If you’ve ever thought: “If web browsers did ___, that would make organizing so much easier,” or “if there was a firefox extention that did ___, it would really help people think about zero waste,” you can suggest it to Hack For Change. There’s no guarantee that anyone will work on that project, but there are only 17 ideas so far (and not very many interesting ones). So if you come up with something good, someone might do it.

I haven’t come up with anything yet, but I know there are a lot of creative people on this list! Here are some of the ideas listed so far, as examples:
A Firefox extension that allows you to see the political donations of companies whose site you visit
An app that tells you the true effect/footprint of what you are about to buy (NOTE: someone’s already actually done this at www.goodguide.com)
A platform to connect grassroots activists to tangible, needed resources from members of the private sector who want to offer support, but dont know what to give, who to give it to, and how
Help people in developing nations to sell their products directly to the world
Make government data more accessible and actionable
The full list is here: https://hackforchange.uservoice.com/forums/113515-hack-for-change/filters/hot
If you have an idea, please add it here (feel free to email me if you want to talk about it).

Then please tell us so we can go vote for it! To vote you just have to sign up for a password, and then you have 10 votes to distribute to your favorite ideas.

=============================================
Article from http://mashable.com/2011/05/25/hack-for-change/
Can 50 Hackers Help Save the World in One Day?

Online activism platform Change.org is hosting a hackathon called Hack for Change, designed to get engineers coding quickly for social good.
Change.org will pick 50 engineers from a list of applicants and throw them into a programming blitz at its San Francisco headquarters. The goal is to get coders, designers and other creative types to start applying their talents to the non-profit and social good sector. While other hackathons have tried to get its talent to think like programmers, Hack for Change is trying to convince programmers to work for social good.

“The smartest people in the world are focused on problems that don’t really matter,” says Ben Rattray, founder of Change.org. “What we want to do is dedicate the time, effort and energy of those people to important issues.”

The event’s rules are simple, if a little vague: “You can create any feature or app that does good.” Participants can hack using any languages or available APIs and must post their code to GitHub. They can hack individually or in teams but teams still must apply — and be accepted — individually. That kind of openness will hopefully inspire off-the-wall ideas thanks to unexpected pairings (not to mention lack of sleep).

Spanning just one weekend, the programming starts June 18 at noon and ends 24 hours later. The finished products will then be presented to the attendees, invited media and judges.

There will be prizes, but that’s not really the point. Hack for Change is aimed at introducing a new community of talent to the non-profit world. Rattray and his team are trying to make the transition as easy as possible by giving social good greenhorns a slew of ideas to get their fingers moving. The conference will start with presentations by non-profits and conscientious companies offering their APIs. There is also a forum where anyone can suggest issues that need fixing.

Change.org is offering $10,000 of its own cash as seed money — $5,000 of which will go to the top project, with the rest to be divvied up amongst the top picks. The hackathon isn’t intended as a one-off; Rattray hopes to make it a regular event. “We want to create a very clear path by which engineers and designers can find full time work in the social change sector,” he says.

What do you think about a hackathon for change? Are designers, programmers and hackers the next wave of talent to revolutionize social good? Let us know in the comments.

Disclosure: Mashable is a media partner of Hack for Change.

• not parents that had national daycare taken from them

• not aboriginals that saw two treaties rescinded and killed

• not scientists that had their work muzzled by the government

• not economists or social planners that were against tampering with the census

• not women’s groups that had their funding pulled for supporting a woman’s right to choose or abolishing the gun registry

• not anyone believing in freedom of information

• not environmentalists

• not anyone that protested at the G20 and watched the CONs squander a billion public dollars

• not anyone that thinks political parties shouldn’t use government funds to spread their propaganda – 45 million and counting

• not anyone that wanted fiscal responsibility and transparency

• not anyone that sees the CONs spending more to deliver less

• not anyone that wanted to see the CPP improved despite millions of Canadians calling for public pension improvements

• not anyone who lost money in the income trust funds

• not anyone who lost their job when the CONs cut funding to the arts, public sector or dismantling of manufacturing thriving communities

• not civil servants that saw anyone of their members who pointed out abuse vilified in the media

• not watchdogs that saw their power weakened until they could no longer do their job

• not those that shook their head at terms like “ethical oil,” “cancer is sexy” “build more jails to deter unreported crime” and “Hitler theory”

• not many nations when it came time to fill a UN Security Council seat

The international community has turned its back to Harper, Canada should too… a pair of glasses does not make the PM any wiser.

Stephen Harper plans to run on his “Tough on crime” “Family Values” and his “Business friendly agenda”

Go for it Steve. Your crime policies are a joke and are going to end up costing more money, and will not reduce crime or make society and safer. Your business friendly policies are an even bigger joke after the debacle with the UAE, and as for “Family Values” I can look after my own damn values and I don’t need you to do that for me.

Why don’t you run on your real agenda:

You will continue to run up accumulated debt which is more of a danger to the economy than anything else. You will continue your shameless self promotion, you will continue to waste tax payer dollars like water running through a sieve, and you will continue to embarrass Canada internationally, and you will continue to repeat the lie that you are an economist, and you will continue to be a fiscally reckless and incompetent leader.

Sounds like a plan, and at least it would be the truth. That would be a first for Stephen Harper.

Did you know Harper and Flaherty have a  dirty little secret.

The sub-prime mortgage fiasco they enable by de-regulating the Banks.

A Globe and Mail investigation in 2010 into more than 10,000 foreclosure proceedings has uncovered a burgeoning subprime mortgage problem that many, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have insisted does not exist in Canada.

The last five years under the Harper, Refrom regime has been a nightmare. They do not represent 68% of the electorate, but they keep ramming the ideologically driven Tea Party policies through government while ignoring parliamentary procedure.

Their boorish, arrogant, self-centred, big spending leader is an abomination to the majority of Canadians who did not vote for his condescending bills on law and order, corporate tax deductions, environment, and, in your face abuse of public funds to promote the Reform Party.

So if the Conservative party is testing the water and on-the road promoting their plans for Canada we may want to enact some real alternatives to what good government is all about.

Voting for the Cons or Libs reminds me of people who go into a bar looking for a meaningful relationships, get f–ked over, whine and complain about it, and yet, go back into the bar the very next night.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The government of Bolivia has passed a new pension law that reduces the retirement age for most men to 58 from 65, in stark contrast to many other countries which are seeking to hike the retirement age in order to deal with climbing life expectancy rates.

Signed by President Evo Morales, the new measure will also nationalize pension funds.

In addition, the law, which will come into force next year, will for the first time grant pensions to the 60 percent of the workforce who work in informal jobs, including market traders, bus drivers and taxi drivers, as long as they make contributions. It is estimated that 3-million Bolivians (or 60 percent of the workforce) are employed in the “informal sector.”

The retirement age for miners was reduced to 56.

For women, will be able to retire at age 55 if they have three or more children. (Women currently retire at age 60).

In a symbolic gesture, Morales signed the new law at the headquarters of Bolivia’s main trade union federation, accompanies by miners, peasants and other workers.

“What is most important to highlight is the fact that, when we bring together workers with their experience and our ministers and our experts, it is possible together to formulate, propose, and develop a law for the benefit of the Bolivian people,” Morales said in a speech at the Bolivian Workers’ Center .

In response to the reduced pension ages, Bolivian ministers explained that many poor Bolivians work in difficult jobs in harsh conditions which older workers cannot reasonably be expected to do. Moreover, the nation’s life expectancy rate is only 62 years for men and 65 years for women.

However, Bolivian business leaders have criticized the new laws, saying they are unsustainable.
Thirteen years ago, Bolivia privatized pension funds after a state-run system collapsed.

Thanks to Palash R. Ghosh for this information.

The LIVE broadcast runs December 7th -9th 2010.
8:00p.m.-12-p.m. Eastern US time

Help support the work of this news network or visit the website as well at http://therealnews.com/t2/

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11.

What: G20 Legal Defence Fundraiser with NAOMI, HAWKSLEY and LAL (with an
optional special meet and greet with Naomi Klein)

When: Thursday, November 11. 8pm.

Where: The Great Hall 1087 Queen St West, Toronto ON

Website: www.g20.torontomobilize.org/nov11

During the G20 summit in June this year, the residents of Toronto bore
witness to the largest mass arrest in Canadian history as approximately
1200 people were assaulted, harassed, beaten and arrested by the police.
More than 250 were charged and six remain in jail. Others are out on bail
under extraordinarily restrictive conditions, continuing to face police
harassment and re-arrest. Legal costs are mounting.

Despite this repression, more than 40,000 people marched on the streets of
Toronto to resist the destructive, exploitative and exclusionary agenda of
the G20. As we continue to organize against the G20 agenda, we must now
also raise money to defend all those who are forced to go through
expensive legal proceedings.

Join us for an evening of song and speech with Naomi, Hawksley, LAL and
friends! All proceeds raised will be donated to the G20 legal defence
fund.

Tickets: $50 in advance, $60 at the door

You can purchase tickets for the show online at GalleryAC here:

http://www.galleryac.com/tickets/hawksley-workman-naomi-klein-event.html

Show Tickets also available at the following stores:

ANOTHER STORY: 315 Roncesvalles Avenue/ 416-462-1104
ROTATE THIS: 801 Queen St. West/ 416-504-8447
SOUNDSCAPES: 572 College St./ 416-537-1620
TORONTO WOMENS BOOKSTORE: 73 Harbord St/ 416-922-8744

+++PRE-EVENT WITH NAOMI KLEIN+++
A special reception with Naomi Klein prior to the beginning of the main
show. Capacity limited to 60 people. On first come first serve basis.
Tickets for pre-event + show are $100, and are available online only here:

http://www.galleryac.com/tickets/hawksley-workman-naomi-klein-event-exclusive.html

For twenty-four hours, Barcelona was shut down by a general strike: public transit ground to a halt, cafes were shuttered and garbage collection ceased. Later, as passions rose, a Levi’s clothing store was looted and its merchandise distributed to the crowd, a police car was torched and riot cops tussled with everyday folk. And in a sign that this time the insurrectionary passion will not subside, Portugal’s largest union is calling for a general strike on November 24th which is, coincidentally, in the midst of the global Carnivalesque Rebellion. “We think that there are now conditions for wide protests, a wave of strife that we have not seen in decades,” one observer explained.

These events in Europe are truly exhilarating. They suggest that a tsunami of dissent is building that has the potential to fundamentally transform society. If this rebellious mood keeps boiling then November 22–28 may well turn out to be the catalytic global mindshift moment we’ve all been waiting for.

Deep in a recession and with scary ecological scenarios looming, now may be the ripest moment we’ll ever have to power-shift global capitalism onto a new path. Adbusters #85 asks economics students around the world to join the fight to revamp Econ 101 curriculums and challenge the endemic myopia of their tenured neoclassical profs. Read a few articles, download the Kick it Over Manifesto (and other posters) and whack them up in the corridors of your campus. Make sure your university is at the forefront of the paradigm shift from neoclassical to ecological economics now underway.
Filed under: Opinions ]]> http://johnnyinlabour.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/tactical-briefing/feed/ 0 johnnyinlabour http://johnnyinlabour.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/standford-vs-mintz/ http://johnnyinlabour.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/standford-vs-mintz/#comments Fri, 08 Oct 2010 04:09:55 +0000 johnnyinlabour https://johnnyinlabour.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/standford-vs-mintz/ ]]> Good to see CAW Economist Jim Stanford on Evan Solomon’s CBC showkicking ass and taking names. And the economist he’s sparring with,
Jack Mintz, is no lightweight either. A study Mintz did where he
concluded that adopting the HST would hurt Ontario’s economy is in the
middle of yet another HST scandal in BC. It was recently revealed
through a FOI request that during the campaign in the 2009 BC
election, in reaction to McGuinty’s agreement with Flaherty on the
HST, that the Finance Ministry in BC began negotiating with Ottawa
over the HST, with Finance Minister Colin Hansen (and probably the
Premier’s Office) being briefed on this, including on Mintz’s study
saying it would hurt Ontario. Hansen has publicly stated, repeatedly,
that he, nor anyone else in his ministry, engaged in any discussion or
contemplation of the HST before the election. So Hansen’s been caught
red-handed outright lying. He laughably claims he had nothing to do
with the negotiations going on and “doesn’t remember” being briefed on
them. Yeah, sure. The NDP are looking into some sort of formal
indictment of Hansen because blatantly lying to the Legislature, and
he was specifically asked about this in Question Period, is apparently
against the law. And it’s even more scandalous, because Mintz had
been hired by the BC Liberals this year to conduct a study on the
HST’s effect on the economy, and he concluded that the tax would be
wonderful for BC, the diametric opposite of his earlier study on
Ontario where he argued it would be disastrous. Why would these taxes
have opposite effects, according to Mintz, in Ontario and BC? Not to
be a total cynic, but one explanation would be, given Mintz’s Far-
Right agenda, that saying the tax is bad in Ontario helps the Right-
wing politicians there, and claiming that the tax is good in BC helps
the Right-wing politicians here.

The link:

1:45:50

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/Power_&_Politics_with_Evan_Solomon/ID=1608171456

As usual, Stanford’s got some interesting facts. I didn’t know that
Canada has the highest amount of foreign ownership of its economy,
measured by stock, than any other developed country. Very ominous.
The escalating takeover of the Canadian economy by foreigners,
particularly Americans, since the 80s, is a terrifying trend and the
fact that the Harper Conservatives want to increase this even further
demonstrates what contemptible sell-outs of Canada they are. It’s
like they’re literally trying to turn Canada into a neocolonial client
of the United States.

Happy Labour Day to the Sisters and Brothers that make this great country operate!!

Our Brains and our brute allow our world to operate!!

Unionization 2010

The data below is from a special Statistics Canada run, using the Labour Force Survey. Since 1997 StatsCan has published an annual review of unionization in “Perspectives on Labour and Income” on the eve of Labour Day. It’s been delayed until October this year. It provides data by industry, province and gender, and includes benefits and hours of work.
For the First Half of 2010
• Employment averaged 14.26 million during the first half of 2010 (a gain of 171,300 jobs compared to the first half of 2009 when there were 14.09 million).
• Union Members: 4.22 million workers are union members (up from 4.16 million in the same period of 2009).
• Unionization rate: 29.6% of employees are union members (up from 29.5% in 2009)
• Union density rate: Another 288,400 are covered by a contract but aren’t members, for a total 4.51 million workers covered by a collective agreement. That’s a “union density rate” of 31.6% of all employees (unchanged from 31.6% in 2009).
• Public Sector. There are an average 3.51 million public sector workers in 2010
 Unionization dropped slightly for public sector workers to 71.2% (from 71.3% in the first half of 2009).
 The public sector union density rate is 74.8% (down from 75.1% in 2009), including those workers covered by a contract who are not union members.
• Private Sector. There are an average 10.75 million private sector workers in 2010
 Unionization also fell slightly for private sector workers to 16.0% (down from 16.1% in the first half of 2009 – and from 16.3% in 2008).
 The private sector union density rate is 17.5% (down from 17.7% in 2009), including those workers covered by a contract who are not union members.
Annual Averages for 2009

• “unionization” rate = 29.3% (union members)
• “union density” rate = 31.4% (members plus others covered by a collective agreement)

A Cautionary Tale: Only 12.3% of American workers were union members in 2009 (down from 12.4% in 2008). Unionization rates for: private sector = 7.2%; public sector = 37.4%; men =13.3%; women = 11.3%; Black workers =13.9%; white workers = 12.1%.
(from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
​​CAW/lr/sept2010

I have the great opportunity to deliver a course in labour technology and website building. Many trade union activist have for years relied on many forms of union communications (i.e posters, face-to-face meets and union newsletters) however this week we are going to spend our time on another form of union organizing, mobilizing members and educating the greater public with the use of web 2.0 tools. The increase in  smart phone technology and ‘soapbox’ options of transforming the message often not heard or seen in most media outlets today opens opportunity’s for labour to reach out.

In fact as brother Derek Blackadder wrote in the June/July Our Times magazine

Canadians now spend more time online than watching TV. Does your unions communications strategy reflect that? We have far more access to the web in getting out our message than we ever had to TV -

Well this week we hope to harness the tools available to our movement to create the better world that is possible.  Our workshop is focused on the content management system of weebly. A simple drop menu of widgets and elements in a system that new users can quickly pick up, get creative and quickly get their word out on the campaigns and struggles their members and workers around the world are currently facing.

As we build, develop and host discussion of broader communications using the web, I’m sure the unions who have invested in labour education will have a greater equipped activist in their member ranks at the end of this week.  Stay tuned for what’s to come.

Again, I want to thank those who have supported building and supporting the work needed in order to bring this program to our members and our movement.

Our Demands
Workers in precarious jobs have little power to negotiate with their bosses. We need zero tolerance for employers that break the law, not changes that force workers to settle for less. Workers already face many barriers standing up for their rights. When we do go to the Ministry of Labour, we should not face more barriers.

DEMAND: Don’t make workers enforce their own rights. Ministry of Labour, do your job! Scrap mandatory self-enforcement

DEMAND: Don’t force workers to settle for less. The government should not be allowing employers to pay below minimum standards. No facilitated settlements! We need our basic rights at work protected!

DEMAND: Don’t put more barriers in place for workers standing up for their basic rights. Ensure workers have support to make complaints about bad bosses.

Take Action!

Tell Minister of Labour, Peter Fonseca, that you disagree with the changes to workers rights under Bill 68.

Email him at: pfonseca.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org  Check out our sample email.

Dear Minister Fonseca,

I am very concerned to hear about changes to Employment Standards introduced under Bill 68 “Open for Business. These changes will put more barriers in place for workers filing claims and will force workers to settle for less.
I am writing to ask that you amend Bill 68 to scrap provisions on mandatory self-enforcement and facilitated settlements. We need zero tolerance for employers that break the law, not changes that force workers to settle for less.
Don’t put more barriers in place for workers standing up for their basic rights. Ensure workers have support to make complaints about bad bosses. Please watch this video at www.workersactioncentre.org to find out more about why I am opposed to these changes to workers rights under Bill 68.
Sincerely,

In your email please include the link for the No to Bill 68 video

Say No To Bill 68
Get involved in WAC’s campaigns for fairness for workers. Contact us to find out how to join our campaign!
MORE ENFORCEMENT IS STILL NEEDED
WAC and its members have met many times with MPP’s and Ministry of Labour officials to push for much needed funds to hire more employment standards officers. As part of its poverty reduction strategy, the Ontario government promised in December 2008 to invest $10 million annually to hire about 100 new employment standards officers. With the 2010 budget announcement March 28, 2010, we have now seen a total investment of $7.5 million. We are pleased to see that the government is following through.
However, the full commitment of $10 million is critically needed. Working conditions continue to deteriorate for many Ontario workers facing the impact of the recession. With the pressures of an economic downturn, many workers in precarious employment are thinking twice about quitting a bad job, leaving them at the mercy of employers who may be inclined to break the rules to weather the storm. More employment standards officers are needed to ensure that these workers are protected.

Thanks to Krystalline for a great post.

The idea of Creative Commons should not be strange to trade unionists: as labour folk musician Wood Guthrie wrote in the 1940s,

“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”

Embracing Creative Commons by deliberately sharing resources – and taking a more pluralist approach to organising – would give unions and their activists much more effective tools. With regard to FOSS, although most users are not aware of this, there is a “software war” between the two main proprietary formats, Windows and Mac, and the free and open Linux format. It is important for trade unions to take sides in that war, as it will determine whether information technology is controlled by corporations for profit, or by an accountable structure of users and developers. Unions need to join social movements campaigning to keep the Internet a free public sphere and Digital Commons, outside of the control of large corporations.

Aside from the ideological questions, FOSS provides useful free tools for trade union activists. FOSS also tends to work better on older computers than proprietary software, and is secure and not susceptible to viruses, making it ideal for developing countries or trade union activists without access to the latest equipment. Unions would dramatically empower their activists by salvaging old computer equipment, installing the appropriate FOSS, and giving it away, along with training in its use. In addition, switching union computers to FOSS would save tens of thousands of dollars in licensing costs.

One caveat, however: there is a learning curve when adopting FOSS, and the focus should always be on usability – there are enough barriers to access without potentially creating more.

Thanks to Walton Pantland’s blog for this post.

We’ve been faced with poverty wages and non-union jobs, no benefits and zero job security. Most young people are forced to float from job to job, searching desperately for one that might pay fifty cents or a dollar more per hour. And that is if we get really lucky. A few quick facts will help to show the full scope of the picture.

According to one survey, most workers between the ages of eighteen and thirty make $21,000 or less per year, nowhere near a living wage. As of June, the youth unemployment rate (for workers under twenty) was approximately 47 percent, while the picture was even worse in America, with 55 percent of those under twenty terminally unemployed. If the figures for immigrant youth were included, these statistics would be far, far worse.

Those lucky enough to have gone to college enter the work force under a mountain of debt. More than 31 percent of workers under thirty have no health insurance. Most can barely pay the bills and are often forced to live in communal homes or with their families in order to cover the cost of living.

It is a dismal situation. But the situation is not beyond solving. The first task, and the most pressing, is for the trade unions to do what they are supposed to – organize! The unions must organize so-called casual workers in order to secure better conditions for a new generation of workers, and fight militantly for those conditions to remain once won.

The second task for the trade unions is to greatly expand apprenticeship programs. Most unions have already abandoned these. That was a major error! With large-scale apprenticeship programs, a layer of skilled, highly educated and militant unionists can be brought into being virtually overnight. The jobs these apprentices can enter will be high-wage, full benefit jobs, especially in the skilled trades.

In order to have quality jobs available, the unions must mobilize the rank and file and the unemployed for a massive program of public jobs – millions of union jobs — not the paltry ones created by a so called stimulus package.

Thirdly, the trade unions must open union hiring halls, in order to expedite the unemployed into job openings. These hiring halls must be entirely under union control. That demand goes along with that of a closed shop. Union jobs for union workers, with union control over hiring and firing.

Ultimately, however, even if all these measures are put in place, the problem will not be solved entirely. There is no solution for unemployment under capitalism. This system is incapable of providing full employment in the current world economic situation due to the nature of and limits of the market, which demands a smaller workforce producing more. The only system which can perpetually guarantee full employment is socialism.