Publications

Let’s grasp this opportunity to shape a fair Canada for everyone

By Hassan Yussuff, as published in The Hill Times. Across the generations, our loved ones are anxious about the future. Polls show that millions of Canadians are worried about the rising cost of living, the increasing precarity of work, climate change, and so much more. The newly elected federal government has a lot to do to alleviate these types of…

Improving the lives of workers is sound business sense

By Hassan Yussuff, as published in the Toronto Sun. There will always be those who believe that the most important aspect of any business is the bottom line, regardless of how such tunnel vision can negatively impact the lives of workers. But the best employers understand that a sound business model includes nurturing workplaces in which their employees are treated with…

Working families have a lot at stake this election

By Hassan Yussuff You can be forgiven if you’ve avoided thinking about the upcoming federal election all summer, but Labour Day is here. That means it’s time to return to the fall routine and start thinking about how you are going to cast your ballot. You may have seen politicians working the barbecue circuit, vying for the support of workers…

Universal pharmacare should be an easy pill to swallow

By Hassan Yussuff, as published in the Toronto Sun. Finally, some good news for the millions of Canadians who have to choose between paying for groceries or their prescription medications. Canada’s Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare has laid out a clear path for public, single-payer, universal pharmacare in its final report. “The time for universal, single-payer, public…

What the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike teaches every working person

By Hassan Yussuff, as published in the Winnipeg Free Press and in the Toronto Star. The year 1919 was fraught with discontent. Workers in Canada were struggling to make ends meet and inflation had risen by 65% over a six-year span. Men who had just returned from a horrific war in Europe could not find employment; factories were shutting down…

Women deserve fair workplaces

By Hassan Yussuff, as published in The Globe and Mail. It was disheartening to see some of the negative reactions to a recent proposal that free menstrual products should be available in all federally regulated workplaces. There clearly remain a lot of misperceptions and ignorance about the challenges women face every day in the workplace. Access to menstrual products is…

When government, employers & unions take domestic violence seriously

By Hassan Yussuff, Derrick Hynes, and the Hon. Patty Hajdu In the four years since the release of the first-ever pan-Canadian study on the impact of domestic violence at work, unions, employers and governments have embarked on a remarkable joint project to help protect jobs and promote workplace safety. We now have a common understanding of the magnitude of this…

Paid leave can help break the cycle of domestic violence

As published in the Globe and Mail Nearly three decades after the massacre of 14 women at Montreal’s École Polytechnique, we continue to grapple with the shameful reality that far too many women face violence, harassment and abuse in their lives. While we haven’t yet been able to eradicate all violence against women, we can eliminate barriers that prevent people…

Canada’s unions call on federal government to create national strategy on anti-Black racism

To mark Black History Month, Canada’s unions are renewing their call on the federal government to commit to an anti-Black racism strategy. Such a strategy would require the government to commit to analyzing race-based statistics on how various institutional policies impact Canada’s Black communities. The key objective would be to eradicate institutionalized racism that is disproportionately harming this specific segment…

A night of hatred we must never forget

It’s with a heavy heart that I think back to the tragic attack on the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec last January 29. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be in that sacred space and have that serenity destroyed by a lone gunman, bent on killing as many people as he could. My thoughts and prayers…