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A Missed Opportunity in the British Columbia Teachers’ Labour Dispute
As the Canadian readers of this blog know, British Columbia’s elementary and secondary school teachers are currently engaged in a series of rotating strikes, because of the lack of progress in...
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Flawed Data, Questionable Results: International Monetary Fund Research Gets...
Research methodology scares a lot of people. There’s this idea that you need an advanced degree and very specialized education to design and conduct a research study. That isn’t always true – a lot of...
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A Look at the British Columbia Government’s Ad in the Teachers’ Bargaining...
In a high-profile collective bargaining situation, it’s not at all unusual for both unions and employers to try to sway public opinion in their favour. And the current bargaining dispute between the...
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The Coalition of BC Businesses and the BC Teachers’ Federation Court Case
The Coalition of BC Businesses has announced that it has applied for intervenor status in the British Columbia government’s appeal of the BC Supreme Court ruling ordering the government to restore...
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The British Columbia Public School Employers’ Association And Its Perspective...
This week, the British Columbia Public Schools Employers’ Association (BCPSEA) – the employers’ representative in the current collective agreement negotiations with the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) –...
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Is the BC Government Bargaining in Bad Faith?
This week, the British Columbia government announced that if the current strike by the British Columbia Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) extends into the start of the new school year, parents of public...
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The Canadian LabourWatch Association and Its Latest Anti-Union Poll
Last year, the Canadian LabourWatch Association got more publicity than it expected for its 2011 “State of the Unions” poll, after the Canadian Labour Congress filed a complaint with the Market...
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More About the Coalition of BC Businesses and the BC Teachers’ Federation...
This week, the Coalition of BC Businesses was formally granted intervenor status in the BC government’s appeal of the Supreme Court ruling in the government’s bargaining disputes with the BC Teachers’...
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The Fraser Institute’s (Not So) Rigorous Data Collection Methods
I’ve written a couple of posts about the questionable research and data collection methodologies of the notoriously right-wing Fraser Institute. But today I have to take my hat off to the researchers...
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30 Years of Dysfunction, and Probably More
On September 16, after nearly a week of intense negotiations, British Columbia’s premier, Christy Clark, announced that a new collective agreement had been reached with the BC Teachers’ Federation. The...
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Bill C-377: New Information on “The Bill That Nobody Wants”
Two researchers have uncovered some new and very troubling information about Bill C-377, the proposed Canadian law that would impose exceptionally rigorous financial reporting requirements on unions....
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“I’m Not An Expert”
A number of American media commentators have recently taken aim at the fallacy of the “I’m not a scientist” argument. “I’m not a scientist” is an increasingly popular statement from American...
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Public Sector Pay, Private Sector Pay, and the Fraser Institute
Last year, some of the research produced by the Vancouver-based Fraser Institute received some serious criticism. The Institute claims its work is based on “careful, accurate, rigorous measurement”....
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Amanda Lang, the CBC, and Journalistic Standards
Amanda Lang, CBC News’ “senior business correspondent” and the host of the CBC-TV show The Exchange with Amanda Lang, has recently been the subject of some controversy. In the last few weeks of 2014,...
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Society, Power, and “Hack Attack”
Nick Davies’ book Hack Attack is a powerful read. It’s the story of Davies’ investigation into the phone hacking conducted by several of the British newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News...
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Small Business letter to the Telegraph; an attempt to defraud the electorate?
Originally posted on sturdyblog:How the letter from small business owners to the Telegraph in support of the Tories fell apart UPDATE 21:00 The list is back up. Scanning it for changes. It was down for...
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Up Close and Personal with the UK General Election
Last month I spent two weeks in Britain, and purely by chance those two weeks were during the campaign leading up to the UK general election on May 7th. Elections are an incredibly important part of...
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Friday Follow-Ups
Updates on two posts from earlier this year: Sean Tucker and Andrew Stevens, two professors at the University of Regina, gave a speech at the university about the flawed polling that is being used to...
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Representing Business
Advocating for any kind of group is a difficult task, because of the responsibility of accurately representing the views of all the group members. In the case of advocating for businesses, the term...
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Calling for a Public Inquiry
There is a situation going on right now in my home province of British Columbia that is deeply distressing to me as a researcher, as an instructor who teaches courses about employment, and as a...
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