How many weeks must a Pete’s Frootique worker work to earn what its parent company pays its CEO for just one hour?

Pete’s Frootique workers on the picket line in front of the grocery store in Halifax. Sobeys-owned Pete’s Frootique offered its workers a wage increase below even what will be the provincial minimum wage in April. And then refused to budge until a sure-to-be-embarrassing National Day of Protest shamed it into settling. Is this the best […]

Let us eat cake

Since 1971, Nova Scotians have been paying the price for Michelin’s success. And not just with grants and loans and the rest. We’ve been paying with our sovereignty and self-respect too. This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner October 29, 2018. Granton, Nova Scotia: Michelin North America (Canada) Inc. today announced two new projects at […]

Memo to Stephen McNeil: beware teachers bearing frustration

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner February 26, 2018. Cast your mind back to October 25, 2016. The date will be significant. Before that day, Stephen McNeil’s Liberal government seemed to be in full control of its anti-public-sector-worker agenda. The executive of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union was preparing — […]

The Chronicle Herald strike meets the ‘final option’

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on July 17, 2017. For the sake of the 53 reporters and editors still walking the picket line at the Halifax Chronicle Herald, part of me hopes super-mediator-arbitrator-industrial inquiry commissioner William Kaplan is able — through an initial stage of mediation next month — to find a quick […]

Sears stiffs its staff while vulture capitalists profit. Discuss

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on July 10, 2017. On Friday, I was mindlessly meandering the aisles of my local Superstore, foraging for food and filling time, when I chanced on a conversation at the pharmacy. A man was paying for a prescription. “Just six dollars,” the woman behind the counter said […]

Stephen McNeil: are Nova Scotians just parking their votes and keeping score?

What a difference a week — or a poll — makes. On December 6, Corporate Research released its quarterly snapshot of the state of play in Nova Scotia politics, and it seemed to be more of the same-old, same-old, ho-hum, nothing-to-see-here-folks, move-along news story. CRA concluded the governing Nova Scotia Liberals remained our “preferred party” […]

Mark Never, Grant Machum and ‘Graham Dennis isn’t around to save you anymore’

When the Halifax Chronicle Herald’s reporters and editors went on strike last January, I, like many readers, cancelled my subscription as a least-we-could-do gesture to support those journalists who produce the news that made the Herald an actual newspaper, and not just another advertising flyer. Although I’d grown up with and subscribed for more than […]

Do teenage athletes playing for for-profit teams deserve the same protections as other workers?

Bobby Smith, majority owner of the Halifax Mooseheads, wasn’t available to talk to reporters last week about government changes to labour laws exempting his QMJHL team from paying its teenaged hockey players minimum wage, or vacation pay, or limiting the hours they work. No matter. The government’s press release helpfully quoted Smith, declaring teams like […]

Is Joan Jessome most hated woman in Nova Scotia?

Let’s start with a question: is Joan Jessome the most hated woman in Nova Scotia? Google “Joan Jessome” and “hated,” and you’ll get 5,630 hits in less than a Google second. The top three results are news stories following the December 11, 2015, announcement she would be retiring as president of the Nova Scotia […]

Sarah Dennis apologizes… but ignores the reason she had to

Chronicle Herald publisher Sarah Dennis was contrite. Under the headline, “We Have Listened And Will Learn From This,” she wrote about her newspaper’s mis-handling of the infamously viral story that “should not have been released.” She seemed forthright: “apologize,” “failure of foresight,” “acknowledge our mistakes,” “accept and try to learn from criticism…” But nowhere in […]