Labour and education in the news
Below are recent news stories on labour and education related issues. Click the headline to be taken to the article. Some may require a subscription. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for article text.
June 23, 2025
Pembina Trails Collegiate marks historic moment with 1st grad class
CBC
A Winnipeg high school is making history this month, as it celebrates its first group of grade 12 graduates.
Sask. students and teachers continue to grapple with pronoun consent law as school year wraps
CBC
As the school year winds down in Saskatchewan, some students say they've had starkly different experiences since the province's pronoun consent law came into effect.
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil released from U.S. immigration detention
CBC
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was released on Friday from federal immigration detention, freed after three months by a judge's ruling after becoming a symbol of U.S. President Donald Trump 's clampdown on campus protests.
University and College workers raise the alarm on proposed changes in Bill 33
Globe Newswire
The Ontario Universities and Colleges Coalition (OUCC) is deeply concerned with the proposed changes in Bill 33, the Supporting Children and Students Act, 2025.
What’s causing Canada’s education quality decline? Experts chime in
CTV News
Canada’s education quality has been facing a slow decline over the past few years, research has shown.
Harvard hired a researcher to uncover its ties to slavery. He says the results cost him his job: ‘We found too many slaves’
The Guardian
Jordan Lloyd had been praying for something big to happen. The 35-year-old screenwriter was quarantining in her apartment in North Hollywood in June 2020. Without any work projects to fill her days, she picked up the novel Roots, by Alex Haley, to reread.
Trump says he's close to 'a Deal' with Harvard, as judge grants injunction
NPR
On social media Friday President Trump wrote the administration had been working closely with Harvard University to strike a deal, with an announcement likely next week.
VIA Rail and Unifor reach tentative agreement, avoiding a strike
CBC
Via Rail has reached a tentative deal with the union representing 2,400 of its workers across the country, the Crown corporation said on Friday.
CEO pay rose almost 20 per cent last year as executives benefited from strong stock market
Globe and Mail
Canada’s top executives got a nearly 20-per-cent raise last year as stock prices soared and corporate boards increasingly opted to pay their senior leaders with shares over options.
How much were Canada’s top CEOs paid in 2024? Here’s the full breakdown
Globe and Mail
This is a ranking of compensation in fiscal 2024 for the chief executive officers from the 100 largest public companies (by market capitalization) in Canada’s benchmark S&P/TSX composite index as of Dec. 31, 2024.
Anti-scab bill becomes law but vulnerabilities remain
Rabble
A federal bill restricting use of replacement workers came into effect on Friday morning. Major labour organizations like the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and Unifor are celebrating this development as the end of a practice that undermined workers’ right to strike.
In Belarus, they fire people for reading “wrong” news
Saladarnast
A vivid illustration of this is a recent article in the pro-Government “Hrodnenskaya Pravda” newspaper which describes – and with apparent pride, too – how the militia has tracked down a resident of the town’s Mostovsky District who has been reading independent Internet resources “for a number of years”. The man was accused of the “deliberate use of extremist materials” and dismissed from his job with a sizeable fine on top of it.
June 20, 2025
‘Targeted act of hate’: Police indicate motive behind sword attack at Manitoba school
Winnipeg Free Press
Police say a gruesome sword attack on a high school student in Manitoba was part of the 16-year-old suspect’s plan to target people of colour and immigrants.
B.C. principal who spanked student, made anti-Indigenous comments receives suspension
CBC
A former principal at a B.C. elementary school has been suspended for three days and ordered to take two educational courses after she spanked a First Nations student, according to a consent resolution agreement posted by the B.C. Commissioner for Teacher Regulation.
Is post-secondary education a bad financial decision? Financial strains for families today are a real concern
InsideHalton.com
How do we afford post-secondary education?
Canada’s intake of international students needs to be ‘sustainable,’ says immigration minister
University Affairs
Consultations that will be held this summer to set Canada’s three-year plan for immigration levels will also help guide the federal government’s policy approach to international students, according to the minister responsible for the file.
English universities barred from enforcing blanket bans on student protests
The Guardian
Universities in England will no longer be able to enforce blanket bans on student protests under sweeping new guidance that urges a “very strong” approach to permitting lawful speech on campus.
Protecting Canadian Labour: Replacement Workers Legislation now in Force
Government of Canada
As of today, Bill C-58, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Canada Industrial Relations Board Regulations, 2012, came into force. This legislation strengthens protections for Canadian workers – because they are the foundation of Canada's ambition.
DHL suspends operations across Canada amid labour dispute
Globe and Mail
The logistics giant DHL Express suspended operations across Canada Friday, the result of a heated labour dispute and the implementation of a new federal law that bans the use of replacement workers during strikes.
Canada Post says it has reached a deal with 2nd-largest union CPAA
CBC
Canada Post says it has reached a deal with the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association (CPAA), the second-largest union representing its workers.
Forcing vote on postal workers is another abuse of power by Liberals
CUPE
CUPE, Canada’s largest union, is calling the Liberal government’s move to force a vote on postal workers an assault on collective bargaining, and another abuse of power from a prime minister who promised to be better.
Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders' 400% raise is a reminder of how little female athletes get paid
CBC
If you're among the millions who have been riveted by America's Sweethearts, Netflix's docuseries about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, then you already know that the 36 women who make the squad are nothing less than pro athletes.
Wall Street Gets A Trump Tax Break To Fire Workers
Democratic Underground
Congressional lawmakers have inserted a line into President Donald Trump’s new tax bill that would reward Wall Street firms with billions of dollars of new tax breaks when they load up companies with debt and proceed with worker pay cuts, factory closures, and mass layoffs, according to bill text reviewed by The Lever.
Landmark law extends jobless benefits to strikers
Northwest Labor Press
A hard-fought bill to let workers collect unemployment benefits when they go on strike was approved by the Oregon House and Senate June 12 in organized labor’s biggest win of the 2025 legislative session.
June 19, 2025
Winnipeg School Division EAs give their union strike mandate
Winnipeg Free Press
Six in 10 school support staff in Winnipeg’s inner-city and central neighbourhoods have considered quitting their jobs over the last year.
How do you make a campus more sustainable? These universities did it with GoPros and selling leftovers
CBC
Using GoPros to monitor tree seedlings and tackling campus food insecurity through leftovers are among the initiatives that helped propel two Canadian universities into the top 10 in a U.K. ranking of efforts at post-secondary schools worldwide to meet United Nations goals for a sustainable planet.
Joe Oliver: Having silenced critics, university admins think they can do no wrong
National Post
Elite American universities have been the brunt of severe criticism by alumni, donors, the public and politicians in a culture war that could have profound implications not only for academia, but for broader societal values and democratic politics. These issues are relevant in Canada because of the obvious parallels.
Educators, families, and activists unite against Trump policies in one of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history
Education International
On June 14 millions of people took to the streets in a sweeping mobilisation against the policies of the Trump Administration in the United States. The protests spanned over 2,100 cities and towns making it the third-largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history. Spearheaded by a coalition of civil society groups including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the movement sent a powerful message: democracy belongs to the people—not to kings, billionaires, or authoritarian displays of power.
Universities face a reckoning on ChatGPT cheats
The Guardian
I commend your reporting of the AI scandal in UK universities (Revealed: Thousands of UK university students caught cheating using AI, 15 June), but “tip of the iceberg” is an understatement. While freedom of information requests inform about the universities that are catching AI cheating, the universities that are not doing so are the real problem.
Be ready to be shocked and offended at university, students told
BBC
Students should be ready to be shocked and offended at university, according to the man in charge of ensuring free speech on campuses.
Centuries-old advice on workplace burnout is still relevant today
Globe and Mail
Long before employee burnout became a part of today’s water-cooler vocabulary, writers in 16th-century China dealt with similar workplace problems and wrote about their own ways of combatting them.
Unifor slams DHL’s attempt to evade federal anti-scab law
Unifor
Unifor has responded to a brazen attempt by DHL Express Canada to circumvent new federal labour laws. The company sent a letter to the federal government requesting a special exception from the ramifications of Bill C-58, the anti-scab legislation that comes into effect on Friday.
Few Canadians support Canada Post privatization, but open to sweeping changes: survey
National Post
A new survey finds less support among Canadians for the privatization of Canada Post, but many are open to large-scale changes.
How retail giant Home Depot is preparing employees for ICE raids
Fortune
President Trump’s new focus on deporting immigrants is upending businesses around the U.S., and putting a particular spotlight on one retail chain close to where a high-profile raid recently took place: Home Depot.
Amazon says it will reduce its workforce as AI replaces human employees
CNN
Amazon is warning its employees that artificial intelligence will help the company have a smaller workforce in the future.
Employees were already freaked out about AI — Amazon just proved them right
Business Insider
The once-hypothetical cuts are coming, whether employees are ready or not.
More employers adopting ICHRAs, giving workers money to buy their own health insurance
AP
A small, growing number of employers are putting health insurance decisions entirely in the hands of their workers.
June 18, 2025
Louis Riel division parent council suspended amid catchment fight
Winnipeg Free Press
The Louis Riel School Division has suspended the operations of one of its 41 parent advisory councils amid a stalemate surrounding controversial catchment changes.
Western University to ask for proof of Indigenous citizenship for some jobs, awards
CBC
Scholars, staff and students applying for Indigenous-specific roles or awards at Western University may soon have to prove their connection to First Nation, Inuit or Métis communities or nations.
APUO Members Denied Access to Board of Governors Meeting
APUO
On May 27, seven APUO members were refused entry to a public meeting of the Board of Governors (BoG).
Judge dismisses Columbia University faculty lawsuit over Trump funding cuts, demands
Reuters
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit against the Trump administration by two labor unions for Columbia University faculty that challenged funding cuts and demands to overhaul student discipline and boost oversight for a Middle Eastern studies department.
Union demands nurses be paid for anti-racism training
Winnipeg Free Press
While the Manitoba government has recommended emergency department staff take part in cultural safety and anti-racism training, it stopped short of making it mandatory and gave no indication workers would be paid.
Métis federation asks court to throw out CFS wage parity
Winnipeg Free Press
Weeks after Métis and Michif child and family services workers won wage parity with their provincial counterparts through binding arbitration, their employers are headed to court to overturn the decision.
Eliminate sick notes for short-term illness, Manitoba doctors urge province
Winnipeg Free Press
Manitoba’s physicians advocacy organization is asking the province to legislate an end to employers’ requirements for sick notes excusing workers’ short-term absences.
Métis, Michif CFS agencies call for review of 'unreasonable' arbitration decision
CBC
Two Manitoba child welfare agencies have filed for a judicial review of amendments to a collective agreement after binding arbitration ended a strike by their workers.
The Federal Government Must Protect Workers’ Right to Free and Fair Bargaining with Employers
CUPW
For the third time in 7 months, CUPW is subject to government intervention, stripping away their right to free and fair collective bargaining with Canada Post.
DHS reverses course, allowing immigration raids to resume at farms, hotels, restaurants
CNN
The Department of Homeland Security on Monday reversed course on guidance limiting immigration raids at farms, hotels and restaurants, according to a source familiar with the discussions — the latest example of whiplash for an agency tasked with carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
Team Trump reverses course on ICE raids policy, as White House dysfunction worsens
MSNBC
Throughout Donald Trump’s first term as president, people around him to came to realize that if their voice was the last one he heard, their preferred position was likely to prevail. It’s easy to understand why.
AFGE Denounces So-Called “One Big Beautiful Bill” as Attempt to Eviscerate Unions
Labor Press
In yet another use of an Orwellian effort to confuse the public and spread propaganda, by manipulating our language to deceive the people by replacing truths with deliberate lies, Sen. Rand Paul, chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has introduced new sections of the so-called, “One Big Beautiful Bill.” As usual, with the blessing and support of the Trump administration, it is an effort to further target and destroy the livelihoods of those who are left of federal workers, and to destroy unions by financially undermining them in a myriad of ways. “This so-called reconciliation bill is in fact a big retaliation bill – retaliation against AFGE and other unions for successfully standing up for our members and fighting this administration’s illegal attempts to obliterate our federal agencies and the patriotic civil servants who run our federal programs,” American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said. The union has urged the Senate to Reject the Reconciliation Bill.
French unions, employers set to hold last-ditch pensions talks next week
Reuters
French unions and employers negotiating changes to a 2023 pension reform are set to hold last-ditch talks next week, even as at least one major participant was not sure if it would join.
As RCN members have their say on the 3.6% pay award, the public shows its support for nursing
Royal College of Nursing
The majority of the public think nursing staff should be paid more, a survey shows.
