B.C. Federation of Labour Huddles in Terrace
Terrace, B.C.- It will be a weekend of talk about health and safety and current issues of poverty as the BC Federation of Labour holds a regional conference in Terrace.
The three day event has already seen delegates take a tour to Nisga’a territory, but registration and the real work gets underway today.
Guest speakers at the event include Skeena -Bulkley Valley MP, Nathan Cullen and provincial NDP leader John Horgan. B.C. Federation of Labour President Irene Lanzinger will deliver the keynote address this morning.
“The Regional Conferences are a great way to highlight the important work of the labour movement, and to better understand the specific issues facing working people in different parts of the province,” says Lanzinger.
Issues to be discussed include the upcoming federal election, bullying and harassment in the workplace, an update on murdered and missing indigenous women , addressing poverty in the community and the campaign to boost the minimum wage to $15.
More than 80 delegates from around the region will be taking part in the conference.
Comments
I think the more important discussion should be why the BC Fed aligns itself lockstep with a provincial and federal political party that opposes resource development of any kind. No pipelines, no mining, no LNG, no Site C, etc., etc. Where do you think the $40 an hour+ jobs are? Giving guided tours of ‘spirit bears’? Building solar panels in Prince Rupert?
It’s time for the BC Fed to wake up and realize who keeps their members gainfully employed. It’s certainly not no no no Nathan Cullen and the Invisible Man John Horgan.
That has perplexed me also why the BC fed is against jobs.
The BC Fed should get over the ridiculous notion that ‘labour’ produces all wealth. The fact of the matter is, the world has been busily working at putting itself out of work at a faster pace than ever. And that’s going to continue, and likely at an even more accelerated pace if they ever got their $ 15 hr. minimum wage. In 1900 it took 50% of the population to be ‘down on the farm’ to grow enough grub to feed themselves and the other 50% that was employed elsewhere. Today that’s less than 3%, and we grow more grub for more people than ever before in human history! Similar statistics are available showing the same thing in virtually every other industry. If the number of completely useless, superfluous, and redundant “make work” jobs that still exist were even partially eliminated, unemployment numbers would skyrocket. And so, in all likelihood, would productive efficiencies. Economically, we’ve long ago solved the ‘production’ problem. The absolute ‘glut’ that would ensue if current productive capacities were ever fully utilised would literally bury us all in every manner of consumable imaginable. Our problem today is not one of scarcity, but of finding an effective way to ‘distribute’ what we’re already more than capable of producing. That’s a pure ‘money’ problem ~ and not one that’ll ever be solved by continuing to make MORE of anything that can’t be fully sold now, in the hopes that we can somehow sell the more again we’ve just made sometime in the future.
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