Working Progress
We interviewed Ashlynn Chand about some great reporting she did on Amazon’s union-busting at the Nisku warehouse. We discuss our government’s alignment with corporate interests at the expense of workers and how politicians co-opt working class struggles. And we even detail some recent victories in the labour movement in Alberta.
Edmonton Raises Police Budget to $407M, City Councillors Gaslight About Concerns
🎵 Intro Music – “Not Alone” by Melafrique
Oumar Salifou (Host)
Hi, welcome back to the podcast. I’m joined again today with Nicholas for another episode where we’re planning on going through a few topics. So to start the episode, we’re going to talk a little bit about police funding and recent changes that were influenced by crime in Chinatown.
We’re going to move into labour and focus most of the episode talking about some new changes to labour that are happening in Alberta, talking about the value of workers in the province and generally across Canada. And a little bit also about the worker resistance that’s happened just based on some of the labour practices, but also certain events that have taken place in Alberta. So, yeah. Nicholas, how’s it going?
Nicholas (Producer)
Yeah, not too bad. I think it’s good to be finally doing an episode where we’re able to touch on some more of these topics. I think even just in personal conversations, and in what we’ve been paying attention to in the world around us, we’ve seen a lot of stuff around the labour movement and a lot of stuff has just become a lot more pressing — obviously, over decades, but especially over the last couple of years here and throughout the pandemic, and even you could say exacerbated in the last few months coming out of the pandemic.
Yeah, it’s just a topic that we care a lot about and that we want to touch on more in this podcast. So yeah, glad to be talking more about that in this episode. But yeah, I definitely wanted to follow up from a lot of what we had discussed in the last episode regarding the police and municipal response to violence in Chinatown, and just those all too familiar cycles of growing police power.
Just earlier this week, Edmonton City Council voted to increase the city’s budget for the police to an astounding $407 million. So we finally broke that ceiling past $400 million, and that was also approved by city council in a vote of 12 – 1. So this was not a split decision whatsoever. That’s pretty much the entire city council.
Oumar
Mm-hmm. And I think to add insult to injury, as cliché as that may sound, here’s a quote from Andrew Knack specifically about how the city is proposing to raise property taxes in order to make up for police budget shortfalls essentially. So here’s a quote from Andrew Knack:
“I think there’s a lot of folks who would understand that if we have a declining fund that is no longer getting the same amount of money that was going to help, in part, the police, that they’ll be OK with their tax dollars offsetting that amount to make them whole again.”
So when he says “them,” I’m assuming that he’s referring to police. And I feel like this comment, especially kind of got to me when I read it just because of how much it just speaks for people. Obviously, these politicians “represent” us, but I don’t think they often take the chance to speak so explicitly in the shoes of people by saying that we’d be okay with spending more money for this $400M+ service. Yeah, pretty rich if you ask me. I certainly don’t want my money going towards more police, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of people feel the same way. But Andrew Knack obviously disagrees.
Nicholas
Yeah. I don’t know if you can hear that. We’re dealing with a little bit of traffic noise here. I’m not really sure what that is, but I actually thought that it wouldn’t be as loud now that the Oilers are out of the playoffs… thankfully. But yeah, we're still dealing with a little bit of that over here, I guess.
But yeah, very disturbing comments from Andrew Knack. Those were actually comments that he provided the week before the vote to increase the police budget. So I guess at that point, he was just kind of speculating. And I remember seeing this article where he made these comments saying that Edmontonians are going to be willing to pay more and just seeing that as kind of an ominous sign for council’s support for a greater police budget. And of course that ended up coming to fruition.
It’s also, I would say, disturbing just how quickly this all happened after, a couple of years ago, we saw councillors hashtagging BLM , feigning their solidarity with marginalized and oppressed communities who have experienced and vocalized their concerns about police brutality and lack of police accountability. It’s been very quick to make a full 180º and now enthusiastically support greater police power directly at the cost of citizens, or of the the people here, who are going to be be policed.
And especially from councillors like I guess Andrew Knack who… I would say Andrew Knack is typically thought of as a more liberal or at least like centre left city councillor. So definitely to hear this kind of rhetoric from him is just an indicator of how clear the support for police funding and police power is on our city council currently.
Oumar
Yeah, this 180º definitely has me pretty depressed if I’m being completely honest. Because thinking back to how much lip service was given towards police reform, people talking about defunding in a relatively serious term. And even a few weeks ago, city council was debating on whether or not they should continue to adopt the police funding formula, which we know has kept police funds going up for years now. They also were debating freezing the budget. So that was on the table. It seemed like it was going to be a pretty close vote. The vote got moved and pushed to a few months later so they had more time to investigate the funding formula.
And then in the meantime, essentially what we saw was some pretty open public political pressure coming from a few places, coming from the police union. We saw a lot of weaponizing of this violence in Chinatown, disorder on the LRT transit system and on transit generally. Those things were directly used to essentially justify more police funding, blame these problems on a supposed defunding of the police when we know that they received more money, and essentially also put in this false notion that the solution to these problems is, of course, more police. I think we all know, these problems existed before and they will continue to exist even though we’ve continued to increasingly fund police.
And the other side of public pressure on council definitely came from the Justice Minister, Tyler Shandro. He came in, and if we can find the clip here, it might be useful to play. But I’ll try to paraphrase it. Essentially had a press conference announcing more money for Crime Stoppers. $800,000 over three years for this Crime Stoppers organization. And during the press conference he talked about Chinatown, got a bunch of facts wrong about what’s going on with police funding in Edmonton, what happened with certain crimes in Edmonton. But he still criticized council heavily, and said that the province would step in if council didn’t take police funding seriously and didn’t come up with what they later requested, which was a plan to address public safety.
Under all of this public pressure, council folded. And they gave the police exactly what they wanted, and basically unanimously did so. So, very disappointing. I think it maybe shows how little we should probably invest in council, and how much importance should be put in trying to find alternatives, as difficult as that is. I’ll be the first person to acknowledge the fact that thinking of alternatives and implementing alternatives to what we currently have is incredibly difficult.
But I think it’s worth starting that difficult work for sure.
Nicholas
Yeah. The way you laid it out, I think is I would say the logical narrative or that’s kind of how it played out in the media. Not to get all conspiracy theory here — I say this word all the time, but it is very sinister how that sequence of events happened. And it’s hard to not think that that was very deliberate. And just going back to… because there’s just a gold mine of Andrew Knack quotes on this subject, here:
“Knack acknowledged the city heard calls to reform policing and boost money for alternatives in the 2020 public hearings, and he would like to see how the city can fund more safety programs alongside police. Recently, though, he’s also heard from others that EPS should get even more money, he said.”
So the way that the Edmonton Journal covered that here, and the way that Andrew Knack is spinning the narrative seems very deliberate in order to try and pivot the messaging towards clear support for police. So I do think that it's hard to not see this whole sequence of events as a very deliberate attempt to pivot public discourse, and as they would hope, public sentiment towards greater support for police.
And as we now know, that resulted in an increase to the police budget where the city is now giving them $407 million, and the council is in support of returning to this Don Iverson funding formula which basically guarantees the police more money every year or this reliable base amount of money for their budget that we basically just trust them with.
So yeah, that’s where we are now. And there’s some more quotes from the city council alongside this article announcing the increase. Councillor Ashley Salvador is saying the base amount will provide certainty.
“It’s very clear, Edmontonians absolutely expect us to deliver policing as a basic core service and adequately fund police.”
Again, these very deliberate quotes that are meant to drive public sentiment in favour of the police. You know, even Aaron Paquette, another councillor who I think is largely thought of as a more liberal or centre centre left councillor, he’s saying times are changing and the way we do policing is changing, but we still need to basically give the police this money so that they can continue to do their job in the meantime. So I guess trying to downplay concerns from the community or trying to push this more pragmatic approach kind of messaging.
And Sarah Hamilton here is trying to make the argument that the funding formula will actually make the police service take on more financial risk. And what she says is:
“It makes the police more accountable because they have to give their best estimate on the resources they need to provide policing to the community.”
That’s just so clearly wrong. Basically writing the police a blank cheque that keeps getting bigger every year absolutely does not make the police more accountable. Oumar, what’s your take on that?
Oumar
No, I don’t know where that kind of thinking goes in. But if anything, it reminds me more and maybe brings me more to your side of like conspiracy theory kind of stuff where it’s like — this narrative is being pushed out and then everything is just being made to fit within that, regardless of if it’s true or not.
This idea that somehow — because the police have to report what they need, because that’s the way that they get money — that’s going to keep them more accountable, completely ignores the fact that their budget is completely private. Essentially, we don’t get, you know, this line by line breakdown.
Nicholas
Oh, yeah, sorry. And just interrupt — the things we do know… We just found out today the police chief’s salary is $340,000. That itself is obviously peanuts compared to the $4M they’re spending on a new plane. The millions that they… or was it $1M that they spent on that tank? Something like that.
Anyways… maybe we didn’t mention this on a previous episode, but the councillor, Karen Principe said, “I don’t know where the police budget goes, but if they say they need a plane, then I trust that they need a plane.”
So clearly there’s no accountability going on here. Even the city councillors don’t know where the police budget goes, where this $400M goes, and they don’t even question kind of egregious spending on things like a plane.
Oumar
What council might say here in this whole conversation about accountability… When they refuse to hold this accountability, I think a lot of the time what happens is they say, “oh, this is the police commission’s job.” You know, “we’re just here to do what the police commission recommends.” But then you have councillors like councillor [Anne Stevenson], who is on the police commission, who’s bringing up all these red flags about lack of accountability, lack of transparency on the police commission and gets directly attacked, you know, multiple times, and is called out for employing someone who’s supposedly anti-police. And somehow her employment of this person is, you know, a conflict of interest and this is a reason why she shouldn’t be on the commission.
Or, you know, people going after Michael Janz, for example, repeatedly. And I feel like these are just cases to show that, you know, you can pass on the blame and then when we get to situations where people are actually accountable, then we can just move in and try to remove people who have the actual power or are on these commissions that are supposed to control the police. And those commissions are, again, tightly controlled. And people who do have these concerns who raise these flags get complaints filed against them that are almost always baseless, but I think also serve as a good intimidation tool, as a good tool to put pressure on people to make them realize that there are consequences for the critiques that they level.
And this like new term that people like to throw around of “anti-police” as if there’s this dichotomy of pro vs. anti, and not just a very clear understanding and analysis of the situation that we’re in, and a realization of what the solutions are needed to get out of that situation.
Nicholas
We’re anti, though.
Oumar
Yeah. If we’re going to think in those terms, I think you can guess where we are. But I’ll proudly wear that badge because quite honestly, I don’t think that it can have the negative impact that the people who use it think it would, at least not on my life. But yeah, it’s a sad state that we’re in for sure.
Nicholas
Yeah. And I also just want to mention that the whole idea of returning to the funding formula, I think why that’s really important and why something that the police would really push for is that that in itself is really a way of driving public sentiment in favor of the police. So just to explain that a little more, some things that we’ve pointed out in the past are just the way that the media tends to cover any kind of change to the police budget.
You know, if the police budget is increased, but perhaps not as much as they were expecting, the way the headlines are run is that they are getting less than they expected. So it sounds like they’re getting a cut in their budget. And that makes people think that the police are under attack. That allows the police to come out and say that they’re under attack. And that drives public sentiment in favor of the police.
To explain why, I guess in this case, they increased the city’s police budget from $385M to $407M is apparently because the police used to get a certain amount of money from photo radar that I guess going forward the province is going to be keeping more of their money. So in order to make up for that, I guess the city is going to be paying that money and now giving the police $407M. And I think that’s the ostensible reason given for it, but I think that money actually even more than makes up what they said they would be out due to the lack of money from photo radar.
So anyways, that’s a little bit of context here. But that money from photo radar isn’t something that was part of the public discussion before. Like, before we just thought $385M for police, that’s an enormous amount of money. We’re not thinking that they’re also getting additional money there from photo radar. So to come back now and say, “well, we actually we’re getting this $20M from photo radar. So now we’re not going to get that going forward or potentially not going to get that, the city needs to give us more money.” That’s kind of just moving the goalposts here!
And the way that this discussion was covered when the media was writing about council’s upcoming decision to either increase the budget to match this loss of revenue from photo radar or not, the whole way the media was framing it is like, “is the police going to potentially lose this money?” So again, the media really has this tendency to cover things in a way that drives public sentiment towards police, and introducing a funding formula back into the mix just creates this increasing baseline for expected police funds against which the media is always going to measure further discussions or changes to the police budget. So it’s always going to seem like the police budget is under attack or that the police are getting budget cuts, when in reality that number is just going up and up and up.
Oumar
And just to touch on like a quick point on the media there, I think that was a really good media analysis in the sense that a lot of newsrooms, a lot of the beats, a lot of the stories and the reporting there, the manpower that’s put towards covering things is done in favour or is beholden to these institutions like the police.
So the centre of stories or the focus of stories is always going to be in that position of what is threatening this institution? What are this institution’s interests, where are they positioned in relation to how they used to be or how they might be in the future? And the position of a regular citizen, of someone who’s marginalized on the street who might be policed victims of police brutality, these are all separate, maybe unique, one-off stories. These aren’t a part of the typical main narrative, unless they’re inserted in there. When we have regular stories or regular coverage of city hall budget decisions, police lobbying City Hall for more funding, or general budget conversations. So yeah, I feel like that framing is also almost an inherent part of the way news is built up and it’s history, really.
Nicholas
Yep. So we’ll try and keep a good pulse on what’s going on here, but it looks like we’re sticking to the unfortunate status quo here.
Oumar
Mm-hmm.
Canadian Parliament Laughs at Working Class Struggles
Nicholas
Okay, so we wanted to talk a little bit about something that happened in the House of Commons this week where Jagmeet Singh, leader of the federal NDP, tries to bring up the issue of inflation and Canadians not being able to afford groceries or gas. I’m not sure why… okay, I don’t pay attention to what goes on in parliament sittings, but I’m not sure why this would be like novel or maybe the first sentence would be brought up, because obviously people have been going through this for many months.
But basically what happened was that… and you can go to his TikTok, I guess, not to plug his TikTok, but this is where the video is. Basically, other MPs — and he labels them as Conservative MPs — start laughing, and then he can’t finish his point because they’re laughing. And then the Speaker of the House — is it the Speaker of the House? Parliament? Am I getting American and Canadian mixed up?
Oumar
I think it’s the Speaker of the House. I’m pretty sure it’s the Speaker of the House.
Nicholas
Yeah, asks him to restart and then he just points out that he had to restart because they were laughing at the idea of people not being able to afford their groceries. So anyways, Oumar you actually brought this to my attention. What are your thoughts here?
Oumar
Yeah, I thought it was a really interesting video. Obviously, the reaction, the focus in the video is this laughter that comes after the comment that is made about Canadians not being able to afford groceries, basic necessities because of inflation. Companies are raking in record high profits and the NDP wants to tax those companies and put money right into people’s pockets.
And at first, I was a little bit confused as to who exactly the laughter might have been directed to. Because I think Jagmeet Singh has been the victim of a lot of pointed harassment, basically about his decision to align himself with Justin Trudeau. So part of me was thinking, what if they’re just laughing at him? But then I read more comments and I realized that there’s a pretty high possibility that these politicians are just basically laughing at the statements that he’s making, and basically laughing at the fact that millions of Canadians are essentially struggling to pay their basic necessities.
They could be laughing at that. They could also be laughing at this idea that companies are making record high profits. The reason I say that is because a lot of conservatives and the finance side of media has criticized this talking point by saying that this is normal, that every business needs to be directed and is directed towards making profit and revenue. So if that happens, that’s inherently a good thing, regardless of the circumstances, which I think we’re going to talk more about later. But I think we can clearly see why that’s wrong when we have, you know, people struggling to make, you know, basic basic food, basic rent, basic utility payments.
So yeah, I thought when I saw the video, it reinforced this kind of inherent disrespect that I think is coming down constantly from what you might call the ruling class or people who are in positions to own capital. People who are in positions to control levers of power, I think are pretty disrespectful, very condescending towards working people in Canada who not only struggle to provide for themselves, but also are really propping up this entire system. They are the ones — we are the ones who provide value, who make sure that Canada even runs to begin with. Yet these are also the same people who get laughed at and who get ridiculed, or who have someone who’s speaking on their behalf get ridiculed.
So yeah, it’s a pretty disgusting situation in my opinion. But the fact that it can happen so brazenly and so openly and so publicly, I think definitely speaks to the current situation we have now. So that’s kind of my take on it. That’s kind of what I thought.
Nicholas
Yeah. Actually, I do still think it’s unclear who was laughing and what they were laughing at. I think all that’s clear is that he saw this as an opportunity to paint it as you just described. I think something you also mentioned is that Jagmeet Singh has gotten a lot of criticism for aligning himself with the Liberals and basically, by doing so, just undermining his whole party’s agenda.
And I think what is perhaps equally condescending and elitist as what Jagmeet Singh is saying is laughter from Conservative members of parliament towards members of the working class who are struggling, is his own use of the working class’ struggles as a pawn in his own political game to paint himself as an advocate for this group of people that he, through his own actions, has really failed and set himself up to fail to actually help.
Oumar
No, absolutely. I think that's a very important point to make, because there have been several opportunities for the federal NDP to make deeper connections and more meaningful connections with working class people to represent them in a meaningful way, to pass policies that would benefit them in a meaningful way. And I think it does nothing to help the NDP’s characterization as “Liberals in a hurry” to align with the federal Liberals and create a coalition government basically to allow them to rule.
And I think it also makes it very difficult for him to credibly criticize Justin Trudeau who, in my opinion, has been relatively disastrous for workers. It makes it very hard to criticize him credibly if you are giving him a bunch of power instead of really standing on your own, which is very difficult to do. But I think it is what should have been done, in my opinion, standing on your own as a party and giving people real policies, giving people real alternatives that they can support on their own, that you can lead with and that you can go to an election with.
Because I think what the NDP often does, and I think especially provincially — and we just saw them lose in Ontario recently to a pretty weak Doug Ford government, if you ask me. We have an election coming up in Alberta. And what the NDP does, at least in my opinion and what I’ve seen, is they love attacking what other parties are doing. I think they love latching on to current policy. But what they don’t do is provide a very clear tangible working policy or option or alternative for people to actually buy into. Because I think it’s very simple and very easy to point the finger or to base all of your policies off not doing what the other people are doing. But to actually give people something is a completely different story.
Nicholas
Yeah, that’s right. And I mean, in this situation here where essentially he is in power because of how he’s aligning himself with the Liberal government, what he’s offering a solution is just the ultimate platitudes. He just says “we want to tax these excess profits.” Obviously, that’s not going to happen because the reason those aren’t getting taxed is because of loopholes that obviously are not getting closed. And “we’re going to put that directly into the pockets of workers.” That literally means nothing. I guess it sounds nice, maybe if it’s the first time you’re hearing it. But this is kind of what politicians always say when they’re using the working class as pawns in order to bolster their own seat of power.
And then what he’s reduced to — because he has his hands tied behind his back, he isn’t able to really criticize the people in power, he isn’t able to criticize what's being done about the inflation situation or what is being done to support workers and ordinary people — he just has to paint it as “the conservatives are laughing, and I care about people.” And that’s really all it just gets reduced to.
So anyways, I think the takeaways here are obviously everyone knows that inflation is happening and is experiencing inflation. I think this is just a window into how and why nothing is getting done about it in our federal government.
Oumar
No, absolutely. And yeah, I think there’s also something to be said about the fact that the NDP aren’t advocating against capitalism, a system that inherently causes inflation, which we know impacts workers the most who have to deal with higher costs of living and stagnant wages. So yeah, I have very little support or understanding for a party that still supports this disastrous system and has no interest in even speaking critically about it publicly.
Nicholas
Yeah, I think at one point there was a little bit more hope for the federal NDPs. Provincially, we basically always had a Conservative NDP party here, at least in like in any kind of recent memory when they’ve actually been close to power. But yeah, it is very sad to see how the federal NDP party has been diminished post-Coalition.
Oumar
Mm-hmm.
Alberta Government Prioritizes Corporate Interests at Expense of Workers
Nicholas
Yeah. So we saw this article just come out today about how the Alberta oil industry is having some issues recruiting workers. So basically, this article highlights that — it’s actually weird that they frame it as we’ve gone through a downturn and a recession, I guess they’re kind of talking about maybe a little bit more of an isolated oil recession that happened in 2015 and 2016. And now that things are booming in the Alberta oil industry, they’re having trouble finding workers.
So the president of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada says that they’re going to different lengths to recruit people. Cringily they say “whether it’s the South Asian community, the Filipino community, Latin community, we’re using different languages to attract people back into this industry.” But then something that she also says is that the provincial government is looking at making temporary foreign workers more accessible. Oh sorry nevermind, she didn’t actually say that. It was the Canadian Association of Energy Contractors says the provincial government is looking at making temporary foreign workers more accessible.
What do you think?
Oumar
Yeah, this is a great example of a very historic trend from the beginning of settler Canada. Bringing in migrant workers to build the railroad across Canada to today, where we have essentially an advertisement in the news saying that we have this boom and bust market. We have all these opportunities that were essentially cut because of market downturns that are now available.
Again, these opportunities aren’t being taken up by our local population for whatever reason. Usually those reasons involve low pay, a lot of sacrifice being made for having to relocate, several factors that are probably not being compensated. And the solution to that is to bring in more black and brown and Asian faces from other countries that are happy and willing to be exploited on our terms to fill these jobs.
Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like these policies, to their very core, are incredibly rotten and exploitative. Yet the entire framing of this article, and I think the framing of the conversation when these things are brought up, is entirely done in favour of the employer, and whatever the employer’s needs are, whatever the industry’s needs are. While we literally bring in people from other countries for the sole purpose of doing this unwanted labour. And shipping them out essentially because they’re temporary, they’re not meant to be Canadians, they’re only here to do our dirty work.
And that’s supposed to also be benefiting them. Because I think when this is done too, we don’t view it as them necessarily helping us. We’re always put in this position where we’re giving support, or we’re giving people opportunities to make more money than they would elsewhere. Also, without ever factoring in why we live in a global economy where one place is livable with wages and the other places are not, and Canada’s role to play in that as well.
But yeah, I think that’s kind of my takeaway from the situation. And I definitely focused a lot on this comment on temporary foreign workers and just all this lobbying being done for the oil industry and the opportunities that they have here.
Nicholas
Yeah. I think it was also reminding me a little bit of what we saw a couple of years ago. And I don’t think this was covered necessarily well enough at the time, but the whole COVID outbreaks at meatpacking plants, and just how that was so clearly handled by the province in a way that would align with the priorities of those meatpacking plants rather than trying to protect those workers or to just build a society that takes care of the people that are providing or that are creating the value here.
So yeah, not to get into too much detail recapping that, but basically there were just these COVID outbreaks at the facilities. And despite all of the caution in other sectors around protecting people or trying to keep people at a distance, it was just very clear here that they didn’t want to shut down these plants or enforce any kind of workplace safety measures because they wanted to prioritize the continued operation and profit of these companies.
And there was even that whole kind of scandal where Deena Hinshaw, who at the time was like just idolized across the — I wouldn’t say across the province, but among the kind of liberal elite circles, I guess I would say. She was talking about the “strong work ethic of the Filipino workers because of their culture.”
Oumar
Never a question of why these people have to supposedly have this strong work ethic. You know, maybe it might be because we’re exploiting them at a very strong level. You know, I don’t know if that’s ever a factor in these comments. But yeah, a pretty racist comment here. And just like tapping into these people’s inherent exploitative relationship with the place that they’re in and what their employers want.
Nicholas
It’s very similar just to the whole sentiment that maybe still exists. But for a long time, it was in textbooks how Black people are just stronger and like don’t need anesthesia, are tougher and can handle more pain. Really similar rhetoric. So just what was being said here, right? But yeah, I mean, ultimately it took someone dying in order for them to actually close down one of those facilities.
And anyway, when I saw this article about the oil patch and them looking to the province looking to increase the number of temporary foreign workers available to fill this gap in the job market in the oil sands, it just really reminded me of that kind of disregard for the lives of the working class that’s been been demonstrated for us before.
Oumar
Yeah. I really resent the fact that in so many different cases when issues are brought up at the government level, it almost takes a warm body or someone who just died in order to successfully advocate for some kind of change or stoppage, or any kind of reform, whether good or bad.
You know, we see that with these meatpacking plants and the COVID situation. We see that in Chinatown with the murder that happened. Yeah. I just think it’s a really negative trend, because so many of the factors that lead to people dying are incredibly preventable with proper — not even proper oversight, but just like clear communication and understanding when people tell you what their needs are. And actually governing on the basis of what people actually need, not what budgets or governments or you know, elites or multinational corporations need.
But oftentimes I feel like that’s the case. You just need someone to die. And oftentimes I feel like that person ends up being, you know, some kind of racialized person. Some person who’s really suffering from the brunt of a racist society and a society that’s built on intense classism and intense class division. So yeah, it’s really, really sad to see.
Nicholas
Yep. And yeah as you mentioned, the foundations of our labour market here are really built on the exploitation of people of colour and foreign workers. And that’s really alive and well today, too.
Jason Kenney Co-Opts Working Class Rhetoric to Keep Minimum Wage Down
Nicholas
And this is an article from earlier this year, but just this whole discussion that we’re having today was just making it relevant again. Basically, there was a press conference where Jason Kenney, in March, had just said Alberta won’t be raising our minimum wage. He was asked this because BC was raising their minimum wage, so he was asked if we’re going to be raising our minimum wage as well. And he basically just said no.
And he goes on to further explain: “the tens of thousands of jobs that were lost during the last recession” — again, the oil recession in 2015 and 2016 that we were just talking about — “those thousands of jobs were lost because employers couldn’t afford a 50% increase in wage costs. And now that Alberta has done away with the vast majority of its COVID-19 public health measures, it’s not the time for an uptick in minimum wage. Many of those minimum wage jobs are in that service sector. Where you have struggling small businesses that have been absolutely devastated through COVID. Many of them are financially flat on their back. They got deeply encumbered in debt just to keep the doors open. Only now are things fully opening for them to get their business back to normal levels, so I think adding yet another major increase on minimum wage would probably be the end of many of these small hospitality businesses that bravely survived the pandemic.”
And of course, this is just yet another reflection of how the government and those in power just really align themselves with corporate interests above the interests of workers. But I think this is also just a really good example here of how the idea of “the small guy” or, like Kenney says here, “small hospitality businesses that barely survive the pandemic.” As someone reading this, our emotional attachment and empathy for that kind of person or that kind of business is used in order to drive support for the big corporations, the ones that had record profits throughout the pandemic and probably laid off a lot of people anyway. And where an increase in the minimum wage would actually make a considerable difference in the society here.
Oumar
Yeah, it’s pretty incredible to watch that happen. Because I just think to myself or even for any listener, it’s like, how many people do you actually know who work in these mythical mom and pop or small businesses that are being described here by Jason Kenney? The truth is that most people really don’t work in these situations, and the labour market is dominated by large multinationals who guard their revenues at any cost essentially. But the narrative is still driven towards this more sympathetic view of business, because saying that you're not raising the minimum wage because you want to protect Wal-Mart doesn’t really necessarily go well in terms of public image. But I think that’s essentially what’s happening here.
If anything, it also plays into this myth that I think is very useful in capitalism, that everyone can become this small business entrepreneur and generate significance.
Nicholas
Oh the American Dream.
Oumar
Yeah, like the American Dream where we’re all just a few good decisions away from owning our own business empire or, you know, making passive income, buying property, doing all these things that you’re essentially told are completely available to you as long as you make the right decision.
Nicholas
And are noble.
Oumar
Yeah. And are noble and respectable and fit within all these different image boxes. So as long as you do these things, you will ascend up the ladders and you will become this mythical small business owner who needs to be protected by the government when, in reality, a lot of wealth that gets created in these situations when it even does get created, is essentially handed down by families in this kind of continuous way.
But it also ignores the fact that 99.9% of people will never never reach those heights, no matter how much they try or no matter how much they do. Because fundamentally, the system is built on scarcity. If we could all become what they say we could become, the system wouldn’t be possible. It wouldn’t function, because it requires a large portion of us to really be workers. Workers in the sense that you’re exploited, and your value is basically funneled to the top.
So yeah, I think I think that’s something I thought of for sure, is how it plays into that too. And unfortunately, a lot of people do buy into that and bank their hopes and dreams on maybe one day becoming one of the ruling elite.
Nicholas
Yeah. Well, not even the ruling elite I guess. But yeah, that idea of like — you own your own business, and you have freedom, and it’s a normal cause, and you’re contributing to society, and we need to protect that because that is at the core of the American dream or Canadian dream or whatever. I think the irony here as well is that, in aligning our government or our society's priorities with capitalistic incentives and with the priorities of really big businesses, we’re also contributing to driving out those small businesses, right?
These small businesses, a lot of them probably do pay their workers well already. Or have a very small staff, or are just family run and trying to get by like that. And, you know, and it is tough. But a large reason that it is tough is because a very large company can come in with economies of scale and, because the minimum wage is much lower than the cost of living and they don’t have to pay their workers very much, are able to just compete in the marketplace at a way lower cost. And then they take customers and business away from those small businesses. So, yeah, that’s definitely a point of irony here as well.
And I think, just because we were talking about in the last episode, the school shooting in Texas. I don’t know if you — did you see the thing where Matthew McConaughey went to the White House?
Oumar
Yeah, I definitely saw that.
Nicholas
Yeah. So actually, I think he got a lot of praise from people kind of across the spectrum. But I think it’s because of how he outlined the whole responsible gun owner debate. And I think there’s a lot of parallels here because, in this case, Jason Kenney uses the idea of the little guy, the small business, in order to distract from the issue of minimum wage.
And I think what typically happens in discussions about gun regulation is that the idea of the “responsible gun owner” is used to distract from the issue of gun regulation. What is typically said is “if you introduce these background checks, or if you are introducing these restrictions on weapons, then that’s really just going to harm the responsible gun owners who didn’t do anything wrong.”
And the way that Matthew McConaughey laid it out in this speech is that as a responsible gun owner, or speaking for the responsible gun owner community, it’s unjust or unfair that people can go and commit these terrible acts of violence when we’re all out here trying to do our best to be responsible, right? It’s like, what’s the point of trying to be responsible if the regulation or lack of regulation is still allowing for these atrocities to happen?
And so I think, again, trying to draw parallel to this situation here, I think probably a more productive way to think about it is, why are we letting these big businesses get away with not paying their workers fairly while taking record profits? Why are we allowing them to do that? Obviously through many means, but one way that we’re allowing them to do that is by keeping the minimum wage really low. Why are we letting them get away with that when small businesses are doing their best to survive but are still struggling and are beholden to these rules and, in a lot of cases, trying to provide for their own workers.
Inside Amazon’s Union-Busting in Alberta
🎵 Intro Music – “Not Alone” by Melafrique
Nicholas
Probably one of the best, or I guess you say worst examples of these large companies that take advantage of their workforce is, of course, Amazon. And there was actually some really good journalism that we saw — actually, when was this? A couple of months ago or maybe a little bit longer. But yeah, earlier this year, Ashlynn Chand wrote this article titled “How Amazon Beat the Union in Alberta.” And basically, she went undercover with Jacobin and Ricochet to work at the Amazon warehouse for a few months during this union drive and basically witnessed all of the ways that Amazon was able to crush that unionization effort. Spoiler alert.
Oumar
Yeah, this is a really good piece of journalism done by Ashlynn. And I think it really exposed not only some very interesting, I guess, working conditions at Amazon, uncovering…
Nicholas
“Interesting.”
Oumar
Well, interesting in the sense that… “Interesting” is not the word I wanted to use. I guess I wanted to use — it’s not like exemplary, but the working conditions at Amazon serve a really good example of what’s going on at other workplaces or the larger working context of Alberta in the sense that it’s a very large corporation that is operating in a very high demand industry, that is employing a very diverse workforce, but is clearly doing a lot of things that are keeping them oppressed and keeping them in very difficult working conditions, but knows that it will always have this kind of conveyor belt of workers coming in. So it’s very emblematic. I think that’s the proper term. This reporting that was done by Ashlynn.
Very emblematic of a lot of other situations. And I think, also, of the labour organizing effort and the pitfalls and maybe some lessons that can be learned from this failed effort because of the approach that the Teamsters used to try to organize. And I think their approach was maybe characterized as old fashioned, “out of touch” for sure. That's a word that Ashlynn said.
So yeah, I think there’s lessons to be learned from that for sure, because the need for unions and the need for organization within workplaces like this isn’t going anywhere, and the working conditions aren’t going anywhere either. So I think it’s a great piece of reporting to continue the conversation and to definitely learn things from as well.
Nicholas
Okay, so then you should say, “and I actually got to speak” —
Oumar
Oh yeah, that’s true. And so as a part of the episode, I had the pleasure of actually interviewing Ashlynn and having a conversation more specifically about the reporting so that we were able to share some of these stories and get firsthand insight from her. You know, she was also a worker in the warehouse. She not only reported, but did the job herself.
So the interview touches a little bit about her background, some of her experiences and what she saw. And it culminates in this really great piece of reporting that we will definitely link in the show description if you want to read it.
Ashlynn Chand (Journalist)
So I wrote an article for Ricochet on migrant housing, and essentially I pitched another article to share afterwards, like 2 or 3 months after that article, which they rejected. But they had this other opportunity and essentially they were like, “we want to send someone to an Amazon warehouse, whichever is nearest to you. And kind of work there for 3 months.”
And then, while I was working at the facility, Teamsters announced that they were going to try and unionize Amazon in Canada. And the Nisku facility was on that list. They started a new drive halfway through my employment. And so I ended up staying a little bit longer. I started in June, and then I left in mid-October and just kind of stumbled upon it in that I don’t really have a lot of — I’m so new to the industry and I am still new to journalism. And I don’t have a large background in investigation.
So this is like a good opportunity that I was met with to practice those skills and learn more about Amazon. And I’ve always been interested in labour and learned more about labour in that way as well. But I also come from a working class family background.
Most of my family members have worked in the service industry or factories or in construction, stuff like that. Amazon work is something that is closely linked to my family and friends. Like many of us are typically lower middle class or lower class people. So essentially that’s how I kind of stumbled upon it.
Oumar
Can you maybe describe what your initial impressions were of the working conditions, but I guess also the working environment? So the people that you’re working with, and the kind of work and the impact that that work had on your life and your time there?
Ashlynn
It was interesting. Like they call it an interview but not really an interview. You kind of already have the job. So you come in there — you send your resume, and then like 2 weeks later you come and talk to this HR person and choose your shifts. Essentially, we weren’t really allowed to choose our shifts. We all start at night as a night time worker from 7:15pm – 5:45am. And if you want to do a day shift, you kind of have to earn that spot by your productivity or like essentially like a spot that's only available for permanent employees. So you can’t be a non-permanent employee and work the day shift. So everybody starts off the night shift.
Essentially they asked if I wanted to do training for the little machines that they use in the facility to lift heavier items. And I said no at first. And then they were like, “but you have to be at least willing to go through training to work here.” And I was like “sure, I’ll be willing to go through training.”
They also want to give you $100 to buy safety shoes. And then 2 weeks after that, you start working there. The first day is just watching training videos about safety lifts and stuff like that. And then the next day they would have you actually like trying to pack items and kind of like learning what you’re supposed to be doing as a packer. I was on the pack team, so as a packer.
It was interesting because it’s very fast-paced. For other jobs like taping, water spider, which is bringing boxes to workers or stuff like that, you kind of just are expected to know it. You get like maybe a little bit of training and you kind of just do it. But they do give you 2 weeks to kind of learn everything, but with very little guidance. Like after like 2 days, you’re kind of working mostly on your own.
And it’s interesting because everybody really complains about the back pain, the feet pain, how much physical labour it is. They’re like, “the first month was horrible. You feel horrible, you will be in so much pain, then you’ll get used to it.” Which is true. The first two months were absolutely physically painful.
And most people usually take… they don’t really work the full 40 hours. They usually try to get voluntary time off, which is sometimes offered like halfway through a shift or before a shift if there’s too many workers. They’ll offer voluntary time off to workers to not necessarily fire them, but for that day you’re not working. If you grab it, it’s very sought out. And it goes by quickly. So like the minute you see VTO pop up on the little app that you use as a worker, it would be gone in literally 10 minutes sometimes.
But yeah, a lot of workers usually only work… like they try to work 40 hours. But physically, the pain — like the back pain, the feet pain — most workers typically work 30 hours, ideally. It’s interesting because at the beginning there wasn’t really enough work for everyone because they over-hired, or they tend to hire more workers than there is work. And then as the weeks go by, you see more workers quit. And it's very common, like people talk about it all the time. It’s like a running joke between workers too, like certain areas — like ship dock is just known to be so horrible that people quit in 2 days. Like that’s kind of how it is.
And then by the third or fourth month, I was kind of used to the work. And then you get used to people and you kind of know what you’re expected to do and what management kind of expects from you. I wasn’t really put on pack as often because I wasn’t as fast of a packer. But I was a really quick water spider. I was really good at helping people looking for priority items, so they tended to put me as a water spider. They’d put me in sciOp testing, vendors, stuff like that. But you kind of figure out what you’re supposed to do by the third or fourth month.
And yeah, it’s interesting because most workers would say they don’t hate the job. Like they’ll say, “oh, I like the job. It’s just the back pain.” Or “management’s just like sometimes really mean” or something like that. And they kind of try to comfort themselves in a way. And I mean, some workers are more displeased with how Amazon is run. Typically workers that are fast at packing or fast at their jobs, like really good at their jobs, they tend to be overworked more. And they often feel underappreciated.
There’s a lot of like racial tensions actually. That was an interesting one. Between different races. Typically, between Indian workers and Filipino workers there’s a lot of tension between them. Gender wise, there’s also a bit of this… like management is a boys’ club and then workers or like packers tend to be mostly women. And so there’s a lot of, I guess, subtle gendered tensions or I guess subtle sexist remarks sometimes.
Oumar
When you mentioned these things, like the subtle racial tension or the pain that workers have to go through. And you also mentioned at the end there, the boys’ club and how sexist it can be for workers. How does all of this connect to the wages that workers are making, and I guess the larger labour context that might lead people into working in places like this that employ hundreds of people? Can you maybe speak to the larger context that's going on here that might influence these things that are negatively impacting workers?
Ashlynn
Many of the workers are typically immigrants or first or second-gen racialized Canadians. And typically, they come to Amazon typically just looking for work. Either to pay their bills or to stay in the country and get permanent residency. That one worker in the article, Layla, she’s Filipino, she needed papers to stay in Canada, so she needs employment. So she started working at Amazon.
A lot of the racial tension, in my opinion, is kind of just — like Indian and Filipino workers are just an abused workforce in Canada. They often come here looking for work, looking for a better situation from their home countries. They’re led to believe that Canada could be a place that is better than the Philippines or India. And they kind of accept work that they may not be getting a fair wage for that has dangerous working conditions, just because they can’t get any other work.
And essentially, even with the gendered aspect of it, these women often can’t stay at work longer than they’re expected to. So like, to get into management, there’s an expectation that you move up. So you start as an associate and then you move to like a process assistant. But to be a process is going to work overtime. And then to go from there, you might get hired as an area manager. But the reality is most area managers are Canadian educated students.
So typically it’s this kind of carrot and stick. Like if you work hard, if you stay here long enough, you might eventually end up in a place where you have a permanent job, where you get better wages, where you get better working conditions. But the reality is most of these workers either quit or they just aren’t eligible for better wages or for opportunities that promise better wages.
Oumar
Moving to the union drive that launched when you were working there, can you talk about the motivation for unionizing and why that was a push that was made by union organizers in Edmonton, specifically for the Amazon plant?
Ashlynn
I think, because there's been a lot more workers pushing back… the pandemic kind of revealed that workers are, you know, insanely important for our lifestyle, for everything that happens in Canada. But a lot of times workers don’t get fair treatment. Especially during the pandemic, a lot of their safety and health was compromised.
And now you’re seeing a lot of workers, you know, pushing back, demanding more. And I think just based off of America’s Amazon union efforts, this kind of led to labour organizations in Canada to think about their organizations here and see if they could need a union. I know that nobody really asked for the Teamsters to come to the Amazon warehouses, it was more teachers coming in and being like, we are giving them the option of unionization.
And a lot of workers are very hesitant about the union as well, from the start. And essentially, I just think a lot more workers are now pushing back and seeing that they are trying to get better wages, trying to get better working conditions. And I think Teamsters saw that as an opportunity for them to try and unionize Amazon, because there’s just so much talk about unionization.
But I think for workers on the ground, like Amazon workers on the ground. They may not really understand much about Canadian labour laws or much about unionization or much about unions in general. So I think that was kind of a disadvantage for the union drive as well. They didn’t reach the quota for signed union cards. I think they got less than 40%.
I think, one, Teamsters weren't very consistent and I think being consistent is important. They weren’t there every week. They weren’t there every day. I think for a lot of workers, they just saw management more. And that gave Amazon the upper hand, because they can, you know, have management talk to workers every day. Employee relations came around almost every week or so and talked to workers.
I know when the union drive started, there were a little bit more team bonding efforts. Like Amazon kept pushing more team bonding exercises or whatever and stuff like that. And like also there was just like a bunch of… essentially, Amazon would try to like feed into this culture of doubt and try to get workers to doubt that Amazon isn’t that bad, or that you’re just overreacting, or that there’s no reason to have a union, or that a union is just more trouble and it’s just better to kind of accept the working conditions as it is than it is to fight for better.
A lot of workers also ended up with… just a high turnover. Like almost every 3 or 4 months, you get like a new batch of workers. Every 3 or 4 months, you’ll see workers kind of decline, and then new workers come in. So many people quit so often. For them, they just feel like it wasn’t worth the trouble of even fighting for better working conditions, because they weren’t there long term. Many workers can really see themselves there long term either.
I think a lot of workers just didn’t trust Teamsters. They didn’t really seem to find Teamsters to be a trustworthy union, which could be because of Amazon’s union busting, or because of dominant conversations around unions. Typically it is a risk for workers to unionize, but I think many of them never really saw… they didn’t really see that it was worth the time or effort to unionize, essentially. And there’s no real pushback either against that thought, in my opinion. Nobody was really like, “this why a union is good. This is what a union can do.” But also, like, a lot of it is biased… you hear a lot of biased information. Obviously, we’re all biased. But yeah.
And then I also think, by their precarious nature, a lot of workers are fearful of losing their jobs and then losing this opportunity to stay in Canada. You know, most people are just trying to feed their kids, at the end of the day they just want to go home and they’re tired. And a lot of them also work another job, so they don’t really have the time to really look into what a union can do or into information about unionization, really. So they kind of rely on other people to give them that information.
There was also a language barrier. Many of them don’t speak English as a first language, so they may not understand certain things that they’re being told by Teamsters or by other management or anything like that. And so they’re just kind of like, “oh well, I can’t really understand what they’re talking about, so I’m just not going to bother looking into it.”
I guess there’s a lot of reasons why the union drive failed. Teamsters is very traditional in their approach. A lot of them are also older. And I just don’t think a traditional approach works anymore. Misinformation, and you’re always bombarded with information just because of social media and like technology advancements. And like you kind of have to push other information to workers in some way.
And especially since a lot of immigrants can easily be misled by more powerful people or powerful organizations to believe one thing, it does take a lot more effort to push. You kind of have to fight for them. You kind of have to spend a lot more time convincing them and kind of like showing what you can really do for them.
Oumar
With this pretty steep historical reality of Canada relying on immigrant labour in industries that are typically undesirable, physically demanding low wage industries, but still industries that require a certain level of skill and certainly a certain level of toughness, a certain level of perseverance to even do this kind of work. What do you see changing or staying the same, or what do you see in the future of this reliance on this kind of labour?
Ashlynn
Yeah, I think immigrant labour is just going to be used even more in the future actually. I think I heard that Canada is bringing in like 2 million Filipino workers in the next two years or something like that. I don’t remember the number exactly. So don’t quote me on that. But yeah, they’re bringing in more workers as the borders open up, as our labour demands increase. Amazon, especially during COVID and the pandemic, people rely on ecommerce a lot more. And they’ve gotten so comfortable with it that immigrant labour is just going to be used even more.
I really think it could go… Canada could be doing so much more to better protect immigrants. And if they really need this labour, they should be doing better to ensure that they aren’t being mistreated. I would like to see more… I would like to see Canadian labour movements push to include immigrants more. I think there’s been some really great labour organizations popping up. I think there was one in Ontario, I forgot their name, but like with Indian restaurant workers, they’ve been advocating for them. Hopefully that momentum only ever increases.
But I don’t think immigrant labour is going to go anywhere. I don’t think it will ever really decrease or anything like that. But I do think people should be pushing for more… people should be trying to include immigrants more in their labour movement. I feel like a lot of times you kind of forget about them. And also looking at intersections of gender and race but also better our labour movements.
I don’t know. I’m not a hopeful person. I’m more pessimistic. So I don’t really think much will change. But at the same time, you never really know.
Recent Labour Victories in Alberta (Starbucks, Video Game Workers, Concordia University)
Oumar
So after that great interview with Ashlynn, we wanted to end the episode on maybe a little bit more of a positive note by bringing you some stories from around the province of what we would consider to be labour victories. You know, so workers coming out on top through organizing and through struggle.
And this first story is pretty recent, from May 24 out of Lethbridge. So Starbucks workers in Lethbridge have made efforts to unionize. And essentially they’re advocating for better working conditions, better wages. And it looks like they’ve been pretty successful so far. They filed an application for union certification, and that’s already a pretty big step in getting the workplace that they have to essentially all agree to join the union. This is a step that wasn’t even made possible by Amazon at the warehouse. Most of the workers there didn’t get to the point where they are even able to to file this application. So pretty big moves for Starbucks. Yeah.
Nicholas
Yeah. And Starbucks has been having a really good — well, not Starbucks, but Starbucks workers — have been having really good success. Or Starbucks stores have been having really good success in the US in unionizing. And I think what I’ve heard at least is that they are almost in a better spot to do that than maybe other companies because they do typically have a younger workforce. And they also, in their like company brand, already try and align themselves with more progressive or liberal values where the people who go and work there may already be a little bit more on board with something like this. So yeah, it’s definitely great to see that. And I don’t know, it definitely feels like it’s part of that broader movement. It’s really cool to see that in Alberta.
And yeah, another little piece of news that we wanted to highlight was just this week, Edmonton video game workers vote to unionize, an industry first for Canada. So basically there’s 16 video game development workers in Edmonton that voted to unionize. They actually work for a company based out of Ireland. But their client basically is BioWare. Obviously everyone knows that’s based in Edmonton. So they work with BioWare, but technically they work for that company in Ireland.
The video game industry, obviously everyone also knows it’s just so, so common for workers to be overworked, exploited, and then just part of this system of a high churn. So it’s really good to see workers standing up for themselves in this industry. And I think there were a few — I don’t need to go into the details here — but basically there were a few key aspects of their negotiations that they really felt were lacking or that they weren’t weren’t being provided. And I think a couple of those points actually did get resolved even prior to the actual unionization happening. So I think that’s a really good demonstration of how even just the, I guess you say threat of unionization creates greater accountability for employers.
Oumar
No, it really, really does. And in the cases where that threat isn’t enough, the great thing is that when you actually do have a union that’s established, you can take things beyond a threat and actually go on a strike.
So that’s the next story that just happened this past January at Concordia, where the faculty at Concordia University in Edmonton launched the first ever faculty strike in Alberta’s history at Concordia. So they actually have a union. And yeah, they went forward with it. And the strike didn’t last for very long. I think it was about 10 days until they were actually able to come to an agreement with the university and have their demands met.
So we’re talking about academic staff who were burdened with a 3-course per semester course load on top of the research duties, and with incredibly stagnant wages. This is all happening while the university is seeing very high revenues and the university went ahead and bought a mansion in Edmonton just for the sake of it because they could. So yeah, it was really, really nice to see workers at Concordia being able to get that win for themselves and really using the power that they do have in this really historic way.
So yeah, I think within all of the despair, within all of the challenges, there is clearly a lot of hope. There’s a lot of people who are getting together who are fighting back, and some of them are getting results, which is really, really nice to see.
Nicholas
Yeah, it definitely feels good to be able to highlight at least some positives that are happening and that are hopefully part of a broader movement or broader trend. Something else that doesn’t necessarily have to do with unionization but is more, I guess you could say personal agency or personal empowerment. I just heard of a story where someone left an exploitative working… an exploitative position at a non-profit. So I don’t know, maybe you know something about that?
Oumar
You know what? Yeah, I think I know a few things about this. I have been laughing so much because Nicholas is of course referring to me and my own personal work situation. So yeah, this is going to be breaking news, first time on the pod. But yeah, I’ve decided to leave a position that I was working at, and a large reason for my departure was because of the exploitative nature of the work that I was doing.
So a situation in a non-profit environment which, quite frankly… I think the biggest problem I have with the work that I did was that it definitely served a crucial need. I felt like there was a difference being made with the work that I did. I think it was going towards a population that really needed it. And quite frankly, sometimes we were able to see the change that we were making. But what it really came down to was, at what cost? And the cost that that came down to really, was exploiting workers. It was paying workers wages that were, quite frankly, too low. Often justifying this under the banner of working at a nonprofit as if that somehow justifies not making as much revenue or not making as much profit.
But then also I think continuously burdening workers with more tasks, with more work, with work after hours. So really infringing on all these rights and all these things, again, in the name of this nonprofit mission. So somehow if the work that you’re doing is going towards a good cause, that work can, you know, cross these boundaries that in my opinion, definitely negatively negatively impacted my life as a worker.
So with all these things in mind, you know, it's very difficult for me to continue to sign on to my own exploitation every day or to continue in a position like that. So yeah, I’m calling it quits. And it’s not easy to do if I’m being quite honest. I’m not looking forward to these conversations or, you know, this resignation email. But I think when you’re really pushed towards burnout, or when you can’t necessarily see a solution on the horizon, sometimes it’s the best option, truly. Yeah.
Nicholas
Well, congrats. And yeah, I’m glad you were able to make that decision. And I think a lot of what we talk about when we talk about the labour market or worker exploitation is people not even being in a position where they have that kind of agency over their employment situation, and are not in a place where they can choose to leave their current work situation.
So yeah, definitely happy that you're able to make that call and yeah, hopefully things will be looking up. And yeah, I mean, it's been really fun working on the podcast recently. I think we've gotten some good engagement on socials and stuff. And I think we’ve been able to touch on a lot of things that we really care about and touch on them in ways that are pretty candid and open. So yeah, I’m really happy about that. You know, hopefully anyone listening has resonated with some of the stuff that we’ve been able to talk about.
We are kind of heading into summer here, so I think we are going to be restarting the Patreon at the start of July. So yeah, if you want to support the podcast, you can head over to our Patreon. So I guess we’ll see you next time.
Oumar
Yeah, see you next time. I also think quitting this job is a great opportunity for me to invest more into the podcast. So yeah, I’m excited for that. And yeah, hope you keep listening, and we’ll see you soon.
