Interesting Dennis - I had the experience of participating in the World Economic Forum's Summer Davos meeting this year. Very interesting!
 
The latest WEF report on future global risks for the next 10 years cites 'severe income  inequalities' as being the world's second highest economic risk for the next 10 years.

http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-2012-seventh-edition

"On an unprecedented scale around the world, there is a sense of receding hope for future prospects...Globally, people perceive their living standards to be falling, and they express diminishing confidence in the ability of their government to reverse this trend. Their discontent is exacerbated by the starkness of income disparities: the poorest half of the global population owns barely 1% of the global wealth, while the world’s top 1% owns close to half of the world’s assets."

"Economic imbalances and social inequality risk reversing the gains of globalization, warns the World Economic Forum in its report Global Risks 2012..."

The WEF constellation analysis is very interesting in this report.

Alex

Alexander M Clark PhD RN BA(Hons)
Associate Dean (Research) and Professor
Faculty of Nursing
University of Alberta
Edmonton, ALB, Canada
Offices: CSB 4-103C, 4-112

Associate Dean's Office Tel: 780 492 8505
Direct line Tel: 780 492 6764
Research Program Tel: 780 492 8347
General Fax: 780 492 2551
________________________________________
From: Social Determinants of Health [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dennis Raphael [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 13 January 2012 07:46
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Overt class war erupts in Canada

http://www.straightgoods.ca/2012/ViewArticle.cfm?Ref=36&Cookies=yes


Lock-outs signal make-or-break era for organized labour in Canada.

Dateline: Tuesday, January 10, 2012

by John Baglow

The by-now notorious lockout in London, Ontario by the American corporate giant Caterpillar<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/caterpillars-electro-motive-locks-out-union-members-at-london-ont-plant/article2288779/>, and another in Quebec by the UK colossus Rio Tinto<http://business.financialpost.com/2012/01/02/rio-tinto-caterpillar-lock-out-more-than-1000-workers/>, signal a new make-or-break era for organized labour in Canada.

The race to the bottom is picking up speed. Make no mistake: if corporations are permitted to get away with 50 percent wage cuts when they are making record profits<http://www.ctv.ca/generic/generated/static/business/article2294610.html>, the ripple effect will be deadly.

[http://www.straightgoods.ca/images/greendot.gif]

The Harper government's Minister of Labour, Lisa Raitt, has already blown the trumpet of war.


Business commentators urge us to take the pessimistic view — nothing can turn aside the irresistible force of capital. Right-wing columnists aver that unions are no longer relevant<http://www.intelligencer.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3427850>. And the Conservative government, which maliciously intervened in two private sector labour disputes in 2011<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/raitts-three-principles-for-labour-relations-only-run-one-way/article2221394/>, is curiously quiet<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-mum-on-lockout-at-plant-harper-used-to-tout-corporate-tax-cuts/article2291661/> when unions have less immediate clout at the bargaining table.

Harper's sheer crust is breathtaking:

"This is a dispute between a private company and the union and we don't comment on the actions of private companies," Harper spokesman Carl Vallée responded Wednesday in an email.

Spare us, please, the notion that this is a jurisdictional matter. Certainly the two provincial premiers involved are not covering themselves with glory by letting these workers and their families twist in the winter winds. The federal government, however, has all sorts of means at its disposal to bring pressure to bear on these foreign corporations on behalf of these workers — canceling generous tax breaks<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-mum-on-lockout-at-plant-harper-used-to-tout-corporate-tax-cuts/article2291661/> would be one of them — but that would require the kind of even-handedness that it has never shown during its current anti-labour crusade.

Take, for example, the 50-week<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/raitts-three-principles-for-labour-relations-only-run-one-way/article2221394/> lockout<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/raitts-three-principles-for-labour-relations-only-run-one-way/article2221394/> in Hamilton by US Steel that ended last October, here described by labour economist Jim Stanford:

The company starved out the union with far-reaching demands to gut pensions and other long-standing provisions. The economic cost of that bitter, lopsided dispute didn't slow the company, nor did it spur any level of government to action.

I estimate that the direct loss to GDP resulting from the lockout in Hamilton was four times larger than the effects of a one-week full shutdown at Air Canada. Indirect spinoff losses made the steel lockout even more painful. If government were truly concerned with "protecting recovery," why didn't it intervene? True, steel falls within provincial (not federal) labour jurisdiction. But Ottawa had plenty of leverage if it wanted to act — not least US Steel's galling violation of the production and employment commitments it made when it took over the former Stelco Inc.

In Hamilton, where workers held little power, the government stood idly by. It seems it's only when workers have some leverage that it acts powerfully to "protect the economy."

Precisely.

Yet the matter shouldn't be seen as hopeless, despite all the anti-union hype. When unions first came into being, savvy business types predicted an inevitable, swift defeat for the movement, hastened along by often murderous<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre> troops and police. That didn't, of course, take place: general strikes and fierce physical resistance by organized workers forced governments to mediate by providing limited recognition — while ensnaring them in complex regulatory frameworks that, over time, sapped their strength.

The result in Canada, too often, was the softening of the general membership, made even softer — it must be admitted — by the automatic dues check-off mandated by the Rand formula<http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/rand-formula>. Frankly, that historic ruling made union leaders lazy: no longer having to make the union case to the members on a daily basis, they too often permitted the rank-and-file to snooze.

And now Canadian workers are paying the price. The labour movement is mired in old tactics and strategies that have become merely ritualistic at this point: one-day<http://www.lfpress.com/news/canada/2012/01/07/19213761.html> wonders<http://www.lfpress.com/news/canada/2012/01/07/19213761.html> of mass protest, "action plans" that never leave the paper they're printed on, strongly-worded press releases.

The workers on labour's front lines — picket lines, that is — are left to fight alone the day after the big Days of Protest. And they almost inevitably get eaten alive by the corporations and their government allies.

The Harper government's Minister of Labour, Lisa Raitt, has already blown the trumpet of war<http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/10/21/raitt-air-canada-flight-attendants.html>. To survive, organized labour, too often an oxymoron at present, must cast aside the tactics of the past and head directly into battle.

Obviously this is easier said than done, and as a former labour leader I was frequently irritated by activists shouting in the wilderness for radical measures when no one was listening (even more irritated because I had been one of them). But Caterpillar and Rio Tinto are here to tell us that the time for a serious internal debate has arrived. What form it takes, and what comes out of it, are obviously for the members to decide, but the choice, to be blunt, is a fundamental change in approach — or oblivion.

John Baglow is a former Executive Vice-President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. He is currently pursuing an advanced degree in anthropology, and works in his spare time as a writer and a consultant in the fields of public and social policy [www.firstwrite.ca]. You can read his blog at the URL below.

Website: http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com<http://drdawgsblawg.blogspot.com/>

Get a free copy of Social Determinants of Health: The Canadian Facts at http://thecanadianfacts.org

See what Jack Layton had to say about my books!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/04/10/cv-election-ndp-layton-platform.html
at 27:20

Dennis Raphael, PhD
Professor of Health Policy and Management
York University
4700 Keele Street
Room 418, HNES Building
Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
416-736-2100, ext. 22134
email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.atkinson.yorku.ca/draphael

Of interest:

* New * Poverty in Canada, 2nd edition,
Forewords by Rob Ranier and Jack Layton
http://www.cspi.org/books/poverty_canada

About Canada: Health and Illness
http://tinyurl.com/2c2tm6l

Health Promotion and Quality of Life in Canada: Essential Readings
http://tinyurl.com/3C8zteu

Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives, 2nd edition,
Forewords by Carolyn Bennett and Roy Romanow
http://tinyurl.com/3fkbr8u

Staying Alive: Critical Perspectives on Health, Illness, and Health Care, 2nd edition
Foreword by Gary Teeple
http://tinyurl.com/4xlu4up

See a lecture! The Politics of Population Health
http://msl.stream.yorku.ca/mediasite/viewer/?peid=ac604170-9ccc-4268-a1af-9a9e04b28e1d

Also, presentation on Politics and Health at the Centre for Health Disparities in Cleveland Ohio
http://www.case.edu/med/ccrhd/education
To leave, manage or join list: https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1

To leave, manage or join list: https://listserv.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=sdoh&A=1