For
Your Information
Record Job Losses in Ontario
On February 18, the Financial Accountability
Office of
Ontario released the report Ontario's Labour
Market in 2020. The
report provides detailed data about the job
situation in Ontario for
the whole year of 2020. The data are indeed
alarming. Over the year,
355,300 jobs were lost, which is the largest
annual loss of employment
in
the history of the province. In addition,
342,690 more Ontarians had
close to no hours worked, while 67,350 worked
less than half
their usual hours. The total number of workers
affected by
loss of employment was 765,340, which is about
one in five Ontario
workers. This is a huge number of workers
affected, with all the
devastating consequences in terms of loss of
income, anxiety, mental
health problems of various kinds, family
problems, not to speak about the
further damage done to the economy.
While
the data are useful in terms of revealing the
extent of the
devastation, the report attributes the job
losses to the pandemic
alone, specifically to the measures taken to
lock down sectors of the
economy that were decreed by the government,
measures which reached
their peak during the spring. After the
relaxation of restrictions
during the
summer the second wave resulted in renewed
restrictions later in the
year until the end of 2020. The report does not
examine the occurrence
and impact of closures over the year that were
the decisions of companies, such as the
airlines, because their profits went down during
the pandemic. In essence, it is presented that
economic
collapse is an unavoidable result of COVID-19.
 That is what
workers cannot accept. It does not have to be
like
this. It is this way because our socialized
economy is organized to
ensure the profits of the narrow private
interests in control and
ownership of the economy and because those in
authority impose this aim
and claim there can be no other way to organize
the economy. Decisions
on
shutting down, as well as reopening without
guaranteeing safe conditions,
are motivated by this narrow aim, whatever the
costs for the people.
Workers
are presenting human-centred alternatives that
would be beneficial to
the health and safety of all and to the economy
but they are blocked
because they are not in control of the agenda
for society and don't have
decision-making power. In a recent news release,
the Canadian Union of
Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario proposes that
increased investment in public services would
provide productive
employment and
is badly needed in the current conditions. It
raises, for example, that
thousands of personal support workers are needed
in long-term care,
which is in crisis, that thousands of contact
tracers are needed for
public health units, and more education workers
are needed to
restructure schools to make them safe. Instead
of being reduced, mass
transit could be expanded, with more buses and
trains each carrying fewer
passengers, with constant cleaning and with
other workers
mobilized to assist passengers to use the
service safely.
Workers are demanding that agri-business,
construction and other
sectors be reorganized to provide safe working
conditions, taking into
account the need for physical distancing and
other safety measures,
mobilizing people to guarantee safe operation.
However the discussion
does not even get started because the aim of
guaranteeing companies'
profits is pitted against people's proposals
which are discarded on the
basis that if the costs for these companies
increase they may close
their operations.
The first thing that workers are doing within
this situation is rejecting the blackmail that
if they insist on the recognition of their
rights, then there will be no jobs. An economy
based on human-centred alternatives is not
only necessary but possible and the voice of
workers is crucial to make it so.
This article was published in
Voluem [volume] Number 9 - February 22, 2021 - No. 9
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2021/Articles/WO08094.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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