Grocery Workers Talk Poverty Wages and Pandemic Profits

By Michelle Paquette and Doug Yearwood, YCL-LJC members in Ottawa

This article was originally published in Rank and File

After large private sector grocery retailers introduced pay increases for frontline workers, Herb & Spice—a locally owned and operated grocery store in Ottawa— announced that its employees would receive a $1.50/hour hazard pay increase. Unlike other grocery stores who have committed to maintaining the pay increase until the pandemic subsides, this employer is only delivering hazard pay for a single pay period.

May Day 2020: The Youth will not pay for Capitalism’s Crisis

YCL-LJC Central Executive Committee, May 1, 2020

This statement was originally published on the Young Communist League of Canada - La Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Canada homepage

On the occasion of May 1st 2020, International Workers Day, the Young Communist League of Canada salutes healthcare workers who are on the frontline in the struggle against the COVID-19 Pandemic. We also wish to express our solidarity with those who must continue to work despite the risks of the Pandemic. To all these workers, we reiterate our demand that they be provided at no cost all personal protective equipment and that their health is guaranteed on their workplace. Would that not be the case, their right to refuse to work has to be enforced. We also the more than 10 million people who have lost their job or seen their work hours slashed.

For a People’s Recovery, NOT A Corporate Plunder!

YCL-LJC Central Executive Committee, March 2020

This statement was originally published on the Young Communist League of Canada - La Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Canada homepage


We salute the immense efforts of healthcare workers to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and provide their essential services in a state of emergency. For over 30 years public sector unions and community organisations have struggled against privatisation, job loss, and closures in the healthcare sector. Our public healthcare system was overwhelmed before the outbreak of the global pandemic. Decades of cuts and austerity will leave working people, Indigenous peoples, the unemployed, the elderly, and the poor severely exposed unless emergency action is taken. 

The Bienfait Miners' Strike: Book Review

Peter Miller

For anyone in the labour movement, it’s good to take time to read some inspiring labour history to give you some fire to get organizing! Endicott’s book is perfect for this inspiration.

The book analyzes the Saskatchewan miners’ struggle of 1931, organized with support from the Workers Unity League. The Mine Workers’ Union of Canada, affiliated to the Worker’ Unity League, was connected with the Red International of Labour Unions. It’s main organizers were inspired by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and were militants in a labour central focused on class struggle, instead of collaboration with the bosses and their governments. The union organized workers based on industry instead of craft, and combined political demands for things like non-contributory unemployment insurance, with bread-and-butter economic demands for working members. The union was also much more democratic than other unions at the time, with regular mass meetings and democratically elected strike committees.

Precariousness & Poverty for Young Workers: StatsCan Report

Drew Garvie

This Monday, Statistics Canada released a report that confirms what young people already knew: youth jobs are few, temporary and part-time. Canada’s so-called “recovery” economy has little to offer youth besides precariousness and poverty.

The report, entitled “Perspectives on the Youth Labour Market in Canada, 1976 to 2015”, focuses on young workers aged 15-24 who are not enrolled as full-time students and compares this generation to past generations of the same age group.

Young Worker Horror Stories

We often hear that our generation has it worse off than our parents. As the capitalist class continues to deepen their attack on the living and working standards of working people as a whole, the jobs available to young people in particular keep getting worse: part-time, non-union, precarious work, internships, or straight up unemployment are often the ‘choices’ we have.

In a recent, small-scale investigation blitz of employers by the Ministry of Labour in Ontario, it was discovered that 3/4 of employers were breaking already substandard labour laws. But what does this look like at the ground level?

Here are some stories from Rebel Youth readers about their work experiences:

April 15th Cross-Canada Day of Action to Fight for $15 [list of actions]

Special to RY

A cross-Canada Day of Action has been called for this Friday, April 15^th to demand a raise to minimum wages across the country. Despite some small increases in the minimum wage, there is not one province or territory in Canada that has increased the minimum wage to above the poverty line, even if workers are able to find full-time work. This continues to allow many large corporations to pay poverty wages and impoverish our communities.

Well over 20 cities are participating in the Day of Action to raise the minimum wage and rallying around the “Fight for $15” campaign. This campaign began in the United States a few years ago and has won some real victories in several American cities.

Call-out for young worker horror stories

We often hear that our generation has it worse off than our parents. As the capitalist class continues to deepen their attack on the living and working standards of working people as a whole, the jobs available to young people in particular keep getting worse: part-time, non-union, precarious work, internships, or straight up unemployment are often the 'choices' we have.

But what does it look like at the ground level? Rebel Youth is calling on young workers to write about their experiences for the upcoming 20^th issue of the print magazine.

Raise your voice, cause you’re not alone! In a recent, small-scale investigation blitz of employers by the Ministry of Labour in Ontario, it was discovered that 3/4ers of employers were breaking already substandard labour laws.

UofT’s strike in retrospective: How students and labor pushed for unity

Zach Morgenstern

From February 27 to March 26 of 2015 UofT’s CUPE 3902 Unit 1, a union which represents UofT student-course-instructors (most prominently teaching assistants (TAs)) went on strike. The Union, which bargained with a strike-vote mandate it had held since November, ultimately settled for arbitration. Arbitrator William Kaplan has since ruled in UofT’s favor, allowing for a deal the union had previously voted down, which does not guarantee funding increases for individual graduate students, to be implemented.  Despite this being a far from perfect result for the month long campaign, it has to be said that CUPE 3902’s approach to the strike was commendable, at least when it came to student-TA relations.

"Precarious and poor" on strike at UofT and York U

Sam Hammond

Reprinted from People's Voice Newspaper

At the end of February and beginning the first week of March, approximately 10,000 academic workers went on strike at two of Canada’s largest universities. They are represented by two CUPE Locals, 3902 and 3903, who represent Units of Teaching Assistants, Graduate Assistants and Contract Faculty at the University of Toronto and York University respectively. Nine thousand are still on strike.        

The issues and responses at both universities, York with about 4000 strikers and U of T with about 6000, are so close that they can be detailed in the same general overview.  A good place to start is with the words of Erin Black, Union Chair at U of T, “We are poor and precarious and need improvement in our standard of living”.  This is by no means an overstatement but what analyses will show is probably an understatement of the precarious existence of Teaching Assistants (TAs), Graduate Assistants (GAs) and Contract Faculty (CFs) at most universities.

Labour activist calls to 'Take Back CLC'

Peoples Voice Newspaper

For the first time since 2005, there will be a contest for the presidency when the Canadian Labour Congress meets May 5-9 in Montreal. Ken Georgetti, who has led the 3 million member federation for 15 years, will be challenged by Hassan Husseini, a negotiator for the Public Service Alliance of Canada and a member of Unifor local 2025.

A long‑time labour activist, Husseini has launched a campaign to "Take Back the CLC." A statement on his campaign website says, "As workers and unions, we are facing a massive and unprecedented right wing attack. Labour and employment standards, collective bargaining rights, and the right of workers to organize and be politically active, are all targets of right wing governments at the federal and provincial levels. The labour movement is in a fight for survival as a force for progressive social change in Canadian society.

"In recent years, grassroots activism has won real gains. There is much we can learn from these successful struggles such as that of the Quebec students, Idle No More, the Toronto Library workers, the Chicago teachers and others. As CLC President I will empower and support that kind of local activism. I will help build the local leadership it takes to challenge someone like Stephen Harper, and his corporate backers....

Youth volunteers gear up for S.A.M.E. Awareness Tour

By Directions newsletter,
United Food and Commercial Workers

The countdown has started to the launch of the S.A.M.E. Awareness Tour 2014 — building on the success of the 2013 tour and outreach which energized more than 10,000 Ontario youth to defend human rights and fight for migrant worker justice.

Since it was founded four years ago, S.A.M.E. (Students Against Migrant Exploitation) has grown into Canada's leading student social justice movement to empower and engage youth on migrant worker and labour rights issues. The 2013 tour brought S.A.M.E. youth activists to more to 45 schools, colleges and universities across Southern Ontario.

The 2014 Tour launches on February 27 at York University and runs until the end of March. Throughout the five-week your tour which leads up to Farm Workers Awareness Week, S.A.M.E. youth volunteers will host seminars, music workshops, and art and multimedia activities at schools and campuses across Ontario to empower and inform youth on issues about migration and migrant workers.

The Liberal Social Injustice Premier and The Fight for A Livable Minimum Wage

A joint statement from the Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) and the YoungCommunist League (Ontario)

Last year, Premier Wynne said she wanted to be Ontario’s “social justice Premier”.  She said she would take action to increase social assistance rates and to raise the minimum wage. 

But her inaction on starvation level social assistance rates, and her decision to permanently embed a poverty level minimum wage, is earning her the title of Ontario’s social injustice Premier.

Wynne’s government is following other Liberal and Tory governments in Canada:  to drive down wages and living standards, attack labour and democratic rights, reduce taxes on the corporations and the rich, cut services and privatize, privatize, privatize.

No Friends in the Legislature

The Liberals have been all too happy to parrot the policies put forward by corporate employers and their lobby groups. This includes the Retail Council of Canada, which is supported by Toys ‘R’ Us, and the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, which represents Tim Hortons and McDonald’s.

The very modest $14 minimum wage being fought for by youth, labour, anti-poverty and social justice groups around the province, has no friends in the Legislature.  The NDP is non-committal.  The Tories would eliminate the minimum wage altogether if they could (in keeping with the right-to-work-for-less legislation they want for Ontario).   The Liberals want to make sure the minimum wage is wrapped in cement, never rising beyond the annual inflation rate. 

Full analysis of CLC on 2014 Federal Budget

Canadian Labour Congess

The 2014 Federal Budget lacks any vision about how to stop growing inequality and stimulate the economy.

The Conservative plan continues to focus on austerity measures to balance their budget by 2015, and rests their hopes for economic growth on no-strings attached corporate tax cuts. But this plan is not delivering the promised investments in R&D, machinery and training needed to create better paid and more secure jobs.

To compensate, this budget introduces a myriad of small, limited and targeted measured in R&D and training, proposes to create internships instead of good jobs, all paid for with more spending cuts, such as cuts to federal employees' sick benefits and increased costs to retirees benefits.

Overall, federal government spending will be lower in 2014-15 compared to this year, dragging down economic growth and job creation.

Raise the Minimum Wage: Indexation not enough to bring working families out of poverty

Monday, January 27th, 2014
RELEASE: Indexation not enough to bring working families out of poverty

(Guelph, Ontario) - The Raise the Minimum Wage campaign in the city of Guelph is deeply concerned with today’s release of the Ontario Minimum Wage Advisory Panel’s recommendations. This concern comes from the fact that the report makes no recommendations that would bring working Ontarians out of poverty.

“Since the beginning, minimum wage workers, anti-poverty groups, unions and community organizations have been demanding that the minimum wage be increased to $14.” said Guelph Raise the Wage organizer Denise Martins. “This number was carefully calculated as the minimum amount necessary to lift workers above the poverty line. This demand was also coupled with the recommendation that the $14 must be indexed to cost of living. Although we commend the panel’s intentions in agreeing to index the minimum wage, and we see it as a victory for the thousands of Ontarians that have been raising their voice around this issue, it simply does not solve the problems of working people living in poverty.”

McJobs mean McHealth and McEarly Death

H.G. Watson
Reprinted from Rabble.ca

For a minimum wage worker, how much does it cost to make a nutritious meal?

Let’s assume you’re a meat eater, and that you want at least one carb and one vegetable on your plate. You’ll also probably want something to drink. We’ll also assume you work in Ontario, where the minimum wage is $10.25.

To put together a meal of chicken, potatoes and carrots with milk to drink based on Canada’s average food prices, is going to run you about $16 -- just over an hour and half of work.

Apply the same test to trying to find a bachelor apartment. In Toronto, where the average rental rate is $873 a month, you would have to work 85 hours a month at minimum wage to pay for a bachelor apartment. That's slightly more than half a month's worth of regular, full-time hours. Whatever you have left over goes to food, utilities and other costs.

With that in mind it’s easy to understand why people would opt to take the crappier, yet cheaper, apartment, or perhaps eat off the dollar menu at McDonalds.

And these are just the averages.

Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage supporters convene for Public Forum and Strategy Meeting

RY Ontario

In Ontario over the last several months, the "Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage" has built considerable pressure on the Wynne Liberals to raise the minimum wage to $14/hr from their current poverty rate of $10.25.

This Friday and Saturday (January 24 and 25th) activists, local campaigns and supporting organizations are convening in Toronto to discuss the way forward and hear from successful campaigns in the United States.

Under the slogan, "Fair Wages Now", and "You deserve a raise", the campaign has been successful in organizing days of actions around different themes on the 14th of every month, in dozens of communities, for the past several months.  The campaign is coordinated by the Workers Action Centre in Toronto, but has received a lot of support from other unions and organizations including the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, ACORN, the Young Communist League, the Ontario Federation of Labour, and a number of Labour Councils across Ontario.

The Attack on Postal Workers, CETA, Privatization

By Sam Hammond   

Republished from 'People's Voice' Newspaper

Eight thousand jobs under the wrecking crew hammer of Canada Post. Eight thousand families deprived of a living wage, eight thousand victims of the neo‑liberal restructuring of social life. After earlier cuts eliminating home delivery in rural areas, millions of urban residents, including retirees and those with handicaps, will now be denied door‑to‑door delivery of letters and packages. The destruction of what was and should be again a non‑profit, state‑provided service, is the kick‑off attack of 2014. This is an immense assault on services, jobs and Canadian culture.

What is the purpose of this? Even in the corporate greed and self‑gratification of the Canada Post executive strata, how does it make sense to destroy the foundation to save the building? This conundrum only unravels and reveals itself when viewed as a component of the preparation for complete privatization demanded by "Free Trade Agreements", and the neo‑liberal agenda for the destruction of trade unions and collective bargaining.

365 Days of Struggle: Rebel Youth looks back at 2013

Special to Rebel Youth

Sometimes as activists in the youth and student movement it seems as if the meetings, the demonstrations, the article writing and news reading blend together, making it difficult to get a clear perspective on recent history.

This piece aims to synthesize important events in 2013 through coverage in Rebel Youth.  When we look back we can see that 2013 was a year of sharpening attack on the working-class globally, felt even more sharply by young workers and students, but it was also a year of growing resistance in Canada and around the world.

Campaign to Raise the Minimum Wage Builds Momentum

By Peter Miller,
Rebel Youth magazine 

The campaign to raise the minimum wage in Ontario is building momentum. On November 14 minimum wage workers and community members reached out to 50 MPPs demanding for them to sign on to the campaign.

Actions included protests outside of Premier Kathleen Wynn’s office in Toronto and NDP leader Andrea Horwath’s office in Hamilton. Delegations brought petition sheets, and large 5 billion dollar checks to represent the amount of money that would boost the economy from an increase to the minimum wage. There have been other events that show the campaign is picking up momentum. On November 5, a large forum in Scarborough attracted 250 people who discussed how to outreach and mobilize for the campaign.