When: Friday May 22, 2009 @ 4pm
Where: 1368 Ouellette Avenue, Windsor, Ontario
Organized by: The Windsor Workers' Action Centre

On Friday, May 22nd, the Windsor Workers Action Centre will be holding a rally in the front of the constituency office of Sandra Pupatello to advocate for a provincial wage protection program aimed at ensuring that all workers in Ontario receive their full termination and severance payments when their employment is terminated.

Someone recently brought to our attention Slate Magazine's striking visualization of job loss in the United States. Using the Labor Department's county-level unemployment statistics, Chris Wilson provides an interactive map of spreading job loss between 2007-2009. The author points out that the jobs crisis in North American manufacturing began long before the 2008 financial meltdown: important losses began happening in key areas at least as early as 2007, and spread throughout the United States over the next two years. JobsGraveyard's data also shows that Canada's manufacturing job loss began as early as 2002, and this is also part of a much longer-term trend away from manufacturing and towards services.

Click here to go to the full story and map: http://www.slate.com/id/2216238/

Those who continue to check in on this website will notice that it's been awhile since we've updated it. We could chalk it up to the almost impossible task of keeping up with the hundreds of jobs being lost every day, a situation which has only accelerated since we launched this site in 2007. And that's part of it: we've just been overwhelmed by the number of factory closures and layoffs, and can't always keep track of it all. The other factor is that the folks who created JobsGraveyard have themselves been coping with the economic realities of late, and our focus has been elsewhere. However, we are regrouping and planning for a relaunch of the site, with a national scope, a more fully interactive map, and stories of people whose jobs and communities are undergoing a major transformation.

When: Monday December 10, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
Where: CAW Local 200/444 Hall, 1855 Turner Road
Everyone welcome

Ontario has lost over 250,000 well-paid manufacturing jobs over the last five years, and Windsor has paid a particularly high price. In 2000, Windsor's average annual unemployment rate was 5.4%. Today, the official unemployment rate has almost doubled to 9.6%, well above Ontario’s rate of 5.8%.

If we accept local media reports, the crisis in manufacturing jobs is largely a Windsor problem caused by local economic factors. After all, we are told, the Canadian unemployment rate is at a 20-year low at 6.1%. Statistics Canada reports some of strongest employment growth in several years along with one of the best employment rates in decades (63.4%). Yet Windsor’s unemployment rate is now in the double digits at 10.1%. This usually provokes the question: “What’s wrong with Windsor?”

At the end of June, while in Beijing for an economic geography conference, I had the opportunity to visit one of the engines of China’s economic growth, the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, or BDA for short. This industrial park on the southeastern edge of China’s capital, in the Yizhuang region, operates as a magnet for foreign investment and is a major building block in China’s plans to make globalization work for its development. Although my group didn’t get the factory tour of the BDA’s Nokia plant we had hoped for, I did come away with some basic info on the area, how it works, and how it relates to what’s going on here in Windsor, Southwestern Ontario, and Canada more generally.

The Regional Social Forum provides an open meeting space for the public as well as community groups and organizations open to exploring and committed to creating a just, peaceful, and sustainable world. Inspired by the World Social Forum and its parallel Intercontinental Youth Camp, the RSF hopes to serve as a truly democratic framework for people-centred participation. We strive to nourish the hope that our world can be organized in far more equitable, democratic, and ecologically sustainable ways than it is now. We focus on how alternatives can and are being put into practice.

The Greater Essex County District School Board recently announced the elimination of 30 Early Childhood Educators (ECEs) from the board. These workers are represented by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation (OSSTF). This program has been in place for almost 20 years. ECEs provide additional support for our earliest learners in Junior Kindergarten. Senior Board Administration has recommended the termination of these positions as a way to deal with next year's projected budget deficit of $1.8 million.

JobsGraveyard is about more than documenting the jobs crisis. It is also about fostering new and creating thinking about how our community can respond in ways that combine economic security, self-sufficiency, and dignity for workers. To that end, we're co-sponsoring the following event with a number of other groups.

WORKER CO-OPS: A RESPONSE TO JOB LOSS?

A public talk by Kevin McKay, Executive Director, Sky Dragon Community Development Co-operative Inc. (Hamilton, Ontario)

Monday, June 11, 2007
7:00 to 9:00 pm
CAW Local 200/444 Union Hall
1855 Turner Rd