Surprise greeted the "good news story" on Friday that job gains were posted for the month of September. While no job increases were predicted, some 30,600 jobs were created. But hold the champagne. The job growth was due to 36,000 new public sector jobs, while the private sector lost more than 17,000 jobs. The economy is still very weak and job losses will continue for some time.
The OECD is predicting that our current unemployment rate of 8.4 per cent will rise to over 10 per cent by next year.
Up close and personal, the picture is even uglier. For the nearly half million who have lost their jobs since the economic downturn, unemployment is usually long and frightening. When work is available, too often it comes in the form of part-time or temporary work, usually for a lot less pay than the job that was lost.
This trend to "precarious work" is not new. Around the world, employers have been trying slash costs and to minimize their long-term staff liabilities. Hiring contract, temporary or agency workers means no pension or long term disability costs for employers. They mean lower costs, and the flexibility to lay workers off at will.
During this latest recession, however, the massive loss full-time jobs has escalated the trend to precarious work. Job loss often means saying goodbye to a decent income that paid the bills and supported the family. Many of those lucky enough to find jobs, usually after several months, are quickly finding themselves among the working poor.
Wednesday, Oct. 7, was designated the "World Day for Decent Work" -- a day to focus on the need for good jobs and a decent life. The International Metal Workers Federation put its efforts into highlighting the growth precarious work, which sadly is becoming the norm rather than the exception.
To highlight this troubling trend and as part of the global campaign, the CAW held a Round Table on Precarious Work, meeting with several community leaders and representatives from CAW Action Centres, where laid off CAW members go to get training opportunities and to seek employment. The CAW is committed to working with the community to improve employment standards laws and beef up enforcement. The union is also pushing governments to defend good jobs such as in the manufacturing sector with an aggressive industrial strategy rather than letting the market decide which jobs stay and which are lost.
Advertising
The next day, Oct. 8, filmmaker Laura Sky released her latest film "Home Safe Toronto" which premiered at Toronto's Revue Cinema. The film shows the shock of job loss and the grinding poverty that many working people face in precarious low wage jobs. The dignity and determination of the families who struggle against all odds in a hostile world is moving. Their fight is a call to action to stop Canada's slide into growing inequality and despair. There will be a second showing of the film at the Revue this week.
Join the campaign for decent work at CAW.ca. The job you save might just be your own.
Things are really becoming scary in the world's economy today. Not only are people without work for a very long time but there are those who are threatened daily with the possibility of losing their jobs to cheaper work that is of less quality. webwork
Peggy, I sure appreciate your good will here. And we miss you in the hood...you were a fixture during your terms here whereas your successor, Gerard Kennedy, must have better places to be.
Saw the screening of "Home Safe Toronto" yesterday at The Revue, it was both well-attended and well-received. It is a special and important film in that it broadens the scope of the homelessness issue in a provocative way, and it advocates for a solidarity sensibility.
At the risk of sounding like a doomsayer, our current diagnois and future prognosis are bleak. It is too late to fight for "well-paying jobs" with "benefits" and "security"...this is just the BEGINNING of a downturn that will see no up for some time to come, perhaps never. And maybe there never should be, as for the most part our societies have adapted to a sickening quality of life, living like parasites on the Earth, exploiting her and each other while pretending we're doing nothing wrong.
This Depression is the next logical step in a global capitalist charade. We the people are no longer cost effective, given the rapid depletion of natural resources. Since we've all signed on to the Free Market, well then hey, if scarcity prevails...let the market decide who gets to eat, who gets to have a roof over their head, who gets to have potable water, etc. This is what we wanted, right?
If no, then all the petitions and new elections will make no matter. It is time for MASS ACTION and CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE and one obvious place to start is by WITHOLDING TAXES.
To keep paying into this criminal, corrupt, and morally bankrupt system is like aiding and abetting, at this point in the game. I know we all like to believe this will sort itself out and we'll all be "back to normal" soon, but c'mon...don't we all know that just ain't so?
This is the time for "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" as Antonio Gramsci put it.
I just wish we didn't have to wait for the shit to REALLY hit the fan before we might come around to working together and resisting and building...as opposed to further compliance in somebody else's dirty, despicable, nightmare.
I heartily recommend the document below, a provocative position on this very subject:
Can the Working Class Make a Socialist Revolution? (PDF 614 KB)
By Ernest Mandel and George Novack.
available for FREE download at this site:
http://readingfromtheleft.com/