leftwingmememachine

This announcement from the federal government came after significant pressure from the NDP:

• The BCNDP has implemented such a program and the newly elected Manitoba NDP is taking steps in that direction
• A month ago, the federal NDP was pushing for a national school lunch program in the next budget and had private talks with the Liberals about it
• 10 days ago, the federal NDP passed a motion to call on the gov to fund this program
• Advocacy groups put significant pressure on the government, too

I am happy to see this step towards ending child hunger and its great that the NDP is getting some nice little victories in the minority government.

Details: https://usw.ca/ajax-starbucks-workers-vote-yes-for-union-united-steelworkers/

Do you work at Starbucks? Learn more about the union drive across Canada at https://www.betterworknow.ca/starbucks

Full-time and senior part-time workers will receive an unprecedented pay increase of $2.00 per hour within months. With all workers, full and part-time, receiving an immediate, upfront wage hike of $1.50/hour.

The new deal contains an overall wage improvement of $4.50 per hour for full-time and senior part-time workers and $3.20 for non-senior part-time workers, over the duration of the contract. New hourly rates will reach $25.05/hour for full-time clerks and significantly higher wages for part-time clerks —improvements that some frontline grocery workers describe as “life-changing.”

Back-of-the envelope math puts this at over a 20% raise over the lifetime of the agreement, outpacing inflation.

This is a very good deal, huge for the sector and hopefully precedent-setting. Congratulations to Unifor members at Metro. Strikes are hard.

Some credit as well should go to the union leadership, who immediately backed the workers when they rejected their first agreement and instead opted to strike

As I've discussed earlier in on Reddit, Unifor has recently elected new leadership who want to take the union in a more militant direction:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ndp/comments/wl54ld/lana_payne_a_former_journalist_who_built_her/

Context: Unifor 'appalled' following Ontario Education Minister's comments on child pronouns

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2023/08/29/stephen-lecce-ontario-child-pronouns-schools-canada-unifor/