Union Bug Blog
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Sep 04, 2007 -
Corporate Salary Insanity
Just how high can corporate salaries go? A new joint study by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy indicates that the top U.S. private-equity fund managers were paid more for every 10 minutes on the job in 2006 than the average U.S. worker earned in the entire year. Data for the study came from the U.S. Labor Department and Forbes magazine.
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Aug 29, 2007 -
Not Just Another Holiday
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the Gulf Coast of the United States almost exactly two years ago, it was revealed that massive budget cuts of the Bush administration had diverted important funds needed to complete levees that would have mitigated the intensity of the disaster. These monies had apparently been diverted to the Department of Homeland Security to assist with the war in Iraq.
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Aug 23, 2007 -
Milt Stegall: More Than a Record
Any Winnipegger or Manitoban who pays even the slightest attention to professional sports was aware that a very special milestone was surpassed recently. On July 27 Milt Stegall, the iconic receiver for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, became the Canadian Football League’s all-time touchdown leader. As if crossing the goal line 138 times isn’t hard enough, Stegall did it as a receiver, arguably much more difficult to accomplish than as a running back.
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Aug 20, 2007 -
Where's Our Voice?
On August 20-21, US President George Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper are meeting in Montebello, Quebec to discuss a continent-wide trade deal known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).
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Aug 15, 2007 -
It's Time For Employers to Pay Up
One of the most important supports that unionized workers receive these days is extended health care benefits. Extended health benefits include the medical, dental and vision care that are essential to our well-being. But the troubling reality for our health care workers is that in the vast majority of other provinces, health care workers receive better coverage than Manitoba workers do.
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Aug 10, 2007 -
The Public Service and the Bottom Line
Over a decade ago the federal government decided the only way it could make up for the huge deficits being run in Ottawa was to reduce the size of the public service. As a result, approximately 75,000 jobs were slashed.
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Jul 31, 2007 -
Increased Private Care a Slippery Slope
Recently, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) unveiled a “new vision” for an expanded and modernized Medicare program. A newly-released report entitled Medicare Plus: Toward a Sustainable Publicly Funded Health Care System in Canada purports to “outline key steps for fulfilling the ‘next generation’ of Medicare.”
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Jul 23, 2007 -
Canadian Pension Plans Show Renewed Strength
Ottawa (22 July 2007) - The health of Canadian pension plans has been upgraded significantly by two leading corporate pension consulting firms that had been warning for several years of a ‘funding crisis’ in workplace pension plans.
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Jul 17, 2007 -
Conrad Black Helped Push Canadian Politics to the Right
Ottawa (17 July 2007) - With all the focus on the details of his trial and conviction, little mention has been made of Conrad Black's enormous influence on politics and journalism. Few reports have linked his crimes and greed with the Canadian conservative movement he championed, despite obvious similarities to scandals linking corporate crime and the U.S. Republicans.
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Jul 06, 2007 -
The Rich Get Richer
A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) shows that the fruits of a thriving Canadian economy are not benefitting Canadian workers. In Rising Profit Shares, Falling Wage Shares, Ellen Russell and Mathieu Dufour find that in spite of this, and even with worker productivity increasing by 51% over the past three decades, real wages have been stagnant over this period. Workers are getting a smaller piece of a larger economic pie, and corporate profits continue to skyrocket. Hopefully this study will help illustrate this inequality.