Comment 1:
Stats Canada released a report based on the 2006 Census and other aggregate data today referring to income distribution within Canada. What do we find: over the last 25 years the top 20% of earners in Canada saw a 16.4% rise in income (all figures in constant dollars), with the greatest rise in that period (6.2%) over the years 2000-2005. Lawyers, judges and notaries in Quebec saw an increase of 17.6% in their median wage in the last 5 years alone. Great news! B
ut, as it turns out, if you are a worker rather than a manager or a brainworker (like lawyers), if you are a woman, or if your are an immigrant, you are getting screwed.
Since 1980 the lowest 20% of Canada's wage earners saw their income fall by 20.6%. The gap in 1980 was $54,717, in 2005 it was $70,878.
In Booming Alberta the median wage in 2005 was only 0.5% over the 1980 wage, and this after a 7.8% increase between 2000 and 2005.
And while oil workers and miners have particularly benefited in the last 5 years, the increases in worker salaries has lagged behind the increases secured by both supervisors and managers.
The gender gap persists, and the numbers show it grows as workers age: in both 2000 and 2005 women aged 25-29 earned 85% of men the same age. But in 2005 women aged 30-34 earned but 79% of men the same age.
An even greater gap exists for immigrants. In 1980 male immigrants with university degrees earned 77% of Canadian-born men with university degrees; today they earn only 48%. Similar (although not as drastic, declines can be seen for men without degrees (84% in 1980 to 61% in 2005) and for women with degrees (59% in 1980 to 43% in 2005) and without (86% in 1980 to 56% in 2005). What is particularly disturbing is that this significant decline parallels a shift in immigration, as more people from places outside of Europe and the USA come to Canada. That is to say: this reflects the deep racism in this country.
Comment 2:
Just as Alberta's median income returned to its 1980 high, so have the number of occupation related deaths. Last week it was reported in the legislature that there were 154 workplace fatalities in Alberta in 2006, close to the high of 169 in 1980 and 1982.
Comment 3:
400-500 birds died in one of Syncrude's tar sands tailing lakes.
The inevitable conclusion:
On this May Day, as on every other day, the capacity of capitalism to kill, maim, and impoverish stands starkly before us all. And we'll nothing about it, decry the ignorance of those who point out these failings of capital, or flippantly note how we as individuals might be better for it. Anyway, when was the last time a professor, a lawyer or a student got killed or injured on the job?
