Roundup: Ford proposing more pay cuts targeted at women

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In case you were wondering how seriously the Ford government is taking contract negotiations with education workers, the answer is somewhere between “not seriously at all,” and “outright contemptuous.” They are proposing a two percent wage increase for education workers making under $40,000 and 1.25 percent for everyone else, which is an effective pay cut. It’s a pay cut when inflation is running around two percent, but when inflation is at eight percent, it’s a big pay cut. And while there is economic merit to not patching pay increases directly to inflation in times when it’s running high, lest you risk a wage spiral that keeps inflation high for longer, 1.25 and two percent are not only unrealistic, it’s insulting. And when you factor in the fact that most education workers are women, it adds a particularly sexist dimension to this effective pay cut, just as it was when they capped nurses’ salaries at one percent increases (which, again, is an effective cut when inflation is running normally around two percent). Doug Ford and his merry band of incompetent murderclowns have repeatedly shown that they don’t value the labour of women, and this latest offer just drives that home.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 174:

Russians continue shelling both Kharkiv, as well as towns and villages in the Donetsk region, though Ukrainian forces say that they have repelled more than a dozen attacks in the east and north of the country, including within the Donbas region (which Donetsk is part of). Shelling did continue in the area of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, while the International Atomic Energy Agency tries to have the plant declared a demilitarized zone (but good luck getting Russia to live up to its agreements).

Good reads:

  • A year after the fall of Kabul, and fewer than half of the promised Afghan refugees have made it to Canada yet (which the minister insists he’s working on).
  • The RCMP has updated their figures around Russian sanctions.
  • The public hearings in the Emergencies Act public inquiry will begin in September.
  • Airlines are pushing back against the incoming requirement for them to refund or rebook passengers if flights are cancelled for reasons beyond their control.
  • Leslyn Lewis claims that attracting immigrants means embracing social conservative values (note that Jason Kenney tried this approach and it failed).
  • Conservative MP Joël Godin says he may reconsider his political career if Poilievre wins the leadership.
  • Former Liberal MP Anita Neville has been named the new lieutenant governor of Manitoba (without any kind of process).
  • Alberta’s provincial Liberal Party cancelled their leadership contest because nobody wanted to run (which is a sad end to that party).
  • Professor Duane Bratt reminds us that Danielle Smith’s “Sovereignty Act” plans are not only unconstitutional, but they go against the very rule of law.

Odds and ends:

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