Go, Canada! As part of NAFTA renegotiations, our northern neighbor reportedly wants to address labor standards … and not just in Mexico.
One source familiar with the discussions said Canada wants the United States to pass a federal law stopping state governments from enacting right-to-work legislation; the source said the United States has not agreed to such a request. Canada believes that lower labour standards in the United States and Mexico, including right to work, give those countries an unfair advantage in attracting jobs.
Jerry Dias, the leader of Canada's largest private-sector trade union, said Ottawa's negotiators are: pushing Mexico on its corporate-sanctioned unions, which are accused of negotiating collective agreements unfavourable to workers; agitating for both countries to offer a year of paid family leave, as Canada does; and targeting American right-to-work laws that allow workers in unionized shops to refuse to pay dues, draining money from unions.
"I'm very pleased with the position the Canadian government is taking on labour standards," Mr. Dias, president of Unifor, told reporters outside the talks. "Canada's got two problems: The low wage rates in Mexico and the right-to-work states in the United States."
You can file banning free rider laws under things Republicans would rather drive burning splinters under their fingernails than do, and they aren’t a whole lot more likely to embrace paid family leave. But it’s still pretty great as a statement of where the U.S. stands—it’s a global source of low-wage labor.
● Good news is good:
A yearslong fight over pay, benefits and the right to unionize ended Wednesday when the City Council approved a pact that will give about 8,000 workers at O’Hare Airport a pay raise to at least $13.45 an hour.
The agreement also promises baggage handlers, cabin cleaners, aircraft maintenance workers and security guards a smooth path to joining a union.
● A judge has thrown out a pre-emption law Arizona Republicans passed to block local governments from raising the minimum wage or otherwise improving conditions for workers.
● The sad story of public education in St. Louis.
● A bunch of good stuff could be on the 2018 Massachusetts ballot:
Proposals for ballot questions to raise the minimum wage, provide paid family and medical leave to workers, lower the state sales tax, limit nursing staffing ratios and require presidential candidates to release their tax returns were all certified by Attorney General Maura Healey on Wednesday.
● In his farewell to Boston, former Celtic Isaiah Thomas has something important to say about how the public seems to see labor relations in the NBA and what that says:
It’s like, man — with a few exceptions, unless we’re free agents, 99 times out of 100, it’s the owners with the power. So when players are getting moved left and right, and having their lives changed without any say-so, and it’s no big deal … but then the handful of times it flips, and the player has control … then it’s some scandal?
● A group of astronauts has joined the fight against FAA privatization.
● A campaign for paid sick leave in Austin, Texas, has launched, citing 223,000 workers in the city without any paid sick days.
● How ending DACA hurts all low-wage workers. (No matter what Jeff Sessions tells you.)
● After Nissan: Can we organize the South?
● Donald Trump has put someone in charge of the Mine Safety Health Administration and Erik Loomis has a question: Was Don Blankenship not available?