Category Archives: Uncategorized

Nov 18 Forum: Workers in Action: Exploring Workers Centres Across Canada

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Workers have incredible power when they come together around common goals. Across Canada groups of workers are organizing, advocating, and bringing about change in their communities. Learn about three different worker centre models in Victoria, Toronto and Montreal.

The BC Employment Standards Coalition, along with the BC Federation of Labour and the Hospital Employees’ Union, is pleased to host an upcoming public forum: Workers in Action: Exploring Workers Centres Across Canada. The event is free, but please register here to reserve a seat: https://www.picatic.com/workersinaction

Speakers will include:

The forum will be moderated by Dr. Kendra Strauss, Assistant Professor, The Labour Studies Program & The Morgan Centre for Labour Research Associate Member, Department of Geography Simon Fraser University.

Please feel free to share this event poster, and click here for the Facebook event page.

New resource for non-unionized employees: Employment Rights in BC

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The Hospital Employees’ Union and Together Against Poverty Society have produced a new resource designed to help BC workers who aren’t unionized to understand their employment rights. This document includes simplified statements on basic rights such as hours of work, vacation, health and safety, personal privacy and joining a union. Employment Rights in BC: A resource for non-unionized employees is available in English, Punjabi and Tagalog. You can view the press release here.

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New article: Change BC’s out-of-step, ad hoc style in setting minimum wage

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David Fairey, co-chair of the BC Employment Standards Coalition, contributed this critique of BC’s minimum wage policy to The Tyee last week. According to StatsCan, BC now has the highest overall poverty rate in Canada, despite its wealth of natural and human resources.

Tabloid television and CBSA raids on Vancouver construction workers

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We were appalled to hear about the disrespectful manner in which “undocumented” and “migrant” workers were treated during this week’s Canadian Border Services Agency raid on a Vancouver construction site. The raid included TV crews who were filming for the reality TV show Border Security: Canada’s Front Line.

As Ian Mulgrew declared in today’s Vancouver Sun column, “Border Security makes Canada look like a Third World nation under siege. It portrays border guards as serving on the front-line of a non-existent war…. poor would-be immigrants, who whatever their story, deserve to be treated with respect.”

One of the family members of a worker who was arrested has launched a petition calling upon National Geographic Channel to cancel the Border Security reality TV show. Please sign and share this petition.

Yesterday, concerned groups and individuals gathered at Vancouver’s Citizenship and Immigration Office to rally against the CBSA raids on workers at local construction sites. In an interview with CBC news, Harsha Walia of No One is Illegal explained the context for the protest, remarking that we ought to question why, in the first place, there are so many individuals who must work “illegally” in Canada.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF2irF92djc&feature=youtu.be