While the Canadian economy has begun to recover from the “Great Recession” in terms of the level of GDP and overall job growth, unemployment and under-employment still remain well above pre-recession levels. The national unemployment rate in June 2010 was 7.9%, well up from 6.0% two years earlier. The number of unemployed workers was, at [...]

James Altucher posted an interesting article and video making the case against sending your children to university. I commend him for questioning the credo that everyone should go to university, regardless of interest or aptitude. But I am not totally convinced by his analysis. Altucher gives short shrift to the fact that many good jobs require [...]

Posted: 5:35 PM Jul 23, 2010 Loves Park to Benefit from New State Law An Illinois law aimed at offering tax incentives to potential businesses is now extended. And it's expected to directly impact the Stateline.Reporter: Tina Stein function confirmAbuse(name,id) { if(name == "") { var name = "Anonymous"; } if(confirm("Report comment by " + name + " as abusive?")) { ...

Terre Haute (WIBQ)-A Responsible Bidding Ordinance. Why? So that taxpayers in Vigo County will be afforded the same tax savings as those in the city of Terre Haute. Simply put, the ordinance would allow jobs that are being done in Vigo County which use taxpayer money to be done by responsible contractors. IBEW Local 725 is pushing the issue and Vigo County Commissioners say they're considering it.

High Interest Savings Account Rate Deal: I.B.E.W. 137 Credit Union at 1.51% APYPosted in Credit Union, High Interest Savings Accounts, Rates, Savings Account July 30th, 2010 IBEW 317 FCU There are so many credit unions across the nation, how do you choose the right one for you? A good place to start is one that provides high interest rates. The I.B.E.W. 317 Credit Union has a lot to offer members, including an excellent high interest savings account rate of 1.51% APY. In order to earn one of...

State: Dugan speaks at IBEW conference July 31, 2010, 8:55 am By Robert Themer rthemer@daily-journal.com Illinois Rep. Lisa Dugan, D-Bradley, was a featured speaker in Washington, D.C., last week -- not in the legislative chambers there but at the 2010 International Women's Conference of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Dugan, a state representative since 2003, has been an IBEW Local 176 member for 30 years. At the women's conference, she told more than 375 members...

Union leader saw world during government work By Erin Zureick Staff Writer Sunday, Aug 1, 2010 Ken Ward's career as an electrician has taken him around the world and into some of the United States' most tightly secured nuclear programs. Ken Ward is in his second term arranging and monitoring jobs and leading negotiations for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers members in 16 counties. He spent 15 years working for Savannah River Site, and he went back to college in 1996 to receive...

May 18, 2010 [Translate] by Wanda Sabir http://sfbayview.com/2010/haiti-hanging-with-rea-dol-at-the-site-of-the-future-sopudep-school/ Building the wall of the new school – Photo: Wanda Sabir Rea Dol and Dodo were at the airport with a sign with my name when I arrived. We then headed to the building site, where a wall is going up around the perimeter. [Rea is the principal of SOPUDEP [...]

http://socialistworker.org/2010/08/02/betrayal-of-haiti Analysis: Ashley Smith Conditions in Haiti are still appalling six months after the quake, reports Ashley Smith. August 2, 2010 SIX MONTHS after Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake, the promises of the world’s most powerful governments to provide billions in aid to one of the world’s poorest and weakest governments have been betrayed. There was an immediate outpouring [...]

Did you know that what you buy can make a difference in our Country and our community’s now!! We are part of six billion people on the planet; the onus is on us North American’s – the upper 20% that consumes 80% of the world’s resources. Driving hybrid cars and limiting industrial emissions is great, [...]

A superb article in the Toronto Star by Antonia Zerbisias, entitled “Who Are You”, today features a fascinating interview with Dr Jan Kestle at Environics Analytics regarding their use of census data. In the print edition it has a data geek’s centrefold! Two pages of how census data is used to profile [...]

A research colleague from Calgary sent along news of the latest Calgary Herald editorial on the topic. I am copying the email with permission, on condition of anonymity. ********************** Here is a link to the lead editorial in yesterday’s Calgary Herald. This is the second editorial on this in the past 3 weeks. You know you’re [...]

Back to Solving Caribana’s funding crisis Solving Caribana’s funding crisis July 29, 2010 http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/842007–solving-caribana-s-funding-crisis Caribana dancers downtown. TANNIS TOOHEY/TORONTO STAR Re: Caribana a victim of cultural racism? Letter July 26 A letter last Friday suggested that security measures at Caribana are disrespectful to West Indians. On Monday someone suggested that reduced federal funding for Caribana is cultural racism. We [...]

I am posting this on behalf of a colleague from Victoria B.C., Ian Faris, an employee with Statistics Canada for 20 years, and now a research analyst and member of the Canadian Social Data Consortium. The data consortium is organized to “liberate” census and related data at a modest fee for city planners, public [...]

In Order to create Union jobs for Youth in this country we need to do a few things!

I have an op-ed in today’s Toronto Star.  The piece stems largely from a policy paper I wrote on homelessness earlier this year, and that I blogged about here. In today’s op-ed, I argue that homelessness rises after a recession, but that there’s a lag effect.  To be sure, after the recession of the early 1990s, homelessness [...]

While I have not previously done so, I thought I'd start announcing the addition of new blogs to the unionblogs.ca aggregator. read more

Are there good alternatives to the mandatory census long-form questionnaire to collect the information that we need? Last Saturday CBC’s The House had a sparkling section on the census which offered some thoughts from a Danish statistician and the views of Canada’s longest serving Chief Statistician, Ivan Fellegi. On Tuesday Tavia [...]

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) edged up 0.1% in May. Annualized output was $1,231 billion, still below the pre-crisis peak of $1,241 billion in July 2008 but well above the trough of $1,186 billion in May 2009. Canada-US Comparison American GDP figures released this morning indicate an annual growth rate of 2.4% in the second quarter (April - [...]

Professor Emeritus at University of British Columbia, William Stanbury, has produced a handy treatise on coercion, published online in the Hill Times this week. Stanbury focused his career as a professor of economics on strategic decision-making in business, including government relations, competition rules, regulations and other public policies that strengthen business performance. His [...]