Workers at Ottawa's Salvation Army shelter say it is increasingly difficult to work for poverty wages.
wages
Fight like the Greeks
After months of proclaiming all was good in the Canadian economy, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced at the start of October that "boom times are over."
The Harper government has spent the past two years arguing that Canada was a model for escaping the depth of the recession that has hit Europe and the U.S. so hard.
Now the Tories, after claiming that they had steered Canada through a recession, are speculating that they might have to continue stimulus funding to keep the economy from sinking.
But the talk of a robust recovery conceals the reality of what workers in Canada have already suffered through for the past several years.
![Karl Nerenberg](http://rabble.ca/sites/rabble/files/imagecache/thumbnail/category_pictures/Karl.jpg "Karl Nerenberg joins rabble to cover news for the rest of us from Parliament Hill. Karl has been a journalist for over 25 years including eight years as the producer of the CBC show The House. He has written scripts for documentary films and long-form television reports for such shows as Le Point and Actuel on Radio Canada television and The Journal on CBC-TV. Karl also founded and, for five years, edited the magazine Federations: What's new in federalism worldwide.
Karl has been awarded a Gemini award, a Best International Documentary Series award (from "la communauté des televisions francophones"), a CBC Radio Award for Best New Series (C'est la vie) among others. As a broadcaster, Mr. Nerenberg produced and directed television series and documentaries in a wide range of genres and on a great variety of subjects -- from civil war in Central America, to the crisis in South Africa's Apartheid system.
Karl works in both English and French, and can be reached at karl@rabble.ca")
Resolving the strike at Ottawa's Salvation Army shelter
Several weeks ago we, as concerned Christians, met at a local church with some of the striking workers from the Salvation Army Booth Centre on George Street in Ottawa's Byward Market. The staff members spoke first and at length about the people they serve, some with serious mental health problems and those trying to conquer alcoholism or addictions, many of whom are homeless. It was clear to us that these workers, whether as a front-line counsellors or as support staff in the kitchen, must have both skill and dedication to do what they do. These workers have both.
Danger: Wage deflation ahead
The labour market is in much worse shape than the official 7.3 per cent unemployment rate implies. The latest evidence for this proposition is a miserable report on employment and earnings from Statistics Canada.
