Posted: Tuesday, 29 November 2011

Sent to The Globe and Mail November 28, 2011

Gwyn Morgan uses his column to dump simultaneously on young Occupy protesters and on the labour movement (A history lesson for Occupy protesters). He says there is really no inequality in Canada to criticize. Try this. Since 1976 median earnings have barely inched up from $44,100 to $45,600 adjusted for inflation. That’s an increase in income of just $1,500 in a third of a century – less than $45 a year in real terms. There were 1,334,200 unemployed Canadians in September 2011. The unemployment rate among workers aged 15 to 24 was 14.0 per cent, and 48.2 per cent of that age cohort were employed only part-time. Mr. Morgan need not care about this. He is receiving a fat pension. His pal former CEO Jim Shaw, according to your newspaper, is drawing down a pension of $6 million a year. That’s $16,000 a day. He makes the maximum yearly Canada Pension Plan benefit every 17 hours.

This is what the Occupy protesters are talking about and it is why people in the labour movement are sympathetic to them.

Ken Georgetti
President, Canadian Labour Congress