Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your year.

- Armine Yalnizyan writes about the ongoing struggle for workers' rights a century after the Winnipeg General Strike:

Most workers have no channels for acting, or even talking, collectively. That may be changing. Here in Canada, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers launched a campaign in May to organize Foodora’s bicycle and car couriers in Toronto, in hopes of providing access to basic workers’ rights. In June, 300 Uber drivers in the Greater Toronto Area formed a union with the United Food and Commercial Workers to push back against unfair labour practices. 

Workers are starting to rediscover the role of collective action and unions because there seems to be no bottom to how some employers will exploit them. 

...

One hundred years ago, people rose up against the status quo. Today, people are rising up against attempts to dismantle the status quo, turning back the clock on hard-won rights and freedoms.

- The Economic Policy Institute charts what should be some of the U.S.' top economic priorities for the year to come.

- Don Pittis offers some suggestions as to how to turn the tide to fight the climate crisis in 2020. Doug Cuthand muses as to how we'll remember the coming decade. And Rick Salutin writes that we're out of time to merely hope for the best rather than engaging in immediate action.

- The Victoria Times-Colonist's editorial board recognizes the problems in leaving long-term senior care in the hands of the private sector. And R E Klaber and S Bailey study the importance of including kindness as a governing principle in health care, rather than focusing solely on immediate dollars and cents.

- Finally, Jane Philpott makes the case for the decriminalization of drug possession as the solution to the opioid crisis.