Leigh Osofsky, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Delivery workers and others who ensure most people don’t have to go outside for essential goods are creating what economic theorists call an uncompensated ‘positive externality.’
Teachers walk the picket line outside Northern Secondary School in Toronto, on Dec. 4, 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston
Short answer: they don’t. But striking teachers often receive a bit of financial help during a strike from money they themselves have already paid to their unions.
The gradual withdrawal of state support for universities has been the largest, and quietest, privatisation in UK history, and most people don’t even know about it.
The university strikes show how a dispute around a fairly technical employment issue, pensions, can develop a momentum of its own and become a catalyst for a much wider expression of dissatisfaction.
Striking CN rail members are seen outside the Mclean Rail Yard in North Vancouver on Nov. 20, 2019. Confidential RCMP documents reveal how involved corporations are when faced with disruptions to “business as usual” and how federal agencies should respond.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
Internal documents reveal how police and government respond to protests or labour disputes that are framed as threats to national security, and how heavily corporations are involved.
GM autoworkers went on strike on Sept. 15.
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
Most people think of Martin Luther King Jr. as a civil rights leader who led the nation in addressing the evils of systemic racism. What many don’t know is that he also championed labor unionism.
Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) members stand on picket line in Halifax in October 2018 after a call for a series of rotating 24-hour strikes.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ted Pritchard
Ordering Canada’s postal workers back on the job may hurt Justin Trudeau. CUPW could direct its anger directly at the Trudeau Liberals ahead of the 2019 federal election.
Twenty-nine-year-old Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman to be elected to Congress, talks with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
Striking 20th-century garment workers wore their best dresses and hats to send a message that they had the right to be taken seriously and have their voices heard.
Canada Post workers walk the picket line during a rotating strike in Halifax on Nov. 13, 2018.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
Ottawa has ordered postal workers back on the job, but is it constitutional? We should be circumspect about intervening in the bargaining process and skeptical about claims it’s in the public good.