Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Karl Russell and Peter Goodman note that lower unemployment rates in the U.S aren't translating into higher wages. Alena Semuels points out the barriers preventing people from moving in order to pursue a higher income. And Kevin Brice-Lall interviews Jonathan Rosenblum about the need for activism to push beyond the initial fight for a $15 minimum wage:

What can you tell us about the business backlash in Seattle — how did they fight the movement for a $15 minimum wage? Given the Ontario Liberal Party’s promise of a $15 minimum, what advice do you have for activists currently fighting against business lobby?
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It’s critical for us to recognize what produces concessions in the first place. In my experience bargaining union contracts and negotiating with politicians, I’ve found that it’s easy to overestimate the importance of what happens at the bargaining table. When I’ve led union negotiations I’ve emphasized to bargaining team members that what we win in the end depends 90 percent on what we do outside of bargaining, and only 10 percent on what takes place inside the room.

There are three related principles that constitute the bedrock of effective movement work in politics. First, a clear recognition that anything and everything we win in the political arena isn’t the product of political enlightenment by the establishment; it’s a concession to our power.

Second, a recognition that power — the ability to shape and influence things — is what we get when we band together and take action, whether in the streets, workplace, in halls of parliament, or through political campaigns. Our power is a function of our demonstrated ability to harm, punish, or embarrass our adversaries, to disrupt their agenda. There are no gimmicks or shortcuts to building collective worker power. And third, an understanding that the balance of power is not static, and we have to keep organizing or we’ll lose whatever gains we’ve achieved.

- Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt discusses how the decline of retail sales (at least through many familiar businesses such as Sears) figures to affect political dynamics in Canada.

- Joe Gunn highlights how Canadians are still waiting for a federal government to start fulfilling the promise of reducing poverty.

- Sara Mojtehedzadeh reports on Ontario's new guidelines for mental health claims which (like those of too many other provinces) establish an unfair double standard. And Benoit Denizet-Lewis points out the alarming increase in anxiety among teens.  

- Finally, Alex MacPherson reports on a legal opinion from Manitoba showing (to nobody's surprise) that Brad Wall's posturing against federal climate change policy has no basis in reality.