrant worker and his family in Jamaica. A GoFundMe campaign is seeking to raise $20,000 in support of the family.
After 50 years of promises there still is no universal child care program in Canada. Meanwhile, the Covid shutdown has brought women to the lowest level of participation in the paid labour force in three decades. Women’s unemployment surpassed men’s for the first time in 30 years. Is there an economic war on women? I ask you to judge for yourself, writes Judy Haiven.
Larry Haiven on when a raise isn’t a raise, the journalists who fall for it, and what made us lower our expectations so drastically that we now accept cuts to our incomes and becoming poorer as our lot in life.
When journalists recently asked whether the Nova Scotia government is willing to institute paid sick days in Nova Scotia, premier Stephen McNeil flat out refused. There’s a federal program that takes care of it, he said. That’s not quite how it works, NDP labour critic Kendra Coombes tells the Nova Scotia Advocate.
Danny Cavanagh: “Taxpayers need to benefit in the good times if a capitalist society expects to have the government keep them operational in bad times. Taxpayers need to become shareholders, and we need to ensure that dividends to shareholders are limited, and the CEOs have a more realistic pay cheque.”
PSA: On Tuesday, November 17th, a fire engulfed the family home of a Nova Scotia migrant worker and his family in Jamaica. Please contribute to help them get back on their feet.