News & Events Archived Newsletters CONTACT 2007 January 26, 2007Affordable, High-Quality Post Secondary Education
The Canadian Federation of Students has launched a campaign for affordable, high-quality post-secondary education.
The campaign has three main goals; reduced tuition fees, increased federal funding, and the implementation of a national system of needs-based grants. The campaign highlights the importance of affordable education and urges government to reduce tuition fees and student debt.
The campaign will culminate with a national day of action on Wednesday, February 7. CAW President Buzz Hargrove is encouraging local union leadership, activists and staff to support the initiative and bring attention to the issue in their communities. Hargrove said students from working class families need help in accessing affordable, high quality post secondary education.
For more information go to: www.reducetuitionfees.ca
Working People Need A Raise
A campaign is building momentum to have both federal and Ontario legislators approve private members' bills calling for a $10 per hour minimum wage.
Ontario NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo's Bill 150 has passed second reading, but more public support is needed to ensure it continues to move forward through the legislature.
At the federal level, NDP MP Peggy Nash is also calling for $10 an hour as the minimum for federally regulated work. Nash, former assistant to CAW President Buzz Hargrove, has introduced a private member's bill on Parliament Hill on the issue. For more information visit: www.peggynash.ca. The Toronto & York Region Labour Council is holding four panel discussions across Toronto to raise awareness of the issue. In Ontario, more than one million people earn less than $10 per hour.
"The assertion that minimum wage employers are small family businesses struggling to survive is a myth," a labour council fact sheet states. "In fact, 71 per cent of low wage jobs are in businesses with more than 20 employees; 40 per cent were in businesses with over 500 employees."
In Ontario supporters of the $10 minimum wage campaign are urged to contact MPPs and push for public hearings on the bill and to also contact Premier Dalton McGuinty and their MPP asking them to make Bill 150 law. More information can be found at: www.labourcouncil.ca
The Wage Gap Continues to Grow
Canada's top CEOs continue to reap massive earnings far beyond the wages of the average worker, a new CCPA study shows.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calculates that:
- the average earnings of Canada's 100 top CEOs reached the average annual earnings of a typical Canadian at $38,010 by 9:46 a.m. on January 2 - in other words the average worker would have to work all year to make the same amount;
- By 6 p.m. on January 2, Canada's 100 highest paid CEOs pocketed nearly $70,000 on average with the highest paid CEO getting more than $570,000;
- the average of the top 100 CEOs is paid as much in a year as 238 people working all year at the average of Canadian wages and salaries.
"If time is money, are Canada's 100 highest paid CEOs really worth more in a day than most Canadian workers are in a year?" asked Hugh Mackenzie, a CCPA research associate.
"People wonder what the growing gap between the rich and the rest of us looks like. This provides us with a pretty good snapshot of how unevenly the Canadian workforce is valued these days," Mackenzie states. To find out more visit www.policyalternatives.ca.
Minimum Staffing Needed in Ontario's Long-Term-Care Facilities
The CAW is continuing to campaign hard to get the Ontario government to establish minimum staffing levels for resident care in long-term care facilities across the province.
CAW representatives have made several presentations at hearings across the province highlighting the need for the Ministry of Health to include minimum staffing as part of any changes under Bill 140.
Until 1996 the province had a standard of 2.25 hours of care per resident each day in Ontario. But when the Mike Harris Conservatives were elected they removed the standard and let staffing levels fall.
The CAW is urging a new standard of 3.5 hours, which is the average in most Canadian provinces. In addition, the majority of U.S. states have established minimum staffing levels.
"This is a critical issue," said Bob Chernecki, assistant to the CAW President. "Direct care staffing levels are the key to quality of resident care. Higher staffing levels will mean lower injury rates for residents and workers, as well as lower infection rates and many other factors."
"This new act will impact on millions of Ontarians who are at their most vulnerable time ever in their life and it is up to our legislators and the citizens of Ontario that before Bill 140 is proclaimed it must ensure the senior citizens of Ontario are cared for with dignity and respect," said Hector McLellan, Vice-Chair of the CAW Local 27 Retirees Chapter. McLellan, who is also Vice-Chair of the Ontario Federation of Union Retirees, made the comments in a January 24 submission to the legislative committee reviewing the issue.
The CAW represents 10,000 members who work in long-term care facilities in Ontario.
Hewers of Wood, Pumpers of Oil
What will Canada look like in the year 2020? To encourage a debate about the major challenges Canada will face in the coming decades, the Dominion Institute and the Toronto Star have invited 20 leading thinkers to write about an issue or event that they think could transform Canada by the year 2020.
CAW Economist Jim Stanford was one of the 20 Canadians asked to contribute to the project and wrote about our worrying regression as a nation - abandoning high-value industries, and going backward to supplying natural resources for other, more developed nations.
You will find Stanford's essay on the Dominion Institute web site at: http://twenty-twenty.ca/accueil.phtml
Staff Appointment
Victor Tomiczek has been appointed Atlantic Area Director, working out of the CAW's Halifax office, effective April 1, 2007. Tomiczek is replacing Larry Wark, who is retiring.
Did You Know?
| Did you know that you can watch video coverage of many CAW events on the CAW National website?
You can find Video News at: http://www.caw.ca/news/videonews/index.asp |
