"A Bangladeshi boy works in a shipbuilding factory in down town. These factories employ young boys as apprentices without pay for the first few years. They work in extreme conditions without safety tools like gloves, goggles, and other protective gears. In exchange, they learn the skills of the trade. But this costs them loss of health and education."
Wander over to the "Owls and Roosters Blog" and read a recent posting entitled: "Sask. Party gov’t refusing to release draft Western Economic Partnership Agreement; Crowns and municipalities consulted, but not public".
The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour will be holding it's 54th Annual Convention from October 21 - 23, 2009 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
There's been a new book released entitled: Selling Out - Academic Freedom and the Corporate Market. It is written by University of Saskatchewan Professor Howard Woodhouse."Selling Out
Academic Freedom and the Corporate Market
Howard Woodhouse
How Canadian universities are abandoning their intellectual independence by capitulating to the interests of big business.
In a powerful defence of the values that define education, Howard Woodhouse uses concrete and vivid examples to show how universities in Canada have been engulfed by the market model of education and how administrators have done little to resist this trend.
Selling Out demonstrates that the logics of value of the market and of universities are not only different but opposed to one another. By introducing the reader to a variety of cases, some well known and others not, Woodhouse explains how academic freedom and university autonomy are being subordinated to corporate demands and how faculty have attempted to resist this subjugation. He argues that the mechanistic discourse of corporate culture has replaced the language of education - subject-based disciplines and the professors who teach them have become "resource units," students have become "educational consumers," and curricula have become "program packages." Graduates are now "products" and "competing in the global economy" has replaced the search for truth.
Challenging the current orthodoxy that the market model is the only way forward, Woodhouse argues that governments have a responsibility to fund universities, recognizing that they are the only places in society where the critical search for knowledge takes precedence.
Review quotes
"Woodhouse argues his case well, providing evidence from several universities and a relevant literature, and showing that the problem he addresses has manifestations throughout the university system in Canada." Patricia Marchak, University of British Columbia
"There can be very few researchers in Canada who know the literature as well as Woodhouse and he draws on it very effectively to support his argument. Selling Out is a powerful defense of the values intrinsically related to universities, and an exceptionally well documented account of the threat to those same values." William Hare, Mount Saint Vincent University
Howard Woodhouse is professor of educational foundations and co-director of the University of Saskatchewan Process Philosophy Research Unit."
An article appearing on the CBC web-site today exposes a disturbing story of alleged worker exploitation by a company which owns a total of 3 fast food restaurants in Regina, SK and Brandon, MB. The article is entitled: Foreign workers miffed over mistreatment.
There's a revealing article on the AFL-CIO Blog entitled: Chamber of Commerce: Out of Touch with the Public. To paraphrase, the policies and actions of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (and hence, most other Chambers of Commerce) have destroyed our economies, our societies, and our democracies."Chamber of Commerce: Out of Touch with the Public
Here’s a proposal that makes sense: The Obama administration wants to set up a consumer financial protection agency to oversee the financial markets and make sure working families aren’t the victims of predatory lending, abusive credit card practices and the kind of irresponsibility and greed that have caused our economic crisis.
But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is putting its big bucks into preventing creation of any agency that would hold financial institutions accountable.
Earlier this month, the Chamber announced it would spend $2 million on an ad campaign opposing a consumer protection agency, and it has taken the lead in lobbying Congress to prevent new rules for our financial system.
Tough new rules—and an agency with the authority to enforce them—would protect families, their communities, the housing market and the entire economy. But the agency might make a small dent in the profits of a handful of huge banks and Wall Street corporations and the salaries and bonuses of CEOs. So the Chamber of Commerce is opposed to it.
The Chamber is paying a price for being out of touch with the country’s priorities. Take energy, for example. While unions, businesses and families across the country are looking for ways to build a new energy economy and solve the climate crisis, the Chamber is virulently supporting the status quo. As a result, three of the country’s biggest energy companies—Exelon, PG&E and PNM—have left the Chamber over the issue, and Nike announced today that it will no longer sit on the Chamber’s Board of Directors.
The Chamber also stands out as a key opponent of a public insurance option for health care—a broadly popular proposal that would offer working families a real choice in health care coverage and ensure that the insurance industry is competitive.
The Chamber also has put millions of dollars into opposing the Employee Free Choice Act and workers’ freedom to form a union and bargain—while taking money from bailed-out banks. That is, the Chamber is using our taxpayer dollars to fight a bill that would give workers more choice when they’re deciding whether to form unions. What is it about giving Americans “choice” that the Chamber doesn’t like?)
And strangely enough for an organization with “U.S.” in its name, the Chamber is hostile to Buy American provisions that would create good jobs for America’s workers.
Even as broad coalitions are trying to turn our economy around, the Chamber of Commerce is leading the movement to maintain the broken status quo that has benefited a few corporations and left everyone else behind."
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There's an article in the October 1, 2009 Leader-Post entitled: Businessman pleads guilty to fraud, wherein a part-owner of a Regina based janitorial supply company was convicted of bilking the business and his partners out of $130,000. If you read the story, you'll come to conclusion that this businessman was charged and prosecuted by the "Crown" (government) for basically stealing from his partners and committing a fraud.
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) has come out swinging against the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) with the release of an independent research paper entitled: An examination of the Public Sector Wage Premium in Canada - A critique of the 2008 study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) called Wage Watch: A comparison of public and private sector wages.".... the CFIB has an established track record of hostility to the public sector. It may be that the CFIB is afraid the wages paid by many of their members will look too inadequate compared to wages in other sectors. It may be the lack of benefits, especially pensions, for workers in their sector will make it difficult for small business employers to attract employees. It’s certainly odd the CFIB hasn’t made the connection that public sector workers spend their salaries in the stores, and purchase the services, of CFIB members.
Over time this incorrect CFIB study began to be quoted as fact in the media and elsewhere. We kept hearing that this dubious large differential really did exist. The mere fact this study was obviously incorrect was apparently not enough to invalidate it. CFIB spokespeople themselves peddled the purported conclusions of this study at every opportunity."
