Monday, May 11, 2015

Monday Evening Links

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh highlights how Ontario employers are exploiting temporary workers rather than making any effort to offer jobs which can support a life:
Under Ontario’s antiquated Employment Standards Act, which is currently under review, there is no limit on how long a company can employ a worker as temporary before giving him or her a permanent job.

There is nothing to stop employers from paying temp workers less than their permanent counterparts, nothing to prevent them from hiring their entire workforce on a “temporary” basis if they so choose.

“If the employer knows that they can hire you and they don’t have to give you benefits, they don’t have to give you a pension, they can hire you for a lot less, there’s no incentive for them to hire permanently. Why would they?” says Deena Ladd, who heads the Toronto-based labour rights group the Workers’ Action Centre.

“The biggest issue is the lack of respect and dignity in (temporary) work. Nobody is seeing them for who they are and the work that they’re doing. They are completely invisible.”

In Toronto, their ranks are growing, with temporary workers outpacing permanent ones at twice the rate, their wages significantly lower.
- Meanwhile, Ben Spurr notes that unaffordable child care is preventing many parents from pursuing work which might be available. And Roderick Benns expands on Naheed Nenshi's commitment to work on a guaranteed annual income.

- Steven Lewis writes that the Wall government's determination to push privately-funded MRIs figures to do far more harm than good both for the public purse and Saskatchewan's health care system.

- Jeffrey Simpson discusses how the U.S. has learned better than to push the Cons' dumb-on-crime agenda.

- Finally, Andrew Mitrovica questions Stephen Harper's reasons for staging an Iraq photo op even aside from his choice to destroy the cover of Canadian troops.

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