Who broke up your last picket-line? Who arrests your leaders and activists when they defy anti-union injunctions? Who clears the way for scabs and bad-faith bargaining?
“We were short-staffed to begin with. Now it is a disaster,” says a Halifax long term care worker employed at three separate group homes, reflecting on the first COVID-19 wave. “Of course, when someone feels sick, it is important that they stay home. But nobody is there to replace them. The care responsibilities are falling on fewer and fewer of us. Everyone calls us heroes, but we don’t have a choice. This is our job.”
Danny Cavanagh: Our message to low wage employers is workers are understandably reluctant to accept the health risks of serving customers and possibly bringing COVID-19 home to their family. The safety for them and their family far outweighs working at a low wage job for a few hours a week on erratic scheduling, for minimum wage or a few pennies more.
PSA: Bad bosses, my experience in toxic workplaces. A webinar presented by labour activist and journalist Lisa Cameron.
Media release: Sunday June 14, Massive Digital Rally and Caravan for Full Immigration Status for All
Danny Cavanagh, President of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, is pleased to see another win respecting union members’ rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to fair and free collective bargaining.
Lack of masks, together with the use of substitute workers and the absence of paid sick leave were contributing factors in the many coronavirus-related deaths in long term care facilities across the country. Let’s not make the same mistake twice.
Dr. David Westwood: “Before COVID-19, it was understood that a year or more of planning, development, and refinement was required for a single, high quality online course offering. Now, professors have scarcely three months to change over all of their courses in time for the fall semester. “
“I wrote about inclusion before, but I had relatively benign feelings back then. Now I find myself at age 70 and pretty annoyed.” Warren (Gus) Reed. Also, there’s a quiz.
“In normal times we’re talking about guys who work for nine months straight, at very low wages. Now with COVID-19 we’ve got workers that have been on board ships for 13 or 14 months. They’re all trapped and they can’t get home to the Philippines, they can’t get home to India, to the Ukraine,” says Karl Risser, an International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) inspector here in Nova Scotia. .“It’s getting desperate. We’ve heard reports of seafarers jumping overboard, seafarers fighting, massive tension on board, because no one knows for how long they will be stuck there.”