Tags – Labour
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Will write for food
The dismal state of freelance journalism
It’s an unremarkable Tuesday evening in mid-October and I’ve just entered a second-floor meeting room at the Northern District Library in downtown Toronto. I’m feeling optimistic.
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Women fight for a minimum wage
The Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association
Lin Shiu, 65, walks into the small Hong Kong Women Workers’ Association office, still sweating from her morning shift. Wearing a blue suit, baseball cap and fluorescent green mesh vest, she gratefully accepts a glass of water. In an hour, she must get back to work cleaning a luxurious Hong Kong mall.
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Two-tier workforce
South Korea’s migrant underclass bears the brunt of the recession
South Korea’s export-led economy has been hard hit by the global economic crisis, and the country’s migrant workforce has made a particularly easy target for politicians looking for scapegoats. South Korea has historically been ethnically homogeneous and has had a tepid relationship with outsiders even in prosperous times; during times of hardship, these workers face even greater scrutiny and discrimination.
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Saints or scabs?
The impact of volunteer labour in New Orleans
It’s not easy getting a cab to the Lower Ninth Ward. Even now, with most of the former population cleared out, some drivers still won’t cross the Claiborne Avenue Bridge unless it’s to take a carload of tourists to gawk at Hurricane Katrina’s Ground Zero. So when the third cab stops, it’s with some impatience that I ask if he knows the way.
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Government and the global jobs crisis
Global Jobs Pact a blueprint for change
Various talking heads have proclaimed that the worst of the global recession may be over, but the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) maintains that “employment is the bottom line of the current crisis,” which has the potential to turn “into a long-term unemployment crisis.”
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Work less, live more
Renegotiating our relationship with work
Work is a blessing and a curse. At its best, work gives our lives meaning and purpose. Many of us derive our self-identity from our work. More than just a means to an income, work can provide an opportunity to contribute, interact and connect with others.
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Cutting the global economy down to size
The nature of work and the green-collar workforce
For over a century, we’ve thought of work as the use of human labour and technology to transform natural resources into tradeable goods. This economic model has brought us unparalleled prosperity – and exhausted the planet’s capacity to support us.
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Organizing in tough times
Unions and the economic crisis
Being a bike courier was the first job Mark Hayward had that he not only liked, but loved. But times are tough: if he were offered a better job tomorrow, he’d be gone. “For the first time ever, work was so slow, couriers were complaining they didn’t have enough money for food,” says Hayward.
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The coming austerity
Neoliberalism isn’t dead—it’s just resting
With the Financial Times lamenting the “end of the era of liberalization” and the “death of global free-market capitalism” and Newsweek declaring “we are all Socialists now,” one could be forgiven for believing that the worst excesses of neoliberalism have been relegated to the dustbin of history.
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Sex work and the state
An interview with Kara Gillies
Kara Gillies is a sex worker and activist who has been advocating for sex workers’ rights and well-being for the past two decades. She co-founded both the Canadian Guild for Erotic Labour and the former Toronto Migrant Sex Workers Advocacy Group. Gillies hosted a sex worker rights radio show on CIUT 89.5 FM called The Shady Lady and was a health worker at the Hassle Free Clinic. She has been involved with Maggie’s (www.maggiestoronto.ca), a Toronto-based sex worker-run organization, for 18 years and currently coordinates its education program.
