* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Offset Is Ready To Finalize Divorce With Cardi B for a Major Reason – Yahoo

    Offset Poised to Finalize Divorce from Cardi B for a Major Reason

    Beyond the Stage: 8 Performing Arts Centers Driving Entertainment and Education – Livability.com

    Beyond the Stage: 8 Performing Arts Centers Transforming Entertainment and Education

    Row K Entertainment Emerges as Major New Hollywood Buyer With Splashy TIFF Shopping Spree – TheWrap

    Row K Entertainment Emerges as Major New Hollywood Buyer With Splashy TIFF Shopping Spree – TheWrap

    Charlie Hunnam Reflects on Playing a Serial Killer in Monster: The Ed Gein Story – Yahoo

    Charlie Hunnam Reveals the Dark Challenges of Playing a Serial Killer in Monster: The Ed Gein Story

    “Reba” cast, then and now: See the stars 24 years later (and who’s reunited for another show) – Yahoo

    “Reba” cast, then and now: See the stars 24 years later (and who’s reunited for another show) – Yahoo

    Why Taylor Swift Name-Dropped Elizabeth Taylor in Her New Album – Yahoo

    Here’s Why Taylor Swift Dropped Elizabeth Taylor’s Name in Her New Album

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    US and investors gambling on unproven nuclear technology, warn experts – Financial Times

    US and investors gambling on unproven nuclear technology, warn experts – Financial Times

    Is Light-Speed Analog Computing the Future of Technology? – BIOENGINEER.ORG

    Could Light-Speed Analog Computing Transform the Future of Technology?

    ARM Institute opens technology project call to speed submarine manufacturing – The Robot Report

    ARM Institute Unveils Cutting-Edge Technology Project to Revolutionize Submarine Manufacturing

    Forget Cowbells. Cows Wear High-Tech Collars Now. – The New York Times

    Ditch the Cowbells: Discover the High-Tech Collars Transforming Cattle Care

    What the Recent Price Surge Means for Figure Technology Solutions After SEC Settlement – Yahoo Finance

    What the Recent Price Surge Reveals About Figure Technology Solutions Following SEC Settlement

    MAC Brings iPad Technology to Football Sidelines Across All 13 Member Schools – Sports Video Group

    MAC Brings iPad Technology to Football Sidelines Across All 13 Member Schools – Sports Video Group

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Offset Is Ready To Finalize Divorce With Cardi B for a Major Reason – Yahoo

    Offset Poised to Finalize Divorce from Cardi B for a Major Reason

    Beyond the Stage: 8 Performing Arts Centers Driving Entertainment and Education – Livability.com

    Beyond the Stage: 8 Performing Arts Centers Transforming Entertainment and Education

    Row K Entertainment Emerges as Major New Hollywood Buyer With Splashy TIFF Shopping Spree – TheWrap

    Row K Entertainment Emerges as Major New Hollywood Buyer With Splashy TIFF Shopping Spree – TheWrap

    Charlie Hunnam Reflects on Playing a Serial Killer in Monster: The Ed Gein Story – Yahoo

    Charlie Hunnam Reveals the Dark Challenges of Playing a Serial Killer in Monster: The Ed Gein Story

    “Reba” cast, then and now: See the stars 24 years later (and who’s reunited for another show) – Yahoo

    “Reba” cast, then and now: See the stars 24 years later (and who’s reunited for another show) – Yahoo

    Why Taylor Swift Name-Dropped Elizabeth Taylor in Her New Album – Yahoo

    Here’s Why Taylor Swift Dropped Elizabeth Taylor’s Name in Her New Album

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    US and investors gambling on unproven nuclear technology, warn experts – Financial Times

    US and investors gambling on unproven nuclear technology, warn experts – Financial Times

    Is Light-Speed Analog Computing the Future of Technology? – BIOENGINEER.ORG

    Could Light-Speed Analog Computing Transform the Future of Technology?

    ARM Institute opens technology project call to speed submarine manufacturing – The Robot Report

    ARM Institute Unveils Cutting-Edge Technology Project to Revolutionize Submarine Manufacturing

    Forget Cowbells. Cows Wear High-Tech Collars Now. – The New York Times

    Ditch the Cowbells: Discover the High-Tech Collars Transforming Cattle Care

    What the Recent Price Surge Means for Figure Technology Solutions After SEC Settlement – Yahoo Finance

    What the Recent Price Surge Reveals About Figure Technology Solutions Following SEC Settlement

    MAC Brings iPad Technology to Football Sidelines Across All 13 Member Schools – Sports Video Group

    MAC Brings iPad Technology to Football Sidelines Across All 13 Member Schools – Sports Video Group

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home News

City of Vancouver to lowest paid workers: Let them eat cuts!

January 17, 2024
in News
City of Vancouver to lowest paid workers: Let them eat cuts!
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

The City of Vancouver council has reneged on a previous commitment to a living wage for its employees.

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim making an announcement in March 2023. Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim making an announcement in March 2023. Credit: Ken Sim / X Credit: Ken Sim / X

Sometimes the old time-worn cliché’s convey hard truths. For example, the view that reality under advanced capitalism has outpaced  both irony and satire is sometimes conveyed in the phrases “no future for satire” and “You can’t make this stuff up. “  This view was famously adopted by the brilliant song writer and mathematician Tom Lehrer on the day the iconic war criminal and imperial consigliere Henry Kissinger was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The songwriter announced his immediate retirement, the story goes, lamenting that nothing he could imagine would be as glow in the dark weird as a Peace Prize for Nixon’s  toadlike master of war.

Living in Vancouver under the current right wing ABC party’s hegemony in city government, I often think of Lehrer’s contention. Mayor Ken Sim and his minions regularly go beyond satire as they exert their best efforts to bring the city I love back to an imagined past in which the policeman is our friend and the big planning decisions belong properly in the hands of real estate developers. 

Recently, Vancouver government news broke that belongs squarely in the “you can’t make this up,” category. A decision made in a closed door in camera meeting of the council in January of this year, very soon after Sim’s Alphabet Gang took power, reverses a policy position adopted by the City of Vancouver in 2017 that required the city to pay all its direct employees and subcontracted workers at least the Family Living Wage as defined by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives  and the Living Wage for Families project currently operated by the VanCity Foundation. Annually, the Living Wage for Families project calculates a living wage for families figure, which represents the hourly wage needed for a two income couple with two kids to meet basic expenses such as food, clothing, rent, child care, transportation and minimal saving to cover illness or emergencies. Nearly 400 businesses, NGOs and governments across BC have made the living wage pledge.  

The City of Vancouver decision to back out of the city’s previous commitment will hit low wage employees of firms that provide food, cleaning etc. services to the city as contractors, but it will also have an impact on directly employed staff as well. In its febrile attempts to look like tough money managers, the ABC council majority began their cuts at the bottom of the city’s pay scale, hurting a group of workers that is primarily female and brown. When this secretive decision was finally brought to the attention of the public by researchers like the Service Employees International Union researcher Alicia Massie, the Vancouver Sun’s Dan Fumano and the Tyee labour reporter Zak Vescera, it was greeted with outrage by many observers. The outrage level went up as the public learned that city council had OK’d a 7.3 per cent wage increase for themselves at the same time they moved to cut wages at the bottom of the city’s pay scale. 

Former city councillor and lifelong anti-poverty activist Jean Swanson told the Vancouver Sun’s Dan Fumano in May that the decision was “disgusting.” While granting that the pay raise for her former colleagues was mandated by an external process, she argued that councillors could have and should have refused the increase.

“They could have voted to reduce it, which we voted to do during COVID,” told the Sun. (Swanson herself gave away a large slice of her city pay during her time on council.)

Alicia Massie, the union researcher whose freedom of information request first surfaced the January decision to cut the wages of Living Wage protected low-income employees and contractors, told me in early November that city bureaucrats refused to tell her how many workers would be left scraping by on lower wages after the city’s new policy was in place. I have to wonder what the bureaucrats don’t want us to know. Perhaps the highly paid top bureaucrats are emulating their political masters in their commitment to secrecy. The mayor launched a code of conduct complaint against One City councillor Christine Boyle for revealing her own vote in an in-camera meeting of council to the press. It cost Boyle $7,000 in legal fees to successfully defend herself against the complaint. 

Jean Swanson is right. This latest austerity move by Vancouver’s ABC  majority is disgusting. It also underscores how important it is that workers and their unions remain active in city politics to fight for worker interests. Without a vigorous labour response, the new wave of right-wing governance and service eroding austerity can overwhelm many of the gains we have made in the past centuries.

Support rabble today!

We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.

rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.

Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.

Nick Seebruch, editor

Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.

Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today. 

Nick Seebruch, editor

Tom Sandborn lives and writes on unceded Indigenous territory in Vancouver. He is a widely published free lance writer who covered health policy and labour beats for the Tyee on line for a dozen years,…
More by Tom Sandborn

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Rabble.ca – https://rabble.ca/economy/city-of-vancouver-to-lowest-paid-workers-let-them-eat-cuts/

Tags: LowestnewsVancouver
Previous Post

Alzheimer Society of Saskatchewan: “40 per cent of dementias are preventable”

Next Post

Deepfakes and gender based violence

Welcome Home: World Aquatics Breaks Ground on Future Headquarters in Budapest – World Aquatics

Welcome Home: World Aquatics Launches Exciting New Headquarters in Budapest

October 8, 2025
New Zealand Surprises With Larger Rate Cut as Economic Concerns Mount – Bloomberg.com

New Zealand Surprises Markets with Larger-Than-Expected Rate Cut Amid Rising Economic Concerns

October 8, 2025
Offset Is Ready To Finalize Divorce With Cardi B for a Major Reason – Yahoo

Offset Poised to Finalize Divorce from Cardi B for a Major Reason

October 8, 2025
Health Rounds: Genetics play a role in higher depression risk for women – Reuters

How Genetics Shape Depression Risk in Women: What Everyone Should Understand

October 8, 2025
October 7, 2025 – Federal government shutdown – CNN

October 7, 2025 – Federal government shutdown – CNN

October 8, 2025
Blackwater photos suggest new symbiosis between fish and anemones – EurekAlert!

Breathtaking Blackwater Photos Unveil an Unexpected Alliance Between Fish and Anemones

October 8, 2025
WATCH LIVE: The winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry is… – PBS

Breaking News: Unveiling the Latest Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry!

October 8, 2025
Soar through a 1,000-mile-long maze on Mars in this mesmerizing new satellite video – Live Science

Discover a Breathtaking 1,000-Mile-Long Maze on Mars in This Mesmerizing New Satellite Video

October 8, 2025
Video: Dog Sighs in Different Situations Like ‘He Works 9-5′ – Yahoo

Watch This Dog’s Hilarious Sighs That Perfectly Capture Everyday Life Moments

October 8, 2025
US and investors gambling on unproven nuclear technology, warn experts – Financial Times

US and investors gambling on unproven nuclear technology, warn experts – Financial Times

October 8, 2025

Categories

Archives

October 2025
M T W T F S S
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
« Sep    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (857)
  • Economy (878)
  • Entertainment (21,751)
  • General (17,479)
  • Health (9,920)
  • Lifestyle (890)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (879)
  • Politics (889)
  • Science (16,088)
  • Sports (21,378)
  • Technology (15,858)
  • World (861)

Recent News

Welcome Home: World Aquatics Breaks Ground on Future Headquarters in Budapest – World Aquatics

Welcome Home: World Aquatics Launches Exciting New Headquarters in Budapest

October 8, 2025
New Zealand Surprises With Larger Rate Cut as Economic Concerns Mount – Bloomberg.com

New Zealand Surprises Markets with Larger-Than-Expected Rate Cut Amid Rising Economic Concerns

October 8, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version