Unifor welcomes emergency funding for public transit

NEWS PROVIDED BY Unifor

May 08, 2020

VANCOUVER, May 8, 2020 /CNW/ - Widespread transit worker layoffs will be averted thanks to emergency funding announced today by the federal and provincial governments, says Unifor.

"Passengers and transit workers across the country mobilized to defend public transit," said Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. "We're relieved that governments listened and answered with funding that will help avoid transit chaos during recovery from a pandemic."

Unifor led the charge for emergency funding with an online campaign (unifor.org/peopleneedtransit) and a constant lobbying effort at all levels of government. On April 25, the union held an online virtual rally to give a voice to frustrated transit workers who knew that proposed layoffs would be devastating for the commutes of frontline COVID heroes.

Today's announcement will result in the cancellation of 1,200 layoffs of Unifor members, and nearly 300 other union members in the Translink system.

"Transit operators and skilled trades maintenance staff are a lynchpin in the urban transportation network," said Gavin McGarrigle, Unifor Western Regional Director. "They're on the frontlines with other COVID heroes doing work that it is critical to the Canadian economy during this precarious time. Emergency funding announced today will help keep transit workers on the job so they can help other COVID heroes do theirs."

Unifor is Canada's largest union in the private sector, representing 315,000 workers in every major area of the economy. The union advocates for all working people and their rights, fights for equality and social justice in Canada and abroad, and strives to create progressive change for a better future.

SOURCE Unifor

L'Oréal Canada and Garnier Mobilized to Support Front Line Health Care Professionals

NEWS PROVIDED BYGarnier Canada

May 08, 2020, 12:38 ET

MONTREAL, May 8, 2020 /CNW Telbec/ - Following the launch of its COVID-19 Solidarity Plan on March 17, 2020, L'Oréal Canada shifted the production of its Canadian plant, located in Montreal, to include the manufacturing of hand sanitizing (hydroalcoholic) gel. To date, nearly 160 000 bottles of disinfectants have been given to healthcare professionals in Canada and more than $ 200,000 in cash donations and products were offered to hospitals.

Garnier announces contribution to L'Oréal's Solidarity Plan in Canada

Garnier Canada has announced they will be producing units of hand sanitizing gels at their l
ocal certified carbon-free plant and will donate them to Canadian front line healthcare professionals. (CNW Group/Garnier Canada

MONTREAL, May 8, 2020 /CNW Telbec/ - Following the launch of its COVID-19 Solidarity Plan on March 17, 2020, L'Oréal Canada shifted the production of its Canadian plant, located in Montreal, to include the manufacturing of hand sanitizing (hydroalcoholic) gel. To date, nearly 160 000 bottles of disinfectants have been given to healthcare professionals in Canada and more than $ 200,000 in cash donations and products were offered to hospitals.

Garnier Canada and its teams are very proud to be one of the key contributors to the L'Oréal Group's Worldwide Coronavirus Solidarity Plan. In conjunction with L'Oréal Canada's actions, Garnier has announced they will be producing units of hand sanitizing gels at their local certified carbon-free plant. True to Garnier's commitment to reduce their carbon and environmental footprint, each bottle of hand sanitizer will be 100% recyclable and made with 50% recycled materials.

Gel units produced locally will be donated to Canadian front line healthcare professionals. In addition to the donation Garnier Canada is proud to help their community protect themselves by making their hand sanitizer gels accessible for purchase in drugstores and mass retailers at MSRP $3.49 (100ml available) as of May 11th, 2020.

"During these uncertain times, it's important for Garnier Canada to remain true to its core value. In producing it locally at our Canadian carbon-free plant, we are launching a formula that is effective yet respectful to the environment. We believe this to be the beginning of a significant partnership with front line workers who are helping to protect us." - Ali Fakih, Garnier Canada General Manager

The Garnier hand sanitizing gel is made of 65% alcohol and kills harmful bacteria and germs. The formula has also been tested under dermatological control, is fragrance-free and contains glycerin to help with the drying effect of alcohol.

@garniercan @lorealcanada
#lorealtakespart

Ontario Nurses' Association Members Mark Nursing Week 2020  

TORONTO, May 8, 2020 /CNW/ - The Ontario Nurses' Association's (ONA) 68,000 registered nurses, nurse practitioners and registered practical nurses are poised to virtually celebrate their profession during Nursing Week 2020.

"For many of us, Nursing Week is a much-anticipated time when – just for a short while – we can pause to reflect, think about why we love what we do, and celebrate with one another," says ONA President Vicki McKenna, RN. "ONA's Nursing Week theme is 'Our Calling: Care, Compassion, Comfort,' and it perfectly describes the goal of nurses here and around the world."

Nursing Week is scheduled for May 11 to 17. This year is significant in that the World Health Organization has designated 2020 the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, and it also marks the 200th birthday of the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale.

"It is significant that Nursing Week is held to coincide with Florence Nightingale's birthday," notes McKenna. "As nurses use social media to mark this week virtually, I can't help but remember the important advances that she made on proper infection control procedures and practices. This has never been more important than now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they hold up today."

Ontario nurses work in all sectors of health care – in hospitals and long-term care facilities, in community and public health, home care, clinics and even in private industry. They will be taking to social media to tell others about their calling. Using the hashtag #ItsMyCalling on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, ONA members will be able to express their passion for the profession, even in the face of uncertainty. The pandemic has put the spotlight on the critical importance of nursing care, and has also revealed some of the province's shortcomings in its health-care system.

"Each year, ONA asks members of the public to thank a nurse," says McKenna. "One bright spot in during COVID-19 has been the kindness of the public, our patients and their families, and many organizations – they have all stepped up to support nurses – and we thank them. Their thoughtfulness and kindness have been very much appreciated by us all."

She adds that, "while nurses cannot celebrate with one another in person, in order to respect social distancing, we know that we have the support of Ontario."

ONA is the union representing more than 68,000 registered nurses and health-care professionals, as well as more than 18,000 nursing student affiliates, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.

Visit: ona.org; www.facebook.com/OntarioNurses; www.twitter.com/ontarionurses; www.Instagram.com/ontario.nurses

SOURCE Ontario Nurses' Association

Energy sector cuts blow oil-sands-sized hole in its economy
Kevin Orland, Bloomberg Ne

For Alberta’s economy this year, it’s almost as if the oil sands have gone missing.

Canadian energy companies ranging from oil and gas producers to pipeline operators and service companies have announced plans to cut as much as $11.4 billion (US$8.1 billion) in capital spending, with giants Suncor Energy Inc. and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. each disclosing their second rounds of reductions this week.

Those reductions would amount to more than the entire $10.7 billion invested in oil-sands production last year. An industry group had forecast a similar level of spending in 2020.

In other words, spending cuts across the Canadian energy sector have been so vast, they effectively cancel out all the new capital that oil-sands growth was expected to bring into Alberta this year -- before the crude price crash forced companies to rewrite their plans.

The effect of those spending reductions showed up in a dismal employment report Friday. The province lost 243,800 jobs in April and the unemployment rate spiked to 13.4 per cent, the highest of Canada’s four western provinces, Statistics Canada said.

While the oil sands will still employ tens of thousands of people and produce millions of barrels of oil a day, providing billions of dollars in tax revenue, it’s their spending that, to a large extent, had made Alberta’s economy tick for years. Plus, that tax income will be significantly less than the province had expected when benchmark oil traded above US$60 a barrel in New York early this year, with prices at US$25 now.

Thousands of mechanics, truck drivers, welders and backhoe operators will be out of work, and scores of white-collar experts and investors won’t be flying in like they used to, with a devastating domino effect on sectors like real estate and retail. All that on top of the economic tsunami caused by the global virus outbreak.

“Every company has reduced its capital spending, so I view it as bad for Canada in the sense that it has jobs attached to it,” Canadian Natural President Tim McKay said in an interview. “Spending drives the economy, and if people have jobs, then they spend their money on goods and services.”

It’s possible that the actual amount of cuts in 2020 could be less drastic, but they will have a huge economic impact either way. At the low end of companies’ announcements so far, about $8.5 billion in capital spending would be reduced.

In any case, the cuts dash hopes for a long-awaited revival of spending in the sector. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers had estimated overall oil and gas capital spending this year would rise 5.4 per cent to $37 billion. Oil-sands spending had been expected to climb 8.4 per cent, the first gain in five years.

Nouriel Roubini warns of L-shaped 'Greater Depression'

Iva Poshnjari, BNN Bloomberg May 5, 2020

The Close Economist who predicted last financial crisis warns of coming 'Greater Depression'
Nouriel Roubini, NYU professor and former White House senior economist under U.S. President Clinton, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss why he predicts a depression will hit the global economy in the middle of the decade.

Economist who predicted last financial crisis warns of coming 'Greater Depression'

Famed economist Nouriel Roubini, who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, is calling for a global depression in the middle of the decade.

In an interview with BNN Bloomberg's Amanda Lang Tuesday, the author and New York University economist says the most likely economic scenario "is that of a "U-shaped recovery" and "there is also a risk of an L, what I call a greater depression, that's my baseline for the rest of the decade, but not this year."

He said that as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, both households and corporations will have to spend less and save more,causing a global investment slump and a global savings glut.

"That's a recipe for a very anemic recovery of the U.S., Canada, of the global economy," he said.

When asked if there was anything governments can do to stop a depression, Roubini said "unfortunately, I fear there are some major trends…what I call the 10 deadly Ds that are going lead us to a deadly depression sometime later in this decade. Only a matter of when – not whether."

Roubini's deadly Ds include debt, deficits, deglobalization, currency devaluation, and disruption in the environment - all of which he argues will push the global economy into a depression.

He said that even with monetary and fiscal stimulus, "the train wreck is a slow moving one," and that "policies cannot do much about it. They will actually exacerbate the debt imbalances" as "rising debt levels will explode."

On the Canadian economy, Roubini notes the country's position as fundamentally resilient and diversified, but not immune to the drop in oil prices.

Roubini said he sees up to a six-per-cent contraction in GDP in Canada this year, and also sees continued weakness for the U.S.

Notably, he criticizes U.S. equity investors who might be thinking: 'Even if earnings suck for the rest of the year,' it doesn't matter because a zero-rate policy environment remains favourable.

"The U.S. stock market is pricing in a V-shaped recovery, but I think it's delusional," he said.

Unifor mourns the loss of PSW member due to COVID-19

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NEWS PROVIDED BY

Unifor 

May 07, 2020, 21:37 ET

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TORONTO, May 7, 2020 /CNW/ - Unifor mourns the loss of a Local 40 PSW member due to a preventable workplace exposure to COVID-19.

"I want to extend my deepest sympathies to his family, as well as his union sisters and brothers who are working for Access Independent Living Services," said, Jerry Dias, Unifor National President. "Our member worked for more than thirty years providing care for those in need. He'll be truly be missed by his Unifor family and all those who knew him."

The member, who is not being named until all next of kin have been notified, worked at Access Apartments and was sent home on April 6th, 2020 due to a possible COVID-19 exposure. He was home self-isolating when his symptoms worsened and later tested positive for COVID-19.

"From the onslaught of the pandemic we have been demanding personal protective equipment from employers and governments. This tragedy could have been avoided if he only he had access to proper personal protective equipment. Our COVID Heroes deserve better," said Dias.

Access Apartments has three locations which include supportive housing where Unifor provide care and support in their apartments. There is also an outreach program, where workers provide care in the community.

"I reached out to the family and have offered support during this difficult time," said David Amow, President, Unifor Local 40. "The government failed health care workers in supportive housing, delaying access to personal protective equipment. It shouldn't take a pandemic or the loss of our members life for governments to treat personal support workers with the respect they deserve."

Unifor is gravely concerned for the five other Local 40 members who have tested positive along with three clients at the facility. Unifor is monitoring the outbreak and will be connecting with members in the upcoming days to offer support.

Unifor represents 80 members at Access Independent Living Services. This is the first confirmed death of a Unifor member related to this pandemic.

Unifor is Canada's largest union in the private sector and represents 315,000 workers in every major area of the economy. The union advocates for all working people and their rights, fights for equality and social justice in Canada and abroad, and strives to create progressive change for a better future.

Information about the union's response to the pandemic, as well as resources for members can be found at unifor.org/COVID19.

SOURCE Unifor

Trump trade bailout overpaid farmers, favoured cotton: Study

Mike Dorning, Bloomberg News

A Deere & Co. cotton picker harvests cotton in a field at the Walsh Cotton farm in Yanco, New South Wales, Australia, on Thursday, May 31, 2018. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) is scheduled to release their quarterly crop report on June 13. Photographer: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

The Trump administration’s US$28 billion trade bailout largely overpaid farmers for their losses, with southern cotton farmers receiving the most outsized gains, according to researchers at Kansas State University.

The payout to cotton farmers in the bailout’s second round was 33 times the estimated financial impact of tariff disputes with China and other nations, according to the study, published this week in an academic journal. The U.S. Department of Agriculture didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the findings.

The study is sure to inflame long-running criticism of the bailout and the way funds were distributed just as the Trump administration moves forward with a US$19 billion coronavirus farm rescue package. The USDA hasn’t yet disclosed how the virus rescue payments will be calculated, but officials have said an announcement is imminent.

Farmers and rural communities are a crucial part of Donald Trump’s political base as he seeks re-election. The president has assiduously courted farmers, lavishing them with praise and boasting of the aid he has given them. Over the past year, he has mentioned farmers on average three times a week in his Twitter posts.

The study found wide differences by commodity in the relationship between trade losses and bailout payments. In the second round, when payments were larger, compensation was 1.4 times trade losses for corn, 2.4 times for soybeans, 7.1 times for wheat and 7.3 times for sorghum, according to the authors, Joseph Janzen and Nathan Hendricks, both economists at Kansas State.

The authors also compared payments to the rent farmers pay for property -- which reflect land’s productivity -- and found southern farms benefiting disproportionately. In the second round, rescue payments in the south were larger than rental rates, while in the Midwestern Corn Belt they ran about 30 per cent of rental rates.

The study “points to the difficulties of trying to target a massive plan like this to where the losses are being incurred,” said Joseph Glauber, former USDA chief economist, who wasn’t involved in the study or the trade bailout.

Janzen said the discrepancies in aid payouts stemmed from the method the USDA used to predict trade losses. The agency based payment solely on projected sales losses in China and other nations engaged in tariff disputes without accounting for the inevitable rise in sales elsewhere as global trade flows adjusted.

That method under-compensated corn growers in the first round, since the crop was indirectly impacted. Many farmers rotate between corn and soybeans, and corn supplies rose as soybean prices dropped. Cotton growers were overcompensated because they have many other overseas customers that easily absorbed sales lost in China.

In the first round, covering the 2018 crop year, payouts for corn covered only about a tenth of losses while payouts to cotton covered 7.4 times losses, the authors found.

The USDA shifted to a more generous payout method in the second round. Instead of benchmarking losses against the prior year’s sales, the agency used the best one-year sales for each commodity over the prior decade. That raised the payment for corn. But it also skewed payments even more toward cotton, quadrupling payouts for the commodity because cotton exports to China in 2011 were much larger than in 2017.

In the second round, the USDA paid farmers in each county a per-acre rate based on the mix of crops previously grown in the county.

The study examined five major commodities that account for the vast majority of crops produced in the U.S. It was published in Applied Economic Perspectives & Policy, the journal of the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association.

Coronavirus Has Made China a 'Juicy' Target for Trump, Bremmer Says

Apr.20 -- Ian Bremmer, founder and president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, says the U.S. was late to protecting against coronavirus because of China's cover-up of the pandemic. He speaks with Bloomberg's Amanda Lang and Shery Ahn on "Bloomberg Markets."

Closing pot stores amid pandemic could 're-stigmatize' the industry: Former Canopy CEO

Bruce Linton, executive chairman of Vireo Health and former chairman and co-CEO at Canopy Growth joins BNN Bloomberg to weigh in on the challenges facing the cannabis sector amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He says that the closing of cannabis stores in Ontario could "re-stigmatize" the industry and reinvigorate the illicit market's supply chain.

Ontario pot orders surge amid quarantine

New data by the Ontario Cannabis Store shows online cannabis orders have surged 600 per cent since the beginning of March, as the country deals with the COVID-19 pandemic. BNN Bloomberg's David George-Cosh has the details.

Trump says jobs report isn't surprising and he's not to blame

READ THE BABBLING OF A MAD MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE TOPSY TURVEY HE IS NOT TO BLAME AND HE STOPPED THE ECONOMY AND HE CAN TURN IT BACK ON......SERIOUSLY

Donald Trump Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg , Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

President Donald Trump said a government report Friday showing massive U.S. job losses from the coronavirus outbreak isn’t a surprise and that he shouldn’t be blamed for it.

“It’s fully expected. There’s no surprise,” he said on “Fox & Friends,” where he was being interviewed as the report was released. “Somebody said, ‘Oh, look at this.’ Well, even the Democrats aren’t blaming me for that, but what I can do is I’ll bring it back.”

The Labor Department announced Friday that the U.S. lost 20.5 million jobs in April, as the nation enacted social-distancing practices that collapsed the economy.

The unemployment rate tripled to 14.7 per cent. Trump expressed confidence that employment numbers could snap back quickly, given the nature of the shutdown.

“We artificially closed it. Those jobs will all be back, and they’ll be back very soon and next year we’re going to have a phenomenal year. People are ready to go. We’ve got to get it open, safely. People are ready to go,” he said.

Trump has been criticized for responding slowly to the virus. Federal mitigation measures only ramped up in mid-March in the U.S., which now has the world’s highest confirmed case total and death toll.

Without mitigation measures that impacted the economy, such as closing businesses and schools and ordering people to stay at home, two million people or more would have died from the virus spread, Trump said.

“We were blowing away everybody. We were the envy of the world and then they came in and they explained it and they said, ‘Sir, you have to turn it off,’” Trump said Friday. “Nobody ever heard of a thing like this, but they were right.”