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Labour Day has acquired me desirous about a line from a well-known Bruce Springsteen tune, The River: “However recently there ain’t been a lot work, on account of the financial system.”
As he so usually did, Springsteen, the working-class poet, illustrated an vital reality: most working individuals consider the financial system like they consider the climate. Typically it’s good. Typically it’s unhealthy. But it surely’s all the time one thing exterior of our management.
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It’s handy for the highly effective minority (politicians, companies, the rich) that the disempowered majority (employees, shoppers, college students, seniors) normally consider the financial system as one thing they’ll’t actually do something about, apart from grumble. However right here’s the factor: the financial system shouldn’t be just like the climate. It’s the product of guidelines, laws and norms established by residing, respiratory human beings. It’s not a naturally occurring phenomenon. And there are issues that may be finished to make it work higher for working individuals.
As a Labour Day train, let me illustrate my level within the context of three points presently top-of-mind for a lot of working Albertans: wages, housing and the price of residing.
As economist Jim Stanford identified in a latest report — The Disappearing Alberta Benefit — Alberta lately misplaced bragging rights because the highest-wage province in Canada to B.C. Actually, since 2019, Alberta has lagged all different provinces by way of common wage progress.
After adjusting for inflation, the hourly wages taken house by Alberta employees have dropped by 5 per cent over the previous 5 years — for public-sector employees, it’s down as a lot as 10 per cent. No different province has skilled this type of precipitous decline.
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So, what may our governments do in another way?
For starters, our provincial authorities may improve the minimal wage, which they’ve left frozen for almost six years, regardless of excessive inflation.
They might additionally make it simpler for Albertans to affix unions, thereby rising their bargaining energy; they might reverse the Kenney-era coverage that makes it simpler for employers to keep away from paying additional time; they usually may funds for wage will increase for public-sector employees that sustain with inflation, as an alternative of prioritizing issues corresponding to tax cuts for large oil and gasoline corporations.
The federal authorities may additionally assist by abolishing the low-wage stream of the Non permanent Overseas Employee Program, which is being utilized by employers in Alberta’s massive service sector to suppress wages.
There’s additionally a have to do issues in another way on housing.
Quite a few research have proven that Edmonton and Calgary have been experiencing the very best lease will increase in Canada. It’s clearly time for Alberta to think about becoming a member of B.C., Ontario and Quebec by introducing lease controls.
Lastly, there’s the problem of the price of residing.
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Why aren’t we speaking about re-regulating the electrical energy system (like just about each different province) and introducing public auto insurance coverage (like B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba) to scale back prices for shoppers?
And why aren’t we following the lead of U.S. presidential hopeful Kamala Harris and quite a few European nations on worth caps for staple merchandise offered by grocery shops, the place shopper worth will increase have far exceeded the rise in enter prices? Company worth gouging is actual. There’s no purpose we should always simply meekly settle for it.
I began with Bruce Springsteen. I’ll finish with the well-known Serenity Prayer. “God grant me the serenity to settle for the issues I can’t change, Braveness to change the issues I can, and Knowledge to know the distinction.”
This Labour Day, let’s do not forget that the financial system is one thing that we will change. Our wages don’t need to stagnate. Our housing doesn’t need to be unaffordable. We don’t need to pay exorbitant costs for energy, insurance coverage, gasoline and groceries. Briefly, if the system is rigged, we will unrig it.
The coverage instruments are there. All that’s lacking is the understanding that change is feasible — and the political will to make that change occur.
Gil McGowan is president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, representing 175,000 unionized Alberta employees.
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