Publications

This pamphlet looks at seven facts that affect women and their economic well-being.  These facts include pay inequity, lack of child care and the economic effects of caregiving on women.

This leaflet describes the need for support of women in communities across Canada. It takes stock of the continued inequity faced by women and reflects on the challenges faced by Women's Centres and the services they offer 24/7. Finally, it is a call to recognize the hard work done by staff and the need for government action to support the workers and these services.

Why are Canadians charged some of the highest fees in the world which provide for some of the highest revenues while having some of the lowest rates of cell phone usage? Why is the government standing idly by refusing to play a role in regulating this industry?

This six-page pamphlet is for the people we meet during the Fairness Express campaign. In simple but detailed terms, it spells out why tax fairness, quality public services, labour rights, and a modern industrial strategy are all key to reducing income inequality.

The final report of the East Coast portion of the Fairness Express campaign, Income Inequality in Atlantic Canada details some of the many consequences of rising income inequality as discovered by NUPGE activists as they visited more than 30 communities in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Across the region, the activists people concerned about rising income inequality but unsure how it can be reduced, giving the activists a chance to engage in more than 3,000 one-to-one conversations about the ATN analysis.

Privatization is about corporations making a profit from public services. That doesn't change with new forms of privatization. This pamphlet looks at what behind new forms of privatization, what they look like and what we can do to fight them.

Governments across Canada and around the world are using Social Impact Bonds to privatize public services. This report looks at the problems, the costs, and the loss of accountability that come with Social Impact Bonds.

Social Impact Bonds are another way for governments to borrow money without it showing up on the books as debt.  IN the process social services are privatized with investor profits and the new layers of bureaucracy Social Impact Bonds require pushing up costs.  Because the intermediary organizations providing services must make a profit for investors, those most in need will have nowhere to go if it is too difficult or too expensive to help them.

Another pamphlet in the NUPGE series: Smart Money: Consumer self-defense for times like these. Scavengers in the debt crisis exposes the predatory nature of the Pay Day Loan industry in Canada. The piece explains the regulations by province, if any, to ensure readers understand what the companies can charge. The publication also sets out steps Canadians and our government can take to regulate the industry to protect people from outrageous interest and behaviour. The Smart Money series provides straightforward yet critical information on issues like these that families face today — and advice on how the public can fight back.

This paper provides an historical overview the scope of protection of workers' rights provided by Canadian courts in their interpretation of section 2(d) – freedom of association of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This primer counters all the myths surrounding 'Right to Work'' laws. Contrary to what the name suggests, 'Right to Work' laws have nothing to do with the right to paid employment. Instead, what they really do is make it easier for corporations to drive down wages for all workers. That’s why those who’ve seen what they do call them “Right to Work for Less” laws.

This pamphlet, published under the auspices of the National Union's Action on Retirees' Concerns (NUARC) Committee, offers a realistic, affordable and effective plan to rebuild and reform Canada's pension system.

This publication provides a summary of cases before the courts that challenge labour laws on the basis that they violate Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  It provides summaries of some 27 Charter challenges and is divided into three sections: challenges heard by the Supreme Court of Canada and decisions are pending; current challenges before the Courts; and, challenges where a final decision has been rendered in the last two years, either by the Supreme Court of Canada, or a lower Court and the decision was not appealed.

A sweatshop is a work environment where employees toil for long hours in unsafe conditions for low pay.  Sweatshop conditions are the norm in the apparel industry around the world and exist globally in many sectors.  It doesn't have to be this way.  Around the world, garment workers are organizing in their workplaces and communities to improve working conditions and end sweatshop abuses.  One of the best ways for us to support these workers is to become more conscious of what we buy and how it is made.  Better still we can change how our employers or governments purchase clothes and goods and services to pressure an industry to change. 'No Sweat' purchasing policies restrict a workplace to purchasing uniforms, goods and services that are made in factories that comply with internationally recognized labour standards based on Conventions of the United Nations and the International Labour Organization.  A 'No Sweat' policy says "no" to child labour, forced labour, discrimination, harassment and abuse, and "yes" to fair wages and hours of work as well as workers rights and safe, healthy working conditions.

Federal transfer payments to the provinces, through the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and the Canada Social Transfer (CST), help fund public Medicare, post-secondary education and other important public services.  These important blocks of funding will be re-negotiated in 2014 by Harper and the Premiers. We need to ensure these transfers are protected and strengthened.  The three fact sheets look at the facts and importance of these transfers for Public Post-Secondary Education, Community-based Social Services and Medicare.

Federal transfer payments to the provinces, through the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) and the Canada Social Transfer (CST), help fund public Medicare, post-secondary education and other important public services.  These important blocks of funding will be re-negotiated in 2014 by Harper and the Premiers. We need to ensure these transfers are protected and strengthened.  The three fact sheets look at the facts and importance of these transfers for Public Post-Secondary Education, Community-based Social Services and Medicare.

Access to the Internet is rapidly becoming a necessity for many in the developed and developing world. In a very real way access to the Internet, in particular the high-speed broadband capability, is becoming yet another defining factor between the world's haves and have-nots.  This digital divide exists both between countries and within a country. It is not only between the have countries of the developed world and the have-nots of the developing world but between rich and poor, urban and rural in Canada.  In addition, some corporations want to create a two-tier Internet that would allow them to slow or even block content that is not in their corporate interests.  This issue is called Network Neutrality the "principle that all Internet traffic be treated equally, regardless of origin, destination, or application type."  This is not an issue solely about corporate profit or the growing power of telecommunications companies - it is also about the rights of citizens to exercise control over one of the greatest innovations in communications history.  Should these companies succeed, it will undermine the Internet's level playing field and will make it much more difficult for the small and independent voice to be heard on the web.

Submission by the National Union to the Parliamentary Committee on the Review of the Progress in Implementing the 2004 Health Accord.  National Union members who work in health care have a wealth of experience and knowledge and an important perspective on the implementation of the 2004 Health Accord. The document presents comments and recommendations in the spirit of helping to improve and expand upon Canada's crown jewel of public programs - Medicare.

A tool to be used during election campaigns asking candidates for public office to pledge to make health care a priority issue.  Candidates declare their support and, if elected, commitment to work for the implementation of three items of a health care agenda:  1) an end to the expansion of private, for profit, health care; 2) improving and expanding Senior Care services; and 3) the establishment of a national PharmaCare program to cover not just catastrophic medications but all medically necessary drugs.

The Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) was initiated by the governments of Alberta and British Columbia in April 2006.  An inter-provincial trade agreement designed to "free" trade and commerce between the two provinces. TILMA is clearly of business, by business and for business. " Its sweeping  provisions impact almost everything our governments do, and affect every level of government as well as hospitals and school boards. The two provinces are already talking about expanding the agreement across the country.

The Quality of Women's Lives project focuses on the issue of life/work balance and the additional stresses women face balancing their family responsibilites with their workplace responsibilities.  The National Union conducted a survey which identified the reality that women are experiencing increased stress juggling issues such as child care and elder care, growing personal and health concerns, workplace pressures and economic insecurity.  The Key Findings of the Quality of Women's Lives Survey is a compilation of the results of the survey as well as the latest research statistics.

Why don't we have a national home care program yet?

Conference Report outlines tricks of privatization industry and tactics to fight back.

"Fighting privatization will not be easy. But as we learned during the International Conference on the New Forms of Privatization, it's a fight that we can and will win," says NUPGE National President James Clancy.

For many people and for many reasons: unions matter.

NUPGE publishes a quarterly journal dedicated to the myriad ways in which unions matter and it’s unlike anything else you've seen. Quips, quotes and even the occasional quatrain from people like Matt Damon, Ken Dryden, the Pope, J. K. Rowling, Bruce Springsteen, Rick Mercer, Martin Luther King Jr., Tommy Douglas and, of course, Homer Simpson.

This is a guide to aid NUPGE Components in negotiating fair and reasonable Essential Services language in the event of a labour disputre.

SIB repayment grid for Colleges and Institutes Social Impact Pilot

How to protect public services.

NUPGE's submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance and the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce on the problems with the proposed legislation to set up the Canada Infrastructure Bank in Division 18 of Bill C-44, the 2017 budget implementation bill.