THE NUMBERS JUST AREN’T THERE. There is no “strike wave” as a sign of a rising tide of union militancy—despite all the talk and wishful thinking. In fact it’s pretty much the reverse.

“WORK HURT or don’t work at all.” That’s all you need to know about why so many construction workers suffer with substance abuse, says carpenter Jack Raymond. “Employers are the only ones who can fix that,” says Raymond. “If so many of us didn’t get hurt, and fired once we are hurt, there wouldn’t be a ‘drug abuse problem’ in construction in the first place.”

CAN  YOU TRUST the boss to help you unionize? The UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) is betting you can.

ANDREA SHEASBY WAS DROWNING in work. Leaving the office to work from home didn’t help. She finally had to quit her job to disconnect from it all. A new law in Ontario is supposed to give workers a less drastic out.

THE GOVERNMENT OWES US A JOB. It seems like a crazy idea: something only a communist like Che Guevera, or a “socialist” like Bernie Sanders, might promote.Except it’s not.

IT WAS ALWAYS A LAME EXCUSE: paying workers less because they got tips. Those days will be over in Ontario come January 1. This could reduce take home pay, say some. But not necessarily.

TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT are not just the lyrics to a Johnny Paycheck country music song any more. It’s a message more and more workers are delivering to their bosses these days. The bosses are worried. And they should be.

DEMANDING MORE WORK MAKES NO SENSE wrote Paul Lafargue in 1880. More and more workers are coming to that same conclusion today.

STEVE NELSON MAY BE DOWN but he’s not out. He’s a survivor—a twenty-first century hunter/gatherer roaming the back streets and alleys in Vancouver. “Binning” and stayin’ alive.

WORK JUST AIN’T WHAT IT USED TO BE and that’s the way to keep it say most Canadians faced with an end to the changes in worklife brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.