Employment & labour

Here’s how BC should protect app-based workers

Sep 6, 2023
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The rise of the “gig economy” and on-demand work through digital platforms like Uber and Skip the Dishes has ignited the public debate about precarious work. Despite their high-tech image, digital platform firms employ practices that are familiar from centuries of insecure work, including compensating workers on a per-task basis, offering no guarantee of continuing… View Article

The extra-long logging haul

Apr 12, 2023
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As forests shrink, drivers work 16-hour days to deliver single loads of logs to BC sawmills When Eugene Wilson started driving a logging truck 24 years ago, he worked out of the Bulkley valley community of Houston three hours west of Prince George. He recalls the trips as if they were yesterday. He’d begin the… View Article

Living wage increases highlight urgent need to expand government efforts on housing affordability

Nov 17, 2022
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Affordability has long been a concern for residents of Metro Vancouver—a region notorious for stratospheric housing costs—but with inflation shooting up to a 40-year high this year, the cost of living has become a much more pressing worry for many. Sticker shock at ever-rising grocery prices is now an all-too-familiar experience, but as prices soar… View Article

Shortchanging public sector workers is bad for BC

Jun 27, 2022
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Public sector workers are in the midst of difficult contract negotiations with the BC government. The workers are reportedly asking for wages to keep up with inflation, but the government hasn’t been willing to come to the table with an offer that reflects the rising cost of living. Public sector workers who have been keeping… View Article

A win for BC workers: single-step union certification

May 4, 2022
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The BC government recently introduced legislation that allows a majority of workers in a workplace to organize a union a little more easily, making it harder for employers to intimidate and interfere in organizing drives. That’s good news both for working people and for the quality of our democracy. Single-step certification simply means that if… View Article

Health care spending falls short in 2022 federal budget

Apr 26, 2022
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Marjorie Cohen will deliver the CCPA–BC’s 2022 Gideon Rosenbluth Memorial Lecture on September 14, 2022 at 4:00pm PT. This free lecture will be held on zoom, you can register online here. A consistent theme in the media, when writing about health care in Canada, is to use disparaging adjectives, such as ‘dilapidated,’ ‘ramshackled,’ ‘exhausted.’ They… View Article